Jane Jacobs

[da]

It's been a whirlwind few days. Happy b-day persephoneplace! Good times at her place last night; and lovecraftienne was the babe with great camera-fu, taking some some great photos in low-light conditions.

While I'm at it, Happy birthday to dr_tectonic as well.

I saw d. to the airport this morning; although I'm sure he'd prefer if I were visiting him next, he'll be back in town in a mere 2.5 weeks, because he has to write his citizenship test (yay!). They could reschedule that for... a month later when he's at conferences; so back he comes. There's a small chance he ran into his dad at the airport, since he was in Toronto for a conference (where he might've run into bats22, at the same conference though a different group/meeting.)

I'm at work still, trying to get a pile of things done for the beginning of term. But I got here after noon, so I don't feel so bad about seeing sundown.

I heard some great retrospectives on Jane Jacobs on CBC Radio One in the last few days. My favourite clip from last night's interview with an old friend of hers, by Mary Lou Finley:

[Mary Lou: was she a difficult person to be friends with? or something like that]. Interviewee: No, she was strident, but I treasured that. I'd come to talk to her and I'd say, "Did you see this news in today's paper?" and she'd look at it and say "but that's not at all true! Why, think of [counter-example]. How could anybody possibly think that was true?" ...and she was right.

Today they played another interview from 2004, with a similar (entertaining) bit where she expressed exasperation with people who show no independent critical thought. I can get behind that exasperation, but I certainly don't see any simple answers. It's really easy for smart people (or iconoclasts) to exhort others to be smarter or more iconoclastic. But being that way is tough to figure out. I know this from experience; I used to think I was good at critical thinking, then I started dating d. I've totally lost count the number of times he catches something stupid in the paper, that I had just browsed over and said, "Oh, that's odd, but I guess it makes sense". It's fitting new knowledge into one's mental models, and changing the models when necessary, but calling the new information BS if it contradicts a good model. Yeah. That's tough.

Comments

[metalana.livejournal.com]

thanks for recognizing that pointing out BS is tough. I think we are socially trained not to point out BS, because it requires being rude (especially if the BS is coming from someone across the table, not in the newspaper).

On my desk at work I have a list labelled "Big lurking IM issues that noone wants to deal with". I've never quite gotten the guts to keep that list running all the time, but sometimes I manage to pull one of the issues out from under the rug, and this morning on the bus (from KW) I managed to make a whole list. Luckily the new boss is willing to look these demons in the eye, so here goes more iconoclasm.