When I was growing up, the concept of a millionaire was synonymous with the concept of wealth. If you were a millionaire it was presumed that you led a life of leisure.
The New York Times, however, reports that, in the Silicon Valley, there is a growing class of "working millionaires" who work not for the sheer joy of it (as some millionaires always have) but because of a number of factors including the high cost of living in the area and the desire to keep up with the Joneses.
While it's hard for me to feel too much sympathy for someone with seven figures in the bank, I think that this does illustrate the changing nature of wealth in America. Simply being a millionaire makes one well to do but to be genuinely rich requires a portfolio in the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Unstructured Millionaires
Monday, September 03, 2007
The State of the Blog
There were a grand total of sixty-nine new posts last month. To understand why this is a significant fact, consider that there were only sixty-four posts in the entire year of 2006. To be sure, 2006 was the least productive year for Unstructured Musings but even the best year, 2005, only have a total of one hundred and forty-seven posts. The reason for this proliferation of posts is that I've made some deep changes in the methodology and philosophy behind the blog.
Before I explain the changes that I've made, and the reasons behind them, I'd like to explain a bit about how I make content. There are two major categories of blog content: derived and original.
Derived content, as the name implies, is content which is derived from other sources. In the simplest case, it's simply a post pointing to some other content with a short blurb attached to it ("Check out this site!"). The advantage of derived content is that it's fairly easy to produce.
The problem with derived content, however, is that there's always the possibility that you'll have already seen it. Any day you come here and there's nothing interesting for you to see is a reason for you not to come back, so any time I put up something you've found on your own, there is the potential that I've driving you away. In order to minimize that possibility, I need to go out of my way to find content that you probably haven't seen before, which means, among other things, that I need to avoid so-called viral content (which is content that rapidly spreads by way of word of mouth). So things like the Dramatic Chipmunk videos are something I need to avoid. This is something of a paradox, though, because viral content is viral precisely because people like it, which means that I'm deliberately avoiding the very things that are most interesting on the web, which means that I need to expend some thought and effort in order to find things that I think you'd enjoy.
One thing that I can do so increase your interest in derived content is by trying to add value to it. A good example of this is something I call a mosaic post which is a post where I tie together several different pointers with a theme. The recent Elven Tattoo post is a good example of that since it has links to cool Elven tattoos, another link to how to translate your name into Elven, a third link to how to write in Elven, a link to some software (along with a font link), a link discussing dialects of Elven, and finally a link to an Elven wedding invitation. This method provides you a kind of one-stop shop for cool content. Unfortunately, mosaic posts have their own drawback which is that they take me a fair amount of time and energy to put together which goes a long way towards negating the main reason to post derived content.
Original content is just that: content that I create, more or less, from scratch. Although it is possible to create a blog with such a niche theme, using derived content, that it's stands apart, most blogs (including this one) rely on original content to distinguish themselves from other blogs. Original content can take many forms from simple journal posts and poems all the way up to full blown essays and stories. Naturally, the longer and more complex the original content, the more effort it takes to create it.
When I created Unstructured Musings, blogs were just starting to go mainstream. As a consequence, I really didn't have a good template for what a blog should be. Most of the blogs at that time were basically online diaries. An online diary can be interesting is the author has a sufficiently interesting life. If I spent my days travelling to exotic locales, or if I had just won the lottery, it's entirely possible that people would be interested in knowing what was going on with my life on a day to day basis. The majority of people, however, live lives that are really only interesting to them and their inner circle of friends and family. Given that my days mostly revolve around work and reading, I knew that this wasn't what I wanted my blog to be about. I decided that the primary focus of the blog was going to be essays. My goal was to write an essay a week on any topic that I desired (hence the "unstructured" part of Unstructured Musings).
My frame of reference, at the time, took the form of traditional web pages. The big difference between a blog and a web page is that the latter is much more static. A personal page can go for months, or even years, without updates or new content and that's just fine. A blog, however, is dynamic and temporal. Although I had some sense of that, I didn't really appreciate how important it was to regularly post new content.
Within a few months (May, to be exact), I realized that weekly updates weren't cutting it so I went to an ironically structured format where I'd post new content three times a week: an essay every Sunday, a poem every Thursday, and a "fun" link every Tuesday, which means that I had committed to a structure where 2/3rds of all my content was original and that half the original content took a very long and involved form.
Just writing the essays proved to be grueling. An average essay runs about 2,000 words and the majority of them required a fair amount of research on top of the original thought that went into them. Add to that the fact that I was also producing original poetry every single week and that I had to dig up a fun and interesting link in my spare time (to say nothing of all the background administration that goes into running a blog). What started out as a labor of love swiftly became a chore. The miraculous thing is that I kept up that pace, unabated, for more than a year.
By mid-2005, however, signs of strain were beginning to show up. I started missing my essay deadlines. In order to compensate for this, I switched to a bi-weekly essay format where every other work would be an off-site essay. Even this wasn't enough to eliminate the stress of producing the blog. By the end of 2005, I was writing essays that I weren't able to finish (which was utterly unfair to you, my readership).
2006 was the year that nearly broke the blog. A series of health and personal issues drained me of a significant fraction of my energy. The amount of original content dropped to nearly zero and even the derived content only came out as a trickle. By 2007 I was seriously considering shutting the whole thing down. This urge was compounded by Blogger going to a new style sheet format. Although it was possible to me to continue using the existing style sheets, if I wanted to make any changes, what so ever, to the formatting of the blog, I would need to convert it, which meant redesigning the style sheets from scratch.
June was Unstructured Musings' Rubicon. For the first time ever, I didn't post anything at all. I spent the entire month wondering if I should just pull the plug. On the one hand, there really is something I love about Unstructured Musings. Even though my readership is small, the quality of the commentary I've gotten from you has been amazing. There is also the fact that it's a creative outlet, for me, which is something I do need in my life. On the other hand, if blogging caused me more grief than happiness (especially in the form of guilt when go a long time without posting), perhaps it would be better to give it a quiet burial.
So I sat down and thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it some more. Ultimately, I decided that I would like to keep the blog alive but that that I would need to change the way that I'm managing it, and whether I still wanted to.
I decided that the first decision was going to be whether or not to update the style sheet. If the blog was going to continue, I didn't want to keep clinging to the old sheet. Conversely, if I didn't think that it was worth redoing, then it wasn't worth continuing. Obviously, I did decide that it was worth it. The new look went live on July 25th. This was a reboot both symbolic and literal.
The first, and biggest, change to the blog, beyond the cosmetics of the new style, is the way that I produce content. I've created a folder in my bookmarks called "Blog Fodder". Whenever I come across a link that seems cool, I bookmark it into that folder. Every so often, I'll take a chunk of the links I've bookmarked and then write up posts that link to them, saving those posts to draft, in Blogger (which means that they don't show up on the public page). This means that on any given day, I can just change the status of one of the queued posts from "draft" to "final" and I have a fresh post.
This has two benefits: 1) I have the ability to create fresh content on a daily basis and 2) if I'm not in the mood to work on the blog on a given day or week, I don't really have to beyond the minimal effort of getting something out of the draft bin. This also means that on those days when I do feel like blogging, I can put a whole bunch of things into the queue all at once to use in the future.
Naturally, this means that there's been a shift in content away from original and towards derived content. That doesn't mean, however, that there won't be any more original content; however, even there the focus is going to shift away from essays and towards shorter forms such as reviews, poems, and things like the archetype posts. I will still write essays and stories but those are going to be published on the order of several times a year instead of several times a month. Not only will that be considerably less exhausting for me but I think that it will result in a higher quality of essay, which will be good for you.
August was a deliberate experiment to see what sort of pace I could set for content generation. On average, I put up about 2 ¼ new posts a day. I was glad to discover that I could keep up that pace without exhausting myself. That said, I don't think you'll be seeing that many posts in a month again. Even though I didn't feel myself burning out in August, I could sense that I was pushing the limit. I would like to give myself more of a buffer so I'll be throttling back. Most days, I'll be limiting myself to a single post and, most of the time, that post will be something that's derived. I will try to have an original item on average of once a week but that item will usually take a short or medium form (i.e., under 500 words).
Change is always risky. Most of my regulars have stuck with me for some time and, judging by the poll I did on the subject, the thing you like most about the blog is when I do long and complicated posts such as essays and stories. I realize that by moving the emphasis away from those kinds of things, I risk losing your interest. Unfortunately, I just can't produce that type of content a frequent basis without destroying my own love for this place, which is also something I don't want to do. It is my sincere hope that the change in direction won't be too jarring and that I will be able to make it worth the while for you to keep me in your bookmarks.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Geek Pride
Among other things, she notes that we don't tend to hang out in bars, we're very good at remembering important dates and, lest we seem less than perfectly exciting, we're also very good at sex.
Of course, this does leave the question of how to spread the word. Somehow, I don't think that the internet is going to be the best way to get the word out.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
On Archetypes
I hope that you have been enjoying my series of articles exploring various archetypes. I think that, for the time being at least, I’m going to take a break from the topic (although I would still welcome reader submissions), but I did want to take a moment to talk a bit about the overall topic.
The first thing that I should point out is that I’ve been telling you a lie. By expressing archetypes as a series of factual statements I have implied that a given archetype is something definite and definitive. Worse, I’ve suggested that some characters fit neatly into given archetypes (“He is Jimmy Olsen. He is Bonzo. He is Captain Crunch.”) I have compounded my sin by implying that characters can be an exact representation of an archetype.
In my defense, I have done this precisely because, too often, archetypes are described in such fuzzy terms that I think that they start to lose all meaning. Consider Carol Pearson’s set of twelve heroic archetypes (which includes Innocent, Orphan, Warrior, Destroyer, etc). Her descriptions of these archetypes are, in my opinion, perilously vague. What does it really say about the Orphan to say that his quest is “To regain safety”? I would guess that King Arthur would be an Orphan, but I can’t think of anything about his story that would suggest regaining safety. If it were just Arthur I wouldn’t complain but the same holds true of most orphaned heroes. To be sure, you can force a given hero into the mold (“By fighting crime, Batman's trying to regain the safety of his childhood…”), but such efforts smack of narrative contortionism.
My goal in expressing these archetypes in definitive terms has been to indicate that there is a there over there; that archetypes have a reality and that a given archetype means something, even if the precise meaning is open to interpretation and disputation.
The way that I think of archetypes is to imagine a map of characters. The archetypes would be represented as hills on the topology of the map. Depending on the popularity of the archetype, some hills with be taller – mountains in the terrain – and some of those mountains will have hills of their own or will themselves be part of a range of hills and mountains (the Hero would be such a range). Finding the precise summit of a given hill is difficult, however, because the terrain is complex, with many rills and rifts on every surface.
Because of this, no particular hero is going to be at the summit of his local archetype. Indeed, many heroes will find themselves in the valleys between peaks. Roland the Gunslinger is capable of facing any circumstance and is the master of himself and his surroundings, therefore he’s a Competent Man, but he’s also on a lifelong quest to find the Dark Tower and he’s the social equivalent of a knight in the terms of his own society so he’s also a Paladin. I believe that Roland’s camp is on the side of the valley facing the peak of the Competent Man but others might well disagree.
Characters also evolve. King Arthur starts his life as a Special Boy, but the boy who pulls the Sword from the Stone is not the same person as the man whose body is borne away to Avalon. The trajectory of a character through the archetypal map is every bit as significant as their location on that map at any given point in time. Guinevere’s life progresses from maiden to first love, to wife, to damsel in distress, to adulteress, to penitent. To fit her into a single slot would be to fail to appreciate the tragedy of her story. And even this isn’t a sufficient view. Does knowing that Luke Skywalker takes a hero's journey from orphan to knight tell you everything you know about his character? Of course not. A successful character is more than a few pounds of putty thrown over the scaffolding of his archetype.
I do not, however, want to suggest that archetypes are unimportant. They are a kind of narrative shortcut. When we see a James Bond movie, we can support Bond because we know that he’s the hero. The reason that we can believe that he’s the hero is because we subconsciously recognize that he has characteristics that we associate with the heroic archetype. Imagine what it would be like if every time you read a story you had to puzzle out the nature of every character from scratch. To be sure, a little narrative ambiguity (is this person really a hero?) can be a good thing, but even narrative ambiguity partakes of the short-hand of archetypes by presenting us with conflicting cues. This is also true of stories that subvert the archetype. Such stories rely on our recognition of archetypes to surprise us (“Oh my, it looks like the Sidekick is actually the Hero!”).
Without archetypes, narrative becomes impenetrable, as amply demonstrated by postmodern fiction that seems designed as nothing more than a sadistic effort to frustrate and piss off the reader. Never the less, reliance of archetypes can distort our perception of reality. Historical narratives are particularly vulnerable to false archetypal associations.
For years we thought of Christopher Columbus as the Great Explorer. Later, after the political climate changed, he was recast into the role of the Oppressor. The real person, however, is neither. He was a complex human being who was, by turns, heroic, mercenary, visionary, short sighted, oppressive, brave, and many other things besides, nor is it possible to understand Columbus without understand his world and culture. As it has been said, we are complex and contradictory creatures. When we tell ourselves our history, we should be aware that we want to simplify it; we want the narrative to conform to archetypal stereotypes and our desire for such a narrative will cause us to warp the narrative into a story.
Jung was convinced that archetypes were fundamental clues to the mystery of what is Man. While I have deep reservations about Jung’s psychological theories, to say nothing of his archetypal schema, I suspect that he was not that far off the mark with his intuition: archetypes do say something about us. I think that they may well be mile markers on the road to understanding our human nature.
We are man. We are woman. We are Humanity.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Why Are the Weasleys Poor?
Why are the Weasleys poor? Why would any wizard be? Anything they need, except scarce magical objects, can be obtained by ordering a house elf to do it, or casting a spell, or, in a pinch, making objects like dinner, or a house, assemble themselves. Yet the Weasleys are poor not just by wizard standards, but by ours: they lack things like new clothes and textbooks that should be easily obtainable with a few magic words. Why?While I have no doubt that a sufficiently motivated Potter fan could come up with a plausible theory of wizardly economics, I'm sure that the real answer is that Rowlings never really put much thought into it.1 Indeed, I think that many high fantasy works are going to suffer the sin of having unrealistic economies. Be that as it may, I thought it might be fun to briefly consider the economies of few fantasy worlds to see if we can answer of the question of the Weasleys poverty in their contexts and to address the question of how we can have a system of economics in a fantasy setting that allows for the existence of a family such as the Weasleys.
Middle Earth
J.R.R. Tolkien's high fantasy opus, set in the world of Middle Earth, has a very simple interaction between magic and the economy of his world: there really isn't any. Magic is utterly scare. There are only a handful of beings (none of them truly human) who can work magic and what magical artifacts exist, such as Sting and The One Ring, are quite utterly and literally priceless. As such, the basic feudal economy of his world isn't particularly impacted by the existence of magic since the majority of people will never encounter it.2
In Middle-Earth the Weasleys are probably poor for the simple fact that they are peasants. They don't have any magical ability and neither do they have any access to magical artifacts. If one of them stumbles across an artifact, it's unlikely that he'd be able to sell it for a fair price (assuming he'd want to part with it in the first place) since only a king could afford it -- and a king might well simply take it.
Ethshar
Lawrence Watt-Evan's Ethshar novels are set in a high-magic world which takes its inspiration from fantasy roleplaying. In the Ethshar universe there are a multitude of distinct magic styles ranging from Wizardry as the most powerful sort all the way down to such minor crafts as rhythmic dancing and Science (yes, Science).
Each type of magic has advantages and limitations. By way of example Wizardry is extraordinarily powerful and can do nearly anything that can be done with the other forms of magic, but it is also dangerous, complex, and often expensive. Warlockry, to offer a counterexample, is simple and powerful, albeit limited to telekinetic effects, but it has the drawback that warlocks are eventually compelled to fly off to a mysterious location in the north where they are never heard from again thus making warlocks reluctant to overuse their power.
Depending on the type of magician, magic can be used to provide both goods and services. Because of the inherent risks and limitations, however, magical items and services tend to come with a premium costs which allows for competition by tradesmen and craftsman who can provide lower quality goods and services at a far more reasonable price.
Magic is strictly segregated into guilds. Practicing magic outside of a guild is a capital offense (to say nothing of being nearly impossible to manage without the necessary training or induction) which prevents magicians from proliferating to the point where anyone can practice it (which would undercut the demand for magical goods and services). More over, the quality of training one receives is directly correlated to the quality of the master that one apprentices under. An apprentice wizard will only have access to his master's list of spells, for example. If his master only has a dozen spells, the demand for the apprentice's services will be limited once he becomes a master in his own right (although he can attempt to swap spells with other wizards in an effort to expand his catalog). His repertoire will also be limited by his innate talent -- it doesn't do you much good to know a high level spell if you can't safely cast it.
Finally, the Wizard guild deliberately limits the influence of magic in the world. Mages are, for instance, prohibited from holding political office. Any magician, or group of magicians, who attempts to usurp too much power or authority is destroyed. The gods of the world also set certain basic limits on how much influence magic users can have over the world and its economies.
In Ethshar, the Weasleys may be poor because they don't practice magic. It is also possible that they are poor because the style of magic that they practice isn't in high demand. Finally it is possible that they are magicians but that they simply aren't very talented at what they do and, thus, can't command a lucrative price for their goods or their services.
Dragaera
Steven Brust's Dragaera cycle is set in a world with two major sentient races: Dragaerans and Easterners (both of whom consider themselves "human", although the Easterners are much closer to our world's description of humanity). There are also two major styles of magic which are largely divided along species lines.
Easterners (and a handful of Dragaerans) practice something called "witchcraft". Witchcraft utilizes the psychic energy of the practitioner and requires complex rituals. Because it utilizes the energy of the practitioner, spells tend to be fairly subtle in effect. Becoming a witch takes long years of apprenticeship and requires the acquisition of a familiar (with whom the witch has a psychic link). As a consequence of this, demand for witchcraft is limited to specialized requests.
Dragaerans (and a handful of Easterners) practice something called "sorcery". Sorcery takes the form of magical power collected in an artifact called the Imperial Orb. A practitioner will basically grab a portion of the communal energy and shape it. The shaping of the energy can take numerous forms such as teleportation, healing (even to the point of reviving the dead), and various physical manipulations.
All Dragaeran citizens have a link to the orb that allows them to do this but the ability to shape the energy is based on skill. Some "spells" are so basic as to be effectively ubiquitous (such as teleportation) while others require decades or even centuries of study (Dragaerans have very long lifespans).3 Those who dedicate themselves to spellcraft can earn the distinction of being considered to be Wizards.
Sorcery is not typically used to produce artifacts (although there are a few exceptions). Consequently, the main impact that sorcery has in the world is in the form of services rather than goods. In those cases where a spell is common, such as teleportation or telepathy, the effect is to displace the mundane competition: there are no taxis in Dragaera. In the cases where a spell requires specialized training, there may be competition depending on the relative costs.4
In addition to the two major types of magic there is a type of magic that utilizes the direct manipulation of chaos. This form of magic is extremely powerful but also dangerous and, thus, forbidden. Because of the degree of training required to master it and because of its illegality and rarity, it doesn't have any apparent impact on the Dragaeran economy (although one can theorized that there might be sufficient demand to allow for the creation of a small black market).
Finally, a species known as the Serioli are known to produce a sort of magical weapon called a Morganti blade. Morganti blades are semi-sentient weapons that have the capacity to destroy souls. Given that reincarnation is known to be real beyond a shadow of a doubt, the possession and use of Morganti weaponry is forbidden on pain of death. There is, however, a definite black market for the weapons albeit not one that directly competes with the legitimate weapon's market.
In Draegara the Weasley's may be poor because they are Easterners and don't have access to sorcery putting them at a competitive disadvantage with Dragaerans. They may not even be witches but, if they are, the demand for their talents is probably not enough to offset their expenses.
Conversely, if the Weasley's can use sorcery, their poverty may be accounted for by the fact that the only spells they know are so common as to be worthless meaning that they can afford neither luxury goods nor those services that are beyond their personal level of training. They probably have a higher standard of living than their Easterner neighbors but they aren't living high on the hog.
It is possible that the Weasleys could supplement their income if they could learn chaos magic or if they were willing to deal with black market Morganti weapons. The former would be dangerous, illegal and require specialized knowledge that would be difficult to acquire and the latter would be a high-risk/high-reward occupation that would require them to become part of the criminal underground.
The Land of Oz
The Land of Oz represents a high magic world. Magic creatures and artifacts are utterly common but magical power is tightly concentrated in the hands of a few individuals (e.g., the cardinal witches).
Although L. Frank Baum didn't elaborate on the economics of Oz (unless there were some oblique references to the Gold Standard), we can deduce that the ubiquity of magical goods would hamper competition from mundane goods, however, magical services would be neigh well impossible to obtain.
In this case, the Weasleys are poor because they aren't part of the select circle of magic practioners and are limited to making their living either trading in magical artifacts (which are so common as to have low value) or by providing non-magical services to their neighbors. If one of the Weasleys did, however, learn magic he would, in all probability, be able to live like a king.
Xanth
Finally we have Xanth. In the world of Xanth, magic is even more ubiquitous than in Oz and everyone, furthermore, is a magic users. However, every magic user is unique, usually limited to a single effect (which might be called a spell). Some people are gifted with very powerful magics, such as the ability to transform people into animals, while others are limited to minor effects such as being able to make a spot of color appear on a wall and some people have talents that are more approximately resemble curses.
Because every birth introduces new and potentially disruptive magics into the world, it would follow that the economy of Xanth would be subject to constant perturbation. We could, for instance, imagine someone being born with the ability to duplicate any item thus automatically devaluing any goods that he has access to, including whatever might be used as currency. In addition to the economic disruptions, the rise of new talents can be socially destabilizing. Xanth has a history of wars where powerful magicians have taken on (and occasionally overthrown) the established order.
In Xanth, the Weasleys may be poor because they have fairly worthless talents. They might also be poor because the local economy has collapsed due to the influence of a person with an economically disruptive talent. It may also be the case that the Weasleys are having the misfortune of living through a time of war and chaos.
Conclusion
If one postulates the existence of magic, one needs to be aware that such an existence would have an impact on the economy of the world it exists in. If magic is common, easy to master, and sufficiently powerful, we encounter the paradox of the Weasleys.
In order to avoid the paradox is seems that that there are a number of options:
- Magic is so rare that the average person has no access to it
- It is dangerous to use
- It is expensive to use
- There are practical limitations to its use
- There are legal or social restrictions on the use of magic
- There are limitations to its power
- It requires intensive skill and training to use
Such a world would not have Weasleys in it; however, it does not follow that everyone would be happy and prosperous, either. It is, in fact, difficult to imagine what a world would be like. I doubt that one would have anything analogous to our own social instutitions. I suspect that the world would, in fact, be a vast and dangerous anarchy. A Hobbsian nightmare magnified and made surreal.
I don't think that that story has been written but I think that I would love to read it.
1 I have a similar complaint about the game of Quidditch. The fact that snagging the Golden Snitch is worth a whopping hundred points would seem to make the rest of the game an exercise in pointlessness in the vast majority of cases.
2 There's a certain irony to the fact that Lord of the Rings was a major source of inspiration for Dungeons and Dragons given that the D&D world is so thoroughly saturated with magic that all but the very rarest of items sell for less than the equivalent price of a cheap gas grill (factoring in the massive devaluation of gold and other coins).
3 My favorite manifestation of the Orb's power is that it acts as a clock. Anyone with a link to the Orb can easily tell what time it is. I'm a bit disappointed that the Orb can not, however, be used for voicemail.
4 One might draw a parallel to IT professionals in our world. Anyone could, theoretically, program an application but relatively few people have the knowledge. This disparity of knowledge gives IT professionals the ability to market their talents, often for a very good price.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
On Omnipresence
The fact that I am an atheist who has an interest in theology isn't, in and of itself, surprising. In my entirely anecdotal experience, atheists, as a whole, tend to be more theologically away than the majority of theists. I suspect that this is explained by nothing so complex as basic philosophical self-defense: when you're constantly asked to justify your beliefs, it makes sense to understand the beliefs of your opponents.
Most atheists, however, tend to focus on the subject of theodicy, which pertains to arguments that attempt to establish the existence of God (and let's be clear about something here; the vast bulk of theology, as a school of thought, focuses on the Abrahamic religions). While I have engaged in that sort of debate and even gained a fair amount of enjoyment from it, I find that my interest in it has waned over the years. The truth of the matter is that there are only about a dozen interesting arguments, one way or the other, which maybe a half-dozen interesting permutations each. Once you've covered the ground, there's really not much more of interest to be found. Likewise, if you haven't been convinced (again, one way or the other) after having gone over them, then very little is likely to change your mind. My suspicion is that less than 1% of the people who study theodicy are ever compelled to change their initial position and that the bulk of theodicy, in practice, is an elaborate game of mental self-reinforcement by means of elaborate rationalization.
So, if I'm no longer interested in theology, you may well ask, then what remaining interest do I have in theology? The answer is that, for me, theology is an interesting mental exercise. Let us postulate that there exists a Perfect Being. Having postulated said being, what characteristics would such a being necessarily have (or necessarily not have)? The actual existence or non-existence of the being is as irrelevant to me as the existence or non-existence of ideal circles is to a geometer.
In traditional theology, there are four particular traits which are reserved exclusively to the Perfect Being: omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence and omnipresence. Of the two, omnipotence and omniscience garner the bulk of the attention with omnibenevolence trailing a distant third and nearly no attention, what so ever, being granted to omnipresence. This isn't especially surprising because, as human beings, we tend to be attracted to those things that we would most like to possess. If you were granted one unconstrained wish I think that most people would opt for ultimate power (even if it did come with the caveat that you couldn't then use it to get any of the other omni-traits), that a smaller number of people would be tempted by ultimate knowledge (indeed, that's what I'd want); some small number of people (bless their hearts!) might choose to be perfectly benevolent, but who in the world would wish for the ability to be everywhere at once!? Be that as it may, of the four omnis, omnipresence may well be the most interesting.
Consider this: what exactly does it mean to be omnipresent? The encyclopedic definition is to be present at evey point in space and time (which, by the by, also implies that our Perfect Being is eternal). Putting aside for a moment that the Abrahamic god is usually considered to be immaterial, this would imply that the Perfect Being can not coexist with anything else. Indeed, the existence of other things would seem to contradict the presumption that a Perfect Being exists (thus leading us straight back to theodicy). Let us consider a couple of possible alternatives.
The first is what I call the Jell-O model of deity which is what I suspect most people imagine when (and if they think about omnipresence. In this scenario, the Perfect Being fits into all the empty parts of existence. The fact that you and I are also in the universe doesn't contradict its existence because it it adjacent to every occupied point. Indeed, the Perfect Being doesn't simply surround us, it permeats us. All the spaces btween the protons, electrons and neutrons that make up our body are part of its Body and if it's not everywhere, it's close enough not to matter. Not a swallow falls that It does not feel (indeed, omnipresence, in a strange sort of way, may well account for the Beings omnipotence and omniscience).
Aquinas favored a model of omnipresence that saw God as being omnipresent only in as much as God had knowledge of all things, the ability to act upon all things, and who was the source of all things. In the Aquinan view, God is the basis of all realty and has no limits with respect to that reality, thus, even though God is an Other with respect to the elements of the universe, His relationship to the universe justifies a claim of effective omnipresence.
I believe that this model has a basic flaw: we can imagine a universe occupied by a similar being to the one that occupies our own with a single difference: in this possible world, there exists one less electron. The being that occupies this infinitesimally distinct universe would have one more loci that the being that occupies our own. As such, this being would have an even greater degree of omnipresence than our own. Since perfection is an absolute (there are no degrees of Perfection), it would follow that the being that is in our universe could not, in fact, be a Perfect Being, QED. By a process of reductio ad absurdiam we quickly find ourselves back to the starting point: the only perfect being is one that excludes all other beings from existence.
A less naïve model might be something I call the Organic model of deity. In this model, the Perfect Being is, indeed, unitary. All things that exist are part of the Perfect Being in the same way that your heart, lungs and liver are all part of you even though they can also be considered discretely. A popular variant of this idea is that all things exist as part of the Mind of God and that everything we feel and experience are simply the thoughts of the Divine Awareness. Charles Hartshorn goes this one better by suggesting that the relationship of the deity to the universe is one of a mind to its body, which is to suggest that there is simultaneously a duality and a unity between the divine and the mundane.
Whether we treat existence as the Perfect Being's body or mind, however (or some combination thereof), we are face the difficulty of the fact that the elements of existence are imperfect. We are faced, as one example, with the problem of evil. If all things are part of the Perfect Being, and evil exists in the universe, then the implication is that part of the Perfect Being is evil and, thus, imperfect.
It is possible to get around this apparent paradox by proposing that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. By this proposal, individual aspects of the Perfect Being can seem imperfect when viewed in isolation while, never the less, contributing to a perfect entity when viewed in the aggregate, much as a circle is composed of arc segments that, by themselves, lack the geometric perfection of the circle to which they are a part.
While this formulation does have a certain intellectual elegance, it is morally problematic. If the apparent imperfections that we find in existence are an illusion created by an insufficient perspective then so too is the apparent evil in the universe. If we embrace this view we find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of having to deny, for instance, that the rape of a ten year old girl is, in any sense of the word, wrong. I suspect that few people would be willing to believe that we live in such a Panglossian reality. Never the less, the position does seem to be logically tenable.
The final option is to make an appeal to Mystery which is to say that we simply declare that even though the omnipresence of the Perfect Being is a fact, our ability to understand that fact is limited by our capacity to comprehend the nature of that fact. The question is "answered" by declaring it unanswerable.
Again, this is a logically tenable position and there is precedence in theology to declare that certain things presumed to be factual are, never the less, imponderable (the Christian doctrine of the Trinity being the classic example). While such an answer might provide an anodyne to religious belief, I don't find this sort of solution to be intellectually satisfying. Remember, for me theology is an abstract intellectual exercise. As such, I don't gain much pleasure by proposing a problem and then by "solving" the problem by declaring it insoluble by fiat.
Of course, we might well ask whether or not omnipresence is a necessary characteristic of a Perfect Being. One could make an Anselmian argument that a being that is less than absolutely present is less perfect than a being that is fully present, however, such an argument carries within it a circular presumption that degrees of presence have anything more to do with perfection then texture or color (must we presume that the Perfect Being is absolutely chromatic – whatever that might mean?). Be that as it may, it's hard to shake the feeling that a being that is otherwise absolute in every other aspect, but which is limited in space and/or time, is, indeed, less than a perfect being.
Alternatively, since we can argue that the existence of a Perfect being necessary excludes anything else but itself from existence, we can arrive at an anti-theodic conclusion that the existence of other things is a demonstration that the Perfect Being does not exist.
My own suspicion is that our definition of Perfection may, indeed, be faulty. I think that perfection my imply Totality, which is to say that a Perfect Being would be a kind of superset (a class?) that necessarily included within itself all possible things. I think that such a being would not, and could not, have a personality or, indeed, any sort of unified sentience since awareness, itself, would only be a subset of the whole and that no thought or set of thoughts could be privileged above any other set of thoughts. Such a being would be all possible thoughts, all possible peoples, all possible places, and all possible events. Such a being would neither be good nor evil but fully contain both. Such a being would, in short, be nothing less than Existence: impersonal and absolute.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Fat Like Me
I was a skinny kid; one of those kids who could eat chocolate sundaes for each of my three meals followed by pound cake for dessert. Sadly, that all started to change right around the time I was sixteen when one of my friends helpfully pointed out to me -- while at a pool in front of all my other friends -- that, hey, I was getting fat. (I wanted to thank him with a crowbar).
There are many things that suck about being fat (and at 225 pounds, I'm not going to retreat to euphemisms), but the worst, in my opinion, is the general perception that if someone's fat it's because they've let themselves become fat. There's a smug inversion to that sentiment, too. If someone is thin, they can pride themselves on their wonderful willpower which is evidenced by the simple fact that they aren't fat. I suspect that one of the reasons that obesity is still a safe port for public humor (as opposed to, say, ethnicity) is that there is a perceived moral dimension to weight. If your fat, it is seen as a reflection of your character: you are guilty of being a willful glutton.
When fat people object that their weight isn't their fault, their protests are usually met with skepticism if not outright derision. Do we not have control over what passes through our mouths? Could we not simply eat a little bit less? The reality, however, is that weight actually does have less to do with willpower than most people assume. The first evidence of this came from the research of Jules Hirsch, in 1959.
Hirsch took obese volunteers and put them on a controlled diet. Their weight was painstakingly reduced to that of a normal person. What Hirsch discovered was that the volunteers bodies reacted to the weight reduction in two ways. The first was that the volunteers started to exhibit symptoms of starvation psychosis which mirrored the symptoms one might see in prisoners of war deprived or food or refugees on a starvation diet. The volunteers universally felt hungry to the point of starvation all the time. The second effect, which is even more insidious, was that their metabolisms literally slowed down by as much as 24% which meant that not only were they starving, but their bodies conspired to put weight back on them.
A converse study was performed by Dr. Ethan Sims who took thin volunteers and fed them a high-calorie diet to force them to gain weight and who then monitored what happened to them once they were off the diet. As you might expect, the results were a mirror image of the obesity trials. The volunteers lost their appetites and their metabolisms kicked into high gear. As a consequence, they couldn't help but to lose weight.
This has been further bolstered by twin studies. Identical twins separated at birth will almost inevitably have the same body-mass index while fraternal twins have similar BMIs. Likewise, adopted children are much more likely to have weights that resemble those of their biological parents than of their adopted parents.
The simple conclusion of these studies is that weight is primarily genetic. While it is possible for a fat person to starve themselves thin everything in their biology will fight against that thinness just as those who are naturally thin would have to exercise immense will to become and stay fat. Dr. Jeffrey Friedman has offered the analogy of holding one's breath: while it is possible to do so in contradiction to the instinct to breath, eventually the urge to breath becomes overwhelming.
As someone who is fat, I find this news simultaneously uplifting and depressing. It is good -- really good -- to know that I don't simply suffer from a defective will but it's also disheartening to think that I'll always be stuck with this weight.
There is the temptation to treat this information as license to eat whatever I want. After all, if my body has a natural weight that it wants to be, it doesn't really matter if I try to control my weight. I should be able to eat what I like without any pangs to my conscience. As it happens, I take pains to eat a healthy mix of foods and to keep my caloric intake to under 2,000 calories a day. I have three reasons for doing so.
- Because I am fat, I recognize that I'm more prone to certain health conditions. I am much more likely to develop adult onset diabetes (I have several siblings who already have) and heart disease. Eating nutritious foods won't guarantee that I won't develop a weight related condition but it will help to minimize the risk. The fact that I've been able to maintain a healthy blood pressure and cholesterol level are indications that this is a good strategy.
- Even though the bulk of our weight (no pun intended) is largely out of our hands, there's about 20 to 30 pounds of drift weight that is amenable to diet and exercise. Although I doubt that I'll even be able to get much below 220, I would rather be closer to 220 than to 245, which is where I was before I changed my eating habits. Even a difference of 20 pounds can feel significant. I have more energy than I did before and I feel much healthier than I otherwise would have. For simply quality of life, this is worth the effort.
- I know that whenever a thin person sees a fat person eating a cheeseburger, they nod to themselves and receive another bit of enforcement to their smug preconception that they're better than those of us who aren't thin. I don't want to give the bastards that sort of satisfaction.
Acknowledgement to the New York Times for reporting on the historical research. See Linked article.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
A Few Thoughts
I know that I've been very quiet and I'm sure that my "three" readers are probably wondering what the heck has happened to me. I'm sorry to say that I've just been very busy and haven't had the mental energy to blog. I assure you that this isn't a permanent state, however. I have some ideas for essays that I want to write but I also want to be sure to get them the focus of my attention when I do write them.
In the meanwhile, here's an essay by one of the professors at Virgina Tech who's rebutting Dinesh D'Souza, who took the aftermath of the Virgina Tech tragedy as an opportunity to bash atheists. If there's one thing that makes me mad, it's when people spin tragedy in the name of agenda. I don't care if that agenda is gun control (pro andcon), anti-video game legislation, immigration, or secularism... all of which were wrapped around the shooting before the bodies were even in the ground. While I don't think that this is the time or place for a debate, this persons reply is eloquent and heartfelt and I think that it puts a nasty piece of public ugliness in its place.
People like Dinesh D'Souza have an axe to grind and they love nothing more than an excuse to grind that axe in public. They are attention whores of the worst order and I think that there must be something inside them that becomes thrilled when things like this shooting happen because it gives them one more chance to try to wedge themselves into the spotlight. While there is a part of me that feels that the best reply is silence there is the risk that silence equates to assent. This anonymous professor, who doesn't even care to put his name forward, challenges the D'Souzan vultures of the world with something better: the simple rebuke of shame.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Unstructured Politics
I was watching a show, on the National Geographic network, about multiple births that focused on their embryological development. The show does an excellent job of showing actual (and high-quality CGI) images of embryos as they're developing.
As I was watching it I found myself growing increasingly uncomfortable. I had a very hard time looking at the images, which was odd since I'm not particularly squeemish about these things. In point of fact, I think that embryology is one of those genuinely fascinating topics that I want to know more about.
I took a moment to examine my feelings when it hit me. The source of my aversion wasn't the images, per se, it was the fact that 90% of the time I see images of embryos in the context of abortion protests which is one of my least favorite topics.
The irony, of course, is that the people who are trying the hardest to protect embryos have made them something that I -- a person who finds them interesting -- find difficult to even look at because, in my mind, they've become associated with a political topic that I don't find enjoyable.
This leads me to wonder what other sort of things we might be creating negative associations for by politicizing them. The one that leaps immediately to mind is the animal rights movement. I know quite a few people who have (what I think are) perfectly sane views on the subject of animal rights and our ethical responsibilities towards animals who, never the less, will immediately launch into self-defensive jokes about frying up critters and eating them simply because the topic is indelibly associated with PeTA, an organization that most people (animal lovers or not) can't stand.
I suspect that environmentalists have done the same thing. One can't even begin to discuss the importance of environmental protection without having to cut through layers of negative association brought about by radicalist organizations such as Earth First.
I think that this can be taken as further evidence that politicization tends to damage debate. Rather than promoting discussion of difficult topics, we resort to emotionalism and iconolization (if I may coin a word) which not only hampers rational discussion but which actually creates a sense of aversion in those who might be most inclined to discuss the topics, nor do such efforts ultimately help those who deploy them. The fact that I have developed a negative association towards embryos doesn't help those who want to protect them, nor is PeTA helping animals by making people feel subconsciously angry whenever they see a picture of a cow.
The terminal effect is that debate is ceded to the extremes and any hopes of moderation become lost in the shouting. Somehow those of use that don't find ourselves at the poles of a debate need to come up with a way to reclaim the center and to carve out a space for rational discussion.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
On Elves and Oafs
When we think about elves we tend to think of them as graceful and (generally) benevolent beings (either that or as Santa's little helpers... but I think those twerps are more closely related to leprechauns).
The latest update to Michael Quinion's World Wide Words came as something of a shocker to me. It turns out that word "elf" is closely related to the word "oaf", which seems to be the antithesis of what elves are supposed to be like! How can this be.
Well, elves didn't always have the benevolent associations that they do in the modern era. Originally, elves were thought of as devious, and often dangerous, beings who were best avoided, nor were they imagined to be creatures of great beauty. In fact, elfs [sic] and goblins were very nearly considered to be synonymous. An oaf was, in fact, the name used to describe a changeling, which is to say an elf's child left in place of a human child. An oaf has the distinguishing characteristic of being uglier and stupider than a normal child.
So where did our modern notion of elves [again, sic] as quasi-divine beings come from? In a word, Tolkien. Tolkien can be thought of as a one-man PR firm for the race. The first thing he did was to change the plural from elfs to elves, which rolls off the tongue much more gracefully. He then created an elaborate mythology and history which gave them the noble bearing that we now assume they possess. Some of the original flavor of elves was preserved in the form of the Orcs which are, in his books, elves that had been corrupted and debased.
Because of Tolkien's influence over modern fantasy (an influence that didn't really take hold until the 60's, which is about the time that the fantasy market exploded into its own genre), the popular conception of elves has been thoroughly altered. It is with some irony that any modern fantasy author that wanted to present a more authentic conception of elves would have to take deliberate pains to overcome their reader's modernist preconceptions. In other words, most people would find "real" elfs to be just a bit too unbelievable.
Friday, December 15, 2006
On Liberalism and Conservatism
A good long time ago, I was surprised to find that my friend Kyle considers himself to be a conservative. This surprised me given that he's a Wiccan and that he holds a number of beliefs that would seem to fall under the traditional umbrella of liberal values, so I asked him why he considered himself a Conservative.
In his reply to me he caught me off-guard with a counter-question: "how do you understand those words, and why do you call yourself liberal?".
Like many seemingly simple questions, this one contained a lot of depth. At first, I thought that I'd be able to give a quick answer but, the more I thought about it, the more difficult I found it to actually answer that question. Indeed, I've been pondering the question since last March. I think that I've finally come up with something that works, at least for me.
Since it's usually a good idea to start with a dictionary (and always a bad idea to end with one) when trying to understand a concept, let's see what Webster's has to say:
Main Entry: lib·er·al·ism
Function: noun
1 : the quality or state of being liberal
2 a often capitalized : a movement in modern Protestantism emphasizing intellectual liberty and the spiritual and ethical content of Christianity b : a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard c : a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties d capitalized : the principles and policies of a Liberal party
I think that it should be apparent that definition 1 is fairly useless and that 2a only applies to the realm of theology, which isn't under discussion. 2b is interesting mainly because it's a fairly close description of the economic theories that tend to be advanced by American conservatives. Parts of 2c seems to have potential, but, to me, it seems to miss the mark a bit, not least because the idea of individual autonomy and political and civil liberty is also embraced by many who call themselves conservative. I'm also not willing to assume that conservatives don't believe in the essential goodness of the human race, nor am I convinced that liberals are necessarily going to accept the premise. 2d seems to me to be circular: What's liberalism? It's what Liberal parties adhere to.
Main Entry: con·ser·va·tism
Function: noun
1 capitalized a : the principles and policies of a Conservative party b : the Conservative party
2 a : disposition in politics to preserve what is established b : a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change
3 : the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change
The 1a definition of conservatism has the same issues as the 3d definition of liberalism: it seems circular. 1b is even worse. 2a seems to have potential but, again, it seems to miss the mark as well. 2b also seems to have potential but, like 2a, seems to lack something. 3 seems to recapitulate 2a and 2b, only extending them outside of the political realm.
It quickly became apparent to me that one of the biggest problems with discussing liberalism vs. conservatism is that the discussion often gets side-tracked into discussions of political positions, many of which don't have any necessary mapping to either side.
Let's take conservation as an example. In modern American politics, conservation (often referred to as environmentalism) is considered a liberal position and is, in fact, one of the central planks of the Democratic party (which is generally considered to be the major left-wing party in the American political landscape). Opposition to environmental regulation is typically associated with conservative politics and the Republican party in particular. However, the history of conservation does not make these obvious associations. Many conservation movements (especially German and Japanese sylvan stewardship) has strong conservative roots and, even in the United States, the National Parks system got its start under Lincoln and was expanded by more than a few conservative presidents (up to and including George W. Bush). It wasn't until the publication of Silent Spring and the subsequent association with anti-corporatism that environmentalism came to be thought of as a leftist movement.
I think that the conventional associations of many positions that are presumed to be on the left or the right also lack any necessary association with their assignments. I can, for instance, envision a world where the right to bear arms is championed as a liberal cause under the theory that, in its absence, society has no recourse to advance against repressive institutions. I can also imagine worlds where gay rights are considered a conservative stance, perhaps because they are enshrined in the dominant religion.
A second and more subtle problem is that there is a general perception that liberalism and conservatism are mutually exclusive. The two philosophies are considered to be antagonistic, holding opposite stances on all major issues. I found myself asking if this was necessarily so and coming to the conclusion that it was not. (More on this later.)
So how do I answer Kyle's question? With much thought I think that it is a question of core values. What is it that matters most to either side? Let's start with conservatism.
I think that the core value of conservatism is the preservation of the Good. A conservative looks at the world and sees that there are many institutions and traditions that are good and he is loath to change those things for fear that altering them, even with good intentions, could have the effect of replacing that which is good about them with something that is less desirable or even evil. This is a fear that finds empirical justification given the ample evidence that unintended consequences frequently subvert attempts to enhance a system and that, the more complex the system, the greater the chance that unintended consequences will crop up. Given that society is the most complex system of them all, efforts to make changes to it should be given the utmost contemplation and consideration before we move on to implementation. That said, conservatism doesn't require the preservation of all institutions. Few modern conservatives would argue, for instance, that ending slavery was wrong. Since slavery was a manifest evil, eradicating it was the correct and just course of action in spite of the upheavals that its eradication caused and despite the myriad consequences that stem from its elimination.
The core value of liberalism is harder to define. I think that liberalism predicates itself on a theory, which I would call the theory of the Just Society. What is the Just Society? The Just Society is the one all people are treated fairly, where all institutions support the common good and where all laws are just.
The Just Society does not exist. Instead, it's a sort of ideal. It is a frankly Utopian vision. Indeed, one of the most frequent criticisms of liberalism is that it's unrealistic. Sure, it's nice to imagine a perfect world but, in the meanwhile, we have to get our heads out of the clouds and deal with the real world. Although the concept of the Just Society is Utopian, it does not follow that liberalism is necessarily Utopian. One can concede that the Just Society can never be truly obtained while never the less asserting that any changes that move us closer to the ideal should be encouraged.
From the theory of the Just Society, I think we can describe the core value of liberalism as progress towards the Just Society. If I were to give liberalism a bumper sticker motto, it would be, "If the world could be a better place then it should be a better place."
(If anyone would like to suggest a non-pejorative conservative motto, please feel free to do so.)
I think that the advantage of these definitions is that they are descriptive while, never the less, allowing for a great deal of flexibility in practice. What exactly is the Just Society? Is it a society where all wealth is redistributed? Some may say yes while others would certainly say no. What is the Good? Is racial segregation a good thing? Many thought it was and now many don't.
Although it may be tempting to try to come up with core definitions which aren't open to dispute, neither liberals nor conservatives are monolithic which tell me that the core values of either philosophy must be subject to interpretive disputation, which is precisely what we find in the real world. Two liberals can agree that moving towards a just society is necessary without having to agree to what that society is or how to reach it. A pair of conservatives can have a dispute over what, exactly, is good and deserving of preservation while still holding the preservation of the Good as a central value.
Even if a majority of liberals subscribe to a given viewpoint, it doesn't follow that that viewpoint must be adopted by all liberals or rejected by all conservatives, which is why I think that efforts to catalog a person's position by their stance on various issues often leads to seeming paradoxes (such as the existence of conservative Wiccans). The apparent paradoxes are artifacts of perception that have no bearing on the reality. Even though most conservatives aren't Wiccans (and are, indeed, fairly hostile to Wiccans), if a person, who happens to be a Wiccan, accepts the core value of preserving the Good then that person has every right and cause to call themselves a conservatives. The same can be said of liberals who oppose abortion (and so forth and so on).
If we do accept these definitions we find an interesting thing happens: it becomes apparent that neither philosophy is necessarily antagonistic towards the other. One who values social progress can concede that there are institutions that should be preserved. The Just Society could (and almost certainly world) encompass many values that we currently hold. Likewise, one who desires the preservation of the Good can admit that there are institutions that should be overturned and that it's even possible, and desirable, to replace a current Good with an even greater Good (although we shall want to approach the proposition with caution).
These definitions suggest a shift in our perception of the relationship between liberalism and conservatism. Instead of viewing them as naturally antagonistic we, instead, can see them as part of a larger process; a sort of social dialectic, in fact. There is a kind of practical antagonism given that liberal philosophies will inevitably call for the overthrow of institutions that conservatives are wary of discarding, but this antagonism describes a conflict of plans as opposed to a fundamentally ideological conflict. To be sure, the ideologies tend to generate conflict but they don't require conflict.
One can imagine society as being a bit like a car. Conservatism acts as a social brake while liberalism is a kind of accelerator. Just as with a car doesn't move at all if you only hold down the brake, and just as it is apt to spin out of control and crash if you only press the accelerator, the Vehicle of Society needs to have both elements to move forward at a prudent rate. Of course this is an inexact analogy. In the real Vehicle of Society, you have millions of people stomping down as hard as possible on both pedals while simultaneously trying to jerk the steering wheel to one side or another. (It also has the curious feature that if you press down on the brake hard enough, it can actually go backwards, and the same is true of the accelerator!)
Be that as it may, there is no fundamental reason that liberals and conservatives have that requires them to be in conflict over any given goal. Every so often we should expect that the interests of the two groups should align. More importantly, we should find mutual value is trying to find those cases of alignment. Liberals should be willing to admit that all progress is not good progress and conservatives should be willing to concede that not all that is preserved is worth preserving.
This leads to Kyle's question: why do I call myself a liberal?
Truthfully, I'm tempted to toss aside the label altogether. Even though I still value the theory of the Just Society and sincerely want us to move towards, I also concede that preserving the Good is not only laudable but critical. It would be simple to say that I am neither. I would also be disingenuous.
Although I can see both sides, the truth is that I tend to come down on the side of progress far more often than I come down on the side of preservation. I sincerely believe that more institutions ought to be either overturned or improved than preserved and that efforts to preserve social institutions seem to disproportionately favor the perpetuation of injustices. At the same time, I can be glad that there are people like Kyle who stand on the other side of the fence checking my desire to gun the engine. I believe that we are both a necessary part of the whole and even if I get frustrated by the specific rate and nature of my culture's progress (to say nothing of the occasional regress) I have confidence that, in the long run, society does move forward, inching its way towards that infinitely distant utopia that I dream of.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The Visual Structure of Poems
If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you've probably noticed that poetry is a hobby of mine. Like many hobbyists, I take mine quite seriously (and I think I do well at it, thank you very much).
I am fortunate that I have a set of friends who are willing to not only indulge my desire to share my poems but who are also willing to critique them. I was recently discussing a batch of poems with my friend Rob when mentioned that the shape of a poem -- which is to say the layout of the words on the page -- is an important part of a poem.
Rob replied that he really didn't see that and that, for him, the only thing that really mattered was the way that a poem sounded when he read it. A composed a response to him that is, with some modifications, today's essay.
For this essay I'll be using three of my own poems: "Cheops", "Fragments", and "Origami Redux". I want to state up front that I don't consider any of these to be particularly excellent poems (all of them are very early works of mine); however, they do have the advantage of being illustrative of my points.
Let us start with "Cheops". I wrote this poem in imitation of a 19th century fad where poets laid out their poems in the form of pictures (the most impressive one was of a swan). "Cheops" is a fairly simple example of the style.
I
see
Death
He will
not steal
These loves
The Nile that
moves slowly or
the feel of blood
I am Pharaoh I will
rise above the wretch
for I am a god and time
will bow to my holy whimsNow let us contrast this with a version laid out in a more conventional format:I see Death
He will not steal these loves:
The Nile that moves slowly
Or the feel of blood
I am Pharaoh
I will rise
Above the wretch
For I am a god
And time will bow
To my holy whims
In both cases we have the same words, but notice how the layout impacts how the poem is read and interpreted.
You might suppose that I'm going to suggest that the triangular layout is superior but, in fact, I think that it ends up detracting from the poem by distracting us away from the words and lending a perception that the entire poem is really just a gimmick (which is precisely what it was when I originally wrote it). The second layout, on the other hand expresses the core ideas of the poem while also giving us a number of subconscious cues.
Note how the first, third and fifth stanzas are single lines and note the content of those lines. On the one hand it sets up a sort of mental cadence (short, long, short, long, short, long) that impacts how we read the poem (which, in turn, impacts the sound of the poem). Even more subtly, stanza one introduces the person of death, stanza three introduces the person of the Pharaoh, and stanza five expresses the relation of Pharaoh to Death (he's a god and thus above Death). Stanzas two, four and six, by contrast, are narrative stanzas that tell a miniature story about Pharaoh's love of life, his self-perception, and his desire to defeat death.
The second version of the poem, which only differs in shape from the first, has layers of nuance that the first completely lacks. Although the triangular form has a sort of rude cleverness, it actually ends up subverting poem, turning it into a cheap trick. The very same words, in a different form, give us something that is, I think, much better than the original.
The next example is a poem called Fragments. It's a fairly maudlin poem, but it has a very unusual sort of structure.
you
holding him
he
doesn't care
(i do)
you and him
touching
him and you
I'm
alone
untouched
un
touchableOnce again, we can write this in a more conventional style:You holding him
He doesn't care
I do
You and him
Touching him and you
I'm alone
Untouched
Untouchable
Overlooking the fact that the poem is hopelessly self-pitying, I don't think that the second version is all that bad in terms of the structure conveying the message of the poem. However, it lacks the vigorous sense of emotional fragmentation that the first version conveys.
The scattered words give the indication that the author has been struck a shattering blow. The words are blown apart with the single exception being the triplet of "you and him / touching / him and you", offering a stark contrast of stability and unity that the rest of the words, especially the isolated and parenthesized "i do", lack.
Finally, note that the final word, "untouchable" is, itself, broken, which simultaneously expresses the brokenness of the author's heart while, at the same time, suggesting the potential for healing (since the last word is actually "touchable").
Although the more conventional layout does a decent job of conveying the core idea of the poem, I think that the first version adds a dimension of expression that the first simply does not reach.
My final example is a poem called "Origami Redux". The poem, itself, is fairly angst-ridden, but it provides a good example of how subtle structural changes can alter the way we read a poem. We'll start with the original:
I fold myself away
In silent shame
And shameless pity.
I cry,
And no one sees me;
Invisible tears
Gain no sympathy.
I long for the painlessness of sleep
And the sleepfulness of death.
And all the anger
fear
hatred
embarrassment
and misery
Make me fold againNote the linear distribution of emotions from lines 10 thru 14 in the first version. Each emotion has a crisp, visual impact that hits your eyes -- bam, bam, bam!Now let's compare that to this version:
I fold myself away
In silent shame
And shameless pity.
I cry,
And no one sees me;
Invisible tears
Gain no sympathy.
I long for the painlessness of sleep
And the sleepfulness of death.
And all the anger
Fear, hatred
Embarrassment and misery
Make me fold again
See how the list of emotions -- the core feelings that explain the rest of the poem -- simply get lost in the body of the poem? Note also that the first rendering makes the last line stand out (which is a rather critical line, given the title of the poem) while the last rendering fails to distinguish it.
Now let's do a third rendering that's somewhere in the middle, by breaking the poem into stanzas:
I fold myself away
In silent shame
And shameless pity.
I cry,
And no one sees me;
Invisible tears
Gain no sympathy.
I long for the painlessness of sleep
And the sleepfulness of death.
And all the anger
Fear, hatred
Embarrassment and misery
Make me fold again
In this example, the divisions of the stanzas create logical partitions of the feelings that the poem is expressing.
Stanza one expresses a metaphorical action: folding away.
Stanza two expresses an action: silently crying.
Stanza three is an introspection about that action: the world doesn't care.
Stanza four expresses a desire: I want to die.
Stanza five is a litany of feelings: anger, fear, hatred, embarrassment and misery.
Stanza six recapitulates stanza one: folding away.
All of these exist in the previous versions but separating then into distinct verses helps them to stand out and gives the reader a sense of narrative motion that the first two versions don't convey as strongly.
It should go without saying that the structural impact of the majority of poems is much more subtle but I would contend that it's always there. I believe that even the way that the ragged right edge of a poem lines up can leave a subconscious impression on the reader.
I don't think that it's the reader's job to look for hidden cues in the layout. A good poem doesn't demand itself to be read in a particular way or with a particular understanding, but it should lay out a path for the reader.
A good poet should be able to subtly influence the way that his poems are read without beating the reader over the head. I believe that the shape -- the visual "feel" of a poem -- does matter and that it does require attention when composing a poem, even if the reader never notices it on a conscious level because, even if that reader doesn't realize it, he's going to be influenced just the same.
Friday, November 10, 2006
An Open Letter to the Democratic Party
Hi guys. First of all, let me say congratulations. You've been out of power for a very long time and I know you've been waiting for the pendulum to swing. So, kudos and all that.
I'd also like to say that I'm, personally, happy that you took back Congress. Even if I didn't already have deep misgivings about Bush, I don't believe that it's healthy for a single party to control all three branches of government. I'm a big fan of checks and balances and I think that having one party in control erodes them.
I'll also be upfront and state that I am a liberal. I should caution you that being a liberal does not mean that I'm a Democrat. In point of fact, I think that the mapping of Democratic principles and Liberal ideals is inexact and that the contention that Democrats are a liberal party is misleading. That said, I recognize that you are the more liberal of the two parties and that having you in office does a better (albeit far from perfect) job of representing my interests and values.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, please don't blow it.
You have a long, long history of sabotaging yourselves and I'll be frank: I think a big part of that is that I don't really think that your leadership has either a strong sense of commitment to your own purported values or the skill to pragmatically pursue your agenda items. Way too often you come across as a The Three Stooges by way of Machiavelli, which is a big part of the reason that people just don't trust you.
That said, let's talk about some specific issues.
The War
This is the big one. This election was, in fact, a major referendum on the war and I think that everyone appreciates that, including the president (why else would Rumsfeld "resign" the very next day). I think that you may not understand what, precisely, it is that people want, though.
The public has decided that the war has gone on for too long. They want it to end, and the sooner the better. However, there's two ways that it can end: victory or withdrawal.
Americans like to win. We hate losing at anything, especially wars. The reason Vietnam worked so hard against Kerry was because Americans still have a bitter taste in their mouths over the fact that we "lost" and Kerry's enemies were able to successfully associate him with the side that promoted defeat.
Given an alternative, Americans would like for us to be able to declare some sort of victory. You need to work with the president (yeah, I know -- a bitter thing to do but, unfortunately, he's still the Commander in Chief) to define a victory condition and to do what it takes to achieve it. That may well mean putting a whole lot more troops on the ground. Obviously you'll need to avoid a draft (again, that would bring up too many associations with Vietnam, to say nothing of making your base go ape shit) but do everything you can to get the job done.
I am going to strongly warn you against pushing for immediate withdrawal. I think that it would work against your interests and I also think that it would be wrong in terms of our national security (leaving behind an anti-American Islamic theocracy would be bad, m'kay?) as well as morally wrong. I think that the war was a mistake but that doesn't negate the fact that we brought about the environment for the current chaos.
If you, never the less, do make this your goal, you are going to need to figure out a way that we can do so honorably. Figure out a way that we can leave without giving every American the feeling that we have egg on our face. If you can't do that you will lose in 2008 everything that you've gained in 2006.
Immigration
This is another hot-button issue which ended up costing the Republicans a lot of votes. The problem is that they correctly gauged that this is something that Americans care about and are upset about, but they misjudged how we want to deal with it.
Let's be very clear: the thought that illegal immigrants are coming to America and enjoying legal benefits pisses people off. I'll grant that a lot of the anger is over exaggerations but that doesn't alter the fact that people hate the idea of illegals enjoying a better life by violating the law.
I know that you're afraid of losing the support of the Hispanic community. You need to be aware, though, that what lost the Republicans the support of that community wasn't that they were in favor of curtailing illegal immigration. What lost them support was the over xenophobia and racism that pervaded their message.
Someone who has gone to the trouble of obtaining citizenship isn't going to be opposed to the idea that illegal aliens need to be discouraged, as long as they don't feel like they're being attacked as well.
I hate to say it but the Presidents plan actually has quite a bit of merit. Make it easy for foreign laborers to get work permits and streamline the process for obtaining legal citizenship while you're at it. Go ahead and offer amnesties to the illegals who are already here but then get serious about punishing and evicting the ones that don't follow legal routs afterwards.
Taxes
This is a tough one. You and I both know that the tax rate has been kept artificially low at the expense of a rising debt. The Republicans are sincerely hoping that you will be the ones to raise taxes because they know that one of the biggest things to influence voters is their pocketbooks.
This is one case where I'm going to say that you need to be ruthless. You and the Republicans are in a game of chicken. You can not be the party to raise taxes, especially not in the first two years. Beat them at their own game. Slash spending. You can get some happiness out of this by going after their own pet programs. You might also be able to get away with letting certain tax cuts expire. If you do, only do the ones that directly benefit the wealthy (and make it loud and clear that you are). You can also score a whole lot of points by aggressively going after pork. That damned Bridge to Nowhere got you more traction than you realize. Resist the urge to gorge on your own pork and publicly criticize Republicans who pork their own districts and you can, once and for all, demolish the perception that the Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility.
Terrorism
The big T. The threat of terrorism is exaggerated but the people's fear of terrorism is sincere. You can not afford to be soft on this subject. You need to aggressively promote efficient programs to combat terrorism. At the same time, though, you need to start standing up for the Constitution. I don't think that Americans are really comfortable with secret prisons and torture. Push to have terrorists brought out in the light, tried in public, and put away permanently (and yes, that means executions). You need to prove that we can fight the enemy without becoming the enemy. This is the single most important task you have before you, so don't fuck it up. If you can't make that case then I fear that the end result will be a police state. This is a matter that genuinely transcends politics, so don't be afraid to reach across the aisle. There are plenty of Republicans who don't like Bush and Company's Stasi tactics. Find them and work with them.
Retribution
One word: don't. I know that the Republicans have been bashing you down unscrupulously and I know that the temptation for payback must be immense but now is not the time for it. Fortunately, you've already taken impeachment off of the table. That was a very smart thing to do. I'm worried, however, that you're still planning investigations.
Heaven knows that we need some investigations (especially if we're going to solve anything), but I know how you guys can get carried away by this.
In particular, you can not give the people the impression that you're just going to spend the next two years getting even. That's not why you were elected and that's not what America wants. If you do give in to this temptation I will guarantee that the Republicans will do a better job than you did of making it look mean and spiteful. They're just more competent when it comes to that kind of thing.
Keep your focus on what matters.
Other Issues
You need to reconnect with your core values. You are supposed to be the party of the little people. The party that stands up to big business. The party that opposes authoritarianism. You've lost that vision over the years. What crumbs you've retained are just stale relics. Rediscover yourselves and return to that which gave you meaning. That means that you need to take a hard look in the mirror.
I think a good place to start would be to take a hard, objective look at what things are important to the youth of the nation. Right now they are a very cynical bunch, which is rather strange given that youth is usually the font of idealism. Try to figure out why they are so cynical. I think you'll discover that a big part of it is that they feel that no one represents them and that no one, even more fundamentally, cares. They see you are being just another branch of the Republican party. That is a bad thing. Worse: they have a point. You can't ignore the middle but there is a point where you need to draw a line and say, "We believe this to be true!"
One of the reasons that the Republicans have been so successful is that they genuinely believe their message (they don't always practice it, but that's another story). They have a set of values that they want to promote. They have an honest to God mission. You did too, once, but you seem to have lost that. If you don't have something that you believe in, no one is going to believe in you.
Conclusion
These are not happy times. Humanity needs a better world than this, and America has more influence than any other country in determining whether or not that will happen. This is an historical time. Such times call for people to do better and to be better. You have an opportunity to do just that. You have the chance to help make the world a better place. It is an awesome responsibility and history will judge you by how well you handle it.
One more time: don't blow it.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Iraq and the Kubler-Ross Model
In 1969, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross published an influential book called On Death and Dying which was one of the first scholarly books to examine how people cope with the news that they are dying.
Central to the book was a thesis that has come to be known as the Kubler-Ross model which describes five stages of grief that terminally ill go through. The model has, since then, been generalized to apply to any situation where one is coping with catastrophic news.
Perhaps this may sound flip, but it occurs to me that the current Administration seems to be going through something akin to those five stages with regards to the war in Iraq.
Stage 1: Denial
After the initial exuberance of military victory, it quickly became apparent that occupying the country was going to be much more difficult than anticipated and that, worst of all, awe were not being universally greeted as liberators. To the contrary, an insurgency quickly emerged from the initial chaos and it rapidly became obvious that the insurgency wasn't going to go away easily.
Never the less, the Administration's initial reaction was denial. Rather that admitting the obvious, they claimed that the insurgency was composed of foreigners and "dead enders", that it was weak, that it didn't have any popular support, and that it was, of course, in its "last throes".
Stage 2: Anger
As the conflict continued and popular support begin to wane, the Administration became angry. The anger wasn't merely directed towards the insurgents but was also directed towards critics of the Administration as well as the fledgling government of Iraq. We were told that criticism emboldened the enemy and that speaking out against the handling of the war was almost (and, perhaps, exactly) tantamount to treason. Press conferences started to become contentious. When the President and his spokesmen responded to charges, the tone became contentious.
Stage 3: Bargaining
I believe that this is where we are at right now. The President and his staff have admitted that things aren't really going well but they are pleading with the public to be patient. They are assuring us that, if we just give them another chance, they can still make things right. Instead of denying that there is a problem, or lashing out at those who point to the existence of the problem, they are saying that there's still an opportunity to correct it if we only give them more time.
Stage 4: Depression
I think that we're starting to see signs of depression. There are subtle indications that some administration insiders are starting to believe that the situation may well be beyond hope; that the war may well be a lost cause. It is impossible to know how high up this sentiment goes but it is apparent that the optimistic front the Administration has put forward is crumbling.
Stage 5: Acceptance
I don't believe that the Administration is ready to accept a loss quite yet but there does seem to be a growing sentiment among the GOP that the situation can not be salvaged and that it's time to start thinking of what to do next.
