I have been tagged twice this week: once by Kate at The Clay Friar, who directs that I list five things about myself that I have not blogged about and tag five others; and second by Civil Truth at And Rightly So, whose tag of a thinking person’s award directs that I tag five other bloggers who make me think.
Anyone visiting because of these tags, I recommend you just hit an archive month at random on my sidebar.
The practical applications of this are annoying. I was going to tag Raven with Kate’s tag, but Civil Truth is from the same site. Tagging is rather like an intellectual chain letter, which some people clearly like and others don’t. As there is no commitment beyond tagging, it should take the sting out of it for those who don’t like these things. (It is amusing to imagine receiving a chain letter which tells you to send a new idea to the top person on the list, and you will receive thousands of new ideas yourself in the coming weeks, but I suspect that would work out like most other Ponzi schemes.)
I sense there are unwritten rules of what other bloggers you can tag. It seems not right to tag too far above your station in terms of traffic and notoriety. Otherwise, everyone would tag Instapundit. Neo at neo-neocon certainly makes me think, but it would seem a bit presumptuous of me to tag her. Perhaps I will anyway.
The “makes me think” part presents difficulties as well. My son Ben at 10-4goodbuddy makes me think, but his blog generally doesn’t; he does movie reviews and humorous commentary by design. D2 over at Neco Draconis gives me plenty to think about live and in person, but his blog just started, and to give him a thinking person’s award would be more predictive than earned.
I’m overthinking this, aren’t I? It’s not a seating plan at a wedding.
Tag five, with directions that they write five unblogged things about themselves. I tag the New Hampshire bloggers: Giacomo at Joust the Facts, D2 at Neco Draconis, Raven at And Rightly So, taggies back, sort of - Kate already tagged Bethany at Fair Trade Certified (and she's inside 128 now anyway), photographer and reflecter Bill Gnade at Contratimes, and Jerub-baal even though he’s inside 495 now. They could each have qualified as thinkers as well. Ex New Hampshirewoman Wacky Hermit at Organic Baby Farm is disqualifed – Utah is just too far away.
The five Thinker's Award tags: Greenman Tim over at Whorled Leaves, who I found through Tigerhawk, Maggies's Farm, OneCosmos, Albion's Seedlings, and Shrinkwrapped. I tried to mix it up, and not just send you to folks in an echo chamber.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
Relative Poverty
Relative Poverty is all the rage now, and conservatives are very suspicious of it. Meeting basic needs would seem to be our essential responsibility to our fellow-citizens who have serious limitations or have fallen on hard times. How those citizens perceive that, and how they feel about it, would seem to be their own affair. Aid based on need rather than perception also has a simple logic to it, which is always attractive. Pleading relative poverty would seem a neverending method of holding society hostage.
I think that’s about right, but there are at least two interesting spinoffs from that which could change our perspective.
The Impulse to Equalise is Hardwired
There is a reasonable chance that feeling some sting around relative poverty is hardwired into us. Descended from generations of humans who lived in small groups – bands, villages, clans, neighborhoods – a finely-tuned sense of distributional fairness is part of our makeup. As a shared value, it improves group survival. Certainly some might fairly command more goods from the tribal storehouse, but everyone affected could see why: this was a person of particular skill or courage whose actions benefited the group and deserved the reward. Our ability to see the basis for the inequality helps us quiet the more primitive sense that all should receive equally (or I should receive more).
That hardwired impulse toward equity does not have to be a cause of resentment. It is a malleable feeling, which can express itself in many ways. It can spur imitation or alliance. It can create competition, fawning obedience, or envy. That discomfort can cause people to move away or move closer.
The seeing why is not now so available to us. People make money in ways that are mysterious to us, getting paid for goods or services we don’t see the value of or don’t understand. When we understand the basis for the unequal distribution in an individual case, we are much less likely to object. A guy fixes your computer and you’re impressed; he makes good money at it; good for him. This woman listens to your symptoms, takes some odd measurements, orders some tests, and figures out why you feel crummy; she gets paid more than you; bully for her then, because she does something you couldn’t.
But that guy in that new mansion going up, I don’t know what he does, really. Something in consulting. Who knows? There’s all kinds of people like that in town, now, sending their kids to special baseball camps and buying breeds of dog I’ve never seen. What’s with that? That tribe of people, those traders, those seminar speakers, those internet people, those manipulators of stocks or whatever, how does money just flow to them like that? When the methods by which people acquire goods are less understandable, some of our possible responses are blocked. How to imitate or compete with something you can’t understand?
Yes, it is not quite rational. It is an impulse left over from our earlier selves, when mutual social approval was a method of improving village or clan survival. We can see its history back through earliest folktales, this desire to level those who have good fortune for unclear reasons. Yet the impulse doesn’t work so well in a society where much of what is produced is abstract, information-based, or otherwise invisible. It is quite real, though, and people still win elections by appeals to that inchoate unfairness we sense about life, where others receive more than their share (note the word) without obvious dessert.
When you listen to people – not just poor people, but everyone – talk about the money they make versus the money others make, this language of what-I-do-is more-valuable is prominent. “I have a master’s degree and twenty years experience and I still make less than $40,000.” “I have to work a second job, and they go on strike because $32/hr isn’t enough?” “This society doesn’t value (fill in the blank).” Some of this is mere self-centeredness, of course. We are only too aware of the difficulties in our own jobs and our own lives, less so what others face. Those people in the other department don’t seem to be doing so much, or they’ve had less training, or what they do doesn’t look so hard. There is a lot of resentment out there, which is why so many of us secretly rejoice when the mighty are brought low.
Perhaps it was ever thus – envy and resentment may be more our common lot than we like to admit. The few remaining hunter-gatherer bands in the world do not seem to have as much of this within the group, though I suspect it is merely redirected to nearby groups instead. It is ironic that the economically free societies which offer the widest variety in history of ways to make a living and reward an enormous variety of skills still display this envy and resentment. If we indeed show more of this resentment than is the human norm, then it is a depressing irony as well.
Relative Reward is Perceived as a Value Judgment.
Relatedly, we perceive people’s monetary compensation as a reward for their skills and values. When someone makes more, there is an implied “your society thinks your skills/virtues of lesser importance.” If we are persistent and accommodating, we think persistence and accommodation are high virtues and deserve to be seen as such. This works in the plural as well as the singular. If your group’s standout points are wit and broad reading, you and your friends will find it convenient to disparage the groups whose standout points are showmanship and social grace, or analytical thinking and memory.
Downtrodden groups often develop the personality skills of enduring suffering and loyalty. In some cosmic sense, these virtues really are more valuable than beauty and boldness. Unfortunately, they are not very saleable virtues in any economy. Beauty and boldness are. It is easy for the enduring and loyal to think that something has gone wrong with an entire society that doesn’t value them as they deserve. They will be attracted to belief systems that do value their skills and virtues, and seek for those belief systems to run the show in society.
When the reward gap is large, the resentment is large as well.
We are back to tribalism again. It seems unfair to us at profound levels that skillset A is handsomely rewarded while skillset B is disregarded when our tribe and value-system assure us that B is “really” a higher value. We can easily move from this to disparaging entire groups, classes, or regions of our fellow citizens. It’s highschool all over again, with jocks, hoods, nerds, Goths, goat-ropers, artists, and druggies all talking each other down. While ethnic and racial divisions attract the attention, these lesser divisions play out even when race and ethnicity are homogenous. They are the true training for adult snottiness.
I think that’s about right, but there are at least two interesting spinoffs from that which could change our perspective.
The Impulse to Equalise is Hardwired
There is a reasonable chance that feeling some sting around relative poverty is hardwired into us. Descended from generations of humans who lived in small groups – bands, villages, clans, neighborhoods – a finely-tuned sense of distributional fairness is part of our makeup. As a shared value, it improves group survival. Certainly some might fairly command more goods from the tribal storehouse, but everyone affected could see why: this was a person of particular skill or courage whose actions benefited the group and deserved the reward. Our ability to see the basis for the inequality helps us quiet the more primitive sense that all should receive equally (or I should receive more).
That hardwired impulse toward equity does not have to be a cause of resentment. It is a malleable feeling, which can express itself in many ways. It can spur imitation or alliance. It can create competition, fawning obedience, or envy. That discomfort can cause people to move away or move closer.
The seeing why is not now so available to us. People make money in ways that are mysterious to us, getting paid for goods or services we don’t see the value of or don’t understand. When we understand the basis for the unequal distribution in an individual case, we are much less likely to object. A guy fixes your computer and you’re impressed; he makes good money at it; good for him. This woman listens to your symptoms, takes some odd measurements, orders some tests, and figures out why you feel crummy; she gets paid more than you; bully for her then, because she does something you couldn’t.
But that guy in that new mansion going up, I don’t know what he does, really. Something in consulting. Who knows? There’s all kinds of people like that in town, now, sending their kids to special baseball camps and buying breeds of dog I’ve never seen. What’s with that? That tribe of people, those traders, those seminar speakers, those internet people, those manipulators of stocks or whatever, how does money just flow to them like that? When the methods by which people acquire goods are less understandable, some of our possible responses are blocked. How to imitate or compete with something you can’t understand?
Yes, it is not quite rational. It is an impulse left over from our earlier selves, when mutual social approval was a method of improving village or clan survival. We can see its history back through earliest folktales, this desire to level those who have good fortune for unclear reasons. Yet the impulse doesn’t work so well in a society where much of what is produced is abstract, information-based, or otherwise invisible. It is quite real, though, and people still win elections by appeals to that inchoate unfairness we sense about life, where others receive more than their share (note the word) without obvious dessert.
When you listen to people – not just poor people, but everyone – talk about the money they make versus the money others make, this language of what-I-do-is more-valuable is prominent. “I have a master’s degree and twenty years experience and I still make less than $40,000.” “I have to work a second job, and they go on strike because $32/hr isn’t enough?” “This society doesn’t value (fill in the blank).” Some of this is mere self-centeredness, of course. We are only too aware of the difficulties in our own jobs and our own lives, less so what others face. Those people in the other department don’t seem to be doing so much, or they’ve had less training, or what they do doesn’t look so hard. There is a lot of resentment out there, which is why so many of us secretly rejoice when the mighty are brought low.
Perhaps it was ever thus – envy and resentment may be more our common lot than we like to admit. The few remaining hunter-gatherer bands in the world do not seem to have as much of this within the group, though I suspect it is merely redirected to nearby groups instead. It is ironic that the economically free societies which offer the widest variety in history of ways to make a living and reward an enormous variety of skills still display this envy and resentment. If we indeed show more of this resentment than is the human norm, then it is a depressing irony as well.
Relative Reward is Perceived as a Value Judgment.
Relatedly, we perceive people’s monetary compensation as a reward for their skills and values. When someone makes more, there is an implied “your society thinks your skills/virtues of lesser importance.” If we are persistent and accommodating, we think persistence and accommodation are high virtues and deserve to be seen as such. This works in the plural as well as the singular. If your group’s standout points are wit and broad reading, you and your friends will find it convenient to disparage the groups whose standout points are showmanship and social grace, or analytical thinking and memory.
Downtrodden groups often develop the personality skills of enduring suffering and loyalty. In some cosmic sense, these virtues really are more valuable than beauty and boldness. Unfortunately, they are not very saleable virtues in any economy. Beauty and boldness are. It is easy for the enduring and loyal to think that something has gone wrong with an entire society that doesn’t value them as they deserve. They will be attracted to belief systems that do value their skills and virtues, and seek for those belief systems to run the show in society.
When the reward gap is large, the resentment is large as well.
We are back to tribalism again. It seems unfair to us at profound levels that skillset A is handsomely rewarded while skillset B is disregarded when our tribe and value-system assure us that B is “really” a higher value. We can easily move from this to disparaging entire groups, classes, or regions of our fellow citizens. It’s highschool all over again, with jocks, hoods, nerds, Goths, goat-ropers, artists, and druggies all talking each other down. While ethnic and racial divisions attract the attention, these lesser divisions play out even when race and ethnicity are homogenous. They are the true training for adult snottiness.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Bratislava
We have a family tradition of a trip for high school graduation. The first three boys, we could make reservations with confidence, and we have visited some wonderful places. Chris, the 4th son, is about 50-50 to graduate on time, leaving us in limbo for reservations. He knows where he wants to go, though: Germany, then on to Romania for Catalin's wedding. We have slid him seamlessly into the idea that he wants to go to Munich, specifically. The BMW museum is there, which is his biggest draw.
Juggling the various flights, trains, and rentals has had me all over the internet looking at comparative prices, routes, and hotels. Bratislava - look it up if you don't know, thank you - is beginning to emerge as an overnight on the way home. It is the back door to Vienna, and so discount airlines fly in there a lot. Both boys thought seeing someplace new, rather than spending the extra night in Budapest or Dublin, sounded preferable. Fine, then.
I went to look up what sights there are to see in Bratislava. They have not gotten this tourism idea down in the Slovak Republic. I complained that Romania has a crying need for training in hotel and restaurant management - not to mention advertising and say, being nice to customers - but Transylvania at least is well ahead of Bratislava. They do apparently have some things to see there, but...
First there is the List of Attractions. Please note that this is the official Bratislava site.
Descriptions of Night Life are a bit more complete. They have clubs, and the drinks are cheap. That's something.
The tourism guide has an interview this month with the Director of the Municipal Library, talking about competition with the internet. And did you know that Lisxt visited Bratislava 15 times? Imagine.
They could be doing much better with their promotional materials. This is a city that was the capital of the Austria-Hungary Empire for a time, has a castle built in the first few centuries BCE and restored many times since, Gothic and art deco churches, and a medieval Old City.
This is the slide show of their sight-seeing tour, however.
Travel guides note that Bratislava is for those who want to avoid the tourist crush in Prague and Budapest. I think I may like this place.
Juggling the various flights, trains, and rentals has had me all over the internet looking at comparative prices, routes, and hotels. Bratislava - look it up if you don't know, thank you - is beginning to emerge as an overnight on the way home. It is the back door to Vienna, and so discount airlines fly in there a lot. Both boys thought seeing someplace new, rather than spending the extra night in Budapest or Dublin, sounded preferable. Fine, then.
I went to look up what sights there are to see in Bratislava. They have not gotten this tourism idea down in the Slovak Republic. I complained that Romania has a crying need for training in hotel and restaurant management - not to mention advertising and say, being nice to customers - but Transylvania at least is well ahead of Bratislava. They do apparently have some things to see there, but...
First there is the List of Attractions. Please note that this is the official Bratislava site.
Descriptions of Night Life are a bit more complete. They have clubs, and the drinks are cheap. That's something.
The tourism guide has an interview this month with the Director of the Municipal Library, talking about competition with the internet. And did you know that Lisxt visited Bratislava 15 times? Imagine.
They could be doing much better with their promotional materials. This is a city that was the capital of the Austria-Hungary Empire for a time, has a castle built in the first few centuries BCE and restored many times since, Gothic and art deco churches, and a medieval Old City.
This is the slide show of their sight-seeing tour, however.
Travel guides note that Bratislava is for those who want to avoid the tourist crush in Prague and Budapest. I think I may like this place.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Bracket Scoring
By my method, I have 113 points (the 2nd most I have ever had). By Kate's method, I am sitting 84. Monday night, I will either remain at those totals, or have 145-90.
A good year, either way.
A good year, either way.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
19th Century Hymnody - Jesus, the Cosmic Pal
The words I, me, my begin to show up with great frequency in the 19th C. Theology increasing stressed “personal relationship” rather than corporate belief, and this is reflected in the hymnody. Look at the following hymn-titles (I’m not linking individually to cyberhymnal this time. You can go yourself) and note how many fall into this “ me, talkin’ to Jesus” pattern: about half. If you know the lyrics, they only reinforce the thought.
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine…
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide…
This Is My Father’s world
O Worship the King All Glorious Above
Praise the Lord His Glories Show
Praise My Soul The King of Heaven
Stand Up and Bless the Lord
My Jesus I Love Thee
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
Sweet Hour of Prayer
What a Friend We Have In Jesus
He Leadeth Me
All the Way, My Saviour Leads Me
I Need Thee Every Hour
Jesus Calls Us O’er the Tumult
O Master Let Me Walk With Thee
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
Rejoice Ye Pure In Heart
Immortal, Invisible
For The Beauty Of The Earth
Come Christians, Join to Sing
Crown Him With Many Crowns
Breathe On Me Breath of God
Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart
Faith Of Our Fathers
Lead On O King Eternal
Once To Every Man and Nation
More subtly, pronouns are used more often for God and Jesus as well. The intimate Thee, Thy, are still used, but they have less of their family-closeness meaning, and are used increasingly for their archaic cachet. Where the earlier hymns had been more likely to address God with some proper name or title, in the 1800’s He and You become more common. I attach no especial significance to that, as the psalms are loaded with these conversation pronouns also. But the frequency becomes great in the 19th C, and will become even more pronounced in the Camp Meeting hymns we will discuss later. It may be that the use of everyday pronouns instead of titles for God produces both more intimacy and less awe.
The other half are clear descendants of the hymns of previous centuries – the greatness and glory of God, expressed in complex lyric and harmony – and the we, us approach has not vanished.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty…
The Church’s One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord…
I wonder if the me-ness is related to the increased movement of the English-speaking peoples. Colonists may have arrive in North America two centuries before, but the lineage often moved just the once – to Massachusetts or Virginia or New Jersey – and then remained fairly close to their original settlement area for generations. Not until the late 18th C do we start to see great internal migration in the US and Canada, and within Great Britain itself. In the 19th Century this accelerates, and people may have seen themselves less as parts of communities and more as individuals. This theology of personal relationship would have more appeal for the uprooted, the isolated, and the itinerant.
This nostalgiac emphasis shows up in popular music of the time as well. I think every Irish song of the 19th Century is about “the girl I left behind who waits for me still back in _____, while I work here in ______.”
The archaic language may have much the same purpose. He leadeth me – that “eth” had dropped out of conversational English long before. Mine eyes have seen the glory, Rejoice ye pure in heart – similarly obsolete. The anachronism may have provided a sense of connectedness to not only the past, but the Church itself. One might be hundreds of miles from a birthplace and worshipping alone or with a small group of strangers, but still feel some connection because of the continuity.
Such archaisms don’t connect us to the historical church as a whole, but only a small part. The “old” ways and “ancient” language we feel an affection for might be only a century old itself, or a few at most. No matter, they predate our own birth and were used in our childhood churches, which gives them some stamp of authenticity. We remain connected to the true faith, we think, because it is in the form we originally received it in.
This sentiment is my explanation for the persistence of people insisting against all logic on the King James as the only reliable translation. It is not mere nostalgia, but an impression of authenticity. It was the form our grandfathers used, and their grandfathers also, which is our guarantee that what we believe must still be the true faith. KJV advocates even use the term textus receptus for the early documents that this particular translation was made from: the Received Text. The faith as received from time immemorial. The fact that we have added meanings and interpretations that our grandfathers knew not we can ignore. Same translation, same faith.
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine…
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide…
This Is My Father’s world
O Worship the King All Glorious Above
Praise the Lord His Glories Show
Praise My Soul The King of Heaven
Stand Up and Bless the Lord
My Jesus I Love Thee
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
Sweet Hour of Prayer
What a Friend We Have In Jesus
He Leadeth Me
All the Way, My Saviour Leads Me
I Need Thee Every Hour
Jesus Calls Us O’er the Tumult
O Master Let Me Walk With Thee
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
Rejoice Ye Pure In Heart
Immortal, Invisible
For The Beauty Of The Earth
Come Christians, Join to Sing
Crown Him With Many Crowns
Breathe On Me Breath of God
Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart
Faith Of Our Fathers
Lead On O King Eternal
Once To Every Man and Nation
More subtly, pronouns are used more often for God and Jesus as well. The intimate Thee, Thy, are still used, but they have less of their family-closeness meaning, and are used increasingly for their archaic cachet. Where the earlier hymns had been more likely to address God with some proper name or title, in the 1800’s He and You become more common. I attach no especial significance to that, as the psalms are loaded with these conversation pronouns also. But the frequency becomes great in the 19th C, and will become even more pronounced in the Camp Meeting hymns we will discuss later. It may be that the use of everyday pronouns instead of titles for God produces both more intimacy and less awe.
The other half are clear descendants of the hymns of previous centuries – the greatness and glory of God, expressed in complex lyric and harmony – and the we, us approach has not vanished.
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty…
The Church’s One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord…
I wonder if the me-ness is related to the increased movement of the English-speaking peoples. Colonists may have arrive in North America two centuries before, but the lineage often moved just the once – to Massachusetts or Virginia or New Jersey – and then remained fairly close to their original settlement area for generations. Not until the late 18th C do we start to see great internal migration in the US and Canada, and within Great Britain itself. In the 19th Century this accelerates, and people may have seen themselves less as parts of communities and more as individuals. This theology of personal relationship would have more appeal for the uprooted, the isolated, and the itinerant.
This nostalgiac emphasis shows up in popular music of the time as well. I think every Irish song of the 19th Century is about “the girl I left behind who waits for me still back in _____, while I work here in ______.”
The archaic language may have much the same purpose. He leadeth me – that “eth” had dropped out of conversational English long before. Mine eyes have seen the glory, Rejoice ye pure in heart – similarly obsolete. The anachronism may have provided a sense of connectedness to not only the past, but the Church itself. One might be hundreds of miles from a birthplace and worshipping alone or with a small group of strangers, but still feel some connection because of the continuity.
Such archaisms don’t connect us to the historical church as a whole, but only a small part. The “old” ways and “ancient” language we feel an affection for might be only a century old itself, or a few at most. No matter, they predate our own birth and were used in our childhood churches, which gives them some stamp of authenticity. We remain connected to the true faith, we think, because it is in the form we originally received it in.
This sentiment is my explanation for the persistence of people insisting against all logic on the King James as the only reliable translation. It is not mere nostalgia, but an impression of authenticity. It was the form our grandfathers used, and their grandfathers also, which is our guarantee that what we believe must still be the true faith. KJV advocates even use the term textus receptus for the early documents that this particular translation was made from: the Received Text. The faith as received from time immemorial. The fact that we have added meanings and interpretations that our grandfathers knew not we can ignore. Same translation, same faith.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Comfort Food
We bought Holland Rusks for my mother-in-law, who was conceived in Holland and spent her early years eating Dutch foods. Holland Rusks are now used, if at all, as a platform to put other things on, not as a stand-alone food. She eats them plain. I understand her comment: "They taste like sawdust, but they're familiar."
An elderly daughter of Swedish immigrants informed us one Christmas season that she was hurrying home to make lutfisk for her husband. "Does he like it?" we asked in amazement. She paused. "No, but he doesn't think it would be Christmas without it."
For my mother, also of Swedish extraction, all comfort foods were based on thickened milk: cream-dried beef; an impossibly bland Welsh rarebit that was nothing more than milk-and-melted-cheddar poured over Saltines; tapioca pudding, or rice pudding with a little cinnamon. (Those remain comfort foods for me as well, along with Campbell's cream-of-tomato with Ritz crackers in it.)
I wonder if fast foods have become the comfort foods of the following generations. McDonald's french fries are not very good. But they continually top the "best fries" charts, and I love them, too.
An elderly daughter of Swedish immigrants informed us one Christmas season that she was hurrying home to make lutfisk for her husband. "Does he like it?" we asked in amazement. She paused. "No, but he doesn't think it would be Christmas without it."
For my mother, also of Swedish extraction, all comfort foods were based on thickened milk: cream-dried beef; an impossibly bland Welsh rarebit that was nothing more than milk-and-melted-cheddar poured over Saltines; tapioca pudding, or rice pudding with a little cinnamon. (Those remain comfort foods for me as well, along with Campbell's cream-of-tomato with Ritz crackers in it.)
I wonder if fast foods have become the comfort foods of the following generations. McDonald's french fries are not very good. But they continually top the "best fries" charts, and I love them, too.
Making Life Like Film
The biggest wanker in my department made yet another narcissistic, irrelevant, incomprehensible statement at our last department meeting. My neighbor suggested: "Some people should come with subtitles."
Or laugh tracks. Whenever I watch a clip of Hillary Clinton, I don't get angry so much as just puzzled that there is no laughter at her statements. That 1984 Two-Minute-Hate takeoff one of Obama's supporters just did - the one based on the Apple commercial about IBM - may express some Great Truth, but when I hear her, I just can't work up fear. I just hear these vacuities and expect a laugh track. Think how great it would be to just be able to insert laugh tracks behind people who are full of themselves and make vacuous comments. I'm thinking the UN would be a place to start.
Narration or soundtracks behind people's lives - sure, but it's been done so many times. If Monty Python was already doing sendups of something 3o years ago, it can't have become less hackneyed in the meantime.
Rolling credits. That would be definitely cool, letting people know who was responsible for your strengths and weaknesses.
Or laugh tracks. Whenever I watch a clip of Hillary Clinton, I don't get angry so much as just puzzled that there is no laughter at her statements. That 1984 Two-Minute-Hate takeoff one of Obama's supporters just did - the one based on the Apple commercial about IBM - may express some Great Truth, but when I hear her, I just can't work up fear. I just hear these vacuities and expect a laugh track. Think how great it would be to just be able to insert laugh tracks behind people who are full of themselves and make vacuous comments. I'm thinking the UN would be a place to start.
Narration or soundtracks behind people's lives - sure, but it's been done so many times. If Monty Python was already doing sendups of something 3o years ago, it can't have become less hackneyed in the meantime.
Rolling credits. That would be definitely cool, letting people know who was responsible for your strengths and weaknesses.
Last of the March Reprises
I'm clumping the few remaining writings of interest (Ed: to me, that's who) from last March.
People Of The Lie/ The Great Divorce
Manipulation
An Opposite Is Often True
People Of The Lie/ The Great Divorce
Criminals protesting their innocense will also attempt to seize on a single point, holding it aloft as a lone card they believe should trump all others. “They never interviewed my wife, like they’re supposed to.” Never mind that the police have the robbery on film, or found the drugs in your sock drawer, or the victim’s blood on your shoes. “They never interviewed my wife.” Anyone who deals often with criminals knows dozens of these excuses: “It wasn’t a valid search warrant because…” “They didn’t ask if I’m diabetic…” “I can prove I sold that gun to my brother…”Continue here:
Manipulation
Many of us have deep suspicions of religious or cultural groups which play to our emotions. If I detect that a speaker is trying to "work the crowd" according to an insincere formula, I automatically draw back, not only from the speaker, but the crowd as well. Don't these people get it? The swelling music, the slides in the background with the pictures of babies and puppies? Are they that stupid?Continue here:
An Opposite Is Often True
Sad women brought to the hospital for suicidality will tell us "my children are everything to me." Well, yeah, except that you spend the rent money on drugs, won't leave the boyfriend who beats them, and overdosed where they would be the most likely ones to find you. Other than that, I see that your children are very important to you.Continue here:
Alexander Vs. 300
I sent my film-maker son Victor Davis Hanson's review of 300. Hanson praises 300, and the earlier Rome in passing, pithily describing why. Though Hanson is an historian of the era, it was not only because of historical inaccuracy that he disliked Alexander. But I think Ben's reply really gets to the heart of the matter.
Alexander gave us an Irishman in a blond wig with an Oedipus complex and a homosexual bent, instead of what we really wanted: extreme slow-motion decapitations.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Collecting
Okay, now I'm torqued off. I'm collecting examples from the left side of the Internet that actually has something encouraging or sympathetic to say about Tony Snow having a re-occurrence of cancer. I have seen plenty of vile hate at Daily Kos, DU, Huffpo, and other progressive sites (thankfully, 90% of the viciousness is in the comments, not the posts). Are there any definitely left sites which have posted kind comments unmixed with gratuitous nastiness?
On a related note, please send me any examples of conservative sites which have posted a hope that Elizabeth Edwards would suffer or die. I am seeing nothing but the kindest wishes for her to date.
This contrast is simply abominable. Please restore my faith that there remain some on the left who retain human decency.
On a related note, please send me any examples of conservative sites which have posted a hope that Elizabeth Edwards would suffer or die. I am seeing nothing but the kindest wishes for her to date.
This contrast is simply abominable. Please restore my faith that there remain some on the left who retain human decency.
Who Receives The Most Benefit From Government?
Over at Willisms, there is an interesting graph (as usual. The guy loves those things)* about which income group receives the most back from government for its tax dollar. The data weights heavily toward the premise that lower incomes receive much more back in government services than other groups do. There is merit to that.
The usual counterargument is that the rich benefit most from good government because they fortuitously live in an environment that allows them to become wealthy. There is merit to that, also.
Looking for the complementary argument that it is actually the middle-class that benefits most from government, I immediately recognised that the middle-class basically doesn’t exist under bad government/economic arrangement. The rich exist even under bad government, the poor even under bad government, but it takes a certain level of economic freedom for the middle class to even exist. So perhaps it is they who receive the most benefit from government.
It matters very much what one is measuring that the government provides to determine who is getting the most of it. Airports are given to all, but are received more by the rich. Or is it the employees of local hotels and restaurants who benefit most from the airport? Subsidised transit is offered to all, but is received more by the poor. Except commuter transit from the suburbs. Do the poor receive more police protection, because there are more policemen in their neighborhoods, or is it the wealthy and middle-class who receive more, because they have more to protect and depend on stability? Who benefits more from the military or fire department? And in the case of an ambiguous or uneven benefit such as public education, which is fine in some places and terrible in others, who gets the most bang for their buck from its existence?
Yeah, as if I’d know the answer to that.
* Willisms has a great caption contest every week also, for those who like those.
The usual counterargument is that the rich benefit most from good government because they fortuitously live in an environment that allows them to become wealthy. There is merit to that, also.
Looking for the complementary argument that it is actually the middle-class that benefits most from government, I immediately recognised that the middle-class basically doesn’t exist under bad government/economic arrangement. The rich exist even under bad government, the poor even under bad government, but it takes a certain level of economic freedom for the middle class to even exist. So perhaps it is they who receive the most benefit from government.
It matters very much what one is measuring that the government provides to determine who is getting the most of it. Airports are given to all, but are received more by the rich. Or is it the employees of local hotels and restaurants who benefit most from the airport? Subsidised transit is offered to all, but is received more by the poor. Except commuter transit from the suburbs. Do the poor receive more police protection, because there are more policemen in their neighborhoods, or is it the wealthy and middle-class who receive more, because they have more to protect and depend on stability? Who benefits more from the military or fire department? And in the case of an ambiguous or uneven benefit such as public education, which is fine in some places and terrible in others, who gets the most bang for their buck from its existence?
Yeah, as if I’d know the answer to that.
* Willisms has a great caption contest every week also, for those who like those.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Bracket Scoring Reality Check
I am running a very respectable 89 points in my bracket. But if someone picked the eventual winner and runner up, and no other games correctly that person would have 94 points: 32 for the championship, plus 31 points for all the champion's wins up to the final, plus 31 for the runner-up's wins up to the final (16 + 8 + 4...). You could coin flip the rest and win most office pools.
Nothing beats picking the final winner - all else is illusion. I have three of the final four, but don't have the one team I now think will win, Florida.
Nothing beats picking the final winner - all else is illusion. I have three of the final four, but don't have the one team I now think will win, Florida.
Another Controversy
Rush Limbaugh apparently took some flak for making a cynical comment about John Edwards on Friday, and several blogs are reporting he felt vindicated today. I didn't know the facts, so I looked them up. I love search engines.
On Friday, Rush said
Elizabeth Edwards quote to Katie Couric:
On Friday, Rush said
Now, let me say something else that might be accused of cynicism. What is their religion? I don't doubt they're "religious people," but we talked about how political people are different than you and I -- and, you know, most people when told a family member's been diagnosed with the kind of cancer Elizabeth Edwards has, they turn to God. The Edwards turned to the campaign. Their religion is politics and the quest for the White House. It's not just with them. That's part and parcel of political people.Note the generic "political people," not specific to Edwards, progressives, or Democrats, though he uses that background idea as an explanation for Edwards' behavior.
Elizabeth Edwards quote to Katie Couric:
"This is what we believe in. This is what we're spending our lives doing. It's where our heart and soul is. And we can not stop."Darn close to being a religion, I'd say. I am not prescribing any specific action that I think "real" Christians would do in the face of this news. I have no idea. But the underlying attitude bothers me.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Not About Lacrosse
I have not commented on the Duke lacrosse team case because I have had nothing to add, and what I would say has been said better by others. But after Dr. Sanity's mention of the general brouhaha, I observed in the comments that people were slightly off-kilter in their interpretation. Not wrong, just misattributing.
The Gang of 88 are not ignoring the facts because they are inconvenient, as most folks encountering uncomfortable realities would be. They are ignoring them because they consider them unimportant. This is a type of unreality most of us are not familiar with.
I am ahead of myself. This post is connected to my (serious) one on Deconstruction.
Once there was an accusation, the case would in any event be of great interest to the people involved, Duke University, and the people of Durham. But it would have been simply a blip on the screen to the rest of the nation, except for two additions to the story. First, the prosecutor turns out to have gone forward on the charges on the basis of very slight, and quite contradictory evidence. This would have brought the case more notoriety, but still no more than a seven-day wonder. We read about such things all the time in a country of 300,000,000 people, and most of us shrug, hope that the prosecutor is punished if he is wrong, or the accused punished if they actually did it, and think no more about it.
What kept this story alive was the behavior of 10% of the Duke faculty and an undetermined, but visible, percentage of the student body. Not only did they rush to judgment, assuming the lacrosse players were guilty before the story was known, but they have not changed the heart of their story even as the facts have unfolded. They are backpedaling slightly from imputing guilt, but are now painting themselves as the victims because they were criticised all around the country. They can thus portray their overall narrative, and not their own foolishness, as being under attack. In their mind, they are being attacked not because the facts were against them, but because the "truth" they bring is uncomfortable to hear. They believe the message would have been rejected anyway, regardless of the evidence.
Facts are not the same thing to these people as they are to you and me. The narrative of what the world is, how it works, and their place in it is so much more powerful to them that it begins to overwhelm actual events. It is a special type of unreality. To any postmodernist - and all of us are at least a bit more postmodernist than our grandparents would have been - truth is culturally conditioned and facts can look different from different angles. All of us acknowledge the mild forms of this these days. Because we hate the extreme versions of relativeness, we may say that we are thoroughgoing modernists, but few of us are. We allow that beauty, truth, and reality may be a little soft around the edges at places. Indeed, Solomon, Plato, and other ancients said much the same thing. It is not a new idea.
But we do not believe that truth, beauty, and reality are soft all the way through. We believe that such things actually exist and have a certain recalcitrance to being modified for our convenience. We believe it is really our perception that is soft around the edges, not reality itself. We approximate to knowledge of a solid thing, and so are humble about drawing bright lines - because we may have misperceived or seen what we wanted rather than what is. But the thing itself - Truth, Beauty, Reality - is solid at its core. It is Truth "right the way down," as Pooh might say.
Arts and Humanities faculties at our "better" universities believe this much less than we do. We might ask how they make it through the day, then.
They do it with divided mind. If the mechanic fixes the tie rods on the car and the problem goes away, they believe it was the tie rods, just like the rest of us. If the recipe says "cook 20 minutes at 350 degrees" then they do that, just like the rest of us. But as things move into the area of judgment, they are much quicker to find things debatable than the rest of us. The power of their narrative is great enough to overwhelm simple observations.
They assume the same is true for us. They thought the Duke lacrosse players were guilty because their narrative states that rich southern white males oppress blacks and females, so guilt was likely. They assume, then, that people rushed to their defense not because the evidence was poor, but because our narrative is that southern white males don't oppress (or should be allowed to oppress) blacks and females. They assume it is our narrative which drives our belief, and their noble goal is to undermine our narrative for the good of society. They do not believe that people who disagree with them do so with good intention, but because we believe in and must defend an oppressive narrative. They find it significant that people didn't even want to talk about it.
Because what they want to do is "talk about it," engaging us on a battlefield where they know the terrain and we don't.
Brief tangent: some might argue at this juncture that what we are seeing here is a religion, and that more traditionally religious people do the same thing, reinterpreting simple events in terms of larger realities. I will not defend Christianity against the charge here. I will note only that the charge is partly true, and the counterargument is rather long; long, because it is actually many partial proofs. None of the proofs can be forced through to the end to prove Christianity true, QED. But all point in the same direction.
Back on track: They are adamant that it is they who are the misunderstood victims here because it is still possible that their narrative is true. Because it has not been absolutely disproven, they believe it should still be on the table for discussion. The pettifogging insistence on following the law they see as a mere technicality. The larger truth is that rich southern white males oppress women and African-Americans. That we do not wish to enter that Conversation (a frightening word on the lips of a thoroughgoing postmodernist) is proof that we are refusing to consider the idea at all.
How can people attain such a level of unreality? I will have some observations about that over the next month.
The Gang of 88 are not ignoring the facts because they are inconvenient, as most folks encountering uncomfortable realities would be. They are ignoring them because they consider them unimportant. This is a type of unreality most of us are not familiar with.
I am ahead of myself. This post is connected to my (serious) one on Deconstruction.
Once there was an accusation, the case would in any event be of great interest to the people involved, Duke University, and the people of Durham. But it would have been simply a blip on the screen to the rest of the nation, except for two additions to the story. First, the prosecutor turns out to have gone forward on the charges on the basis of very slight, and quite contradictory evidence. This would have brought the case more notoriety, but still no more than a seven-day wonder. We read about such things all the time in a country of 300,000,000 people, and most of us shrug, hope that the prosecutor is punished if he is wrong, or the accused punished if they actually did it, and think no more about it.
What kept this story alive was the behavior of 10% of the Duke faculty and an undetermined, but visible, percentage of the student body. Not only did they rush to judgment, assuming the lacrosse players were guilty before the story was known, but they have not changed the heart of their story even as the facts have unfolded. They are backpedaling slightly from imputing guilt, but are now painting themselves as the victims because they were criticised all around the country. They can thus portray their overall narrative, and not their own foolishness, as being under attack. In their mind, they are being attacked not because the facts were against them, but because the "truth" they bring is uncomfortable to hear. They believe the message would have been rejected anyway, regardless of the evidence.
Facts are not the same thing to these people as they are to you and me. The narrative of what the world is, how it works, and their place in it is so much more powerful to them that it begins to overwhelm actual events. It is a special type of unreality. To any postmodernist - and all of us are at least a bit more postmodernist than our grandparents would have been - truth is culturally conditioned and facts can look different from different angles. All of us acknowledge the mild forms of this these days. Because we hate the extreme versions of relativeness, we may say that we are thoroughgoing modernists, but few of us are. We allow that beauty, truth, and reality may be a little soft around the edges at places. Indeed, Solomon, Plato, and other ancients said much the same thing. It is not a new idea.
But we do not believe that truth, beauty, and reality are soft all the way through. We believe that such things actually exist and have a certain recalcitrance to being modified for our convenience. We believe it is really our perception that is soft around the edges, not reality itself. We approximate to knowledge of a solid thing, and so are humble about drawing bright lines - because we may have misperceived or seen what we wanted rather than what is. But the thing itself - Truth, Beauty, Reality - is solid at its core. It is Truth "right the way down," as Pooh might say.
Arts and Humanities faculties at our "better" universities believe this much less than we do. We might ask how they make it through the day, then.
They do it with divided mind. If the mechanic fixes the tie rods on the car and the problem goes away, they believe it was the tie rods, just like the rest of us. If the recipe says "cook 20 minutes at 350 degrees" then they do that, just like the rest of us. But as things move into the area of judgment, they are much quicker to find things debatable than the rest of us. The power of their narrative is great enough to overwhelm simple observations.
They assume the same is true for us. They thought the Duke lacrosse players were guilty because their narrative states that rich southern white males oppress blacks and females, so guilt was likely. They assume, then, that people rushed to their defense not because the evidence was poor, but because our narrative is that southern white males don't oppress (or should be allowed to oppress) blacks and females. They assume it is our narrative which drives our belief, and their noble goal is to undermine our narrative for the good of society. They do not believe that people who disagree with them do so with good intention, but because we believe in and must defend an oppressive narrative. They find it significant that people didn't even want to talk about it.
Because what they want to do is "talk about it," engaging us on a battlefield where they know the terrain and we don't.
Brief tangent: some might argue at this juncture that what we are seeing here is a religion, and that more traditionally religious people do the same thing, reinterpreting simple events in terms of larger realities. I will not defend Christianity against the charge here. I will note only that the charge is partly true, and the counterargument is rather long; long, because it is actually many partial proofs. None of the proofs can be forced through to the end to prove Christianity true, QED. But all point in the same direction.
Back on track: They are adamant that it is they who are the misunderstood victims here because it is still possible that their narrative is true. Because it has not been absolutely disproven, they believe it should still be on the table for discussion. The pettifogging insistence on following the law they see as a mere technicality. The larger truth is that rich southern white males oppress women and African-Americans. That we do not wish to enter that Conversation (a frightening word on the lips of a thoroughgoing postmodernist) is proof that we are refusing to consider the idea at all.
How can people attain such a level of unreality? I will have some observations about that over the next month.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Brackets and the Perception of Rreality
This is not a post about basketball.
Part of the "fun" of March Madness is the anticipation and progression of watching your point totals unfold. "I've got a great bracket." "I've got a terrible bracket." "My porridge is too cold."
But all the points are loaded at the end, making what we think are the important parts unimportant. If you pick the Final Four and those last three games correctly, you have a great, great, bracket, regardless of what has gone before. If you don't pick the eventual winner you have a lousy bracket, regardless of what went before. We approach the scoring from the wrong end, because that is the way we move in time.
Your career, your marriage, the War in Iraq, the economy, and the development of your character, you perceive in the same way, looking for signs to tell you what is to come. Because the larger events are unknown and we feel the need to narrate things as if we have some control and understanding, we over-read the details.
Part of the "fun" of March Madness is the anticipation and progression of watching your point totals unfold. "I've got a great bracket." "I've got a terrible bracket." "My porridge is too cold."
But all the points are loaded at the end, making what we think are the important parts unimportant. If you pick the Final Four and those last three games correctly, you have a great, great, bracket, regardless of what has gone before. If you don't pick the eventual winner you have a lousy bracket, regardless of what went before. We approach the scoring from the wrong end, because that is the way we move in time.
Your career, your marriage, the War in Iraq, the economy, and the development of your character, you perceive in the same way, looking for signs to tell you what is to come. Because the larger events are unknown and we feel the need to narrate things as if we have some control and understanding, we over-read the details.
Jokes I'm Tired Of
Feel free to add your own. This may become a regular feature.
People who say "See you next year" every December 31st. At least none of us will ever have to endure "See you next century - no, see you next millennium" ever again.
I am tired of people pronouncing Target as "tarjhay." It was cute when I first heard it fifteen years ago.
People who say "See you next year" every December 31st. At least none of us will ever have to endure "See you next century - no, see you next millennium" ever again.
I am tired of people pronouncing Target as "tarjhay." It was cute when I first heard it fifteen years ago.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Amazingly Sad and Despicable
An Iraqi car-bomber got through the American checkpoint because there were children in the back seat, lowering suspicions. The bombers ran off and detonated the car with the children still in it.
The AP refers to them as "insurgents," BTW. A tangential but very irritating point.
The AP refers to them as "insurgents," BTW. A tangential but very irritating point.
Prayer
John Edwards' wife has "boney mets," a very bad cancer sign, though not as bad as that would have been even five years ago. While I have not been a fan of Edwards' politics, I don't wish that fear on any man, and certainly not the greater anxiety she must feel. Their children are not grown. Money and power are not proof against the great fears, only the minor ones.
Deconstruction Followup - Conference and Workshop
Now that you have received permission to use deconstruction, that tool of the infidels, we can play with it a little. My little essay was written on a blog with a mock-humble name. What does the media choice and title tell us about who I believe is privileged to speak on the issue of deconstruction?
No, sorry, I forgot. Deconstruction is supposed to be directed at others, never oneself.
The speaker rises to (ad)dress the conference party(ci)pants
Over at Fair Trade Certified, aspiring poetess bsking offers 7 haiku. Because she is short, and writes from an emergent medical environment, we might think she has chosen this form out of envy and repect for Asian placidity and self-control, strongly identifying with those cultures, however stereotypically perceived as Oriental Other. A deeper look reveals many darker impulses. The use of Latin titles of medieval categories of “sin,” suggests that only Christians of the Western Tradition are privileged to speak about art and morality. The use of the the more westernised 5-7-5 syllabic format rather than the more traditionally eastern 2-3-2 syllabic, or 5-7-5 consonantal haiku confirms this hegemonic silencing of the nonwhite subaltern voice. The ancient East Asian tradition is not only suppressed, but actively decapitated by the usurpation of naming-rights in what is quite literally a “high-coup.”
The choice of pseudonym “bsking” is also highly revealing. Is this a zero-grade form of “basking,” or “busking,” suggesting a personal privileging that (super)imposes itself on all other authorities? Or is the lower-case “b,” “s,” “king” meant to playfully suggest that the poetess’s own insecurity with her female Voice is a mere mask to conceal her status in a patriarchal society as “liar,” and “pile of dung?” It is neither. She has avoided the title “queen” for its sexual ambiguity, further reinforcing her rigid Christianist, heteronormative paradigm. S(he) – if her adoption of the feminine role is based on traditional bio-logical notions of vaginal “possess”-ion – is ambivalent about all archaic titles of royalty because she is ambivalent about Power itself. The conflict remains unresoved, as (s)he settles on identifying with the more powerful patriarchal form, but with a lower-case “k.”
Once she has identified with the oppressor in this way, however reluctantly, her claims to having received these poems in a dream or dreamlike state must be interpreted in that light. She is denying agency, distancing herself from the more logic-bound, rationalist state of the oppressor, attempting to retain her Voice by giving it to another, for which see serves the hypertraditional female role of hand-maiden, scribing for an invasive and irresistable male oppressor-poet. She has avoided giving attribution to a female Muse, and has scrupulously avoided the Names of Days for her week of poems, as some of these are powerful female goddesses whose presence she must not acknowledge.
The poetess’s claims that the form was chosen for its convenience, after an actual dream-state, and that her pseudonym is based on her given name are abviously false, and a further attempt to deny the impossible contradictions of be-ing and creat-ing in her own Voice.
Note to audience: We’re having an informal gathering of the conference speakers and selected attractive graduate students when this is over, and you’re not invited.
No, sorry, I forgot. Deconstruction is supposed to be directed at others, never oneself.
The speaker rises to (ad)dress the conference party(ci)pants
Over at Fair Trade Certified, aspiring poetess bsking offers 7 haiku. Because she is short, and writes from an emergent medical environment, we might think she has chosen this form out of envy and repect for Asian placidity and self-control, strongly identifying with those cultures, however stereotypically perceived as Oriental Other. A deeper look reveals many darker impulses. The use of Latin titles of medieval categories of “sin,” suggests that only Christians of the Western Tradition are privileged to speak about art and morality. The use of the the more westernised 5-7-5 syllabic format rather than the more traditionally eastern 2-3-2 syllabic, or 5-7-5 consonantal haiku confirms this hegemonic silencing of the nonwhite subaltern voice. The ancient East Asian tradition is not only suppressed, but actively decapitated by the usurpation of naming-rights in what is quite literally a “high-coup.”
The choice of pseudonym “bsking” is also highly revealing. Is this a zero-grade form of “basking,” or “busking,” suggesting a personal privileging that (super)imposes itself on all other authorities? Or is the lower-case “b,” “s,” “king” meant to playfully suggest that the poetess’s own insecurity with her female Voice is a mere mask to conceal her status in a patriarchal society as “liar,” and “pile of dung?” It is neither. She has avoided the title “queen” for its sexual ambiguity, further reinforcing her rigid Christianist, heteronormative paradigm. S(he) – if her adoption of the feminine role is based on traditional bio-logical notions of vaginal “possess”-ion – is ambivalent about all archaic titles of royalty because she is ambivalent about Power itself. The conflict remains unresoved, as (s)he settles on identifying with the more powerful patriarchal form, but with a lower-case “k.”
Once she has identified with the oppressor in this way, however reluctantly, her claims to having received these poems in a dream or dreamlike state must be interpreted in that light. She is denying agency, distancing herself from the more logic-bound, rationalist state of the oppressor, attempting to retain her Voice by giving it to another, for which see serves the hypertraditional female role of hand-maiden, scribing for an invasive and irresistable male oppressor-poet. She has avoided giving attribution to a female Muse, and has scrupulously avoided the Names of Days for her week of poems, as some of these are powerful female goddesses whose presence she must not acknowledge.
The poetess’s claims that the form was chosen for its convenience, after an actual dream-state, and that her pseudonym is based on her given name are abviously false, and a further attempt to deny the impossible contradictions of be-ing and creat-ing in her own Voice.
Note to audience: We’re having an informal gathering of the conference speakers and selected attractive graduate students when this is over, and you’re not invited.
Deconstruction
All beliefs and expressions are influenced by their speakers and cultures, undermining their claim to universal truth. This is nowhere more true than among the postmodern intelligentsia. To note that Plato, Shakespeare, Aquinas all had views conditioned by their surrounding cultures – yes, yes of course. But so too do you, my postmodernist, or marxist feminist friend. You also are conditioned by your culture. Not the Western popular culture which you so easily despise, but your culture, the ideas hidden underneath the words of your postmodernist and marxist feminist associates. You are not a prisoner of your father’s values, but of your friends’ values.
Deconstruction has a bad name in conservative circles, but we use something like it all the time. One does not have to believe that all of reality is merely a construction based on uncertain assumptions to use the techniques of deconstruction. Everyone, in fact, believes that some other people have constructed a world-view that is a house of cards. Atheists believe that of religious people. Religious people believe that of atheists. Few of us are good at deconstructing our own beliefs, though we might make attempts in limited areas.
But really, among the academics who use the tools of deconstruction all the time, which of them has deconstructed the writings of the anti-war movement? To deconstruct is to reveal the underlying assumptions* of a set of ideas. The critic reads the text noticing not only what is written, but what is left out. Say we read a history and note that there are no women mentioned. Reflecting on why the source documents don’t mention them, or why the current author did not endeavor to discover something about them, or why editors would pass over this, or your professor assign the work is to begin to deconstruct the text. Discovering hidden psychological issues, looking at words chosen and words seemingly avoided, examining how the writer believes she knows what she knows – these are all deconstructive tools. In the visual arts, examining the background, the size, the materials, the juxtaposition can all be revealing.
Elaborations on this can go far afield, noting the seeming accidental sound correspondence between words that reveal parallel or reverse meaning. Important sounds much like impotent, and a text that overuses or overemphasizes the former term may be unconsciously suggesting the latter. Objections to deconstructionist readings often fasten in ridicule on such distant associations. A deconstructionist would maintain that working often in this environment of hidden and elusive associations teaches one to perceive them more easily. The objectivist would maintain that the delicate and subtle threads of this cloth are in fact nothing at all, and that the emperor has no clothes.
I find deconstruction in the limited sense to be a useful tool for reading and understanding speech and writing. It is a type of critical reading which looks underneath, beside, behind, and in the mirror. There is something quite addictive about it, however, and the desire to see deeper and deeper into the mysteries which elude lesser mortals is quite sweet to entertain. Deconstruction can easily disintegrate into codespeak among practitioners, congratulating themselves that their opacity of expression proves their exceptional abilities of understanding.
Deconstruction is a weapon meant to be used on one’s own personal and collective beliefs, which everyone uses on others instead. Modernists and postmodernists both use it, with this difference: postmodernists claim they use it on everyone, including themselves; modernists claim they use it on no one. Both use it on the other.
Those who read around among the psychbloggers should note that deconstruction is very much what Dr. Sanity, One Cosmos, and others do. They note what things are left out of progressive arguments, what reverse or punning meanings apply, what authorities progressives “privilege” to speak, and what all this means for understanding their texts.
*Yes, that is a very simplified definition, but you’d be surprized how well it holds up in practice. There is considerable resistance to any simple definition of deconstruction, as definition itself gets caught up in frameworks of epistemology and authority. Nonetheless, however long Derrida, DeMan and their devotees go on about how elusive it is to define deconstruction, and how it is all about the conversation that one has with the texts and our viewing of them, whenever they actually deconstruct something, this is what they do.
I relate this to the Duke Men's lacrosse case here.
Deconstruction has a bad name in conservative circles, but we use something like it all the time. One does not have to believe that all of reality is merely a construction based on uncertain assumptions to use the techniques of deconstruction. Everyone, in fact, believes that some other people have constructed a world-view that is a house of cards. Atheists believe that of religious people. Religious people believe that of atheists. Few of us are good at deconstructing our own beliefs, though we might make attempts in limited areas.
But really, among the academics who use the tools of deconstruction all the time, which of them has deconstructed the writings of the anti-war movement? To deconstruct is to reveal the underlying assumptions* of a set of ideas. The critic reads the text noticing not only what is written, but what is left out. Say we read a history and note that there are no women mentioned. Reflecting on why the source documents don’t mention them, or why the current author did not endeavor to discover something about them, or why editors would pass over this, or your professor assign the work is to begin to deconstruct the text. Discovering hidden psychological issues, looking at words chosen and words seemingly avoided, examining how the writer believes she knows what she knows – these are all deconstructive tools. In the visual arts, examining the background, the size, the materials, the juxtaposition can all be revealing.
Elaborations on this can go far afield, noting the seeming accidental sound correspondence between words that reveal parallel or reverse meaning. Important sounds much like impotent, and a text that overuses or overemphasizes the former term may be unconsciously suggesting the latter. Objections to deconstructionist readings often fasten in ridicule on such distant associations. A deconstructionist would maintain that working often in this environment of hidden and elusive associations teaches one to perceive them more easily. The objectivist would maintain that the delicate and subtle threads of this cloth are in fact nothing at all, and that the emperor has no clothes.
I find deconstruction in the limited sense to be a useful tool for reading and understanding speech and writing. It is a type of critical reading which looks underneath, beside, behind, and in the mirror. There is something quite addictive about it, however, and the desire to see deeper and deeper into the mysteries which elude lesser mortals is quite sweet to entertain. Deconstruction can easily disintegrate into codespeak among practitioners, congratulating themselves that their opacity of expression proves their exceptional abilities of understanding.
Deconstruction is a weapon meant to be used on one’s own personal and collective beliefs, which everyone uses on others instead. Modernists and postmodernists both use it, with this difference: postmodernists claim they use it on everyone, including themselves; modernists claim they use it on no one. Both use it on the other.
Those who read around among the psychbloggers should note that deconstruction is very much what Dr. Sanity, One Cosmos, and others do. They note what things are left out of progressive arguments, what reverse or punning meanings apply, what authorities progressives “privilege” to speak, and what all this means for understanding their texts.
*Yes, that is a very simplified definition, but you’d be surprized how well it holds up in practice. There is considerable resistance to any simple definition of deconstruction, as definition itself gets caught up in frameworks of epistemology and authority. Nonetheless, however long Derrida, DeMan and their devotees go on about how elusive it is to define deconstruction, and how it is all about the conversation that one has with the texts and our viewing of them, whenever they actually deconstruct something, this is what they do.
I relate this to the Duke Men's lacrosse case here.
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