#humanistic theory

[uncanny-tranny]

Your body isn't meant to do anything beyond housing you, and it's really harrowing how many people don't recognize this.

It's harrowing how people talk about how bodies must "serve a purpose", to be little more than breeding stock. That if your body doesn't serve a purpose - serve the right purpose - that it is, essentially, a "useless body"

You are a human being. You aren't breeding stock. You aren't a sounding board for other peoples' desires. You aren't a "worthless body". Your body houses you, and beyond that? That is up to you.

[grimcatician]

Something something something book omens’ focus is about the love of humanity something something shows is about the love between two (not) ppl something something something dolphins

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Excellence

The philosophy of excellence explores the nature, pursuit, and implications of striving for the highest standards in various aspects of life. Excellence is often regarded as an ideal that motivates individuals and societies to achieve their best, whether in personal development, professional endeavors, or creative pursuits. This philosophical inquiry delves into what it means to excel, the values that underpin excellence, and the practical and ethical considerations involved in its pursuit.

Key Concepts in the Philosophy of Excellence

Definition of Excellence:

Concept: Excellence is typically defined as the quality of being outstanding or extremely good. It implies surpassing ordinary standards and achieving a level of superiority.

Implications: Understanding what constitutes excellence can vary depending on cultural, social, and individual perspectives.

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation:

Concept: The pursuit of excellence can be driven by intrinsic motivations (personal satisfaction, growth) or extrinsic motivations (rewards, recognition).

Implications: Exploring these motivations helps in understanding the deeper reasons behind the quest for excellence and its sustainability.

Virtue and Excellence:

Concept: In classical philosophy, particularly Aristotelian ethics, excellence (arete) is closely linked to virtue. It involves developing one's abilities and character to achieve a good and fulfilling life.

Implications: This perspective connects moral and ethical dimensions with the concept of excellence.

Standards and Measurement:

Concept: Excellence involves benchmarks and standards against which performance is measured. These standards can be objective (quantifiable achievements) or subjective (perceptions of quality).

Implications: The criteria for excellence influence how it is pursued and recognized in different fields.

Role of Failure and Resilience:

Concept: The path to excellence often includes overcoming failures and developing resilience. Learning from setbacks is integral to achieving high standards.

Implications: This aspect emphasizes the process-oriented nature of excellence rather than focusing solely on outcomes.

Theories on the Philosophy of Excellence

Aristotelian Virtue Ethics:

Theory: Aristotle posited that excellence is achieved through the cultivation of virtues, which are traits that enable individuals to perform their functions well. This involves finding the mean between extremes in actions and emotions.

Implications: This theory highlights the moral and ethical dimensions of striving for excellence.

Existentialist Perspectives:

Theory: Existentialist philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre emphasize individual choice and authenticity in the pursuit of excellence. It involves creating meaning and purpose through one's actions.

Implications: Excellence is seen as a personal, self-defined endeavor that requires existential commitment and responsibility.

Humanistic Psychology:

Theory: Theories by psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers focus on self-actualization as the realization of one's potential and excellence. This involves achieving personal growth and fulfillment.

Implications: Excellence is linked to psychological well-being and the realization of innate capabilities.

Performance Theory:

Theory: In areas like sports, business, and the arts, performance theory examines how excellence can be systematically pursued through deliberate practice, feedback, and continuous improvement.

Implications: This theory provides practical strategies for achieving high levels of performance.

Ethical Leadership and Excellence:

Theory: Leadership theories often emphasize the role of ethical principles in achieving excellence. Leaders who model integrity, fairness, and dedication inspire excellence in others.

Implications: This approach connects leadership qualities with the cultivation of excellence in organizations and communities.

The philosophy of excellence encourages a nuanced exploration of what it means to achieve the highest standards, emphasizing the importance of virtues, motivation, resilience, and ethical considerations in this pursuit. It serves as a guiding framework for individuals and societies aiming to elevate their capabilities and contributions to their fullest potential.

[mango-nectars]

When bestie is having a mental breakdown but you want to talk about the implications that afro-pessimism has on values upheld by white queer theorists particularly concerning gender abolition and breakdown of the nuclear family 🤧🤧

[folkdances]

anti-humanism the way some people do it is such a bizarre stance to me because, take for example the church of euthanasia, one of their core tenants is that human beings are unimportant and irrelevant but their overall ideology pushes for the extinction of the human race as we know it and this will never make sense to me because by virtue of believing in humanity's mass extinction you are putting humanity on a level that is superior to other things which contradicts your first point... who is to say

[just-an-enby-lemon]

It makes sense to write Jonathan Crane thesis as looking for the correlation between fear and the learning process. Wich part of learning is related to fear and how it develops in unique ways on different people, there is a colective to this indovidual phenomena?

In my fandom wolrd, I dare say that Jonathan is interested in the concep of the "colective inconscient" of Jung in relation to fear. The theory talks about the existence of symbols and images that are present as a collective in the human mind as a result of culture and experience and that this images manifest in our tradicions and believes, that's why so many images and ideas are present in different cultures that had none or few contact with each other, for instance the story about a great fload that almost destroyed mankind. Adapting it to fear, Crane wanted to answer if there is fears that appear to manifest in cultures and people as an historical heritage without relationship with trauma, bascially colective fears.

That is only a small part of his theory of course. In my mind he wants to categorize fear based on the way it develops and the different categories have different theoric bases. Unfortunally his Compreheensive Study on Fear will never be reviewed in scietific comunities 'cause his research methods are not valid and he violeted every single rule in the ethics code.

I do also believe that he has some renomed pappers on the learning process because I think he was studying it to later relationated it to fear and how it developes. He specially references Bandura and Vygotsky. Besides some early valid studies on fear with neuropsycology as the basis.

[uncommonlearningstandard]

HUMANISTIC ORIENTATION TO LEARNING

 Humanism is a school of thought that believes human beings are different from other species and that humans possess capacities not found in animals. Humanism therefore gives primacy to the study of human needs and interests (Edwards 1989). Humanistic orientation is summed up in the slogan ‘being all that we can be’ (according to the United States Army Advertising Campaign). Humanism is a…

[gravitascivics]

CRITIQUE OF THE NATURAL RIGHTS VIEW, IX

The last posting stressed how the self-esteem movement has taken hold in American schools – how it both affects approaches to curricular content and in how school staff handle disciplinary issues.  This posting provides an overview of how self-esteem affects teacher-student interactions. Generally, the focus of this movement is to emphasize the individual students’ perceptions; how they define the social world around them.  

Observers of any age, such as this blogger, can readily detect meaningful change – some good, some not so good – in how those interactions take place, what assumptions are at play, and surely how outcomes materialize.  For example, time dimensions seem to have altered; yesterday’s effects are now cast as unimportant and with them, a source of shame for wrongdoing is forgotten.  

First, Americans did away with sin when they disposed of Calvinism[1] and now they do away with social standards. As the self-esteem view puts it, statements about generally accepted notions of right and wrong behavior are seen as cumbersome and in the way.  And along with this trend, views considering discipline are affected.  Discipline and its demands are deemed to be irrelevant, except as it might be useful to acquire material success (a middle-class belief that seems to be shrinking along with the size of the middle class).

Roy Baumeister has done meaningful research on the effects of boosted self-esteem advocacy or to be more accurate, advocacy for humanistic learning theory.  In 2006 he reports,

 Unfortunately for the low-self-esteem theory, researchers have gradually built up a composite image of what it is like to have low self-esteem, and that image does not mesh well with what we know about aggressive perpetrators. People who have a negative view of themselves are typically muddling through life, trying to avoid embarrassment, giving no sign of a desperate need to prove their superiority. Aggressive attack is risky; people with low self-esteem tend to avoid risks. When people with low self-esteem fail, they usually blame themselves, not others.

Faced with these incongruities, we cast about for an alternative theory. A crucial influence on our thinking was the seemingly lofty self-regard of prominent violent people. Saddam Hussein [dictator of Iraq who was alive when these words were written] is not known as a modest, cautious, self-doubting individual. Adolf Hitler's exaltation of the "master race" was hardly a slogan of low self-esteem. These examples suggest that high self-esteem, not low, is indeed an important cause of aggression.

We eventually formulated our hypothesis in terms of threatened egotism. Not all people who think highly of themselves are prone to violence. That favorable opinion must be combined with some external threat to the opinion. Somebody must question it, dispute it, undermine it. People like to think well of themselves, and so they are loath to make downward revisions in their self-esteem. When someone suggests such a revision, many individuals--those with inflated, tenuous and unstable forms of high self-esteem--prefer to shoot the messenger.[2]

 What this suggests is that the whole notion of self-esteem – which everyone should have a realistic dose of – is a more nuanced factor in how people, even young ones, function in social settings like those of schools.

         Baumeister goes on to argue in another published work that if children are taught a false sense of self-esteem, i.e., a child is convinced he or she is more talented than the child’s ability justifies, such incongruence with reality will encourage violent behavior on the part of the subject.  This is apparently due to the frustration engendered by the person’s expectations and the reality the person encounters.  He writes,

 High self-esteem means thinking well of oneself, regardless of whether that perception is based on substantive achievement or wishful thinking and self-deception.  High self-esteem can mean confident and secure – but it can also mean conceited, arrogant, narcissistic, and egotistical.[3]

           The progressive pedagogy, and its philosophy, pragmaticism, lack a firm ethical base[4] and this has made it susceptible to the humanistic learning theory arguments.  Peter F. Oliva identifies this psychology, which he calls perceptual psychology, as a main branch of progressive education.[5]  Strangely, perceptual psychology seems to be the one element of progressive education that has been extensively adopted in the nation’s schools[6] – is its popularity by way of attempting to keep the “customer” base happy or, at least, appeased?  

         As such, one finds two consequences.  One, the effects of excessive concerns for self-esteem on civics education have been bolstered by the assumptions laden within the natural rights perspective in ways described earlier in this blog.  Primarily, that would be in terms of rights – one has the right to self-define oneself regardless of what the facts are.  And two, this bias easily becomes part of the “hidden curriculum”[7] which has transferred its messages of individualism and anti-communal sentiment in ways more effective than any formal instruction could.

         And with this review of humanistic learning theory and its effects on American schooling, the critique of the natural rights view comes to an end.  The next posting will provide a summary statement of the natural rights construct and a “bridge” to its most vibrant antithesis, critical theory.  This latter area of contention – natural rights vs. critical theory – weaves a contemporary tale that is finding its way more frequently into the evening news.

[1] George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy,” The Annals of America, 13, (Chicago, IL:  Encycloaedia Britannica, Inc., 1968), 277-288.  Readers should not consider this posting as an argument to reinstate Calvinism as a dominant view of morality or even of good behavior.

[2] Roy F. Baumeister, “Violent Pride,” Scientific American, August 1, 2006, accessed February 26, 2023, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/violent-pride/.

[3] Roy F. Baumeister, “Should Schools Try to Boost Self-esteem?,” American Educator, 20, 2 (Summer, 1996), 14-19 & 43, 41 (emphasis in the original).

[4] Boyd H. Bode, How We Learn (Westport, CT:  Greenwood Press, 1940).

[5] Peter F. Oliva and William Gordon, Developing Curriculum, 8th Edition (Boston, MA:  Pearson, 2013).

[6] As the last posting pointed out, in American schools progressivism doesn’t prevail.  That honor goes to essentialism.  That view can be defined as:

Essentialism tries to instill all students with the most essential or basic academic knowledge and skills and character development. Essentialists believe that teachers should try to embed traditional moral values and virtues such as respect for authority, perseverance, fidelity to duty, consideration for others, and practicality and intellectual knowledge that students need to become model citizens. The foundation of essentialist curriculum is based on traditional disciplines such as math, natural science, history, foreign language, and literature.

See “Essentialism,” SIUE (n.d.), accessed March 5, 2023, htpps://www.siue.edu/~ ptheodo/foundations/essentialism.htlm.  SIUE refers to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s School of Education.

[7] “The term ‘hidden curriculum’ refers to an amorphous collection of ‘implicit academic, social, and cultural messages,’ ‘unwritten rules and unspoken expectations,’ and ‘unofficial norms, behaviours and values’ of the dominant-culture context in which all teaching and learning is situated.”  See “Teaching the Hidden Curriculum,” Boston University (n.d.), accessed March 4, 2023, https://www.bu.edu/teaching-writing/resources/teaching-the-hidden-curriculum/#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Chidden%20curriculum%E2%80%9D%20refers,teaching%20and%20learning%20is%20situated.

[emeraldcreeper]

I hate having to job hunt for shit I hate to eventually repeat myself for the 1000th time that no I hate the apartments you think are good they charge more for a first floor unit where do they think they are clearly not the middle of assfuck nowhere fucking beside a busy ass road next to the one actual grocery store (fuck that fuck those guys! I live next to a field house and football field now and will blow my brains out to live anywhere noisy again) and actually I probably shouldn’t apply for that hospital job I’d prefer to run reception for that social worker the preacher knows (Christ alive I just realized it may be religious junk of an association, except the pastor is a lawyer so maybe not but to be honest I’d rather work in a hotel lobby than that, I look so butch dude I can’t) I need wild things from a job and hours from 9am-9pm? That’s so bad! I’m gonna get into grad school or scream at my college to fucking let me leave in the fall (I had a mental breakdown during this semester and couldn’t go to class my mother can corroborate you dicks, I’m honestly lucky I made it I couldn’t work) I cannot work random ass hours that don’t flex around my schedule! That hospital? Full of shit if they don’t let me! I also refuse to check my schedule every week because it changes! I want a 9-5 that will work with grad school shit that I gotta do in person! Hospital doesn’t seem super flexible! Not every job opening is a Hail Mary you STUPID FUCKIN IDIOTS I’d have a better damn shot not trying to get a job at all out there because clearly the hours are total dogshit

[reloaderror]

augh

[opencommunion]

one reason (white) queer people misuse the term homonationalism is that they see queerness (or whatever you want to call it) as naturally disaffiliated with the US empire. so they understand homonationalism as a divergence from a natural mutual antagonism between queerness and empire. they talk about homonationalism as if it's an exclusively "normie gay" project, and as if it's a divergence from, rather than a consequence of, the overall trajectory of western lgbtqia+ politics. ironically it’s that self-exceptionalization by the queer, on the basis of their queerness, that imbricates them in homonationalism. they produce themselves as a homonationalist subject, and reproduce homonationalism, every time they articulate their queerness as individualized freedom. and Puar actually anticipates all of this in her original theorization of homonationalism in Terrorist Assemblages, and that's why it really helps to go to the text instead of osmosing queer theory solely through tumblr posts (esp when tumblr is so white and the queer theorists are not): "Some may strenuously object to the suggestion that queer identities, like their 'less radical' counterparts, homosexual, gay, and lesbian identities, are also implicated in ascendant white American nationalist formations, preferring to see queerness as singularly transgressive of identity norms. This focus on transgression, however, is precisely the term by which queerness narrates its own sexual exceptionalism.

While we can point to the obvious problems with the emancipatory, missionary pulses of certain (U.S., western) feminisms and of gay and lesbian liberation, queerness has its own exceptionalist desires: exceptionalism is a founding impulse, indeed the very core of a queerness that claims itself as an anti-, trans-, or unidentity. The paradigm of gay liberation and emancipation has produced all sorts of troubling narratives: about the greater homophobia of immigrant communities and communities of color, about the stricter family values and mores in these communities, about a certain prerequisite migration from home, about coming-out teleologies. We have less understanding of queerness as a biopolitical project, one that both parallels and intersects with that of multiculturalism, the ascendancy of whiteness, and may collude with or collapse into liberationist paradigms. While liberal underpinnings serve to constantly recenter the normative gay or lesbian subject as exclusively liberatory, these same tendencies labor to insistently recenter the normative queer subject as an exclusively transgressive one. Queerness here is the modality through which 'freedom from norms' becomes a regulatory queer ideal that demarcates the ideal queer. ... I am thinking of queerness as exceptional in a way that is wedded to individualism and the rational, liberal humanist subject, what [Sara] Ahmed denotes as 'attachments' and what I would qualify as deep psychic registers of investment that we often cannot account for and are sometimes best seen by others rather than ourselves. 'Freedom from norms' resonates with liberal humanism’s authorization of the fully self-possessed speaking subject, untethered by hegemony or false consciousness, enabled by the life/stylization offerings of capitalism, rationally choosing modern individualism over the ensnaring bonds of family. In this problematic definition of queerness, individual agency is legible only as resistance to norms rather than complicity with them, thus equating resistance and agency.

... Queerness as automatically and inherently transgressive enacts specific forms of disciplining and control, erecting celebratory queer liberal subjects folded into life (queerness as subject) against the sexually pathological and deviant populations targeted for death (queerness as population). Within that orientation of regulatory transgression, queer operates as an alibi for complicity with all sorts of other identity norms, such as nation, race, class, and gender, unwittingly lured onto the ascent toward whiteness. ... To be excused from a critique of one’s own power manipulations is the appeal of white liberalism, the underpinnings of the ascendancy of whiteness, which is not a conservative, racist formation bent on extermination, but rather an insidious liberal one proffering an innocuous inclusion into life."

Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007)

[quasi-normalcy]

Anyways, not that any of you asked, but my verdict on the 'Science Wars' of the 1990s is as follows:

A few humanities people critiqued the sciences without really understanding them well enough to make cogent criticisms

A LOT of scientists attacked humanist critiques of the sciences without really understanding them well enough to make cogent criticisms

The "continental philosophy" style of writing used in these critiques seems designed to make them impenetrable to anyone who doesn't have a Master's degree in culture theory, so misunderstandings were inevitable

The Sokal Hoax is a fun annecdote, but at most it illustrates lackadaisical practices in academic publishing, which subsequent decades have shown to be an issue well beyond the humanities

"Post-modernism" is a stillborn cultural movement with a long afterlife as a snarl word; basically nobody actually wants to be associated with it

Fighting between the sciences and humanities was pointless and prevented both sides from putting up a common front against neoliberal assaults on academia

Richard Dawkins is a cunt

[lichanicksstuff]

I think it is time for me to elaborate on my GETO IS AN INFJ theory.

(more under the cut)

Starting of with what is INFJ?

For people who somehow don't know, INFJ is a personality type according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). All of the personality types consist of four letters that mean in sequence: introversion(I)/extraversion(E), sensing(S)/intuition(N), thinking(T)/feeling(F), judging(J)/perceiving(P).

INFJ is a short for Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging.

People who are INFJ are described as quiet, with strong morals and believes that they are able to fight for. They are guided by principles, and human value is one of the priorities (which, in Geto's case, can be interpreted in two ways - non-sorceres, before he turned evil, and his friends that he wanted to protect, after committing mass murder).

INFJs balance on the border between the humanistic and the strict mind, they have an artistic soul and an analytical mind and they tend to demand a lot from themselves. They may show signs of excessive perfectionism and put more into a task than others expect of them.

Don't tell me it doesn't sound like Geto.

And I'm NOT taking that "he became an INTJ after committing genocide" bullshit. INTJ is more logical, analyzing than INFJ who is, after all, a FEELER so they focus more on their feelings than logical thoughts.

Taking the easiest way and deciding to kill all the non-sorcerers is not logical and Geto knows it (we can see it during his conversation with Shoko when she tells him that he's being childish. He knows no one will understand him and he doesn't expect them to). He's aware that he's doing wrong but he does what his FEELINGS tell him to do.

And now, the most convincing part: satosugu.

Satoru is a 100% ENTP. He walks like an ENTP, he talks like an ENTP, he IS an ENTP.

Even if we look at the memes the "INFJ x ENTP" suit the most for satosugu dynamics. LOOK IT UP.

I'm standing with my INFJ Geto theory 'till the day I die.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Far-right politicians with an explicit history of antisemitism, such as Marine Le Pen, have been praised in recent months for their support of Israel and virulently anti-Muslim sentiment. On November 15th, Elon Musk tweeted out his support for the “great replacement theory”—the idea that Jewish people are engineering white genocide—leading to condemnations from the White House, and from X advertisers such as Apple and Disney. On November 17th, Musk announced an X ban on pro-Palestinian phrases like “from the river to the sea,” which he characterized as antisemitic hate speech. Minutes after the announcement, Jonathan Greenblatt, Director of the ADL, logged on to express his gratitude to Musk, writing: “I appreciate this leadership in fighting hate.”  In a recent article for the far-right Washington Free Beacon, provocatively titled “What Makes Hamas Worse Than the Nazis,”  bestselling British historian Andrew Roberts mounts a rousing defense of Nazism, ostensibly in the name of condemning antisemitism. Although the Nazi government began systematically murdering disabled and queer people even before the start of the war, Roberts insists that their operations were incidentally rather than deliberately sadistic, and that the majority of German people during the war opposed mass murder. If his aim is clearly to demonize the cause of Palestinian liberation as a whole, his exoneration of European fascism as “just following orders” is no less central of a claim. By conflating “antisemitism,” “genocide,” and even “Nazism” with Palestine, Hamas, and Islam as a whole, this kind of historical revisionism works to redeem the European far-right as inherently civilized even in its most barbaric actions.  Any attempt to adopt a more humanist perspective, to take a longer or wider lens on the annihilation of Europe’s Jewish communities, or to relate their struggles and suffering to the struggles and suffering of others would appear to betray the ethos of post-Holocaust Jewishness. Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon both famously argued that the extreme state violence of fascism and the Holocaust was an imperialist backlash, the excesses of colonial violence returning home, only shocking in that it took place on European soil. In his introduction to Modernity and the Holocaust, Zygmunt Bauman describes the insistence on the uniqueness of the Holocaust as a form of historical decontextualization. Or, more plainly, as a refusal to engage in collective self-reflection. “One way is to present the Holocaust as something that happened to the Jews; as an event in Jewish history. This makes the Holocaust unique, comfortably uncharacteristic and sociologically inconsequential.” Bauman asserts that the underlying rationale for this circular logic, by which abstracted antisemitism is both sole cause and sole effect of the Holocaust, is collective exoneration. It works as a shield for modern European civilization, capable of outliving such atrocities.

[...]

It is not incidental then that, in line with right-wing ideological programs, the mainstream current of Holocaust narratives primarily encourage identification with the perpetrators rather than with the victims. They are propelled by the cause of personal enlightenment, encouraging the reader to look within for evil and to root it out rather than ever looking outward at the world surrounding them. Evil, this version of history would have you believe, is a personal problem and not a systemic one. It can crystallize through a mysterious process into mass evil, a spiritual rot. This gives it a kind of mystical aspect. It is easier from this perspective to believe in the innate evil of some, in the innate goodness of others. This moral binary is frequently mobilized in defense of violence and injustice. In a deleted tweet, Netanyahu called Israel’s ongoing genocidal attack on Gaza “a war between the children of light and the children of darkness.” In a December 2023 speech, Joe Biden reaffirmed his condemnation of Hamas, which he implicitly collapsed into a condemnation of Palestinians as a whole, calling them “a brutal, ugly, inhumane people, and they have to be eliminated.” Both were invoking this moral binary, the deformed vocabulary of white supremacy and colonialism. For if the world is made up of people who are “good” and “bad,” “civilized” and “barbaric,” rather than of societies shaped by ideologies, then it is possible to characterize an entire group of people as evil, to dehumanize them, to declare them guilty all the way down to their newborn babies, to justify their mass murder. In broader terms, this is a totalizing story about history; one in which the European perpetrators of wars of aggression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, can redeem themselves by retelling their crimes but this time as witnesses to horror rather than as active participants. They can atone and wash away the sin of what they have done by giving it a narrative structure with an ending and a moral lesson, one in which the Holocaust finds its silver lining in the creation of the state of Israel, one in which Europe becomes civilized again, one in which blame is shifted from Germany to Palestine, and from fascists to anti-fascists. 

[max1461]

Priors play a big role in thinking about the world. You can't analyze every situation in great depth, you have to have good priors.

I have family members who, when presented with evidence of US war crimes, say "oh, that must be propaganda, has that been fact-checked???" and I say "yes, it was declassified by the CIA in the 80s", and they say "I just don't believe the US would do that, we're the good guys!". A while ago I saw a comment on here by user "minisoc", saying they didn't believe claims about mistreatment of ethnic minorities in the PRC because "the Chinese government just has an inherently more loving, humanistic character to it than the US government" or something to roughly that effect.

I don't need to delve into the object level to know that these defenses don't make any sense. I have strong evidence that, in general, governments tend to kill people and do fucked up shit. So when I hear a story about a government killing people and doing fucked up shit, I'm gonna be like "sure, checks out". This doesn't mean the object level is "irrelevant"; not every such story is true. I don't believe the 9/11 conspiracy theories. But it means that if someone says something which is radically unlikely by your priors, if they say "X government just wouldn't do that", you don't have to get into the weeds of it to reasonably conclude that they are full of shit.

[artsandculture]

The Birth of Venus (1483-1485) 🎨 Sandro Botticelli 🏛️ Uffizi Gallery 📍 Florence, Italy

The painting was commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’Medici, a cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The theme was probably suggested by the humanist Poliziano. It depicts Venus born from the sea foam, blown by the west wind, Zephyr, and the nymph, Chloris, towards one of the Horai, who prepares to dress her with a flowered mantle.

This universal icon of Western painting was probably painted around 1484 for the villa of Castello owned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de 'Medici. Giorgio Vasari saw the work there in the mid-sixteenth century – along with Botticelli’s other well-known Primavera – and described it precisely as "showing the Birth of Venus." The old idea that the two Botticelli masterpieces were created for the same occasion, in spite of their substantial technical and stylistic diversity, is no longer accepted. However, rather than a birth, what we see is the goddess landing on the shore of her homeland, the island of Cyprus, or on Kithera. The theme, which can be traced back to Homer and to Ovid’s Metamophoses, was also celebrated by the great humanist Agnolo Poliziano in the poetic verses of his Stanze. The Venus of the Uffizi is of the “Venus pudica” type, whose right breast is covered by her right hand and billowing long blond hair partially shrouds her body. The goddess stands upright on a shell as she is driven towards the shore by the breeze of Zephyrus, a wind god, who is holding the nymph, Chloris. On the right is the Hora of springtime, who waits to greet Venus ashore with a cloak covered in pink flowers.

The seascape, stunning for its metaphysical tone and almost unreal quality, is illuminated by a very soft, delicate light. Like Botticelli’s other masterpiece, Pallas and the Centaur, the Birth of Venus is painted on canvas - fairly unusual for its time - using a technique of thin tempera, based on the use of diluted egg yolk, which lends itself particularly well to give the painting that aspect of extraordinary transparency, which brings to mind the pictorial quality of a fresco. The figure recalls classical sculpture and is very similar to the famous Medici Venus found in the Uffizi, which the artist certainly knew. The real meaning of this dreamlike vision is still under scholarly debate and investigation but is undoubtedly linked with the Neo-Platonic philosophy, widely cultivated in the Medici court.

Like the Primavera, the Birth of Venus is also associated with the concept of Humanitas,or virtuous Humanity, a theory developed by Marsilio Ficino in a letter to the young Lorenzo. According to the interpretation by Ernst Gombrich, the work depicts the symbolic fusion of Spirit and Matter, the harmonious interaction of Idea and Nature. Nevertheless, the interpretations of this painting of extraordinary visual impact are numerous and diverse. The divine ethereal figure has been viewed as an allegorical representation of Humanitas upon her arrival to Florence, while the nymph holding out the cloak of flowers for the goddess may perhaps be identified as Flora, the same depicted in this masterpiece’s “twin”, the Primavera, where she may be seen instead as the personification of the city of Florence. From this work emerges clear evidence of Botticell’s strive to reach perfection of form that could rival with classical antiquity. It is for this reason that the humanist Ugolino Verino in his work Epigrammata, presented in 1485 to the King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, likened the Florentine painter to the legendary Apelles of Ancient Greece.