Post 43: Retracing Our Steps
Two weeks ago, I promised to put together a directory of topics for my Throughlines essays. But life happened, the red hat called to me, other deadlines intervened. Last week's post about the Norwegian resistance hats did serve as a chance to offer a roundup of all the posts I've done that involve handcraft and craftivism. But today I'd like to lay out a map of all the themes that have been drawing my attention as I work through my Learn, Imagine, Act project resources. As you'll notice, there is a lot of overlap in the material; it often fits a number of categories. But the interconnections are clear and significant.
My starting point for this series is an attempt to recognize both what is unique about my personal perspective and what forces have made it part of a larger pattern. It begins with having come from an immigrant lineage, living and moving among various other immigrants in a colonized land. I'd like to retrieve this quote from my first post, to set the stage for this directory:
"I mention these threads because, painful and sketchy as they are, they represent not only my familial throughlines, but also this country's, with our history of colonial invasion, immigration, enslavement. Now, the current administration is attempting to force through measures that reverberate with these lines. A long-avoided reckoning needs to be faced– that of how infiltrated with the past our present is. The facts of our particular history undergird and fuel the political structures, personal assumptions, and social arrangements we navigate daily. Many of us from this settler lineage are feeling called to reflect and reorient."
I hope this directory makes it simpler for you to search for materials as you reflect and reorient, too. As always, I invite you to please show up in the comments for conversation.
And, as we move into the second year of this tumultuous time, I have a request of you. I'm writing this series to help me make sense of what's happening, to keep a record of what I'm seeing, and to share these sources and thoughts freely to help others do the same.
I have no team helping me, and make no money from this endeavor. But a huge reward is knowing that these essays have been of use to readers. I don't care about having "followers." I would love it, however, if you could help me get these essays to more readers.
I'm honored that you have been on this path with me so far. If you've ever seen an essay here that resonates for you, I'd be so grateful if in the week ahead, you were to share it with someone else. Each little ripple outward can help.
Settler History
Post 1: Reorienting
Post 39: Taking Action
White Supremacy
Post 19: Fever Pitch: Dethroning the Klan's Consummate Grifter
Post 21: Malice: Heather Cox Richardson's book, How the South Won the Civil War
Post 30: Hauntings: Internment, Detention, Rendition
Post 32: Avoiding Technologic Overreach: Humans, the Biosphere, and AI
Post 33: Seeing Beyond the AI Mirror
Post 39: Taking Action
Nazis
Post 3: Unburial—Language, Memory, and Forceful Forgetting
Post 4: What We Are Told, What We Are Telling Ourselves
Post 5: Excavating History, Fathoming the Present, and Envisioning the Future
Post 9: Work: Notes on Laboring Under an Illusion
Post 15: Hans Asperger and Nazi Psychiatry: Diagnosing History
Post 16: Poison Words: Language, Dehumanization, and Death
Post 17: What's in a Name: Murderous Metaphors
Post 29: We Create and Defend Democracy Together
Post 30: Hauntings: Internment, Detention, Rendition
Post 42: United, We Won't Unravel
Exploitation, Labor/Concentration Camps, Othering
Post 5: Excavating History, Fathoming the Present, and Envisioning the Future
Post 8: Of Kaleidoscopes and Propaganda Machines
Post 9: Work: Notes on Laboring Under an Illusion
Post 13: How the State Creates Enemies
Post 14: Rights at Risk: What Is Your Value to the Nation?
Post 15: Hans Asperger and Nazi Psychiatry: Diagnosing History
Post 17: What's in a Name: Murderous Metaphors
Post 30: Hauntings: Internment, Detention, Rendition
Post 32: Avoiding Technologic Overreach: Humans, the Biosphere, and AI
Eugenics
Post 12: Eugenics in the U.S.
Post 14: Rights at Risk: What Is Your Value to the Nation?
Post 15: Hans Asperger and Nazi Psychiatry: Diagnosing History
Post 16: Poison Words: Language, Dehumanization, and Death
Post 17: What's in a Name: Murderous Metaphors
Propaganda and Language
Post #3: Unburial—Language, Memory, and Forceful Forgetting
Post #4: What We Are Told, What We Are Telling Ourselves
Post #8: Of Kaleidoscopes and Propaganda Machines
Post 11: Anti-Intellectualism and Technological Fascism
Post 14: Rights at Risk: What Is Your Value to the Nation?
Post 16: Poison Words: Language, Dehumanization, and Death
Post 17: What's in a Name: Murderous Metaphors
Post 18: Tracks of Time, Learning Curves, and Trains of Thought
Post 21: Malice: Heather Cox Richardson's book, How the South Won the Civil War
Post 25: Waking up: Will We Simply Roll Over or Will We Rise Up?
Post 26: Manufactured Strife: Part 1 of a 2 part review of Invisible Rulers, Renée DiResta's book on the impact of social media influencers
Post 27: Public Square vs Gladiatorial Arena: Invisible Rulers, Part 2
Post 30: Hauntings: Internment, Detention, Rendition
Craft, Cooperatives, Pollinator Gardens
Healing, Handcraft, Art and Activism
Post 6: Throughlines in Thread Lines
Post 7: Tools for Our Timeline
Post 10: Piecing Things Together
Post 20: Making It Up Out of Whole Cloth
Post 22: Handcrafted Healing
Post 23: Take a Break, So You Don't Break
Post 24: Tending and Seeding: Making Sure There Will Be New Growth
Post 25: Waking up: Will We Simply Roll Over or Will We Rise Up?
Post 28: On Grief and Hope
Post 29: We Create and Defend Democracy Together
Post 35: Mirrors Are Mere Surfaces: AI and the Arts
Post 36: Engaging with Other Minds: More on Art, Activism, AI
Post 37: The Luxury of Looking
Post 38: Against Abandonment
Post 39: Taking Action
Post 40: Wayfinding
Post 42: United, We Won't Unravel
Technology and AI
Post 11: Anti-Intellectualism and Technological Fascism
Post 26: Manufactured Strife: Part 1 of a 2 part review of Invisible Rulers, Renée DiResta's book on the impact of social media influencers
Post 27: Public Square vs Gladiatorial Arena: Invisible Rulers, Part 2
Post 31: Raising Questions
Post 32: Avoiding Technologic Overreach: Humans, the Biosphere, and AI
Post 33: Seeing Beyond the AI Mirror
Post 34: Human Agency and Machine Thinking
Post 35: Mirrors Are Mere Surfaces: AI and the Arts
Post 36: Engaging with Other Minds: More on Art, Activism, AI
Post 37: The Luxury of Looking
Post 38: Defying Obsolescence: Human Agency and AI
