Now that we are in the Internet Age (I think we can finally christen it as such, with some sort of special ceremony), we must continue to figure out the nature and dynamics of this world. As I have said more than once (but not in this venue), the Internet is like a massive social science experiment without any experimental controls. It continues to plow along, a daily mega-tsunami of messages, developing its own rules and expectations along the way, and changing the way we relate to one another and do things. And if you think about it, all of this has basically happened in just the last 10 years--to coin a new phrase, "in the blink of an eye" (remember that one--I think it will catch on). I really don't think we can say what impact all of this will have; I can't quite picture the electronic world in the year 2028.
However, I can say that with the advent of this instantaneous and wide-reaching medium of communication, there is a funny aspect that's hard to know what to do with. On the one hand, the Internet is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime, and once people hear about something, the buzz can be intense and put people in a very scary fishbowl. I am thinking of poor Miss Teen South Carolina, who gave one of the most inarticulate answers ever to an interview question at a "beauty pageant." (If you haven't seen it, it is a hoot and worth 30 seconds of your time--just go to You Tube and hit "Miss Teen South Carolina.") This little slice of life has been observed by millions of Americans, both on-line and on something called television. And this 30 seconds of her life will stay with her probably forever--someone in 2028 will be able to call up this embarrassing moment in her life and play it once again for the grandkids. So that's one side of things.
On the other side, there are thousands of people out there who are bloggers, for example (gosh, I wonder who he is referring to here?) who continue to record their thoughts on-line. Now, many of these various bloggers' thoughts are not "great thoughts," but they are a hell of a lot better thoughts than those of Miss Teen South Carolina. Yet, most blogs, I'd be willing to bet, have audiences that can easily be counted on one's hands, or maybe one's hands and one's feet. (Although I've found that hash marks on a sheet of paper is an easier way to tally things; you don't have to take off your socks.) These people continue along in a totally obscure way, talking mainly to themselves. In my case, I could be sitting here totally naked, hurling epithets left and right (and those suckers can be tough to hurl after a while), doing all manner of anti-social things, and nobody would notice. So, quite ironically, we have this "modern" style of communication that's lightning fast and efficient and enables us to communicate with....absolutely nobody. Somewhere in there is a postmodern idea.
I haven't figured out what to do with this weird dichotomy/disparity, but like Sisyphus, I'll keep blogging along, howling into the wind, hoping that I say something that's memorable but won't make me the Laughing Stock of the Western World. At least, I think I know (unlike Miss Teen South Carolina) why many who live in this nation cannot locate it on a world map. But let her give you the more amusing answer!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
OMG - 40 years
I attended my 40-year high school reunion last night. That's a little hard to believe, since I am only 36 years old! (I am youthing myself through positive self-affirmation.) And in the less silly, more normal sense, it's hard to believe--I asked our 18-year-old daughter who just graduated from high school if she could imagine re-visiting her classmates in the year 2048, which would be the equivalent passage of time. Oh my.
Something like 26 of my classmates are dead--there's a wake-up call! And although many of them look almost exactly like they did in 1968, others have had mastectomies, or hip replacements, or are in wheelchairs. Many of the men are a couple of pant sizes larger. And with one exception, our favorite teachers have either headed to the Great Beyond or are struggling to stay on this side of it.
I re-connected with several people who are still very sweet and very special--some more so now than in the past. And I made a valiant attempt to figure out what happened with some old romances--at age 17, you don't know what you're doing in those situations, and you are ill-equipped to handle them. I tried to ask the sorts of questions that would resolve those old mysteries, and I got at least half way toward a better grasp of things.
Quite a few people who are members of the Sibley High School class of 1968 and live in the Twin Cities did not attend this event. I always wonder why--it's not as though these gatherings are frequent; the last one was in 1998, and there may not be another one ever again. Whether one goes is kind of like a Rorshach test; it says something about one's temperament and one's life--I'm just not sure WHAT it says, though. I only know that at this point, having connections to the various people who form the tapestry of my life has value, and that the threads which make up that tapestry are all important in their own way.
Something like 26 of my classmates are dead--there's a wake-up call! And although many of them look almost exactly like they did in 1968, others have had mastectomies, or hip replacements, or are in wheelchairs. Many of the men are a couple of pant sizes larger. And with one exception, our favorite teachers have either headed to the Great Beyond or are struggling to stay on this side of it.
I re-connected with several people who are still very sweet and very special--some more so now than in the past. And I made a valiant attempt to figure out what happened with some old romances--at age 17, you don't know what you're doing in those situations, and you are ill-equipped to handle them. I tried to ask the sorts of questions that would resolve those old mysteries, and I got at least half way toward a better grasp of things.
Quite a few people who are members of the Sibley High School class of 1968 and live in the Twin Cities did not attend this event. I always wonder why--it's not as though these gatherings are frequent; the last one was in 1998, and there may not be another one ever again. Whether one goes is kind of like a Rorshach test; it says something about one's temperament and one's life--I'm just not sure WHAT it says, though. I only know that at this point, having connections to the various people who form the tapestry of my life has value, and that the threads which make up that tapestry are all important in their own way.
Friday, July 11, 2008
If Aristotle has flaws, then so can I
By the end of this month, all of you will be able to purchase that fascinating textbook, Argumentation: Critical Thinking in Action, published through iUniverse. Get one for yourself, and several for your friends! And, they make a nice alternative to those run-of-the-mill baby or wedding shower gifts. Just go to www.iUniverse.com. Best of all, 20 percent of the sale price goes to a very worthy local charity. (OK, that charity is me--but I need the dough!)
Despite the relief connected to finishing that particular project, one also develops a nagging feeling that "I could have done better." Or worse, that "I made some mistakes." But you know what? People who are better, smarter, and more famous than I (are any of those things even possible? ha ha) have made mistakes, too.
Take our old friend Aristotle. (I know him well, so I just call him "Ari.") Turns out his famous book on rhetoric (a "Bible" of sorts for those of us in communication studies) has statements that are just plain wrong, or totally silly!
In book I, chapter 7 of The Rhetoric, Ari says: "If the largest member of one class surpasses the largest member of another, then the one class surpasses the other; and if one class surpasses another, then the largest member of one surpasses the largest member of the other. Thus, if the tallest man is taller than the tallest woman, then men in general are taller than women."
Now hold the phone! That ain't necessarily so! At best, if the tallest man is taller than the tallest woman the probability is perhaps higher that men are in general taller than women. But it certainly isn't an assumption that is entirely safe to make--I'd almost call it an error in logic. Maybe, somewhere in the Chernobyl area, there's an 11-foot-tall woman, a result of the radiation from the 1986 accident, who is taller than any man on the planet. Aristotle may be wrong!
Other things that Ari says just seem outdated and silly. For instance, in chapter 5, book I he says "The constituents of wealth are: plenty of coined money and territory; the ownership of numerous, large, and beautiful estates; also the ownership of numerous and beautiful implements, live stock, and slaves. [emphasis added] All these kinds of property are our own, are secure, gentlemanly, and useful." Sounds like a weird combination of J.R. Ewing, Ted Turner, and some southern plantation owner. Aristotle may be a capitalist, racist pig! And, let us not also forget this comment in Book I, chapter 9: "Again, one quality of action is nobler than another if it is that of a naturally finer being: thus a man's will be nobler than a woman's." He's a bleeping sexist, too!
"I could go on and on," as they say, with lots of other examples of this nature from Aristotle's Rhetoric. But I can't do all the work for you--go find your own silly "Aristotle-isms"! But the bigger point is this: if Aristotle can be flawed, then it's OK if my book is a little flawed--because in the end, I think his flaws are more glaring than any of mine! Whew, that's a relief.
Despite the relief connected to finishing that particular project, one also develops a nagging feeling that "I could have done better." Or worse, that "I made some mistakes." But you know what? People who are better, smarter, and more famous than I (are any of those things even possible? ha ha) have made mistakes, too.
Take our old friend Aristotle. (I know him well, so I just call him "Ari.") Turns out his famous book on rhetoric (a "Bible" of sorts for those of us in communication studies) has statements that are just plain wrong, or totally silly!
In book I, chapter 7 of The Rhetoric, Ari says: "If the largest member of one class surpasses the largest member of another, then the one class surpasses the other; and if one class surpasses another, then the largest member of one surpasses the largest member of the other. Thus, if the tallest man is taller than the tallest woman, then men in general are taller than women."
Now hold the phone! That ain't necessarily so! At best, if the tallest man is taller than the tallest woman the probability is perhaps higher that men are in general taller than women. But it certainly isn't an assumption that is entirely safe to make--I'd almost call it an error in logic. Maybe, somewhere in the Chernobyl area, there's an 11-foot-tall woman, a result of the radiation from the 1986 accident, who is taller than any man on the planet. Aristotle may be wrong!
Other things that Ari says just seem outdated and silly. For instance, in chapter 5, book I he says "The constituents of wealth are: plenty of coined money and territory; the ownership of numerous, large, and beautiful estates; also the ownership of numerous and beautiful implements, live stock, and slaves. [emphasis added] All these kinds of property are our own, are secure, gentlemanly, and useful." Sounds like a weird combination of J.R. Ewing, Ted Turner, and some southern plantation owner. Aristotle may be a capitalist, racist pig! And, let us not also forget this comment in Book I, chapter 9: "Again, one quality of action is nobler than another if it is that of a naturally finer being: thus a man's will be nobler than a woman's." He's a bleeping sexist, too!
"I could go on and on," as they say, with lots of other examples of this nature from Aristotle's Rhetoric. But I can't do all the work for you--go find your own silly "Aristotle-isms"! But the bigger point is this: if Aristotle can be flawed, then it's OK if my book is a little flawed--because in the end, I think his flaws are more glaring than any of mine! Whew, that's a relief.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
The world ain't no meritocracy
Considering the different realities that are a part of life (see post of June 8), I am also struck by the fact that people in this world may or may not advance in proportion to their ability, their intelligence, or their general worth as human beings. In a nutshell, the world ain't no meritocracy.
Consider a former advisee whose dad is a well-known actor. He was a decent student and a nice kid, but in the end, a "C" student without particular academic talents. But, in the last week, I have seen this kid pictured with his dad in two national magazines. Why? They have co-authored a cookbook. I can assure you that without the "dad connections," this person's writing would not be featured and promoted in an issue of People.
Consider a person in the legal field for whom I wrote more than 50 radio commentaries back in the 1980s. He wasn't paid much to read them on-air ("only" $100), but he kept $70 and I got $30 for each one. Sometimes all the ideas and the language were his, but sometimes I had a meaningful role to play in both coming up with an idea and expressing it in words. But, the nation heard him, not me. Any "benefits" that came with such exposure came to him, not me. And 70 percent of the money came to him, not me.
And, consider the bonuses and various types of "golden parachutes" that are provided for CEOs. When someone receives additional compensation that goes into the scores of millions of dollars, one has to wonder about the general lack of justice in the world. These people are not a thousand times brighter or better than you and I, but they can make a thousand times more.
In the end, I try to be thankful for who I am (warts and all) and what I have (which is a lot). And I pray a Unitarian/existentialist/humanistic prayer that I do not become one of those people who stands at a freeway off-ramp with a cardboard sign begging for money. But you know what? All it takes is one health crisis, one bad decision, or one unfortunate moment in time and "Mr. Ph.D." becomes "Mr. Please Donate to Me." (Oh my. That's a rather silly turn-of-phrase--barf bags available upon request!)
Consider a former advisee whose dad is a well-known actor. He was a decent student and a nice kid, but in the end, a "C" student without particular academic talents. But, in the last week, I have seen this kid pictured with his dad in two national magazines. Why? They have co-authored a cookbook. I can assure you that without the "dad connections," this person's writing would not be featured and promoted in an issue of People.
Consider a person in the legal field for whom I wrote more than 50 radio commentaries back in the 1980s. He wasn't paid much to read them on-air ("only" $100), but he kept $70 and I got $30 for each one. Sometimes all the ideas and the language were his, but sometimes I had a meaningful role to play in both coming up with an idea and expressing it in words. But, the nation heard him, not me. Any "benefits" that came with such exposure came to him, not me. And 70 percent of the money came to him, not me.
And, consider the bonuses and various types of "golden parachutes" that are provided for CEOs. When someone receives additional compensation that goes into the scores of millions of dollars, one has to wonder about the general lack of justice in the world. These people are not a thousand times brighter or better than you and I, but they can make a thousand times more.
In the end, I try to be thankful for who I am (warts and all) and what I have (which is a lot). And I pray a Unitarian/existentialist/humanistic prayer that I do not become one of those people who stands at a freeway off-ramp with a cardboard sign begging for money. But you know what? All it takes is one health crisis, one bad decision, or one unfortunate moment in time and "Mr. Ph.D." becomes "Mr. Please Donate to Me." (Oh my. That's a rather silly turn-of-phrase--barf bags available upon request!)
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Nibbling on bacon while jingin the jango
As long as I'm citing verse these days (see previous post), I want to remind you all of a particular song and its lyric line. I was "runnin' to the oldies" the other day, listening to 105.7 FM while I trudged down 70th Street in Richfield, when up came that classic tune, "Muskrat Love." I'm thinking, the Captain and Toni Tennille got pretty lucky with this one--it's not exactly Art for the Ages. But after the song plays, what does the DJ add? That this tune was first recorded by the guy in Texas who wrote it--he called it "Muskrat Candlelight," but it didn't catch on, and then the band "America" released it as "Muskrat Love," and it didn't catch on for them either. How in the world could such failure be possible, given the profound lyrics of this piece? I include them herewith:
Muskrat, muskrat candlelight
Doin the town and doin it right
In the evenin
Its pretty pleasin
Muskrat susie, muskrat sam
Do the jitterbug out in muskrat land
And they shimmy
And sammys so skinny
And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed
Singin and jingin the jango
Floatin like the heavens above
It looks like muskrat love
Nibbling on bacon, chewin on cheese
Sammy says to susie honey, would be please by my missus?
And she says yes
With her kisses
And now he's ticklin her fancy
Rubbin her toes
Muzzle to muzzle, now anything goes
As they wriggle, and sue starts to giggle
And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed
Singin and jingin the jango
Floatin like the heavens above
It looks like muskrat love
La da da da da ....
Meanwhile, yours truly, the Contentious Introvert (who wanted to be the Howling Wolf, only that name was taken) writes his share of stuff, including a textbook that's within weeks of being published. Yet, HE SOMEHOW WONDERS IF HIS WRITING WILL EVER BE GOOD ENOUGH! Hey--if "nibbling on bacon, chewin on cheese" is sufficiently profound for three different artists to record it, and to make money off of it, then dammit, I'm good enough, too. (Aren't I? Maybe?) Anyway, here's another shake of the head along with a little muttering and eye-rolling; the world is certifiably bizarre. But I will keep jingin the jango! (if I ever figure out what in the hell that means!)
Muskrat, muskrat candlelight
Doin the town and doin it right
In the evenin
Its pretty pleasin
Muskrat susie, muskrat sam
Do the jitterbug out in muskrat land
And they shimmy
And sammys so skinny
And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed
Singin and jingin the jango
Floatin like the heavens above
It looks like muskrat love
Nibbling on bacon, chewin on cheese
Sammy says to susie honey, would be please by my missus?
And she says yes
With her kisses
And now he's ticklin her fancy
Rubbin her toes
Muzzle to muzzle, now anything goes
As they wriggle, and sue starts to giggle
And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed
Singin and jingin the jango
Floatin like the heavens above
It looks like muskrat love
La da da da da ....
Meanwhile, yours truly, the Contentious Introvert (who wanted to be the Howling Wolf, only that name was taken) writes his share of stuff, including a textbook that's within weeks of being published. Yet, HE SOMEHOW WONDERS IF HIS WRITING WILL EVER BE GOOD ENOUGH! Hey--if "nibbling on bacon, chewin on cheese" is sufficiently profound for three different artists to record it, and to make money off of it, then dammit, I'm good enough, too. (Aren't I? Maybe?) Anyway, here's another shake of the head along with a little muttering and eye-rolling; the world is certifiably bizarre. But I will keep jingin the jango! (if I ever figure out what in the hell that means!)
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Different and separate realities
Hard as I may try not to think this way, I am continually aware of the many realities that make up "reality." As I am keyboarding this sentence, some woman in Malaysia is giving birth; some guy in Belgium may be falling to his death on a construction project; and a whole lotta people are simply sleeping in Eugene, Oregon.
I'm reading the Star Tribune yesterday--a piece on the OpEd page by Michael Gerson of the Washington Post. He's talking about Joseph Kony, "a barbarian who threatens regional stability in Africa." Here's the lead paragraph:
"WASHINGTON - A friend, the head of a major aid organization, tells of how his workers in eastern Congo a few years ago chanced upon a group of shell-shocked women and children in the bush. A militia had kidnapped a number of families and forced the women to kill their husbands with machetes, under the threat that their sons and daughters would be murdered if they refused. Afterward the women were raped by more than 100 soldiers; the children were spectators at their own, private genocide."
I try to take all of this in as I drink coffee and eat my raisin bran. And I do not wonder in the least why I resonate to the word "absurd" as a way to conceive of human existence. These different realities also explain why my all-time favorite poem is "Musee de Beaux Arts" by Auden; it's on the wall in my office, and it captures the same bizarre juxtaposition of multiple realities:
Musee des Beaux Arts
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
-- W. H. Auden
I try to be thankful for what I have, and where I am. And all the while, I am keenly aware that other people are in other places and have other realities. And some of those realities are simply so gruesome that one is left feeling quite powerless.
I'm reading the Star Tribune yesterday--a piece on the OpEd page by Michael Gerson of the Washington Post. He's talking about Joseph Kony, "a barbarian who threatens regional stability in Africa." Here's the lead paragraph:
"WASHINGTON - A friend, the head of a major aid organization, tells of how his workers in eastern Congo a few years ago chanced upon a group of shell-shocked women and children in the bush. A militia had kidnapped a number of families and forced the women to kill their husbands with machetes, under the threat that their sons and daughters would be murdered if they refused. Afterward the women were raped by more than 100 soldiers; the children were spectators at their own, private genocide."
I try to take all of this in as I drink coffee and eat my raisin bran. And I do not wonder in the least why I resonate to the word "absurd" as a way to conceive of human existence. These different realities also explain why my all-time favorite poem is "Musee de Beaux Arts" by Auden; it's on the wall in my office, and it captures the same bizarre juxtaposition of multiple realities:
Musee des Beaux Arts
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
-- W. H. Auden
I try to be thankful for what I have, and where I am. And all the while, I am keenly aware that other people are in other places and have other realities. And some of those realities are simply so gruesome that one is left feeling quite powerless.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Fundamentalist rant
Currently reading The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. This book won a Pulitzer Prize; it basically explains how 9/11 became 9/11, going back the better part of a century to help us understand what has gone on in Egypt, in Afghanistan, in Saudi Arabia, and other parts of the Middle East that foreshadowed where we are today.
In many ways, the book is spooky and forces one to acknowledge that there are two radically different value systems and mindsets out there: one that promotes religious totalitarianism, and one that promotes religious pluralism. There is a traditional mindset and a modern mindset; a mindset that worships freedom and one that is wary of it; one that welcomes diversity and change and one that does not.
In my view, the two biggest obstacles to world peace at the moment would be fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity. They are both quite scary. The Looming Tower tells us quite a bit about the Islamic version; Sam Harris's The End of Faith does the same with both Christianity and Islam.
I am afraid that in my lifetime, I will not see organized religion--at least, the fundamentalist versions of it--be reformed in any meaningful way. But someday--maybe a century or two from now--people will read what others believed at this time, and believed with absolute certainty because it was decreed by either God or Allah, and they will shake their heads and mutter in disbelief. For now, however, I must write this from within the "loony bin" that is the world of 2008, and it's truly a more certifiably crazy world than most people seem to think.
In many ways, the book is spooky and forces one to acknowledge that there are two radically different value systems and mindsets out there: one that promotes religious totalitarianism, and one that promotes religious pluralism. There is a traditional mindset and a modern mindset; a mindset that worships freedom and one that is wary of it; one that welcomes diversity and change and one that does not.
In my view, the two biggest obstacles to world peace at the moment would be fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity. They are both quite scary. The Looming Tower tells us quite a bit about the Islamic version; Sam Harris's The End of Faith does the same with both Christianity and Islam.
I am afraid that in my lifetime, I will not see organized religion--at least, the fundamentalist versions of it--be reformed in any meaningful way. But someday--maybe a century or two from now--people will read what others believed at this time, and believed with absolute certainty because it was decreed by either God or Allah, and they will shake their heads and mutter in disbelief. For now, however, I must write this from within the "loony bin" that is the world of 2008, and it's truly a more certifiably crazy world than most people seem to think.
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