“We can produce more information, but that means there’s more information for us to process. Our processing capability is the bottleneck.” – Gloria Mark, author of “Attention Span” This passage comes from a May 28th, 2023 opinion piece by Ezra Klein published in print and podcast form in the New York Times with the title […]
Learning turns every day into a ‘plus’ day
塵も積もれば山となる。1) Write index cards for 5-10 new kanji and review of last 50 studied, 5 new verbs, 1 new grammar/usage point 2) read 午後の曳航, 雪国 or editorials for 30-60 minutes, using highlighter to identify 10-20 words to look up later, 3) Think in and shift conversations into Japanese. This was the routine I used in […]
A paean to the malcontents, misanthropes and curmudgeons in our midst (draft)
Raise your hand if you love to work in a workplace full of complainers I’m guessing that most of us kept our hands as low as possible. Most of us don’t wake up thinking, “I sure hope someone gives me a big negativity boost today!” Being around someone who complains a lot can be a […]
Interdependability: a mindset through which we translate interdependence into trust and abundance for ourselves and others
Interdependability – A mindset through which we intentionally convert our interdependence (which is a given) into a renewable and thus virtually limitless source of that which we need to survive and thrive. Interdependability is something that exists in the context of our relationships. Interdependability emerges when we embrace the paradoxical nature of being individuals who […]
By enabling people to climb the Ladder of Inclusion we interweave the “experience of inclusion” with the drivers of organizational performance (draft)
There are many ways to think about inclusion, but the concept can feel a bit nebulous. Most models seem to focus on what those who already feel included can and should do to “make others feel less excluded.” Unfortunately, it can be difficult to extend this mindset beyond the classroom and into the workplace. Part […]
The Strange Tale of How We Came to See the World as an Eternal Battle Between Good and Evil
Guest post by Charles A. Cogan On September 30, Vladimir Putin gave a fiery speech about the Satanic West and Russia’s fight to overcome Evil (New York Times, September 30, 2022, “With Bluster and Threats, Putin Casts the West as the Enemy”). He also announced that the four regions of Ukraine that Russia had occupied […]
Hamaguchi Eshun’s kanjin: The Janus self (working draft)
In this series of essays, I’ve been exploring how embracing the social aspect of self construction might alter our view of what it means to be an individual. In previous essays, I have introduced the “I/me” model of George H. Mead and the ningen model of Watsuji Tetsuro. In this essay, I introduce the thinking of a […]
The Role the Hôjô Played in Transforming the Japanese Polity and Launching Six Centuries of Warrior Leadership
From approximately 1203 to 1334, Japan was ruled by a family known as the Hôjô. Although Minamoto no Yoritomo founded the Kamakura shogunate, the Hôjô became the real decision-makers of the polity after his death. In form, the Hôjô were servants of the shogun, but by the middle of the thirteenth century they exercised virtually unchallenged […]
Watsuji Tetsuro: Human existence is a tale of “persons supporting each other, existing in the world”
In the early decades of the 20th century, as G. H. Mead’s former students were documenting and organizing his ideas so as to ensure they would be available to later generations, halfway around the world in Japan, Watsuji Tetsuro was articulating his own vision of what it meant to be an individual in a world […]
To be a leader is to be followed. On what basis do we allow others to lead us?
Whether we are talking about societies, cultures, economies, organizations or inter-personal relationships, the dynamics of social power receive a great deal of attention. Our interest in social power is not surprising. Since human existence is largely and perhaps even essentially social in nature, our power to influence each other’s behavior has significant implications for all […]