#Human Action

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Sign of the Day - 35th Anniversary November 9th, 1989 - here was a newly-made sign created as part of the crumbling Berlin Wall... Sometimes in dark times, remembering good history can be important and comforting reminders that ...usually... even if after too-long waits, good triumphs over evil, darkness over light.

[Mary Elaine LeBey]

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The Berlin Wall Never Fell

It Didn't

Timothy Snyder

Nov 09, 2024

Thirty five years ago today, the Berlin Wall did not fall.

I realize that I am running against the torrent of anniversary remembrances here.  And no doubt you are thinking: he means this metaphorically; he means that some mental barrier remains between East and West, or perhaps between eastern and western Germany.

No, I mean that, quite literally, the Berlin Wall did not fall.  It did not fall thirty-five years ago today.  It never fell.  The "fall of the Berlin Wall" is a literary device, not a historical event. 

And that we have chosen a false image to stand for a moment of liberation reveals a problem.

But first, a reminder of what did happen.  At the time, East and West Germany were two different countries.  Berlin was a special island inside East Germany, itself divided between Western and Eastern parts.  A physical wall did indeed separate the two, built by the East German regime to keep their people in. 

In summer and autumn 1989, amidst Gorbachev's perestroika and reforms and gestures among neighboring communist countries, East Germans were finding ways to visit or to emigrate to West Germany.  The East German regime, in turmoil itself amid protests, was trying to formulate a new set of rules for the border.  Amidst a great deal of confusion, a regime spokesman seemed to announce, in response to a question by an Italian journalist, that the border posts at the wall would allow East Germans to depart for the West.

That was on November 9th, 1989.  The Berlin Wall did not topple over because of that press conference.  What happened was that tens of thousands of East Berliners took advantage of the pronouncement and crowded the border checkpoints, one of which eventually opened.  People rushed through to forbidden West Berlin, where they were greeted with champagne and flowers.  It was a night that changed the history of Germany, which would unify less than a year later.

But no wall actually fell.  People eventually clambered on it, and chipped off pieces of it (I have a few, somewhere).  People painted on it for a while, which is why those concrete souvenirs are colorful. On New Year's Eve, 1989, David Hasselhoff played a concert over the Berlin Wall, in a crane.  The wall was of course still standing, because it had not fallen down. 

Words matter.  Pretty much everyone says "the fall of the Berlin Wall" as a shorthand for the "the end of communism in eastern Europe."  But something that never happened cannot be a source of an actual memory.  It cannot teach us, for example, how authoritarianism is resisted. 

The image of a wall falling transforms a complicated history into a simple moment.  But when we embrace that image of something that never happened, we lose everything that we need to remember, everything that is human and interesting.

The opening of the checkpoint that night was an accident.  But it was an accident made possible by human action.  East Germans had chosen to leave their country.  They were protesting, and believed that they could protest in part because other people were doing so.  The largest and most effective protests were in neighboring Poland.  They went back to the foundation of a labor union, Solidarity, in 1980.  By November 1989, Poland had already formed a post-communist government.

And that of course is the Polish gripe with the whole "Berlin wall falling" story.  Poles will want you to know that Poland was more important than East Germany in the history of the end of communism.  And that is very true.  But the crucial thing to remember is what Poles did.  In the face of dictatorship they found concepts of cooperation and lived them.

The resistance to communism was a human story of cooperation.  Its dissidents stressed the need to work together.  Its most important organization was a union.  When a certain conjuncture emerged in 1989, it was these practices and traditions that allowed new political alternatives to emerge.  The human cooperation, called "civil society" at the time, was not enough in itself to change the world.  But when the world began to change in other ways, people were ready.  

When we imagine the Berlin Wall falling, as we will be summoned to do today, we are instructed that freedom is something that just happens.  The wall was up.  Bad.  And then it fell.  Good.  We think of freedom like that because it removes the responsibility from us.  And that is the wrong lesson, wrong historically and so wrong politically and morally.

Thirty five years ago today, the Berlin Wall did not fall. 

Thirty five years ago today, some people made history, amidst other people making history, thanks to some prior cooperation, and some good thinking about what freedom means.

We cannot change the world all at once.  But we can change the way we think.  We can clear away the clichés and make ourselves more lively.  We can work together and then, when other things are in motion, be ready to turn the change in the right direction.

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Agency

The philosophy of agency is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of human action, the capacity for individuals to act, and the conditions under which actions are performed. It is primarily concerned with understanding what it means to be an agent, how agency is exercised, and what factors influence or determine an agent’s actions.

Key Concepts in the Philosophy of Agency:

Agency:

Definition: Agency refers to the capacity of an individual to act independently, make choices, and impose those choices on the world. An agent is typically understood as a being with the ability to initiate actions based on desires, intentions, or reasons.

Central Question: What does it mean to be an agent, and what are the essential characteristics that distinguish agents from non-agents?

Free Will:

Relationship to Agency: Free will is a central concept in discussions of agency. It concerns the ability of individuals to make choices that are not determined by prior causes. The extent to which agents possess free will is a key area of debate in the philosophy of agency.

Debates: The debate between determinism (the view that all events, including human actions, are determined by preceding causes) and libertarianism (the view that free will is incompatible with determinism and that agents have the ability to choose freely) is crucial in understanding agency.

Intentionality:

Definition: Intentionality refers to the quality of mental states that are directed towards something, such as beliefs, desires, or intentions. An agent's actions are often said to be intentional if they are guided by specific goals or purposes.

Importance: The philosophy of agency examines how intentions translate into actions and how intentional actions differ from non-intentional or accidental behaviors.

Moral Responsibility:

Connection to Agency: Moral responsibility presupposes agency; that is, individuals are held morally responsible for their actions because they are agents capable of making decisions and acting on them.

Questions: How does the capacity for agency relate to moral responsibility? Are agents always morally responsible for their actions, or are there circumstances that mitigate or eliminate responsibility?

Autonomy:

Definition: Autonomy refers to the capacity of an agent to govern themselves, make their own decisions, and act according to their own principles and values.

Relevance: Autonomy is often discussed in relation to agency, especially concerning the conditions that must be met for an action to be truly autonomous (e.g., freedom from coercion or manipulation).

Action Theory:

Field of Study: The philosophy of agency is closely related to action theory, which investigates the nature of actions, the processes leading to actions, and the distinctions between different kinds of actions (e.g., intentional vs. unintentional, voluntary vs. involuntary).

Key Questions: What distinguishes an action from a mere bodily movement? What role do reasons, beliefs, and desires play in the performance of an action?

The Role of Rationality:

Rational Agency: Many philosophical accounts of agency emphasize the role of rationality in guiding an agent’s actions. Rational agents are those who act based on reasons that align with their beliefs and desires.

Debate: There is debate over whether all agency must be rational or whether irrational or non-rational actions can still be considered genuine exercises of agency.

Major Theories of Agency:

Causal Theories of Action:

Overview: Causal theories assert that actions are events caused by mental states, such as beliefs and desires. An action is typically seen as the outcome of a causal chain that begins with an agent's intention.

Non-Causal Theories of Action:

Overview: Non-causal theories challenge the idea that actions must be caused by prior mental states. Instead, they propose that actions can be explained through reasons rather than causes, emphasizing the role of rational deliberation and choice.

Compatibilism:

Overview: Compatibilism is the view that free will and determinism are compatible. Compatibilists argue that agents can be free even if their actions are determined by prior causes, as long as those actions align with their desires and intentions.

Libertarianism:

Overview: Libertarianism asserts that agents have free will and that this freedom is incompatible with determinism. Libertarians believe that agents have the power to make genuinely free choices that are not determined by past events.

Structural Theories of Agency:

Overview: These theories emphasize the structures within which agency is exercised, such as social, economic, or institutional frameworks. They explore how these structures enable or constrain individual agency.

The philosophy of agency is a rich and complex field that examines the nature of human action, the conditions for exercising agency, and the implications for moral responsibility and autonomy. By exploring these issues, philosophers aim to better understand what it means to be a free and responsible agent in a world of complex influences and constraints.

[reasonsforhope]

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

[lunaprincipessa]

ENTRY 328

Shareef's Entry

"ALL human actions have one or more causes...

CHANCE

A possibility of something happening.

NATURE

The basic features of someone/something.

COMPULSION

The irresistible urge to do a certain thing.

HABIT

A tendency that's usually hard to give up.

REASON

An explanation or a justification.

PASSION

A strong and barely controllable emotion.

DESIRE

A strong want or wish.

Thanks for reading, more thoughts later.

[kropotkindersurprise]

August 5, 2024 - Palestine Action used a repurposed prison van to crash through the fences and the gates at the heavily-secured Bristol-based research, development and manufacturing hub for Israel's biggest arms producer, Elbit Systems, where they smashed hundreds of thousands of pounds worh of equipment and merchandise.

In this video you can see activists directly smashing high-tech quadcopters that the Israelis have used over and over to gun down innocent people gathering in hospitals or around humanitarian aid shipments. Israel has slaughtered hundreds of people in this way, a naked, unashamed war crime that kind of disappears among all the other war crimes that Israel commits daily, supported by their unconditional american friends Biden and Harris. [video]

[imawitchywitch]

Buying copies of banned books is awesome, but I also want to put this out there. If anyone is in college and/or has access to peer reviewed academic journals PLEASE do the following:

Buy USB drives

Download as many articles from academic journals in the coming months as you can about topics under attack, such as gender variance, DEI, critical race theory, racism, reproductive rights, climate change, and so on. Maybe pick one or two journals and topics to focus on per month! (There may be pay walls or limits on how many you can freely download)

Keep them organized on your USB’s by topic or journal

We don’t really know what will happen, what will get erased or censored from the web, but they’re already taking websites down related to DEI and reproductive rights. We need to work together to save the research and literature that we have!

[remindertoclick]

Reminder to Click for Palestine today!

Click for the other causes as well if you can!

[doodledrawsthings]

Nine Sols DWBI AU humans + Yanlao and Eigong not au canon just havin' fun

He's not though.

[bixels]

I watched the original Muppets movies recently.

[lilybug-02]

*gasp* CT Frisk? In the year of our lord 2025?

Part 30 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

I had to use color in this one OKAY. It was basically mandatory.

[o-wild-west-wind]

So uhhhh. This isn’t good.

For context, NIH study sections review and approve grant and fellowship funding for federally funded health and medicine research—aka, most of the health research that’s done in the United States. This includes research funds as well as salaries and funding for student researchers/pre and post docs at most US universities.

If you’re American, PLEASE contact your representatives about this. This has the potential for a devastating impact on health research not just for the US, but for the entire world. I expect we’ll have more information in the morning, but for now, I’d just urge them to do whatever they can to get this reversed ASAP.

[troythecatfish]

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike and Michael compare nightmares,,

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Out of sight, out of - wait.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[crazycometspecular]

At least he didn’t overreact

[remindertoclick]

Your Daily Reminder to Click for Palestine!

One you've clicked, here's a fun poll to thank you for your help: