Friday, 28 January 2011
Hello, you.: Yes and Yes
Hello, you.: Yes and Yes: "A lovely little article :) I’m a naturally (and irritatingly) organized person but even I need a swift kick up the backside every now and t..."
Hello, you.: Activism after clicktivism
Hello, you.: Activism after clicktivism: "For more than a decade revolutionaries and culture jammers have been paralyzed by the computer screen. Trusting the promises of technocrat..."
Sunday, 23 January 2011
My children :) xxx
This picture was actually taken by them sat playing on my mac. They have had hours of fun playing on photo booth, giggling their heads off! Funny as :)
Playing with filters and props :)
Could do with croping a little and its a little burred I think. Still :)
Saturday, 22 January 2011
Friday, 21 January 2011
Collection.
I am getting quite the collection of mini dv tapes. This is going to grow and grow and grow as things stand. I will have to store and label them carefully.
I am now the proud owner of a beautiful typewriter!
Just waiting for some ribbon to come through the post. I hope it fits.
First semi-successful interview.
I filmed my first interview today and have another lined up for tomorrow. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The couple I interviewed are such a lovely couple. I have chatted to the in there garden for a few years now. They are really open and friendly. ****** is actually normally very quiet, as she was on this occasion with her husband doing most of the talking. But she gave me two beautiful quotes. The first of which I am not sure will be usable because the light was coming in through the window behind them so parts of the shot are quite bleached out with it. However I did figure out how to sort that out by adjusting the exposure. I'm not sure if that is what you are supposed to do but it seemed to work. I don't think I will be able to save the visuals on it but will try in post production. The second hopefully will be alright.
I will have to pop into town tomorrow to get some more tape because I have run out. School girl error.
I am getting very used to carting heavy camera cases everywhere I go now though. I do need a tripod though.
For this interview and the location I wouldn't want to be taking lighting into someones home I now people do. But I think that too much equipment can make some people feel a little uneasy. I will ask Sharron, Annabeth and Matt what they would do in this situation.
They said I was very quiet and I shoould take a bit more control of the questioning. I didnt want to freak them out as they were the first people relaxed and speaking to me. But I have taken note, I think I can afford to be a little more pushy if need be. In this case only to bring the conversation back round to the topic at hand. But then I quite like the natural unfolding of things too, and its nice to sit and chat and hear peoples stories. She said she liked my perfume so I might get her a bottle as a thank you.
A key task for the video activist is to select interviewees carefully. The mainstream media overwhelmingly tend to give voice to the white middle-class section of society. As a video activist, therefore, you should strive to find interviewees to redress the traditional biases of the media. You must search out the 'woman who doesn't like being interviewed' in the group, and 'the old guy who gets a bit angry at times.' Don't limit yourself to the person who usually gets to give the sound bites to the local news. If you do this, you'll widen the skills gap within the group, and may miss the more authentic and passionate voices.
The video Activist. Page 59.
I will have to pop into town tomorrow to get some more tape because I have run out. School girl error.
I am getting very used to carting heavy camera cases everywhere I go now though. I do need a tripod though.
For this interview and the location I wouldn't want to be taking lighting into someones home I now people do. But I think that too much equipment can make some people feel a little uneasy. I will ask Sharron, Annabeth and Matt what they would do in this situation.
They said I was very quiet and I shoould take a bit more control of the questioning. I didnt want to freak them out as they were the first people relaxed and speaking to me. But I have taken note, I think I can afford to be a little more pushy if need be. In this case only to bring the conversation back round to the topic at hand. But then I quite like the natural unfolding of things too, and its nice to sit and chat and hear peoples stories. She said she liked my perfume so I might get her a bottle as a thank you.
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
Tutorial for visual language
Had my tutorial with Graham today. I new I was going to be in for it and thought I would end up crying but it was great. I did well up a couple of times but I didn't actually cry. It was really helpful. Graham asked me lots of questions and made me really think about what I wanted to do. I told him all the things that have been in my head and he helped me put some order to them by the questions he asked. I have found it really difficult to get my head round this project and really wish I had gone to him sooner. He can be harsh at times and even a little scary but I think it is all honest and valuable questioning. I really need to be doing something I love and not just doing something for the sake of the brief.
So its quotes that I am going for. Quotes or stories that stick out in peoples minds that make them happy, smile, laugh, give them inspiration.
I need to start thinking about locations, lighting, sound. Looking at styles of documenting. I need at least four interviews by next week. I think I would like to just record some interviews without the visuals and create new visuals for the audio. I also need to think about audience, how this film is to be viewed and where. This will help inform and narrow the content and stop me from feeling lost.
Then in a strange twist of fate I bumped into this lovely lady at the bus stop and we started chatting. She works up the road from the college, at St Anne's detox centre and she told me that they have positive affirmations all over the walls at the centre written by and for the people that use the resource. She gave me the number of the manager and said I should ring him. That would be great as alcoholism is something very close to my heart as my Dad was an alcoholic and he died at the age of 45 when I was 17.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Majora Carter: Greening the ghetto | Video on TED.com
Majora Carter: Greening the ghetto | Video on TED.com
This woman is a passionate and inspirational woman I highly recommend you watch this.
This woman is a passionate and inspirational woman I highly recommend you watch this.
Monday, 17 January 2011
Sunday, 16 January 2011
Am I becoming a feminist??!!
Laura has also put me onto both of these which I am really looking forward to. Got my place booked on the workshop and its just up the road from college. It also kind of follows on nicely from my send and receive. The ecourse sounds great and I have signed up for that too but have yet to find the time to actually do it.. Ha! typical! I cant find time to learn how to make time grrrr!!
Saturday, 15 January 2011
Paper Heart - Official Trailer [HD]
I have just watched this film that Laura gave me, really enjoyed it. I like the idea of going around and getting different peoples ideas and stories of the meaning of just one word or concept "LOVE" I also love the innocence and openness of it and the simple puppetry in between to illustrate folks stories of love.
Very cool :)
Papergirl Leeds.
Ok so Laura has set up Papergirl Leeds which is fantastic I think she is going to do a brilliant job of organizing it. Really excited. She has great leadership skills.
I have asked if I can film it again which would also be fab.
I have some ideas I would like to try. But this time I would like to document the whole thing. Laura said that "once people have learned to do something they should pass on information about how they learned it." Which I totally agree with, so documenting the whole group and the progresses and unfolding of the whole thing would be great.
I wonder how the video would look with a bit of the event its self first then showing the all the prep and pre-exhibition building to the ride itself after. I would like to try that. Bits of animation too. A few documentaries I have watched recently have used animation in amongst real video footage, with a really pleasing effect. It would be nice to get a few people filming and sound and interviews etc.
Sounds like Laura has been well busy emailing people involved in papergirl and setting up blogs, face book pages, looking at venues, and designing logos! But to top it all off we are having our first meeting on Monday at her place and she is baking a cake!
This is going to be muchos muchos fun!
I have asked if I can film it again which would also be fab.
I have some ideas I would like to try. But this time I would like to document the whole thing. Laura said that "once people have learned to do something they should pass on information about how they learned it." Which I totally agree with, so documenting the whole group and the progresses and unfolding of the whole thing would be great.
I wonder how the video would look with a bit of the event its self first then showing the all the prep and pre-exhibition building to the ride itself after. I would like to try that. Bits of animation too. A few documentaries I have watched recently have used animation in amongst real video footage, with a really pleasing effect. It would be nice to get a few people filming and sound and interviews etc.
Sounds like Laura has been well busy emailing people involved in papergirl and setting up blogs, face book pages, looking at venues, and designing logos! But to top it all off we are having our first meeting on Monday at her place and she is baking a cake!
This is going to be muchos muchos fun!
Wikipedia on 'thegift.'
In the social sciences, a gift economy (or gift culture) is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards (i.e. no formal quid pro quo exists).[1] Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community. The organization of a gift economy stands in contrast to a barter economy or a market economy. Informal custom governs exchanges, rather than an explicit exchange of goods or services for money or some other commodity.[2]
Various social theories concerning gift economies exist. Some consider the gifts to be a form of reciprocal altruism. Another interpretation is that social status is awarded in return for the gifts.[3] Consider for example, the sharing of food in some hunter-gatherer societies, where food-sharing is a safeguard against the failure of any individual's daily foraging. This custom may reflect concern for the well-being of others, it may be a form of informal insurance, or may bring with it social status or other benefits.
A gift economy normally requires the gift exchange to be more than simply a back-and-forth between two individuals. For example, a Kashmiri tale tells of two Brahmin women who tried to fulfill their obligations for alms-giving simply by giving alms back and forth to one another. On their deaths they were transformed into two poisoned wells from which no one could drink, reflecting the barrenness of this weak simulacrum of giving.[4] This notion of expanding the circle can also be seen in societies where hunters give animals to priests, who sacrifice a portion to a deity (who, in turn, is expected to provide an abundant hunt). The hunters do not directly sacrifice to the deity themselves.[4]
Many societies have strong prohibitions against turning gifts into trade or capital goods. Anthropologist Wendy James writes that among the Uduk people of northeast Africa there is a strong custom that any gift that crosses subclan boundaries must be consumed rather than invested.[5] For example, an animal given as a gift must be eaten, not bred. However, as in the example of the Trobriand armbands and necklaces, this "perishing" may not consist of consumption as such, but of the gift moving on. In other societies, it is a matter of giving some other gift, either directly in return or to another party. To keep the gift and not give another in exchange is reprehensible. "In folk tales," Hyde remarks, "the person who tries to hold onto a gift usually dies."[6]
Carol Stack's All Our Kin describes both the positive and negative sides of a network of obligation and gratitude effectively constituting a gift economy. Her narrative of The Flats, a poor Chicago neighborhood, tells in passing the story of two sisters who each came into a small inheritance. One sister hoarded the inheritance and prospered materially for some time, but was alienated from the community. Her marriage ultimately broke up, and she integrated herself back into the community largely by giving gifts. The other sister fulfilled the community's expectations, but within six weeks had nothing material to show for the inheritance but a coat and a pair of shoes.[7]
Additionally, in some kinds of gift economies, gift recipients are expected to give something in return, such as political support, military services and general loyalty, or even return gifts and favors. This was common in warrior societies where kings and chieftains gave freely to their followers and could expect their loyal service in return. Such systems have social sanctions built in to punish freeloaders or miserly chiefs. A default punishment would be to halt gifts or services from one party to the alleged party in wrong. Typical sanctions might also include a bad reputation, formal eviction from the lord's hall, a challenge to a duel, or public ridicule.
History
The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins writes that Stone Age gift economies were, as evidenced by their nature as gift economies, economies of abundance, not scarcity, despite modern readers' typical assumption of objective poverty.[8]
Lewis Hyde locates the origin of gift economies in the sharing of food, citing as an example the Trobriand Islander protocol of referring to a gift in the Kula exchange ring as "some food we could not eat," even though the gift is not food, but an ornament purposely made for passing as a gift.[9] The potlatch also originated as a 'big feed'.[10] Hyde argues that this led to a notion in many societies of the gift as something that must "perish"
Examples
[edit] Social structures
There are many examples of how a gift economy works in modern culture within a mixed economy, such as marriage, family, friendship, kinship, and social network structures.
[edit] Societies
[edit] Pacific islanders
Pacific Island societies prior to the nineteenth century were essentially gift economies.[citation needed] This practice still endures in parts of the Pacific today - for example in some outer islands of the Cook Islands.[11] In Tokelau, despite the gradual appearance of a market economy, a form of gift economy remains through the practice of inati, the strictly egalitarian sharing of all food resources in each atoll.[12] On Anuta as well, a gift economy called "Aropa" still exists.[13]
There are also a significant number of diasporic Pacific Islander communities in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States that still practice a form of gift economy. Although they have become participants in those countries' market economies, some seek to retain practices linked to an adapted form of gift economy, such as reciprocal gifts of money, or remittances back to their home community. The notion of reciprocal gifts is seen as essential to the fa'aSamoa ("Samoan way of life"), the anga fakatonga ("Tongan way of life"), and the culture of other diasporic Pacific communities.[14]
[edit] Papua New Guinea
The Kula ring still exists to this day, as do other exchange systems in the region, such as Moka exchange in the Mt. Hagen area, on Papua New Guinea.
Native Americans
Native Americans who lived in the Pacific Northwest (primarily the Kwakiutl), practiced the potlatch ritual, where leaders give away large amounts of goods to their followers, strengthening group relations. By sacrificing accumulated wealth, a leader gained a position of honor.
[edit] Mexico
In the Sierra Tarahumara of North Western Mexico, a custom exists called kórima. This custom says that it is one's duty to share his wealth with anyone.[15]
[edit] Spain
In place of a market, anarcho-communists, such as those who inhabited some Spanish villages in the 1930s, support a currency-less gift economy where goods and services are produced by workers and distributed in community stores where everyone (including the workers who produced them) is essentially entitled to consume whatever they want or need as "payment" for their production of goods and services.
[edit] Religious gift giving
Main articles: Sacrifice and Ritual
[edit] Buddhism
Main article: Alms
In Southeast Asia, Theravada Buddhists continue to sponsor "Feasts of Merit" that are very similar to potlatch. Such feasts usually involve many sponsors and occur mainly before and after the rainy season.[17]
Hinduism
Main articles: bhiksha and karmkand
Bhiksha is a devotional offering, usually food, presented at a temple or to a swami or a religious Brahmin who in turn provides a religious service (karmkand) or instruction.
Islam
Main article: Zakat
In Islam, the free gift of alms is a religious requirement, which has made social foundations an important part of Muslim communities.[18]
[edit] Judaism
Main article: Tzedakah
According to the Hebrew Bible, tzedakah is a religious obligation that must be performed regardless of financial standing. It is considered as one of the three main acts that can annul a less than favorable heavenly decree.
[edit] Information gift economies
Information is particularly suited to gift economies, as information is a nonrival good and can be gifted at practically no cost.[19][20]
[edit] Science
Traditional scientific research can be thought of as an information gift economy. Scientists produce research papers and give them away through journals and conferences. Other scientists freely refer to such papers. All scientists can therefore benefit from the increased pool of knowledge. The original scientists receive no direct benefit from others building on their work, except an increase in their reputation. Failure to cite and give credit to original authors (thus depriving them of reputational effects) is considered improper behavior.[21]
[edit] Filesharing
Markus Giesler, in his ethnography "Consumer Gift Systems" has developed music downloading as a system of social solidarity based on gift transactions.[22]
[edit] Open-source software
In his essay "Homesteading the Noosphere", noted computer programmer Eric S. Raymond opined that open-source software developers have created "a 'gift culture' in which participants compete for prestige by giving time, energy, and creativity away".[23] Members of the Linux community often speak of their community as a gift economy.[24]
[edit] Wikipedia
Millions of articles are available on Wikipedia, a free on-line encyclopedia, and almost none of its innumerable authors and editors receive any direct material reward.[25]
[edit] Social theories
Various social theories concerning gift economies exist. Some consider the gifts to be a form of reciprocal altruism. Another interpretation is that social status is awarded in return for the gifts.[3] Consider for example, the sharing of food in some hunter-gatherer societies, where food-sharing is a safeguard against the failure of any individual's daily foraging. This custom may reflect concern for the well-being of others, it may be a form of informal insurance, or may bring with it social status or other benefits.
Hyde
According to Lewis Hyde, a traditional gift economy is based on "the obligation to give, the obligation to accept, and the obligation to reciprocate," and that it is "at once economic, juridical, moral, aesthetic, religious, and mythological."[26] He describes the spirit of a gift economy (and its contrast to a market economy) as:[27]
The opposite of "Indian giver" would be something like "white man keeper"... [W]hatever we have been given is supposed to be given away not kept. Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move in its stead... [T]he gift may be given back to its original donor, but this is not essential... The only essential is this: the gift must always move.
Hyde also argues that there is a difference between a "true" gift given out of gratitude and a "false" gift given only out of obligation. In Hyde's view, the "true" gift binds us in a way beyond any commodity transaction, but "we cannot really become bound to those who give us false gifts."[28]
Hyde argues that when a primarily gift-based economy is turned into a commodity-based economy, "the social fabric of the group is invariably destroyed."[29] Much as there are prohibitions against turning gifts into capital, there are prohibitions against treating gift exchange as barter. Among the Trobrianders, for example, treating Kula as barter is considered a disgrace.[30] Hyde writes that commercial goods can generally become gifts, but when gifts become commodities, the gift "...either stops being a gift or else abolishes the boundary... Contracts of the heart lie outside the law and the circle of gifts is narrowed, therefore, whenever such contracts are narrowed to legal relationships."[31]
[edit] Mauss
Sociologist Marcel Mauss argues a different position, that gifts entail obligation and are never 'free'. According to Mauss, while it is easy to romanticize a gift economy, humans do not always wish to be enmeshed in a web of obligation. Mauss wrote, "The gift not yet repaid debases the man who accepts it,"[32] a lesson certainly not lost on the young person seeking independence who decides not to accept more money or gifts from his or her parents.[33] And as Hyde writes, "There are times when we want to be aliens and strangers."[34] We like to be able to go to the corner store, buy a can of soup, and not have to let the store clerk into our affairs or vice versa. We like to travel on an airplane without worrying about whether we would personally get along with the pilot. A gift creates a "feeling bond." Commodity exchange does not.
Kropotkin
Anarchists, particularly anarcho-primitivists and anarcho-communists, believe that variations on a gift economy may be the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Therefore they often desire to refashion all of society into a gift economy. Anarcho-communists advocate a gift economy as an ideal, with neither money, nor markets, nor central planning. This view traces back at least to Peter Kropotkin, who saw in the hunter-gatherer tribes he had visited the paradigm of "mutual aid".
Peter Kropotkin argues that mutual benefit is a stronger incentive than mutual strife and is eventually more effective collectively in the long run to drive individuals to produce. The reason given is that a gift economy stresses the concept of increasing the other's abilities and means of production, which would then (theoretically) increase the ability of the community to reciprocate to the giving individual. Other solutions to prevent inefficiency in a pure gift economy due to wastage of resources that were not allocated to the most pressing need or want stresses the use of several methods involving collective shunning where collective groups keep track of other individuals' productivity, rather than leaving each individual having to keep track of the rest of society by him or herself.
Various social theories concerning gift economies exist. Some consider the gifts to be a form of reciprocal altruism. Another interpretation is that social status is awarded in return for the gifts.[3] Consider for example, the sharing of food in some hunter-gatherer societies, where food-sharing is a safeguard against the failure of any individual's daily foraging. This custom may reflect concern for the well-being of others, it may be a form of informal insurance, or may bring with it social status or other benefits.
A gift economy normally requires the gift exchange to be more than simply a back-and-forth between two individuals. For example, a Kashmiri tale tells of two Brahmin women who tried to fulfill their obligations for alms-giving simply by giving alms back and forth to one another. On their deaths they were transformed into two poisoned wells from which no one could drink, reflecting the barrenness of this weak simulacrum of giving.[4] This notion of expanding the circle can also be seen in societies where hunters give animals to priests, who sacrifice a portion to a deity (who, in turn, is expected to provide an abundant hunt). The hunters do not directly sacrifice to the deity themselves.[4]
Many societies have strong prohibitions against turning gifts into trade or capital goods. Anthropologist Wendy James writes that among the Uduk people of northeast Africa there is a strong custom that any gift that crosses subclan boundaries must be consumed rather than invested.[5] For example, an animal given as a gift must be eaten, not bred. However, as in the example of the Trobriand armbands and necklaces, this "perishing" may not consist of consumption as such, but of the gift moving on. In other societies, it is a matter of giving some other gift, either directly in return or to another party. To keep the gift and not give another in exchange is reprehensible. "In folk tales," Hyde remarks, "the person who tries to hold onto a gift usually dies."[6]
Carol Stack's All Our Kin describes both the positive and negative sides of a network of obligation and gratitude effectively constituting a gift economy. Her narrative of The Flats, a poor Chicago neighborhood, tells in passing the story of two sisters who each came into a small inheritance. One sister hoarded the inheritance and prospered materially for some time, but was alienated from the community. Her marriage ultimately broke up, and she integrated herself back into the community largely by giving gifts. The other sister fulfilled the community's expectations, but within six weeks had nothing material to show for the inheritance but a coat and a pair of shoes.[7]
Additionally, in some kinds of gift economies, gift recipients are expected to give something in return, such as political support, military services and general loyalty, or even return gifts and favors. This was common in warrior societies where kings and chieftains gave freely to their followers and could expect their loyal service in return. Such systems have social sanctions built in to punish freeloaders or miserly chiefs. A default punishment would be to halt gifts or services from one party to the alleged party in wrong. Typical sanctions might also include a bad reputation, formal eviction from the lord's hall, a challenge to a duel, or public ridicule.
History
The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins writes that Stone Age gift economies were, as evidenced by their nature as gift economies, economies of abundance, not scarcity, despite modern readers' typical assumption of objective poverty.[8]
Lewis Hyde locates the origin of gift economies in the sharing of food, citing as an example the Trobriand Islander protocol of referring to a gift in the Kula exchange ring as "some food we could not eat," even though the gift is not food, but an ornament purposely made for passing as a gift.[9] The potlatch also originated as a 'big feed'.[10] Hyde argues that this led to a notion in many societies of the gift as something that must "perish"
Examples
[edit] Social structures
There are many examples of how a gift economy works in modern culture within a mixed economy, such as marriage, family, friendship, kinship, and social network structures.
[edit] Societies
[edit] Pacific islanders
Pacific Island societies prior to the nineteenth century were essentially gift economies.[citation needed] This practice still endures in parts of the Pacific today - for example in some outer islands of the Cook Islands.[11] In Tokelau, despite the gradual appearance of a market economy, a form of gift economy remains through the practice of inati, the strictly egalitarian sharing of all food resources in each atoll.[12] On Anuta as well, a gift economy called "Aropa" still exists.[13]
There are also a significant number of diasporic Pacific Islander communities in New Zealand, Australia, and the United States that still practice a form of gift economy. Although they have become participants in those countries' market economies, some seek to retain practices linked to an adapted form of gift economy, such as reciprocal gifts of money, or remittances back to their home community. The notion of reciprocal gifts is seen as essential to the fa'aSamoa ("Samoan way of life"), the anga fakatonga ("Tongan way of life"), and the culture of other diasporic Pacific communities.[14]
[edit] Papua New Guinea
The Kula ring still exists to this day, as do other exchange systems in the region, such as Moka exchange in the Mt. Hagen area, on Papua New Guinea.
Native Americans
Native Americans who lived in the Pacific Northwest (primarily the Kwakiutl), practiced the potlatch ritual, where leaders give away large amounts of goods to their followers, strengthening group relations. By sacrificing accumulated wealth, a leader gained a position of honor.
[edit] Mexico
In the Sierra Tarahumara of North Western Mexico, a custom exists called kórima. This custom says that it is one's duty to share his wealth with anyone.[15]
[edit] Spain
In place of a market, anarcho-communists, such as those who inhabited some Spanish villages in the 1930s, support a currency-less gift economy where goods and services are produced by workers and distributed in community stores where everyone (including the workers who produced them) is essentially entitled to consume whatever they want or need as "payment" for their production of goods and services.
[edit] Religious gift giving
Main articles: Sacrifice and Ritual
[edit] Buddhism
Main article: Alms
In Southeast Asia, Theravada Buddhists continue to sponsor "Feasts of Merit" that are very similar to potlatch. Such feasts usually involve many sponsors and occur mainly before and after the rainy season.[17]
Hinduism
Main articles: bhiksha and karmkand
Bhiksha is a devotional offering, usually food, presented at a temple or to a swami or a religious Brahmin who in turn provides a religious service (karmkand) or instruction.
Islam
Main article: Zakat
In Islam, the free gift of alms is a religious requirement, which has made social foundations an important part of Muslim communities.[18]
[edit] Judaism
Main article: Tzedakah
According to the Hebrew Bible, tzedakah is a religious obligation that must be performed regardless of financial standing. It is considered as one of the three main acts that can annul a less than favorable heavenly decree.
[edit] Information gift economies
Information is particularly suited to gift economies, as information is a nonrival good and can be gifted at practically no cost.[19][20]
[edit] Science
Traditional scientific research can be thought of as an information gift economy. Scientists produce research papers and give them away through journals and conferences. Other scientists freely refer to such papers. All scientists can therefore benefit from the increased pool of knowledge. The original scientists receive no direct benefit from others building on their work, except an increase in their reputation. Failure to cite and give credit to original authors (thus depriving them of reputational effects) is considered improper behavior.[21]
[edit] Filesharing
Markus Giesler, in his ethnography "Consumer Gift Systems" has developed music downloading as a system of social solidarity based on gift transactions.[22]
[edit] Open-source software
In his essay "Homesteading the Noosphere", noted computer programmer Eric S. Raymond opined that open-source software developers have created "a 'gift culture' in which participants compete for prestige by giving time, energy, and creativity away".[23] Members of the Linux community often speak of their community as a gift economy.[24]
[edit] Wikipedia
Millions of articles are available on Wikipedia, a free on-line encyclopedia, and almost none of its innumerable authors and editors receive any direct material reward.[25]
[edit] Social theories
Various social theories concerning gift economies exist. Some consider the gifts to be a form of reciprocal altruism. Another interpretation is that social status is awarded in return for the gifts.[3] Consider for example, the sharing of food in some hunter-gatherer societies, where food-sharing is a safeguard against the failure of any individual's daily foraging. This custom may reflect concern for the well-being of others, it may be a form of informal insurance, or may bring with it social status or other benefits.
Hyde
According to Lewis Hyde, a traditional gift economy is based on "the obligation to give, the obligation to accept, and the obligation to reciprocate," and that it is "at once economic, juridical, moral, aesthetic, religious, and mythological."[26] He describes the spirit of a gift economy (and its contrast to a market economy) as:[27]
The opposite of "Indian giver" would be something like "white man keeper"... [W]hatever we have been given is supposed to be given away not kept. Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move in its stead... [T]he gift may be given back to its original donor, but this is not essential... The only essential is this: the gift must always move.
Hyde also argues that there is a difference between a "true" gift given out of gratitude and a "false" gift given only out of obligation. In Hyde's view, the "true" gift binds us in a way beyond any commodity transaction, but "we cannot really become bound to those who give us false gifts."[28]
Hyde argues that when a primarily gift-based economy is turned into a commodity-based economy, "the social fabric of the group is invariably destroyed."[29] Much as there are prohibitions against turning gifts into capital, there are prohibitions against treating gift exchange as barter. Among the Trobrianders, for example, treating Kula as barter is considered a disgrace.[30] Hyde writes that commercial goods can generally become gifts, but when gifts become commodities, the gift "...either stops being a gift or else abolishes the boundary... Contracts of the heart lie outside the law and the circle of gifts is narrowed, therefore, whenever such contracts are narrowed to legal relationships."[31]
[edit] Mauss
Sociologist Marcel Mauss argues a different position, that gifts entail obligation and are never 'free'. According to Mauss, while it is easy to romanticize a gift economy, humans do not always wish to be enmeshed in a web of obligation. Mauss wrote, "The gift not yet repaid debases the man who accepts it,"[32] a lesson certainly not lost on the young person seeking independence who decides not to accept more money or gifts from his or her parents.[33] And as Hyde writes, "There are times when we want to be aliens and strangers."[34] We like to be able to go to the corner store, buy a can of soup, and not have to let the store clerk into our affairs or vice versa. We like to travel on an airplane without worrying about whether we would personally get along with the pilot. A gift creates a "feeling bond." Commodity exchange does not.
Kropotkin
Anarchists, particularly anarcho-primitivists and anarcho-communists, believe that variations on a gift economy may be the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Therefore they often desire to refashion all of society into a gift economy. Anarcho-communists advocate a gift economy as an ideal, with neither money, nor markets, nor central planning. This view traces back at least to Peter Kropotkin, who saw in the hunter-gatherer tribes he had visited the paradigm of "mutual aid".
Peter Kropotkin argues that mutual benefit is a stronger incentive than mutual strife and is eventually more effective collectively in the long run to drive individuals to produce. The reason given is that a gift economy stresses the concept of increasing the other's abilities and means of production, which would then (theoretically) increase the ability of the community to reciprocate to the giving individual. Other solutions to prevent inefficiency in a pure gift economy due to wastage of resources that were not allocated to the most pressing need or want stresses the use of several methods involving collective shunning where collective groups keep track of other individuals' productivity, rather than leaving each individual having to keep track of the rest of society by him or herself.
A review of Lewis Hdye on "the gift" My book should be in the post. If this is my belief I will never have much much money.. ah well.
Book Review
The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property - by Lewis Hyde
(Vintage Books, 1983)
Reviewed by JoAnn Schwartz
In The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, Lewis Hyde uses anthropology, economics, psychology, art and fairy tales to examine the role gifts have played and continue to play in our emotional and spiritual life. By gifts, Hyde means both material objects and immaterial talents and inspirations, such as 'a gift for music' or 'a gift for mathematics.' Or, as Hyde himself so lyrically observes, "I have hoped . . . to speak of the inner gift that we accept as the object of our labor, and the outer gift that has become a vehicle of culture. I am not concerned with gifts given in spite or fear, nor those gifts we accept out of servility or obligation; my concern is the gift we long for, the gift that, when it comes, speaks commandingly to the soul and irresistibly moves us."
Above all, Hyde is interested in examining the effect our current immersion in the market economy and the myth of the free market has both on our view of gifts and on our ability to give and receive them. The market economy is deliberately impersonal, but the whole purpose of the 'gift economy' is to establish and strengthen the relationships between us, to connect us one to the other. "It is this element of relationship which leads [Hyde] to speak of gift exchange as 'erotic' commerce, opposing eros (the principle of attraction, union, involvement which binds together) to logos (reason and logic in general, the principle of differentiation in particular). A market economy is an emanation of logos."
In a market economy, one can hoard one's goods without losing wealth. Indeed, wealth is increased by hoarding--- although we generally call it 'saving'. In contrast, in a gift economy, wealth is decreased by hoarding, for it is the circulation of the gift(s) within the community that leads to increase--- increase in connections, increase in relationship strength. Through this book, Hyde helps us focus on the importance of gifts, their flow and movement and the impact that the modern market place has had on the circulation of gifts.
In the first half of the book, Hyde examines the structure of traditional gift economies. For non-Western cultures he relies on anthropological studies; for Western culture he looks at our fairy tales and myths. In the second half of the book, Hyde looks at the lives and art of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound, two American poets whose reaction to their gifts and the effects of the market economy on those gifts were very different. Whitman focused his poetic gift on giving expression to the inarticulate, the erotic, the fecundity of nature. Whitman did not hold to material ambitions; he easily distinguished between earning a living and the labor of art --- "The work of my life is making poems," he declared when Leaves of Grass first appeared. Whitman's riches were founded in this refusal to take seriously things outside his art.
In contrast, Pound focused his poetic gift on bringing order to the forces of fertility and the erotic through sheer strength of will. He was incensed by the barrenness of his age, by its lack of generosity towards art and artists. (Pound himself was well known for his sponsorship of other artists, most notably T.S. Eliot and James Joyce.) Pound came to obsess on economics and the unjust distribution of wealth. His obsession was the death of his art.
Hyde is deeply interested in the transformative gift: the gift that changes us profoundly, often received in the form of psychological healing or spiritual teachings. An important aspect of a transformative gift is that the transformation is not instantaneous; it requires the recipient to undertake some extensive and often difficult inner work in order to effect the transformation completely. What motivates us to undertake this labor? In general, it is a feeling of love and gratitude toward our teacher or therapist.
This can lead to problems in today's market economy, where healing and teaching are frequently sold rather than freely given. After all, even a gifted teacher, therapist, or spiritual guide must eat! It is nonetheless possible for an element of the gift economy to circulate above the cash. I recall some young parents at our Waldorf school who, although barely scraping by themselves, managed to come up each year with the full tuition for their child. When asked why they did not apply for financial aid, for which they certainly qualified, they looked surprised and said, "The tuition is our gift to the teachers for what they are giving our child. If we could afford more, we would certainly give it."
As an extreme example of the opposite approach, the author mentions the Church of Scientology, which in 1979 (when Hyde's book was published) had a minimum initial 'donation' of $2,700 for a twelve-and-a-half intensive course. This kind of exaggerated cost tends to cut off the forces of love and gratitude necessary for true transformation.
The point is that a conversion, in the general sense, cannot be settled on ahead of time. We can't predict the fruits of our labor; we can't even know if we'll really go through with it. Gratitude requires an unpaid debt, and we will be motivated to proceed only so long as the debt is felt. If we stop feeling indebted, we quit, and rightly so. To sell a transformative gift therefore falsifies the relationship; it implies that the return gift has been made when in fact it can't be made until the transformation is finished. A prepaid fee suspends the weight of the gift and de-potentiates it as an agent of change. Therapies and spiritual systems delivered through the market will therefore tend to draw the energy required for conversion from an aversion to pain rather than from an attraction to a higher state.
There is another area of Western culture where a remnant of the old gift economy is still active: the scientific community. In examining the community of science, Hyde begins by noting that within this community it is the scientist who shares ideas with others--- who gives away rather than acquires--- who receives the most recognition and status. What, then, is the effect on science of treating ideas as gifts, as contributions to the community? Hyde presents an interesting case:
The task of science is to describe and explain the physical world, or more generally, to develop an integrated body of theory that can account for the facts, and predict them. Even such a brief prospectus points toward several reasons why ideas might be treated as gifts, the first being that the task of assembling a mass of disparate facts into a coherent whole clearly lies beyond the powers of a single mind or even a single generation. All such broad intellectual undertakings call for a community of scholars, one in which each individual thinker can be awash in the ideas of his comrades so that a sort of 'group mind' develops, one that is capable of cognitive tasks beyond the powers of any single person. The commerce of ideas--- donated, accepted (or rejected), integrated---constitutes the thinking of such a mind. . . .. '[I]deas in physics are discussed, presented at meetings, tried out and known to the inner circle of physicists working in the great centers long before they are published in papers and books. . . .' A scientist may conduct his research in solitude, but he cannot do it in isolation. The ends of science require coordination. Each individual's work must 'fit,' and the synthetic nature of gift exchange makes it an appropriate medium for this integration; it is not just people that must be brought together but the ideas themselves.
In science, as elsewhere, the circulation of gifts produces and maintains community, whilst the conversion of gifts to commodities fragments or destroys that same community. However, we are now witnessing the commodification of ideas within the scientific community. Universities and industrial laboratories, which used to produce basic research that was released into 'the public domain' now patent and otherwise protect their research. Discoveries emerge not as contributions but as proprietary ideas for which users must pay a fee, a usury.
This trend began in the late 1970's and early 1980's with biotechnology, but here and now, at the end of the millennium, it seems to have spread to most fields of scientific inquiry. How does the "group mind" necessary to produce theoretical physics/chemistry/biology survive the free-market? Traditionally, academic freedom refers to the freedom of ideas; it is the perception that individuals in the research community must be allowed 'fair use' of other researcher's ideas, must be allowed to explore these ideas without the payment of a usury. But in a free-market economy the concepts of academic freedom and fair use are indentured to the notion of intellectual property. People may be free, but ideas are most definitely not.
Lewis Hyde does not prescribe answers to the many questions his book brings up. Instead, he encourages us to challenge our current assumptions about the proper role of the market place in our relationships with each other and our institutions.
The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property - by Lewis Hyde
(Vintage Books, 1983)
Reviewed by JoAnn Schwartz
In The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, Lewis Hyde uses anthropology, economics, psychology, art and fairy tales to examine the role gifts have played and continue to play in our emotional and spiritual life. By gifts, Hyde means both material objects and immaterial talents and inspirations, such as 'a gift for music' or 'a gift for mathematics.' Or, as Hyde himself so lyrically observes, "I have hoped . . . to speak of the inner gift that we accept as the object of our labor, and the outer gift that has become a vehicle of culture. I am not concerned with gifts given in spite or fear, nor those gifts we accept out of servility or obligation; my concern is the gift we long for, the gift that, when it comes, speaks commandingly to the soul and irresistibly moves us."
Above all, Hyde is interested in examining the effect our current immersion in the market economy and the myth of the free market has both on our view of gifts and on our ability to give and receive them. The market economy is deliberately impersonal, but the whole purpose of the 'gift economy' is to establish and strengthen the relationships between us, to connect us one to the other. "It is this element of relationship which leads [Hyde] to speak of gift exchange as 'erotic' commerce, opposing eros (the principle of attraction, union, involvement which binds together) to logos (reason and logic in general, the principle of differentiation in particular). A market economy is an emanation of logos."
In a market economy, one can hoard one's goods without losing wealth. Indeed, wealth is increased by hoarding--- although we generally call it 'saving'. In contrast, in a gift economy, wealth is decreased by hoarding, for it is the circulation of the gift(s) within the community that leads to increase--- increase in connections, increase in relationship strength. Through this book, Hyde helps us focus on the importance of gifts, their flow and movement and the impact that the modern market place has had on the circulation of gifts.
In the first half of the book, Hyde examines the structure of traditional gift economies. For non-Western cultures he relies on anthropological studies; for Western culture he looks at our fairy tales and myths. In the second half of the book, Hyde looks at the lives and art of Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound, two American poets whose reaction to their gifts and the effects of the market economy on those gifts were very different. Whitman focused his poetic gift on giving expression to the inarticulate, the erotic, the fecundity of nature. Whitman did not hold to material ambitions; he easily distinguished between earning a living and the labor of art --- "The work of my life is making poems," he declared when Leaves of Grass first appeared. Whitman's riches were founded in this refusal to take seriously things outside his art.
In contrast, Pound focused his poetic gift on bringing order to the forces of fertility and the erotic through sheer strength of will. He was incensed by the barrenness of his age, by its lack of generosity towards art and artists. (Pound himself was well known for his sponsorship of other artists, most notably T.S. Eliot and James Joyce.) Pound came to obsess on economics and the unjust distribution of wealth. His obsession was the death of his art.
Hyde is deeply interested in the transformative gift: the gift that changes us profoundly, often received in the form of psychological healing or spiritual teachings. An important aspect of a transformative gift is that the transformation is not instantaneous; it requires the recipient to undertake some extensive and often difficult inner work in order to effect the transformation completely. What motivates us to undertake this labor? In general, it is a feeling of love and gratitude toward our teacher or therapist.
This can lead to problems in today's market economy, where healing and teaching are frequently sold rather than freely given. After all, even a gifted teacher, therapist, or spiritual guide must eat! It is nonetheless possible for an element of the gift economy to circulate above the cash. I recall some young parents at our Waldorf school who, although barely scraping by themselves, managed to come up each year with the full tuition for their child. When asked why they did not apply for financial aid, for which they certainly qualified, they looked surprised and said, "The tuition is our gift to the teachers for what they are giving our child. If we could afford more, we would certainly give it."
As an extreme example of the opposite approach, the author mentions the Church of Scientology, which in 1979 (when Hyde's book was published) had a minimum initial 'donation' of $2,700 for a twelve-and-a-half intensive course. This kind of exaggerated cost tends to cut off the forces of love and gratitude necessary for true transformation.
The point is that a conversion, in the general sense, cannot be settled on ahead of time. We can't predict the fruits of our labor; we can't even know if we'll really go through with it. Gratitude requires an unpaid debt, and we will be motivated to proceed only so long as the debt is felt. If we stop feeling indebted, we quit, and rightly so. To sell a transformative gift therefore falsifies the relationship; it implies that the return gift has been made when in fact it can't be made until the transformation is finished. A prepaid fee suspends the weight of the gift and de-potentiates it as an agent of change. Therapies and spiritual systems delivered through the market will therefore tend to draw the energy required for conversion from an aversion to pain rather than from an attraction to a higher state.
There is another area of Western culture where a remnant of the old gift economy is still active: the scientific community. In examining the community of science, Hyde begins by noting that within this community it is the scientist who shares ideas with others--- who gives away rather than acquires--- who receives the most recognition and status. What, then, is the effect on science of treating ideas as gifts, as contributions to the community? Hyde presents an interesting case:
The task of science is to describe and explain the physical world, or more generally, to develop an integrated body of theory that can account for the facts, and predict them. Even such a brief prospectus points toward several reasons why ideas might be treated as gifts, the first being that the task of assembling a mass of disparate facts into a coherent whole clearly lies beyond the powers of a single mind or even a single generation. All such broad intellectual undertakings call for a community of scholars, one in which each individual thinker can be awash in the ideas of his comrades so that a sort of 'group mind' develops, one that is capable of cognitive tasks beyond the powers of any single person. The commerce of ideas--- donated, accepted (or rejected), integrated---constitutes the thinking of such a mind. . . .. '[I]deas in physics are discussed, presented at meetings, tried out and known to the inner circle of physicists working in the great centers long before they are published in papers and books. . . .' A scientist may conduct his research in solitude, but he cannot do it in isolation. The ends of science require coordination. Each individual's work must 'fit,' and the synthetic nature of gift exchange makes it an appropriate medium for this integration; it is not just people that must be brought together but the ideas themselves.
In science, as elsewhere, the circulation of gifts produces and maintains community, whilst the conversion of gifts to commodities fragments or destroys that same community. However, we are now witnessing the commodification of ideas within the scientific community. Universities and industrial laboratories, which used to produce basic research that was released into 'the public domain' now patent and otherwise protect their research. Discoveries emerge not as contributions but as proprietary ideas for which users must pay a fee, a usury.
This trend began in the late 1970's and early 1980's with biotechnology, but here and now, at the end of the millennium, it seems to have spread to most fields of scientific inquiry. How does the "group mind" necessary to produce theoretical physics/chemistry/biology survive the free-market? Traditionally, academic freedom refers to the freedom of ideas; it is the perception that individuals in the research community must be allowed 'fair use' of other researcher's ideas, must be allowed to explore these ideas without the payment of a usury. But in a free-market economy the concepts of academic freedom and fair use are indentured to the notion of intellectual property. People may be free, but ideas are most definitely not.
Lewis Hyde does not prescribe answers to the many questions his book brings up. Instead, he encourages us to challenge our current assumptions about the proper role of the market place in our relationships with each other and our institutions.
Hello, you.: The battle for equal opportunities still needs fi...
Hello, you.:
The battle for equal opportunities still needs fi...: "The battle for equal opportunities still needs fightingInequality between the sexes is not a big deal any more, a new study tells us. That ..."
The battle for equal opportunities still needs fi...: "The battle for equal opportunities still needs fightingInequality between the sexes is not a big deal any more, a new study tells us. That ..."
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Royal Park School.
So some people involved in the bid to save The Royal Park School are organizing the first of many celebratory events in order to raise funds, awareness and get folk involved in the building they have saved from developers for the community. The council has made a great decision. It is such a positive thing.
I have offered to help with childrens craft activities for the daytime family events. The folk from The Ladybird Project are going to be doing workshops so that will be fun. I am going to take my children too. Have now offered to film too.. eek.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
This is amazing news!!!!! So pleased!!!!!
*
Royal Park school building: Campaigners celebrate council decision
* Council agrees to let residents' group take control of abandoned Leeds school - but tells them they must secure funding within nine months
* Local organisation to take control of Woodhouse Community Centre
royal park primary Community campaigners today moved a step closer to taking control of the Royal Park Primary School building in Hyde Park. Photograph: John Baron/guardian.co.uk
Community campaigners who aim to transform an abandoned Leeds school into a community hub are celebrating after senior councillors agreed they could take control of the building.
Members of the Royal Park Community Consortium (RPCC) have fought for six years to take control of the former Royal Park Primary School in Hyde Park - and senior councillors this afternoon agreed to support the bid to place the semi-derelict building into community ownership.
However, they placed a condition that RPCC must raise the £750,000 capital funding needed to take control the building before the keys to the former school are handed over.
Executive board members considered three bids from potential developers to take over the building - one developer wanted to turn it into student flats and another proposed a variety of community and leisure uses - before deciding on the RPCC bid wghich would see the building
Keith Wakefield Leeds council leader Keith Wakefield
To cheers from a number of Hyde Park residents at the executive board meeting in Leeds Civic Hall, council leader Keith Wakefield said:
"Members are unanimous in their decision - they want to see the RPCC bid succeed and the building to be run and owned by the community. RPCC still faces a number of hurdles to secure funding, but they have our support.
"I cannot congratulate the people involved in this campaign enough - there is a lot of enthusiasm and ability behind this venture and we wish you well. We have given you time now to try and get the funding in place."
Executive board member Richard Lewis added:
"We are well aware that the potential big funders for this scheme will make their decisions by July, so this decision hopefully gives enough time for RPCC members to get the funding in place."
Conservative leader councillor Andrew Carter said the campaigners had come 'light years' since first submitting their bid last year and praised the progress RPCC had made.
Liberal Democrat leader Stewart Golton said Hyde Park was a 'community under pressure' and said that there was a 'wonderful opportunity to create community capacity' in the area.
Campaigners 'delighted'
After the meeting, RPCC member Jake England-Johns said he was delighted at the decision and was optimistic that the consortium would be able to secure money from funders to finally take control of the building. He said it moved RPCC a step closer to securing control of the building and added:
"It is great that we have got this result. It's a testament to the determination of the people of Hyde Park. Time is tight for us to get the funding in place, but we are delighted by the decision today."
RPCC recently submitted a Communitybuilders application and will know by early February if it will receive a first large-scale stage of funding from them.
Hyde Park and Woodhouse councillor Gerry Harper, who had supported RPCC's bid, added:
"This is fantastic news for the community and I'd like to congratulate the people involved. I'm looking forward to moving ahead with them on this project and help them to secure the funding for the building. That building's got a great future ahead of it."
Executive board refuses to waive eviction costs
In November 2009 community activists illegally occupied the building for three weeks, clearing debris and repairing parts of the deteriorating building.
royal park leeds
Leeds council took court action to have the occupiers evicted and costs of £2,948 were awarded against some of the squatters.
The council's Inner North West Area Committee had asked that the costs be waived but executive board members today refused.
Council leader Keith Wakefield said that waiving the costs would set a precedent. He added that paying the money in installments was the right way forward for the activists.
He added that it was appropriate for the area committee councillors to pay the costs from their budget if they felt it necessary.
Woodhouse Community Centre takeover
Executive board members also agreed to a request by local organisation Oblong to take over the council-run Woodhouse Community Centre in Woodhouse Street on a 50-year lease.
The community hub proposal, which is also dependent on Communitybuilders funding for refurbishment, would include adding a mezzanine floor above the main hall to increase floor space, interior improvements to link different areas together, access improvements and a reception.
A post on Oblong's website this afternon welcomed the council's decision and said:
"Our next step is to get funding for refurbishment from the Community Builders fund. We should hear about this early February and we expect to have the contract for the building shortly afterward. If everything goes according to plan, building work will begin in March."
Monday, 10 January 2011
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Honesty?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft.[1]
Contents
Discourse
In discourse a statement can be strictly true and still be dishonest if the intention of the statement is to deceive its audience. Similarly, a falsehood can be spoken honestly if the speaker actually believes it to be true, assuming the speaker doesn't unfairly reject or suppress evidence. Conversely, dishonesty can be defined simply as behavior that is performed with intent to deceive or to manipulate the truth.
Brutal honesty should also be considered. The speaker can be honest but if they are to say exactly what is on their mind, it might be taken as brutally honest, depending on how harsh the words are.
Morality
While there are a great many moral systems, generally speaking, honesty is considered moral and dishonesty is considered immoral. There are several exceptions, such as egoistic hedonism, which values honesty only insofar as it improves ones own sense of pleasure, and moral nihilism, which denies the existence of objective morality outright. Honesty may also be challenged in various social systems with ideological stakes in self-preservation (many religious and national formations might be so characterized, but so too might be many family structures, and other small social collectives). In these cases honesty is frequently encouraged publicly, but may be retroactively forbidden and punished in an ex post facto manner if those invested in preserving the system perceive it as a threat. Depending on the social system, these breaches might be characterized as heresy, treason, or impoliteness. So ultimately, there are a great number of opinions about honesty. Even in moral systems which approve in general of honesty over dishonesty, some people think there are situations in which dishonesty may be preferable. Others would not define preferable behaviors as dishonest by reasoning that they are not intended to deceive others for personal gain, but the intent is more noble in character, for example sparing people of opinions that will upset them. Rather than dishonesty, that behavior is often viewed as self sacrifice - giving up one's voice for the happiness of others. But it can hardly be a universal approach to either determining honesty or morality. In many circumstances, withholding one's opinions can legitimately be viewed as cowardice, and a betrayal of those who will be hurt, discriminated against, or unfairly judged due to false beliefs left unchallenged. For this reason, many people insist that an objective approach to the truth, rather than an ideological or idealistic approach, is a necessary component of honesty.
Psychology
Two theories of honesty exist.[2] First, the ‘‘Will’’ hypothesis in which honesty comes from the active resistance of temptation and links to the controlled cognitive processes that enable delay in regard to reward. Second, the ‘‘Grace’’ hypothesis in which honesty comes from the absence of temptation and links to research upon the presence or absence of automatic processes in determining behavior. Most people tend to favor the Will hypothesis.[2] However, functional imaging and reaction time research supports the latter hypothesis since individuals who are honest in a situation in which they can lie showed no sign of engaging additional controlled cognitive processes.[2]
Levels of Honesty
Confucius defined several levels of Honesty. Starting from shallow and ending with deep, the levels are as follows:
Li, wanting to appear truthful for your own personal gain.
Yi, doing what is right on the basis of how you would like to be treated in return.
Ren, based on the most sincere form of empathy toward others that are different from you in age, gender, culture, experience, family, etc.
Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft.[1]
Contents
Discourse
In discourse a statement can be strictly true and still be dishonest if the intention of the statement is to deceive its audience. Similarly, a falsehood can be spoken honestly if the speaker actually believes it to be true, assuming the speaker doesn't unfairly reject or suppress evidence. Conversely, dishonesty can be defined simply as behavior that is performed with intent to deceive or to manipulate the truth.
Brutal honesty should also be considered. The speaker can be honest but if they are to say exactly what is on their mind, it might be taken as brutally honest, depending on how harsh the words are.
Morality
While there are a great many moral systems, generally speaking, honesty is considered moral and dishonesty is considered immoral. There are several exceptions, such as egoistic hedonism, which values honesty only insofar as it improves ones own sense of pleasure, and moral nihilism, which denies the existence of objective morality outright. Honesty may also be challenged in various social systems with ideological stakes in self-preservation (many religious and national formations might be so characterized, but so too might be many family structures, and other small social collectives). In these cases honesty is frequently encouraged publicly, but may be retroactively forbidden and punished in an ex post facto manner if those invested in preserving the system perceive it as a threat. Depending on the social system, these breaches might be characterized as heresy, treason, or impoliteness. So ultimately, there are a great number of opinions about honesty. Even in moral systems which approve in general of honesty over dishonesty, some people think there are situations in which dishonesty may be preferable. Others would not define preferable behaviors as dishonest by reasoning that they are not intended to deceive others for personal gain, but the intent is more noble in character, for example sparing people of opinions that will upset them. Rather than dishonesty, that behavior is often viewed as self sacrifice - giving up one's voice for the happiness of others. But it can hardly be a universal approach to either determining honesty or morality. In many circumstances, withholding one's opinions can legitimately be viewed as cowardice, and a betrayal of those who will be hurt, discriminated against, or unfairly judged due to false beliefs left unchallenged. For this reason, many people insist that an objective approach to the truth, rather than an ideological or idealistic approach, is a necessary component of honesty.
Psychology
Two theories of honesty exist.[2] First, the ‘‘Will’’ hypothesis in which honesty comes from the active resistance of temptation and links to the controlled cognitive processes that enable delay in regard to reward. Second, the ‘‘Grace’’ hypothesis in which honesty comes from the absence of temptation and links to research upon the presence or absence of automatic processes in determining behavior. Most people tend to favor the Will hypothesis.[2] However, functional imaging and reaction time research supports the latter hypothesis since individuals who are honest in a situation in which they can lie showed no sign of engaging additional controlled cognitive processes.[2]
Levels of Honesty
Confucius defined several levels of Honesty. Starting from shallow and ending with deep, the levels are as follows:
Li, wanting to appear truthful for your own personal gain.
Yi, doing what is right on the basis of how you would like to be treated in return.
Ren, based on the most sincere form of empathy toward others that are different from you in age, gender, culture, experience, family, etc.
Diary.
# a daily written record of (usually personal) experiences and observations
# a personal journal (as a physical object)
A physical collection of personal thoughts observations and experiences...
How honest would you be in a diary? This is interesting because I have found myself sticking my head in the ground again recently on lots of things which is particularly disturbing because I felt I was getting somewhere.
Max Romeo
I want to be honest about everything, that should be my aim no matter how uncomfortable it may get.
(Although there will always be stuff left out...hmmm..)
Other worlds.
I want to make these and leave them in the woods and in parks in streets and alley ways :) Other worlds project.
Fright club.
Welcome to fright club
Why take your children to see a scary and disturbing movie such as Coraline? Because it's good for them, says the very evil Ryan Gilbey
o Ryan Gilbey
o The Guardian, Friday 1 May 2009
o Article history
In his seminal 1976 study The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim mourned the state of the fairy tale: "Most children now meet fairy stories only in prettified and simplified versions which subdue their meaning and rob them of all deeper significance - versions such as those on films and TV shows, where fairy tales are turned into empty-minded entertainment." He wouldn't say that if he were alive to see Coraline, a properly disturbing adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2002 novella. Shot in stop-motion animation and 3-D, Coraline is the latest work in a vital tradition that dates back to a time before the Brothers Grimm began collecting their bloodcurdling tales. It's a fantasy that seduces its young audience, then scares the bejesus out of them. It is, in no uncertain terms, a horror film for children.
1. Coraline
2. Production year: 2009
3. Country: USA
4. Cert (UK): PG
5. Runtime: 100 mins
6. Directors: Henry Selick
7. Cast: Dakota Fanning, Dawn French, Ian McShane, Jennifer Saunders, Keith David, Teri Hatcher
8. More on this film
Coraline is a young girl who discovers in her drab new home a tunnel leading to a parallel world of brightness and profligacy, where her parents are fun-loving instead of the workaholic drudges they are in reality. But there is a catch: Coraline's "Other Mother" and "Other Father" have buttons instead of eyes, and insist that their daughter undergoes an equivalent transplant if she is to remain in paradise.
At the screening I attended, the audience responded with an awestruck silence, interrupted only by the removal of the occasional whimpering child, which suggested a spell comprehensively cast. The nature of that spell is no different to the one that transfixed young readers of the 19th century Little Red Riding Hood, in which the heroine is duped by the wolf into drinking vials of her grandmother's freshly harvested blood, or the same era's German version of Rumpelstiltskin, which ends with the baby-snatching gnome tearing his own body in half. Children enjoy being grossed-out or spooked, within reason. And, unlike most of the things they enjoy, it's also frightfully good for them. "The telling of fairy tales is one way to elicit a child's thoughts and feelings," says Julia Avnon, a child and adolescent psychologist. "At its most effective, it exposes their conflicts and creates a non-threatening way to introduce them to the realities of life."
The film plays on anxieties general and specific. Most of us will have an understandable fear of sharp things being placed near our eyes, and the spectre of optical injury in Coraline makes the movie nothing short of a junior Un Chien Andalou. On the other hand, we don't all suffer from koumpounophobia (the fear of buttons), as my youngest daughter does, turning Coraline into a more than usually terrifying experience for her. But crucially, the film is structured around conventions road-tested in the most resilient fantasy narratives. There is an alternative world with a distorted reflection of reality (The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland); a grotesque bargain that demands an unthinkable surrender (Spirited Away, Rumpelstiltskin); a supernatural mirror out of Snow White by way of Cocteau; and an evil mother figure (see practically every fairy tale ever written).
"I read Coraline a few years ago, after having a daughter of my own," says children's novelist Joanna Nadin, author of the best-selling Rachel Riley series. "And I was terrified by the thought of familiarity turned on its head, of being so close to the safety of your world, and yet so far. But its quirkiness, and the outright comedy in places, manages to rein it in, just when you think it's going to overstep the mark. Personally, I love writing scary parts in my books, especially unusually cruel aunts with a liking for torture. I don't think I hold back, but I try to inject an element of humour, however dark, to diffuse the situation."
It is this interplay between fear and reassurance, horror and humour, which enabled Coraline to receive a PG rating. "The film certainly has its dark, scary moments," says Ian Mashiah, one of the BBFC examiners who decided on the movie's certificate, "but ultimately they add up to an adventure in which Coraline displays her own resourcefulness and bravery. That's the kind of message we look for in films at the lower classification levels, something to provide a counterpoint to more intense moments. Children will ultimately have to experience fear in the real world, and the fantasy setting of Coraline supplies them with a safe introduction to that."
The boldest latter-day author of children's fiction, Roald Dahl, knew precisely how to stimulate the fantasies of his readership, or to give their neuroses a taxing work-out. It is not his outright villains that astonish so much as his propensity for introducing disquiet into domestic environments. Dahl understood that while children require the stability of a caring parental environment, they need also to fantasise about losing or destroying it. The child heroes of The Witches and James and the Giant Peach have lost their parents by the time their adventures begin, allowing the reader to experience vicariously that trauma. Dahl's Matilda is even more daring, forcing its heroine to contend with cruel and disparaging parents, and a monstrous teacher. The latter is a more manageable threat, since fear in the classroom we can process easily, whereas sadism and tyranny at home, and the idea of parents who despise their own offspring, represents by far the superior terror.
Those Dahl books have made the transition to cinema exhibiting compromises that reveal much about our clumsy adult attempts to safeguard children. James and the Giant Peach, directed by Coraline's Henry Selick, unforgivably dispensed with the death of James's wicked aunts, who were flattened beneath the runaway peach in one of the book's riotous high-points. And Nicolas Roeg's otherwise gruesome take on The Witches (soon to be filmed again in a version produced by Guillermo del Toro) ended with the hero restored to human form, whereas Dahl left unbroken the spell that turned the boy into a mouse. It is unusual indeed to find a children's movie that ends on such a discordant note, though Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, which closes with a 12-year-old orphaned after the death of his imbecilic parents, is an outstanding exception.
But children don't only like to be frightened - they need it too, if their emotional development is to be complete. "Being scared is a rite of passage," says Nadin, "but a pleasurable one. I don't see the gain in mollycoddling. A friend of mine dug out her old Ladybird fairytales from when she was young, to pass on to her own children, and was horrified to discover that some characters died - her mother had always invented more palatable endings. I'd be devastated to find out now that I had missed out on, say, the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood getting chopped open, and Granny being found inside."
Too often there is needless panic over the prospect of giving children the heebie-jeebies. Tim Burton is currently preparing a feature-length stop-motion version of Frankenweenie, but his original 1983 live-action short, about a boy who brings his pet dog back from the dead with a few blasts of electricity and some needlework, met with disapproval from Disney, and hastened Burton's departure from that studio. It is to be hoped that the cultural climate is now more attuned to the value of childhood horror; though early reactions to Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's long-awaited film version of Maurice Sendak's cherished fantasy, suggest not. There have been widespread reports of recutting after test screenings that left some young audience members distressed.
Fretful studio executives should console themselves by looking again at the tradition of so-called family films, many of which - The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Return to Oz - incorporate heightened anxiety or terror. Even Disney, which has become shorthand for all that is saccharine in cinema, is unbeaten in the area of traumatically cathartic entertainment. It's ironic that the studio made a self-conscious detour into the live-action ghost story genre in 1980 with the tepid U-certificate chiller The Watcher in the Woods, when its back catalogue boasts many more authoritative passages of animated horror - the forest sequence in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the parental deaths in Bambi and The Lion King, the upsetting boy-to-donkey metamorphosis in Pinocchio.
Of course, there will always be unique "fear triggers" that lie outside the therapeutic dominion of the fairy tale. These can spark unforeseeable responses in individual viewers, or even whole societies, as Iona and Peter Opie point out in their 1974 collection, The Classic Fairy Tales. "When the great exhibition of children's books was staged in Munich immediately after the Hitlerian war, an exhibition that was intended to be, and was, an opening of doors to the new generation in Germany, it was found that the story of Hansel and Gretel was not always regarded as preposterous, that the fantasy was too close to reality, that for some the witch's oven too much resembled the gas chamber at Auschwitz."
The Importance of Fairy Tales in a Child's Life Wisdom from Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment
The Importance of Fairy Tales in a Child's Life
Wisdom from Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment
I spent many delicious hours as a child reading fairy tales. Even today, many of the stories I devoured ring clear in my head, although I have not read them in perhaps forty years. Stories of dancing princesses escaping to an underground world of music and balls, the finding of a magic ring baked in a cake, the agony of a sister trying to free her brothers from a spell that has changed them into swans-these elements of fairy tales sank deep into my heart and imagination and continue with me today. Why is this?
As I pondered this question, I had a chance meeting with a woman who had run a Christian bookstore for years. She told me of the many parents who would come into the store looking for suitable reading material for their children. When offered fairy tales, they would shy away, fearing the dark and disturbing images that had the potential to frighten and traumatize their young ones. Their argument would go like this: "Fairy tales are scary and present the world dishonestly. They would make my child confused as to what is real and what is fabricated. They are full of ogres and witches and giants, so why should I allow my child to be terrified by things that aren't even real?"
Because I write full-length Christian-based fairy tales, I decided to explore these questions and address these valid concerns of many parents. I thought back to a book I had read when my first daughter was born: Bruno Bettelheim's famous book, The Uses of Enchantment. I remember the impact that book had on me, and because of its logic, chose to immerse my children in the world of fantasy and fairy tales throughout their childhood. Now that they are grown, I have asked them how these stories have shaped and affected their worldview and creativity. They have no doubt that their lives have been seriously enriched by this experience, and reading fairy tales has contributed toward their healthy and confident attitudes about the challenges and terrors of this life.
Bruno Bettelheim was a child psychologist, famous for his research on autism. The aforementioned book written in 1976 won him a National Book Award. I love what he writes in the introduction. "Wisdom does not burst forth fully developed like Athena out of Zeus's head; it is built up, small step by small step, from most irrational beginnings. Only in adulthood can an intelligent understanding of the meaning of one's existence in this world be gained from one's experiences in it. Unfortunately, too many parents want their children's minds to function as their own do-as if mature understanding of ourselves and the world, and our ideas about the meaning of life, did not have to develop as slowly as our bodies and minds. Today, as in times past, the most important and also the most difficult task in raising a child is helping him to find meaning in life."
Working in the field of autism presented Bettelheim with the challenge of restoring meaning to the lives of severely disturbed children. He found most literature for young readers to be sadly lacking in the ability to accomplish this task, but also knew that literature held the best promise to pass on cultural heritage, which he felt was crucial. And this was what he deemed necessary: "To enrich [the child's] life, it must stimulate his imagination; help him to develop his intellect and to clarify his emotions; be attuned to his anxieties and aspirations; give full recognition to his difficulties, while at the same time relate to all aspects of his personality-and this without ever belittling but, on the contrary, giving full credence to the seriousness of the child's predicaments, while simultaneously promoting confidence in himself and in his future." He goes on to say how important it is that literature provide a moral education which subtly, and through implication only, "conveys to him the advantages of moral behavior." His conclusion? "The child finds this kind of meaning through fairy tales."
The German poet Schiller wrote: "Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life." How can this be? Bettelheim says, "These tales start where the child really is in his psychological and emotional being. They speak about his severe inner pressures in a way that the child unconsciously understands and . . . offers examples of both temporary and permanent solutions to pressing difficulties."
Parents longing to protect their children from evil, scary things in the world do well to remember that this is the world to which we are preparing them to face. By hiding that world from their awareness, by trying to postpone or color the harsh realities of life, we are doing them a great disservice. We have the Bible as the master example of frankness and the revealing and candid exposing of evil in its many forms. God did not censor murder, rape, betrayal, cruelty, incest, and even sexual passion from the pages of His word. Parents may argue that a young child does not need to learn about these things, and it is true-there is a time and season for all things, and some are best to cover when a child may be more mature to understand and emotionally deal with some of these things.
Here's what Bettelheim says: "In child or adult, the unconscious is a powerful determinant of behavior. When the unconscious is repressed and its content denied entrance into awareness, then eventually the person's conscious mind will be partially overwhelmed by derivatives of these unconscious elements, or else he is forced to keep such rigid, compulsive control over them that his personality may become severely crippled . . . . The prevalent parental belief is that a child must be diverted from what troubles him most: his formless, nameless anxieties, and his chaotic, angry, and even violent fantasies. Many parents believe that only conscious reality or pleasant and wish-fulfilling images should be presented to the child-that he should be exposed only to the sunny side of things. But such one-sided fare nourishes the mind only in a one-sided way, and real life is not all sunny."
Rather than shelter children from life's evils, we can equip them with the tools needed to face them head-on with confidence. Bettelheim says that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human experience. If one does not shy away, "but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious."
The Elements of Fairy Tales
The fairy tale, according to Bettelheim, confronts the child squarely with the most scary subjects in life: death, aging, loss of a parent, being trapped or lost, and other stresses. The fairy tale simplifies all situations, allowing the child to come to grips with the problem in its most essential form. The figures are clearly drawn and the details, unless very important, are eliminated. All characters are typical rather than unique. Evil is as common as any virtue and both are usually embodied in the form of a figure or their actions. Evil is not without its attractions, "symbolized by the mighty dragon or giant, the power of the witch, the cunning queen in 'Snow White.' " In many fairy tales the usurper succeeds for a time-as with Cinderella's sisters and step-mother-but in the end, the evildoer is punished, and the moral is that crime does not pay. Because the child follows the hero through his or her journey, he can identify with the hero in all his struggles-suffering and triumphing with him. Bettelheim says that the child "makes such identifications all on his own, and the inner and outer struggles of the hero imprint morality on him."
The most important element in fairy tales, to me, is the moral choice presented to the hero. The child learns that choices have consequences, and the child can choose what kind of person she wants to be. Only by "going out into the world" does the hero learn, and acquire happiness. The fairy tale is future-oriented and guides the child, so that instead of escaping into a world of unreality, she is given tools to help her develop character and courage to face what the world presents to her. Often the hero is lost, alone, frightened. These are feelings a child identifies with. Yet, her hero is guided and given help along the way because of his determination and courage. In this way, fairy tales work their own kind of magic, for in reading them, the child feels understood and enriched, giving the child what Bettelheim says is "an enchanted quality just because he does not quite know how the stories have worked their wonder on him.
"Fairy tales, unlike any form of literature, direct the child to discover his identity and calling, and they also suggest what experiences are needed to develop his character further. Fairy tales intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one's reach despite adversity-but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity." This is a basic tenet of the Bible as well: that those who want to please God and obtain his favor need to endure difficulties; that these trials produce endurance, character, and hope, and that the hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:3-5).
So, do not discount fairy tales as a bad influence on your children. Rather, be selective, and choose age-appropriate stories to give to them. But do not be afraid of unleashing their imagination and letting them confront their darkest fears. By giving them heroes to identify with, you are letting those fears surface in a subtle manner, and allowing your child to find his courage and make moral choices vicariously-choices that will build his character and have influence on the rest of his life.
I look at my daughters, now grown, and see how that world of imagination and fantasy helped them to face evil and struggles, gave them confidence and courage, and stimulated their imagination which poured over into their art, writing, poetry, and music. We cannot hide our children from the evils of the world, and even explaining everything in a pat manner from God's Word does not dispel the deep fears and worries a child has. Only by bringing them to the surface in a safe and imaginative way can we as parents help them mature and become responsible adults. I think of that word, responsible, as response-able, for that is our goal: to help our children become able to respond competently to any situation life puts before them, and fairy tales will help them do just that.
[http://www.stanford.edu/~meganem/cslakin/articles/importance_reading_fairy_tales.html]
http://www.cslakin.com
Wisdom from Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment
I spent many delicious hours as a child reading fairy tales. Even today, many of the stories I devoured ring clear in my head, although I have not read them in perhaps forty years. Stories of dancing princesses escaping to an underground world of music and balls, the finding of a magic ring baked in a cake, the agony of a sister trying to free her brothers from a spell that has changed them into swans-these elements of fairy tales sank deep into my heart and imagination and continue with me today. Why is this?
As I pondered this question, I had a chance meeting with a woman who had run a Christian bookstore for years. She told me of the many parents who would come into the store looking for suitable reading material for their children. When offered fairy tales, they would shy away, fearing the dark and disturbing images that had the potential to frighten and traumatize their young ones. Their argument would go like this: "Fairy tales are scary and present the world dishonestly. They would make my child confused as to what is real and what is fabricated. They are full of ogres and witches and giants, so why should I allow my child to be terrified by things that aren't even real?"
Because I write full-length Christian-based fairy tales, I decided to explore these questions and address these valid concerns of many parents. I thought back to a book I had read when my first daughter was born: Bruno Bettelheim's famous book, The Uses of Enchantment. I remember the impact that book had on me, and because of its logic, chose to immerse my children in the world of fantasy and fairy tales throughout their childhood. Now that they are grown, I have asked them how these stories have shaped and affected their worldview and creativity. They have no doubt that their lives have been seriously enriched by this experience, and reading fairy tales has contributed toward their healthy and confident attitudes about the challenges and terrors of this life.
Bruno Bettelheim was a child psychologist, famous for his research on autism. The aforementioned book written in 1976 won him a National Book Award. I love what he writes in the introduction. "Wisdom does not burst forth fully developed like Athena out of Zeus's head; it is built up, small step by small step, from most irrational beginnings. Only in adulthood can an intelligent understanding of the meaning of one's existence in this world be gained from one's experiences in it. Unfortunately, too many parents want their children's minds to function as their own do-as if mature understanding of ourselves and the world, and our ideas about the meaning of life, did not have to develop as slowly as our bodies and minds. Today, as in times past, the most important and also the most difficult task in raising a child is helping him to find meaning in life."
Working in the field of autism presented Bettelheim with the challenge of restoring meaning to the lives of severely disturbed children. He found most literature for young readers to be sadly lacking in the ability to accomplish this task, but also knew that literature held the best promise to pass on cultural heritage, which he felt was crucial. And this was what he deemed necessary: "To enrich [the child's] life, it must stimulate his imagination; help him to develop his intellect and to clarify his emotions; be attuned to his anxieties and aspirations; give full recognition to his difficulties, while at the same time relate to all aspects of his personality-and this without ever belittling but, on the contrary, giving full credence to the seriousness of the child's predicaments, while simultaneously promoting confidence in himself and in his future." He goes on to say how important it is that literature provide a moral education which subtly, and through implication only, "conveys to him the advantages of moral behavior." His conclusion? "The child finds this kind of meaning through fairy tales."
The German poet Schiller wrote: "Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life." How can this be? Bettelheim says, "These tales start where the child really is in his psychological and emotional being. They speak about his severe inner pressures in a way that the child unconsciously understands and . . . offers examples of both temporary and permanent solutions to pressing difficulties."
Parents longing to protect their children from evil, scary things in the world do well to remember that this is the world to which we are preparing them to face. By hiding that world from their awareness, by trying to postpone or color the harsh realities of life, we are doing them a great disservice. We have the Bible as the master example of frankness and the revealing and candid exposing of evil in its many forms. God did not censor murder, rape, betrayal, cruelty, incest, and even sexual passion from the pages of His word. Parents may argue that a young child does not need to learn about these things, and it is true-there is a time and season for all things, and some are best to cover when a child may be more mature to understand and emotionally deal with some of these things.
Here's what Bettelheim says: "In child or adult, the unconscious is a powerful determinant of behavior. When the unconscious is repressed and its content denied entrance into awareness, then eventually the person's conscious mind will be partially overwhelmed by derivatives of these unconscious elements, or else he is forced to keep such rigid, compulsive control over them that his personality may become severely crippled . . . . The prevalent parental belief is that a child must be diverted from what troubles him most: his formless, nameless anxieties, and his chaotic, angry, and even violent fantasies. Many parents believe that only conscious reality or pleasant and wish-fulfilling images should be presented to the child-that he should be exposed only to the sunny side of things. But such one-sided fare nourishes the mind only in a one-sided way, and real life is not all sunny."
Rather than shelter children from life's evils, we can equip them with the tools needed to face them head-on with confidence. Bettelheim says that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human experience. If one does not shy away, "but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious."
The Elements of Fairy Tales
The fairy tale, according to Bettelheim, confronts the child squarely with the most scary subjects in life: death, aging, loss of a parent, being trapped or lost, and other stresses. The fairy tale simplifies all situations, allowing the child to come to grips with the problem in its most essential form. The figures are clearly drawn and the details, unless very important, are eliminated. All characters are typical rather than unique. Evil is as common as any virtue and both are usually embodied in the form of a figure or their actions. Evil is not without its attractions, "symbolized by the mighty dragon or giant, the power of the witch, the cunning queen in 'Snow White.' " In many fairy tales the usurper succeeds for a time-as with Cinderella's sisters and step-mother-but in the end, the evildoer is punished, and the moral is that crime does not pay. Because the child follows the hero through his or her journey, he can identify with the hero in all his struggles-suffering and triumphing with him. Bettelheim says that the child "makes such identifications all on his own, and the inner and outer struggles of the hero imprint morality on him."
The most important element in fairy tales, to me, is the moral choice presented to the hero. The child learns that choices have consequences, and the child can choose what kind of person she wants to be. Only by "going out into the world" does the hero learn, and acquire happiness. The fairy tale is future-oriented and guides the child, so that instead of escaping into a world of unreality, she is given tools to help her develop character and courage to face what the world presents to her. Often the hero is lost, alone, frightened. These are feelings a child identifies with. Yet, her hero is guided and given help along the way because of his determination and courage. In this way, fairy tales work their own kind of magic, for in reading them, the child feels understood and enriched, giving the child what Bettelheim says is "an enchanted quality just because he does not quite know how the stories have worked their wonder on him.
"Fairy tales, unlike any form of literature, direct the child to discover his identity and calling, and they also suggest what experiences are needed to develop his character further. Fairy tales intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one's reach despite adversity-but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity." This is a basic tenet of the Bible as well: that those who want to please God and obtain his favor need to endure difficulties; that these trials produce endurance, character, and hope, and that the hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:3-5).
So, do not discount fairy tales as a bad influence on your children. Rather, be selective, and choose age-appropriate stories to give to them. But do not be afraid of unleashing their imagination and letting them confront their darkest fears. By giving them heroes to identify with, you are letting those fears surface in a subtle manner, and allowing your child to find his courage and make moral choices vicariously-choices that will build his character and have influence on the rest of his life.
I look at my daughters, now grown, and see how that world of imagination and fantasy helped them to face evil and struggles, gave them confidence and courage, and stimulated their imagination which poured over into their art, writing, poetry, and music. We cannot hide our children from the evils of the world, and even explaining everything in a pat manner from God's Word does not dispel the deep fears and worries a child has. Only by bringing them to the surface in a safe and imaginative way can we as parents help them mature and become responsible adults. I think of that word, responsible, as response-able, for that is our goal: to help our children become able to respond competently to any situation life puts before them, and fairy tales will help them do just that.
[http://www.stanford.edu/~meganem/cslakin/articles/importance_reading_fairy_tales.html]
http://www.cslakin.com
Music collections.
I know quite a few people with extensive record collections.
Why do people collect music?
Wiki on collecting
The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world. Others focus on a subtopic within their area of interest, perhaps 19th century postage stamps, milk bottle labels from Sussex, or Mongolian harnesses and tack.
The items collectors collect may be antique, or simply collectible. Antiques are collectible items at least 100 years old; collectibles are less than antique, and may even be new. Collectors and dealers may use the word vintage to describe older collectibles. Most collectibles are man-made commercial items, but some private collectors collect natural objects such as birds' eggs, butterflies, rocks, and seashells. Items which were once everyday objects may now be collectible since almost all those once produced have been destroyed or discarded (see Ephemera). Some collectors collect only in childhood while others continue to do so throughout their lives and usually modify their aims later in life. Philately, phillumeny, and deltiology (collecting postage stamps, matchboxes and postcards) are examples of forms of collecting which can be undertaken at minimal expense.
"Musei Wormiani Historia", the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosities
History
Collecting is a practice with a very old cultural history. The Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty collected books from all over the known world at the Library of Alexandria. The Medici family, in Renaissance Florence, made the first effort to collect art by private patronage, this way artists could be free for the first time from the money given by the Church and Kings; this citizenship tradition continues today with the work of private art collectors. Many of the world's popular museums—from the Metropolitan in New York City to the Thyssen in Madrid or the Franz Mayer in Mexico City—have collections formed by the generous collectors that donated them to be seen by the general public. The collecting hobby is a modern descendant of the "cabinet of curiosities" which was common among scholars with the means and opportunities to acquire unusual items from the 16th century onwards. Planned collecting of ephemeral publications goes back at least to George Thomason in the reign of Charles I and Samuel Pepys in that of Charles II. Collecting engravings and other prints by those whose means did not allow them to buy original works of art also goes back many centuries. The progress in 18th-century Paris of collecting both works of art and of curiosité, dimly echoed in the English curios, and the origins in Paris, Amsterdam and London of the modern art market have been increasingly well documented and studied since the mid-19th century.[1] The involvement of larger numbers of people in collecting activities comes with the prosperity and increased leisure for some in the later 19th century in industrial countries. That is when collecting such items as antique china, furniture and decorative items from oriental countries becomes established.
Beginning a collection
A collection of Nutcrackers
Some novice collectors start purchasing items that appeal to them, and then slowly work at acquiring knowledge about how to build a collection. Others (more cautious or studious types) want to develop some background in the field before starting to buy items. The term antique generally refers to items made at least 100 years ago or more. In some fields, such as antique cars, the time frame is less stringent-—25 years or so being considered enough time to make a car a "classic" if not an antique. Traditionally in the area of furniture, the 1830s was regarded as the limit for antique furniture. However Victorian, Arts and Crafts, and some types of 20th century furniture can all be regarded as collectible.
In general, then, items of significance, beauty, values or interest that are "too young" to be considered antiques, fall into the realm of collectibles. But not all collectibles are limited editions, and many of them have been around for decades: for example, the popular turn-of-the-century posters, Art Deco and Art Nouveau items, Carnival and Depression era glass, etc. In addition, there exists the "contemporary collectibles" category, featuring items like plates, figurines, bells, graphics, steins, and dolls.
Many collectors enjoy making a plan for their collections, combining education, stimulation and experimentation to develop a personal collecting style; and even those who reject the notion of "planned collecting" can refine their "selection skills" with some background information on the methods of collecting.
Strategies
Collectors' magazines are one of the most popular means to learn more about the field. Attending conventions and collectibles shows is another way for a collector to familiarize him or herself with the possibilities. These shows will often include seminars on a variety of subjects such as artists, companies, decorating with collectibles or how to insure a collection. For example, the NCC (National Council of 56 Clubs) has individual member clubs that host regional gatherings each year for collectors of Department 56 lighted villages.
A collector may find and join a local club for people who collect plates or other limited edition items. Collector publications frequently list the location, date and time of club meetings as a service to new collectors. Collectors who have already narrowed their collecting horizons to the creations of a particular producer may want to join a club that focuses on this producer's work. A potential collector may wish to chat with collectors with similar interests in specialized forums via the Internet. Fellow collectors are usually very happy to share information with new collectors; this includes information about where they have been successful in acquiring their collectibles, where they have struggled and what they are looking for. Collectors' forums allow for an open exchange of information, sometimes with experts available to answer questions and offer guidance. In addition, several web-sites specializing exclusively in the selling and trading of collectibles have been launched in recent years to help collectors manage their items as well as compare, connect, and trade directly with others.
Learning from retailers and direct marketers is considered a great way to gain an education in collecting. Collectors may establish a relationship with a retailer that specializes in limited editions. Those on direct mail literature mailing lists can learn a great deal from the support that many dealers supply.
Types of limited editions
* Limited by announced quantity, with each item numbered
* Limited by announced quantity, with items not numbered
* Limited by announced firing period, numbered or not numbered
* Limited by year of issue, restricting the quantity to the number produced during the year of issue
* Limited by an announced time period that may be more or less than one year
Cataloging, insurance, and maintenance
Collectibles experts tend to agree that a collector should begin keeping a record as soon as they start collecting, of all details of purchase and price. Without this information, prospective buyers and insurance appraisers may not take the collector's word. It is also recommended to take a photograph or video of each item or groups of items where each may be easily identified. Records can be made in a format suitable for the collector, from a simple spiral notebook to a computer software program designed for collectibles. In addition to the information the collector records, it’s a good idea to keep all written material and certificates that came with the collectibles-—receipts, flyers and stories, care and handling instructions, etc. They will help to document a collection for resale or replacement in the future. At least one website now exists where collectors can permanently register their collections in an online database with a photograph and description of each item. The collector can affix an inconspicuous identifying tag or seal that is virtually impossible to counterfeit. Having such a record of the collection stored separately is good insurance in case of a disaster such as fire and is an aid to law enforcement in thwarting thieves.
When it comes to insuring a collection, the first step is generally to check one's present homeowner or renter's policy to find out how extensive coverage may be in the case of fire, burglary, or other risk. Some policies carry a fairly high maximum payment for items such as collectibles, while others offer very little of this type of protection. Compare the amount of coverage available with the value of the collection. If the homeowner’s policy is deemed inadequate, collectors have the option of contacting insurance companies that offer special policies for collectibles. It is essential as well that one determines how the value of items would be assessed by an insurance company: on replacement value, purchase price, or some type of "depreciated value."
A collector is most likely to obtain the best price for additional coverage or riders on a collection if they work with an insurance agent who already does business with them. Approaching an agent with a request for coverage just on a collection—unless it is extensive and valuable—is not likely to kindle a great deal of enthusiasm on their part. Other collectors might be a good source of information on insurance protection.
Caring for a collection requires two main tasks: security and cleaning/maintenance. Display valuables out of reach of children and pets, and in environments where heat, humidity, and sunlight are controlled. Avoid fire hazards, and make sure there are sufficient smoke detectors in good working order. Collectors with extensive holdings may want to consider an alarm system with sensors and electric eye equipment — especially if they live in a crime-heavy area or if the home is well known as one that contains many valuables.
In terms of maintenance and cleaning of collectibles, the proper advice depends upon the medium and the delicacy of the item involved. Many firms supply Care and Handling sheets with their products, and these should be kept for future reference. Collectors can call or write to the Customer Service Department of the manufacturer of an item if they are in doubt as to how to care for it. In general, it is considered good advice to keep hand-painted items out of direct sunlight to avoid fading. Hand-painted items of terracotta, pewter, and some other materials should not be handled any more than necessary, to avoid smudges or chipping. Never put a collectible plate or other item in the dishwasher — most are not dishwasher safe. Porcelain collector plates may be carefully washed by hand with a mild soap, and spray-rinsed. Most porcelain figurines may be lightly dusted or spray-washed and rinsed with mild soap and a gentle spray of water. Do not immerse figurines in water. To avoid problems with dust and dirt, many collectors favor frames and display cases with protective glass, especially for valuable or intricate items.
Secondary market
The retail price of a collectible is valid only at the moment it was purchased. Once the collectible comes into the buyer’s possession, its value is linked to what is called the secondary market. Once a collectible is purchased, most of the costs associated with the retail price (i.e. advertising, production cost, shipping cost, etc.) must be deducted from the retail cost to determine the object’s immediate value on the secondary market, thus, retail cost is not equivalent to secondary market resale value. Depending on several different factors, individuals, auctioneers, and secondary retailers may sell a collectible for more, the same, or less than what they originally paid for it. These factors include, but are not limited to, condition, age, supply, and demand.
The 1960s through the early 1990s were major years for the manufacturing of contemporary collectibles. While some individuals purchased contemporary collectibles to enjoy and use, many purchased them as investments. Speculative secondary markets developed for many of these pieces. Because so many people bought for investment purposes, duplicates are common. And although many collectibles were labeled as "limited editions," the actual number of items produced was very large. The result of this is that there is very little demand for many (but not all) items produced during this time period, which means their secondary market values are often low.
There is no secondary market for an item unless someone is willing to buy it, and an object's value is whatever the buyer is willing to pay for it. Industry leaders believe that the secondary market is important for several reasons: primarily to allow experienced collectors to upgrade their collections, to stimulate the market and encourage new collectors, and to provide a means for monetary appreciation. To upgrade a collection, a collector may wish to dispose of things they no longer enjoy to produce the capital to buy other things. To stimulate the market, collectors may obtain some good quality pieces that have been traded in the past. They have an opportunity to learn the history of the hobby by owning some of the items that have been favorites in the past. Another reason is to make money, by selling an item with appreciated value.
A price guide is a resource such as a book or website that lists typical selling prices. The first price guide was the Stanley Gibbons catalogue issued in November 1865.
On the Internet
The Internet offers many resources to any collector: personal sites presenting one's collection, online collectible catalogs, dealer/shops websites displaying their merchandise, Internet trading platforms, collector clubs, autograph club, collector forums and collector mailing lists.
Finding retired editions has become much more convenient with the advent of Internet auctions and trading. It has never been easier to track down a retired piece, and to reach out to dozens of dealers using e-mail or their websites. Most retailers tend to focus on one or two specific lines. Their activity in acquiring inventory adds liquidity to the market, and their sales of retired pieces are important to establishing a trend in value that is more consistent than random sales between individuals that may not be meaningfully documented.
The public and dealers alike use Internet auction websites to buy and sell collectibles. The thrill of "winning" an auction, and the convenience of shopping from home have contributed to a shift in volume from in-store sales of retired pieces to auction/mail order sales through such auction sites.
When buying expensive retired pieces, an escrow account for funds transfer may decrease the buyer's chance of losing their money. A form of fraud on the buy side involves swapping a defective piece for a good one bought via auction. In this case, the buyer, who may have a repaired piece, or a slightly defective one, buys a mint condition piece from the edition via auction and ships the defective one to the seller, demanding a refund on the auction. Sellers should record item numbers and other details about the piece before shipping so the seller has the facts they need to avoid this
Intangibles
An alternative to collecting physical objects is collecting experiences of some kind, through observation or photography. Examples include bird-watching; transportation, e.g. train spotting, aircraft spotting, metrophiles, bus spotting, see also I-Spy; and visiting continents, countries, states, counties, and national parks.
[edit] See also
* List of popular collectibles
* Antiquities
* Collectable
* Hoarding and Compulsive hoarding
* Memorabilia
* Souvenir
* Autograph club
* Obi strip
Bibliography
* Blom, Philipp (2005) To Have and To Hold: an intimate History of collectors and collecting. ISBN 1-58567-377-3
* Castruccio, Enrico (2008) "I Collezionisti: usi, costumi, emozioni". Cremona: Persico Edizioni ISBN 8887207593
* Chaney, Edward, ed. (2003) The Evolution of English Collecting. New Haven: Yale University Press
* Schulz, Charles M. (1984) Charlie Brown's Super Book of Things to Do and Collect: based on the Charles M. Schulz characters. New York: Random House, 1984, paperback, ISBN 0-394-83165-9, (hardcover in library binding ISBN 0-394-93165-3)
The items collectors collect may be antique, or simply collectible. Antiques are collectible items at least 100 years old; collectibles are less than antique, and may even be new. Collectors and dealers may use the word vintage to describe older collectibles. Most collectibles are man-made commercial items, but some private collectors collect natural objects such as birds' eggs, butterflies, rocks, and seashells. Items which were once everyday objects may now be collectible since almost all those once produced have been destroyed or discarded (see Ephemera). Some collectors collect only in childhood while others continue to do so throughout their lives and usually modify their aims later in life. Philately, phillumeny, and deltiology (collecting postage stamps, matchboxes and postcards) are examples of forms of collecting which can be undertaken at minimal expense.
"Musei Wormiani Historia", the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosities
History
Collecting is a practice with a very old cultural history. The Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty collected books from all over the known world at the Library of Alexandria. The Medici family, in Renaissance Florence, made the first effort to collect art by private patronage, this way artists could be free for the first time from the money given by the Church and Kings; this citizenship tradition continues today with the work of private art collectors. Many of the world's popular museums—from the Metropolitan in New York City to the Thyssen in Madrid or the Franz Mayer in Mexico City—have collections formed by the generous collectors that donated them to be seen by the general public. The collecting hobby is a modern descendant of the "cabinet of curiosities" which was common among scholars with the means and opportunities to acquire unusual items from the 16th century onwards. Planned collecting of ephemeral publications goes back at least to George Thomason in the reign of Charles I and Samuel Pepys in that of Charles II. Collecting engravings and other prints by those whose means did not allow them to buy original works of art also goes back many centuries. The progress in 18th-century Paris of collecting both works of art and of curiosité, dimly echoed in the English curios, and the origins in Paris, Amsterdam and London of the modern art market have been increasingly well documented and studied since the mid-19th century.[1] The involvement of larger numbers of people in collecting activities comes with the prosperity and increased leisure for some in the later 19th century in industrial countries. That is when collecting such items as antique china, furniture and decorative items from oriental countries becomes established.
Beginning a collection
A collection of Nutcrackers
Some novice collectors start purchasing items that appeal to them, and then slowly work at acquiring knowledge about how to build a collection. Others (more cautious or studious types) want to develop some background in the field before starting to buy items. The term antique generally refers to items made at least 100 years ago or more. In some fields, such as antique cars, the time frame is less stringent-—25 years or so being considered enough time to make a car a "classic" if not an antique. Traditionally in the area of furniture, the 1830s was regarded as the limit for antique furniture. However Victorian, Arts and Crafts, and some types of 20th century furniture can all be regarded as collectible.
In general, then, items of significance, beauty, values or interest that are "too young" to be considered antiques, fall into the realm of collectibles. But not all collectibles are limited editions, and many of them have been around for decades: for example, the popular turn-of-the-century posters, Art Deco and Art Nouveau items, Carnival and Depression era glass, etc. In addition, there exists the "contemporary collectibles" category, featuring items like plates, figurines, bells, graphics, steins, and dolls.
Many collectors enjoy making a plan for their collections, combining education, stimulation and experimentation to develop a personal collecting style; and even those who reject the notion of "planned collecting" can refine their "selection skills" with some background information on the methods of collecting.
Strategies
Collectors' magazines are one of the most popular means to learn more about the field. Attending conventions and collectibles shows is another way for a collector to familiarize him or herself with the possibilities. These shows will often include seminars on a variety of subjects such as artists, companies, decorating with collectibles or how to insure a collection. For example, the NCC (National Council of 56 Clubs) has individual member clubs that host regional gatherings each year for collectors of Department 56 lighted villages.
A collector may find and join a local club for people who collect plates or other limited edition items. Collector publications frequently list the location, date and time of club meetings as a service to new collectors. Collectors who have already narrowed their collecting horizons to the creations of a particular producer may want to join a club that focuses on this producer's work. A potential collector may wish to chat with collectors with similar interests in specialized forums via the Internet. Fellow collectors are usually very happy to share information with new collectors; this includes information about where they have been successful in acquiring their collectibles, where they have struggled and what they are looking for. Collectors' forums allow for an open exchange of information, sometimes with experts available to answer questions and offer guidance. In addition, several web-sites specializing exclusively in the selling and trading of collectibles have been launched in recent years to help collectors manage their items as well as compare, connect, and trade directly with others.
Learning from retailers and direct marketers is considered a great way to gain an education in collecting. Collectors may establish a relationship with a retailer that specializes in limited editions. Those on direct mail literature mailing lists can learn a great deal from the support that many dealers supply.
Types of limited editions
* Limited by announced quantity, with each item numbered
* Limited by announced quantity, with items not numbered
* Limited by announced firing period, numbered or not numbered
* Limited by year of issue, restricting the quantity to the number produced during the year of issue
* Limited by an announced time period that may be more or less than one year
Cataloging, insurance, and maintenance
Collectibles experts tend to agree that a collector should begin keeping a record as soon as they start collecting, of all details of purchase and price. Without this information, prospective buyers and insurance appraisers may not take the collector's word. It is also recommended to take a photograph or video of each item or groups of items where each may be easily identified. Records can be made in a format suitable for the collector, from a simple spiral notebook to a computer software program designed for collectibles. In addition to the information the collector records, it’s a good idea to keep all written material and certificates that came with the collectibles-—receipts, flyers and stories, care and handling instructions, etc. They will help to document a collection for resale or replacement in the future. At least one website now exists where collectors can permanently register their collections in an online database with a photograph and description of each item. The collector can affix an inconspicuous identifying tag or seal that is virtually impossible to counterfeit. Having such a record of the collection stored separately is good insurance in case of a disaster such as fire and is an aid to law enforcement in thwarting thieves.
When it comes to insuring a collection, the first step is generally to check one's present homeowner or renter's policy to find out how extensive coverage may be in the case of fire, burglary, or other risk. Some policies carry a fairly high maximum payment for items such as collectibles, while others offer very little of this type of protection. Compare the amount of coverage available with the value of the collection. If the homeowner’s policy is deemed inadequate, collectors have the option of contacting insurance companies that offer special policies for collectibles. It is essential as well that one determines how the value of items would be assessed by an insurance company: on replacement value, purchase price, or some type of "depreciated value."
A collector is most likely to obtain the best price for additional coverage or riders on a collection if they work with an insurance agent who already does business with them. Approaching an agent with a request for coverage just on a collection—unless it is extensive and valuable—is not likely to kindle a great deal of enthusiasm on their part. Other collectors might be a good source of information on insurance protection.
Caring for a collection requires two main tasks: security and cleaning/maintenance. Display valuables out of reach of children and pets, and in environments where heat, humidity, and sunlight are controlled. Avoid fire hazards, and make sure there are sufficient smoke detectors in good working order. Collectors with extensive holdings may want to consider an alarm system with sensors and electric eye equipment — especially if they live in a crime-heavy area or if the home is well known as one that contains many valuables.
In terms of maintenance and cleaning of collectibles, the proper advice depends upon the medium and the delicacy of the item involved. Many firms supply Care and Handling sheets with their products, and these should be kept for future reference. Collectors can call or write to the Customer Service Department of the manufacturer of an item if they are in doubt as to how to care for it. In general, it is considered good advice to keep hand-painted items out of direct sunlight to avoid fading. Hand-painted items of terracotta, pewter, and some other materials should not be handled any more than necessary, to avoid smudges or chipping. Never put a collectible plate or other item in the dishwasher — most are not dishwasher safe. Porcelain collector plates may be carefully washed by hand with a mild soap, and spray-rinsed. Most porcelain figurines may be lightly dusted or spray-washed and rinsed with mild soap and a gentle spray of water. Do not immerse figurines in water. To avoid problems with dust and dirt, many collectors favor frames and display cases with protective glass, especially for valuable or intricate items.
Secondary market
The retail price of a collectible is valid only at the moment it was purchased. Once the collectible comes into the buyer’s possession, its value is linked to what is called the secondary market. Once a collectible is purchased, most of the costs associated with the retail price (i.e. advertising, production cost, shipping cost, etc.) must be deducted from the retail cost to determine the object’s immediate value on the secondary market, thus, retail cost is not equivalent to secondary market resale value. Depending on several different factors, individuals, auctioneers, and secondary retailers may sell a collectible for more, the same, or less than what they originally paid for it. These factors include, but are not limited to, condition, age, supply, and demand.
The 1960s through the early 1990s were major years for the manufacturing of contemporary collectibles. While some individuals purchased contemporary collectibles to enjoy and use, many purchased them as investments. Speculative secondary markets developed for many of these pieces. Because so many people bought for investment purposes, duplicates are common. And although many collectibles were labeled as "limited editions," the actual number of items produced was very large. The result of this is that there is very little demand for many (but not all) items produced during this time period, which means their secondary market values are often low.
There is no secondary market for an item unless someone is willing to buy it, and an object's value is whatever the buyer is willing to pay for it. Industry leaders believe that the secondary market is important for several reasons: primarily to allow experienced collectors to upgrade their collections, to stimulate the market and encourage new collectors, and to provide a means for monetary appreciation. To upgrade a collection, a collector may wish to dispose of things they no longer enjoy to produce the capital to buy other things. To stimulate the market, collectors may obtain some good quality pieces that have been traded in the past. They have an opportunity to learn the history of the hobby by owning some of the items that have been favorites in the past. Another reason is to make money, by selling an item with appreciated value.
A price guide is a resource such as a book or website that lists typical selling prices. The first price guide was the Stanley Gibbons catalogue issued in November 1865.
On the Internet
The Internet offers many resources to any collector: personal sites presenting one's collection, online collectible catalogs, dealer/shops websites displaying their merchandise, Internet trading platforms, collector clubs, autograph club, collector forums and collector mailing lists.
Finding retired editions has become much more convenient with the advent of Internet auctions and trading. It has never been easier to track down a retired piece, and to reach out to dozens of dealers using e-mail or their websites. Most retailers tend to focus on one or two specific lines. Their activity in acquiring inventory adds liquidity to the market, and their sales of retired pieces are important to establishing a trend in value that is more consistent than random sales between individuals that may not be meaningfully documented.
The public and dealers alike use Internet auction websites to buy and sell collectibles. The thrill of "winning" an auction, and the convenience of shopping from home have contributed to a shift in volume from in-store sales of retired pieces to auction/mail order sales through such auction sites.
When buying expensive retired pieces, an escrow account for funds transfer may decrease the buyer's chance of losing their money. A form of fraud on the buy side involves swapping a defective piece for a good one bought via auction. In this case, the buyer, who may have a repaired piece, or a slightly defective one, buys a mint condition piece from the edition via auction and ships the defective one to the seller, demanding a refund on the auction. Sellers should record item numbers and other details about the piece before shipping so the seller has the facts they need to avoid this
Intangibles
An alternative to collecting physical objects is collecting experiences of some kind, through observation or photography. Examples include bird-watching; transportation, e.g. train spotting, aircraft spotting, metrophiles, bus spotting, see also I-Spy; and visiting continents, countries, states, counties, and national parks.
[edit] See also
* List of popular collectibles
* Antiquities
* Collectable
* Hoarding and Compulsive hoarding
* Memorabilia
* Souvenir
* Autograph club
* Obi strip
Bibliography
* Blom, Philipp (2005) To Have and To Hold: an intimate History of collectors and collecting. ISBN 1-58567-377-3
* Castruccio, Enrico (2008) "I Collezionisti: usi, costumi, emozioni". Cremona: Persico Edizioni ISBN 8887207593
* Chaney, Edward, ed. (2003) The Evolution of English Collecting. New Haven: Yale University Press
* Schulz, Charles M. (1984) Charlie Brown's Super Book of Things to Do and Collect: based on the Charles M. Schulz characters. New York: Random House, 1984, paperback, ISBN 0-394-83165-9, (hardcover in library binding ISBN 0-394-93165-3)
Saturday, 8 January 2011
Make your own recycled paper.
We all know that paper comes from trees, and the more paper we use, the more trees that tend to be felled. Despite the fact that recycled paper is steadily become more widespread, the majority of paper products we use in our homes and offices use virgin fibres.
There are many ways to take a green approach to paper use. Firstly, you can try to reuse and recycle envelopes or paper whenever possible. You could also try buying recycled paper in place of ‘new’ paper.
But why not try making your own recycled paper for home use? Making recycled paper is also a great way to get kids involved in recycling. If you become particularly adept at making recycled paper, you could start replacing shop-bought paper with your homemade efforts.
Recycled homemade paper can be used as writing or notepaper if pressed. It can also be used in art and craft projects such as paper weaving or card making. Another use for thicker homemade recycled paper can become part of artisan items such as hand-bound books. This article takes a look at how to make your own basic recycled paper at home.
Getting Started
You’ll need the following equipment and materials:
* An old newspaper and paper scraps
* Bucket
* An old or second-hand food blender
* A wooden or plastic picture frame
* A pair of old nylon tights
* Drawing pins
* A large washing up bowl, tub or tray (for immersing the frames in)
How to Make Your Paper Mould
Making the paper mould is very easy. You simply take your picture frame, and remove any backing or glass so that you are just left with the bare frame. You can then stretch the nylon tights (or, alternatively, nylon screen if available) across and pin firmly in place with drawing pins. It’s a good idea to bear in mind that the thicker the mesh on your mould, the thicker the paper will be. You may want to experiment with different gauges of mesh to get your desired result.
Method:
1. You’ll need to start by tearing up newspaper or paper scraps (matte paper, not shiny or glossy) into strips and then squares, and soaking in a bucket of water for a few hours, or overnight.
2. After this time, you will then be able to blend your paper down into a pulp in the food blender. You will need to add water at a ratio to around 1 pint for every large dessert bowl of paper you blend. It is a good idea to switch the blender on for very short bursts to reduce the likelihood of clogging or blender overuse. You’ll need roughly two and half blender portions’ worth of pulp to make a your first batch of papers.
3. You can then fill the large container with water, and add half to one pint of pulp to the water (depending on the thickness of paper you want) and stir lightly. You will then need to submerge your paper mould into the watery pulp.
4. You will need to submerge the frame slowly to the bottom of the water container. To capture the pulp in the water, you need to then slowly bring the mould back to the water’s surface. Once you’ve taken the mould out of the water, leave it to drain over a sink for a few minutes. At this point you can also add in extra features, such as leaf skeletons.
5. After this time, you can then turn out the paper onto some sheets of newspaper, a towel and some fine cotton linen (not your best!) cut slightly larger than your paper mould. Turn the mould upside down onto the linen’s surface, and gently rock the mould back and forth to peel it away from the nylon mesh. As it lies on the linen, the towel underneath should soak up any excess water. If you have several sheets of paper made in one batch, you can layer up by placing each new piece of paper on layers of towel and linen over your first piece.
Pressing Your Paper
There are several ways to press your new handmade paper. The heavier the press, and the harder the surface the paper is flattened against, the flatter and thinner the paper should turn out. You could try stacking the new paper in-between sheets of linen pressed down with heavy books, boards and bricks. Alternatively, you can buy special paper presses, but these can prove to be quite a costly option.
Remember that during the pressing stage, all the excess water will be pressed out of the paper. For this reason you should make sure that you have enough towels to hand, or have placed your paper somewhere where excess water run off won’t be a problem!
The pressing stage should take no longer than around 8 hours, or overnight. After this time, you can remove each layer of paper and hang up to air dry on a clothes line with the linen still in place. Once the paper is completely dry, it should be easy to remove the linen pieces to reveal your new recycled paper sheets. If you want to add an extra smooth surface, you can leave the linen on and iron over with a hot iron.
Tip
Why not add an extra dimension to your paper by scenting it? Just a few drops of essential oil added to your pulp will suffice.
There are many ways to take a green approach to paper use. Firstly, you can try to reuse and recycle envelopes or paper whenever possible. You could also try buying recycled paper in place of ‘new’ paper.
But why not try making your own recycled paper for home use? Making recycled paper is also a great way to get kids involved in recycling. If you become particularly adept at making recycled paper, you could start replacing shop-bought paper with your homemade efforts.
Recycled homemade paper can be used as writing or notepaper if pressed. It can also be used in art and craft projects such as paper weaving or card making. Another use for thicker homemade recycled paper can become part of artisan items such as hand-bound books. This article takes a look at how to make your own basic recycled paper at home.
Getting Started
You’ll need the following equipment and materials:
* An old newspaper and paper scraps
* Bucket
* An old or second-hand food blender
* A wooden or plastic picture frame
* A pair of old nylon tights
* Drawing pins
* A large washing up bowl, tub or tray (for immersing the frames in)
How to Make Your Paper Mould
Making the paper mould is very easy. You simply take your picture frame, and remove any backing or glass so that you are just left with the bare frame. You can then stretch the nylon tights (or, alternatively, nylon screen if available) across and pin firmly in place with drawing pins. It’s a good idea to bear in mind that the thicker the mesh on your mould, the thicker the paper will be. You may want to experiment with different gauges of mesh to get your desired result.
Method:
1. You’ll need to start by tearing up newspaper or paper scraps (matte paper, not shiny or glossy) into strips and then squares, and soaking in a bucket of water for a few hours, or overnight.
2. After this time, you will then be able to blend your paper down into a pulp in the food blender. You will need to add water at a ratio to around 1 pint for every large dessert bowl of paper you blend. It is a good idea to switch the blender on for very short bursts to reduce the likelihood of clogging or blender overuse. You’ll need roughly two and half blender portions’ worth of pulp to make a your first batch of papers.
3. You can then fill the large container with water, and add half to one pint of pulp to the water (depending on the thickness of paper you want) and stir lightly. You will then need to submerge your paper mould into the watery pulp.
4. You will need to submerge the frame slowly to the bottom of the water container. To capture the pulp in the water, you need to then slowly bring the mould back to the water’s surface. Once you’ve taken the mould out of the water, leave it to drain over a sink for a few minutes. At this point you can also add in extra features, such as leaf skeletons.
5. After this time, you can then turn out the paper onto some sheets of newspaper, a towel and some fine cotton linen (not your best!) cut slightly larger than your paper mould. Turn the mould upside down onto the linen’s surface, and gently rock the mould back and forth to peel it away from the nylon mesh. As it lies on the linen, the towel underneath should soak up any excess water. If you have several sheets of paper made in one batch, you can layer up by placing each new piece of paper on layers of towel and linen over your first piece.
Pressing Your Paper
There are several ways to press your new handmade paper. The heavier the press, and the harder the surface the paper is flattened against, the flatter and thinner the paper should turn out. You could try stacking the new paper in-between sheets of linen pressed down with heavy books, boards and bricks. Alternatively, you can buy special paper presses, but these can prove to be quite a costly option.
Remember that during the pressing stage, all the excess water will be pressed out of the paper. For this reason you should make sure that you have enough towels to hand, or have placed your paper somewhere where excess water run off won’t be a problem!
The pressing stage should take no longer than around 8 hours, or overnight. After this time, you can remove each layer of paper and hang up to air dry on a clothes line with the linen still in place. Once the paper is completely dry, it should be easy to remove the linen pieces to reveal your new recycled paper sheets. If you want to add an extra smooth surface, you can leave the linen on and iron over with a hot iron.
Tip
Why not add an extra dimension to your paper by scenting it? Just a few drops of essential oil added to your pulp will suffice.
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