I wanna tell her that I blogwatch but the point is probably moot…

Dappled Things: “In addition to all the religious things one could say, this feast reminds us also of the annual Perseid meteor shower, known for centuries as the burning Tears of St Lawrence.” Plus a lot of other interesting link-goodness, and thoughts on do-it-yourself eugenics a.k.a. children as lists of qualities, syndromes, abilities, and defects, the value of each to be determined by the parents with heavy pressure from society.

Krubner: Quote mania. Hayek: “If the ‘community” or the state are prior to the individual, if they have ends of their own independent of and superior to those of the individuals, then only those individuals who work for the same ends can be regarded as members of the community. It is a necessary consequence of this view that a person is respected only as a member of the group, that is, only if and in so far as he works for the recognized common ends, and that he derives his whole dignity only from this membership and not merely from being man.” (Oh hey, this seems obviously related to the do-it-yourself eugenics link above.)

A very interesting post on marriage, communitarianism, and loneliness. Made me think of The Schwa in “Judge Me, O God,” which I can’t link because my story archives are still fubar’d. Another intriguing one on unhappiness as the goad that spurs humans to great deeds. I disagree with some of the unspoken theology underlying this post (responses to the world and to others’ success cannot be judged solely on their utilitarian effects; they also need to be judged on intrinsic rightness, thus envy is always wrong even though it often has good effects) but there’s a lot to chew on there. Ratty acutely described the members of the debating society where we met as “pursued by Furies”; we’ve also joked that members have “the mark of Cain.” There’s a drivenness and an outsider stance that provokes hard work, philosophical reflection, and a ferocious desire for the good even when that good conflicts with social norms.

Excerpts from Jo Freeman’s “Tyranny of Structurelessness.” So true: “Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a ‘structureless’ group. Any group of people of whatever nature coming together for any length of time, for any purpose, will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible, it may vary over time, it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities and intentions of the people involved. The very fact that we are individuals with different talents, predisposition’s and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate ‘structurelessness’ and that is not the nature of a human group.

“This means that to strive for a ‘structureless’ group is as useful and as deceptive, as to aim at an ‘objective’ news story, ‘value-free’ social science or a ‘free’ economy. A ‘laissez-faire’ group is about as realistic as a ‘laissez-faire’ society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can easily be established because the idea of ‘structurelessness’ does not prevent the formation of informal structures, but only formal ones. Similarly, ‘laissez-faire’ philosophy did not prevent the economically powerful from establishing control over wages, prices and distribution of goods; it only prevented the government from doing so. Thus ‘structurelessness’ becomes a way of masking power, and within the women’s movement it is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not). The rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is curtailed by those who know the rules, as long as the structure of the group is informal. Those who do not know the rules and are not chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware.

“For everyone to have the opportunity to be involved in a given group and to participate in its activities the structure must be explicit, not implicit. The rules of decision-making must be open and available to everyone, and this can only happen if they are formalised. This is not to say that normalisation of a group structure will destroy the informal structure. It usually doesn’t. But it does hinder the informal structure from having predominant control and makes available some means of attacking it. ‘Structurelessness’ is organisationally impossible. We cannot decide whether to have a structured or structureless group; only whether or not to have a formally structured one. …An unstructured group always has an informal , or covert, structure. It is this informal structure, particularly in unstructured groups, which forms the basis for elites.”

I wrote about this same issue here and here (with a wider-ranging look at the interplay between authority and individuality).

And from around and about the comicsphere, lists of the eleven comic books libraries should stock: Oakhaus, Peiratikos, Sean Collins. I will add only books none of these people mentioned: I shill once more for ElfQuest, Animal Man, Torso, Finder: Sin-Eater, and (since “all-ages” is not a requirement) A Small Killing. You can find my quickie descriptions of These Books And Why They Rock here.