sabato 30 novembre 2013
Principio di precauzione
"David Friedman on the Precautionary Principle, by David Henderson" http://feedly.com/k/Ixz3yz
venerdì 29 novembre 2013
TOLLERA IL BRUTTO E AVRAI PIU' BELLEZZA
La società consumistica elargisce un... - Riccardo Mariani:
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https://www.facebook.com/riccardo.mariani.585/posts/10202879147046861
La società consumistica elargisce un insegnamento estetico di primordine: è dalla tolleranza del brutto che scaturisce il bello.
Un confronto tra Italia e Germania.
“… if you go to Germany or you go to Switzerland and you go through the countryside, there are all these houses that are exactly the same, [only] a little variation. Sometimes they even have coordinated geranium flowers. It looks beautiful—a great place for a vacation… The landscape is tightly regulated in these countries, curbing individuality and experimentation in the name of good design…
Things are different in Italy, which also happens to be famous for its wildly creative design industries. If you go to the Italian countryside where people really live and work, you cannot find two houses that look the same. It’s continuous experimentation. And 99 percent of them are ugly, but ugly—ugly, ugly, ugly… But, he suggests, the culture that allows that experimentation, tolerating failures, is the same culture that produces aesthetic breakthroughs…”
It is tolerance for the ugliness that is the basis for the greatness of Italian design…”
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (P.S.) by Virginia Postrel
BELLEZZA E CULTURA ESTETICA
Estetica e scienza possono convivere nelle... - Riccardo Mariani:
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Estetica e scienza possono convivere nelle nostre scuole?
Contro (Joanne Jacobs):
“I complain that schools teach children PowerPoint rather than critical writing and reward attractive presentations that get basic facts wrong. In science, the lab report is another chance to shine graphically—even if that lovely diagram refutes Galileo… “Dumb, But Pretty”… Students are spending lots of time on aesthetics instead of traditional academic pursuits…”
Pro (Virginia Postrel):
“If a science teacher accepts a diagram that contradicts Galileo, the teacher’s ignorance, not the graphic design, is to blame. Galileo himself was not just a great scientist, mathematician, and writer but an accomplished draftsman who recorded his lunar observations in watercolors. Before romanticism declared art the province of a talented, bohemian few, drawing and painting were both common scientific tools and signs of personal refinement. Galileo used pictures as well as words to persuade. His work was smart and pretty…”
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (P.S.)
by Virginia Postrel
by Virginia Postrel
BELLEZZA E CPI BIAS
I tempi sono grami, per la prima volta dal... - Riccardo Mariani:
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I tempi sono grami, per la prima volta dal dopoguerra la generazione dei figli vivrà peggio rispetto a quella dei padri. Lo si sente dire spesso, ma ne siamo poi così sicuri? Attenzione perché PIL e redditi stagnanti sono un indicatore ingannevole. Per capirlo, niente di meglio che ragionare pensando al “bello” e al ruolo crescente dell’ estetica nella società contemporanea.
Much of the value created through aesthetics doesn’t make it into the economic data that shape perceptions and policy. The problem isn’t with the statisticians, who are neither careless nor incompetent. Intangible goods like aesthetics are inherently difficult to measure and count, especially if competition means their value isn’t reflected in higher prices…
… Consider women’s shoes. Embroidered and beaded shoes used to sell for luxury prices, no less than $100 a pair and usually more. They required skilled artisans to make, so moderately priced shoes couldn’t cover the manufacturing expense. But in the late 1990s, automation drove down the cost of these adornments and improved their durability. Because sophisticated skills were no longer needed, the work could be done in cheap labor markets like China…
Did fancy shoemakers suddenly garner enormous profits? Not at all. The shoe business is far too competitive. Instead, embroidery and beads began to appear on shoes selling for $70 instead of $250. “Because the savings in labor costs are mostly passed on to the consumer…
… Adjusted for inflation, the price of a movie ticket in 2001 was lower than in 1990 and much lower than its peak in 1971, yet sound systems and special effects are substantially improved. Holding other quality factors constant, moviegoers get more for their money today… ecc. ecc. ecc.
More important than the direct policy effects is the data’s psychological effect. Incomes LOOK STAGNANT even while LIVING STANDARDS are rising. Since we so quickly become accustomed to higher aesthetic standards, we forget what things used to be like…
We look at the official data and conclude we’re poorer than we really are…
Missing some of the economy’s greatest advances, we believe pessimists who say progress has effectively ended. Or we focus all our optimism on flashy technology and miss the incremental improvements in everyday life…”
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (P.S.) by Virginia Postrel
ANATEMA VERSO IL BRUTTO
L' anatema verso il brutto sarà anche un dovere... - Riccardo Mariani:
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L' anatema verso il brutto sarà anche un dovere ma è un dovere molto molto pericoloso. Ecco il triste spettacolo di cio' che spesso accade nella testa del censore:
"... If we build suburbs with yards and cul de sacs, away from the smoke and crowds of the city, as the twentieth-century Garden City movement advocated, labor and capital will live in peace... If we build new houses with porches, goes today’s New Urbanist reasoning, we’ll be neighborly like in the good old days. (Never mind that air-conditioning makes hanging out on the porch less necessary or desirable.) If we outlaw big garages, people will abandon their automobiles. If we build unusual houses, people will be tolerant. If we make a city exactly the way I want to live, EVERYONE WILL BE LIKE ME..."
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (P.S.) by Virginia Postrel
LA BELLEZZA NEL MIRINO DEI NIPOTINI DI MLK
La bellezza nel mirino dei nipotini degeneri di... - Riccardo Mariani:
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La bellezza nel mirino dei nipotini degeneri di Martin Luther King. Per i datori di lavoro è un incubo. Il caso degli Hotel:
“… If a charming or intelligent person can have an edge in the job market, why not a handsome or stylish one? Neither charm nor intelligence is distributed any more equally than good looks. But in the lawyer’s view, personal appearance is simply not a legitimate source of value outside a few conventionally artistic fields like theater or cinema… The essence of the job in a hotel, they insist, must have nothing to do with look and feel, which are extraneous considerations. A hotel shouldn’t use its staff to create an aesthetically pleasing environment or send signals about what sort of place it is…”
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (P.S.) by Virginia Postrel
mercoledì 27 novembre 2013
Come nasce uno Stato
"Where do warlords come from? (My favorite political economy paper of the year)" http://feedly.com/k/1bnWOpU
Medicalizzazione della vita
"Ritalin, bambini e sindrome adhd: il suo inventore sul letto di morte dice che e’ malattia inventata « Giù le Mani dai Bambini" http://feedly.com/k/1a5P0CK
martedì 26 novembre 2013
ESTETICA CONSUMISTA
I critici dell’ estetica consumista… “… when... - Riccardo Mariani:
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I critici dell’ estetica consumista…
“… when they aren’t denouncing surfaces as lies and illusion, cultural critics typically have one explanation for why we devote time, attention, and, most of all, money to aesthetics: It’s all about status…
The argument depends on the conviction that we do not want those expensive shoes or large homes because of any intrinsic qualities… we do not value the luxuries themselves—the soft leather of the shoes, the smooth granite countertop, the sculptural lines of the car, the drape and fit of the jacket—but just want to stand out, or at least not look bad, compared to other people.
But…
… What if every product came in a plain black-and-white box—but one company invested in graphics and color? What if everyone wore drab Mao suits—but one person dressed with color, tailoring, and flair? People would, of course, be drawn to the aesthetic deviant, even though that nonconformity might well offend the reigning status hierarchy. This thought experiment suggests something at work besides status and one-upmanship… “
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (P.S.) by Virginia Postrel
lunedì 25 novembre 2013
Il pazzo che è in noi
"The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath | Surprising Science" http://feedly.com/k/1bJHy1a
domenica 24 novembre 2013
Le trappole del PIL
"GDP: A Bad Measure of Well-Being, by David Henderson" http://feedly.com/k/Int5An
sabato 23 novembre 2013
CROCIATE CONTRO LA SUPERFICIE
Crociate contro la superficie. Scuola di... - Riccardo Mariani:
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Crociate contro la superficie. Scuola di Francoforte, puritani e femministe cazziano capitalisti, cattolici e veline usando più o meno le stesse parole.
“… To such critics, form is dangerously seductive, because it allows the sensory to override the rational… An appealing package can make you believe that Nazis are good, or that colas are distinguishable... The very power of aesthetics makes its value suspect… “In advertising, packaging, product design, and corporate identity, the power of provocative surfaces speaks to the eye’s mind, overshadowing matters of quality or substance oiling the machinery of gratification and instant desire”… “hedonism, is the world of fashion, photography, advertising, television, travel. It is a world of make-believe”… Frankfurt School Marxists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer… in commercial products… see ornament and variety not as goods that we value for their own sakes but as tools for creating false desire… Women’s fashion and fashion photography exemplify the same falsehood as advertising: “this task of selling illusions, the persuasions of the witches’ craft”… Preachers warned against women’s makeup, which “takes the pencill out of God’s hand,” defying nature and divine will. “What a contempt of God is this, to preferre the worke of thine owne finger to the worke of God?” exclaimed one writer condemning cosmetics… Naomi Wolf advocates “civil rights for women that will entitle a woman to say that she’d rather look like herself than some ‘beautiful’ young stranger.” Wolf praises the “female identity” affirmed by women who refuse to alter their appearance with makeup, hair dye, or cosmetic surgery: “a woman’s determination to show her loyalty—in the face of a beauty myth as powerful as myths about white supremacy—to her age, her shape, her self, her life.” Except those born with exceptional natural beauty, authenticity and aesthetics are, in this vision, inevitably at odds. Remaining true to oneself means eschewing artifice…
... This reasoning combines the oversimplified Maslovian idea, “aesthetics is a luxury,” with a puritanical conviction that luxury is waste...
… The claim is unfalsifiable, since the more we try to proclaim the real value we attach to look and feel, the more we demonstrate just how duped we are… Viscerally, if not intellectually, we’re convinced that style does matter, that look and feel add something important to our lives. We ignore the preachers and behave as if aesthetics does have real value. We cherish streamlined artifacts, unconcerned that they do not really move through space. We find spiritual uplift in pageantry and music… If you don’t know how to dress, then what else don’t you know? Do you know how to advise students or grade papers? The clothes are part of the judgment of the mind…
Aesthetics is not a luxury, but a universal human desire. Those anticapitalists who criticize markets for luring consumers into wanting more than their basic needs, and those capitalists who scoff at aesthetics for detracting from serious work, are missing a fundamental fact of human nature… Good Design is not about the perfect thing anymore, but about helping a lot of different people build their own personal identities…
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness by Virginia Postrel
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