People favor close relatives over others: offspring over extended family, and extended family over people outside the family. Universal Love demands another approach. Families have a sense of kinship that no four strangers would ever have as a team. [attributed to Bradley Walsh] Enslaved people worked hard to preserve family ties and maintain kinship networks. They married, even as the…
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Value for Friday of Week 24 in the season of Ripening
Rewarding
A reward is something that accrues to someone by accomplishment or recognition.
- The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on. [Barack Obama]
- Work is that which you dislike doing but perform for the sake of external rewards. At school, this takes the form of grades. In society, it means money, status, privilege. [attributed to Abraham Maslow]
- One of the rewards of success is freedom, the ability to do whatever you like. [variously attributed]
Though Pavlovian reward and punishment is not a humanistic model for treatment of humans, people do like being rewarded for accomplishments and generally exhibit a favorable response. The concern is that we do not wish to treat people in an undignified manner. Still, we are animals, and we do respond to favorable and unfavorable stimuli. Stripped of its characterizations and value judgments, an appropriate human reward is not given immediately but after a sufficient time has passed so that the reward accounts for the independence and dignity of the recipient. To what extent are we merely fooling ourselves? I leave that question for another day, or to others.
Real
True Narratives
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Poetry
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
For a musician, a solo in an honor – a reward for excellence. We have a wealth of concerti and other compositions that feature solos but Antonio Vivaldi was prolific in his compositions that featured a solo performer. The Naïve label has produced an extensive series highlighting this work:
- Concerti for oboe;
- Concerti for fagotto (bassoon); Volume II; Volume III;
- Concerti for bassoon and oboe;
- Concerti for archi (string instruments); Volume II;
- Concerti for transverse flute;
- Concerti for violincello (cello); Volume II; Volume III;
- Concerti for violine (violin); Volume II; Volume III; Volume IV; Volume V; Volume VI; Volume VII; Volume VIII; Volume IX;
- Concerti for mandolin;
- Cantate for Soprano;
- Music for mandolin and lute.
Music: songs and other short pieces
Visual Arts
Film and Stage
- Cinderella: a morality tale about merit versus kinship
