A Tense Reflection on Theism

I have learned in the course of my study in philosophy about the construct that we call Knowledge. This is not to say that I have acquired knowledge, necessarily, which is itself somehow true--but that is another point entirely. Rather, I have learned about the manner and nature of knowledge, about its basic makeup. We say that knowledge seems to be the product of three components, although there is quite a lot of well-respected interlocutory about including a fourth. The three pillars, for now, are: belief, truthhood, and justification.

To illustrate the meaning of each of these is a necessary part of understanding the way in which they fit together. First, in order to say, "I knew that," it is obvious that the speaker would have had to have believed in the thing in the first place. It would be senseless to say that I knew the sun would rise today, if I did not believe in that statement in the first place. The second tenet is truth of the statement, for it is impossible to say that you know something which is false. We call this situation simple belief, as it is clearly a misnomer to identify something as knowledge if it actually does not exist; this is a major point of contention for many people, if I assert that they can have an opinion about anything, but that some opinions are just wrong. This statement is based on the disconnect between belief and knowledge, which centers upon the degree of truth present in the evidence: I could not rightly say, "See, I knew the sun was going to rise today!" if it turns out that the sun did not actually do this. Finally, justification is needed in order to validate any belief because we call it knowledge. In the sun example, we might use as justification the evidence that the sun has always risen, and this is in fact what we call daytime; therefore, if the sun rises, it must be day. Ipso facto, it is semantically impossible to be wrong about the sun rising "today", because every time the sun rises, it is day. I also have no reason to believe that the sun would not rise--and I have total reason to believe that it will--because that is the only option that anyone has ever been aware of: it is, for all intents, impossible to imagine a situation in which the sun simply did not rise, and to expect that it will is entirely reliable. Thus justified in my belief, which has indeed turned out to be true, I can satisfactorily say that "I knew the sun would rise today."

By now, I have come to measure all of the statements which hold a claim to knowledge by the rubric of the epistemological triumvirate delineated above. This is why, when claims about plain belief are accepted by others as actual truths during a conversation--or worse, during discourse--I shudder at the blight of intellectualism.

Based on this metric, I cannot classify myself as an atheist. This is manifest in the polarized language of that system of thought: there is no god is a system of thought whose truth or falsity is necessarily and irreversibly undefinable. I can neither classify myself as a a theist, because I do not believe that there is a god, so this claim would fall short on the belief component, in addition to provability. Before I relegate myself to the mired and uninteresting camp of agnosticism--of which we are all necessarily members, incidentally--I offer one parting shot at the theists. I am a man of logic, and a firm believer in its principles as tools for the acquisition of knowledge. So I will be hoisted by my own principles, and lay off of the claim that there is no god. But I am also, at my core, a pragmatist. Let me end this analysis with a thought, then, and one which many thinkers before me have shared: while I do not know one way or the other, I so strongly suspect that a god does not exist that I have come to believe that pursuit of such a thing, or devotion to it in any baseless regard, are each a proper waste of time.

Cobblestones

Rome is built on top of interlocking stones that link together like pieces in a giant dirty jigsaw puzzle. The buildings, like earth-toned pastel crayons, have banisters and overhangs and balconies which are draped in ivy curtains. The food and drink are rich, and seem to be more like a custom than a necessity: there is ritual in ordering an espresso, in selecting a piece of pizza, in unwrapping the chocolate. This was one of the most charming things about Rome: it seemed as if going out to drink wine was simple, an occasion instead of a party. There is a notable difference between this place and many of the other European cities I have visited. The people do not seem to be acting cohesively. There is no flow of traffic, or center of activity. Instead, everything appears random--due partially to the inclement weather, no doubt--and the streets are comparably sparse, though busy. The way that people move and assemble here reminds me of the way that a pot of water starts to boil. A few bubbles gather around the sides, at first, and then there are small bursts here and there, whose random situation and timing give the illusion of important and rising activity. A busy sky hangs over Paris, a heavy sky over Dublin, and an angry sky over London: Rome will have none of it, choosing instead that its sky should feature the only stillness in the city. Walking everywhere, we took some pictures and climbed over monuments as we skipped in between the rain.

As I have grown up and traveled more, I have become more comfortable in settings such as this one: long train rides, uncertainty about orientation and language, and living out of a duffel bag. I have also began to appreciate some of the things with which I have lost touch. Journaling is one habit that fits into the category. I also spend a lot of time now doing magic squares, thought experiments, reading essays, and counting. I think this past summer was a point of particular drought for those activities, which was good, ultimately, because while I really enjoy the exercise that that sort of thinking provides, I also think it tends to drive you a little bit insane. After all, how stable can a person be if almost everything on his top five spare time activities list relates roughly to things jot down in a notebook?

One recent reconnection which has been a wonderful treat is the new contact I've had with a good friend from elementary school. She was my purpose for going to Rome, and it has been brilliant to get a little closer to her, again. It is always comforting to find someone else my age who openly welcomes the reality that there is no money to be found in studying the classics, and yet cannot choose but to pursue that course anyhow. More than that, it is nice to know that two people can change a whole lot in ten years, and yet still arrive in relatively similar proximity to one another.

The Great Shift

Below is the content that I have imported from another blog to which I regularly contribute. If you have the time or the inclination, please do visit it, and make absolutely as many comments as you wish. It is very important and interesting work that is being done, there, and one of my greatest hopes is that more people are apprised of it.

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The first plenary session of ISP 29 provided some background information about education theory, and about university responses to the shifts in economics and social stressors. I did not know much about higher education as a field of study before arriving in Salzburg, but given my five-year career as a citizen of the California State University system, I considered myself to be qualified to speak about it experientially, and to analyze the lag between producing a problem and identifying it, between identifying it and lumbering to fix it; and moreover, the synapse between the theory and the application is sometimes so incredibly wide, that it rivals the gorge between recognition and rectification. During my term at San Jose State University, I had the fortunate opportunity to participate on a very few faculty-strong panels, to work closely with individual faculty members on academic pursuits, and to provoke some conversation regarding the often unseen bits of university politics: the committees. But I never got to flick on the light and peer around the pedagogical room. I wonder--and wonder is the only verb whose meaning I might pick, because we undergrads are not allowed to know how most decisions on campus are made--how often professors and deans stay static on their theories of higher education simply because choosing to change would be too much work. Certainly, there is a bounty of examples evident to students which make us say to each other, Why does no one address this? How can it be that they cannot see this imbalance or the other, this deficiency, that flaw? And if they can hear, why don't they listen?

Tish Emerson, who lectured on the nature of university politics, mentioned quite poignantly that "moving from the edges to the center doesn't just change you, it changes the center." In context, Emerson seemed to be charging the university faculty in attendance with actively engaging the groups who currently rest on the "fringes" of the institution. As the conversation around developing this archetype of "student as global citizen" begins to build momentum and to take a discernible shape, this mandate is an important one to keep in mind. After all, it seems to me that if there is a fringe, we must infer that there is some group that is less welcome and perhaps included less often than others. And if we exclude some types some of the time, how, then, can we consider ourselves to be global citizens? This prescription seems to be self-evident to me, and it met with general affirmation from each of the audience members; it was certainly worth making public, so that the idea remains in the forefront and acts as a lens through which to scrutinize the projects that each university will produce.

But surely, when the term "fringe" comes about, we cannot settle for thinking that this is a reference to one economic class or religious sect or cultural background; it is not a term that necessarily recalls an academic discipline or sexual orientation, a language or belief or a custom or any other political stripe. I fall into the traditionally empowered set of virtually every classification, so I am certainly not in a position to complain about personal disenfranchisement. But in my experience, when the university is the setting, sometimes the "fringe" group is the students themselves.

The awkward part for students, I feel, is that much of the important activity takes place behind a sort of administrative curtain, which shrouds from student input all of those decisions which will result in drastic changes to student life. It was my tiny experience that I had a voice, that its use was encouraged, and that its quality was nurtured. But many of my peers, who eventually became frustrated by the confusing maze that can be university bureaucratic procedure, simply grew tired of using that voice to affect any sort of change on our own behalf. I very often felt that I could raise a concern, but that it was as if I was talking into a pillow: the hum of my concern was inaudible, and it went unheeded. I realize that as struggling undergraduates, we may not be able to provide sharp and critical commentary on the university's current or proposed pedagogy, but we are certainly able to tell how the decisions that the faculty make are affecting our days on campus, the quality of our degrees, and our general satisfaction with the institution. It is manifest that we, the students, have neither the training nor the experience to be able to make high-level decisions, but should we not have input? If the administrators are to take Emerson's advice, perhaps the first step would be something of an inventory of all major panels to whom it is charged to make influential policy decisions, and to then examine how much input students are able to offer to the panels; or alternatively, take account of how many of the staple committees in academic affairs or student affairs are chaired by faculty who are champions of student affection, instead of an administrator with whom no student can identify? I just loved my experience at San Jose State. The degree of diversity that I experienced there, culturally and ideologically, was fantastic. My most fervent wish for that institution--and any like it--is that future students will be able to reflect on their tenures, and feel that they were mixed into the center, a part of what the university was.

Every New Dawn

"I am not asking you to believe in my ability to bring about 

real change. I am asking you to believe in yours." 

--Barack Obama

The first hours of the day always start out the same. Externally, there is always a bit of a haze, because the light has been shut out for a long while, and the sky is just being allowed to breathe again. Things begin to wake up again, to stretch their arms and to blink their sleep-stung eyes, and to extract themselves from their lethargy. There is a burst of color now, where there was once only opaque streetlight, or darkness. And now, once again, there are options. Internally, some transitions are taking place, but the most important ones are in secret. Getting out of bed because the light is breaking the curtain, everyone can see that happening. But what is different about this day in particular, when it is set against all the other early mornings which have come before it? If the calendar simply flips and another dawn comes, the day skirts away from you without notice or consideration, and then the light speeds away, then you have lost something dear and uncommon: a new chance.

Today is the occasion of the inauguration of Barack Obama, or, as most people seem to conceive of it, it is the last day that George Bush will hold office in the United States. It has been my experience that the reaction is categorically positive, but even so, there is a tremendous amount of gradation. I have spoken to some people who seem to feel that the switch can be nothing but positive, and yet are wary that the promises which have been made far exceed the degree and the quantity that will be possible in the near future. Some people are optimistic about the new president as a person, but are not confident that he, even in concert with other governmental leaders, can rectify the drastic situation in which find ourselves economically and politically. Yet others still profess total faith that Obama will rebuilt and steady the great ship which has been steered astray, torn at by the choppy sea and wrecked upon ancient boulders. For my part, I am not sure that I buy into any of these viewpoints, but that is my general position as a skeptic. I am neither sure that the drive behind any of these beliefs truly matters, considering the sort of world that I would favor. 

The concept of America as the dominant power--or maybe even as a world power--is obsolete. It is laughable, quite literally, when politicians talk about restoring the United States to supremacy: that rhetoric holds absolutely no weight with the academics I have met here, who suggest unwaveringly that the arrogance and blindness of our governmental leaders is the exact reason that what they say will happen, will not. Communitarianism and continent-nations in the vein of the EU are coming, and it is simply embarrassing: the assertion that a nation with nearly one-thousand military bases, the third-lowest opinion rating, an atrocious economy, the 15th best access to high-speed internet, and a pitiful healthcare crisis will be restored because we have the liberal thinking sufficient to have elected a half-black man to be president. With the global economic downturn and the morass in the Middle East, both of which are commonly linked to a negative perception of America specifically, the incredible animosity that most of the world otherwise feels towards our nation is immediately evident as an American abroad. A bar fight erupted in Old Town, and the Austrian student I was chatting with mentioned, upon hearing one of the combatants yelling in a Slavic language, "I'm surprised he's not American." Two students from the Fachhochschule asked me if Bush was kidding about not having decided about evolution, and then looked at each other uncomfortably when I apologized for him. It seems as if almost everyone else in the world is uneasy having the United States around.

And the academy knows it. Several of the presentations that we have seen so far have showcased some staggering statistics about the image of America in Europe and Asia. The surveys revealed that those asked cared more for North Korea and Russia than for the United States; they believed that the second biggest shame of the Bush administration, and second leading contributor to a negative view of the United States, is the response to Hurricane Katrina; they voted 97.7% for Obama in a global internet poll, while 52% of Americans did. Guantanamo, and the immaterial policies that echo that physical structure, seem to be third. It is not the case, that the American public is doing direct harm to these people who express ardently anti-American sentiments. But look at the statistics. In that global poll, McCain only carried four nations: the Sudan, the DRC, Cuba, and Iran. The United States, based on percentage of votership, would be fifth on this list. This is the crisis, not the strength of our dollar or the morale of the consumer. It is not that we have no power, it is that we have no companions.

But a new dawn breaks, as it tends to, just when things are in their darkest hue. I do not believe that a new presidency and a new year will mean a new prominence. I believe that a change means a chance, and that perhaps the most important first step is a disintegration of the vision that we project on the conditions in the world. Enough with the obsession about being the last best hope for protecting human rights: we are not that. Abandon the notion that we are deserve or achieve full spectrum dominance, politically: we have failed. The good news, though, is that these statuses are wholly irrelevant in the face of challenges that we must address together. A hegemonic attitude is a reversion, and it confounds us. Let us not permit this day to flight before our eyes; I implore you, on behalf of a youth which has a desperate hope for the success of its shared future: let us blink ourselves awake, take the new dawn into our hands, and make this occasion worthy of positive note.

How to Empathize

The plenary session today was one that I had heard before: Reinhold Wagnleitner, one of the more eccentric and beloved friends of the Seminar, performed his staple lecture "America and The World: Visions at a Distance". This was the third time that I had heard an iteration of this presentation, and each time I internalize a larger portion of the slides that he shows, a number which easily exceeds 130. The paramount tenet of Reinhold's lecture is that perception, not fact, is a preeminent factor in creating an environment in which global citizenship is possible. This position makes immediate sense. Ironically, the problem of perception seems to be just as present intra-nationally in the United States as it is internationally about the United States.

Here is where we enter the problem of empathy that I want to address. In the discussion after the presentation, a predictable amount of self-gratifying noble liberalism hung thick in the room, while any shrewd or cutting analysis of the way in which we go about changing this negative perception was simply eschewed from the dialogue. Luckily, I have this blog, so the pressure to speak about my ideas (which seem to be decidedly radical, and stand in juxtaposition even more prominently in a mildly conservative demographic such as this one) never becomes so much that my head collapses in on itself like a dying star. The pervasive attitude of many of the speakers seemed to be that in order to fix many problems related to persecution and suffering and human rights violations and greed, these themes must be underscored in the school system. Okay, maybe: but I think that faculty forget sometimes that school matters far less than visual media, in terms of mass education. But I'll concede the point, because my objection about that premise leads nowhere interesting to discuss. From this premise, the room forwarded their next assertion that the best--and perhaps only--way to ensure that these themes are enduring is to demonstrate them in person; for instance, to do service trips and language studies and study abroad would be the best--and again, perhaps only--way to ingrain a lasting impression in students that caring for one another is of vital importance.

Well.

I immediately and fervently objected, and I like the idea! My position is this, and it is simple: I am saddened by the notion, if it is true, that we have become a nation or a people who cannot learn except by doing. There are some things, I think, which a desirable version of a human being is able to intuit, facts about the world which must be true in order to the world to function properly, ethically: to believe otherwise is to deny our soft power of intellect. One of these principles, for example, is that, in any complex society, there must be some meta-ethics that are necessarily true, full stop. I cannot imagine to be satisfied with the notion that in order to understand that slavery or misogyny or racism are wrong, we must directly experience them, or meet with people who might "tell us their stories" of how terrible those things are. Can we not discern that these and other certain acts and attitudes are wrong, a priori, and that the experience is indeed the way that we might change the situations which we have identified as unsatisfactory, rather than the way that we learn about it in the first place? Action as activism, I say; not action as education. And by extension, the message is extremely upsetting: we cannot acquire genuine knowledge of a thing by thinking about it, we must have it happen to us. This assertion implies that certain terrible acts must occur first, before we can determine that they are unwanted. Is that the sort of world that we wish to create, or worse, to encourage?

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Kyle Brown, gentleman and scholar that he is, has written a lovely rumination on the subject of involvement and belonging (but also on the informal subject of San Francisco antics). I have thought a great deal about that subject, as we all are compelled to do. To contradict the point I have just made above, I do believe that it is a necessary pre-condition of self-actualization that a person has felt that, in fact, he does not belong.

On the Brink, All Together

I charge you, young soldiers of thought and art, to take up the arms of your talent and to boldly declare yourself. During my time in Salzburg, I have been struck by the amount of confidence that faculty from the States and from Europe, some of whom are very reputed thinkers, profess that they have in the world's youth. I see a tremendous discrepancy between the potential that they suggest we have individually, and the means that we are afforded, generically. That is to say, I can count on my hands the number of occasions that I had to hear conversation about university policy, for example, or to understand a justification for a civil law or a process that seemed to make no sense. But if we are the ones who have all this latent potential, then why not offer us a podium? I do not necessarily think that this amounts to hypocrisy or empty flattery, but it certainly does confound any student (or young person, full stop) who thinks about it critically. Why affirm someone's potential, and then squash their opportunity?

On the Seminar's website, I have extrapolated some of the tenets of this mismatch, which I have started to refer to as the academy disconnect. It seems to me that some of the disparity is directly connected to the concept of change. I have heard the old adage about change being the only constant, but I have also heard the contrasting axiom that those who are the authority are uncomfortable with the rustling of change. It simply will not work to disallow the next generation to take gradual, measured steps onto the pedestals of authority, or to dissolve and resurrect them as we estimate they should be. After all, if the leaders of the future are stifled, they very clearly will not have the full perspective of experience, for it is often one's failures which reveal the new and best way to do a thing. I therefore wish to advocate a change in perspective, as a resolution of this disconnect. Instead of viewing a contrary opinion or a burgeoning young leader as subversive, disruptive, or destructive, let us instead conceive of it or him as a product of the full sum of current leaders and opinions. One person must necessarily replace the next, and if a new and strange philosophy comes with him, then the current generation has no one to blame but itself, for it is the creator of all that is incoming. Thus, the viewpoint that one is being supplanted falls away: instead, a new leader or ideology is left in place of the old one, as its successor but also its progeny. As an apple falling from a tree is not cause for the tree to fear that another will sprout up, rather the old tree should be proud that it will engender some fresh new thing: this is the way of progress.

Sponsorship

My pioneer post on the Seminar's blog has just been published. I know that my readership must linger in the mid-to-high single digits, but I would be incredibly thankful if each of you would please check out the catalog held by the Salzburg Global Seminar. I will do my best to publicize through this blog whenever I post on the Seminar's site, such that you all might be charitable enough to pay a visit to my benefactor. There is some fantastic content to be found there, and it is written by some major world players, such that the articles that are contained on that blog are good lenses through which the generally secretive processes of international NGOs and the UN can be seen with fantastic acuity.

My first entry, which simply takes the form of an introduction of my role on the blog, can be found here. Other links to my Seminar articles will follow in individual entries on this blog, but again, please do visit the Salzburg Global Seminar blog in its entirety. It would be a great service to me, to appear as if I am making a difference which is measurable; everything else I am doing here, it seems, is intrinsically positive, but has no metric. And sometimes, in cases such as these two connected blogs, the tangible evidence is just so satisfying!

The Interim

It has been very difficult recently to break away enough quality time to constuct a post that merits posting, so I figured that a small update and then a chronicle of impending posts would be sufficient. It can be hard sometimes to maintain the motivation to visit this blog, because whenever I am on the computer at work, I am usually very methodical and I try to be very precise so as not to waste any paper in the machine or space on the page; this blog is antithetical to those constraints, and to add to that, I am sometimes so exhausted after a day at the Seminar that casual writing does not quite seem to fit into my plans. Sleeping wins out, or at least the idea that I should sleep. Alright, then. Here it goes: a quick update, and then an unorganized list of the longer posts I'm currently developing, most of which have a philosophical bent because they were almost categorically inspired by conversations or plenary sessions that took place last week.

First, I have received some exciting news, regarding a special project for next month. Unfortunately, IHJR, which I was looking forward to tremendously, has lost funding sufficient to support an intern; thus, that opportunity has been lost, but as sometimes happens in life, it has been supplanted by another one. David has put to me the idea of organizing and, in some capacity, running the blog for the Salzburg Global Seminar. It is my impression that most of the writing that is currently contained on that blog is conceived of by higher administration, including our president Steven Salyer; because of their status, their presence at the actual sessions in Salzburg is necessarily infrequent, and while the prominent sessions--ones run in partnership with the UN or high government, for example--certainly warrant their presence, they simply cannot record their thoughts about every session that we run. Thus, the job for which I had been highered initially has disappeared, and a job for which I am more appropriately equipped has materialized. Tangentially, it is likely that I will inherit some responsibility to run a social network for ISP alums, with particular emphasis on student outreach. This will very likely mean a facebook account: I am excited about this prospect in an entirely different way. While both of these opportunities will afford me the chance to develop my skills at writing and analysis, and will be supported in purpose by the academic sector of the Seminar, I will also get the chance to practice my research and communication skills, and to exercise a bit of creativity both intellectually and socially.

Last week was extraordinarily busy, requiring a totally different work schematic than I am used to. Instead of last nights and quick bursts of action, the intern office--now a bit lonelier for the absence of Daniel, who has returned to university--ground out some long hours and saw some early mornings. I feel a bit like a man playing a marionette, who works intricately behind the scenes but does not participate with his audience. I am learning a great deal about the manner of office business, about planning and organization for large conferences, and about the way in which university pedagogy really tends to burden the faculty who are the most interested in making a positive change in a holistic fashion. Obviously, there are tremendous financial constraints to be considered, especially these days, and doubly so for small schools, so the breakout group sessions are a great forum for discussing in great detail the creative ways in which the university higher administration must be provoked to part with its funds. It is important to remember, as Jochen wisely interjected, that when we say resources, we should caution not to think of solely financial prospects. Instead, we should remember to consider less material supplies, like effort, energy, time, support, and so on.

There are, as in most university proceedings, frequent mentions of certain ubiquitous key words, which seem to be terms that the faculty use as tools, and yet which have become terms that create some obfuscation to any acute discussion of theory. For example, I heard the words "stakeholder," and "inclusion" many times, but each of these seemed to be references to "those persons which must be involved so that our project is not shut down by those same people"; "broadening horizons" and "matriculation" seemed to be code for "make sure that we have a study abroad program"; "heritage" sometimes as a replacement for "non-white culture" or "non-rich experience". I do not see the way in which this sort of flowery language is helpful: if you mean disenfranchised, just say it. If you mean unacceptable, don't say "challenging" or "unaddressed". To suggest that something is "a new focus for us" is not the same as admitting the truth that is has been, until now, "at least a moderate failure". I know that ego is necessarily involved in this sort of terminology, and I am equally aware that my abrasive criticism of these terms are examples of my own stain of psychological egoism. So, in order to return my focus to addressing a problem instead of simple ranting, let us re-examine the purpose of having these sorts of seminars in the first place: creating a new and better system.

Large amounts of university politics seem to be a game concerning who to please and who to excise, which to attend and which to ignore, when to praise and when to correct. I think that each of these activities is necessary, obviously, but I'm not sure that the best way to reach definite decisions or to execute orders is to link that process to the best way to please the people who control the funds or who run your department; what if, for instance, that those administrators have aims that are otherwise concerned, and are not truly and ardently fixed on producing well-rounded, quality students? Moreover, if an institution endeavors to instill in its students some particular outlook or persuasion--social justice, for example--then how can it be said that this goal is realized and is in fact achieved, if the wording of the message is itself unclear? How is the inclusion of buzzwords in a plan or a slogan or a project sufficient evidence that what you have created is good, or useful?

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Another one of these words which seemed to obscure the conversation around global citizenship is the term itself. I think that it may be that we have considered the nature of the issue incorrectly, in the first place. Instead, I suggest that there should be two terms, each of which will subdivide the term which is now used, and will then occupy its respective field of academia and of social programming. For more speculation on this, see my post entitled "Global Citizenship as a Misnomer".

I have begun to give consideration to the role that historical accounts play in our intercultural narrative. Over the past week, many esteemed professors and scholars who visited the Seminar referenced events from the past that somehow created a schism, or animosity, or otherwise disrupted the fabric of social communication. But something began to twitch in my mind about the import of retelling stories of a traumatic shared past. I have come up with a nascent version of what I believe to be a dissonance between the intent of education about legacy, and the actual outcome of that sort of conversation; I have labored to construct an idea of historicism which I have outlned in the entry "A New Approach to History".

A project which I have been pouring myself into since early summer is a thought experiment about the way in which prayer and worry are connected. There is a passage in Philippians which commends the power of Jesus to relieve a believer of his anxiety, by simply investing oneself in a practice of prayer and ritual. This advice is antithetical to me, so I started to sketch a draft of a playful essay that would outline the link between the existence of prayer and the existence of worry, which I have, without much inspiration, called "On the Interrelatedness of Prayer and Worry".

Finally, during a plenary session held last week, I started to toss around the issue of how ethical theory can be gracefully applied trans-communitively, that is, between different "sovereign" groups of people in the United States. While this too will be a bit of a playful submission, I am genuinely interested in the decline of deontological morality except in very politically conservative constructs, such as fundamentalist churches. There seems to be some link between anti-intellectualism and anti-relativism, but there also seems to be a growing persuasion among the very liberal to condemn an idea of objectivism. That is, it seems as if neither the very conservative nor the very liberal are willing to accept that normative ethics can be categorically perscriptive, and yet moderate and easy to accept and apply. I have titled this entry "Regarding Morality in the Modern Communitarian Archetype".

Thanks for reading, now and in the future.

Thoughts by the Fire

"...and so we beat on, boats against the current,

borne ceaselessly back into the past..."

--F.S. Fitzgerald

After the welcome reception, a group of the academic insomniacs at the Seminar gathered near the fireplace in the Great Hall. A welcome break from the usual grind which mostly takes place in front of a computer, this chat, which turned into a four-hour demi-debate mostly about international politics. I wish I had a more exact means of recording the content so that my review of the event would have some context, but burying my face in a computer or a moleskin would have sort of an effect opposite from the one I was glad to have achieved.

For the majority of the night, I was the only recent undergraduate student; a few of my colleagues are currently pursuing masters degrees in Europe, so their extended insight stood as a pleasant supplement to my own. Others, who had been or are currently professors, have such a comprehensive knowledge of world events and global political stressors that they seem to speak in a unique language. Interestingly, I heard a great deal of recollection and criticism of historical circumstance, which was often mitigated by an analysis of the way in which those events--and even people, mirrored, and in some cases--foreshadowed, ones that we currently face.

One idea, presented originally by my direct boss and brilliantly creative thinker David Goldman, kept resurfacing. It sounded Orwellian to me, but the scrutiny that the ardent student historian provided proved the archetype to be historically tenable, and hardly just a literary device. Whereas in the past the United States (and to some extent, Europe) had an enemy with a illuminable visage--that is, that it has generally been the case that we could point to a picture of who our enemy is, what he looks like, those issues which he holds to be important and true--the current administration and indeed world now face several respective enemies which are either intangible or or undefinable. An attempt to describe exactly which sorts of things we are fighting politically, for example, seems to be like trying to capture a morning fog with a butterfly net. This is to say nothing of our often maligned military pursuits, our confusing--and for me, virtually incomprehensible!--economic peril, and more broadly, our philosophical positions as ethical agents who must lead as well as apologize.

Another of the men in our group, Reinhold Wagnleitner, who is a perennial ISP faculty, American studies scholar, prime historian, and native Austrian, talked a great deal about the difference between the culture in the United States regarding voting for an issues or a candidate versus the idea that "the Europeans" have of how Americans actually think about those things. For example, he recalled, that even in a conservative Austria, there was a great deal of shock--followed closely by terror, I would imagine--in 2004 when Bush was re-elected. Reinhold outlined that the European electorate would never imagine that an American electorate would consider issues such as abortion rights, gay rights, and so-called "family values" when voting for a commander-in-chief. These are, conversely, the exact issues on which Bush ran his moderately successful platform for re-election; unimportant were his failure in Iraq and largely with any international government relations, his ignorance regarding climate control and environmental concerns, and his confounding stubbornness around the area of rational intellectual process versus stark religious adherence.

Another of the men and perhaps one of my chief mentors academically was Jochen Fried, a scholar whose repute exceeds even my aspiration. The words that the man chooses to use seem to be selected without effort but with great exactitude, and one of these words was "boldness". Jochen used the term to describe a hypothetical strategy which he and I, lone vocal islands in a group of eight, believed Obama may pursue: drop the wars in the Middle East, adopt a bit of an conscious isolationist strategy, and effectively declare to those unsettled and restless nations, "Fine, then: you deal with it, and consider us now left out". In my thinking, our interest in the countries with which we do not currently enjoy very diplomatic relations would now be fundamentally reactionary, in terms of foreign policy: we are willing when they are, any aggression will be addressed post hoc, and otherwise, we are now otherwise occupied with issues which are more likely to benefit from our concern with them (considering further that our isolation is also an acknowledgement that we are not wanted, and that we should therefore refrain from interference where we are not welcome).

I followed with a speculation that was categorized as radical, a term which is generally a good check that I've made a comment worth making. Jochen, I saw, smiled at several points during offerings such as these. In considering the breadth of challenges that face us, I suggested that we might have fallen victim to an iteration of the logical fallacy of false dilemma. In other words, whereas a traditional false dilemma fallacy posits that there are only two solutions to a problem which has many, and then condemns one of the solutions so that the speaker's alternative is portrayed as the only favorable course, this manifestation of the pesky fallacy creates the illusion that there are two alternatives which are pursuable and result-bearing, when in fact there is only one: to address one of the many impending issues that affects human beings categorically. These, which I suggested we might think of as meta-issues, would have a greater potential to yield results, or, conceived differently, absolutely must yield a result lest some sort of drastic and devastating change come about. Upon pursuing a solution to one of these meta-issues, we might, through our posture or our rhetoric, demonstrate: do you see the way in which we, the superpowers in this small world, are working on your behalf as well as ours? And we may challenge: now, what is it that you are protesting? Against whom do you now fight, and should you? It is this sort of realignment of the nexus of goals and ideology that will necessarily undermine any Nietzschean slave mentality aimed at tearing down the nations which control world processes, and similarly, will embolden any country or people whatsoever to achieve something which has not before been conceived: to fight alongside one another out of need, to imagine self-defense as confederacy with present enemies, because the goal has been changed.

Poetry Exchange

True, we do work hard here at the Salzburg Global Seminar. But most of us, being dedicated and fervent academics, get understandably restless when we work in front of a computer screen all day, producing not essays and research, but spreadsheets and biographies. I think it was waiting to happen for a few days, and finally the dam broke. Our dedicated vice president, Edward Mortimer, wrote a response poem to a clumsy poem written by Roger Angell; the rest is a thread of what followed over the course of the afternoon. Needless to say, the day passed more quickly when this bit of entertainment lightened intensity of the work load.



Rebuke of Roger Angell
...
Is this what you call ein Gedicht?
It reads to me like something sick'd
Up by a cat whose latest meal
Comprised more names than I could reel
Off in a month of zealous dropping,
Trimmed with a rich and creamy topping
Of facile rhymes that make you wince
And certainly do not convince.
Who are these people? Half at least
I know not if they're man or beast,
But hope that one within my range'll
Say WHO THE HELL IS ROGER ANGELL?

--Edward Mortimer

A Defense of Roger Angell

...
Ah, Roger Angell is a scribe
Of baseball, sports and various jibe
He spits a rhyme of games and men
And is published in mags and rags like when

He wrote his famous The Summer Game,

Five Seasons, Late Innings, and other frames

That describe the diamonds, bases, and bleachers

All part of the most American features.
Strike one, strike two, strike three you’re out!
But we must Once More Around the Park, no doubt,

From left to right and up the middle

The catcher and pitcher must end this riddle.
Who’s on First then you ask in rhyme?
Oh, just the writer of note for our ole pastime!

--Ben Glahn

A Criticism of A National Sport

...

Baseball? Of course. I might have guessed –
The sort of man whose every jest
Comes “out of left field” or, or declineth
To reach the “bottom of the ninth”.
But in a real game like cricket
He’ll score no run, nor take no wicket…

--Edward Mortimer

Hating the Game

...

Sir, do forgive me my impudence
But I must display true prudence
In defense of Ben and of our sport
Vis-à-vis this quick retort:
Baseball’s lasting kind appeal
Will, to the cunning eye, reveal,
A deep tradition, wrought in pride,
Mark’d by a graceful, measured stride.
Never has a sport conceived
By man or god been thus received
As baseball has, in our great nation
Which showers it with adoration:
I’ll pay no mind to that persuasion
Which sharply scorns this occupation.

--Travis Campbell

An Encouragement and a Challenge to Ben Glahn

...

The poet’s work, I’m sure you know,
Goes without praise, quite often; though
Nary should he end that craft
By which his truths inform the daft,
Lest men (whose stripes of ignorance
Pay each of us poor consequence)
Are let to run with idle minds
Whilst Time her fragile thread unwinds.
Speak then, of baseball, and Sport, at length
Restore the mighty Man his strength
Relax our minds and ease our stress:
Let your pen to paper press.

--Travis Campbell

A New Battle

...

I wonder how you can brag and boast
About the sports your nations host.
As foreign as your language is to me,
Are you rumblings about the sporting spree.
My origins, as all you know, gave rise poets and philosophers
Compared to which my wit just greatly suffers.
Alas, the aesthetes, to whom I can not aspire,
Unable to withhold all guns and fire,
Give me reason to believe,
The only cure to this enduring beef
Is shots and bangs that pierce even the Great Hall
Borne on neutral ground in a game of proper foosball.

--Daniel Sip

A Tip to Baseball, A Wag to Bonds

...
Excellent idea you have done thrown
Into the chance of electronic drone
But lest it not slip down forgot
I answer here to fill the lot.
You speak of ball and sport and Man,
Yet I know not which your thoughts demand.
My presumption yells The Babe, for sure!
Alas, I fear you mean that one, so poor,

That from his heart wrought green for fame

Swatted 73, but will not be bronzed with filthy name.
Now tis done my renounce o’ him,
I say not sorry nor sing no hymn.
Instead suggest I do the Game
Of which we speak must not go lame.
Come clean good men and hit your stride,

With dreams of spring and much yuletide!

--Ben Glahn

No Need for Name Calling

...
I’d advise you, sir, to tread on soft
For men, by words, I have slain oft
And lesser crimes did they transgress
Than to tarnish the great and strange success

Of players gone (though surely, here

I can admit my secret fear:
There was afoot some cheating scheme
Which tarnished up my oldest dreams)
Nonetheless, the paramount
Conclusion of our poet’s bout
Should be the union of our skills
To trump the rhymes of those whose ills
Condemn our sport, for we both call
Supreme the game of base-and-ball.

--Travis Campbell

A Truce Accord

...
Indeed my friend I can accept
the path on which your verse has stepped

I am advised to chart my course

to keep the choir from remorse

by treading soft with poets strength

but not to cross that dangerous length

where mortals trip and break apart

'neath the weight of tainted hearts.
A union fast of clever tongue,
Ah! never a song was better sung.
To the game itself I do not retort,
for the 60 nights til pitchers report
are better spent on prose on wit,
in the icy calm that winter does emit.

--Ben Glahn

Onwards and Upwards

...
Well pleased am I, upon this news
That poets skilled have called a truce
And now turn wits to pleasures fine:
To conversation, and to wine
To politics, and global cause
Stopping only yet to pause,
And give reflection to our squads,
Who, in March, will stretch their quads,

And trot to first, to short, and right

And against the other clubs, shall fight

To claim that treasured, vaulted prize:
Above the other teams, to rise.
How like our lives, this sport does seem--

That often too, each man does dream

To scamper out amongst the crowd

His noble voice to trumpet loud,

And silence doubt, to turn it back,

To brave maleficent attack,

To test his merit 'gainst the rest

In order to discern the best,

Bring calm to old, and hope to youth

With but one line of regal truth.

--Travis Campbell

Ears

First, before I lay into my actual topic, I encourage everyone to take a long look at the blog maintained by my good friend Kyle. He has assembled a savant-status review of the music released in 2008, which can be found here, and his proper blog homepage can be found just to the left: it is appropriately titled "Kyle's Grand Scale of Debauchery". Many congratulations to him for such a stellar and comprehensive narrative, and an encyclopedic knowledge about this medium.

------

It has struck me--and here I mean that, although it has always been a sensation that has antagonized me, I have recently began to experience and internalize a sort of visceral disgust--that there are a very few people who are in the public view who are interested in acting in accordance with the advancement of the quality of humankind. It makes me double-over, the intense frivolity that arches over even very serious issues, such as the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip. I have only just graduated with an undergraduate degree in philosophy, and in accordance with that meager status, I am not able to affect a great deal of action: as an individual and single author, I simply have no civic power. A reader might now think it prudent to start a response to this entry, leading in with the feeble comfort, yes, you do have power, for everyone who has a voice has power. But I am embarrassed and something close to heartbroken when I watch television news, or more broadly, any format which allows for people to give their opinion on world affairs or current events and conditions. The amount of triviality, or poor research, or feeble logic, or adulterous ideological barking that fills a segment is inarguably devastating to the public good.

One of the more startling things about these kinds of programs is the prediliction of both the guests and the hosts to know nothing and think badly, but speak loudly. I am not sure how it is that we can allow for the course of discourse to be inexorably linked to the whim of whomsoever controls the largest media conglomerate. It is not the hegemonic power that concerns me, it is the seeming destiny of those powers to pervert truths in order to advance certain viewpoints which is most disturbing, or more exactly, the drive to stimulate in the viewing audience a specific, boisterous reaction; the shows are inflammatory to an audience that cannot decide for itself, and grotesque to an audience that can: they are vacuous. With the broad scale of power that primetime news and talk shows seem to have over the majority opinion, or at least the potential sway that they are permitted, it seems that a shared goal of these organizations should rightly be to infuse some sort of message aimed at correction of a problem.

Ought not we each to seek solutions, instead of create noise for its own sake? One's own opinion--or worse, serving as a proxy for another's opinion--serves no intrinsic purpose, and satisfies no glaring need: it occupies space in our social narrative, but provides nothing in the way of quality. It is clutter. When one does not position himself rightly, and instead he filabusters and exclaims and postures, he objectively discredits his own cause; subjectively, though, he often becomes more appealing because of the lazy intellect and poor decision-making of the American dullard. In other words, two things may happen that make the fool appear amicable, and worse, intelligent: his audience may identify with or be tricked by his raucous language, and thus be set at ease that he has their interests in mind; or, he may, in all of his yattering, shut out the voice of the reasoned speaker, or otherwise turn off the appetite of the audience towards rationality, patience, and keenness. Anti-intellectualism in America is pervasive, and it is self-fecundate--for when all that is offered in the way of information is blind lauding of an ideology as a construct, and not analysis for its specific products, the world and the complex issues it contains become polarized.  Thus conceived, all one must do is pick either side, and then curse the other for its vices, never minding a careful reflection about his confederates or about problems that still exist in the world; when a person belongs to a side, that identity is enough to encourage the fool to feel secure that he is making a difference. There it is, then, the great ideological problem of the 21st century: the idiot is made the prince, and his enemy the scholar is become the bore.

Ghost Hunting

It is a long-standing tradition at Schloss Leopoldskron for interns to spend the night of a new year alone in the greater segment of the castle. Below is the record of that night, gracefully documented by the artful Daniel and his courageous (and ethereal) subjects.

Our first sighting of the unaware specter. The Marble Hall.

An over-shoulder appearance. The Library.

Sighting: mid-right of the frame. The Balcony.

First contact: at the typewriter.

The New Year

Streets of Vienna on New Year's Eve.

Concert in a Viennese square, New Year's Eve. They did not play Wham, contrary to our fervent demands.

The lake in front of the schloss, frozen over. The carves are from ice skates. Other than those, the surface is glassy to the point of see-through. The geese have to be ticked.

The Schloss, Daniel in the foreground. A day later, we got about 25cm of snow. Look at the sky: idyllic blue, and then by night, snow everywhere. Alps, you cruel temptress..

In the bierstube, last night of the Winter Festival 2008. This photo sort of reminds me of how presidents look when they're younger. Except we're way less rich. And Daniel is german, so he kinda can't be president.

Fireworks at midnight over the Wienfluss. Happy New Year, everybody.