note taking/posted elsewhere

Technical fields need philosophy as counter-force to the technical imperative, the "inertia" that accrues to technical practice. The arts and humanities do not need philosophy, they are philosophy. In the arts and humanities in a democratic culture (and humanism and the humanities are the origin of democracy), practice is theory.

We're living through something of a renaissance, a rebirth of humanism, but not in the academy. The academic arts and humanities are dying. Academic fields have become merely technical, therefore anti-intellectual. Arguing that the humanities are profitable is an admission of defeat. The humanities are democracy.

The "Brights", TED, Convergence Culture, all the culture of capitalist functionalism. Culture is constitutive. In technocracy, culture is entertainment. TED is "Technology, Entertainment, Design". Participants in TED will not ask the question: What it the culture of Technology, Entertainment, and Design?

Literature is writing to describe the writer writing and his or her perceived relations to the world. Art isn't "creative" it's observational. Creativity is no more than "inventiveness". Inventiveness is the Cartesian model of art, the nature of the "I" is assumed. Cartesian art is illustration, describing assumptions.

Convergence culture, TED, advertising theory, are all Cartesian. The "I" is not described, it is assumed. It's neoliberal capitalist anti-humanism.