SAL RESTIVO'S BLOG: THE SOCIOLOGICAL COGITO

Thoughts on the firestorm of stupidity that is engulfing the 21st century    L'art de guillotiner les procréateurs: Manifeste anti-nataliste , T. de Giraud (2006) WAKE UP AND SMELL ETERNITY Ode to de Giraud  Hear ye Hear ye cried the voices of old puncture, cut, break up and fold                                                                                              Ice is better once it melts   better if it were something else if it had chosen never to be frozen   ...

  Beyond New Atheism and Theism: The Sociology of Science, Secularism, and Religiosity ROUTLEDGE, expected late 2023)   The debates between New Atheists and theists provide a jumping off point for Restivo’s wide-ranging sociological criticque of atheism and theism as incommensurable worldview.   Restivo builds this critique into a foundation for constructing a sociologically informed secular worldview opposed to antheism and theism.   ENDORSEMENTS Restivo uses sociology to analyze and transcend both the dogmatism of theology and the naïve science-worship of today’s New Atheists. God is a collective representation, the grounds for the social evolution of ethics as pragmatic rules for humans to get along. The individual is the intersection of social networks (as is science), and what both individuals and sciences do is socially real, path-dependent, and open-ended. We could call this network secularism, and it provides its own t...

I am leaving Linkedin.  In a few days I will send Routledge the completed manuscript for what will be my last book, Beyond New Atheism and Theism: A Sociology of Science, Secularism, and Religiosity (I am posting an outline of the book on my blog this afternoon).  It is an indictment of “the rational animal,” homo sapien, that I have had to write such a book in the 21st century to demonstrate why religion is real and god is not. I am tired of the reign of stupidity in Washington and around the world, the glorification of entrepreneurship and professionalism in a world being destroyed by the ideology of capitalism (the economy that never was, isn’t, and never will be), people who need coaches, people who want to be coaches, everyone acting as if it’s perfectly normal for billions of dollars (precious natural and human resources) to be used for war machines most of which will never be used, the lack of compassion for living, breathing human beings that gu...

 Social organization and culture require the stability of rules, laws, and taboos.  But we fearful humans, specs in the meaningless void, have taken this too far.  We have too many rules, too many laws, too many taboos that run counter to nature and our place in nature.  This is especially true with regard to sex.  Any two or more humans put together in any context will encounter sex, which is everywhere.  That potential ranges from touching and caressing to sexual fondling, play, and intercourse.  ANY two or more humans.  Let's leave people engaged in consensual sensual and sexual relations alone and give people more leeway for inevitable liasons. 

Everyday, from all sides of the information explosion, we are accosted by the nonsense that flows from the outright ignorant and those good humans who refuse to see what a wasteland we live in and keep giving us advice on how to life a good life, how to be successful, how to love...  There is a common resistance to embracing reality.  Here are some recent examples from the news and the media.  This story was #4 in 2022 at Mind Matters News in terms of reader numbers. As we approach the New Year, we are rerunning the top ten Mind Matters News stories of 2022, based on reader interest. In “Hard problem of consciousness solved?: A 4th spatial dimension?” (April 20, 2022), our News division looks at philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes’ view that higher spatial dimensions might hold the key to the uniqueness of human consciousness.---- STILL the wrong people using the wrong tools and looking in the wrong places. We've known since ...

 WATCH THIS SPACE FOR FUTURE POSTS ON THE IDEA OF SEX AS A UBIQUITOUS FORCE LIKE GRAVITY – THUS, SEXITY.  THE TERM WAS INTRODUCED BY THE ANTHROPOLOGIST BURT AGINSKY WHO WAS MY MENTOR AT THE CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK FROM 1963 TO 1965.  AGINSKY STUDIED UNDER FRANZ BOAS, ALFRED KROEBER, AND RUTH BENEDICT.  Sometime in the 1990s, J.L. and I came to the conclusion that "sex is everywhere."  This is the idea I will explore in this blog.  Stay tuned. 

 Her name was Marie DeLio.  She was the Marilyn Monroe of middle school teachers, rivaled only by the bronze skinned Mrs. Brodsky, the girl's gym teacher.  We asked Mr. Rosoff, the guidance teacher, if he liked her.  One day he popped his head into our home room, told Marie what we'd asked him, and said he'd told us "Yes." They would often be seen walking into the teacher's lounge with their arms around each other's waists.  Jealousy?  You bet.  One day, he popped his head into our home room and the two of them started to talk about me, until Rosoff tossed off the word, "noncomposmentis," they laughed, and he walked away.  Marie wore tight, low cut dresses and would occasionally bend over to reveal hidden treats of her anatomy.  One day, she perched herself on my desk, last row, first desk, next to the windows.  She then proceeded to informally lecture the class while running her fingers over my ears in what to this day is one of the mos...