The elections in the States are mostly decided, now, with Patty Murray having locked up Washington and clearing up some of that unsettling picture: we have, as a nation, shifted the balance of (especially financial) power in government to a party which seems to have no platform. I do know what their platform isn't, but a lot of stuff isn't. Like Louis C.K. would advise, "Some things are, and some things are not. Because you can't have 'everything is'--then, nothing wouldn't be. You'd have giant ants in top hats, tap dancing, all sort of crazy shit." And as a result of what we now don't know anything about, I have discovered something.
First, what we do know. Most clearly, we do know that we have elected three new congressmen who are categorically opposed to abortion, and one in particular from Kentucky, who is against it even in the case of the mother's life being compromised. I don't agree with it, not least of all because it's logically inconsistent--if you're for small government and for government charge over women's right to choose, your brain is either non-functioning, or you just don't like women very much, or you're religious, which fervently compels you to both. And speaking of inconsistency--and incompleteness, while we're at it--we know that there is a huge groundswell--a thing whose type I quite like--which has an aim that I very much do not, to the point of being scared of it. This is one of the principle points I am planning to come to in a later post, concerning the Contract from America. One pervasive theme that seems to exist in a lot of the rhetoric I read or see indicates that we, as a nation, are falling away from both deontological ethics and empirically-based utilitarian ethics, and we are starting to embrace a virtue-based system of ethics. By no means is this switch embodied by one part and not by another; nearly everyone with a microphone or under a spotlight seems to be guilty of this, and the only variance is the degree to which those ethics are supportable a priori or, which is more convincing in government, by way of precious evidence. This is deeply concerning to me; virtue ethics are a turret whose gunman does not require training to operate it.
When you embrace the fundamental truth of virtue ethics, that intrinsic and instrumental value are relative and individually determined, you necessarily trust everyone to make his or her own judgements about the common good and about the production of happiness against a rubric that you admit does not exist. In other words, you could equally defend selfishness and charity, and you can do either one as often and as vibrantly as you feel is appropriate. The kickback, and really the only check against being inconsistent or heinous, is that people eventually just stop hanging out with you, if you are horrible. But what if everyone behaves this way? Where is the check? And how can you tell who is more horrible, if that is all you are used to; or you are given a choice between equally vapid, detrimental options; or you are too ignorant to know the difference between horrible and nourishing? If you refuse to outline a cogent and consistent moral outline, as with deontology, then you lose even an attempt at rigidity or predictability. If you refuse utilitarianism, you admit that past evidence is not sufficient to persuade you that some action or attitude or stance is, or can be, more likely to cause happiness in people than another. And, having shrugged off those two structures, you embrace the whirlwind of relativism which has snapped up virtue ethics, and which can drop that system on its head, in a field a thousand miles away from where it was standing seconds earlier. All the systems have their flaws, and I have written a handful of papers on these; but I don't understand why, when the consequences of the decisions made by our politicians routinely govern our air, our bodies, our privacy, and our futures, we would so quickly abandon the idea that predictability is precious. It seems that we would rather vote for who we think a person is, and we want to leave behind what a person does and why a person chooses what he does.
I am confused by almost every politician who exists, because it seems as though they are either bad at thinking, bad at empathizing, or bad at feeling shame. To be worse is to be all three, and therefore to be the vast majority of suited grinners who we would see in newspapers, if we read them enough to know that you are doing us a disservice even by shaking our hands. I am confused by the people who are allowed to vote in our country, because of exit poll data and because of quotes in media. I am confused by priorities inculcated by most adults, in most states of the union, most of the time. I feel as if my future, or at least my satisfaction with it--my sense of confidence--is standing in front of a pillbox, and I am already looking down at my chest, touching the tear in my scorching jacket, knees weak and teetering, breathing smoke.
Showing posts with label future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label future. Show all posts
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Active
I start my day before the sun does. It's a rare thing for me to be able to say that, which is no surprise to anyone who actually reads this thing. I often say that my three favorite things are sleeping, eating, and napping, and the Austrians certainly make sure I eat well; but as for sleeping, well, my nights are thinner than a butcher's dog. This is a metaphor my headmaster dropped on us in our first week. It's precise.
Sunday is the only off-day that the school provides the students, and it was still as packed as a day of rest can be. Breakfast is at 8, and it was pancakes, and it was fruit and yogurt, and it was hot cocoa, and it was delicious. We then had cakes and coffee at Dallman's, a pastry shop up the road owned by the husband of one of the administrative gurus at the school, a lovely and smiling woman named Natascha. That's how things are in St. Gilgen; everyone is related to everyone, and the fashionable spread of news and secrets very strictly underscores that fact. Then just after noon, we cooked four pizzas the size of Vatican pulpit bibles, and we rode mountain bikes. That is, some of us did: I napped. This is also how St. Gilgen is: we are frenetic in pace, or we are power-switched off. This is the way of the restaurants, of the kids, of the weather coming over the mountains.
The first full week of school is over now, and I finally feel like I can update something worthwhile. This case proved impossible last week for two reasons. First, I knew that I would be way too busy to concentrate on something that calms me down. And second, I figured that most of what I said would have been nonsense, because it would simply change again this week. Both reasons were proved right, but those are no bother now: I have something of a schedule, and even though I'll be ragged come December, I'm glad I finally have a routine. On Mondays and Thursdays, I will take out a team of kids in the quad skiffs that the school reserves, and we'll be doing some rowing around Wolfgangsee. Tuesdays and Saturdays will be football. Wednesdays and Fridays, we have rehearsal for a stage adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes tale, which we will be putting on at the end of the term. Hopefully I'll also be able to shadow the advanced English and Math classes, and the philosophy equivalent in the International Baccalaureate program, which is called Theory of Knowledge. If that sounds packed, then our trips, hikes, mountain bike courses, and team sports visits are peppered into nearly every week of the term. We do, very happily, find ourselves served chocolate mousse or some kind of pastry with every lunch: you just can't complain about compulsory mousse.
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I started my first day of rowing coaching today. It was a delight. For the next year, I will be a member of the rowing club in St. Gilgen, and I will have two sessions a week. On Monday afternoons for four hours, I'm in charge of the juniors. Sixteen girls and one boy, as excitable as house cats, and some of them with equivalent swimming experience. A group of them, however, are remarkably skilled for their young age, and all of them are lovely and excited to learn. Rowing makes you feel like you're in charge, but also reminds you that what you are in charge of is very small and, through the lens of the other agents affecting you, you find that your keep is insignificant: a life lesson which cannot be learned too early, or it makes you tired the rest of your life.
Tomorrow is my day off. I am set to spend it in Salzburg, I think, with another boarding assistant who I am quite fond of, and with whom I get along as well as anyone in presently in Europe. I can't think of what to do yet, even, because my eyes hurt when I blink them and the kids, although this will never happen again, were given an erroneous quantity of sugar right before study period. This had made them unmanageable and dangerous, like gorillas wearing haberdashery. It is decided: tomorrow will be Schloss Leopoldskron, Old Town, the river, and when everyone comes to meet up with us at night, and the river is jetting with the newly lay storm water, it has to be the Augustinerbrau. I'm thankful to be active, finally, but there is just no substitute for the arrival of a very anticipated day off.
Sunday is the only off-day that the school provides the students, and it was still as packed as a day of rest can be. Breakfast is at 8, and it was pancakes, and it was fruit and yogurt, and it was hot cocoa, and it was delicious. We then had cakes and coffee at Dallman's, a pastry shop up the road owned by the husband of one of the administrative gurus at the school, a lovely and smiling woman named Natascha. That's how things are in St. Gilgen; everyone is related to everyone, and the fashionable spread of news and secrets very strictly underscores that fact. Then just after noon, we cooked four pizzas the size of Vatican pulpit bibles, and we rode mountain bikes. That is, some of us did: I napped. This is also how St. Gilgen is: we are frenetic in pace, or we are power-switched off. This is the way of the restaurants, of the kids, of the weather coming over the mountains.
The first full week of school is over now, and I finally feel like I can update something worthwhile. This case proved impossible last week for two reasons. First, I knew that I would be way too busy to concentrate on something that calms me down. And second, I figured that most of what I said would have been nonsense, because it would simply change again this week. Both reasons were proved right, but those are no bother now: I have something of a schedule, and even though I'll be ragged come December, I'm glad I finally have a routine. On Mondays and Thursdays, I will take out a team of kids in the quad skiffs that the school reserves, and we'll be doing some rowing around Wolfgangsee. Tuesdays and Saturdays will be football. Wednesdays and Fridays, we have rehearsal for a stage adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes tale, which we will be putting on at the end of the term. Hopefully I'll also be able to shadow the advanced English and Math classes, and the philosophy equivalent in the International Baccalaureate program, which is called Theory of Knowledge. If that sounds packed, then our trips, hikes, mountain bike courses, and team sports visits are peppered into nearly every week of the term. We do, very happily, find ourselves served chocolate mousse or some kind of pastry with every lunch: you just can't complain about compulsory mousse.
---------------------------------------------------
I started my first day of rowing coaching today. It was a delight. For the next year, I will be a member of the rowing club in St. Gilgen, and I will have two sessions a week. On Monday afternoons for four hours, I'm in charge of the juniors. Sixteen girls and one boy, as excitable as house cats, and some of them with equivalent swimming experience. A group of them, however, are remarkably skilled for their young age, and all of them are lovely and excited to learn. Rowing makes you feel like you're in charge, but also reminds you that what you are in charge of is very small and, through the lens of the other agents affecting you, you find that your keep is insignificant: a life lesson which cannot be learned too early, or it makes you tired the rest of your life.
Tomorrow is my day off. I am set to spend it in Salzburg, I think, with another boarding assistant who I am quite fond of, and with whom I get along as well as anyone in presently in Europe. I can't think of what to do yet, even, because my eyes hurt when I blink them and the kids, although this will never happen again, were given an erroneous quantity of sugar right before study period. This had made them unmanageable and dangerous, like gorillas wearing haberdashery. It is decided: tomorrow will be Schloss Leopoldskron, Old Town, the river, and when everyone comes to meet up with us at night, and the river is jetting with the newly lay storm water, it has to be the Augustinerbrau. I'm thankful to be active, finally, but there is just no substitute for the arrival of a very anticipated day off.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
City Lights
The newest punctuation in my life is a brand new living situation, which is fantastic and enervating in a couple of ways. I used to hate San Francisco, because I figured it was basically a confusing and intensely dirty version of San Jose. I remember feeling uncomfortable about the notion, which seemed to be more true every time I visited The City, that the rules that apply everywhere else are void anywhere on the windy peninsula. It's a strange thing to feel like your instincts are irrelevant. But now I'm comfortable with the feeling, which, as it turns out, is reducible to a much more simple, and somewhat more pleasing maxim: everyone gets to act like an adult, and eclectic is encouraged.
The paramount example of that attitude is located about sixteen man-sized steps from my front door, and is actually much closer than that: the window that opens into my living room exposes the upper hill and playground of Dolores Park, the stoic jewel of the Mission District. Fifteen square blocks of rolling green, freckled with palm trees and a footer of basketball courts, are the most attractive option I have found for any day that needs filling. Everything is relaxed there: the attitude, the pace, the rules, the music that flows from novelty stereos and the tin drums of whoever is paddling away. A woman waddles by our strewn-about blanket, offering tamales. A man visits later, selling pot truffles. Old men with cheeks like the palm of a baseball glove collect recyclables and stuff them into muddy burlap sacks. A whiffleball game has started on the south hill, and a speck of plastic lofts across the 74 degree sky. The world teems here, but calmly, and on its own. Time seems to skirt away fluidly, while we lie under the sun and cars flit down the curvy streets lining the park. The earth bumps underneath our ripped cotton comforter, conversation snapshots dance themselves along the wind, and you can fall asleep before you stop smiling.
The paramount example of that attitude is located about sixteen man-sized steps from my front door, and is actually much closer than that: the window that opens into my living room exposes the upper hill and playground of Dolores Park, the stoic jewel of the Mission District. Fifteen square blocks of rolling green, freckled with palm trees and a footer of basketball courts, are the most attractive option I have found for any day that needs filling. Everything is relaxed there: the attitude, the pace, the rules, the music that flows from novelty stereos and the tin drums of whoever is paddling away. A woman waddles by our strewn-about blanket, offering tamales. A man visits later, selling pot truffles. Old men with cheeks like the palm of a baseball glove collect recyclables and stuff them into muddy burlap sacks. A whiffleball game has started on the south hill, and a speck of plastic lofts across the 74 degree sky. The world teems here, but calmly, and on its own. Time seems to skirt away fluidly, while we lie under the sun and cars flit down the curvy streets lining the park. The earth bumps underneath our ripped cotton comforter, conversation snapshots dance themselves along the wind, and you can fall asleep before you stop smiling.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
A Heartbreaking Work
The decision which was made on May 26th by the California Supreme Court was in every way a concussion to the hope that I have for my future. The decision to uphold Proposition 8, passed in November of last year by a 5% margin, was extremely divisive. I can remember the intense despair that many of my friends and I felt, not because it hampered our ability to marry, but because it spoke so poorly of the tolerance common to the meagerly rational electorate. My view of that degree of hateful discrimination was, as it is ever more, simply this: I cannot bear the thought that so many people who are so bad at thinking are given so much power.
For me, ethical decisions are almost entirely logical processes which, while frequently stressing because of their ability to produce several rationally supported answers, are at the very least justified, arguable on some basis common to opponents, and amenable to scrutiny and revision. I will revisit this point often in this blog entry, in the debates which will inevitably follow it, and indeed throughout my life, owing to the maddening insistence of a worldview that almost any pain is a better option than intellectual numbness. The first part of my criticism stems from the way that people voted on the initial ballot; it is an issue of predictability. Deplorably, the voter data speaks volumes about the way in which lifestyle, not logic, informs the way that people vote.* I thought that in the supreme court, a body whose title trumpets the gravity of its purpose, there must be a tendency to get it right. In other words, I do not have confidence that any random majority will choose the right thing most of the time, but I do hope that a trained and rigorous council of experts will do just that. Today, that sentiment is proved worthless.
Briefly, for those of you who have not had time to read the public content the 6-1 majority decision, or about any of the defenses for either side, here is an unbiased recapitulation of the reason that the appeal was denied. After Proposition 8 was passed, the opponents to the proposition alleged that the vote amounted to a revision, which necessitates that two-thirds of the legislature rule in favor of its ratification. The corollary of this argument is that the law which would be enacted as a result of passing Proposition 8 is not simply an amendment to the state constitution, and therefore not available to the public to decide based on opinion. It is inaccurate, although understandable given the intense frustration prompted by the CASC decision, to suggest that the court ruled that a ban on same-sex marriages is constitutional. In fact, they have done the opposite of this only last year, whereupon over 18,000 same-sex couples were legally married. Rather, the CASC ruled first, in 2008, that marriage should extend to same-sex couples, and has ruled now, in 2009, that the public does indeed have a right to vote that it wants an amendment to the state constitution which would disallow this sort of union. Attorney General Jerry Brown also asserted in his appeal that the proposition would violate a Californian citizen's right to privacy, and that it rescind an inalienable right. The CASC flatly denied both of these appeals, stating simply: "No authority supports the attorney general's claim."
I say categorically that if you have voted in favor of Proposition 8, if you do favor its sentiment, or if you support the efforts of anti-appeal campaigns in that vein, I have an overwhelming and unmatched disdain for your position. There are many opinion-related matters in a wide variety of fields in which I may oppose a certain view in the argument for which I can see some sort of merit. That is to say, it is absolutely the case that I have disagreements with people, but I can almost always see that my opponent has some reasoning. Gay marriage is one instance which is not governed by this general rule of understanding. In my research of the initial proposition and of the recent court decision, I have encountered dozens of criticisms of gay marriage and of the position supporting gay marriage. Every tiny word of it is nonsense, and wholly unsupportable by any mind with the slightest portion of decency, modesty, or honesty. Not only do I firmly revile the desire to ban gay marriage, but I can see absolutely no evidence to support the assertion that is it either ethically supportable or utilitarian. The anti-gay marriage position is small, it is disgusting, and it embarrasses me every last second that it is allowed to be propagated.
--------------------------------------------------------------
*According to the raw data collected and aggregated by the Sacramento Bee following the poll results, those most keen to vote to restrict the legality of gay marriage were: Republican or conservative (82/85%), black (70%) or Hispanic (53%), Protestant (65%), Catholic (64%), a high school graduate (56%), older than 30 (55% for voters 30-44; 54% for voters 45-64; and 61% for voters 65 and older), gun owners (62%), supportive of the war in Iraq (85%), and supportive of Bush's policies and presidency (86%). According to the same data, those who voted to support the gay right to marriage were: registered Democrats, independents, or liberals (64/54/78%), white or Asian (51%), non-religious (90%), and post-graduate students (60%). Interestingly, 61% of the people who voted YES on Proposition 8 also said that race was a factor for their vote in the Presidential election.
For me, ethical decisions are almost entirely logical processes which, while frequently stressing because of their ability to produce several rationally supported answers, are at the very least justified, arguable on some basis common to opponents, and amenable to scrutiny and revision. I will revisit this point often in this blog entry, in the debates which will inevitably follow it, and indeed throughout my life, owing to the maddening insistence of a worldview that almost any pain is a better option than intellectual numbness. The first part of my criticism stems from the way that people voted on the initial ballot; it is an issue of predictability. Deplorably, the voter data speaks volumes about the way in which lifestyle, not logic, informs the way that people vote.* I thought that in the supreme court, a body whose title trumpets the gravity of its purpose, there must be a tendency to get it right. In other words, I do not have confidence that any random majority will choose the right thing most of the time, but I do hope that a trained and rigorous council of experts will do just that. Today, that sentiment is proved worthless.
Briefly, for those of you who have not had time to read the public content the 6-1 majority decision, or about any of the defenses for either side, here is an unbiased recapitulation of the reason that the appeal was denied. After Proposition 8 was passed, the opponents to the proposition alleged that the vote amounted to a revision, which necessitates that two-thirds of the legislature rule in favor of its ratification. The corollary of this argument is that the law which would be enacted as a result of passing Proposition 8 is not simply an amendment to the state constitution, and therefore not available to the public to decide based on opinion. It is inaccurate, although understandable given the intense frustration prompted by the CASC decision, to suggest that the court ruled that a ban on same-sex marriages is constitutional. In fact, they have done the opposite of this only last year, whereupon over 18,000 same-sex couples were legally married. Rather, the CASC ruled first, in 2008, that marriage should extend to same-sex couples, and has ruled now, in 2009, that the public does indeed have a right to vote that it wants an amendment to the state constitution which would disallow this sort of union. Attorney General Jerry Brown also asserted in his appeal that the proposition would violate a Californian citizen's right to privacy, and that it rescind an inalienable right. The CASC flatly denied both of these appeals, stating simply: "No authority supports the attorney general's claim."
I say categorically that if you have voted in favor of Proposition 8, if you do favor its sentiment, or if you support the efforts of anti-appeal campaigns in that vein, I have an overwhelming and unmatched disdain for your position. There are many opinion-related matters in a wide variety of fields in which I may oppose a certain view in the argument for which I can see some sort of merit. That is to say, it is absolutely the case that I have disagreements with people, but I can almost always see that my opponent has some reasoning. Gay marriage is one instance which is not governed by this general rule of understanding. In my research of the initial proposition and of the recent court decision, I have encountered dozens of criticisms of gay marriage and of the position supporting gay marriage. Every tiny word of it is nonsense, and wholly unsupportable by any mind with the slightest portion of decency, modesty, or honesty. Not only do I firmly revile the desire to ban gay marriage, but I can see absolutely no evidence to support the assertion that is it either ethically supportable or utilitarian. The anti-gay marriage position is small, it is disgusting, and it embarrasses me every last second that it is allowed to be propagated.
--------------------------------------------------------------
*According to the raw data collected and aggregated by the Sacramento Bee following the poll results, those most keen to vote to restrict the legality of gay marriage were: Republican or conservative (82/85%), black (70%) or Hispanic (53%), Protestant (65%), Catholic (64%), a high school graduate (56%), older than 30 (55% for voters 30-44; 54% for voters 45-64; and 61% for voters 65 and older), gun owners (62%), supportive of the war in Iraq (85%), and supportive of Bush's policies and presidency (86%). According to the same data, those who voted to support the gay right to marriage were: registered Democrats, independents, or liberals (64/54/78%), white or Asian (51%), non-religious (90%), and post-graduate students (60%). Interestingly, 61% of the people who voted YES on Proposition 8 also said that race was a factor for their vote in the Presidential election.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Broken Wheel
"Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives."
Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk
About two weeks ago, my knee betrayed me. I have no job, and I have no dependable schedule, so I am clothed in the evils of idleness. I do nothing all day which acts as evidence that I have existed that day. I make sandwiches, I ride my bike, I watch and listen to podcast debates, and I do one-legged pushups on the floor of a cramped bedroom. In the case that I had entered a time machine and I was concerned about irreversibly altering the future by polluting the past, this is the sort of life I would have to life in order to make sure that I affect nothing. Twelve days whipped by like the leaves of a flipbook, and I have made nothing with them. I hope that I do not have to experience this fate, but if it happens that I am one day lain in bed and around me are gathered the people I love, it is possible that I will look back on days like these have been and think to myself, there is no limit to what I would give to have those days back for the doing. I should crumple up the time I waste and shoot it at the wire basket next to my desk, like so much paper that is issued from the hands of writers who are obsessed with--and constantly motivated by--attempting to produce things of merit. I am often one of these; I have not been, recently, and my mood has soured noteably as a consequence.
For the emotional price I have paid by way of this lassitude, I have accrued quite a bit intellectually. I have watched or listened to something north of 20 debates and lectures, mostly revolving around the topics of religion, international human rights policy, or freedom of speech and press. I wish I could record the massive amount of thinking that I've done about these topics as a result of the impressive discourse, but sometimes the density of the material, combined with my poor organizational skills when I'm so furious with ideas, makes it impossible to summon order, especially among the interlacing topics. Here is a very brief list of the blogs which could come as a result of my only best use of time during my convalesence. My hope is that I will be able to turn this attrocious negative into something of a positive and productive experience, although my mood tonight, which is typical of how it has been most of the week, usually fosters either vitriol which I am sad to have thought or slop which I am embarrassed to have written. Intellectually and emotionally, then, it is obvious that I have good reason to resolve both my attitude and my body, but both of them are slow-going and neither mechanism cares much about my preference for not being ill.
1. Something comprehensive about my view on the role of religion in the world. This will easily be several essays, both perscriptive and descriptive. Specific topics needs to include dogmatism of any kind, the role and import of conversation, and the stricture that religion places around the neck of the global struggle to establish and ensure human rights. In each of these instances, I'm not sure that I can manage to reduce away the terrible fear I have about the way in which history will judge the time in which I lived.
2. Something about the terrible legacy of quarreling and antagonism beset upon us by the last administration, and the events that took place in its duration. I cannot listen to a single news telecast or talking heads show anymore without wondering what percentage of the truth I'm hearing. I very regularly hear two people say opposite things about the same event or person, so I believe there is one of two things happening. Either one or both of the people is wrong, or one or both of the people is lying. In either case, the quality and quantity of information to which I have access is depressing; the horrid clumsiness of intellectual pursuit confounds me every single day of my too short life. Should I have to constantly figure out whether or not I am receiving the truth, and how much of it? How can there be partisan news? Why can I not rely on something to just relate one small set of facts in a row? Nothing could be goddamned easier than this, and none of you will do it: you must taint everything. Well this is the world we have, because of it.
3. A short story I am working on about a man whose birth date had been confused.
4. A social contract theory for backpackers.
5. There is a Tennessee Williams quote that goes like this: "Why do I write? Because I found life to be unsatisfactory." So, something about that.
6. One of my primary historical interests, and political interests for that matter, is revolution. I have begun working on a short essay, informed by the ideology present in the entry about Dublin, that revolution must be non-violent in order to be successful.
Oh, to be able to travel again.
For the emotional price I have paid by way of this lassitude, I have accrued quite a bit intellectually. I have watched or listened to something north of 20 debates and lectures, mostly revolving around the topics of religion, international human rights policy, or freedom of speech and press. I wish I could record the massive amount of thinking that I've done about these topics as a result of the impressive discourse, but sometimes the density of the material, combined with my poor organizational skills when I'm so furious with ideas, makes it impossible to summon order, especially among the interlacing topics. Here is a very brief list of the blogs which could come as a result of my only best use of time during my convalesence. My hope is that I will be able to turn this attrocious negative into something of a positive and productive experience, although my mood tonight, which is typical of how it has been most of the week, usually fosters either vitriol which I am sad to have thought or slop which I am embarrassed to have written. Intellectually and emotionally, then, it is obvious that I have good reason to resolve both my attitude and my body, but both of them are slow-going and neither mechanism cares much about my preference for not being ill.
1. Something comprehensive about my view on the role of religion in the world. This will easily be several essays, both perscriptive and descriptive. Specific topics needs to include dogmatism of any kind, the role and import of conversation, and the stricture that religion places around the neck of the global struggle to establish and ensure human rights. In each of these instances, I'm not sure that I can manage to reduce away the terrible fear I have about the way in which history will judge the time in which I lived.
2. Something about the terrible legacy of quarreling and antagonism beset upon us by the last administration, and the events that took place in its duration. I cannot listen to a single news telecast or talking heads show anymore without wondering what percentage of the truth I'm hearing. I very regularly hear two people say opposite things about the same event or person, so I believe there is one of two things happening. Either one or both of the people is wrong, or one or both of the people is lying. In either case, the quality and quantity of information to which I have access is depressing; the horrid clumsiness of intellectual pursuit confounds me every single day of my too short life. Should I have to constantly figure out whether or not I am receiving the truth, and how much of it? How can there be partisan news? Why can I not rely on something to just relate one small set of facts in a row? Nothing could be goddamned easier than this, and none of you will do it: you must taint everything. Well this is the world we have, because of it.
3. A short story I am working on about a man whose birth date had been confused.
4. A social contract theory for backpackers.
5. There is a Tennessee Williams quote that goes like this: "Why do I write? Because I found life to be unsatisfactory." So, something about that.
6. One of my primary historical interests, and political interests for that matter, is revolution. I have begun working on a short essay, informed by the ideology present in the entry about Dublin, that revolution must be non-violent in order to be successful.
Oh, to be able to travel again.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
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.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Photographs (or, Snapshots)
Photography is becoming and increasingly present element of my life in Austria. Sometimes I shift through an album or a few pages on the facebook, or I'll browse a week of college on my macbook. Then again, there are ever more photos to be added to my computer, as a rare opportunity would be missed if I were to neglect my camera for these next four months. Photos, then, are a product and also a constant task, and moreover one on which I should begin to focus a bit more ardently. A more professional manifestation of this theme is the work with which my colleague Daniel and I are presently preoccupied: the Winter Festival photo board, which displays small headshots and dense biographies of all of the participants for our weeklong program. Daniel has worked exquisitely hard on the festival as a whole, and has been a brilliant role model in terms of work ethic and drive in order to complete the tasks which are assigned to the office.
This photo board, it seems to me, is a bit of a microcosm of my struggle between my present opportunity and desire to travel versus my desire to have a swarm of kids and a goodly wife. The people on this board are all past attendants of some session that has been hosted by SGS: this is a prerequisite for invitation. And most of them are families. The union of these two qualities is something that I hope to foster in my own future, also in general I perceive that constant travel and a maintenance of a cogent family life is a stellar challenge. So I shall learn from the masters, then. Let us see if I can sit here in front of the photo board and discern that which is common, and then I will decide to what extent these incarnations are tolerable.
Actually, a lot of the guys seem to share something in common. I have never met any of them, and I have only read a very few things about them, so my conception cannot be totally correct: this is more playful than anything. But, into the fray. First, in every one of their pictures, they wear a variation of virtually the same exact thing: collared shirt, layering piece, chinos, and a belt. Everyone combs his hair to the side, categorically shaped in that sort of smooth, airy, Yale debate team-style flop-over. But there must be a couple other mitigating factors that have nothing to do with clothing, because otherwise every person who attends a Thanksgiving dinner would be a Salzburg Fellow. And it seems as if a very large percentage of the people who send in group pictures have a field by their house, or at the very least have densely-leaved trees in their yards; every picture with a group, save one, shows the family crouching in a veritable thicket with a novelty-size leaf pile. Alternatively, they all read the same photography tips magazine, and not one of them has a lick of sovereign creativity. Each of them perhaps comes from money, or at least garners a great deal of it now. But after simply reading their biographies, which are scribed by the individuals themselves originally, it is plain to notice a sort of affect that indicates propriety: it is refined in a way that is not express education, and it is sometimes haughty in a way that shows unnoticed and enduring pride. And finally, yet most adversely, no one mentions affection for any sports teams. Where is the appreciation for things that they cannot control? Where is the devotion to something that break your heart, mends it together again? Where is the adherence to a code that unites people of like mind all over the nation and world, and which governs a relationship that fosters pride, and joy, and misery, and heights-then-depths that are lasting and wonderful and bitter and new every brilliant season?
Well then, no, I should not like a life like this. Give me the shirts and the leaves, in the end, and keep the rest. And so onwards, men of like mind: to change the world again, the way we would have it.
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