Christmas Lessons

RC1_0082, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell

Each Christmas come since World War I I've learned its lessons well

That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame

And on each end of the rifle we're the same.

John McCutcheon, Christmas in the Trenches

Monoculture

RCC_1860, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr. 

The governing pattern a culture obeys is a master story – one

narrative in society that takes over the others, shrinking

diversity and forming a monoculture. When you’re inside a

master story at a particular time in history, you tend to

accept its definition of reality. You unconsciously believe and

act on certain things, and disbelieve and fail to act on other

things. That’s the power of the monoculture; it’s able to

direct us without us knowing too much about it.

 F. S. Michaels, Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything

Subjectivity

RCC_1926
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Subjectivity is not something that we wear like a badge of honour that can be taken out and paraded around. It is constantly with us, a garment that cannot be removed.

Alan Peshkin, In Search of Subjectivity