Surrealist Literacy

A collection of items that have recently caught my attention without any attempt to synthesize or unify the ideas behind them.

This feels amazingly accurate:

From Incidental Comics

This is highly interesting to me as a professional and a parent:

What's Going On In Your Child's Brain When You Read Them A Story?

 . . . In terms of Hutton's "Goldilocks effect," here's what the researchers found:

In the audio-only condition (too cold): language networks were activated, but there was less connectivity overall. "There was more evidence the children were straining to understand."

In the animation condition (too hot): there was a lot of activity in the audio and visual perception networks, but not a lot of connectivity among the various brain networks. "The language network was working to keep up with the story," says Hutton. "Our interpretation was that the animation was doing all the work for the child. They were expending the most energy just figuring out what it means." The children's comprehension of the story was the worst in this condition.

The illustration condition was what Hutton called "just right".

When children could see illustrations, language-network activity dropped a bit compared to the audio condition. Instead of only paying attention to the words, Hutton says, the children's understanding of the story was "scaffolded" by having the images as clues.

"Give them a picture and they have a cookie to work with," he explains. "With animation it's all dumped on them all at once and they don't have to do any of the work."

Most importantly, in the illustrated book condition, researchers saw increased connectivity between — and among — all the networks they were looking at: visual perception, imagery, default mode and language. . . .

One interesting note is that, because of the constraints of an MRI machine, which encloses and immobilizes your body, the story-with-illustrations condition wasn't actually as good as reading on Mom or Dad's lap.

The emotional bonding and physical closeness, Hutton says, were missing. So were the exchanges known as "dialogic reading," where caregivers point out specific words or prompt children to "show me the cat?" in a picture. "That's a whole other layer," of building reading Hutton says.

While most of this article is about other countries, in my mind it sure seems relevant to the current politics in the U.S. in the many ways these things are being undermined:

How Nations Stay Together

Why do some countries fall apart, often along their ethnic fault lines, while others have held together over decades and centuries, despite governing a diverse population as well? Why is it, in other words, that nation-building succeeded in some places while it failed in others? . . .

Ties of alliance connect national governments with individual citizens, sometimes through intermediary political organisations such as voluntary associations, parties, professional groups, etc. Ideally, these ties link all citizens into networks of alliances centred on the state. In such countries, all citizens see themselves represented at the centre of power, even if their preferred party or political patron is not currently occupying one of the seats of government. Intellectuals, political elites, as well as the average individual will eventually see all citizens, irrespective of their racial or ethnic background, as equal members of the national community.

Effective nation-building brings important and positive consequences. Alliances that cut across the entire territory of a country depoliticise ethnic divisions. Politics is not perceived as a zero-sum game in which ethnic groups struggle for control of the state. Instead, more substantial policy issues concerning what the state should actually do come to the foreground of the debate. Inclusive political coalitions also foster a sense of ownership of the state and promote the ideal of a collective purpose beyond one’s family, village, clan or profession. Conformingly, citizens who identify with their nation are less resistant to paying taxes, more likely to support welfare policies, and are governed by more effective states. We also know that inclusive coalitions comprising ethnic minorities and majorities alike greatly reduce the risk of civil war and promote economic growth. . . .

I want to highlight three other factors that develop more slowly – over generations – but are most effective in building political ties across ethnic lines. The first factor refers to how such ties are organised. It is easiest to establish political alliances across ethnic divides if they can build on already existing voluntary organisations, such as reading circles, trade unions, political clubs and so forth. Voluntary organisations often enter into horizontal alliances with each other – such as a coalition of local nursing associations in California. By contrast, in hierarchical patronage systems, ties proliferate vertically between patrons and clients who in turn become the patrons of other clients further down the pyramid of power and influence. Alliance networks built on voluntary organisations can therefore proliferate across the territory and reach across ethnic divides more easily than patronage systems. . . .

The second factor concerns the resources that citizens exchange with the state. Citizens are more likely to politically support a government that provides public goods in exchange for taxing them. If taxes are exchanged for public goods, the nature of the relationship between government and citizens changes. It is then no longer based on extraction under the threat of force – as was typically the case with the more coercive regimes that preceded the nation-state, such as an absolutist kingdom, an imperial governor or a colonial administration. The more a government is capable of providing public goods across all regions of a country, the more attractive it will be as an exchange partner, and the more citizens will want to establish an alliance with it. The ruling coalition will reflect such encompassing alliance structures and thus the ethnic diversity of the population. . . .

The third aspect of the alliance relationships between citizens and the state refers to how they communicate with each other. Establishing ties across regions and ethnic divides is easier if individuals can converse in a shared language. . . .

Public goods are best provided by national and local governments. Private companies, foreign NGOs or intervening armies might sometimes be more economically efficient. But public goods provisioning by outside forces does little to enhance the legitimacy of the national government. . . .

A unified national school system is another long-term strategy for effective nation-building. . . .

Finally, some interesting considerations of an interesting question:

Are Plants Conscious?

For this week’s Giz Asks, we posed those questions to a number of environmental scientists and philosophers—including a professor on the vanguard of something called “plant neurobiology.” Plants may not be able to wistfully reflect on their childhood, or hear/see anything in a conventional sense, but they do, as it turns out, retain information, and make “decisions” based on past experiences. Whether this constitutes “consciousness” depends, as always, on how you define the term.