Jeffrey---I found you via your connection to Eric Francis Coppolino from a chat you had with him last year sometime about the situation in the Middle East (and so much more).
Anyway, I was about two sentences into your post here and I thought, "I wonder if he knows about Alison McDowell's work," so I was happy to quickly get my answer in the rest of the post.
I may have to listen to that full episode you shared with her and your friend in Texas because it's been a while since I checked in with Alison and also because I'm glad to her that your friend can reel her in a little bit. Alison's brilliant but I do sometimes (often) have trouble making it through her full presentation.
Last---been listening to this Yes song as I read the article and wrote this response. Very cool, I didn't know Yes went in that direction, though the astrologer in me feels it's quite fitting as those early 1980s were, like the early 2020s, a dark time brooded over by the Saturn/Pluto conjunction.
Anyway, keep up the good work and thanks again for all the media you gave me here today!
Big thanks, Bryan. I didn't know about Machine Prophet till a few days ago..
I came across Alison thanks to friends in Summer 2020, way before i knew Eric (April '22), he has gotten more and more excluding about whom she communicates with, and about what stuff she finds valid to pursue. She did a couple of hit pieces about me Sept '22 (and about Eric and our entire team of colleagues) over our outing of Poornimah Wagh as a liar. I have some really bad feelings about her. But credit where credit is due. Her analysis does have shortcomings, i describe them in earlier entries, there are a couple in the LT editions of the last two weeks.
To tell you the truth, something similar, though not nearly as bad happened with me and a friend and her around the same time.
In our situation, my friend had put a lot of effort into making a really beautiful picture book that was—even my friend admits—probably a bit confusing, as it was really for adults, trying to tell a very Big Picture story of our times without pulling any punches, but in a very attractive way.
Alison didn’t respond well to it—-said it was just piling more trauma onto our already traumatized kids. I recognize that she’s done a lot of work from her motivation as a mother, so didn’t really push back to her, but at the time, I felt like she was kind of rude and dismissive to my friend, who I really do think was working for the same outcome as Alison.
At the time I thought there was too much infighting amongst a lot of us who really could have just done more to support each other. Sure, give constructive criticism, but it felt like more than that.
Anyway, like you’re saying, though, all of that aside, I’m glad Alison is out there and continuing to raise awareness. She’s got a unique way of breaking stuff down.
I edited an error, came across here in Summer 2020, not 2000.
WOW, this is one more instance of her being rude and dismissive towards would-be-friends. She practically brags about how few people are now in her circle of acceptable folks. She even fell out with Jason. And has come on to What's Left?'s You Tube page to berate them, this after being featured on their program a bunch of times.
The really good thing she does is make connections. But sometimes, the connections she makes are spurious, and yet she is insistent. She has for example collapsed Julian Huxley and Aldous Huxley into a single person, on the basis of them being brothers, thus insisting that Aldous pushed the same perverse agenda which Julian did, but by other means, the literary route, no matter how much evidence to the contrary. See Paul Kingsworth, the writer whose speech about Aldous was discussed by Eric a couple of weeks ago.
I saw the error but knew you had to mean 2020 since I believe she didn’t really begin going public until 2015. Anyway, no worries but good on ya for correcting AND saying you did (I’m re-reading “1984” right now in honor of the 75th anniversary of its publication in early June, and the way some media outlets correct errors in digital copies without noting it is VERY troubling and reminiscent of that world.)
Anyway, I may be wrong about this, but I believe Alison comes from an academic art historian background. I bring that up because it seems like she may be embodying some of the negative aspects of academia in how she gets too competitive about her ideas and breaks up relationships over that. Just my take, of course.
Anyway, been good talking with someone about this! I really do think HOW we relate to each other is just as important as WHAT we talk about, but then again I have a Capricorn stellium (Mercury, Sun, Moon, Jupiter) in the 7th House of Relationships so of course I say that!
I don't know if Alison ever spent time as an actual academic, i.e. faculty member, i think she was a housewife with a part time job in a museum and then a garden. She has that subject background, though, i think it colors her understanding, no surprise.
Jeffrey---I found you via your connection to Eric Francis Coppolino from a chat you had with him last year sometime about the situation in the Middle East (and so much more).
Anyway, I was about two sentences into your post here and I thought, "I wonder if he knows about Alison McDowell's work," so I was happy to quickly get my answer in the rest of the post.
I may have to listen to that full episode you shared with her and your friend in Texas because it's been a while since I checked in with Alison and also because I'm glad to her that your friend can reel her in a little bit. Alison's brilliant but I do sometimes (often) have trouble making it through her full presentation.
Last---been listening to this Yes song as I read the article and wrote this response. Very cool, I didn't know Yes went in that direction, though the astrologer in me feels it's quite fitting as those early 1980s were, like the early 2020s, a dark time brooded over by the Saturn/Pluto conjunction.
Anyway, keep up the good work and thanks again for all the media you gave me here today!
Big thanks, Bryan. I didn't know about Machine Prophet till a few days ago..
I came across Alison thanks to friends in Summer 2020, way before i knew Eric (April '22), he has gotten more and more excluding about whom she communicates with, and about what stuff she finds valid to pursue. She did a couple of hit pieces about me Sept '22 (and about Eric and our entire team of colleagues) over our outing of Poornimah Wagh as a liar. I have some really bad feelings about her. But credit where credit is due. Her analysis does have shortcomings, i describe them in earlier entries, there are a couple in the LT editions of the last two weeks.
I’m sorry to hear that about Alison.
To tell you the truth, something similar, though not nearly as bad happened with me and a friend and her around the same time.
In our situation, my friend had put a lot of effort into making a really beautiful picture book that was—even my friend admits—probably a bit confusing, as it was really for adults, trying to tell a very Big Picture story of our times without pulling any punches, but in a very attractive way.
Alison didn’t respond well to it—-said it was just piling more trauma onto our already traumatized kids. I recognize that she’s done a lot of work from her motivation as a mother, so didn’t really push back to her, but at the time, I felt like she was kind of rude and dismissive to my friend, who I really do think was working for the same outcome as Alison.
At the time I thought there was too much infighting amongst a lot of us who really could have just done more to support each other. Sure, give constructive criticism, but it felt like more than that.
Anyway, like you’re saying, though, all of that aside, I’m glad Alison is out there and continuing to raise awareness. She’s got a unique way of breaking stuff down.
I edited an error, came across here in Summer 2020, not 2000.
WOW, this is one more instance of her being rude and dismissive towards would-be-friends. She practically brags about how few people are now in her circle of acceptable folks. She even fell out with Jason. And has come on to What's Left?'s You Tube page to berate them, this after being featured on their program a bunch of times.
The really good thing she does is make connections. But sometimes, the connections she makes are spurious, and yet she is insistent. She has for example collapsed Julian Huxley and Aldous Huxley into a single person, on the basis of them being brothers, thus insisting that Aldous pushed the same perverse agenda which Julian did, but by other means, the literary route, no matter how much evidence to the contrary. See Paul Kingsworth, the writer whose speech about Aldous was discussed by Eric a couple of weeks ago.
But yes, it's a good thing she's still out there.
I saw the error but knew you had to mean 2020 since I believe she didn’t really begin going public until 2015. Anyway, no worries but good on ya for correcting AND saying you did (I’m re-reading “1984” right now in honor of the 75th anniversary of its publication in early June, and the way some media outlets correct errors in digital copies without noting it is VERY troubling and reminiscent of that world.)
Anyway, I may be wrong about this, but I believe Alison comes from an academic art historian background. I bring that up because it seems like she may be embodying some of the negative aspects of academia in how she gets too competitive about her ideas and breaks up relationships over that. Just my take, of course.
Anyway, been good talking with someone about this! I really do think HOW we relate to each other is just as important as WHAT we talk about, but then again I have a Capricorn stellium (Mercury, Sun, Moon, Jupiter) in the 7th House of Relationships so of course I say that!
"of course i say that." :-)
I don't know if Alison ever spent time as an actual academic, i.e. faculty member, i think she was a housewife with a part time job in a museum and then a garden. She has that subject background, though, i think it colors her understanding, no surprise.
Yeah, now that you mention it, I think you might be right.
I was about to comment further about her, but it’s too much speculation on my end so I’ll resist that temptation!