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Montreal's Underground City (officially RÉSEAU or La Ville Souterraine in French) is the set of interconnected complexes (both above and below ground) in and around Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is also known as the indoor city (ville intérieure), and is the largest underground complex in the world.
The lower floors of the Eaton Centre between the McGill and Peel metro stations.Not all portions of the indoor city (ville intérieure) are underground. The connections are considered tunnels architecturally and technically, but have conditioned air and good lighting as any building's liveable space does. Many tunnels are large enough to have shops on both sides of the passage. With over 32 km (20 mi) of tunnels spread over more than 12 km2 (4.6 sq mi), connected areas include shopping malls, apartment buildings, hotels, condominiums, banks, offices, museums, universities, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, a regional bus terminal and the Bell Centre amphitheatre and arena. There are more than 120 exterior access points to the underground city. Each access point is an entry point to one of 60 residential or commercial complexes comprising 3.6 km2 (1.4 sq mi) of floor space, including 80% of all office space and 35% of all commercial space in downtown Montreal. In winter, some 500,000 people use the underground city every day.
Source: Wikipedia
More pictures of Montreal are Here
American Museum of Natural History. New York. Jan/2017
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH), located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, is one of the largest museums in the world. Located in park-like grounds across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 28 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain over 33 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time, and occupies more than 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2). The museum has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually.
The one mission statement of the American Museum of Natural History is: "To discover, interpret, and disseminate—through scientific research and education—knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe.
Source: Wikipedia
O Museu Americano de História Natural (American Museum of Natural History, em inglês) é um museu dos Estados Unidos da América, localizado em Nova Iorque e fundado em 1869. É especialmente reconhecido pela sua vasta coleção de fósseis, incluindo de espécies de Dinossauros. Uma das grandes atrações do museu é uma coleção de esqueletos de dinossauro, com mais de 30 milhões de fósseis e artefatos espalhados por 42 salas de exibição.Um T-Rex de aproximadamente 15 metros e dá as boas vindas aos visitantes na entrada.
Theodore Roosevelt está ligado à sua fundação e é lembrado no actual museu por um memorial. O primeiro edifício do museu acabou de ser construído em 1877, a partir do projecto de Calvert Vaux e Jacob Wrey Mould, a partir de uma ideia de Albert Smith Bickmore, discípulo de Louis Agassiz no Museu de Zoologia Comparativa de Harvard, em 1860. O museu serviu como cenário para o filme "Uma Noite no Museu" (2006).
Fonte: Wikipedia
The real jet looks most attractive with the wings swept back and so does the model, but the swing wings are fully functional and interconnected to move in tandem.
I live in California. I am not from here, I moved here about 7 years ago. Since this is about as far west as America can go, this was one of the last modern developed places in the world. Think about it, Europe is mass developed and urbanized everywhere you go. People have been living there in their cities and towns and civilizations for tens of thousands of years. America as a country was developed in terms of the white man until the 1500’s or so. California was not really developed until the 1800’s. The early part of the 1900’s people were still coming out here claiming land as their own. The little ghost towns that I love to visit were once bustling towns that had their OWN community and their OWN life. Federal government really didn’t interfere much because it was the “Wild West”. How damn cool is the concept of the Wild West? Crazy people who had nothing left to lose traveled across the unknown country to find gold. Every little town and village along the way had a couple saloons, motel, jail, church, and the people who lived there. There were no highways. They didn’t own cars. They all knew each other. The passersby on their way had to deal with the locals. The local economy was real. The few people who held the power ran the entire town. The sheriff, the mayor, I’m not really sure. But I know that back then things were not interconnected and community was much more real. It was dangerous, but it was interesting. You were not as connected to the rest of the world in your little town in the Wild West, for better or for worse. Internet? You kidding me, not even close.
In any case I moved out here to California 7 years ago. What surprises me most about this newly developed piece of land is the amount of people I meet out here that have been born here and never left. Basically what that tells me is that I was born into a stagnant generation. There is no exploration. There is nowhere left to go for the promise of a better life. You don’t meet too many people that are from somewhere else. That to me tells me that I’m a generation or two too late. California isn’t the place to go to strike gold anymore or for an interesting exciting new life, its just another place in America where people are born and die. It isn’t new, it’s just like everything else. Now that’s not entirely true, but it isn’t the “wild west” or does it hold the “go west young man” theme that it had such a short tiny amount of years ago.
That said, Northern California is a great place to live. The weather is PERFECT and the people I surround myself by are pretty badass. However the matter of it being a place to be for entrepreneurs and rouges in search of a more engaging life it is no longer.
January 2nd, 2009
Live Oaks have a shallow, sprawling root system. I've read that they are sometimes even interconnected. I've heard of redwoods in the pacific northwest (USA) doing something similar. As in the case of the redwoods, they are "families" of related trees and actually "care" for one another by passing carbon and other nutrients from one to another; and that's just what we know so far. I wonder if the live oaks at Fort Fisher are just one big family, too! And if so, do you think they ever argue?
The Kö-Bogen I and II projects in Düsseldorf, Germany, represent a major urban revitalization effort that has transformed a former elevated motorway and traffic hub into a modern, pedestrian-friendly city center. The projects were conceived as two distinct but interconnected architectural ensembles that re-establish the connection between the city's main shopping street, Königsallee, and the Hofgarten park. Both projects feature cutting-edge, sustainable design and have received international recognition for their innovative approach to urban planning and architecture. The overall goal was to create a new, vibrant public space that prioritizes pedestrians and greenery, while also housing high-end retail and office spaces.
Kö-Bogen I was the first phase of the project, completed in 2013, and was designed by the renowned architect Daniel Libeskind. The ensemble consists of two curved buildings, connected by a bridge, which sit on the site of the former elevated motorway. The buildings are characterized by their striking façade of white natural stone and glass, with diagonal incisions that are planted with greenery. These "cuts" are a signature element of Libeskind's design, creating a dynamic visual effect and providing additional shading. The complex houses luxury retail spaces and high-end offices, and its design was intended to create a seamless transition between the urban environment of Königsallee and the natural landscape of the Hofgarten.
Kö-Bogen II, completed in 2020, is perhaps the most iconic part of the development. Designed by Ingenhoven Architects, this commercial and office building ensemble features a spectacular and sustainable design element: Europe's largest green façade. The building is covered in more than 30,000 hornbeam hedges, a native hardwood species that retains its leaves in winter. This greening concept is not just for aesthetics; it plays a crucial role in improving the city's microclimate by absorbing carbon dioxide, reducing urban heat, dampening noise, and promoting biodiversity. The building's sloping facades, which are inspired by Land Art, face the Hofgarten and create a deliberate visual conversation with the neighboring post-war modernist landmarks like the Dreischeibenhaus and Schauspielhaus.
Together, the Kö-Bogen I and II projects have successfully redefined a key area of Düsseldorf's city center. By dismantling a 1960s motorway and replacing it with these architecturally significant and environmentally conscious buildings, the city has transformed a car-centric space into a vibrant, green, and walkable urban destination. The project as a whole has received numerous awards and is considered a lighthouse example of modern "city repair," demonstrating how cities can address climate change and urban design challenges through innovative, sustainable, and people-oriented architecture.
Lighting The Sails 'Songlines'
World Premiere, Sydney Only
Directed by the Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts
Co-curated by Sydney Opera House and Destination NSW
Visual content and animation created by Artists in Motion
Lighting the Sails for the eighth year of Vivid Sydney, Sydney Opera House will transform into an animated canvas of Australian indigenous art featuring iconic contemporary works from Karla Dickens, Djon Mundine, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Reko Rennie, Donny Woolagoodja, and the late Gulumbu Yunupingu.
Celebrating First Nations' spirituality and culture through the songlines of our land and sky, this year’s Lighting the Sails is about painting and celebrating country through a pattern of sharing systems, interconnected history lines and trade routes. Lighting the Sails Director and Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts has selected six artists of different clans, national estates and territories for an immersive projected artwork that weaves through time and distance.
As the first indigenous work commissioned exclusively for the sails of the Sydney Opera House, this visual tapestry will weave through personal journeys, while celebrating the timeless themes and enduring art of Australia's most influential contemporary First Nations artists, exclusive to Vivid Sydney.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Karla Dickens (Wiradjuri)
Karla Dickens was born in Sydney in 1967; the Year of the Referendum that gave Aboriginal people human status. A double dawn for Aboriginal people; a major national political and social shift, and an innocent newborn seemingly as yet without any connection to her history and Aboriginal heritage. Karla’s Aboriginality and sexuality profoundly inform her work – her insight and breadth of artistic practice both deeply embraces the notion of identity politics and yet works with universal human experiences.
Djon Mundine OAM (Bandjalung)
Djon Mundine is a member of the Bandjalung people of northern New South Wales. Djon has an extended career as a curator, activist, writer, and occasional artist and is renown as the concept curator for the Aboriginal Memorial installation permanently exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia. Djon was awarded an OAM in 1993 and is currently Indigenous Curator-Contemporary Art at the Campbelltown Art Centre.
Gabriella Possum (Nungurrayi)
Gabriella Possum was born in 1967 and she is the eldest daughter of the internationally renowned artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri who was awarded the Order of Australia in 2002. Gabriella is best known for her Seven Sisters paintings, with her iconic depiction of the Milky Way and she also paints Bush Tucker and Grandmother's Country stories.
Reko Rennie (Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi)
Through his art Reko explores what it means to be an urban Aboriginal in contemporary Australian society. Rennie received no formal artistic training but as a teenager discovered graffiti which became an all-consuming passion. His art and installations continually explore issues of identity, race, law & justice, land rights, stolen generations and other issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in contemporary society.
Donny Woolagoodja (Worora)
Donny, Mowanjum Artists Spirit of the Wandjina Aboriginal Corporation (MASWAC) chairman, is the fourth eldest of ten children. His father, Sam, was the last of the Worora banmen (lawman and medicine man).
Donny's remarkable upbringing bridges the white Christian beliefs he became aware of at the mission churches and the ancient Wandjina laws his father taught him allowing him to move easily between his Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people.
Gulumbu Yunupingu (1954-2012, Gumatj)
Using distinctive white and black crosses on a red ground, Yolgnu artist Gulumbu Yunupingu (1945-2012) painted Garak, the starry universe, on barks and poles. She came to national prominence when she won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award (2004), and to international acclaim in 2006 with her scaled-up version of Garak on permanent display at Musee du Quai Branly (2006).
Artists In Motion
Artists in Motion is a Creative Project company that are highly regarded as pioneers of the industry. Known for their work around the world they still remain a proudly home grown creative force that produces all of their creations from their Sydney studio.
AIM is a collective of unique talent and experienced artists who have worked as a united team for several years. From the Epic to culturally emotional, they continue to transfix audiences of all kinds.
Under the creative leadership of Richard Lindsay, previous projects include content creation for the Beijing Olympics Ceremonies, Vancouver Winter Olympic Ceremonies, Hong Kong Pulse Shows, Alfa Bank Projection Moscow, 1st European Games Baku, the iconic UAE production “Clusters of Light”, as well as previous works for VIVID, including the popular Play projection on the Sydney Opera House.
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The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Museum is one of the jewels of architecture known in Portugal. Architects Ruy Jervis d'Athouguia, Pedro Cid and Alberto Pessoa designed the campus and the buildings in memory of the foundation of the same name.
These important architects were responsible for implementing the project of the Foundation and Museum after winning a competition in 1959. The contest invited three teams of three architects to propose ideas for these buildings, which would serve as a cultural center and museum for the impressive art collection Calouste Gulbenkian. In late 1969, the execution of the project was completed.
The winning proposal involved austere modern buildings, which, as is said, reflect the personality of Calouste Gulbenkian. These concrete structures in buildings are separate but interconnected pathways through relaxing campus.
The landscaping was developed by Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles Barreto and Antonio Viana, and has great value in itself. The vegetation is proposed on the entire campus on the lawn, trees and water features. Spaces lead visitors to the city for a quiet place where they can enjoy the buildings and works of art.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Museum was recognized as a National Monument in Portugal in 2010. The buildings are seen as a significant representation of modern Portuguese architecture of the 60's, and continue to inspire young architects today.
Valle de los Ingenios, also named Valley de los Ingenios or Valley of the Sugar Mills, is a series of three interconnected valleys about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) outside of Trinidad, Cuba. The three valleys, San Luis, Santa Rosa, and Meyer, were a centre for sugar production from the late 18th century until the late 19th century.
At the peak of the industry in Cuba there were over fifty sugar cane mills in operation in the three valleys, with over 30,000 slaves working in the mills and on the sugar cane plantations that surrounded them.
The 45 metre (147 ft) tower was constructed sometime in 1816 by the owner, Alejo Maria Iznaga y Borrell. According to experts, the bell that formerly hung on top of the tower announced the beginning and the end of the work day for the slaves, as well as the times for prayers to the Holy Virgin in the morning, midday, and afternoon. It was also used to sound an alarm in case of fire or slave escape. The height and magnificence of the tower served to display Iznaga's power over his slaves and his stature in the sugar industry and local society; at one time it was the tallest structure in Cuba. A recognised landmark of the region, the Iznaga Tower testifies to the area's flourishing material culture in the Spanish colonial period. The large bell now rests at the foot of the tower. [Wikipedia]
Pentax 6x7
105mm f2.4
Fomapan 100
"...the headwaters of the North Fork of the St. Lucie River. These headwaters were originally comprised of a large area of interconnected marsh that eventually formed a creek. This marsh system, in times of high water, connected with the St. Johns River, allowing native peoples to travel. It is estimated that this area was inhabited as early as 3000 to 750 BC. The native peoples that lived in this area were most likely Santa Luce (Guacata) Indians; they lived on the St. Lucie River and camped farther inland than most of the coast peoples such as the Ais Indians. The culture itself is classified as “East Okeechobee”, and is transitional, showing influences from neighboring cultures. These include Glades ceramics from the south, Belle Glades from the west, Orange and St. Johns from the north, and shell tool types from the north and south."
Two strings of TankTrain cars are just behind the head end autoracks on CN 401, CN 585 will forward them from Taschereau Yard to Maitland, Ontario. These cars are interconnected, for quicker unloading.
Nitmiluk National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 244 km southeast of Darwin, (4 hours or 350 km by road) around a series of gorges on the Katherine River and Edith Falls.
Previously named Katherine Gorge National Park, its northern edge borders Kakadu National Park. The gorges and the surrounding landscape have great ceremonial significance to the local Jawoyn people, who are custodians of Nitmiluk National Park. In Jawoyn, Nitmiluk means "place of the cicada dreaming".
Katherine Gorge, a deep gorge carved through ancient sandstone by the Katherine River, is the central attraction of the park. Katherine Gorge is made up of thirteen gorges, with rapids and falls, and follow the Katherine River, which begins in Kakadu. During the Dry, roughly from April to October, the Katherine Gorge waters are placid in most spots and ideal for swimming and canoeing.
There may be freshwater crocodiles in most parts of the river, as they nest along the banks, but they are generally harmless to humans unless provoked. Saltwater crocodiles regularly enter the river during the wet season, when the water levels are very high, and are subsequently removed and returned to the lower levels at the onset of the dry season. Thus, swimming in the wet season is prohibited.
Cruises of various lengths go as far as the fifth gorge. The gorges can be explored by canoe and flat bottomed boat. In the dry season the gorges become separated as the level of the river falls. They are interconnected in the wet. There is a visitor centre located at the Katherine Gorge, about 30 km east of the town of Katherine.
Freshwater crocodiles are widely distributed along the river year-round. During the wet season, rises in water levels may allow saltwater crocodiles to enter the gorge, where they are caught and relocated to lower levels when the dry season begins.
Birds that can be seen include ospreys, red-tailed black cockatoos, great bowerbirds, white-gaped honeyeaters and red-winged parrots. Part of the Yinberrie Hills Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because of its importance for endangered Gouldian finches, lies in the park
Lighting The Sails 'Songlines'
World Premiere, Sydney Only
Directed by the Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts
Co-curated by Sydney Opera House and Destination NSW
Visual content and animation created by Artists in Motion
Lighting the Sails for the eighth year of Vivid Sydney, Sydney Opera House will transform into an animated canvas of Australian indigenous art featuring iconic contemporary works from Karla Dickens, Djon Mundine, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Reko Rennie, Donny Woolagoodja, and the late Gulumbu Yunupingu.
Celebrating First Nations' spirituality and culture through the songlines of our land and sky, this year’s Lighting the Sails is about painting and celebrating country through a pattern of sharing systems, interconnected history lines and trade routes. Lighting the Sails Director and Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts has selected six artists of different clans, national estates and territories for an immersive projected artwork that weaves through time and distance.
As the first indigenous work commissioned exclusively for the sails of the Sydney Opera House, this visual tapestry will weave through personal journeys, while celebrating the timeless themes and enduring art of Australia's most influential contemporary First Nations artists, exclusive to Vivid Sydney.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Karla Dickens (Wiradjuri)
Karla Dickens was born in Sydney in 1967; the Year of the Referendum that gave Aboriginal people human status. A double dawn for Aboriginal people; a major national political and social shift, and an innocent newborn seemingly as yet without any connection to her history and Aboriginal heritage. Karla’s Aboriginality and sexuality profoundly inform her work – her insight and breadth of artistic practice both deeply embraces the notion of identity politics and yet works with universal human experiences.
Djon Mundine OAM (Bandjalung)
Djon Mundine is a member of the Bandjalung people of northern New South Wales. Djon has an extended career as a curator, activist, writer, and occasional artist and is renown as the concept curator for the Aboriginal Memorial installation permanently exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia. Djon was awarded an OAM in 1993 and is currently Indigenous Curator-Contemporary Art at the Campbelltown Art Centre.
Gabriella Possum (Nungurrayi)
Gabriella Possum was born in 1967 and she is the eldest daughter of the internationally renowned artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri who was awarded the Order of Australia in 2002. Gabriella is best known for her Seven Sisters paintings, with her iconic depiction of the Milky Way and she also paints Bush Tucker and Grandmother's Country stories.
Reko Rennie (Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi)
Through his art Reko explores what it means to be an urban Aboriginal in contemporary Australian society. Rennie received no formal artistic training but as a teenager discovered graffiti which became an all-consuming passion. His art and installations continually explore issues of identity, race, law & justice, land rights, stolen generations and other issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in contemporary society.
Donny Woolagoodja (Worora)
Donny, Mowanjum Artists Spirit of the Wandjina Aboriginal Corporation (MASWAC) chairman, is the fourth eldest of ten children. His father, Sam, was the last of the Worora banmen (lawman and medicine man).
Donny's remarkable upbringing bridges the white Christian beliefs he became aware of at the mission churches and the ancient Wandjina laws his father taught him allowing him to move easily between his Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people.
Gulumbu Yunupingu (1954-2012, Gumatj)
Using distinctive white and black crosses on a red ground, Yolgnu artist Gulumbu Yunupingu (1945-2012) painted Garak, the starry universe, on barks and poles. She came to national prominence when she won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award (2004), and to international acclaim in 2006 with her scaled-up version of Garak on permanent display at Musee du Quai Branly (2006).
Artists In Motion
Artists in Motion is a Creative Project company that are highly regarded as pioneers of the industry. Known for their work around the world they still remain a proudly home grown creative force that produces all of their creations from their Sydney studio.
AIM is a collective of unique talent and experienced artists who have worked as a united team for several years. From the Epic to culturally emotional, they continue to transfix audiences of all kinds.
Under the creative leadership of Richard Lindsay, previous projects include content creation for the Beijing Olympics Ceremonies, Vancouver Winter Olympic Ceremonies, Hong Kong Pulse Shows, Alfa Bank Projection Moscow, 1st European Games Baku, the iconic UAE production “Clusters of Light”, as well as previous works for VIVID, including the popular Play projection on the Sydney Opera House.
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The Dixie Highway was planned out in December 1914 to connect the Midwest with the South, from Chicago to Miami.
By the mid-1920s, the project was largely completed with a network of roads interconnected across 10 states with more than 5,000 miles of paved, bricked road. But, by 1927, Dixie Highway became part of the US Route System, and was therefore, mostly abandoned. But, a portion of it still remains in remote Florida, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 20, 2005.
“It’s one of the oldest roads in America,” according to the historian.
Upon on my arrival, I started from south toward north, before I entered, there is a warning: “Travel at your own risk.” And another prohibiting the removal of the bricks in the road. Doing so, it says, warrants prosecution “to the fullest extent of the law.”
The historic stretch of Old Dixie Highway is 10 miles long, and would recommend to drive slowly as there are some thick soft-sand on the road that could cause slide off from the road if driving too fast.
Interesting fact: The brick was manufactured by the Graves Shale Brick Company in Birmingham, Alabama, belonging to a slave-owning man who fought for the Confederacy. It took 237,600 such bricks to build just 1 mile of road, 9 feet wide. Others are with the words "SOUTHERN CLAY MFG CO” for the Southern Clay Manufacturing Company in Tennessee.
State Heritage listed Hart’s Mill of 1855 – the oldest building in the complex.
Harts Mill is a complex of interconnected buildings and structure. The earliest is the prominent limestone building on the corner of Mundy Street, built by Captain Hart in 1855.
He was a significant figure in the young colony of South Australia. He was three times Premier of South Australia and an instigator of much of the development of Port Adelaide.
The former Adelaide Milling Company mill site at Port Adelaide is the longest continuously serving flour milling enterprise in South Australia, operating from 1855 to 1980. The two major buildings constitute an important landmark in the Port.
The building was the largest and most technologically advanced mill in South Australia and at the time was claimed to be the best in the southern hemisphere. It was designed to create an export market for the State's produce, and successfully shipped flour around the world.
The iconic tall red brick building was constructed in 1884, at which time the Adelaide Milling Company was owner of the mill. The building was completed to the design and supervision of Henry Simon and Co, milling engineers in England who also equipped the building. The interior was severely damaged by fire in 1905: following the insurance payout of £10,357 the mill was rebuilt and re-equipped, again by Henry Simon. It continued to operate until 1980.
Obituary
John Hart, mariner, merchant and parliamentarian, was born on 25 February 1809 in England. He went to sea at 12 and visited Hobart Town in September 1828 as a seaman in the ‘Magnet’. In November 1829 as second mate in the ‘Britannia’ he went to Western Australia and then became well acquainted with the southern coast from Perth to Sydney. In 1832 he was master of the ‘Elizabeth’, owned and built by John Griffiths at Launceston, and often visited Kangaroo Island to land and pick up sealers and collect seal and wallaby skins and salt.
Hart retired from the sea in 1846 and settled in Adelaide. He bought and leased land in various parts of the colony, ran cattle and acted as agent for absentees. He also invested in copper mines at the Burra, Paringa and Montacute in 1845, Princess Royal and Mount Remarkable in 1846 and Yorke's Peninsula in 1848. He was also a director of the Forest Iron Smelting and Steam Sawing Co at Cox's Creek and a copper-smelting venture at Port Adelaide but lost heavily on mineral land at North Kapunda.
In 1849 he had helped to form the short-lived Adelaide Marine Association Co and the company intending to build a railway from Adelaide to the port: later he bought shares in the National and the Union Banks.
Perhaps his best-known achievement was at Port Adelaide where in 1855 he built a flourmill with twice the grinding capacity of any other in the province, believing that South Australia was to be the granary of the continent.
Hart was elected in 1851 to the Legislative Council for the district of Victoria, resigned in 1853 to visit England and was re-elected in 1854. In the House of Assembly he represented Port Adelaide in 1857-59 and 1862-66, Light in 1868-70 and the Burra in 1870-73. He was treasurer under Baker in 1857, Hanson in 1857-58, (Sir) Henry Ayers in 1863 and in 1864, and (Sir) Arthur Blyth in 1864-65. He was chief secretary under Francis Dutton in July 1863 and led his own ministries in 1865-66, 1868 and 1870-71 when he introduced the title of premier.
While Hart was in office he planned George Goyder's survey expedition and carried the bill for the overland telegraph to Darwin although he criticized its route through Port Augusta.
He was appointed CMG in 1870 and died suddenly on 28 January 1873 while chairing a meeting in Adelaide. He was survived by his wife and a large family, to whom he left an estate valued at more than £50,000. A son, John, represented Port Adelaide in the House of Assembly in 1880-81.
Ref: Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 4, (MUP), 1972 article by Sally O’Neill.
Near maximum length (c.35mm) for the species.
1: posterior profile slightly convex.
2: anterior profile straight.
3: excavated vertex patch.
SPECIES DESCRIPTION part A BELOW
SPECIES DESCRIPTION part B 2Pd flic.kr/p/AfbFkR
Key id. features 3Pd flic.kr/p/Ay7bhf
PDF version at www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian_Smith19/research
OTHER SPECIES ALBUMS www.flickr.com/photos/56388191@N08/collections/
Patella_depressa Pennant, 1777
Current taxonomy: World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS)
www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=151374
Synonyms: Patella intermedia Murray in Knapp,1857; Patella vulgata var. intermedia Jeffreys, 1865; Patella athletica [as dark variant of] Forbes & Hanley,1849;
Jeffreys (1865) mistakenly took the rudimentary description of P. depressa by Pennant (1777) to be what is currently (2015) called P. ulyssiponensis Gmelin, 1791 (syn. P. athletica). Until 1923, most authors followed Jeffreys in applying the name P. depressa Pennant to the wrong species, and in using the name P. intermedia Jeffreys for what is now recognised as P. depressa Pennant. Examination of Pennant's type specimen by Tomlin (1923) exposed the error and authors started to use the name P. athletica Bean, 1844, for what is now called P. ulyssiponensis but, probably to avoid confusion, many retained use of P. intermedia Jeffreys for the true P. depressa Pennant, despite Pennant's priority, until the 1970s (e.g.Yonge & Thompson, 1976).
Vernacular names: Black footed limpet (English); Brenigen dorddu (Welsh); Platte schaalhoren (Dutch); Patelle bernique (French);
Meaning of name:
Patella (Latin) = little pan. depressa (Latin) = depressed /low.
Terms in text used with restricted or specialised meaning are marked with hashtag#; refer to GLOSSARY below.
Shell Description
Patellid limpets have great geographical variation within and between species. This account refers to typical British specimens.
Usual maximum length c.35mm and height# 12mm 1Pd flic.kr/p/BaSA3C . Strong. Conoid; apex is positioned to anterior of centre. The base is ovoid , widest and sometimes angulated at posterior. Profile usually low (H/L 25-37% in sample of twelve typical shells from S.W.England and N.W. Wales) 2Pd flic.kr/p/AfbFkR . In profile, anterior and posterior usually slightly convex or almost straight. Sculpture of narrow, radiating, whitish ribs that tend to be arranged in triplets; one major flanked by a minor each side 10Pd flic.kr/p/BaScwq . Ribs project as points from aperture-rim of unworn shells 3Pd flic.kr/p/Ay7bhf , but often majority have ribs rounded, and rib-points reduced, by erosion, and outer shell-layer eroded away from apical half of the shell 4Pd flic.kr/p/Bc5Hk6 to almost whole shell 5Pd flic.kr/p/Ay7kFz . Dark radiating rays in grooves of exterior shell-layer visible externally only on uneroded parts 4Pd flic.kr/p/Bc5Hk6 , but usually clearly visible on interior through transparent, iridescent skirt-shell-layer# for much 6Pd flic.kr/p/Ay7i76 or most 7Pd flic.kr/p/AfbuN8 of the way to opaque, whitish, pallial-groove-band#. On interior, whitish projecting points of ribs have short, unglazed, chalky-white central line, but reduced or lacking where projecting point of rib eroded 8Pd flic.kr/p/Ay6YL9 . Pedal-retractor muscle leaves translucent horseshoe-shape scar 7Pd flic.kr/p/AfbuN8 , often containing an opaque white line 9Pd flic.kr/p/Ay7bJg . Mouth of horseshoe-scar is closed by thin anterior mantle-attachment scar 9Pd flic.kr/p/Ay7bJg ; the two scars enclose area shaped like fat amphora# filled with blackish 10Pd flic.kr/p/BaScwq , grey 11Pd flic.kr/p/Bd4YEr , orange-cream 12Pd flic.kr/p/Af3iJS , opaque-white and/or yellowish-cream 7Pd flic.kr/p/AfbuN8 shell-layer. Some have excavated, colourless, translucent patch near vertex#, 13Pd flic.kr/p/AApFbT , perhaps caused by re-absorption of shell-material. Juvenile spat lack ridges on main antero-posterior axis and have broad, prominent, mid-lateral pigment lines from apex to lip that are swept forwards on left and backwards on right.
Body description
Translucent white head, darkened to purple-pink by internal odontophore 14Pd flic.kr/p/Bc5hcv ; has substantial snout , slit at posterior, with large mouth (transverse when shut) fringed by thick outer lips 15Pd flic.kr/p/Ay6H2J . Distal end of snout and lips tinted pale yellow 14Pd flic.kr/p/Bc5hcv . When outer lips opened, dull-yellow inner lips exposed. Inner lips open laterally to expose radula with crimson ribbon and golden teeth, and white, cuticularized, triangular licker 15Pd flic.kr/p/Ay6H2J . Sturdy pale grey cephalic tentacles have small black eye in slight swelling at base 2Pd flic.kr/p/AfbFkR . Eye is primitive (or degenerate) cavity, open to seawater and lined with black retina cells. Mantle-skirt translucent buff 16Pd flic.kr/p/Afb9yv ; colour most saturated and translucency least when skirt retracted from shell-periphery 17Pd flic.kr/p/BaRWfU . Mantle cavity consists of nuchal cavity over head, and pallial groove filled with pallial gills around entire periphery of foot-head 16Pd flic.kr/p/Afb9yv ; no ctenidium. Each gill is tongue-shaped leaflet attached by stalk to distal wall of pallial-groove, and has densely ciliated groove on stalk and thickened rim 18Pd flic.kr/p/Bc59v8 . Efferent pallial vessel in mantle-skirt, close to pallial-groove, enters nuchal cavity on left 16Pd flic.kr/p/Afb9yv . Mantle-edge has many opaquely-pigmented chalky-white pallial tentacles, becoming translucent and less intensely coloured only in a small distal portion; tentacles distinct from translucent, buff mantle-skirt that they arise from 19Pd flic.kr/p/Af37zY . Around perimeter, pallial tentacles alternate single long with several short. Length of pallial tentacles, and their position relative to shell, vary with degree of extension of mantle skirt 20Pd flic.kr/p/Ay6PEH , 21Pd flic.kr/p/Azyo2Q and 17Pd flic.kr/p/BaRWfU . Pedal-retractor muscle arranged in horseshoe pattern of white muscle bundles demarcated by gaps 20Pd flic.kr/p/Ay6PEH ; muscle attaches body/foot to shell (a.k.a. shell muscle) 17Pd flic.kr/p/BaRWfU . Sole of foot approximately circular 20Pd flic.kr/p/Ay6PEH to oval with slightly tapered posterior 21Pd flic.kr/p/Azyo2Q , pitch-brown to black with pale peripheral rim, colour most saturated when foot contracted 17Pd flic.kr/p/BaRWfU . White sides of foot lack features such as epipodial tentacles 2Pd flic.kr/p/AfbFkR . When crawling, usually only extended pallial tentacles and, perhaps, tips of cephalic tentacles protrude beyond shelter of shell 22Pd flic.kr/p/BexkLe . No penis as fertilization external.
Further detail visible with simple dissection
Shell removal by severing pedal-retractor muscle shows muscle-bundles clearly 23Pd flic.kr/p/AzykaY ; anterior bundle on each side is largest and strongest as must firmly pull down shell further to anterior where bundles are absent. Removal of viscera reveals that muscle bundles continue far into foot 24Pd flic.kr/p/BdwNkP towards median groove of large blood-sinus 25Pd flic.kr/p/ABS7Sp . Shell removal exposes entire mantle 23Pd flic.kr/p/AzykaY subdivided into a) pale translucent mantle-skirt, b) narrow black band over pallial-groove containing gills, c) large black amphora-shaped area, often with pale vertex patch, over viscera and d) separated from amphora by pale anterior-mantle attachment, smaller black area over the nuchal cavity containing the head and anterior pallial gills 26Pd flic.kr/p/BciErS . Pale patch within black amphora may be related to excavated patch near shell-vertex, see 11Pd flic.kr/p/Bd4YEr , a feature frequently found on P. depressa. If mantle skirt is folded back, 26Pd flic.kr/p/BciErS , collapsed pallial gills exposed. Careful removal of black amphora area of mantle reveals translucent membrane over viscera 27Pd flic.kr/p/AzysF8 ; when removed, clear view, 28Pd flic.kr/p/BbdZum , of digestive gland, intestine and rectum. Efferent pallial vessel in mantle-skirt, 26Pd flic.kr/p/BciErS carries blood from mantle to right of nuchal cavity 29Pd flic.kr/p/AguVDE and through it to elongated heart behind left of cavity 30Pd flic.kr/p/Bex7R6 . When roof of nuchal cavity folded back, translucent white head showing purple-red of internal odontophore visible 26Pd flic.kr/p/BciErS . Removal of head's epithelium reveals odontophore and anterior of radula with hyaline shield 28Pd flic.kr/p/BbdZum . Removal of viscera reveals entire long radula, folded and coiled to fit in body 24Pd flic.kr/p/BdwNkP . P. depressa probably has longest radula relative to shell-length, up to 270%, of any British mollusc 31Pd flic.kr/p/BbdUdE (Fretter & Graham, 1962, p.172). Fully mineralized, golden radular teeth, ready for action, clearly visible at anterior where radula rests on transparent hyaline shield on top of odontophore 32Pd flic.kr/p/Bcivym . Inner lips enclosed at sides and anterior by white chitinous unarticulated jaw# 24Pd flic.kr/p/BdwNkP . White, cuticularized, triangular licker at tip of radula is divided into plate-like ridges by deep transverse grooves 32Pd flic.kr/p/Bcivym . Teeth obscured by white translucent radular sac to posterior of hyaline shield. When radular sac removed by treatment with 10% solution NaOH, posterior of radula clearly seen to have white ribbon with slightly pigmented teeth as mineralization at early stage 33Pd flic.kr/p/ABRUWR while further forward ribbon is rich crimson, and teeth strongly pigmented golden with strong hard minerals of iron and silica. Each row of teeth arranged in docoglossan formula, 3+D+2+R+2+D+3: at centre, two pairs of large, unicuspid, pigmented lateral teeth (with small, unpigmented rachidian/median tooth hidden from easy view at their base), and near each margin of ribbon a single, tricuspid, pigmented, dominant-marginal tooth with, close-by, three inconspicuous, unicuspid, marginal teeth 33Pd flic.kr/p/ABRUWR . Middle cusp of dominant-marginal on P. depressa and P. vulgata is largest; on P. ulyssiponensis outer cusp largest. Before and during spring-autumn breeding season, large gonads (20% of female's mass) occur in mature adults between viscera and foot and, when fully developed, spread up around periphery of visceral mass 30Pd flic.kr/p/Bex7R6 . Male testes are pinkish/orange/yellow with numerous interconnected tubules seen side-on 34Pd flic.kr/p/ABRUor or end-on 35Pd flic.kr/p/BbdNHb . Female gonads not observed by IFS (four adults dissected in late September; two with testes, two without gonads- spent females?) but as reproductive systems similar in the genus, probably greenish and granular as in P. vulgata .
SPECIES DESCRIPTION part B at 2Pd flic.kr/p/AfbFkR
GLOSSARY
amphora – (on interior of limpet shell) Roman amphora-shaped area enclosed by scars of pedal-retractor muscle and anterior mantle-attachment.
aperture – mouth of gastropod shell; outlet for head and foot.
apex - earliest formed part of a gastropod shell, the summit of the cone. (In this limpet-account restricted to the exterior of the shell, and “vertex” used for the interior.)
cephalic – (adj.) of or on the head.
cilia – (pl.) microscopic linear extensions of membrane that move in rhythmic waves to create locomotion, or move particles and liquids e.g. inhalent water currents. (“cilium” singular). (Electron scanning microscope image at flic.kr/p/qQB5zj )
ciliary – (adj.) relating to or involving cilia.
coll. – in the collection of (named person or institution) (compare with legit).
conoid – shaped like a cone.
ctenidium – comb-like molluscan gill; usually an axis with a row of filaments either side (missing from Patella spp.).
distal - away from centre of body or point of attachment.
ditaxic - (of locomotion waves on foot) double series of waves, out of phase with each other, one series on each side of median line on sole.
ELWS – extreme low water spring tide level (usually near March and September equinoxes).
EHWS - extreme high water spring tide level (usually near March and September equinoxes).
epipodial - (adj.) of the epipodium (collar or circlet running round sides of foot of some gastropods).
epithelium – membranous covering of internal and external surfaces of animal's body, e.g. skin and lining of tubes and cavities.
head scar – term used by many British authors for patch of different shell-material, and often different colour, near vertex of interior of limpet shell; misnomer as the mobile head, free of any attachment to the shell or mantle-roof of the nuchal cavity cannot make a scar. A preferable term is “vertex patch”.
height – (of limpet) perpendicular distance from apex to plane of aperture-rim (best measured with callipers).
hyaline shield – transparent sheet of chitin at anterior of radula that rests on bolsters of odontophore; attachment point for retractor muscles of radula; helps guide food particles into mouth.
interspecific – existing or arising between different species.
intraspecific – occuring within a single species or involving members of one species.
jaw - unarticulated chitinous structure that encloses inner lips of Patella spp. at sides and anterior.
legit – (abbreviation; leg.) collected/ found by (compare with coll.)
licker - cuticularized structure with plate-like ridges and deep transverse grooves at tip of radula of Patella spp.; retains and sweeps up food particles.
mantle – sheet of tissue covering visceral mass of molluscs. Secretes shell of shelled species, and forms part or all of dorsal body surface (notum) of those without shells. (See mantle skirt.)
mantle skirt – extension on gastropods of mantle proper as a flap roofing a cavity containing gills, genital and renal openings, anus etc. On limpets, skirt and cavity extend around periphery of animal.
MHWN - mean high water neap tide level (mean level reached by weakest high tides for a few days every fortnight. i.e. those that rise the least).
MLWN – mean low water neap tide level (mean level reached by weakest low tides for a few days every fortnight. i.e. those that fall the least).
MLWS - mean low water spring tide level (mean level reached by lowest low tides for a few days every fortnight; Laminaria or Coralline zone on rocky coasts).
nuchal – (adj.) of nape of the neck.
nuchal cavity – cavity roofed by mantle skirt that contains head of limpet; part of mantle cavity (remainder consists of pallial groove on each side of body).
ovoid – egg-shaped, as a solid or in outline.
pallial groove band – shell material deposited on interior of shell by strip of black mantle roofing the pallial groove that contains the gills. On British Patella spp. it is often clouded-white.
pedal retractor muscle – strong muscle that retracts foot into shell of most gastropods, but on limpets is used to clamp shell to substrate, a.k.a. “foot muscle”.
retrograde - (of locomotion waves on foot) waves travel from anterior to posterior.
scar – mark on shell made by attachment point of muscle or other body part.
skirt shell layer - shell material deposited on interior of shell by mantle skirt. On British Patella spp. colourless when deposited, and clouded white, or transparent showing the colours of the outer layer. Crystalline structure causes short lines of blue iridescence parallel to the aperture rim on all four British species of Patella when the light is right.
trochophore – spherical or pear-shaped larva that swims with aid of girdle of cilia. Stage preceding veliger, passed within gastropod egg in most spp. but free in plankton for patellid limpets, most Trochidae and Tricolia pullus.
tricuspid - (of tooth) having three points.
unicuspid - (of tooth) having a single point.
veliger – shelled larva of marine gastropod or bivalve mollusc which moves by beating cilia of a velum (bilobed flap).
vertex – angle at highest point on interior of limpet-shell. [Synonym of “apex”, chosen (by IFS) to help avoid confusion with the highest point, apex, on the exterior. Gmelin used “vertex” when describing the interior of Patella ulyssiponensis, and in classical Latin “vertex” was used for the “pole of the heavens”; obviously only seen from below.]
vertex patch –layer of different shell-material, and often different colour, at vertex of interior of limpet shell. (See “head scar”.)
This piece of art will be lost on most people of Dundee
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device.
a little knowledge can go a long way
a lot of professionals are crackpots
a man can't know what it is to be a mother
a name means a lot just by itself
a positive attitude means all the difference in the world
a relaxed man is not necessarily a better man
a sense of timing is the mark of genius
a sincere effort is all you can ask
a single event can have infinitely many interpretations
a solid home base builds a sense of self
a strong sense of duty imprisons you
absolute submission can be a form of freedom
abstraction is a type of decadence
abuse of power comes as no surprise
action causes more trouble than thought
alienation produces eccentrics or revolutionaries
all things are delicately interconnected
ambition is just as dangerous as complacency
ambivalence can ruin your life
an elite is inevitable
anger or hate can be a useful motivating force
animalism is perfectly healthy
any surplus is immoral
anything is a legitimate area of investigation
artificial desires are despoiling the earth
at times inactivity is preferable to mindless functioning
at times your unconsciousness is truer than your conscious mind
automation is deadly
awful punishment awaits really bad people
bad intentions can yield good results
being alone with yourself is increasingly unpopular
being happy is more important than anything else
being judgmental is a sign of life
being sure of yourself means you're a fool
believing in rebirth is the same as admitting defeat
boredom makes you do crazy things
calm is more conductive to creativity than is anxiety
categorizing fear is calming
change is valuable when the oppressed become tyrants
chasing the new is dangerous to society
children are the most cruel of all
children are the hope of the future
class action is a nice idea with no substance
class structure is as artificial as plastic
confusing yourself is a way to stay honest
crime against property is relatively unimportant
decadence can be an end in itself
decency is a relative thing
dependence can be a meal ticket
description is more important than metaphor
deviants are sacrificed to increase group solidarity
disgust is the appropriate response to most situations
disorganization is a kind of anesthesia
don't place to much trust in experts
drama often obscures the real issues
dreaming while awake is a frightening contradiction
dying and coming back gives you considerable perspective
dying should be as easy as falling off a log
eating too much is criminal
elaboration is a form of pollution
emotional responses ar as valuable as intellectual responses
enjoy yourself because you can't change anything anyway
ensure that your life stays in flux
even your family can betray you
every achievement requires a sacrifice
everyone's work is equally important
everything that's interesting is new
exceptional people deserve special concessions
expiring for love is beautiful but stupid
expressing anger is necessary
extreme behavior has its basis in pathological psychology
extreme self-consciousness leads to perversion
faithfulness is a social not a biological law
fake or real indifference is a powerful personal weapon
fathers often use too much force
fear is the greatest incapacitator
freedom is a luxury not a necessity
giving free rein to your emotions is an honest way to live
go all out in romance and let the chips fall where they may
going with the flow is soothing but risky
good deeds eventually are rewarded
government is a burden on the people
grass roots agitation is the only hope
guilt and self-laceration are indulgences
habitual contempt doesn't reflect a finer sensibility
hiding your emotions is despicable
holding back protects your vital energies
humanism is obsolete
humor is a release
ideals are replaced by conventional goals at a certain age
if you aren't political your personal life should be exemplary
if you can't leave your mark give up
if you have many desires your life will be interesting
if you live simply there is nothing to worry about
ignoring enemies is the best way to fight
illness is a state of mind
imposing order is man's vocation for chaos is hell
in some instances it's better to die than to continue
inheritance must be abolished
it can be helpful to keep going no matter what
it is heroic to try to stop time
it is man's fate to outsmart himself
it is a gift to the world not to have babies
it's better to be a good person than a famous person
it's better to be lonely than to be with inferior people
it's better to be naive than jaded
it's better to study the living fact than to analyze history
it's crucial to have an active fantasy life
it's good to give extra money to charity
it's important to stay clean on all levels
it's just an accident that your parents are your parents
it's not good to hold too many absolutes
it's not good to operate on credit
it's vital to live in harmony with nature
just believing something can make it happen
keep something in reserve for emergencies
killing is unavoidable but nothing to be proud of
knowing yourself lets you understand others
knowledge should be advanced at all costs
labor is a life-destroying activity
lack of charisma can be fatal
leisure time is a gigantic smoke screen
listen when your body talks
looking back is the first sign of aging and decay
loving animals is a substitute activity
low expectations are good protection
manual labor can be refreshing and wholesome
men are not monogamous by nature
moderation kills the spirit
money creates taste
monomania is a prerequisite of success
morals are for little people
most people are not fit to rule themselves
mostly you should mind your own business
mothers shouldn't make too many sacrifices
much was decided before you were born
murder has its sexual side
myth can make reality more intelligible
noise can be hostile
nothing upsets the balance of good and evil
occasionally principles are more valuable than people
offer very little information about yourself
often you should act like you are sexless
old friends are better left in the past
opacity is an irresistible challenge
pain can be a very positive thing
people are boring unless they are extremists
people are nuts if they think they are important
people are responsible for what they do unless they are insane
people who don't work with their hands are parasites
people who go crazy are too sensitive
people won't behave if they have nothing to lose
physical culture is second best
planning for the future is escapism
playing it safe can cause a lot of damage in the long run
politics is used for personal gain
potential counts for nothing until it's realized
private property created crime
pursuing pleasure for the sake of pleasure will ruin you
push yourself to the limit as often as possible
raise boys and girls the same way
random mating is good for debunking sex myths
rechanneling destructive impulses is a sign of maturity
recluses always get weak
redistributing wealth is imperative
relativity is no boon to mankind
religion causes as many problems as it solves
remember you always have freedom of choice
repetition is the best way to learn
resolutions serve to ease our conscience
revolution begins with changes in the individual
romantic love was invented to manipulate women
routine is a link with the past
routine small excesses are worse than then the occasional debauch
sacrificing yourself for a bad cause is not a moral act
salvation can't be bought and sold
self-awareness can be crippling
self-contempt can do more harm than good
selfishness is the most basic motivation
selflessness is the highest achievement
separatism is the way to a new beginning
sex differences are here to stay
sin is a means of social control
slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison
sloppy thinking gets worse over time
solitude is enriching
sometimes science advances faster than it should
sometimes things seem to happen of their own accord
spending too much time on self-improvement is antisocial
starvation is nature's way
stasis is a dream state
sterilization is a weapon of the rulers
strong emotional attachment stems from basic insecurity
stupid people shouldn't breed
survival of the fittest applies to men and animals
symbols are more meaningful than things themselves
taking a strong stand publicizes the opposite position
talking is used to hide one's inability to act
teasing people sexually can have ugly consequences
technology will make or break us
the cruelest disappointment is when you let yourself down
the desire to reproduce is a death wish
the family is living on borrowed time
the idea of revolution is an adolescent fantasy
the idea of transcendence is used to obscure oppression
the idiosyncratic has lost its authority
the most profound things are inexpressible
the mundane is to be cherished
the new is nothing but a restatement of the old
the only way to be pure is to stay by yourself
the sum of your actions determines what you are
the unattainable is invariable attractive
the world operates according to discoverable laws
there are too few immutable truths today
there's nothing except what you sense
there's nothing redeeming in toil
thinking too much can only cause problems
threatening someone sexually is a horrible act
timidity is laughable
to disagree presupposes moral integrity
to volunteer is reactionary
torture is barbaric
trading a life for a life is fair enough
true freedom is frightful
unique things must be the most valuable
unquestioning love demonstrates largesse of spirit
using force to stop force is absurd
violence is permissible even desirable occasionally
war is a purification rite
we must make sacrifices to maintain our quality of life
when something terrible happens people wake up
wishing things away is not effective
with perseverance you can discover any truth
words tend to be inadequate
worrying can help you prepare
you are a victim of the rules you live by
you are guileless in your dreams
you are responsible for constituting the meaning of things
you are the past present and future
you can live on through your descendants
you can't expect people to be something they're not
you can't fool others if you're fooling yourself
you don't know what's what until you support yourself
you have to hurt others to be extraordinary
you must be intimate with a token few
you must disagree with authority figures
you must have one grand passion
you must know where you stop and the world begins
you can understand someone of your sex only
you owe the world not the other way around
you should study as much as possible
your actions ae pointless if no one notices
your oldest fears are the worst ones
France, Alsace, Strasbourg, European Parliament, “Salvador De Madariaga” Building at Quai du Bassin is part of two interconnected buildings used as offices of the European Parliament. The building is named after “Salvador de Madariaga” born 1886 in La Coruña, Spain, he was a Spanish diplomat, writer, historian & pacifist, who lived in Switzerland.
The building is hosting administrative & other departments, including a Kindergarten & other social facilities. The headquarters of the European Ombudsman is located on the 7th floor. In existence since 1995, the Ombudsman is elected by the parliament for a five-years period. Submitting an appeal to the Ombudsman can be useful in the event of the unsatisfactory administration of a European institution or body, for example, in the case of administrative irregularities, abuses of power, lack or refusal to provide information, excessive delays or discrimination. Any citizen of the European Union or any natural person residing in or having his registered office in a member state may submit a complaint to the Ombudsman.
...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over 650.000 clicks in my photostream with countless motivating comments
Avram Noam Chomsky
Portrait of Noam Chomsky painted in admiration for Justice and Liberty of his Wisdom
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“Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift.”
― Noam Chomsky
Language and Freedom
Noam Chomsky
chomsky.info/language-and-freedom/
Excerpted from For Reasons of State, New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.
When I was invited to speak on the topic “Language and freedom”, I was puzzled and intrigued. Most of my professional life has been devoted to the study of language. There would be no great difficulty in finding a topic to discuss in that domain. And there is much to say about the problems of freedom and liberation as they pose themselves to us and to others in the mid-twentieth century. What is troublesome in the title of this lecture is the conjunction. In what way are language and freedom to be interconnected?
As a preliminary, let me say just a word about the contemporary study of language, as I see it. There are many aspects of language and language use that raise intriguing questions, but – in my judgement – only a few have so far led to productive theoretical work. In particular, our deepest insights are in the area of formal grammatical structure. A person who knows a language has acquired a system of rules and principles – a “generative grammar,” in technical terms – that associates sound and meaning in some specific fashion. There are many reasonably well-founded and, I think, rather enlightening hypotheses as to the character of such grammars, for quite a number of languages. Furthermore, there has been a renewal of interest in “universal grammar”, interpreted now as the theory that tries to specify the general properties of those languages that can be learned in the normal way by humans. Here, too, significant progress has been achieved.
The subject is of particular importance. It is appropriate to regard universal grammar as the study of one of the essential faculties of mind. It is, therefore, extremely interesting to discover, as I believe we do, that the principles of universal grammar are rich, abstract, and restrictive, and can be used to construct principled explanations for a variety of phenomena. At the present stage of our understanding, if language is to provide a springboard for the investigation of other problems of human nature, it is these aspects of language to which we will have to turn our attention, for the simple reason that it is only these aspects that are reasonably well understood. In another sense, the study of formal properties of language reveals something of the nature of humans in a negative way: it underscores, with great clarity, the limits of our understanding of those qualities of mind that are apparently unique to humans and that must enter into their cultural achievements in an intimate, if still quite obscure, manner.
In searching for a point of departure, one turns naturally to a period in the history of Western thought when it was possible to believe that “the thought of making freedom the sum and substance of philosophy has emancipated the human spirit in all its relationships, and . . . has given to science in all its parts a more powerful reorientation than any earlier revolution.” [1] The word “revolution” bears multiple association in this passage, for Schelling also proclaims that “man is born to act and not to speculate”; and when he writes that “the time has come to proclaim to a nobler humanity the freedom of the spirit, and no longer to have patience with men’s tearful regrets for their lost chains” we hear the echoes of the libertarian thought and revolutionary acts of the late eighteenth century. Schelling writes that “the beginning and end of all philosophy is – Freedom.” These words are invested with meaning and urgency at a time when people are struggling to cast off their chains, to resist authority that has lost its claim to legitimacy, to construct more humane and more democratic social institutions. It is at such a time that the philosopher may be driven to inquire into the nature of human freedom and its limits, and perhaps to conclude, with Schelling, that with respect to the human ego, “its essence is freedom”; and with respect to philosophy, “the highest dignity of Philosophy consists precisely therein, that it stakes all on human freedom.”
We are living, once again, at such a time. A revolutionary ferment is sweeping the socalled Third World, awakening enormous masses from torpor and acquiescence in traditional authority. There are those who feel that the industrial societies as well are ripe for revolutionary change – and I do not refer only to representatives of the New Left. The threat of revolutionary change brings forth repression and reaction. Its signs are evident in varying forms, in France, in the Soviet Union, in the United States—not least, in the city where we are meeting. It is natural, then, that we should consider, abstractly, the problems of human freedom, and turn with interest and serious attention to the thinking of an earlier period when archaic social institutions were subjected to critical analysis and sustained attack. It is natural and appropriate, so long as we bear in mind Schellings’s admonition that man is born not merely to speculate but also to act.
One of the earliest and most remarkable of the eighteenth-century investigations of freedom and servitude is Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1755), in many ways a revolutionary tract. In it, he seeks to “set forth the origin and progress of inequality, the establishment and abuse of political societies, insofar as these things can be deduced from the nature of man by the light of reason alone.” His conclusions were sufficiently shocking that the judges of the prize competition of the Academy of Dijon, to whom the work was originally submitted, refused to hear the manuscript through. [2] In it, Rousseau challenges the legitimacy of virtually every social institution, as well as individual control of property and wealth. These are “usurpations . . . established only on a precarious and abusive right . . . having been acquired only by force, force could take them away without (the rich) having grounds for complaint.” Not even property acquired by personal industry is held “upon better titles”. Against such a claim, one might object: “Do you not know that a multitude of your brethren die or suffer from need of what you have in excess, and that you needed express and unanimous consent of the human race to appropriate for yourself anything from common subsistence that exceeded your own?” It is contrary to the law of nature that “a handful of men be glutted with superfluities while the starving multitude lacks necessities.”
Rousseau argues that civil society is hardly more than a conspiracy by the rich to guarantee their plunder. Hypocritically, the rich call upon their neighbors to “institute regulations of justice and peace to which all are obliged to conform, which make an exception of no one, and which compensate in some way for the caprices of fortune by equally subjecting the powerful and the weak to mutual duties”– those laws which, as Anatole France was to say, in their majesty deny to the rich and the poor equally the right to sleep under the bridge at night. By such arguments, the poor and weak were seduced: “All ran to meet their chains thinking they secured their freedom. . . .” Thus society and laws “gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, destroyed natural freedom for all time, established forever the law of property and inequality, changed a clever usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the whole human race to work, servitude and misery”. Governments inevitably tend toward arbitrary power, as “their corruption and extreme limit”. This power is “by its nature illegitimate,” and new revolutions must
dissolve the government altogether or bring it closer to its legitimate institutions … . The uprising that ends by strangling or dethroning a sultan is as lawful an act as those by which he disposed, the day before, of the lives and goods of his subjects. Force alone maintained him, force alone overthrows him.
What is interesting, in the present connection, is the path that Rousseau follows to reach these conclusions “by the light of reason alone,” beginning with his ideas about human nature. He wants to see man “as nature formed him”. It is from human nature that the principles of natural right and the foundations of social existence must be deduced.
This same study of original man, of his true needs, and of the principles underlying his duties, is also the only good means one could use to remove those crowds of difficulties which present themselves concerning the origin of moral inequality, the true foundation of the body politic, the reciprocal rights of its members, and a thousand similar questions as important as they are ill explained.
To determine the nature of man, Rousseau proceeds to compare man and animal. Man is “intelligent, free . . . the sole animal endowed with reason.” Animals are “devoid of intellect and freedom.”
In every animal I see only an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses in order to revitalize itself and guarantee itself, to a certain point, from all that tends to destroy or upset it. I perceive precisely the same things in the human machine, with the difference that nature alone does everything in the operations of a beast, whereas man contributes to his operations by being a free agent. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the latter by an act of freedom, so that a beast cannot de viate from the rule that is prescribed to it even when it would be advantageous for it do so, and a man deviates from it often to his detriment . . . . it is not so much understanding which constitutes the distinction of man among the animals as it is his being a free agent. Nature commands every animal, and the beast obeys. Man feels the same impetus, but he realizes that he is free to acquiesce or resist; and it is above all in the consciousness of this freedom that the spirituality of his soul is shown. For physics explains in some way the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing, or rather of choosing, and in the sentiment of this power are found only purely spiritual acts about which the laws of mechanics explain nothing.
Thus the essence of human nature is human freedom and the consciousness of this freedom. So Rousseau can say that “the jurists, who have gravely pronounced that the child of a slave would be born a slave, have decided in other terms that a man would not be born a man.”[3]
Sophistic politicians and intellectuals search for ways to obscure the fact that the essential and defining property of man is his freedom: “They attribute to men a natural inclination to servitude, without thinking that it is the same for freedom as for innocence and virtue – their value is felt only as long as one enjoys them oneself and the taste for them is lost as soon as one has lost them.” In contrast, Rousseau asks rhetorically “whether, freedom being the most noble of man’s faculties, it is not degrading one’s nature, putting oneself on the level of beasts enslaved by instinct, even offending the author on one’s being, to renounce without reservation the most precious of all his gifts and subject ourselves to committing all the crimes he forbids us in order to please a ferocious or insane master” – a question that has been asked, in similar terms, by many an American draft resister in the last few years, and by many others who are beginning to recover from the catastrophe of twentieth-century Western civilization, which has so tragically confirmed Rousseau’s judgement:
Hence arose the national wars, battles, murders, and reprisals which make nature tremble and shock reason, and all those horrible prejudices which rank the honour of shedding human blood among the virtues. The most decent men learned to consider it one of their duties to murder their fellowmen; at length men were seen to massacre each other by the thousands without knowing why; more murders were committed on a single day of fighting and more horrors in the capture of a single city than were committed in the state of nature during whole centuries over the entire face of the earth.
The proof of his doctrine that the struggle for freedom is an essential human attribute, that the value of freedom is felt only as long as one enjoys it, Rousseau sees in “the marvels done by all free peoples to guard themselves from oppression.” True, those who have abandoned the life of a free man
do nothing but boast incessantly of the peace and repose they enjoy in their chains . . . . But when I see the others sacrifice pleasures, repose, wealth, power, and life itself for the preservation of this sole good which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see animals born free and despising captivity break their heads against the bars of their prison; when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behoove slaves to reason about freedom.
Rather similar thoughts were expressed by Kant, forty years later. He cannot, he says, accept the proposition that certain people “are not ripe for freedom,” for example, the serfs of some landlord:
If one accepts this assumption, freedom will never be achieved; for one can not arrive at the maturity for freedom without having already acquired it; one must be free to learn how to make use of one’s powers freely and usefully. The first attempts will surely be brutal and will lead to a state of affairs more painful and dangerous than the former condition under the dominance but also the protection of an external authority. However, one can achieve reason only through one’s own experiences and one must be free to be able to undertake them. . . . To accept the principle that freedom is worthless for those under one’s control and that one has the right to refuse it to them forever, is an infringement on the rights of God himself, who has created man to be free. [4]
The remark is particularly interesting because of its context. Kant was defending the French Revolution, during the Terror, against those who claimed that it showed the masses to be unready for the privilege of freedom. Kant’s remarks have contemporary relevance. No rational person will approve of violence and terror. In particular, the terror of the postrevolutionary state, fallen into the hands of a grim autocracy, has more than once reached indescribable levels of savagery. Yet no person of understanding or humanity will too quickly condemn the violence that often occurs when long-subdued masses rise against their oppressors, or take their first steps toward liberty and social reconstruction.
Let me return now to Rousseau’s argument against the legitimacy of established authority, whether that of political power or of wealth. It is striking that his argument, up to this point, follows a familiar Cartesian model. Man is uniquely beyond the bounds of physical explanation; the beast, on the other hand, is merely an ingenious machine, commanded by natural law. Man’s freedom and his consciousness of this freedom distinguish him from the beast-machine. The principles of mechanical explanation are incapable of accounting for these human properties, though they can account for sensation and even the combination of ideas, in which regard “man differs from a beast only in degree.”
To Descartes and his followers, such as Cordemoy, the only sure sign that another organism has a mind, and hence also lies beyond the bounds of mechanical explanation, is its use of language in the normal, creative human fashion, free from control by identifiable stimuli, novel and innovative, appropriate to situations, coherent, and engendering in our minds new thoughts and ideas. [5] To the Cartesians, it is obvious by introspection that each man possesses a mind, a substance whose essence is thought; his creative use of language reflects this freedom of thought and conception. When we have evidence that another organism, too, uses language in this free and creative fashion, we are led to attribute to it as well a mind like ours. From similar assumptions regarding the intrinsic limits of mechanical explanation, its inability to account for man’s freedom and consciousness of his freedom, Rousseau proceeds to develop his critique of authoritarian institutions, which deny to man his essential attribute of freedom, in varying degree.
Were we to combine these speculations, we might develop an interesting connection between language and freedom. Language, in its essential properties and the manner of its use, provides the basic criterion for determining that another organism is a being with a human mind and the human capacity for free thought and self-expression, and with the essential human need for freedom from the external constraints of repressive authority. Furthermore, we might try to proceed from the detailed investigation of language and its use to a deeper and more specific understanding of the human mind. Proceeding on this model, we might further attempt to study other aspects of that human nature which, as Rousseau rightly observes, must be correctly conceived if we are to be able to develop, in theory, the foundations for a rational social order.
I will return to this problem, but first I would like to trace further Rousseau’s thinking about the matter. Rousseau diverges from the Cartesian tradition in several respects. He defines the “specific characteristic of the human species” as man’s “faculty of selfperfection,” which, “with the aid of circumstances, successively develops all the others, and resides among us as much in the species as in the individual.” The faculty of selfperfection and of perfection of the human species through cultural transmission is not, to my knowledge, discussed in any similar terms by the Cartesians. However, I think that Rousseau’s remarks might be interpreted as a development of the Cartesian tradition in an unexplored direction, rather than as a denial and rejection of it. There is no inconsistency in the notion that the restrictive attributes of mind underlie a historically evolving human nature that develops within the limits that they set; or that these attributes of mind provide the possibility of self-perfection; or that, by providing the consciousness of freedom, these essential attributes of human nature give man the opportunity to create social conditions and social forms to maximize the possibilities for freedom, diversity, and individual self-realization. To use an arithmetical analogy, the integers do not fail to be an infinite set merely because they do not exhaust the rational numbers. Analogously, it is no denial of man’s capacity for infinite “self-perfection” to hold that there are intrinsic properties of mind that constrain his development. I would like to argue that in a sense the opposite is true, that without a system of formal constraints there are no creative acts; specifically, in the absence of intrinsic and restrictive properties of mind, there can be only “shaping of behaviour” but no creative acts of self-perfection. Furthermore, Rousseau’s concern for the evolutionary character of self-perfection brings us back, from another point of view, to a concern for human language, which would appear to be a prerequisite for such evolution of society and culture, for Rousseau’s perfection of the species, beyond the most rudimentary forms.
Rousseau holds that “although the organ of speech is natural to man, speech itself is nonetheless not natural to him.” Again, I see no inconsistency between this observation and the typical Cartesian view that innate abilities are “dispositional,” faculties that lead us to produce ideas (specifically, innate ideas) in a particular manner under given conditions of external stimulation, but that also provide us with the ability to proceed in our thinking without such external factors. Language too, then, is natural to man only in a specific way. This is an important and, I believe, quite fundamental insight of the rationalist linguists that was disregarded, very largely, under the impact of empiricist psychology in the eighteenth century and since.[6]
Rousseau discusses the origin of language at some length, though he confesses himself to be unable to come to grips with the problem in a satisfactory way. Thus
if men needed speech in order to learn to think, they had even greater need of knowing how to think in order to discover the art of speech. . . . So that one can hardly form tenable conjectures about this art of communicating thoughts and establishing intercourse between minds; a sublime art which is now very far from its origin. . . .
He holds that “general ideas can come into the mind only with the aid of words, and the understanding grasps them only through propositions” – a fact which prevents animals, devoid of reason, from formulating such ideas or ever acquiring “the perfectibility which depends upon them.” Thus he cannot conceive of the means by which “our new grammarians began to extend their ideas and to generalize their words,” or to develop the means “to express all the thoughts of men”: “numbers, abstract words, aorists, and all the tenses of verbs, particles, syntax, the linking of propositions, reasoning, and the forming of all the logic of discourse.” He does speculate about later stages of the perfection of the species, “when the ideas of men began to spread and multiply, and when closer communication was established among them, [and] they sought more numerous signs and a more extensive language.” But he must, unhappily, abandon “the following difficult problem: which was most necessary, previously formed society for the institution of languages, or previously invented languages for the establishment of society?”
The Cartesians cut the Gordian knot by postulating the existence of a species-specific characteristic, a second substance that serves as what we might call a “creative principle” alongside the “mechanical principle” that determines totally the behaviour of animals. There was, for them, no need to explain the origin of language in the course of historical evolution. Rather, man’s nature is qualitatively distinct: there is no passage from body to mind. We might reinterpret this idea in more current terms by speculating the rather sudden and dramatic mutations might have led to qualities of intelligence that are, so far as we know, unique to humans, possession of language in the human sense being the most distinctive index of these qualities. [7] If this is correct, as at least a first approximation to the facts, the study of language might be expected to offer an entering wedge, or perhaps a model, for an investigation of human nature that would provide the grounding for a much broader theory of human nature.
To conclude these historical remarks, I would like to turn, as I have elsewhere, [8] to Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of the most stimulating and intriguing thinkers of the period. Humboldt was, on the one hand, one of the most profound theorists of general linguistics, and on the other, an early and forceful advocate of libertarian values. The basic concept of his philosophy is Bildung, by which, as J.W. Burrow expresses it, “he meant the fullest, richest, and most harmonious development of the potentialities of the individual, the community or the human race.” [9] His own thought might serve as an exemplary case. Though he does not, to my knowledge, explicitly relate his ideas about language to his libertarian social thought, there is quite clearly a common ground from which they develop, a concept of human nature that inspires each. Mill’s essay On Liberty takes as its epigraph Humboldt’s formulation of the “leading principle” of his thought: “the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.” Humboldt concludes his critique of the authoritarian state by saying: “I have felt myself animated throughout with a sense of the deepest respect for the inherent dignity of human nature, and for freedom, which alone befits that dignity.” Briefly put, his concept of human nature is this:
The true end of Man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal and immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole. Freedom is the first and indispensable condition which the possibility of such a development presupposes; but there is besides another essential – intimately connected with freedom, it is true – a variety of situations. [10]
Like Rousseau and Kant, he holds that
nothing promotes this ripeness for freedom so much as freedom itself. This truth, perhaps, may not be acknowledged by those who have so often used this unripeness as an excuse for continuing repression. But it seems to me to follow unquestionably from the very nature of man. The incapacity for freedom can only arise from a want of moral and intellectual power; to heighten this power is the only way to supply this want; but to do this presupposes the exercise of the power, and this exercise presupposes the freedom which awakens spontaneous activity. Only it is clear we cannot call it giving freedom, when bonds are relaxed which are not felt as such by him who wears them. But of no man on earth – however neglected by nature, and however degraded by circumstances – is this true of all the bonds which oppress him. Let us undo them one by one, as the feeling of freedom awakens in men’s hearts, and we shall hasten progress at every step.
Those who do not comprehend this “may justly be suspected of misunderstanding human nature, and of wishing to make men into machines.”
Man is fundamentally a creative, searching, self-perfecting being: “To inquire and to create – these are the centres around which all human pursuits more or less directly revolve.” But freedom of thought and enlightenment are not only for the elite. Once again echoing Rousseau, Humboldt states, “There is something degrading to human nature in the idea of refusing to any man the right to be a man.” He is, then, optimistic about the effects on all of “the diffusion of scientific knowledge by freedom and enlightenment.” But “all moral culture springs solely and immediately from the inner life of the soul, and can only be stimulated in human nature, and never produced by external and artificial contrivances.” “The cultivation of the understanding, as of any of man’s other faculties, is generally achieved by his own activity, his own ingenuity, or his own methods of using the discoveries of others. . . .” Education, then, must provide the opportunities for selffulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way. Even a language cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, but only “awakened in the mind: one can only provide the thread along which it will develop of itself.” I think that Humboldt would have found congenial much of Dewey’s thinking about education. And he might also have appreciated the recent revolutionary extension of such ideas, for example, by the radical Catholics of Latin America who are concerned with the “awakening of consciousness,” referring to “the transformation of the passive exploited lower classes into conscious and critical masters of their own destinies” [11] much in the manner of Third World revolutionaries elsewhere. He would, I am sure, have approved of their criticism of schools that are
more preoccupied with the transmission of knowledge than with the creation, among other values, of a critical spirit. From the social point of view, the educational systems are oriented to maintaining the existing social and economic structures instead of transforming them.[12]
But Humboldt’s concern for spontaneity goes well beyond educational practice in the narrow sense. It touches also the question of labour and exploitation. The remarks, just quoted, about the cultivation of understanding through spontaneous action continue as follows:
. . . man never regards what he possesses as so much his own, as what he does; and the labourer who tends a garden is perhaps in a true sense its owner, than the listless voluptuary who enjoys its fruits. . . . In view of this consideration, [13] it seems as if all peasants and craftsmen might be elevated into artists; that is, men who love their labour for its own sake, improve it by their own plastic genius and inventive skill, and thereby cultivate their intellect, ennoble their character, and exalt and refine their pleasures. And so humanity would be ennobled by the very things which now, thought beautiful in themselves, so often serve to degrade it. . . But, still, freedom is undoubtedly the indispensable condition, without which even the pursuits most congenial to individual human nature, can never succeed in producing such salutary influences. Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness.
If a man acts in a purely mechanical way, reacting to external demands or instruction rather than in ways determined by his own interests and energies and power, “we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is.” [14]
On such conceptions Humboldt grounds his ideas concerning the role of the state, which tends to “make man an instrument to serve its arbitrary ends, overlooking his individual purposes.” His doctrine is classical liberal, strongly opposed to all but the most minimal forms of state intervention in personal or social life.
Writing in the 1790s, Humboldt had no conception of the forms that industrial capitalism would take. Hence he is not overly concerned with the dangers of private power.
But when we reflect (still keeping theory distinct from practice) that the influence of a private person is liable to diminution and decay, from competition, dissipation of fortune, even death; and that clearly none of these contingencies can be applied to the State; we are still left with the principle that the latter is not to meddle in anything which does not refer exclusively to security. . . .
He speaks of the essential equality of the condition of private citizens, and of course has no idea of the ways in which the notion “private person” would come to be reinterpreted in the era of corporate capitalism. He did not foresee that “Democracy with its motto of equality of all citizens before the law and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person both [would be] wrecked on realities of capitalist economy.”15 He did not foresee that, in a predatory capitalist economy, state intervention would be an absolute necessity to preserve human existence and to prevent the destruction of the physical environment— I speak optimistically. As Karl Polanyi, for one, has pointed out, the self-adjusting market “could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness.” Humboldt did not foresee the consequences of the commodity character of labour, the doctrine (in Polanyi’s words) that “it is not for the commodity to decide where is should be offered for sale, to what purpose it should be used, at what price it should be allowed to change hands, and in what manner it should be consumed or destroyed.” But the commodity, in the case, is a human life, and social protection was therefore a minimal necessity to constrain the irrational and destructive workings of the classical free market. Nor did Humboldt understand that capitalist economic relations perpetuated a form of bondage which, as early as 1767, Simon Linguet had declared to be even worse than slavery.
It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him. . . . What effective gain has the suppression of slavery brought him?. . . . He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune. The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him. But the handicraftsmen cost nothing to the rich voluptuary who employs him. . . . These men, it is said, have no master– they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is need. It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence. [17]
If there is something degrading to human nature in the idea of bondage, then a new emancipation must be awaited, Fourier’s “third and last emancipatory phase of history,” which will transform the proletariat to free men by eliminating the commodity character of labor, ending wage slavery, and bringing the commercial, industrial, and financial institutions under democratic control. [18]
Perhaps Humboldt might have accepted these conclusions. He does agree that state intervention in social life is legitimate if “freedom would destroy the very conditions without which not only freedom but even existence itself would be inconceivable” – precisely the circumstances that arise in an unconstrained capitalist economy. In any event, his criticism of bureaucracy and the autocratic state stands as an eloquent forewarning of some of the most dismal aspects of modern history, and the basis of his critique is applicable to a broader range of coercive institutions than he imagined.
Though expressing a classical liberal doctrine, Humboldt is no primitive individualist in the style of Rousseau. Rousseau extols the savage who “lives within himself”; he has little use for “the sociable man, always outside of himself, [who] knows how to live only in the opinion of others . . . from [whose] judgement alone . . . he draws the sentiment of his own existence.”19 Humboldt’s vision is quite different:
. . . the whole tenor of the ideas and arguments unfolded in this essay might fairly be reduced to this, that while they would break all fetters in human society, they would attempt to find as many new social bonds as possible. The isolated man is no more able to develop than the one who is fettered.
Thus he looks forward to a community of free association without coercion by the state or other authoritarian institutions, in which free men can create and inquire, and achieve the highest development of their powers – far ahead of his time, he presents an anarchist vision that is appropriate, perhaps, to the next stage of industrial society. We can perhaps look forward to a day when these various strands will be brought together within the framework of libertarian socialism, a social form that barely exists today though its elements can be perceived: in the guarantee of individual rights that has achieved its highest form – though still tragically flawed – in the Western democracies; in the Israeli kibbutzim; in the experiments with workers’ councils in Yugoslavia; in the effort to awaken popular consciousness and create a new involvement in the social process which is a fundamental element in the Third World revolutions, coexisting uneasily with indefensible authoritarian practice.
A similar concept of human nature underlies Humboldt’s work on language. Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation. The normal use of language and the acquisition of language depend on what Humboldt calls the fixed form of language, a system of generative processes that is rooted in the nature of the human mind and constrains but does not determine the free creations of normal intelligence or, at a higher and more original level, of the great writer or thinker. Humboldt is, on the one hand, a Platonist who insists that learning is a kind of reminiscence, in which the mind, stimulated by experience, draws from its own internal resources and follows a path that it itself determines; and he is also a romantic, attuned to cultural variety, and the endless possibilities for the spiritual contributions of the creative genius. There is no contradiction in this, any more than there is a contradiction in the insistence of aesthetic theory that individual works of genius are constrained by principle and rule. The normal, creative use of language, which to the Cartesian rationalist is the best index of the existence of another mind, presupposes a system of rules and generative principles of a sort that the rationalist grammarians attempted, with some success, to determine and make explicit.
The many modern critics who sense an inconsistency in the belief that free creation takes place within – presupposes, in fact – a system of constraints and governing principles are quite mistaken; unless, of course, they speak of “contradiction” in the loose and metaphoric sense of Schelling, when he writes that “without the contradiction of necessity and freedom not only philosophy but every nobler ambition of the spirit would sink to that death which is peculiar to those sciences in which that contradiction serves no function.” Without this tension between necessity and freedom, rule and choice, there can be no creativity, no communication, no meaningful acts at all.
I have discussed these traditional ideas at some length, not out of antiquarian interest, but because I think that they are valuable and essentially correct, and that they project a course we can follow with profit. Social action must be animated by a vision of a future society, and by explicit judgements of value concerning the character of this future society. These judgements must derive from some concept of human nature, and one may seek empirical foundations by investigating human nature as it is revealed by human behaviour and human creations, material, intellectual, and social. We have, perhaps, reached a point in history when it is possible to think seriously about a society in which freely constituted social bonds replace the fetters of autocratic institutions, rather in the sense conveyed by the remarks of Humboldt that I quoted, and elaborated more fully in the tradition of libertarian socialism in the years that followed.
Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid-twentieth century. It is incapable of meeting human needs that can be expressed only in collective terms, and its concept of competitive man who seeks only to maximize wealth and power, who subjects himself to market relationships, to exploitation and external authority, is antihuman and intolerable in the deepest sense. An autocratic state is no acceptable substitute; nor can the militarized state capitalism evolving in the United States or the bureaucratized, centralized welfare state be accepted as the goal of human existence. The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival. Modern science and technology can relieve people of the necessity for specialized, imbecile labour. They may, in principle, provide the basis for a rational social order based on free association and democratic control, if we have the will to create it.
A vision of a future social order is in turn based on a concept of human nature. If in fact humans are indefinitely malleable, completely plastic beings, with no innate structures of mind and no intrinsic needs of a cultural or social character, then they are fit subjects for the “shaping of behavior” by the state authority, the corporate manager, the technocrat, or the central committee. Those with some confidence in the human species will hope this is not so and will try to determine the intrinsic human characteristics that provide the framework for intellectual development, the growth of moral consciousness, cultural achievement, and participation in a free community. In a partly analogous way, a classical tradition spoke of artistic genius acting within and in some ways challenging a framework of rule. Here we touch on matters that are little understood. It seems to me that we must break away, sharply and radically, from much of modern social and behavioral science if we are to move toward a deeper understanding of these matters.
Here, too, I think that the tradition I have briefly reviewed has a contribution to offer. As I have already observed, those who were concerned with human distinctiveness and potential repeatedly were led to a consideration of the properties of language. I think that the study of language can provide some glimmerings of understanding of rule-governed behavior and the possibilities for free and creative action within the framework of a system of rules that in part, at least, reflect intrinsic properties of human mental organization. It seems to me fair to regard the contemporary study of language as in some ways a return to the Humboldtian concept of the form of language: a system of generative processes rooted in innate properties of mind but permitting, in Humboldt’s phrase, an infinite use of finite means. Language cannot be described as a system of organization of behaviour. Rather, to understand how language is used, we must discover the abstract Humboldtian form of language – its generative grammar, in modern terms. To learn a language is to construct for oneself this abstract system, of course unconsciously. The linguist and pyschologist can proceed to study the use and acquistion of language only insofar as they have some grasp of the properties of the system that has been mastered by the person who knows the language. Furthermore, it seems to me that a good case can be made in support of the empirical claim that such a system can be acquired, under the given conditions of time and access, only by a mind that is endowed with certain specific properties that we can now tentatively describe in some detail. As long as we restrict ourselves, conceptually, to the investigation of behavior, its organization, its development through interaction with the environment, we are bound to miss these characteristics of language and mind. Other aspects of human psychology and culture might, in principle, be studied in a similar way.
Conceivably, we might in this way develop a social science based on empirically wellfounded propositions concerning human nature. Just as we study the range of humanly attainable languages, with some success, we might also try to study the forms of artistic expression or, for that matter, scientific knowledge that humans can conceive, and perhaps even the range of ethical systems and social structures in which humans can live and function, given their intrinsic capacities and needs. Perhaps one might go on to project a concept of social organization that would – under given conditions of material and spiritual culture – best encourage and accommodate the fundamental human need – if such it is – for spontaneous initiative, creative work, solidarity, pursuit of social justice.
I do not want to exaggerate, as I no doubt have, the role of investigation of language. Language is the product of human intelligence that is, for the moment, most accessible to study. A rich tradition held language to be a mirror of mind. To some extent, there is surely truth and useful insight in this idea.
I am no less puzzled by the topic “language and freedom” than when I began – and no less intrigued. In these speculative and sketchy remarks there are gaps so vast that one might question what would remain, when metaphor and unsubstantiated guess are removed. It is sobering to realize – as I believe we must – how little we have progressed in our knowledge of human beings and society, or even in formulating clearly the problems that might be seriously studied. But there are, I think, a few footholds that seem fairly firm. I like to believe that the intensive study of one aspect of human psychology – human language – may contribute to a humanistic social science that will serve, as well, as an instrument for social action. It must, needless to say, be stressed that social action cannot await a firmly established theory of human nature and society, nor can the validity of the latter be determined by our hopes and moral judgements. The two – speculation and action – must progress as best they can, looking forward to the day when theoretical inquiry will provide a firm guide to the unending, often grim, but never hopeless struggle for freedom and social justice.
Suggested Reading
[1] F W J Schelling, Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, trans. and ed. James Gutmann (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1936).
[2] R D Masters, introduction to his edition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, First and Second Discourses, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964).
[3] Compare Proudhon, a century later: “No long discussion is necessary to demonstrate that the power of denying a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death, and that to make a man a slave is to assassinate him.”
[4] Cited in A Lehning, ed., Bakunin, Etatisme et anarchie (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), editor’s note 50, from P Schrecker, “Kant et la révolution francaise,” Revue philosophique, September–December 1939.
[5] I have discussed this matter in Cartesian Linguistics (New York: Harper & Row, 1966) and Language and Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, extended ed., 1972).
[6] See the references of note 5, and also my Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), chap. 1, sec. 8.
[7] I need hardly add that this is not the prevailing view. For discussion, see E.H. Lenneberg, Biological Foundations of Language (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967); my Language and Mind; E.A. Drewe et al., “A Comparative Review of the Results of Behavioural Research on Man and Monkey,” (London; Institute of Psychiatry, unpublished draft, 1969); P.H. Lieberman, D.H. Klatt, and W.H. Wilson, “Vocal Tract Limitations on the Vowel Repertoires of Rhesus Monkeys and other Nonhuman Primates,” Science, June 6, 1969; and P.H. Lieberman, “Primate Vocalizations and Human Linguistic Ability,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 44, no. 6 (1968).
[8] In the books cited above, and in Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (New York: Humanities Press, 1964).
[9] J W Burrow, introduction to his edition of Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969), from which most of the following quotes are taken.
[10] Compare the remarks of Kant, quoted above. Kant’s essay appeared in 1793; Humboldt’s was written in 1791–92. Parts appeared, but it did not appear in full during his lifetime. See Burrow, introduction to Humboldt, Limits of State Action.
[11 ] Thomas G Sanders, “The Church in Latin America,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 48, no. 2 (1970).
[12] Ibid, The source is said to be the ideas of Paulo Freire. Similar criticism is widespread in the student movement in the West. See, for example, Mitchell Cohen and Dennis Hale, eds., The New Student Left rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), chap. 3.
[13] Namely, that a man “only attains the most matured and graceful consummation of his activity, when his way of life is harmoniously in keeping with his character”–that is, when his actions flow from inner impulse.
[14] The latter quote is from Humboldt’s comments on the French Constitution, 1791–parts translated in Marianne Cowan, ed., Humanist Without Portfolio: An Anthology (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963).
[15] Rudolf Rocker, “Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism,” in Paul Eltzbacher, Anarchism (London: Freedom Press, 1960). In his book Nationalism and Culture (London: Freedom Press, 1937), Rocker describes Humboldt as “the most prominent representative in Germany” of the doctrine of natural rights and of the opposition to the authoritarian state. Rousseau he regards as a precursor of authoritarian doctrine, but he considers only the Social Contract, not the far more libertarian Discourse on Inequality. Burrow observes that Humboldt’s essay anticipates “much nineteenth century political theory of a populist, anarchist and syndicalist kind” and notes the hints of the early Marx. See also my Cartesian Linguistics, n. 51, for some comments.
[16] Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
[17] Cited by Paul Mattick, “Workers’ Control,” in Priscilla Long, ed., The New Left (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969), p. 377.
[18] Cited in Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958). p. 19
CHOMSKY.INFO
This snapshot view is looking out over the nose of the lead locomotive of a manifest train, taken on Christmas Day, from the conductor's seat inside the locomotive cab. The winds were howling as the temperature outside reached -24F.
America's vast network of interconnected railroad lines doesn't sleep at night or in bad weather. The railroads don't take off holidays either—not even Christmas. When you're new to the job of being a railroader you become fixated on safety, obeying rules, and watching signals and mile posts so that you always know where you are. You also learn about "seniority" and what that brings to you on the holidays.
If your seniority "whiskers" are long enough, you can get nearly any day off to be with family. But the younger-seniority men and women who run these trains simply do not have that luxury. Railroaders are assigned to pools of workers who run trains back and forth, again and again, across a limited section of the division they work on. Some in the yard, some to industries, and some on inter-divisional or cross-country runs. Divisions with multiple lines have multiple pools of workers to cover each of those different routes and roles. Some men and women work the extra board and are considered to be "extra" crews. They fill in for crew members on vacation, or who may have called in sick, or when extra trains simply need to be run because business mandated that an extra train had to be run.
Some jobs, like the ones doing yard and industry work, have a set number of days to work each week, with set hours of duty, and set rest days. But everything rolling down the mainline has a crew made up from one of the pools. The people who operate those trains get a phone call a few hours in advance of the train's on-duty time. Then they gather their stuff. That can include overnight bags, food for 5-6 meals, coffee, snacks, paperwork, and anything else they think they might need to make it "wherever", and back home again. Federal regulations say that railroaders cannot work more than 12 hours each day. But after you factor in the phone call that woke you up, the commute to the yard office, another commute to the train, the train trip itself, delays encountered enroute, and another commute to find a hotel at the end of the run, a typical day on a mainline train can easily consume 16-17 hours of time in total. Hopefully, you got a full 8 hours of sleep before the phone rang. That certainly makes any day on the railroad better—and safer for everyone too.
When you're a junior person working on the railroad and you finally put your head down on the pillow for some sleep on Christmas Eve—you never really know for sure if your phone is going to ring, or not. Sometimes it does. At night. When it's very windy and extremely cold outside. Even on Christmas.
No matter where any of us might live in North America, virtually everything that we enjoy during the Christmas Holiday came to us aboard a train*. That includes all manners of fresh and frozen foods that we find at the grocery stores, every kind of drink hard and soft, bottled water, electronics, clothing, blankets, the beds we sleep on and the pillows that rest our head, the furnaces that warm our homes, and of course all of the presents that we give and share with each other. Then, after all the presents are opened on Christmas morning, those big plastic trash bags come out of the cupboard and are used to gather up and dispose of all the torn boxes and crumpled wrapping paper. Even the raw material used to make those plastic trash bags came on a train, well in advance of anyone's need.
A great deal of individual effort goes into operating each of the thousands of trains that run on the railroads each day. But none more noble than those lonely few trains operating this very day that are kept moving by the extra board men and women who were called to duty late on Christmas Eve, or very early on Christmas Day. It's their turn to help keep America's "conveyor belt" of food, material goods and raw materials moving from coast to coast, and back again.
Merry Christmas wishes are extended to one and all—and especially to those of you looking out over the nose of your locomotive right now—as the rest of us enjoy a very different view of the holiday.
Cheers!
Jeff Lemke
Twin Ports Rail History
*P.S. If you'd like to learn a bit more about how these trains get from coast to coast when crews can only work 12 hours at a time, visit my website's WHAT WE DO tab, then find the text that refers to the railroads and the global economy. Hiding behind that text is a dandy training PDF with some great images that you might enjoy reading. It's pretty heavy size-wise, so give it a few moments to load. Here's the link: www.twinportsrailhistory.com/what-we-do/
"Multitudes of people are beauty-blind to the outdoor pictures. I doubt if one in a hundred begins to take in the beauty visible on even a short walk in city or country." - Delia Lyman Porter
I had such fun yesterday walking from home along the Waterfront Recreational Trail and through the Humber Bay Parks.
"The Waterfront Trail is made up of an interconnected series of trails mainly along the shores of Lake Ontario in Canada, beginning in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario and extending to Brockville, Ontario, with an extension along Former Highway 2, to the Quebec provincial border. Through Toronto, the trail is called the Martin Goodman Trail. The Waterfront Trail is also used by commuters in parts of Southern Ontario." Wikipedia
Thanks for visiting, enjoy your day.
World-renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei exhibited a new edition of his Forever Bicycles sculpture in Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square. 3,144 interconnected bicycles form a three-dimensional structure creating an incredible visual effect.
An interconnected digital world.
Title: Human Structures Vancouver
Artist: Jonathan Borofsky (b. 1942, USA)
Medium: Sixty-four painted and moulded galvanized steel figures
Dimensions: 730 x 510 x 510 cm (287 x 201 x 201 in)
Weight: 2,560 kg (5,644 lbs)
Location: Vancouver, Hinge Park (next to Olympic Village)
Drawn to Olympic Village, where Vancouverites worked together to forge one of Canada’s greenest communities from an industrial lot, Jonathan Borofsky personally selected the site for the latest sculpture in his celebrated Human Structure series. In keeping with this location, and with the 2014 – 2016 Vancouver Biennale theme “Open Borders/Crossroads Vancouver”, Human Structures Vancouver focuses on the notion of humanity working together to build our world.
This sculpture, comprised of a series of brightly-coloured interconnected figures, conveys a sense of universal connectivity. The distinctive shape of the galvanized steel plates refers to pixels, the base unit of computer imagery, and comments on the structural connections in our digital world.
For Borofsky, the organic, modular structure of Human Structures Vancouver suggests an ongoing process of building and learning. In the artist’s own words, “we are all constantly in a process of connecting together to build our world…Humans use structures to build our world, not only architectural, but psychological and philosophical structures.”
While previous works in the series have consisted of a single tower of figures, Human Structures Vancouver marks the artist’s first realization of multiple groupings. As the central structure stretches up to the sky, two smaller configurations form preliminary foundations, alluding to a continuous cycle of growth. Through this sculpture, Borofsky seeks to nurture a sense of public positivity.
Some fall colors along the Ruth Bascom Riverbank Trail System (a collection of interconnected trails lining the Willamette River in Eugene, OR).
Additional info: www.traillink.com/trail/ruth-bascom-riverbank-trail-syste...
[For more photos from Eugene, go to my Eugene gallery at JimArnoldPhotography.com.]
The variable geometry wings on my model work and are interconnected so that they move in tandem. I've used a similar system on my F-14 Tomcat models and my Su-24 Fencer. On the F-111 it was more difficult, however, because the main undercarriage bay sits just just below the wing. Finding space and making the central fuselage structurally sound was a major challenge.
The Renaissance Center (aka GM Renaissance Center) is a group of seven interconnected skyscrapers in downtown Detroit, on the shore of the Detroit River. The complex is owned by General Motors, which uses it as its world headquarters. The central tower, the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center with its curved glass-clad facade, is the second tallest all-hotel skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere. It has been the tallest building in Michigan since it was erected in 1977. The principal architect was John Portman.
This turned out to be a much harder shot than I expected. The focus, background position, light and drop height are interconnected. So any time one of those elements changed, the entire setup had to be reset by trial and error.
The Jeita Grotto (Arabic: مغارة جعيتا) is a system of two separate, but interconnected limestone caves spanning 5.6 miles. Visitors can walk through the upper cave, but the lower cave contains an underwater river and lake. It is only accessible in summer and then only by boat.
These pictures were all taken in water filled lower cave. The water flows through at 1–2 m3/s, providing drinking water for 1.5 million people in Beirut. Cameras are normally taken and secured from visitors while in the caverns. These photos were taken with special permission.
Now known as PacMutual, the former Pacific Mutual Building is actually three interconnected structures built over a twenty-year period.
Lighting The Sails 'Songlines'
World Premiere, Sydney Only
Directed by the Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts
Co-curated by Sydney Opera House and Destination NSW
Visual content and animation created by Artists in Motion
Lighting the Sails for the eighth year of Vivid Sydney, Sydney Opera House will transform into an animated canvas of Australian indigenous art featuring iconic contemporary works from Karla Dickens, Djon Mundine, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Reko Rennie, Donny Woolagoodja, and the late Gulumbu Yunupingu.
Celebrating First Nations' spirituality and culture through the songlines of our land and sky, this year’s Lighting the Sails is about painting and celebrating country through a pattern of sharing systems, interconnected history lines and trade routes. Lighting the Sails Director and Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts has selected six artists of different clans, national estates and territories for an immersive projected artwork that weaves through time and distance.
As the first indigenous work commissioned exclusively for the sails of the Sydney Opera House, this visual tapestry will weave through personal journeys, while celebrating the timeless themes and enduring art of Australia's most influential contemporary First Nations artists, exclusive to Vivid Sydney.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Karla Dickens (Wiradjuri)
Karla Dickens was born in Sydney in 1967; the Year of the Referendum that gave Aboriginal people human status. A double dawn for Aboriginal people; a major national political and social shift, and an innocent newborn seemingly as yet without any connection to her history and Aboriginal heritage. Karla’s Aboriginality and sexuality profoundly inform her work – her insight and breadth of artistic practice both deeply embraces the notion of identity politics and yet works with universal human experiences.
Djon Mundine OAM (Bandjalung)
Djon Mundine is a member of the Bandjalung people of northern New South Wales. Djon has an extended career as a curator, activist, writer, and occasional artist and is renown as the concept curator for the Aboriginal Memorial installation permanently exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia. Djon was awarded an OAM in 1993 and is currently Indigenous Curator-Contemporary Art at the Campbelltown Art Centre.
Gabriella Possum (Nungurrayi)
Gabriella Possum was born in 1967 and she is the eldest daughter of the internationally renowned artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri who was awarded the Order of Australia in 2002. Gabriella is best known for her Seven Sisters paintings, with her iconic depiction of the Milky Way and she also paints Bush Tucker and Grandmother's Country stories.
Reko Rennie (Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi)
Through his art Reko explores what it means to be an urban Aboriginal in contemporary Australian society. Rennie received no formal artistic training but as a teenager discovered graffiti which became an all-consuming passion. His art and installations continually explore issues of identity, race, law & justice, land rights, stolen generations and other issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in contemporary society.
Donny Woolagoodja (Worora)
Donny, Mowanjum Artists Spirit of the Wandjina Aboriginal Corporation (MASWAC) chairman, is the fourth eldest of ten children. His father, Sam, was the last of the Worora banmen (lawman and medicine man).
Donny's remarkable upbringing bridges the white Christian beliefs he became aware of at the mission churches and the ancient Wandjina laws his father taught him allowing him to move easily between his Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people.
Gulumbu Yunupingu (1954-2012, Gumatj)
Using distinctive white and black crosses on a red ground, Yolgnu artist Gulumbu Yunupingu (1945-2012) painted Garak, the starry universe, on barks and poles. She came to national prominence when she won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award (2004), and to international acclaim in 2006 with her scaled-up version of Garak on permanent display at Musee du Quai Branly (2006).
Artists In Motion
Artists in Motion is a Creative Project company that are highly regarded as pioneers of the industry. Known for their work around the world they still remain a proudly home grown creative force that produces all of their creations from their Sydney studio.
AIM is a collective of unique talent and experienced artists who have worked as a united team for several years. From the Epic to culturally emotional, they continue to transfix audiences of all kinds.
Under the creative leadership of Richard Lindsay, previous projects include content creation for the Beijing Olympics Ceremonies, Vancouver Winter Olympic Ceremonies, Hong Kong Pulse Shows, Alfa Bank Projection Moscow, 1st European Games Baku, the iconic UAE production “Clusters of Light”, as well as previous works for VIVID, including the popular Play projection on the Sydney Opera House.
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This is the Kodak Retina III S made by Kodak AG in Stuttgart between 1958 and 1961. Actually there is two in the picture. I have one with an Imperial focus scale, the other is Metric. Both work. Even the light meters seems to be functioning, but I would not trust them too much. Personally I use external meters when shooting with old cameras anyway.
It is a quirky camera. The apperture is selected with a sprocket wheel under the lens. The shutter speed is set on the lens barrel. Both this settings are interconnected to the light meter and the ASA/DIN setting via internal strings and pullies. But it works. I just hope it will last.
The lens is interchangeable on this rangefinder. But I’m too stupid to figure out how the focus setting works with intechangeable lenses in this system. And there is another quirk to this as well: Schneider-Kreuznach lenses are only interchangeble with lenses of the same brand. Rodenstock lenses are only interchangeable with lenses of the same brand. I don’t understand why. Maybe I’m not smart enough to see the genious in this? Anyway, I only use the standard Xenar 50mm/2.8, which I find to be very good.
The III S has the dreaded frame counter infamous from other Retina models of that time period. It is a over-ingenieered interlocking contraption that counts down instead of up, and need manual resetting with a special prosedure uniqe to Retinas. But when getting used to it, it actually works fine. :)
Lighting The Sails 'Songlines'
World Premiere, Sydney Only
Directed by the Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts
Co-curated by Sydney Opera House and Destination NSW
Visual content and animation created by Artists in Motion
Lighting the Sails for the eighth year of Vivid Sydney, Sydney Opera House will transform into an animated canvas of Australian indigenous art featuring iconic contemporary works from Karla Dickens, Djon Mundine, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Reko Rennie, Donny Woolagoodja, and the late Gulumbu Yunupingu.
Celebrating First Nations' spirituality and culture through the songlines of our land and sky, this year’s Lighting the Sails is about painting and celebrating country through a pattern of sharing systems, interconnected history lines and trade routes. Lighting the Sails Director and Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts has selected six artists of different clans, national estates and territories for an immersive projected artwork that weaves through time and distance.
As the first indigenous work commissioned exclusively for the sails of the Sydney Opera House, this visual tapestry will weave through personal journeys, while celebrating the timeless themes and enduring art of Australia's most influential contemporary First Nations artists, exclusive to Vivid Sydney.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Karla Dickens (Wiradjuri)
Karla Dickens was born in Sydney in 1967; the Year of the Referendum that gave Aboriginal people human status. A double dawn for Aboriginal people; a major national political and social shift, and an innocent newborn seemingly as yet without any connection to her history and Aboriginal heritage. Karla’s Aboriginality and sexuality profoundly inform her work – her insight and breadth of artistic practice both deeply embraces the notion of identity politics and yet works with universal human experiences.
Djon Mundine OAM (Bandjalung)
Djon Mundine is a member of the Bandjalung people of northern New South Wales. Djon has an extended career as a curator, activist, writer, and occasional artist and is renown as the concept curator for the Aboriginal Memorial installation permanently exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia. Djon was awarded an OAM in 1993 and is currently Indigenous Curator-Contemporary Art at the Campbelltown Art Centre.
Gabriella Possum (Nungurrayi)
Gabriella Possum was born in 1967 and she is the eldest daughter of the internationally renowned artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri who was awarded the Order of Australia in 2002. Gabriella is best known for her Seven Sisters paintings, with her iconic depiction of the Milky Way and she also paints Bush Tucker and Grandmother's Country stories.
Reko Rennie (Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi)
Through his art Reko explores what it means to be an urban Aboriginal in contemporary Australian society. Rennie received no formal artistic training but as a teenager discovered graffiti which became an all-consuming passion. His art and installations continually explore issues of identity, race, law & justice, land rights, stolen generations and other issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in contemporary society.
Donny Woolagoodja (Worora)
Donny, Mowanjum Artists Spirit of the Wandjina Aboriginal Corporation (MASWAC) chairman, is the fourth eldest of ten children. His father, Sam, was the last of the Worora banmen (lawman and medicine man).
Donny's remarkable upbringing bridges the white Christian beliefs he became aware of at the mission churches and the ancient Wandjina laws his father taught him allowing him to move easily between his Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people.
Gulumbu Yunupingu (1954-2012, Gumatj)
Using distinctive white and black crosses on a red ground, Yolgnu artist Gulumbu Yunupingu (1945-2012) painted Garak, the starry universe, on barks and poles. She came to national prominence when she won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award (2004), and to international acclaim in 2006 with her scaled-up version of Garak on permanent display at Musee du Quai Branly (2006).
Artists In Motion
Artists in Motion is a Creative Project company that are highly regarded as pioneers of the industry. Known for their work around the world they still remain a proudly home grown creative force that produces all of their creations from their Sydney studio.
AIM is a collective of unique talent and experienced artists who have worked as a united team for several years. From the Epic to culturally emotional, they continue to transfix audiences of all kinds.
Under the creative leadership of Richard Lindsay, previous projects include content creation for the Beijing Olympics Ceremonies, Vancouver Winter Olympic Ceremonies, Hong Kong Pulse Shows, Alfa Bank Projection Moscow, 1st European Games Baku, the iconic UAE production “Clusters of Light”, as well as previous works for VIVID, including the popular Play projection on the Sydney Opera House.
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The FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY , SOLDIER FIELD , capacity : 61, 500 ( home of the CHICAGO BEARS ) , BURNHAM PARK HARBOR ( left ) and Mc CORMICK PLACE ( far left ), the largest Convention Center in North America with a total existing exhibition space of 2, 670,000 sq. ft. ( 248, 000 sq. m. ) and have 4 interconnected buildings located along the shores of LAKE MICHIGAN ( 307 miles long and 117 miles wide ) at it's farthest .
Yin Yang is a Chinese symbol illustrating "how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn." This simple shape of mirrored inverted images is represents many concepts and a variety of religious, and cultural practices including Taoism, the I Ching, Tai Chi and more. Continue reading on Wikipedia.
Yin, Yang, slow, fast, soft, hard, yielding, solid, diffuse, focused, cold, hot, wet, dry, passive, aggressive, water, fire, earth, sky, moon, sun, femininity, masculinity, nighttime, daytime.
Portuguese Lavender (Lavandula stoechas ssp. luisieri) - Monotone Version.
Rosmaninho ou Alfazema - Portuguese Lavender (Lavandula stoechas ssp. luisieri), which has petals much less interconnected. It is found mainly in Portugal and adjacent regions of Spain.
Animism Evolution And Universal Balance by Daniel Arrhakis (2025)
>>>> With the music : BLUR || Deep Ambient Music // Blue Hour Ambiance || Dark Atmospheric by inekt
In animism, we conceive of the universe as a living and interconnected entity, where spiritual life manifests itself through the physical world.
The physical and spiritual duality is not a separation but an intrinsic interconnection where one cannot exist without the other.
Body and Soul are inseparable parts of a unified and universal whole. Thus, the physical and spiritual realms are intrinsically linked and depend on each other to manifest in all universal fullness.
In the Mystic World of Ion and in the Rovingian conception, human spirits do not only inhabit Earth, but go through evolutionary stages in different worlds, from the simplest to the most complex and in different temporal planes.
This idea suggests that the spiritual journey is universal, with each world providing unique lessons and experiences for the progress of beings. This notion includes the idea of evolution through different temporal planes, which can occur in different eras or dimensions of time.
Each of us is a part of a whole, but so is non-human nature, from the objects we create to the natural environment that surrounds us, other living beings—animals and plants, rocks, mountains, rivers, seas, or oceans—all of them are endowed with an intrinsic and particular spiritual essence or quality.
This mystical animistic conception, in fact, invites a deeper and more reverent relationship with the world and the Universe. It emphasizes the importance of the interconnections and the influence of our actions on universal balance.
This vision encourages an ethic of care and reciprocity towards nature and the cosmos, moving away from a purely utilitarian and materialistic perspective.
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No animismo, concebemos o universo como uma entidade viva e interligada, onde a vida espiritual se manifesta através do mundo físico.
A dualidade físico-espiritual não é uma separação, mas uma interligação intrínseca, onde um não pode existir sem o outro.
Corpo e alma são partes indissociáveis de um todo unificado e universal. Assim, os reinos físico e espiritual estão intrinsecamente ligados e dependem uns dos outros para se manifestarem em toda a sua plenitude universal.
No Mundo Místico de Íon e na conceção Rovingiana, os espíritos humanos não só habitam a Terra, como passam por fases evolutivas em diferentes mundos, desde os mais simples aos mais complexos e em diferentes planos temporais.
Esta ideia sugere que a viagem espiritual é universal, com cada mundo a proporcionar lições e experiências únicas para o progresso dos seres. Esta noção inclui a ideia de evolução através de diferentes planos temporais, que podem ocorrer em diferentes eras ou dimensões do tempo.
Cada um de nós faz parte de um todo, mas o mesmo se aplica à natureza não humana, desde os objetos que criamos ao ambiente natural que nos rodeia, outros seres vivos — animais e plantas, rochas, montanhas, rios, mares ou oceanos — todos dotados de uma essência ou qualidade espiritual intrínseca e particular.
Esta conceção mística animista convida, de facto, a uma relação mais profunda e reverencial com o mundo e o Universo. Ela realça a importância da interligação e a influência das nossas ações no equilíbrio universal.
Esta visão incentiva uma ética de cuidado e reciprocidade para com a natureza e o cosmos, afastando-se de uma perspetiva puramente utilitarista e materialista.
The Georgina Basin is a 330 000 km2 erosional remnant of a series of originally interconnected central Australian intracratonic basins, including the Savory, Officer, Ngalia and Amadeus Basins, which range from Neoproterozoic to Palaeozoic. The Georgina Basin covers most of the central-eastern Northern Territory and extends into Queensland. In excess of 1.5 km of Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks are preserved in downfaulted blocks and half-grabens on the southern margin of the Georgina Basin in the Northern Territory. Depocentres and synclines contain up to 2.2 km of Cambrian to Devonian section. The southern region contains the thickest basinal successions, and demonstrates the strongest structuring related to distal effects of the 320 Ma Alice Springs Orogeny. This part of the basin is the most prospective undeveloped onshore petroleum province in the Northern Territory [see Georgina Basin (southern module) project].
In contrast to the southern region, the central Georgina Basin, north of latitude 21°S, contains a relatively thin stratigraphic succession, up to 450 m thick, deposited on a tectonically quiescent platform. Deposition in the central region commenced with a marine transgression in the early Middle Cambrian and may have extended into the Late Cambrian. This central platform has been subdivided into an eastern Undilla Sub-basin and a western Barkly Sub-basin, separated by the Alexandria-Wonarah Basement High. The northern Georgina Basin is largely concealed beneath Mesozoic sedimentary rocks of the Dunmarra Basin.
Mineralisation:
The Georgina Basin is prospective for a number of mineral commodities. Known Pb-Zn prospects and occurrences are widespread and throughout the succession from Neoproterozoic siliciclastic rocks to Lower Ordovician carbonate and mixed carbonate-siliciclastic rocks. There is a wide range of mineralisation styles. At the Box Hole Mine, galena and barite occur along 6.5 km of strike in the Late Cambrian Arrinthrunga Formation. About 15 t of ore, averaging 65-70% Pb and 60 g/t Ag, has been handpicked. Mineralisation is stratabound epigenetic replacement and vug-fill in a stromatolitic dolostone, possibly localised by proximity to a feeder fault. Similar surface galena and minor pyrite occur at the Trackrider Prospect. Host rocks are vuggy, siliceous and manganiferous dolostone of the Arrinthrunga Formation, just below the contact with the overlying Tomahawk Formation. Mineralisation at both Box Hole and Trackrider is similar to Mississippi Valley-type (MVT) orebodies. Visible Zn-Pb mineralisation (up to 1.2% Zn) occurs in association with hydrocarbons in and just below a shale cap at the contact of the Arthur Creek Formation and Thorntonia Limestone in Baldwin 1 and may have affinities to Century-type, stratiform, shale-hosted base metal mineralisation. A fault breccia at the Boat Hill Prospect contains two intervals with percent levels of Zn. NTGS drilling also intersected percent levels of Zn and visible galena in Thorntonia Limestone in this area, which considerably extends the area of known mineralisation. Previously undocumented visible galena has also been recognised in the Neoproterozoic Elyuah Formation at the Mount Skinner Prospect in ALCOOTA. This core contains 2.44 m assayed at 0.3 m intervals, all of which is >2000 ppm Pb.
Economic phosphate deposits in Middle Cambrian Georgina Basin rocks are being mined at Duchess in Queensland. In the Northern Territory several deposits of collophane mudstone and pelletal phosphorite have been identified in sedimentary intervals on the Alexandria-Wonarah Basement High (see Regional phosphate prospectivity assessment project). These deposits average about 16% P2O5 and could aggregate to similar tonnages to those being exploited at Duchess. Rio Tinto has recently delineated 72 Mt of phosphate ore at the Wonarah deposit on the Alexandria-Wonarah Basement High. Smaller deposits are known at Alexandria, Alroy and Buchanan Creek.
Petroleum geology:
The Georgina Basin is the most prospective undeveloped onshore petroleum province in the Northern Territory, particularly in the southern part of the basin, south of latitude 21°S, where the thickest basinal successions have developed, as well as strong folding related to distal effects of the Alice Springs Orogeny. Most previous petroleum exploration has focused on depocentres on the southern margin, now marked by the Dulcie and Toko Synclines. These depocentres contain regionally extensive, organically rich, oil-mature source rocks, with siliciclastic lenses and some phosphorite-rich layers. The Cambrian succession is the most prospective and is marked at the base by coarse siliciclastic rocks overlain by platform carbonate rocks of Early to Middle Cambrian age. The Middle Cambrian carbonate succession, comprising the Thorntonia Limestone and Arthur Creek Formation, provides a reservoir-source/seal couplet extending over 80 000 km2. Both formations include excellent microbial source rocks, which are mature over wide areas; subordinate reservoir rocks relate to secondary porosity formed in shoal and shoreline deposits. Similar plays occur in the Late Cambrian Chabalowe Formation (Hagen Member), where peritidal carbonate mud and sand are sealed by evaporite. Sediment loading during the Ordovician initiated hydrocarbon generation over wide areas of this very sparsely explored basin, which includes subtle structural traps and large stratigraphic plays.
Source: Northern Territory Government.
2016 Vivid Sydney: Songlines - Lighting The Sails #8
World Premiere
Lighting the Sails for the eighth year of Vivid Sydney, Sydney Opera House will transform into an animated canvas of Australian indigenous art featuring iconic contemporary works from Karla Dickens, Djon Mundine, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Reko Rennie, Donny Woolagoodja, and the late Gulumbu Yunupingu.
Directed by the Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts
Co-curated by Sydney Opera House and Destination NSW
Visual content and animation created by Artists in Motion
Celebrating First Nations' spirituality and culture through the songlines of our land and sky, this year’s Lighting the Sails is about painting and celebrating country through a pattern of sharing systems, interconnected history lines and trade routes.
Lighting the Sails Director and Head of Indigenous Programming at Sydney Opera House Rhoda Roberts has selected six artists of different clans, national estates and territories for an immersive projected artwork that weaves through time and distance.
As the first indigenous work commissioned exclusively for the sails of the Sydney Opera House, this visual tapestry will weave through personal journeys, while celebrating the timeless themes and enduring art of Australia's most influential contemporary First Nations artists, exclusive to Vivid Sydney.
Rocket Escape - France, 1944
This series of four vignettes took first place in the "Interconnected Vigs" category in the Flickr 2010 Annual Lego Military Build Competition (http://www.flickr.com/groups/1411298@N23/)
It features four small 8x8 stud vignettes which each make sense individually, but tell a larger story when connected together.
Indiana Jones and his friend Mac, disguised as couriers, make a daring escape from WWII occupied France by stowing away in a V2 rocket about to launch. Indy gets himself fouled in a rope while dispatching one of the guards on the rocket gantry. Chained to Indy's left arm is a suitcase containing a lost relic of Joan of Ark which he must not let fall into Nazi hands. Mac waits patiently behind the liquid oxygen truck until the right moment, and then releases a valve to freeze the advancing troops.
Our created mist shall be embraced till we get tormented apart. We, only we shall carry the blame of the aftermath. One clean morning when the mist will be long gone, interconnected souls will pay the price.
Loch Ness is a large freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands extending for approximately 37 kilometres (23 miles) southwest of Inverness. It takes its name from the River Ness, which flows from the northern end. Loch Ness is best known for alleged sightings of the cryptozoological Loch Ness Monster, also known affectionately as "Nessie" (Scottish Gaelic: Niseag). It is one of a series of interconnected, murky bodies of water in Scotland; its water visibility is exceptionally low due to a high peat content in the surrounding soil. The southern end connects to Loch Oich by the River Oich and a section of the Caledonian Canal. The northern end connects to Loch Dochfour via the River Ness, which then ultimately leads to the North Sea via the Moray Firth.
Loch Ness is the second-largest Scottish loch by surface area after Loch Lomond at 56 km2 (22 sq mi), but due to its great depth it is the largest by volume in the British Isles. Its deepest point is 230 metres (126 fathoms; 755 feet), making it the second deepest loch in Scotland after Loch Morar. It contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined, and is the largest body of water in the Great Glen, which runs from Inverness in the north to Fort William in the south. Its surface is 16 metres (52 feet) above sea level. It contains a single, artificial island named Cherry Island (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Muireach) at the southwestern end. There are nine villages around the loch, as well as Urquhart Castle; the village of Drumnadrochit contains a "Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition".
Loch Ness is an elongated freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands southwest of Inverness, extending for approximately 37 kilometres (23 miles) and flowing from southwest to northeast. At 56 km2 (22 sq mi), it is the second-largest Scottish loch by surface area after Loch Lomond, but due to its great depth it is the largest by volume in the British Isles. Its deepest point is 230 metres (126 fathoms; 755 feet), making it the second deepest loch in Scotland after Loch Morar. A 2016 survey claimed to have discovered a crevice extending to a depth of 271 m (889 ft), but further research determined this to be a sonar anomaly. Its surface is 16 metres (52 feet) above sea level. It contains more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined, and is the largest body of water in the Great Glen, which runs from Inverness in the north to Fort William in the south. Loch Ness lies along the Great Glen Fault, which forms a line of weakness in the rocks which has been excavated by glacial erosion, forming the Great Glen and the basins of Loch Lochy, Loch Oich and Loch Ness.
Loch Ness has one small island, Cherry Island (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Muireach, meaning Murdoch's Island), at the southwestern end of the loch. It is an artificial island, known as a crannog, and was likely constructed during the Iron Age. The island was originally 160 feet (49 m) by 168 feet (51 m) across, but is now smaller as the water level was raised during the construction of the Caledonian Canal in the early nineteenth century. There was formerly a second, natural island nearby named Dog Island (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Nan Con), but it was submerged when the water level rose. A castle stood on Cherry Island during the 15th century; this was constructed of stone and oak wood and was likely used as a fortified refuge. It has been suggested that Eilean Muireach may have been a hunting lodge, with Eilean Nan Con the home for the hunting dogs.
The loch is one of a series of interconnected, murky bodies of water in Scotland; its water visibility is exceptionally low due to a high peat content in the surrounding soil. The southern end is fed by the River Oich, which runs from Loch Oich. The northern end flows out through the Bona Narrows into Loch Dochfour; the Bathymetrical survey of the Scottish fresh-water lochs considered Loch Dochfour to be distinct from Loch Ness proper, but capable of being regarded as forming part of Loch Ness. Dochgarroch weir at the downstream end of Loch Dochfour delineates the start of the River Ness, which connects to the nearby and ultimately leads through Inverness to the North Sea via the Moray Firth. Loch Ness forms part of the Caledonian Canal, which comprises 60 miles (100 kilometres) of waterways connecting the east coast of Scotland at Inverness with the west coast at Corpachthe near Fort William. Only one-third of the entire length is man-made, the rest being formed by Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy, with the man-made canals running parallel with rivers such as the River Oich.
Loch Ness is known as the home of the Loch Ness Monster (also known as "Nessie"), a cryptid, reputedly a large unknown animal. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next. Popular interest and belief in the animal's existence have varied since it was first brought to the world's attention in 1933.
The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.
The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.
The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.
Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.
Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".
Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".
Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.
Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.
In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.
When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.
The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.
Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.
According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".
The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.
For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.
In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.
A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.
Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.
The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.
There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.
Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.
The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.
These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.
The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.
Climate
The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.
Places of interest
An Teallach
Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)
Arrochar Alps
Balmoral Castle
Balquhidder
Battlefield of Culloden
Beinn Alligin
Beinn Eighe
Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station
Ben Lomond
Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Cairngorms National Park
Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore
Cairngorm Mountains
Caledonian Canal
Cape Wrath
Carrick Castle
Castle Stalker
Castle Tioram
Chanonry Point
Conic Hill
Culloden Moor
Dunadd
Duart Castle
Durness
Eilean Donan
Fingal's Cave (Staffa)
Fort George
Glen Coe
Glen Etive
Glen Kinglas
Glen Lyon
Glen Orchy
Glenshee Ski Centre
Glen Shiel
Glen Spean
Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)
Grampian Mountains
Hebrides
Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.
Highland Wildlife Park
Inveraray Castle
Inveraray Jail
Inverness Castle
Inverewe Garden
Iona Abbey
Isle of Staffa
Kilchurn Castle
Kilmartin Glen
Liathach
Lecht Ski Centre
Loch Alsh
Loch Ard
Loch Awe
Loch Assynt
Loch Earn
Loch Etive
Loch Fyne
Loch Goil
Loch Katrine
Loch Leven
Loch Linnhe
Loch Lochy
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
Loch Lubnaig
Loch Maree
Loch Morar
Loch Morlich
Loch Ness
Loch Nevis
Loch Rannoch
Loch Tay
Lochranza
Luss
Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)
Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran
Rannoch Moor
Red Cuillin
Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83
River Carron, Wester Ross
River Spey
River Tay
Ross and Cromarty
Smoo Cave
Stob Coire a' Chàirn
Stac Polly
Strathspey Railway
Sutherland
Tor Castle
Torridon Hills
Urquhart Castle
West Highland Line (scenic railway)
West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)
Wester Ross