Fahrenheit 451: passive consumption through audience participation
"When the 'Family' (the television with its 'cousin' announcers and actors) presents an interactive play in which Linda believes she has a role, an actor (Donald Pickering) wearing glasses with thick, black rectangular frames, turns to the camera as it zooms in on him and says, 'What do you think, Linda?'"
(Tom Whalen, Gale Student Resources In Context)
Whalen, Tom. "The Consequences of Passivity: Re-evaluating Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451," in Literature-Film Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 3, July, 2007, pp. 181(10).
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Ken Robinson: human ability and talent is highly diverse
"Yes you know there’s this view that only special people are creative and it's not me. It's not it's not anybody I really know. It's a very isolated sort of genius you know to be really creative. And you know people doubt their own strengths and their own capacities. So I meet all kind of people who don't really get much fulfilment from the work they do. You know they just get through it and wait for the weekend. But I also meet people who love what they do. And couldn't imagine doing anything else. You know if you set and don't this anymore they wouldn’t' know what you were talking about because this is who they are. You know I mean like I don’t know what else I would do. They are so to speak in their element. And so the book is about that. It's about the journeys people took to discover their own talents and what difference it made in their lives. And I talk to all kinds of people. It's not just interviews. But the book is seasoned as you know with interviews with people in science in business in the arts in sports in technology all kinds of different fields and what's interesting to me is of course it's different for everybody and this is really a key point you know that human ability and talent is highly diverse. You know what turns somebody on might totally turn somebody else off. What excites some propel does not excite other people and I know when I am signing the book these days I always ask people what they do. And when they tell me I ask them if they like it. And I always think it's great when people say I love it. Because you just never [inaudible].'"
(Ken Robinson, Conversations from Penn State)
Fig.1 Conversations from Penn State Episode 207: Sir Ken Robinson, Uploaded by WPSU TV/FM/Online on 6 Nov 2010, YouTube.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Urban Theory: the disintegration of social relationships into anomie
"Durkheim, writing towards the end of the nineteenth century, feared the disintegration of social relationships into 'anomie'. This constituted a situation where the norms and expectations surrounding behaviour were no longer known. The onset of industrialisation would create normlessness and social breakdown. He identified, as a key feature, the shift from a community based upon mechanical solidarity to one based upon organic solidarity. Mechanical solidarity was where the moral ideas and values of a society were shared by all members, collective authority was absolute and. deviants were not allowed. Conformity to the rules was expected of all the population and was enforced by strong sanctions. The basis of this form of solidarity was the homogeneity of moral beliefs across the population. In contrast, organic solidarity was based upon social differentiation and a key integrating role was played by the division of labour. The new form of solidarity was thus based upon the interdependence of specialised parts. Norms, rules and laws were organised, not around repression, but through contracts between individuals and groups which were legally binding and enforceable via the judiciary and court system. Stability and integration would be rebuilt on the basis of necessity. None of us could survive in the new industrialised urban world on our own; we all depended upon the activities of each other. The newsolidarity that Durkheim saw emerging came out of our diversity rather than being imposed by our homogeneity as it had been under 'mechanical solidarity'. He thus termed this new form of solidarity 'organic solidarity'."
(David C. Thorns, 2002, p. 23)
David C. Thorns (2002). "The Transformation of Cities", Palgrave Macmillan.
Durkheim, Émile. 1960. "The Division of Labour in Society". New York: Macmillian.
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The Constellations ProjectSHARE
