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Popular Belief in the Strong Man: Burning Man Edition Arendt Footnotes #4

8/25/2015

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Picture
(AF4 ~ fourth in a series)




The Strong Man Fallacy

Hannah Arendt, who survived the “strong man” Adolph Hitler, notes that history is filled with examples of strong men become impotent; this is because they did not know how to enlist the help of the many.

The Human Condition
Section 26: The Frailty of Human Affairs
(Page 188, bold added)

Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act. Action and speech need the surrounding presence of others no less than fabrication needs the surrounding presence of nature for its material, and of a world in which to place the finished product. Fabrication is surrounded by and in constant contact with the world: action and speech are surrounded by and in constant contact with the web of the acts and words of other men. The popular belief in a “strong man” who, isolated against others, owes his strength to his being alone is either sheer superstition, based on the delusion that we can “make” something in the realm of human affairs – “make” institutions or laws, for instance, as we make tables and chairs, or make men “better” or “worse” (14) – or it is conscious despair of all action, political and non-political, coupled with the utopian hope that it may be possible to treat men as one treats other “material.” (15)

14. Plato already reproached Pericles because he did not “make the citizen better” and because the Athenians were even worse at the end of his career than before (Gorgias 515).

15. Recent political history is full of examples indicating that the term “human material” is no harmless metaphor, and the same is true for a whole host of modern scientific experiments in social engineering, biochemistry, brain surgery, etc., all of which tend to treat and change human material like other matter. This mechanistic approach is typical of the modern age; antiquity, when it pursued similar aims, was inclined to think of men in terms of savage animals who need be tamed and domesticated. The only possible achievement in either case is to kill man, not indeed necessarily as a living organism, but qua man.

The Man burns in 11 days.

Next Up: Arendt Footnotes #5, Montesquieu’s Rapports and Human Passions, Tuesday 1 September.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner 

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The Artist Objects: Burning Man Edition Arendt Footnotes #3

8/18/2015

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PictureArendt Footnotes #3 ~ The Artist Objects
(AF3 ~ third in a series)






The Artist Objects

The third to last paragraph in Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition also contains the book’s final footnote; its focus is art and modern man:

(Page 323, bold added)
Needless to say, this does not mean that modern man has lost his capacities or is on the point of losing them. No matter what sociology, psychology, and anthropology will tell us about the “social animal,” men persist in making, fabricating, and building, although these faculties are more and more restricted to the abilities of the artist, so that the concomitant experiences of worldliness escape more and more the range of ordinary human experience. (footnote 87)

87. This inherent worldliness of the artist is of course not changed if a “non-objective art” replaces the representation of things; to mistake this “non-objectivity” for subjectivity, where the artist feels called upon to “express himself,” his subjective feelings, is the mark of charlatans, not of artists. The artist, whether painter or sculptor or poet or musician, produces worldly objects, and his reification has nothing in common with the highly questionable and, at any rate, wholly unartistic practice of expression. Expressionist art, but not abstract art, is a contradiction in terms.

The Man burns in 18 days.

Next Up: Arendt Footnotes #4 and The Popular Belief in a Strong Man, Tuesday 25 August.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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Serotonin (5-HT) System, Obesity and Energy Homeostasis

8/13/2015

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PictureSerotonin Receptor (by S Janhichen)





We have a homeostatic serotonin update today from PubMed (June 2015) with the starring principal receptor, 5-HT2CR, in energy action:


Abstract
The central 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT; serotonin) system represents a fundamental component of the brain's control of energy homeostasis.

Medications targeting the 5-HT pathway have been at the forefront of obesity treatment for the past 15 years.

Pharmacological agents targeting 5-HT receptors (5-HTR), in combination with genetic models of 5-HTR manipulation, have uncovered a role for specific 5-HTRs in energy balance and reveal the 5-HT2 C R as the principal 5-HTR mediating this homeostatic process.

Capitalising on this neurophysiological machinery, 5-HT2 C R agonists improve obesity and glycaemic control in patient populations.

The underlying therapeutic mechanism has been probed using model systems and appears to be achieved primarily through 5-HT2 C R modulation of the brain melanocortin circuit via activation of pro-opiomelanocortin neurones signalling at melanocortin4 receptors.

Thus, 5-HT2 C R agonists offer a means to improve obesity and type 2 diabetes, which are conditions that now represent global challenges to human health.

5-hydroxytryptamine medications for the treatment of obesity.
Burke LK, Heisler LK.
J Neuroendocrinol. 2015 Jun;27(6):389-98. doi: 10.1111/jne.12287.
PMID: 25925636
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Next Up: A Hannah Arendt Footnote on Tuesday 18 August.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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Synergistic Louis Armstrong: Publius’ Happy Birthday Cannabinoid Headache Update

8/4/2015

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PictureLouis Armstrong ~ What A Wonder: Adi Holzer 2002






The Cannabis Papers: A citizen’s guide to cannabinoids (2011)
By Publius



Louis Armstrong
American Ambassador
4 August 1901 / 6 July 1971

A PubMed Headache CS Update:


Long Strange Headache Trips and One’s Cannabinoid System
“Supporting literature suggests a role for medicinal cannabis and cannabinoids in several types of headache disorders including migraine and cluster headache, although it is primarily limited to case based, anecdotal, or laboratory-based scientific research. Cannabis contains an extensive number of pharmacological and biochemical compounds, of which only a minority are understood, so many potential therapeutic uses likely remain undiscovered. Cannabinoids appear to modulate and interact at many pathways inherent to migraine, triptan mechanisms of action, and opiate pathways, suggesting potential synergistic or similar benefits. Modulation of the endocannabinoid system through agonism or antagonism of its receptors, targeting its metabolic pathways, or combining cannabinoids with other analgesics for synergistic effects, may provide the foundation for many new classes of medications.”
Comprehensive Review of Medicinal Marijuana, Cannabinoids, and Therapeutic Implications in Medicine and Headache: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been ….
Baron EP.
Headache. 2015 Jun;55(6):885-916. doi: 10.1111/head.12570. Epub 2015 May 25.
PMID: 26015168
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Next Up: Serotonin Homeostasis on 11 August ~ and thank you Mr. Armstrong.

Posted by Bryan W. Brickner

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    Author

    Brickner has a 1997 political science doctorate from Purdue University, cofounded Illinois NORML in 2001, and was a 2007 National NORML Cannabis Advocate Awardee. He is also publisher and coauthor of the 2011 book banned by the Illinois Department of Corrections – The Cannabis Papers: A Citizen’s Guide to Cannabinoids.

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