The Dionysian Naturalist

Reflexive Praxis and Being an Ally [Originally published in my blog "Doing Modernity" on July 18th, 2008] Rewriting Reflexive Praxis: Unlearning Oppression and Embodying Allyship Throughout my work, I have advocated for a Critical Interactionist approach to understanding everyday life, emphasizing how individuals actively create and reshape the social world through historically specific practices. My focus has often been on uncovering the mechanisms by which "societies structured in dominance" (a term from Stuart Hall) are produced, reproduced, and transformed. For instance, I have explored practices underpinning inequality and the functioning of ideologies. This essay extends these ideas by examining reflexive praxis as a means to consciously alter the world, contrasting it with the unreflexive behaviors that reinforce oppressive systems. I will connect these insights to the practice of unlearning oppression and the challenging yet vital work of being an...

Unlearning Oppression I often teaching classes on "Race, Class and Gender" in American Society.  I often call my class “Unlearning Oppression” because I deal with the interconnections of class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, ability, immigration status, etc.  My goal is to create a climate in which students can both deal with their own issues as people who are oppressed and deal with their issues as people who are oppressors.  To unlearn oppression and to dismantle the foundations of our “dominator culture”, we must acknowledge our everyday oppressive practices.  Moreover, we must engage in critical self-reflection, get the correct information, deal with our negative emotions, gain insight into our own passivity and become actively anti-oppressive. Oppression is the acts and effects of domination, including ideological domination and institutional control.  Ann Cudd (2006, p. 52) defines oppresion as “the existence of unequal and unjust in...

SPIRITUS MUNDI PROSE POEM PRAYERS WAYNE MARTIN MELLINGER 2013

Dionysian Thinking: Nietzsche and the Critique of Reason [This essay was written in 2008 and appeared on my blog Doing Modernity] by Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D. The philosophy of Western Civilization is dominated by a certain set of ideas, assumptions and ways of thinking. Beginning with the Enlightenment, reason starts to become glorified by some intellectually-minded people (we are talking mostly European "white" men). And not all types of reason, but the "instrumental rationality" that is based on a brutally calculating means-ends analysis. This form of reason is seen as the ultimate source of freedom and the “rational” human is seen as capable of ultimate perfection. It is believed that through the use of reason that moral truths will become revealed. The line of thinkers embracing this philosophical worldview includes Kant, Hegel, Marx and many of the greats in Western philosophy. Other aspects of this philosophical tradition include an ethnoc...