A couple of new books

I ordered these two books from the Book Depository:

Philip E. Tetlock: Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?

Sven Steinmo: The Evolution of Modern States: Sweden, Japan, and the United States

Currently reading (from the library):
Julkisuus ja demokratia (a collection of articles about publicity and democracy)

Ilpo Laitinen: Moraalinen logo. Organisaatioiden arvovallankumous. (about the social responsibility of companies and how to promote it)

Expect some new insights into these in the coming weeks.

On Eternal Recurrence

Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally, and we ourselves too; and that we have already existed an eternal number of times, and all things with us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a monster of a great year; which must, like an hourglass, turn over again and again so that it may run down and run out again; and all these years are alike in what is greatest as in what is smallest; and we ourselves are alike in every great year, in what is greatest as in what is smallest.

Now I die and vanish… the soul is as immortal as the body. But the knot of causes in which I am entangled recurs and will create me again. I myself belong to the causes of eternal recurrence. I come again, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent – not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: I come back eternally to this same, selfsame life, in what is greatest as in what is smallest, to teach again the eternal recurrence of all things…

Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra: a Book for Everyone and No-one.

So, perhaps the best argument for anything is:

You know what, you said that very same thing last time too!

Now I ask: Does this make you feel despair and powerlessness, or quite the opposite?

Currently reading

In addition to serving a healthy dose of Financial Times every few days, the extensive business book collection in Fellmannia library has gotten me into the habit of randomly wandering about the section. Inspired by the Dialogue book, I started searching for works by Peter Senge who has developed the theory of learning organizations.

Currently I’m reading Senge et al.’s The Dance of Change – The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (see Amazon) and Presence – Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society (also in Amazon) (with the different et al.’s).

It’s interesting how even dusty debates such as the one on the coming community suddenly have much more relevance when new information emerges. We should ask: what kind of role does the ability to suspend the “Voice of Judgment” have in a learning organization (such as the coming community)? What kind of organization is built when “fear, judgment, and the chattering of the mind” (as characterized by Michael Ray) is replaced with calm introspection and ability to openly tell others what you are thinking and feeling?

Isn’t this precisely the moment when the participants’ uniqueness “both conjoins and remains”? I am what I am and think what I think, but that does not limit my ability to cooperate with others.

Publicity, economics and economic sociology

Today I borrowed three books from the Fellmannia library. The first is Habermas’s Structural transformation of public sphere (Finnish translation), in which I have been long interested. I somewhat know the thesis, but I really want to know the mechanics: how did publicity turn into what it currently is?

A few days back – while editing Wikipedia articles about economic sociology – I also understood that I don’t really know how the capitalist system works besides these basic invisible-hand-supply-and-demand things. So the other two books are Carlo Trigilia’s Economic Sociology: State, Market, and Society in Modern Capitalism and Andrew Gillespie’s Foundations of Economics. These books will surely be interesting.