HMCS Max Bernays Pre-Deployment Brief (May 2024).pptx
Genetics & cosmopolitanism
1. MALA 6010-002
Foundations of the Liberal
Arts II: Human Migration
Spring 2017
Tuesday 6:00-9:00
COE 104
Block 6: April 11 and April 18
"The Human Journey to
Cosmopolitanism"
Phil Oliver (Philosophy)
3. Block Description:
Reflections on human migration, its contributions to the
interweaving of culture, thought, and the creation of world
citizenship. The practical and ethical upshot of global migration
and immigration is that we live in an increasingly cosmopolitan
world. Old patterns of nationalism, chauvinism, and mutual
mistrust are challenged by this most promising form of
globalism.
4. Readings:
The following readings are required and are available in D2L, or
via this link..
Spencer Wells, The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey: ch1
("The Diverse Ape"), ch8 ("The Importance of Culture") - Apr
11
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of
Strangers: Introduction ("Making Conversation"), ch1 ("The
Shattered Mirror") ch 8 ("Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?") -
Apr 18
6. “We have walked far”... but haven’t reached true cosmopolitanism yet.
Alexandria was the greatest
city the western world had
ever seen. People of all
nations came there to live,
to trade, to learn… It is
probably here that the
word cosmopolitan [first
invented by Diogenes]
realized its true meaning --
citizen, not just of a nation,
but of the Cosmos. To be a
citizen of the cosmos...
We’ve tracked ancient footprints. When we walk a
mile in their ash we extend their range and deepen
our connection to cosmic time, “ancient and vast.”
We speak for the earth of things.
We humans have set foot on another world in
a place called the Sea of Tranquility, an
astonishing achievement for creatures such as
we, whose earliest footsteps three and one-
half million years old are preserved in the
volcanic ash of east Africa. We have walked
far.
Cosmic connection, U@d 9.27.10
7. “I am not an Athenian or a
Greek, but a citizen of the
world."
[As quoted in Plutarch's
Of Banishment]”
― Socrates
8. Genome: the
Autobiograph
y of a Species
in 23 Chapters
by Matt Ridley
“The genome is a book that wrote itself, continually adding,
deleting and amending over four billion years.”
“The genome that we decipher in this generation is but a
snapshot of an ever-changing document. There is no
definitive edition.”
“Imagine that the genome is a book.
There are twenty-three chapters, called CHROMOSOMES.
Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called
GENES.
Each story is made up of paragraphs, called EXTONS, which
are interrupted by advertisements called INTRONS.
Each paragraph is made up of words, called CODONS.
Each word is written in letters called BASES.”
9. “As we encounter each other, we see
our diversity — of background, race,
ethnicity, belief – and how we
handle that diversity will have much
to say about whether we will in the
end be able to rise successfully to the
great challenges we face today.”
― Dan Smith, The State of the
World Atlas
10. “Walter Mignolo terms and articulates _critical cosmopolitanism,
juxtaposing it with globalization, which is a process of "the
homogeneity of the planet from above––economically, politically and
culturally." Although _globalization from below_ is to counter
_globalization from above_ from the experience and perspective of
those who suffer from the consequences of _globalization from
above_, cosmopolitanism differs, according to Mignolo, form these
two types of globalization. Mignolo defines globalization as 'a set
of designs to manage the world,' and cosmopolitanism as
'a set of projects toward planetary conviviality”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary
Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World
11. “Cosmopolitan discourse emphasizes the _cosmic
belonging_ of all individual human beings as the
ground of our hospitality, solidarity, justice and
neighbor-love. Cosmopolitan discourse is about
turning a _compassionate gaze_ onto others
regardless of one's nationality and citizenship,
origin of birth, religion, gender; race and
ethnicity, sexuality, or ability”
12. “I believe _cosmopolitanism_ can be an
effective discourse with which to advocate a
politics of _transidentity_ of overlapping
interests and heterogeneous or hybrid subjects
in order to challenge conventional notions of
exclusive belonging, identity and citizenship.”
13. “If the well-being of my loved place depends on the well-being
of Earth, I have a good reason for supporting the well-being of
your loved place. I have selfish as well as cosmopolitan reasons
for preserving the home-places of all human beings.
Cosmopolitanism becomes thicker and more potent with this
realization.”
― Nel Noddings, Peace Education: How We Come to Love
and Hate War
14. 23andMe
Discover the origins of your maternal
(your mother's mother's mother's…)
and paternal (your father's father's
father's…) ancestors and how they
moved around the world over
thousands of years.
We report on your maternal and
paternal lineage by identifying your
haplogroups. A haplogroup can trace
part of your ancestry back to a
specific group of individuals in the
distant past.
15. The Gene: An
Intimate
History by
Siddhartha
Mukherjee
“If we define "beauty" as having blue eyes (and only blue
eyes), then we will, indeed, find a "gene for beauty." If we
define "intelligence" as the performance on only one kind of
test, then we will, indeed, find a "gene for intelligence." The
genome is only a mirror for the breadth or narrowness of
human imagination.”
“Our ability to read out this sequence of our own genome has
the makings of a philosophical paradox. Can an intelligent
being comprehend the instructions to make itself?
“It is one thing to try to understand how genes influence
human identity or sexuality or temperament. It is quite
another thing to imagine altering identity or sexuality or
behavior by altering genes.”
16. “History repeats itself, in part because the genome repeats
itself. And the genome repeats itself, in part because history
does. The impulses, ambitions, fantasies, and desires that
drive human history are, at least in part, encoded in the
human genome. And human history has, in turn, selected
genomes that carry these impulses, ambitions, fantasies,
and desires. This self-fulfilling circle of logic is responsible
for some of the most magnificent and evocative qualities in
our species, but also some of the most reprehensible. It is
far too much to ask ourselves to escape the orbit of this
logic, but recognizing its inherent circularity, and being
skeptical of its overreach, might protect the week from the
will of the strong, and the 'mutant' from being annihilated
by the 'normal'.”
17. Spencer Wells is a geneticist,
anthropologist, author, entrepreneur,
adjunct professor at the University of
Texas at Austin, and an Explorer-in-
Residence at the National Geographic
Society.
More about Spencer Wells...
18.
19. There is a sequel, for Spencer Wells. Our ancestors eventually stopped hunting, gathering, and roaming,
settling down and literally planting roots. That led to a population explosion, relative immobility, and
ultimately all the health and happiness consequences that accrue to a sedentary society. Solvitur
ambulando!
Re: "Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization" by Spencer Wells
"True, western societies are much better off materially than they were 40 years ago, but why is there so
much crime, vandalism and graffiti? Why are divorce rates so high? Why are we seeing declines in civic
engagement and trust? Why have obesity and depression reached epidemic proportions, even amongst
children? Why do people call this the age of anxiety? Why do studies in most developed countries show
that people are becoming unhappier? —RICHARD TOMKINS, Financial Times, October 17, 2003"
20. In The Journey of Man,
renowned geneticist and
anthropologist Spencer Wells traced
human evolution back to our earliest
ancestors, creating a remarkable and
readable map of our distant past.
Now, in Pandora’s Seed, he
examines our cultural inheritance in
order to find the turning point that
led us to the path we are on today,
one he believes we must veer from in
order to survive.
21. Pandora’s Seed takes us on a powerful and
provocative globe-trotting tour of human history,
back to a seminal event roughly ten thousand years
ago, when our species made a radical shift in its
way of life: We became farmers rather than hunter-
gatherers, setting in motion a momentous chain of
events that could not have been foreseen at the
time.
22. Although this decision to
control our own food supply is
what propelled us into the
modern world, Wells
demonstrates—using the latest
genetic and anthropological
data—that such a dramatic
shift in lifestyle had a
downside that we’re only now
beginning to recognize.
Growing grain crops ultimately
made humans more sedentary
and unhealthy and made the
planet more crowded.
The expanding population
and the need to apportion
limited resources such as
water created hierarchies
and inequalities. The
desire to control—and no
longer cooperate with—
nature altered the concept
of religion, making deities
fewer and more
influential, foreshadowing
today’s fanaticisms.
23. The proximity of humans
and animals bred diseases
that metastasized over
time. Freedom of
movement and choice were
replaced by a pressure to
work that is the forebear of
the anxiety and depression
millions feel today.
Wells offers a hopeful
prescription for altering a
life to which we were
always ill suited,
recommending that we
change our priorities and
self-destructive appetites
before it’s too late. g’r
24. “We are one species.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium
in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the
carbon in our apple pies were made in
the interiors of collapsing stars. We
are made of starstuff.”
Alexandria was the greatest city the
western world had ever seen. People of
all nations came there to live, to trade, to
learn… It is probably here that the word
cosmopolitan [first invented by
Diogenes] realized its true meaning --
citizen, not just of a nation, but of the
Cosmos. To be a citizen of the cosmos...
