SubscribeDecember 28th, 2010
social pressure, the brain, and change
I rather like this. Never heard of the guy before but will now listen to more of his videos over on youtube. I do especially like the bit near the end where he emphasizes the need for behavioural change to go along with developing knowledge and awareness. That and the emphasis on peer-reviewed studies.
via wimp
December 26th, 2010
the calm of a coherent world
Boxing Day was a busy day and I got very little reading time but what I did spend I spent on Miss Buncle Married. I learnt about the Miss Buncle stories over at litlove’s place and read the first of the two after she did a review there. I was so very delighted with the first that I immediately ordered the second.
I wonder sometimes what it is about books like Miss Buncle that I so enjoy, because it is a high pleasure for me. When I look at the kinds of fiction authors I go to for a steady, warm pleasure, they are remarkably different yet they all have a way of seeing the world that is essentially kind. Even the bad guys, should they be actually bad, are dealt with kindly.
I think that was what my mother was seeking when she moved our family back to England for those years. She was an Austen fan and had the same craving for that gentle, civil world. So we moved. My father worked, I went to boarding school in Surrey and my mother converted a home and built a wonderful garden from what had been an outdoor model railway and budgerigar breeding site. It was quite a transformation and while she had that to do things went tolerably well.
The thing about the Miss Buncle-type world is that it depends so much on community agreement on the principles of life. And that agreement is formed very early in life, or has to be worked, and worked, and worked to achieve consciously. I think perhaps this sense of worldly coherence is what I love so much about these books. It is not an experience I can depend upon, not especially since I have relations in very, very different worlds—worlds whose basic assumptions are wildly different, which, of course, generates very different standards of behaviour and expectations.
It’s a nice world to visit, the Miss Buncle’s. I have to sustain the belief in such a coherent possibility, but it isn’t very hard since it would be so nice if it were so. I know that people have this golden age notion that says it used to be so, but coming from the extreme lower classes myself, I’m sorry, I know better. In Miss Buncle’s world everyone has a modicum of their needs met. Even the serving girls get to flout off from houses where they don’t get to go to the pictures. No one sees them starve once they leave the margins of the pages. It’s a delight really, but what it tells me is that to get to the place where love warms and our wants are possible, the needs based on human agreement must first be met.
Of course that’s easier if you can force your narrative of the world as the norm, but much more difficult if you are a minority in any kind of way. Hence, those who foster the idea of a golden age tend to be those whose narrative rode in the social saddle. They very understandably want to return to that place, because there, just like in a book, one can ignore those who are beyond the margins and concentrate on oneself as the central character. It makes for a delightful few hours spent reading abed, but it wouldn’t do at all to assume that the limits of the page mirror the limits of the world. Doing so makes for a revolutionary state of mind in those clinging to the page edges and a kind of fierce stoicism in those not even within reaching distance. And of course that practice—that refusal to admit the narrative quality of social life, of norms, values, morals and laws, and readmit the marginals onto the page—is what makes any coherency we achieve break down and society fracture.
Nevertheless, what makes Miss Buncle such a pleasure to read is that coherence, and that gentle civility which can be depended upon as long as you remain within the page’s influence. I’m going to try some of the author’s other books to see if she achieves a similar feeling of calm—I do very much enjoy that state, even if it is temporary and not what social life is actually like for me. I think it probably does me a world of good to settle into that felicitous, if imaginary, world once in a while. I view it as a kind of literary meditation, or a bookish person’s relaxation yoga. Because of that induced serenity, Miss Buncle helps smooth out some of the more incoherent bits of the world. Like honey and lemon on a sore throat, I suppose. It might not fix anything but it sure does feel good, and that, I suppose is valiant achievement enough.
November 24th, 2010
assumptions hard at work
In a post a few days ago I mentioned an odd little study I am reading called A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus by Richard Payne Knight. The study itself shows that so-called pagan ritual and symbolism have survived into Payne’s time. He does that by investigating fertility cults via the use of genital symbolism, both male and female, hence the “worship” of priapus.
For me this is not the odd part. It seems clear that what passes for religion today is an accretion on the corpus of what passed for religion before.
What fascinates me about the study is the language, the underlying cultural assumptions, especially pertaining to gender. Given that gender and sexuality is critical to Payne’s analysis, his assumptions here seem important. For example: Discourse was published in 1786. Mary Wollstonecraft would publish A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. These were barbaric times. So it will not surprise you that the male part of procreation was considered the active part, and the female part passive. (a note: when he speaks of the “organ of generation” he means the penis)
The great characteristic attribute was represented by the organ of generation in that state of tension and rigidity which is necessary to the due performance of its functions. Many small images of this kind have been found among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, attached to the bracelets, which the chaste and pious matrons of antiquity wore round their necks and arms. In these, the organ of generation appears alone, or only accompanied with the wings of incubation, in order to show that the devout wearer devoted herself wholly and solely to procreation, the great end for which she was ordained. So expressive a symbol, being constantly in her view, must keep her attention fixed on its natural object, and continually remind her of the gratitude she owed the Creator, for having taken her into his service, made her a partaker of his most valuable blessings, and employed her as the passive instrument in the exertion of his most beneficial power.
The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the generative powers of nature or matter, as the male were of the generative powers of God. They are usually represented emblematically, by the Shell, or Concha Veneris, which was therefore worn by devout persons of antiquity, as it still continues to be by pilgrims, and many of the common women of Italy.
(The emphasis is mine)
Imagine suffering such an assumption. Rock on Wollstonecraft.
November 11th, 2010
cultural apoplexy
Through a conversation with a friend I was reminded of that obnoxious as well as hilarious text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (The link leads you to one of the multiple nasty sites that have the text available. If you intend to read the text or the site, you might want to take a good, strong dose of anti-nauseant first. Having said that, the site will give you the flavor of the kind of mind that can believe in shit like this.)
For a strong palate cleanser you might want to watch Marc Levin’s movie about The Protocols and the people who believe it to be true (such as Glenn Beck.) You might also want to look here and here.
I sometimes wonder what my relations in England thought in the build up to WWII about the likelihood of any nation or group of people believing that another war like The Great War could do anything but bring even more devastation, or that mass murder had any chance of producing more than massive death. Despite the evidence of The Great War, it was, apparently, still incredibly hard to believe that people would really spill their vitriol in such self destructive ways when the results of the last conflagration were still in evidence. It still is hard to believe. Yet history says that we will do it again.
I can’t help but think that people like Beck, the tea party dudes and dudettes, the believers in the Protocols, and other such persons, are like a blood clot in the cultural brain and as such will be the cause of the next episode of cultural apoplexy. Some of them will make out like bandits in the mess that they cause, but I do take some comfort that when the dying is done, some of them will be counted amongst the dead, and even some will pay the price as did they of the Nuremberg trials. We will revile them then. What I find a pity is that we can’t just revile them now and save the ensuing horror.
October 24th, 2010
My new hero – Barbara Ehrenreich
I’ve always felt a mild case of disgust for these kind of people. Now it just more pronounced. Wonderful video.
via Wimp
October 19th, 2010
still sick but
I won’t bore you with my symptoms but they are lessening. Rather than the empty DVD platter of yesterday, today it is if I have a badly scratched sucker and I get bits (I watched Exit Through the Gift Shop this afternoon), which appear is association (I was thinking about David Hume and his aesthetic judges) but don’t really relate except perhaps (there was an interesting RSAnimation on wimp today) in a decidedly non-linear fashion. One could almost say my mind is a bit circular today with a horrifying number of speed bumps and the consequent mental hiccups.
I think maybe why I connected Hume and Bansky’s film is the idea of trying to define art. Seems a waste of time really. I mean art is something that is not containable in a delineated concept. I know there have been gadzillion attempts, some of them worthy, but really. Back to Hume…see? I just slide off the mental track.
Hume had this thing about expert judges and how art can best be defined by those guys. I think “art” is word that takes its meaning from the social and linguistic context in which it display’s itself. Combined: the judges are the kings of context. They have imbibed so much knowledge and experience that they come to represent (as best as any one person can) the ethos of the times in which they live. It is that moral quality that is the ultimate context in which a piece can be judged.
OK. But why judge? Because we can’t help ourselves I suppose. Like Thierry in the film, we really want to be accepted and that requires the judgment of our peers. And to question judging at all…I suspect that’s a part of our ethos.
Oh. Are those pink fairies?
October 14th, 2010
History against state mythology
In the online Smithsonian there is an article called (rather nicely) America’s True History of Religious Tolerance. Here are two paragraphs from the essay.
In 1779, as Virginia’s governor, Thomas Jefferson had drafted a bill that guaranteed legal equality for citizens of all religions—including those of no religion—in the state. It was around then that Jefferson famously wrote, “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” But Jefferson’s plan did not advance—until after Patrick (“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”) Henry introduced a bill in 1784 calling for state support for “teachers of the Christian religion.”
Future President James Madison stepped into the breach. In a carefully argued essay titled “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” the soon-to-be father of the Constitution eloquently laid out reasons why the state had no business supporting Christian instruction. Signed by some 2,000 Virginians, Madison’s argument became a fundamental piece of American political philosophy, a ringing endorsement of the secular state that “should be as familiar to students of American history as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” as Susan Jacoby has written in Freethinkers, her excellent history of American secularism.
As luck would have it, I had just read a report on Sarah Palin’s jaunt to Montana and the tenor of the protesters. Here’s an example that I found particularly funny:
In one sidewalk display, cardboard flames blazed against a particleboard tombstone announcing the death of reason. Fake copies of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” and some “Basic World Geography” book burned at the monument to ignorance.
One more:
“What would Jesus shoot from a helicopter?”
Then I flipped to the Smithsonian article. Nice.
As a once-teacher at college level, I can attest to the growth of the Palin-like near reverence of ignorance. One can point the way to readings, to accurate histories, to human sources of knowledge that bear at least some relationship with what, in fact, occurred, but one cannot lever a mind into the cranial vault. That is ultimately the responsibility of the individual, but small person individuals (aka children) need access, direction and social support if they are to put in the real effort it takes to learn where, when and why we are. It is sooooooooo much easier to imbibe the social mythology and excruciating (at times) to construct, neuronal connection by neuronal connection, an accurate representation of how we have come to be this way. (In first year college classes I had to teach a library section because many of the students had never / never / used a library.)
And of course the kind of arrogant violence touted by people like Palin with her sallow echo of Patrick Henry is not new to American history as the quoted paragraphs attest. It would be helpful if elected leaders were required to pass a history test before they could practice their brand of politics on the public at large. I mean imagine a presidential candidate following Bush’s tenure that didn’t know what the Bush doctrine was! And then there’s the lady that doesn’t know how much her family earns because her husband takes care of it—she of Spectre town-hall fame—but feels qualified to vote on issues of the country’s economic (re health care) policy.
The consequence of such ignorance is to foster a devastating lack of ability to assess, to think, to seek for truth.
Sinclair Lewis: “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” And lest you think I am just anti-Republican—no. I am anti ignorance, especially when it has become willful and allied with fear. It’s just that many Republicans are providing enviable footage to demonstrate the point.
via Pharyngula
September 17th, 2010
Empty promises/threats
I’ve been thinking (idly) about failed prophecies. There are so many, and even so, people still come to my door predicting new dates, new ends. My favourite has to be Matthew 16:28 when Jesus (reportedly) says “Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” Following the description of that “coming” as with “his Father with his angels,” it seems to me that this rather obviously didn’t come true, or if it did, then it is meaningless since not even Christians seem to be able to tell that everything is now OK.
Anyway, I found this site which lists a bunch of other failed prophecies. It’s fun to look at. Then there’s all those fly-by-night sites that predict the fall of the theory of evolution. The fact that they all fail makes no difference, and that it wondrous to me. Then there’s this new one (to me anyway) of May 21 , 2011 and of course there’s the Mayan-based one of 2012. The fact that people can seriously ask “Is it really coming?” is stupendous.
This stuff inevitably reminds me of Frank Kermode’s The Sense of an Ending. It is the way in which we need to make sense far in advance of our ability to do so reasonably that I find so wondrous, and frankly, amusing. Just like an addict in the face of his or her drug of choice, many of us display no discernment whatsoever when faced with the need to know the ending of the human story. Imagine that you are a chocoholic and that the exquisite-mouthful ever recedes just past the reach of your questing fingers. I suspect that’s how those who choose to believe these various end-of-the-world scenes feel about having an end to the human story. There it is that surety, that perfect comfort, just at the horizon. Chase it, chase it. And then when it vanishes over the horizon of falsity, another pops up and off like a hare we go, kicking out hind feet with the delight of the new morsel just out of reach.
Without a narrative fix in the offing I imagine it would be like the horrifying discovery that all chocolate is just an illusion, born of a particularly vivid gustatory dream. I expect there would be more than one addict running for the vial of sleeping pills – to dream, better than facing the fact that the comfort will not come; that death will come instead, and before our story is all worked out, before even the most glaring loose ends are knitted back into the narrative.
I’m looking forward to the first morning of 2013, since this is fairly well advertised apocalypse. Even so, I suspect it will be like the first day of 2000, when the credit card bill still existed. (I actually knew a woman that maxed out her card expecting not to have to pay it.) The reason I look forward to it? Because, I predict, there will be a new end-of-the-world date suggested before close of business 2012. Since we will continue as a species to persist, I do suspect, we will persist with this need to chase the end of the narrative.
September 16th, 2010
Eroica and the difficulty of social change
One of my nearly sure methods of controlling my emotions is music. Like many, I suppose. It’s not a magic cure, but I do find that certain kinds of music can close down (temporarily, unfortunately) my lamentable tendency to self pity. Beethoven is a favourite resource for conceptual and emotional reboot: power, certainty, emotional range, complexity.
I just listened to B’s 3rd symphony, known as Eroica. You can listen to it here, but since it is youtube, I am afraid it is cut up rather badly.
While I was listening, I was reading a bit from Schonberg’s The Lives of the Great Composers. The quoted bits are from an 1804 or 1805 review.
Sensitive listeners realized they were in the presence of something monumental. The critics were worried. They recognized the power of the Eroica, but very few could grasp its stringent logic and organization. “This long composition,” wrote the critic of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, “extremely difficult of performance, is in reality a tremendously expanded, daring and wild fantasia. It lacks nothing in the way of startling and beautiful passages, in which the energetic and talented composer must be recognized; but often it loses itself in lawlessness…. This reviewer belongs to Mr. Beethoven’s sincerest admirers, but in this composition he must confess that he finds much that is glaring and bizarre, which hinders greatly one’s grasp of the whole, and a sense of unity is almost completely lost.”
Can you imagine? Most wanted Beethoven to return to his earlier style, that is, the style of music already accepted in society. If he had not been so arrogant, such a probable asshole, the 9th would never have been written. Of course Karl would probably have had an easier time of it.
Karl’s quality of life or the 9th? Sorry Karl.
September 6th, 2010
What will the future be like?
I was talking with my son about science fiction of the past and how many of the icons, images and tools of those old stories and TV shows have showed up, or had an effect on the design of what we have today – the Star Trek communicator and the flip phone, for example. When I saw this video today on Wimp.com, I felt as if I have seen a glimpse of something that will be common place probably shortly after my life, or perhaps even before I die.
I read, and admire, the new philosophy and research being done on embodied cognition and suspect that if we externalize how we come to have concepts, that this will have as much impact on us as externalizing our memory did when we figured out how to code words and meaning using signs, and then later when we figured out how to spread our sets of signs through the book and the printing press and, of course, much later, through the internet. Each of these profoundly impactful changes works partly because they externalize something we already do – externalizing our language, translating sound and concept into signs that can be transported over much vaster distances and time than can the simple speaking voice and memory codified like in epic or story, once told orally to those around, but now told to a vastly increased audience.
Anyway, watch this and see if the embodied character of the invention gives you the same feeling of being clairvoyant.
via Wimp