Common sense as activity rather than knowledge - Hannah Arendt

·        “Common sense”, in Arendt’s use, is activity rather than knowledge; that is, it is something one does, not something one has.  Moreover, unlike the ordinary term, Arendtian common sense is not self-evident but self-altering. “Common sense” as the “sixth sense” requires individuals to engage with others in the act of perception, sharing he world in a way that corrects and amends subjective insight.  Because one’s bodily and social position in the world generates one’s perspective of reality, sharing corrects best when these positions overlap lest.  There is no absolute truth to be achieved in this process – that is no “correct” way to view reality – but there is, in her words, a “control instance” against “errors”.  Therefore, the pariah, constrained by law and custom to associate only with those most like him, is deprived of degrees of correction and alteration or, to use the language of taste she invokes, refinement. Encountering difference is the lever of correction.  Therefore, any group formed around likeness, whether that be shared ideological commitment or national belonging, risks adopting these same perceptual restrictions by shielding themselves against different perceptions of reality.  When Arendt advises the pariah to stand apart from the intimate society of the pariah group, she does not recommend self-sufficiency but plurality – that is, bringing the perceiving self into contact with non-intimate, differently situated others. The politics of plurality and common sense requires, then, something like and aesthetic of the fact, which is a discipline of perception as well as a practice of representation. (Deborah Nelson, Tough Enough,  University of Chicago Press 2017, p77-78).  

     This thought reflects perfectly a whole series of ideas I've been working on in my thesis on how innovation emerges from everyday social and work practice. The key element implied in Arendt's perspective is that of 'for better or worse' - we can't be absolutely sure of the outcomes of our actions, and that uncertainty allows for the unexpected or unplanned, whether desired, unwanted, or completely new.

     Nelson's book, which discusses a series of twentieth century women thinkers, each with a reputation for a kind of distancing toughness, including Simone Weil, Joan Didion, Diane Arbus, Susan Sontag and Mary McCarthy as well as Hannah Arendt, is highly recommended. 

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Time for Outrage! and Stephane Hessel

Stephane Hessel is 94.  He has recently published a short pamphlet supporting the Occupy movement, linking its energy and values to those of the Free French resistance movement towards the end of World War 2.  He argues that those French people who refused to join with the Vichy France government in collaborating with the Nazis after the occupation of France, had to create a new set of values to inspire and energise the rebuilding of French civil society after the war.  He argues that these values are still relevant today, and are similar to those espoused by the Occupy movement.  This pamphlet has sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide since it was published last year.  It is called in English Time for Outrage, in French Indignez-vous! and in Spanish Indignaos!

The story of Stephane Hessel's life is so extraordinary that there is a danger that it may detract from the importance of his message in this pamphlet, so I won't say any more about this right now.  On the other hand, his story provides this message with unusual moral authority.  His integrity, authenticity and personal modesty are evident in a recent interview with Democracy Now! which can be viewed in full at: http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/10/10/stphane_hessel_on_occupy_wall_street_find_the_time_for_outrage_when_your_values_are_not_respected

Hessel S (2010): Time for Outrage! London: Quartet books

To create is to resist

To resist is to create

Found object (on the web that is)

I suspect that the ordinariness of the elements that make up this beautiful construction, and their obvious association with childhood, as well as the complete absence of any utilitarian content, might appeal to Grayson Perry.  Not sure what Clarkson would make of it.

See http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/12/rainbow-toy-car-installation-made-from-2500-cars/?src=footer

Mystery educational philosopher

All these quotes are from the same thinker, someone I didn't realise had written about education.  I will shortly be posting a review of the book I discovered them in.  Can you recognise the author?

I may be wrong, and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth.

We do not discover new facts or new effects by copying them, or by inferring them inductively from observation, or by any other method of instruction by the environment.

(Picture by Chris Bradey)

We learn only through trial and error.  Our trials....are always our hypotheses.  They stem from us, not from the external world.  All we learn from the external world is that some of our efforts are mistaken.

The process of learning, of the growth of subjective knowledge, is always fundamentally the same.  It is imaginative criticism.

Institutions for the selection of the outstanding can hardly be devised.  Institutional selection may work quite well for such purposes as Plato had in mind, namely for arresting change.  But it will never work well if we demand more than that, for it will always tend to eliminate initiative and originality, and, more generally, qualities which are unusual and unexpected.  It has been said, only too truly, that Plato was the inventor of both our secondary schools and our universities.  I do not know a better argument for an optimistic view of mankind, no better proof of their indestructible love for truth and decency, of their originality and stubbornness and health, than the fact that this devastating system of education has not utterly ruined them.

There are no subject matters, no branches of learning - or rather, of inquiry: there are only problems, and the urge to solve them.

If I thought of a future, I dreamt of one day founding a school in which young people could learn without boredom, and would be stimulated to pose problems and discuss them; a school in which no unwanted answers to unasked questions would have to be listened to; in which one did not study for the sake of passing examinations.

[If] we produce many competing ideas, and criticise them severely, we may, if we are lucky, get nearer to the truth.  This method is the method of conjectures and refutations: it is the method of taking many risks, by producing many (competing) hypotheses; of making many mistakes; and of trying to correct or eliminate some of these mistakes by a critical discussion of the competing hypotheses.

Does this last one give it away?

Grayson Perry exhibition: the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

Notes taken during my visit to the exhibition: names of pieces, and direct quotations from GP, are in italics

Sometimes our very human desire for meaning can get in the way of having a good experience of the world


Ceramic works that appear to be metallic, or made of wood

Examples of one culture's early and uninformed view of people from another culture: eg white settlers by native Americans

The Rosetta vase


Hold your beliefs lightly


Quote from Beuys: In places like universities, where everyone speaks so rationally, it is necessary for a kind of 'enchanter' to appear


Like a world war 2 mine washed up on the beach encrusted with the boiled down essence of empire in the form of tourist tat


The map of truths and beliefs


Maps of imaginary lands: perhaps someone today should devise a satnav app for moral guidance


An accompanying display of badges excavated in Bosch's home town showed that much of the surreal iconography in his paintings derived from the popular imagery of the day

Grumpy old god: Alan Measles is unimpressed with the 21st century. He sees the facebook generation distracted by their smartphones and obsessed with celebrity. The multimedia collage of modern life makes it hard for an upcoming god to establish himself without a web presence


Gateway guardian figures, often scary


Sheila-na-gigs


Herms were also sited outside houses for good luck where the genitalia would be anointed or rubbed by passers by


Wear, damage, dirt, repair, corrosion and decay are a large part of the language of authenticity


Billy and Charlies: I love fakes for they make us think about what it is we see in the authentic


Roman cameo fragments


Ralph Simpson and Ralph Toft earthenware plates, late 1600s: graphic boldness and relaxed fluency.

Craftsmanship is often equated with precision, but I think there is more to it. I feel it is more important to have a long and sympathetic hands-on relationship with materials. A relaxed, humble, ever-curious love of stuff is central to my idea of being an artist....in celebrating craftsmanship I also celebrate artists, well most of them.


Model boat with skeletons, Mexico, 1980s


The tomb of the unknown craftsman: it takes the form of an iron ship sailing into the afterlife. In the central reliquary is an example of the original tool which begat all tools, a flint hand axe 250000 years old.

Added much later: here's a link to the notes from my second visit to this exhibition: http://jayoptimistic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/tomb-of-unknown-craftsman-2.html

Creativity and leadership: Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra

I went to see this wonderful band last week.  It was an absolutely brilliant concert: surprising, stimulating, awe-inspiring, tender, funny, and above all musical: it made me think again about tunes I thought I knew, and introduced me to wonderful songs new to me (in particular Blue Pepper by Duke Ellington, and I'll wait for you by Sun Ra).  The band consists of...wait for it....27 musicians (or thereabouts - there were also a number of mannequins positioned in and around the band, some of them apparently playing instruments, which made counting people difficult!): 9 brass and woodwind, 5 strings, 3 guitars, 2 keyboards, 4 drums, percussion and vibes, and 4 singers.  The music was eclectic (an overused word I know but absolutely precise in this case), encompassing Captain Beefheart, 'Library Music' (not sure what this is), Ellington, Coltrane, a reworked and even more doom-laden Ghost Town by the original Specials, cheerful ska classics, Edgar Broughton, Johnny Clarke, Dvorak, In the Bleak Midwinter, and especially the music of Sun Ra, pioneer and promoter of black consciousness and interplanetary travel, spiritual mentor and forerunner of George Clinton and Funkadelic.  Spatial AKA, like the Sun Ra orchestra, were kitted out in glittery and vaguely Egyptian robes, hairpieces, sunglasses and/or masks, arrived on stage piecemeal from amongst the audience, while making a collective sound like a gathering storm of didgeridoos (one instrument unaccountably absent from the proceedings).  They played continuously for three hours, and then for another half an hour out in the lobby as everyone was leaving!

Visually, the movements of the band members and their costumes were augmented by a strange set involving already mentioned mannequins, three of which were painted silver and suspended above the band as if flying, along with what I gradually realised was a small lunar module about to crash to earth.  Behind the band was a continuously changing and layered projection of slides, videos, and psychedelic lightshow, the like of which I haven't seen for years: it took me happily back to New Riders of the Purple Sage at Surrey University in about 1972!  But this backdrop wasn't just for decoration, it imparted a powerful cultural and political flavour to the music, so that even though there were almost no overt political statements or references during the set, the whole experiene was flavoured with a clear enough set of political messages and affiliations.

There were so many terrific musical and visual moments: Alcyona Mick playing whirlwind piano solos while apparently motionless, a kettle drum solo involving continuous de-tuning and retuning of the drums during the solo, wonderful ensemble arrangements and solos amongst the brass, woodwind and strings sections, complex textures added by percussion and vibes, and poetry and scat singing as well as a joyous impersonation of the late great Captain Beefheart by Edgar Broughton, himself something of a legend in his own lunchtime for those of us of a certain age, singing Frownland from Trout Mask Replica.  Johnny Clarke, the great Jamaican reggae singer, came on like a cheerful psychedelic Santa Claus, all in yellow and with locks reaching down to his calves!  For me the single best moment was Francine Luce singing Sun Ra's I'll wait for you, in memory of her father.  The band's website has a few short clips of music, and there are more on Youtube, but don't let anything stop you from seeing them live if you can.

Why am I writing about the Spatial AKA Orchestra here, in a blog focussed mainly on education?  Well, the sheer size of the band got me thinking about the kind of organisation needed to put a concert like this together, and this led on to a perennial topic of thought and conversation with me: the qualities needed by the people who run such enterprises.  I'd love to talk to Jerry Dammers about this: his must be an incredibly complex and difficult job.  He is thought of as a song-writer and arranger, but he's obviously much more than that.  The economics of big bands can't be easy: many, if not all, of the individual members of the Spatial AKA are absolutely at the top of the tree in their various specialisms, and they all need to make a living.  I read somewhere that Miles Davis's legendary Birth of the Cool septet only existed long enough to make a  single record, and didn't play any gigs, because even with only seven they couldn't earn enough in New York in the late 40s.  Ellington and Basie managed it somehow, but for them it may have been easier because popular musical taste demanded large dance bands, at least during some periods; that is hardly the situation in 2011.  Captain Beefheart's uncompromising vision led him, allegedly, to shut his band up for a year to practice, hardly feeding them anything, let alone paying them, until they were note-perfect on Trout Mask Replica.   The band-leader's job, apart from choosing and arranging songs (for 27 parts!), includes all the organisational issues of publicity and marketing, negotiating and agreeing contracts with concert halls and promoters, travel and accommodation (for 27!), and then, most interestingly of all, the people-management issues within the band itself.  There must be so many potential headaches among such a large group of creative people!  Is Jerry an Arsene Wenger, an Alex Ferguson, or an ashen-faced Ron Knee?  His musical arrangements depend for their success on the skills of all the individuals playing them: suppose some of them aren't so enthusiastic about them?  This is analogous to footballers having to play within the tactical system designed by their manager: we know all too well how easily confidence of the manager in the player's capability, or of the player in the manager's system, can be broken down - similar issues must arise in big bands too.

All of this points to the fact that an enterprise like the Spatial AKA Orchestra is no trivial project, and this makes me marvel all the more at last week's gig: it was a triumph not just of musical creation and re-creation, but of leadership and organisation too.  Each depends on the other.  Thanks to everyone involved!