“Kill the Indian, Save the Man”: Manhood at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918

This dissertation examines the role of manhood in the programme to “civilise” the Indian at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Using gender and race theory as a frame for archival research, it argues that the model of manhood in operation at Carlisle was contested and changed throughout the school’s history. The hegemonic model at Carlisle’s beginning reflected the school’s focus on civilised manliness, which included the ideals of self-sufficiency, individualism, and Christian morality. This model was progressively displaced by an athletic version, which promoted masculinity in the form of physical power and victory. The dissertation will show how the contest between these two models of manhood came to a head in the 1914 Congressional Investigation of Carlisle. During this investigation, the extent to which sex and alcohol had become inseparable from the athletic model of manhood as well as their prevalence among Carlisle students was revealed. As a result, school officials worked to return Carlisle to the original ideal of civilised manliness, but by this time the school was out of step with the wider demands of government Indian policy; in 1918 it was closed This work extends previous academic examinations of gender at non-reservation boarding schools through its focus on masculinity. Specifically, it identifies, defines and explores how Carlisle’s models of manhood changed according to the demands of the school, government officials and the wider public. It also examines how the school used these different models of manhood to promote the success of the institution. After Carlisle’s commitment to rapid Indian assimilation was called into question by government policy, the school increasingly utilised the athletic model of manhood to demonstrate the school’s success. Manhood was a central component of the school’s programme to eliminate Indian savagery. As such, the analysis of manhood at Carlisle provides critical insight into government Indian policy and white definitions of gender, as well as illuminating the centrality of manhood to the concept of civilisation

Towards Sustainable Future by Transition to the Next Level Civilisation

Universal and rigorously derived concept of dynamic complexity (ccsd-00004906) shows that any system of interacting components, including society and civilisation, exists only as a process of highly inhomogeneous, qualitative development of its complexity. Modern state of civilisation corresponds to the end of unfolding of a big enough level of complexity. Such exhausted, totally “replete” structure cannot be sustainable in principle and shows instead increased instability, realising its inevitable replacement by a new kind of structure with either low or much higher level of complexity (degrading or progressive development branch, respectively). Unrestricted sustainability can emerge only after transition to the next, superior level of civilisation complexity (ccsd-00004214), which implies qualitative and unified changes in all aspects of life, including knowledge, production, social organisation, and infrastructure. These changes are specified by the rigorous analysis of underlying interaction processes. The unitary, effectively one-dimensional and rigidly fixed kind of thinking, knowledge, and social structure at the current level of complexity will be replaced by “dynamically multivalued”, intrinsically creative kind of structure at the forthcoming superior level of development. We propose mathematically rigorous description of unreduced civilisation complexity development, including universal criterion of progress. One obtains thus a working basis for the causally complete, objectively exact and reliable development science and futurology.Universal science of complexity; dynamic multivaluedness; chaos; self-organisation; dynamically probabilistic fractal; dynamic information; dynamic entropy; symmetry of complexity; Unitary System; Harmonical System; sustainability transition; Revolution of Complexity; noosphere

Spatio-temporal Constraints on the Zoo Hypothesis, and the Breakdown of Total Hegemony

The Zoo Hypothesis posits that we have not detected extraterrestrial intelligences (ETIs) because they deliberately prevent us from detecting them. While a valid solution to Fermi's Paradox, it is not particularly amenable to rigorous scientific analysis, as it implicitly assumes a great deal about the sociological structure of a plurality of civilisations. Any attempt to assess its worth must begin with its most basic assumption - that ETIs share a uniformity of motive in shielding Earth from extraterrestrial contact. This motive is often presumed to be generated by the influence of the first civilisation to arrive in the Galaxy. I show that recent work on inter-arrival time analysis, while necessary, is insufficient to assess the validity of the Zoo Hypothesis (and its related variants). The finite speed of light prevents an early civilisation from exerting immediate cultural influence over a later civilisation if they are sufficiently distant. I show that if civilisation arrival times and spatial locations are completely uncorrelated, this strictly prevents the establishment of total hegemony throughout the Galaxy. I finish by presenting similar results derived from more realistic Monte Carlo Realisation simulations (where arrival time and spatial locations are partially correlated). These also show that total hegemony is typically broken, even when the total population of civilisations remains low. In the terminology of previous studies of solutions to Fermi's Paradox, this confirms the Zoo Hypothesis as a "soft" solution. However, an important question to be resolved by future work is the extent to which many separate hegemonies are established, and to what extent this affects the Zoo Hypothesis.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the International Journal of Astrobiolog

IT Complexity Revolution: Intelligent Tools for the Globalised World Development

Globalised-civilisation interaction intensity grows exponentially, involving all dimensions and regions of planetary environment. The resulting dynamics of critically high, exploding complexity urgently needs consistent understanding and efficient management. The new, provably universal concept of unreduced dynamic complexity of real interaction processes described here provides the former and can be used as a basis for the latter, in the form of "complexity revolution" in information systems controlling such "critically globalised" civilisation dynamics. We outline the relevant dynamic complexity properties and the ensuing principles of anticipated complexity transition in information and communication systems. We then emphasize key applications of unreduced complexity concept and complexity-driven IT to various aspects of post-industrial civilisation dynamics, including intelligent communication, context-aware information and control systems, reliable genetics, integral medicine, emergent engineering, efficient risk management at the new level of socio-economic development and resulting realistic sustainability.Comment: 13 pages, 10 eqs, 18 refs; presented at the First International ICST Conference "I.T. Revolutions 2008" (17-19 December 2008, Venice, Italy), http://www.itrevolutions.org/2008

Universal Dynamic Complexity as the Basis for Theoretic Ecology and Unified Civilisation Transition to Creative Global Sustainability

The recently proposed new, universally applicable, rigorously derived and reality-based concept of dynamic complexity provides a unified basis for the causally complete understanding of any real, multi-component and multi-level system of interacting entities, including the case of earth system and global civilisation development. This crucial extension with respect to other existing notions of complexity is obtained due the unrestricted, universally nonperturbative analysis of arbitrary interaction process leading to the new, rigorously derived concept of dynamically multivalued (redundant) entanglement of interacting components. Any real system with interaction is described as a sequence of autonomously emerging "levels of complexity", where each level includes unceasing, dynamically random change of multiple system configurations, or "realisations", each of them resulting from dynamic entanglement of interaction components coming, generally, from lower complexity levels. Dynamic complexity as such is universally defined as a growing function of the number of those explicitly obtained system realisations (or related rate of their change). Mathematically rigorous, realistic and universal nature of unreduced dynamic complexity determines its unique role as a basis for theoretical ecology. This conclusion is confirmed by several directions of universal complexity application to global change understanding and monitoring. They include the rigorously substantiated necessity of civilisation transition to the superior level of complexity involving new, intrinsically unified and causally complete kind of knowledge (initiated by the "universal science of complexity"), qualitatively new kind of material production, social structure, and infrastructure. We show why that new level of civilisation development is intrinsically "sustainable", i. e. characterised by creative, complexity-increasing interaction between "production" and "natural resources" that replaces current contradiction between them

Jules Romains’ vision of a united Europe in interwar France: legacy and ambiguities

The interwar period in Europe was characterised by a multi-faceted movement in favour of European integration. After the slaughter of the First World War, many intellectuals, writers, industrialists and politicians brought the idea of European unity to the fore and engaged in various actions, from setting up organisations to lobbying governments, to promote the unification of Europe. Much research has been carried out on the leading figures of these pro-European activities but amongst the wealth of this period other actors have tended to be forgotten. Such is the case with the French writer Jules Romains, who not only coined “Europeanism”, the word that would define the whole movement in favour of Europe, but who also actively participated in promoting a united Europe. This article seeks to introduce and discuss Romains’ ideas on Europe. It will demonstrate that his vision was very coherent within the framework of his Unanimist philosophy but was undermined by serious ambiguities. It will also demonstrate that his ideas are of great interest for what they reveal about the interwar period in France and Europe, what they bring to the genealogy of the European project, as set up after the Second World War, and for the ambiguities at the core of his concept of Europe, which are still very much at the heart of many of today’s debates about the European Union

Virulence as a Model for Interplanetary and Interstellar Colonisation - Parasitism or Mutualism

In the light of current scientific assessments of human-induced climate change, we investigate an experimental model to inform how resource-use strategies may influence interplanetary and interstellar colonisation by intelligent civilisations. In doing so, we seek to provide an additional aspect for refining the famed Fermi Paradox. The model described is necessarily simplistic, and the intent is to simply obtain some general insights to inform and inspire additional models. We model the relationship between an intelligent civilisation and its host planet as symbiotic, where the the relationship between the symbiont and the host species (the civilisation and the planets ecology, respectively) determines the fitness and ultimate survival of both organisms. We perform a series of Monte Carlo Realisation simulations, where civilisations pursue a variety of different relationships/strategies with their host planet, from mutualism to parasitism, and can consequently 'infect' other planets/hosts. We find that parasitic civilisations are generally less effective at survival than mutualist civilisations, provided that interstellar colonisation is inefficient (the maximum velocity of colonisation/infection is low). However, as the colonisation velocity is increased, the strategy of parasitism becomes more successful, until they dominate the 'population'. This is in accordance with predictions based on island biogeography and r/K selection theory. While heavily assumption dependent, we contend that this provides a fertile approach for further application of insights from theoretical ecology for extraterrestrial colonisation - while also potentially offering insights for understanding the human-Earth relationship and the potential for extraterrestrial human colonisation.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, published in the International Journal of Astrobiolog

States and Social Complexity: The Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation

This article explores 'statehood' and argues Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation was not a state like contemporary Sumer and Egypt were, despite being equally complex - hence calling for revision of the unilineal anthropological model culminating in the state

Culture and Society

The present book “Poland – History, Culture and Society. Selected Readings” is the third edition of a collection of academic texts written with the intention to accompany the module by providing incoming students with teaching materials that will assist them in their studies of the course module and encourage further search for relevant information and data. The papers collected in the book have been authored by academic teachers from the University of Łódź, specialists in such fields as history, geography, literature, sociology, ethnology, cultural studies, and political science. Each author presents one chapter related to a topic included in the module or extending its contents. The book contains the extensive bibliography