 |
NOT NEWS
|
||||
Details
|
Here's a Thought... A new section, with chunks of ideas that might grow into a bigger essay, but will likely stay as these small islands in this vast cyber-sea. Feb.28.2012 The key to [something] is empathy, and the key to that is typically remembering particular moments – or a string of moments – in your particular life. A financially successful person can understand the position of people a bit hard up and pushing for social/financial reform (or I could just say the 1% can better understand the 99%) when they remember how difficult, challenging, or seemingly hopeless their situation may have been years prior.
To fight the enemies in the shadows, the United States adopted the tactics of these enemies, and their principles became a shadow itself. How do you get out? Rarely willingly. The curtain is torn asunder, typically when you’ve become too weak to keep properly placed. And then the people see what you’ve done in the name of liberty and justice.
In an article (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/sifting-through-the-golf-sands-for-a-hint-of-north-koreas-future/article2287964/) on the brainwashing in North Korea by the state – who essentially deifies Kim Jong Il and now his son – it is revealed that Jong Il shot several holes in ones the first time he tried playing golf, and that he sat at 38 under par. But an odd bit comes at the end of the article, when they quote a Professor of Asian Relations, who explains that because the people in North Korea have no viable alternative source of information, they grow up believing this, even if we in the freer West quickly realize such stories are ridiculous. To give an example of how we sometimes passively accept unusual claims without question he rhetorically asks: “Do people in the West believe in transubstantiation?” Prof. Evans asked in reply. “Do they believe in the devil?” And then the writer of this article then goes on to conclude: Myths are sturdy things, in other words. And although miracles do happen, they are more likely to come in the form of golf scores than an Arab-style awakening in North Korea this spring. It seems that the writer – and, perhaps by extension, The Globe and Mail – is openly connecting Christian theology with mythology. And I’m surprised and kind of pleased, as it might be a sign that we are approaching such delicate issues with a bit more of an open – but no less critical – mind. Or I’m projecting.
-metaphor for wave-function collapse: poker, where the possibility of what the players hands are always up in the air until the moment when they are revealed (akin to wave-function collapse). But even this is not a perfect analogy, as the moment of the poker-hand-reveal actually exists, can be measured and have conclusions drawn from, before the next hand begins. In quantum physics, you cannot actually measure the collapse in any way, as it alters the results of the collapse.
-with the sudden limelight shone back on Canada for seemingly nullifying same-sex marriages, the conversation doesn’t really ask the question: well…what is marriage? It’s two people in a loving relationship who are acknowledged by society in such a way that they get tax breaks and other social program-derived benefits. And that’s a pretty recent definition, because prior to say, the early (or even mid) twentieth century, love wasn’t really a term thrown around all that much when it came to marriage. Mainly because one of the people involved didn’t have much say in the matter (that would be the woman). Hell, go back another hundred and between the beginning of civilization and then, and you were lucky if it wasn’t the parents of the bride and groom actually hashing out the arrangement. You were lucky if you got along with the person you were going to marry, let alone like them. Think of how specific you can be in your preferences for a partner these days, and how easy you can jettison them if things don’t work out for any reason at all. And in the past you married within your class, typically someone within your village or town. -women were little more than chattel for millennia. By marrying off your daughter, you got land, cows, riches, etc. -so why not same-sex marriages? Why not multi-party marriages? Anything between consenting adults should be permitted. It’s not a slide of community standards but an expansion of them. And where are the checks and balances? Well, we've corrected some of the more unseemly aspects of what used to be permissible within marriage over time, namely, marring twelve year olds and relatives. This was accepted, we've moved away from that, and have incorporated aspects that reflect a society with different shades of tolerance (down with pedophilia, up with homosexuals). -and the sanctity of marriage is about a legitimate as the sanctity of life, meaning not very. With a divorce rate of 50%, the 'til death do us part' is clearly optional, and should be replaced with, 'til one of us finally accepts that they can't change the other'.
-the closer a statement gets to objectivity the less practical it becomes, eventually reaching the state of tautology. This occurred to me as I thought of how the only accurate advice I think a writer can give to others trying to write is, ‘write a lot, read a lot, submit your best’. It’s a very common sense statement, which does not really address any individual writer’s concerns, but it can be applied to the community as a whole and still be accurate. Even if the reaction is lukewarm: ‘yeah, we know’. Of course you ‘know’! that’s why it’s close to objective.
-life is more powerful than love. Life will eat its mother to persevere. In fact, in several cases in the animal kingdom, that’s exactly what happens. Life is beyond good and evil, any sort of morals, any sort of personal two-person relationship. Life will do terrible things to create wonder and beauty but even that’s just a smoke screen for its only purpose: continuation.
-meeting with people you disagree with is more important than meeting people you agree with. Be polite, but don’t pull punches. And avoid the ‘empty public relations gesture’ as much as possible (and in this case, if you find out the ‘meeting’ is ten second handshake with cameras going off around you, fuck ‘em).
-grading the president in Jan 2012. automatically gets at least a D for staving off the big D(epression). Knock him up to a C for his foreign policy (out of Iraq, Osama DOA, Libya went well, arms control with Russia, hasn't pissed off many countries). C+ for passing something resembling health care reform. Other bits of positivity like ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, extending unemployment benefits, investing in domestic businesses, can get him a straight B. Fucking up the Financial Reform Bill: down to C+. National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (which includes indefinite detention of US citizens): down to a C. Regarding that last one: You really have to consider what values your nation has lost when you go to certain extremes to supposedly save it. Hell, maybe that last one should knock him down to a C-minus.
By and Buy… The annaandkristina.com website – two young blonde Vancouver mothers with a blog about baby supplies – encourage visitors to ‘become a shopping bag’: -perhaps this is an easy target for dehumanization/the individual as a consumer animal and nothing more, but when was humanity any better? What illusion are we holding onto, that things were nobler and honest in the past? -what is this assumption that life was better when we ‘lived off the land’ and with fewer appliances and less cultural items to pore over? Why was it better when only a small fraction of the people on the planet – mostly white men – made most of the important decisions and discoveries? -what have we lost? Do we really think people didn’t bitch and complain in the past? Our nostalgizing of almost anything before the present – save for the actual moments of great upheaval that actually changed the course of history – is creating an artificial psycho-social crisis, that is getting in the way of many actual problems that needs addressing right quick. But because these more important matters - environment, global resource depletion, economic stagnation –s don’t directly address a Western individual’s immediate needs and dissatisfaction (which could lead to them buying something), they are given the shorter shift. -wait, I have just gone from complaining about how people are overemphasizing the dangerous of consumerism to complaining about the dangers of consumerism? Yes, but to clarify, my objection is grounded in contemporary issues that affect the planet and the lack of attention they are getting, not that ‘oh, it was better when we all had less’. And the two are not necessarily related. We have gotten much more careful in harnessing the power of environmentally-destroying energy resources, it’s just that we use so much more of them, and part of that is because of advances that allow more and more people to live with such associated amenities. So maybe that’s the point of looking to the past and saying it was better when most of us had less: it was healthier for the planet, at least. But it didn’t make us better or worse people. -it’s both reassuring and tragic that we’re pretty much the same people that have existed throughout history, that our abilities and intellect hasn’t really changed that much in the last several thousand years, and it doesn’t seem to make sense that we should get that much smarter in the future.
-when you read a how inept the US Customs and Border Patrol is, then you have to assume that terrorist organizations are even more inept than that (or that the former is doing their job just good enough to prevent the latter from attacking). Although regardless of the organization’s actual effectiveness, the consistently low employee morale ratings (bottom or close to the bottom when compared to all federal agencies) is good indicator of gross internal dysfunction
-exceptionalism – a nice fancy form of institutionalized hypocrisy – is sought after by many powerful states and organizations. The ‘have your cake and eat it too’ mindset. Where you say that everyone should play by the rules, except you, when it gets in the way of your own goals (United States, Russia, China, pretty much every dictator-led country with an army when it comes to dealing their own antsy citizens, financial corporations, insurance industry). Decrying certain social changes or ideas, while casually embracing secondary benefits of said changes or ideas (religious adherents decrying a secular-scientific mindset in the society, while stocking up on iphones, medicine, and other science derived goods and services). You can’t have it both ways. You have to take the good with the bad.
why i support the creation of stupid pop culture ideas that i have a dislike or low expectations for: -because it creates jobs. at least for a while. the transformers trilogy may be a turd sandwich, but it cost about $600 million to make. they employed thousands of people (some directly, like cast and crew, some indirectly, like the people at hotels, catering services that served the cast and crew), meaning these people can afford housing, food, and other things which keep the economy churning. the trilogy netted over a billion dollars, and while most of that went into the pockets of the producers and the film company (who buy fancier houses with nicer things, all stuff that require more people to make stuff and work on), some of it went to the people that worked the theatre chains, marketing departments, etc. bad movie? who gives a shit when you look at it in those terms. and this was all done domestically (although with more foreign investment coming into hollywood, even that is admittedly changing). the descendants might be an incredible film, but its budget was diddlysquat and its box office might be similar. in fact, it's movies like transformers that permits big studios - that pretty much bankroll small movie houses - to make films like the descendants. so which is more helpful to us all? now don't get me wrong, the critically acclaimed, thought-provoking film will typically live on far beyond the brain dead blockbuster, and become an artistic statement representative of its time and place, but never forget it's shit like twilight, and the fourth pirates of the Caribbean movie that puts more food on more plates in the present day.
-the bad news: America is becoming a police state. The not-exactly-good news: America is becoming a really half-assed, poorly enforced police state. The perfect police state is the most feared kind, where big brother stamps out sedition and keeps the masses in line effortlessly. But this only exists in fiction and North Korea (the latter having the ‘advantage’ of building the police state in the ashes of a war, when things are already in a state of disarray and when citizens are much more dependent on – and therefore deferential towards – the government). The slow creation of a police state in a post-industrial nation that is extremely familiar with the notions of freedom in all its forms guarantees that it will not be set up very well, no matter how draconian the laws. There is that schizophrenic dichotomy of the wealthy trying to give more and more freedom to the corporation while taking more and more away from the individual citizen (power being a finite resource, of course, and those with it are trying to concentrate as much of it as possible). This is why corporate political donations have a greater role in shaping government policy than the voice of the electorate through voting. It is actually a return of sorts to the power structure that America’s founding fathers envisioned. A merchant/corporate class having a shitload of power over the masses. In the eighteenth/nineteenth century this was enforced by restricting the type of people who could vote to those who would typically support the power of the merchant/corporate class (well off white males). As the right to vote extended through all groups in society (poor white males, women, minorities), power was suddenly more defused, which didn’t sit well with this suddenly endangered merchant/corporate class. So they re-wrote the rules and now voting isn’t as important as owning a big company (which is typically a position filled by…wait for it… well off white males).
JAN.15.2012 Biopics: If there was a movie about your life, and you understood from the get go that – while they certainly wanted to show people what your life is/was like – they aren’t going to let truth get too much in the way of a good story, can you still enjoy it? Would say upon viewing to the makers, ‘that didn’t happen like that’? Because they would come right back and say, ‘okay, but this works better for the story, the reality of the film’. And they would be right. After all, you can’t accurately portray one’s life in a two hour anything. Hell, you can barely do it in a thousand-page biography. Even an autobiography is going to be a naturally warped perspective of the subject’s life. In both book cases, it too is chained to the need to tell a story and make it interesting (after all, that’s pretty much why you’d become a topic of this nature), in addition to the fact that compiling past moments and fitting it in to a particular narrative is never going to be perfectly accurate, and the accounts of the people involved – both central and peripheral – are going to be subjective. Could you enjoy the film on its own merits? Can you divest yourself and your own memories of events while watching a representation of yourself and these events and judge it aesthetically, not personally? Obviously your take on the film would be particularly biased – or viewed as biased – no matter how hard you tried, but could you at least enjoy it, and forget that it’s ‘you’, and just an idea of you? (and let’s not get into the differences between those two identities here)
Why a degree in literature? “Stories, sadly*, come first.” (*-why sadly? There’s very little money in understanding ‘story’ in the real world. It sits in the background, like microwave radiation from the big bang. It’s usually priceless in the negative sense. So far, anyway…and actually I am wary of a time when this understanding can exploited for profit and used as a commodity) Stories are the most basic form of understanding, the simplest ‘before, during, after, and why’. While we typically associate it with fabrication and inventiveness, this is because we’ve so internalized its original point. It is an account of the passage of time through space plus an attempt at explanation. It molds itself from a variety of recollections ranging from one’s afternoon to a theory of creation, whether involving god or science. It’s ‘cause and effect’ crystallized. If A then B. Then C. The End. We create in our minds – almost instantaneously – before we create in the physical world or within the rules of the physical world (theory), and this creation is the imagination fashioning the ideal story for the moment (it is the process of our understanding, of what we assume or project based on the immediate evidence in front of us). This can range from creating a narrative for ‘my trip to the coffee shop’, for ‘how an element decays’, and ‘Oz as an allegory for American economic policy’. The study of literature is the study of how ‘the story’ has changed over time, to suit – or usher in – a particular historical epoch. Obviously a history book can give you the nuts and bolts of past events, but it’s the literary texts of those times that do a greater job in teaching us more about how people saw themselves and what the rules, limits, and context of storytelling in that period.
On the political spectrum, the US Congress is a centre-right deliberative body (favouring strong defense spending, deregulation, and a smaller government, which means lows taxes and fewer government run programs), because the ‘people’ (the wealthy, corporations and special interest groups) that fund election campaigns are centre-right (whether through direct financing, or as super-delegates, a startling accurate term suggesting a hierarchy, in that these people’s opinion counts for more than a regular delegate). Consequently, a centre-right White House will accomplish more of its goals than a centre-left one. Which is why Bush II pushed through many of his policies quite easily, while everything for Obama is a near-hopeless slog.
Life isn’t short. Life is billions and billions of years old. Life isn’t inexplicable; its sole point is to be here, to persevere, to continue until it doesn’t. Why does there have to be more of a reason than that? Isn’t such interconnectedness and complexity good enough of an explanation? Is it too impersonal for you? Does it not soothe your queries concerning your own role? Does it, in fact, diminish your role? Well imagine how an ant feels when it and its scores of brethren are thoughtlessly stepped on. Or millions of bacteria that multiply and vaporize every second. Well that’s different, you might say, they are lower life forms, they do not have the awareness of the world and the universe around them, the abilities that we do. But so what? They have their roles to play, as do we. We can just obsess over it so much more. The curse and blessings of our powerful brains. Brains that will eventually decay into nothingness, just like that star above our heads and the ants beneath our shoe. But hey, that’s life.
|
The person who incidentally destroys the planet will claim that they were just following orders | |||