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The French police stopped the Swiss Ambassador to OECD, the other day, on suspicion of driving under the influence. Charges were placed against him. The Swiss government lifted the ambassador’s diplomatic immunity but did not recall him – a move which would have effectively shielded him from prosecution by giving him safe conduit out […]
May 30, 2013
Unimaginable, right? Well, this was the situation in the French rural areas under the Ancien Regime (things were no better in the stinking cities). Most people barely had enough to eat: at best it was 2kg of bread a day in water – or an equivalent fare. Meat was on the table a few holidays […]
May 29, 2013
Ms. Shirin EBADI, an Iranian human rights lawyer who received the Nobel Prize in 2003, has written an occasional piece (http://bit.ly/157Bvmw) – probably on the occasion of the “Nobel Women’s Initiative Conference” in Belfast. The text is canonical: it reflects and summarizes mainstream views. I’ll discuss this text to highlight what I consider troublesome […]
May 23, 2013
In my blog entry 211, I waxed skeptical about Joseph S. NYE’s “soft power”. I disliked the intertwining of persuasion and brute power. Persuasion backed by power tends to become dogma. NYE’s concept of “change from within”, however, has an intriguing kernel. My meandering readings have led me to some insights in this respect, which […]
May 3, 2013
About 6 million years ago, the chimpanzees, the bonobos, and hominids divided up the realm of Pan, their Common Ancestor. Looking at the apish offspring today, we see a shared tendency for alpha males/females[1] to appear at the top of pecking orders. There is a pre-disposition for hierarchical structures. There is also strong competition for […]
April 28, 2013
Alain TESTART has written a brilliant analysis of “transfers” in socio-anthropological terms.[1] He observes that there are three types of transfers between people: exchanges, gifts and, finally, what he calls (somewhat awkwardly) “transfers of a third kind”( T3T). It is on the latter ones that I’d like to reflect, for a lot of current political […]
April 27, 2013
I’ve been reading a prominent French social anthropologist, Alain TESTART. His critical analysis of the concept of “gift”[1] in anthropology is nothing short of exact. Reading the text is akin to intellectual Pilates. It challenges and stimulates: at the end one feels clever by reflection. (Vestimentary ornament from Shizaishan. Yunnan, China – 150-50 BCE) At […]
April 10, 2013
I have been reading too much on persuasion, these days, and I have even done some pontificating on the subject matter. It is only while reading on humanity’s Pan Ancestor,[1] however, that I have to come to realize the complexity hiding behind the concept of “persuasion”. Meat-eating apes (chimpanzee, bonobos, and humans) hunt as a […]
June 6, 2013
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