April 17, 2013
A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth. The term derives from the story that the kings of Siam (now Thailand) were accustomed to make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who had rendered themselves obnoxious, in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance. In modern usage, it is an object, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered to be without use or value.
The term derives from the sacred white elephants kept by Southeast Asian monarchs in Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. To possess a white elephant was regarded (and is still regarded in Thailand and Burma) as a sign that the monarch reigned with justice and power, and that the kingdom was blessed with peace and prosperity.
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April 17, 2013
The Yerkes–Dodson law is an empirical relationship between arousal and performance, originally developed by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908. The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases. The process is often illustrated graphically as a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal.
Research has found that different tasks require different levels of arousal for optimal performance. For example, difficult or intellectually demanding tasks may require a lower level of arousal (to facilitate concentration), whereas tasks demanding stamina or persistence may be performed better with higher levels of arousal (to increase motivation).
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April 16, 2013
Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to fracture of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of forensic engineering. Former IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson is attributed with saying ‘If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.’ ‘
Wired Magazine’ editor Kevin Kelly likewise explains that a great deal can be learned from things going unexpectedly, and that part of science’s success comes from keeping blunders ‘small, manageable, constant, and trackable.’ He uses the example of engineers and programmers who push systems to their limits, breaking them to learn about them. Kelly also warns against creating a culture (e.g. school system) that punishes failure harshly, because this inhibits a creative process, and risks teaching people not to communicate important failures with others (e.g. Null results).
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April 16, 2013
Atychiphobia [at-i-kuh-foh-bee-uh] (‘atyches’ meaning ‘unfortunate’) is the abnormal, unwarranted, and persistent fear of failure. As with many phobias, atychiphobia often leads to a constricted lifestyle, and is particularly devastating for its effects on a person’s willingness to attempt certain activities. A person afflicted with atychiphobia considers the possibility of failure so intense that they choose not to take the risk.
Oftentimes this person will subconsciously undermine their own efforts so that they no longer have to continue to try. Because effort is proportionate to the achievement of personal goals and fulfillment, this unwillingness to try, which arises from the perceived inequality between the possibilities of success and failure, holds the atychiphobic back from a life of meaning and the realization of potential.
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April 16, 2013
The biophilia [bahy-oh-fil-ee-uh] hypothesis suggests that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. American biologist Edward O. Wilson introduced and popularized the hypothesis in his book, ‘Biophilia’ (1984). He defines ‘biophilia’ as ‘the urge to affiliate with other forms of life.’
The term literally means ‘love of life or living systems.’ It was first used by German sociologist Erich Fromm to describe a psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital. Wilson uses the term in the same sense when he suggests that biophilia describes ‘the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.’ He proposed the possibility that the deep affiliations humans have with nature are rooted in our biology. Unlike phobias, which are the aversions and fears that people have of things in the natural world, philias are the attractions and positive feelings that people have toward certain habitats, activities, and objects in their natural surroundings.
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April 16, 2013
Fecund [fee-kuhnd] universes is a multiverse theory by American theoretical physicist Lee Smolin, also called cosmological natural selection theory, suggesting that a process analogous to biological natural selection applies at the grandest scales. Smolin summarized the idea in a book aimed at a lay audience called ‘The Life of the Cosmos.’ The theory surmises that a collapsing black hole causes the emergence of a new universe on the ‘other side,’ whose fundamental constant parameters (speed of light, Planck length, and so forth) may differ slightly from those of the universe where the black hole collapsed. Each universe therefore gives rise to as many new universes as it has black holes.
Thus the theory contains the evolutionary ideas of ‘reproduction’ and ‘mutation’ of universes, but has no direct analogue of natural selection. However, given any universe that can produce black holes that successfully spawn new universes, it is possible that some number of those universes will reach heat death with unsuccessful parameters. So, in a sense, fecundity cosmological natural selection is one where universes could die off before successfully reproducing, just as any biological being can die without having offspring.
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April 16, 2013
The evil twin is an antagonist found in many different fictional genres. They are physical copies of protagonists, but with radically inverted moralities. In filmed entertainment, they can have obvious physical differences with the protagonist—such as facial hair (often a goatee), eyepatches, scars or distinctive clothing—that make it easy for the audience to visually identify the two characters. Sometimes, however, the physical differences between the characters will be minimized, so as to confuse the audience. Both roles are almost always played by either the same actor or the actor’s actual twin (if the actor has one).
Though there may be moral disparity between actual biological twins, the term is more often a misnomer. In many cases, the two look-alikes are not actually twins, but rather physical duplicates produced by other phenomena (e.g. alternate universes). In others, the so-called ‘evil’ twin is more precisely a dual opposite to their ‘good’ counterpart, possessing at least some commonality with the value system of the protagonist.
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April 16, 2013
A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group (cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.) who changes the world through invention or discovery. A typical culture hero might be credited as the discoverer of fire, or agriculture, songs, tradition, law or religion, and is usually the most important legendary figure of a people, sometimes as the founder of its ruling dynasty. In some cultures, there are dualistic myths, featuring two culture heroes arranging the world in a complementary manner. Dualistic cosmologies are present in all inhabited continents and show great diversity: they may feature culture heroes, but also demiurges (artisan-like figures responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe), or other beings; the two heroes may compete or collaborate; they may be conceived as neutral or contrasted as good versus evil; be of the same importance or distinguished as powerful versus weak; be brothers (even twins) or be not relatives at all.
In many cultures, the mythical figure of the trickster and the culture hero are combined. To illustrate, Prometheus, in Greek mythology, stole fire from the gods to give it to humans. In many Native American mythologies and beliefs, the coyote spirit stole fire from the gods (or stars or sun) and is more of a trickster than a culture hero. Natives from the Southeastern US typically saw a rabbit trickster/culture hero, and Pacific Northwest native stories often feature a raven in this role: in some stories, Raven steals fire from his uncle Beaver and eventually gives it to humans. The Western African trickster spider Ananse is also widely disseminated.
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April 16, 2013
Signifyin’ (vernacular) is a practice in African-American culture, involving a verbal strategy of indirection that exploits the gap between the denotative and figurative meanings of words. According to African-American literary scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., the practice derived from the Trickster archetype found in much African mythology, folklore, and religion: a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and societal norms. In practice, signifyin’ often takes the form of quoting from subcultural vernacular, while extending the meaning at the same time through a rhetorical figure.
The expression itself derives from the numerous tales about the Signifying Monkey, a folk trickster figure said to have originated during slavery in the United States. In most of these narratives, the Monkey manages to dupe the powerful Lion by signifying. Signifyin(g) directs attention to the connotative, context-bound significance of words, which is accessible only to those who share the unique cultural values of a given speech community.
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April 15, 2013
The Signifying Monkey is a character of African-American folklore that derives from the trickster figure of Yoruba mythology, Esu Elegbara. This character was transported with Africans to the Americas under the names of Exu, Echu-Elegua, Papa Legba, and Papa Le Bas. Esu and his variants all serve as messengers who mediated between the gods and men by means of tricks. The Signifying Monkey is ‘distinctly Afro-American’ but is thought to derive from Yoruban mythology, which depicts Echu-Elegua with a monkey at his side.
Numerous songs and narratives concern the Signifying Monkey and his interactions with his friends, the Lion and the Elephant. In general the stories depict the Signifying Monkey insulting the Lion, but claiming that he is only repeating the Elephant’s words. The Lion then confronts the Elephant, who soundly beats the Lion. The Lion later comes to realize that the Monkey has been signifyin(g) and has duped him and returns angrily. The Signifying Monkey is a classic routine originally on a comedy album by Rudy Ray Moore.
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April 15, 2013
‘The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism’ is a work of literary criticism and theory by American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. first published in 1988. The book traces the folkloric origins of the African-American cultural practice of ‘signifying” and uses the concept to analyze the interplay between texts of prominent African American writers, specifically Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Ishmael Reed.
Signifyin(g) is closely related to double-talk and trickery of the type used by the Monkey of these narratives, but, as Gates himself admits, ‘It is difficult to arrive at a consensus of definitions of signifyin(g).’ Bernard W. Bell defines it as an ‘elaborate, indirect form of goading or insult generally making use of profanity.’ Roger D. Abrahams writes that to signify is ‘to imply, goad, beg, boast by indirect verbal or gestural means.’ Signifyin(g) is a homonym with the concept of signification put forth by Semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure wherein the signifier (sound image) interacts with the signified (concept) to form one whole linguistic sign. Gates plays off this homonym and incorporates the linguistic concept of signifier and signified with the vernacular concept of signifyin(g).
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April 15, 2013
In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. The term was probably first used in this context by American ethnologist Daniel G. Brinton in 1885.
The trickster deity breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example, Loki) but usually with ultimately positive effects (though the trickster’s initial intentions may have been either positive or negative). Often, the bending/breaking of rules takes the form of tricks (e.g. Eris, Greek goddess of chaos) or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both; they are often funny even when considered sacred or performing important cultural tasks. An example of this is the sacred Iktomi of the Lakota, whose role is to play tricks and games and by doing so raises awareness and acts as an equalizer.
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