Thalia (in ancient Greek Θάλεια / Tháleia or Θάλια / Thália, "the joyous, the flourishing", from θάλλειν / thállein, to flourish, to be verdant) was the muse who presided over comedy and idyllic poetry. She was the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the eighth-born of the nine Muses. She was portrayed as a young woman with a joyous air, crowned with ivy, wearing boots and holding a comic mask in her hand.
The author employs a philosophical approach in order to conceptualize the space and time in urban realms of the first decades of the 21st century. The so-called 'hi-tech society' has reached its saturation according to Paul Virilio, William Mitchell, Jean Baudrillard, Wolfgang Schirmacher, Marc Augé. Space and time are interchangeably main concerns and the new definitions of technological culture are critiqued. Jean-Luc Nancy has described how physical communities arrive at an inoperable stage. How those communities will function when altered for micro-urban concerns in virtual space is vital to city officials as well as related business enterprises. However, as issues of governance cast a shadow on communitary freedom, netizens seek more flexible derivations instead of smart(er) urban typologies. This urge for flexibility introduces the new notion of a politics of speed, for which a consensus from all states of power should be eternally pursued in the city of the near future. What kind of a city are we looking at in the 21st century? Or rather, what is, today, a real city? The answer should transcend the dialectics of the real and fantasy. Asli Telli Aydemir received a PhD (magna cum laude) in Media and Communication Studies from the European Graduate School.She was awarded a Young Scholar Grant by the European Science Foundation and recently appointed as a Research Fellow in Istanbul Bilgi University, where she works on an EU-funded project, entitled "Civic-web: Internet, Youth and Participation."
CURRENT DEBATE: How do
you distinguish passion applied only to the self (lacking meaningful benefits
to others) from selfishness? How do you measure the value of what you do?
Top of Form
·
NL- Something I think about on a daily basis, seeing that the nature
of my job benefits people marginally in comparison to someone working in health
care, non-for profit, etc. I measure the value of what I do against what others
in my field do. But overall, I do not feel as valued in society because of it's
lack of immediate impression on others...hence why I am always open to a career
change or side passions.
·L.P. I think that passion will always ripple
outwards to uplift others. If you do what you love with theintent of service
above self then whther youare a Peace Corp worker or a bus driver, you will be
benefitting others. Selfishness will never uplift in the same way, even if only
on a metaphysical level.
D.F. I'm unsure why a person's worth or measured
value stems solely from what they do to uplift others. If they aren't hurting
others, is it morally wrong to pursue your own interests and passions
regardless of service? I'd say no.
·J.E. I think a lot of people forget that another
sector that helps people is government. Whether it's providing services like
education or healthcare or solving societal problems like climate change or
unemployment or poverty, government helps a lot of people. That's why I'm so
passionate about it and I want a career in the public sector. Self interest
plays a role in the sense that I want to influence public policy to make the
world more in line with how I want to see it.
·I love these discussions and how insightful
the comments are in this thread. Perhaps a more concrete example: how does your
admiration differ between a person who passionately collects buttons and a
person who passionately feeds the hungry (assuming that
both are equally passionate about both)? The button collector has collected
over 10,000 buttons, and the feed the hungry contributor has fed 10,000
starving people. Or, as Dan said, is the question unfair, and if so, why?
·
D.F. I think it's an unfair question. We don't have the big picture
of the person from that statement. The button collector could also be a
philanthropist whose donations have helped 1 million people, while the other
person is a drunk who takes frustration out on his/her family. Then who do you
admire most? You can't measure someone's intrinsic goodness or self-worth
without examining all elements of his/her life.
·Brad- It's worth looking to classic works on
morality and happiness to frame the discussion.
Aristotle
and a virtue ethicist would argue that there is a clear hierarchy of virtues
here. The ultimate end for everyone is happiness. However different peoplehave
mastery over different subsets of a virtue, which can in themselves bring
happiness, but the greatest happiness comes from striving for excellence in the
master virtues. (those which subsume others.) Here, the person who feeds the
starving is clearly happier than the button collector. (though they both are
happy and should be striving for more things if they wish to continue being
happy) That being said, how do we establish this hierarchy? How do we know what
the master good is?
Of
course a Utilitarian like Mill or Bentham would take issue. To Bentham,
happiness or passion is intrinsic and that which brings about the most
happiness to the highest number is best. No other motive need be supplied. Mill
would agree but stipulate that certain happiness is instinctively better than
others (art, education, music etc) and that we should endeavor harder to bring
those things into the world. I'm not sure if charity makes Mill's second order
list, but he does argue that helping others is one of the highest orders of
happiness. With Utilitarianism, you can probably make the case for the button
collector, but it is hard to argue that the charity worker isn't bringing about
more happiness for more people, which is the goal for Bentham and Mill. That
being said, how can we quantify the most happiness? Is it right to sacrifice
the passions of a few for the many?
Then
of course you have Kant with his pseudo-deontological approach. To Kant, it's
all about rule and to what extent you desire to follow them. For Kant,
universal rules about what is moral and bringing about good are based on rules
that we all agree to be best. Here, it is hard to make a case for the button
collector. To Kant he is pursuing a passion that benefits only him to satisfy
only him. To Kant this is both selfish and shallow. However the person who does
charity is interesting. To Kant, it's all about motivation to follow the rule
and selflessness. If the charity worker is passionate because he does not feel
a compassion to be charitable, but knows it is his duty so he does it anyway,
he is VERY moral and should be very happy. However, if he does it because it
brings him happiness or it is in his nature to be charitable, than he acts for
selfish reasons and can not be said to be as moral in character as the person
who does not. But how can we know what someones motives truly are? For that
matter, how do we know what our true motives are?
Just
a few perspectives from history.
B.K.- Thanks for bring a
classic philosophical lens to the conversation. Which do you subscribe to in
your life?
C.A.- If you are bringing in the oldies but goodies then throw in
the classic Aristotelian middle way.
Your original question is a little strange to me, do you mean
something that is just for yourself but gives nothing to others vs. something that
is just for yourself that takes from others, Narcissus vs. Napoleon?
Is the question about the distribution of goodness in self-contained
actions, or what is the generosity of these two self-fulfilling actions? My answer- it is better to be an autoerotic hermit
than a tyrant. Narcissus was so
beautiful he needed no one else, he found in his reflection a self looping
prison. Before he fell into the lake he
was loved by Echo, a lot of repetition of sound and sight in this myth. In the same way, because we don’t live entirely
in a vacuum, if the autoerotic behavior, self will for self pleasure, has inherent
goodness in it, if it in any way serve others, then others will desire to
replicate it. When you see something
beautiful you desire to grow towards it, just like when you see something good,
something that serves you, you act like it.
We are super simple in some ways, imitating all the time. The level of beauty and the level of good is
the meeting of as much quantity with as much quality for as many people as
possible. Narcissus touches no one, but hurts
no one.
I am using Napoleon because he is the model of excess in
western history. Selfishness detracts
from others, like the friend who takes all the yummy parts of a kabob and gives
you two onions. Selfishness lacks the foresight
of causation, the laws of this begets that, your actions of today craft the response
you will get tomorrow, it detracts from your feedbag of communion, as in
intimacy and connection. Selfishness takes
away trust and will eventually leave you abandoned. Selfishness is not entirely ugly, there are
moments of preservation that require it, but our integrity is usually sacrificed
in those instances, like the person trapped by a bolder who cuts off their leg
to escape. On the road to solitude the
selfish person takes from others, detracting from an equal good, forcing
defensiveness in the ones around them, and that is worse than simply abstracting
yourself from others but not actively harming them. We all want ourselves, so some isolating
behaviors such as moving faster than others or moving slower than others can be
productive, so long as it is in balance with our responsibility to sustainability
and distribution.
Our actions will hopefully not only pay us off today but continually
into the future. This once again is
Aristotle talking about happiness in terms of work, like Brad brought up, it is
better to do something that makes you feel great when you are finished, like
studying philosophy, or going on a run, actions where the benefits have a longer
more stable effect. These two examples
involve actions done for yourself and not directly for others but actions that
will residually benefit others, if you have a healthy mind you can instruct or
love, if you are healthy of body you can assist, etc, these actions are not
initially intended to benefit others but no cause can be judged strictly by its
first effect, there is always a chain reaction and the selfish effect or the
isolated effect might yield something positive, this goes back to Dan’s
comment. The total amount of gain can be
thought of like a gathering, the first effect is usually the strongest and the
lingering effects weaker but all effects of a cause should be tallied in how we
think about its virtue. If you take the
total effect of one cause, you can compare it to the total effect of another cause,
and from there consider which one is fairer.
The middle way involves balance, beauty, justice, scales, and
the human love of symmetry.
I should stop being distracted at work. Totally a fun prompt. Maybe that was helpful? See you soon Bri, and yes, thanks for
asking. Was that what you were asking? Exaggeration can breed clarity.
Uptown denizens who once thought Harry Cipriani on 59th Street was the southern border for gracious living are discovering new condos and restaurants downtown.Lee Celano for The New York Times
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For a select group of New Yorkers, having dinner at Harry Cipriani on 59th Street is considered “going downtown.”
But the dynamic between New Yorkers who live on the Upper East Side and those in Lower Manhattan is shifting, with many uptown adherents now embracing downtown neighborhoods that would once have been considered unthinkable.
“Downtown is livelier — we feel as though we have been in Milan for the weekend,” said Brooke Garber Neidich, a chairwoman of the Whitney Museum, a founder and chairwoman of the Child Mind Institute and a trustee of Lincoln Center Theater.
Ms. Neidich, who owns the Chicago-based jeweler Sidney Garber, has spent much of her married life living on exclusive East End Avenue. But a few years ago, she stunned her well-heeled friends by buying a pied-à-terre on West 12th Street in the Village. “When we come home at 10:30 in the evening,” she said, “we can sit outside at Sant Ambroeus and the streets are crowded and it’s not even a Saturday.”
Such a rarefied perspective may particularly rankle longtime downtowners, and portend the end of Manhattan’s few remaining bastions of bohemia. But just as flocks of young New Yorkers who might once have lived in the East Village are now in Brooklyn neighborhoods like Williamsburg, and those who had once lived in Williamsburg have moved on to Bushwick, it is perhaps inevitable that gaggles of Muffys and Thurstons wearing Lilly Pulitzer are invading neighborhoods below 14th Street. The cool crowd has long been on a southward migration.
And the numbers back it up. At the end of last year, for the first time since such data have been tracked, the average price for luxury condominiums downtown superseded the uptown average. The trend persisted into this year, with condos priced above $2,000 a square foot averaging nearly $5.9 million downtown in the first quarter, compared with $5.6 million uptown, according to the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group. Meanwhile, supply has exploded, with the number of luxury condo sales downtown surging 325 percent during the past year.
“You are seeing people ask themselves: Do I have an affair, get a divorce or get a downtown apartment?” said Michele Kleier, the president and chairwoman of Kleier Residential, a brokerage with a large uptown clientele. “It has become a very sexy thing to do, especially for those people living a sedate Park Avenue lifestyle.”
Ms. Kleier, herself a resident of Park Avenue, only recently began representing buyers interested in looking downtown. “I used to send my daughters,” she said, “but now so many clients are looking for expensive places downtown that I have had to learn the market there.” (She was referring to Sabrina Kleier-Morgenstern and Samantha Kleier-Forbes, both brokers at the firm.)
Ms. Kleier recently represented two Upper East Side families who are warehousing downtown apartments for their children. One couple bought two two-bedroom apartments for their high school-age children in Battery Park City; the other bought a three-bedroom for their son at 150 Charles Street in the West Village, which won’t be completed until 2015. Asking prices there are averaging nearly $4,000 a square foot. “By that time he will be in college, so he can live there if he’s in New York or they can rent it out,” Ms. Kleier said.
More than a dozen families, or as many as 15 percent of the buyers at 150 Charles, are relocating from uptown, according to Darren Sukenik, a managing director of Douglas Elliman. While many buyers from countries like China and Russia have been snatching up condominiums in the city, they are mostly focused on new high-rises under construction in Midtown. At 150 Charles Street, “uptown buyers are our version of foreign buyers,” said Mr. Sukenik. “That’s as foreign as it got for us. With all due respect to uptown.”
Places like Sant Ambroeus, in the West Village, are drawing uptown adherents.Lee Celano for The New York Times
The new luxury developments downtown are drawing an uptown crowd in part because many of them are condominiums, and so are easier to rent out or keep as investments than co-ops, the housing stock that dominates the Upper East Side. Many of the downtown buildings are also offering extensive amenities. The Schumacher, for example, a relatively small, 20-unit condominium under construction on Bleecker Street, is offering perks like a 24-hour lobby attendant, a library and a children’s playroom with a giant pirate ship.
“Uptown buyers are spoiled; there is just more space uptown, more services,” said John Gomes, a managing director of Douglas Elliman, who represents the Schumacher. “And for so long, downtown never offered that kind of luxury. The uptown-downtown effect is so major, it is actually changing the way we are designing buildings.”
The developer Izak Senbahar has benefited firsthand from the trend. His new construction, the 60-story 56 Leonard Street in TriBeCa, has seen many buyers relocating from uptown, he said, although he declined to give the exact number. “I think there is a big romance about living downtown,” Mr. Senbahar said. “It is much more diverse, it isn’t all fund managers, but artists, literary people, then some Wall Street sprinkled in.” For those fortunate 1-percenters, “you can live in a building downtown now that has Upper East Side amenities, and still put on your flats, walk into small shops and live that easygoing lifestyle.”
Linda Lambert agrees. “You can go out to dinner and you don’t have to be dressed,” she said; “you don’t have to wear jewelry.” Ms. Lambert lives with her husband, Benjamin, the founder and chairman of the commercial brokerage firm Eastdil Secured, in a loft on Laight Street in TriBeCa. The couple had lived in a town house on 82nd Street between Park and Madison Avenues for decades before moving into the loft, which has 4,000 square feet and a 3,000-square-foot wraparound terrace. “Downtown feels urban — from my office I can see the Freedom Tower, and I look over Canal Street — yet there is also an unbelievable sense of space and light.”
For Suzanne Cochran and her husband, Robert, a founder of the Build America Mutual Assurance Company, it was a downtown soiree some years ago that persuaded them to buy a pied-à-terre in TriBeCa. “We were at a friend’s party,” Ms. Cochran recalled. “She is a very downtown girl, and it was all my favorite kind of people: artists — cool, hip people. And we were the only ones who lived on the Upper East Side.” At the time they were living on 84th Street and Park Avenue.
The couple, who have grown children, soon bought a 5,500-square-foot loft and began alternating on the weekends between the loft and their home onLong Island. Last year, they sold their uptown home to move downtown full time. “The idea of doormen or service, that doesn’t really exist down here,” Ms. Cochran said, “but I love taking the subway and being able to walk everywhere.”
In addition to empty-nesters, families are embracing downtown, said Kelly Kennedy Mack, the president of Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group. “Instead of their kids getting to a certain age and then automatically moving uptown” to attend the private schools clustered along the Upper East and Upper West Sides, “more are deciding to stay downtown. And now the grandparents are coming downtown to join them.”
Avenues: the World School, a new for-profit school that opened this past year in Chelsea, has been a major driver of this, Ms. Mack added.
But while it is fast becoming the latest fad for uptowners to dip a toe into downtown, the trend is still largely untested. “I am not sure that once they get down there, they are all going to love it,” Ms. Kleier said. “They may find themselves constantly going uptown to get their nails and hair done. It could be that the excitement wears off.”
Still, even if some decide to move back uptown, “the downtown luxury market has become one of the most talked-about and the most desirable to live in the city for buyers of all ages,” Ms. Mack said. “There is a renaissance of super-prime luxury developments pioneering in the downtown market right now.”
Select the colors of paint you would like to use on your fabric. (Prewashed and dried 50/50 cotton-blend fabric is best.) Acrylic paint and textile medium come in 2- or 8-oz. bottles. Shake the bottles of paint and textile medium well.
2
Mix one part textile medium to two parts acrylic paint.
Thoroughly mix the acrylic paint and textile medium together with a stirrer until the white of the textile medium has disappeared.
4
Wash your stirrer and any measuring spoons/cups you might have used immediately with soap and water.
5
Insert a piece of cardboard covered with waxed paper inside your clothing or under your fabric and start decorating with the paint you just made. Use paintbrushes, stencils, sponges, your fingers, or anything else you want, to give your clothing a one-of-a-kind look.
6
Air-dry your clothing or fabric for at least 24 hours.
7
Heat set the paint before wearing or washing. Turn your iron onto the cotton setting, and turn your garment inside out. Lay a scrap piece of fabric or an old T-shirt over the painted area. Press your iron down firmly over the painted area for 20 seconds, lift and move to next area to avoid scorching. Do not slide the iron around. Be sure to iron the entire painted area.
When washing your newly painted garment, turn the clothing inside out and wash in cold water. Do not bleach.
To make the fabric paint more durable, iron both the inside and outside of the painted area. Be sure to cover the painted area with a piece of fabric before ironing.
Wear an old T-shirt or smock so you don't get your permanent fabric paint on the clothes you're wearing.
Paint fabric to create one-of-a-kind clothing and home décor.
Painting fabric is an easy way to spice up clothing and home décor. Many brands of fabric paint exist, but most don't offer a wide range of color choices beyond the basic color wheel. A better paint option for a wider range of colors is acrylic paint mixed with a textile medium. Painting fabric with acrylic paint alone will leave the fabric stiff and uncomfortable to wear, and the paint will crack. Mixing a textile medium into the acrylic paint will create a washable, permanent fabric paint that will leave fabric flexible and won't crack, bleed or run.
