pam-mentations.com

January 26, 2021

Thoughtlets. xxix.

Today’s Thoughtlet is a quote on freedom of expression that originates with Tacitus, a Roman historian who lived in the first century CE. This quote, translated as follows, appears in Latin on the title page of the first edition of Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, “Seldom are men blessed with times in which they may Continue reading

Thoughtlets

academic freedom, free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, history, Hume, Philosophy, political correctness, quote, Tacitus
January 23, 2021

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. What’s Your Sign?

The central image is a pencil sketch modelled on a photo of three children who died of starvation in Russia, 1921.**(see citation) Carnetarian, 20 Jan. – 18 Feb.; Pescatarian 18 Feb. – 20 Mar.; Pollotarian 21 Mar. – 20 Apr.; Ovo-Vegetarian 21 Apr. – 21 May; Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarian 21 May – 21 June; Lacto-Vegetarian 22 June Continue reading

Pam-Toons

art, bee, beegan, carnetarian, chicken, commentary, dairy, diet, fad, famine, fish, flexitarian, fruit, graphic, horoscope, identity, new age, pencil, pescatarian, photo, plants, pollotarian, purity, raw, sketch, starvation, teeth, vegan, vegetarian, zodiac
January 12, 2021

New, old, permanence, and change. A montage of thoughts and quotes. (Repost, Feb. 23, 2020)

Note: May 18, 2021. I’m thinking about aging tonight, and the passage of time. Which reminded me of the following montage of thoughts and quotes that I assembled last year. “Not everything was better in our ancestors’ days, either — our own age, too, has produced many instances of excellence and artistic merit deserving to Continue reading

Catch-All

aging, change, cycles, ecclesiastes, heraclitus, montage, new, old, palliation, parmenides, permanence, Philosophy, time
January 12, 2021

‘Freedom’ is Not a Well-Formed Formula

Freedom! is a common rallying cry that some pledge to fight to the death to defend. And do. So it might be a tad unseemly to point out that ‘freedom’ is not a well-formed formula. By which is meant ‘freedom’ requires an indexical, as in freedom-to and freedom-from. And then to-what and from-what or from-whom, Continue reading

Philosophy

analyses, analysis, battle cry, Braveheart, deliberation, equality, freedom, Gibson, Hume, justice, Liberty, logic, meaning, Philosophy, rally, rhetoric, troops
January 11, 2021

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Uncovering An Implicit Bias.

Recommended: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Implicit Bias. Brownstein, Michael, “Implicit Bias”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/implicit-bias/ (*link repaired — P) Continue reading

Pam-Toons

bias, cartoon, drawing, explicit, graphic, hunt, implicit, photo, reveal, search, sketch, uncover
January 7, 2021

Thoughtlets. xxviii.

It’s no small annoyance whenever an interlocutor stops to evaluate whether what I have just said falls on the political left or the right. In so doing she’s pegging me to a side. And once pegged, in her mind, whether what I’ve said is likely to be true or false as indexed to whichever side, Continue reading

Political Rhetoric, Thoughtlets

barriers, critical, ideas, left, polarized, politics, right, Thinking, thought
January 3, 2021

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. The University of Backyard Sleepovers.

At U.B.S., 8-year-olds archive banned words for posterity. We honour Children’s Ways of Being and Children’s Ways of Knowing. See, Paranormal Activism And, A Speakeasy in the Age of Prohibition Continue reading

Pam-Toons

archive, banned, being, cartoon, censorship, children, EDI, epistemology, graphic, knowing, ontology, pencil, photo, power, prohibited, secret, sleepover, speech, tent, university, ways, woke, words
December 19, 2020

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Paranormal Activism. (scroll past image)

When you deny my ‘lived experience’, you deny my existence! We, the undersigned, petition our flesh and bone (zombies excluded) oppressors to recognize the following, Article 1. We are beings who refer to ourselves as ghosts. All other terms of reference such as ghouls (a misnomer), spirits, phantoms, spectres, apparitions, wraiths, and especially the highly Continue reading

Pam-Toons

activism, allies, art, cartoon, diversity, drawing, EDI, equity, existence, exorcism, genocide, ghost, grave, harm, hate crime, implicit bias, inclusion, linguistic, lived experience, microaggression, oppression, oppressor, paranormal, pencil, prohibited, rights, SJW, sketch, social justice, speech, symbolic
December 12, 2020

Thoughlets. xxvii.

Two SJW slogans are: Silence is Violence and Words are Violence. If silence is violence, then one must speak. But words are violence. If words are violence, then one must be silent. But silence is violence.To avoid absurdity, the SJW must stipulate that Some Silence is Violence and Some Words are Violence – neither of which make great slogans. But which silence is Continue reading

Thoughtlets

absurd, absurdity, acts, censorship, compelled speech, logic, Philosophy, silence, SJW, slogan, social justice, speak, speech, violence, words
December 12, 2020

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. “‘Tis not contrary to reason …” David Hume. (scroll down, see comments)

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature. Book II, Part III, Section III, Of the influencing motives of the will. ‘Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction Continue reading

Pam-Toons

17th, David, destruction, finger, Hume, morals, passions, Philosophy, reason, scratching, sentiments, serve, slave, will, world