Our National Tone

Following up on the shooting that killed six people and wounded thirteen others, yesterday the University of Arizona opened the National Institute for Civil Discourse. Civil discourse: We heard these words again and again in the days after the shooting; the President said them at the January memorial speech at the University: "And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse ... "

So these words are what politicians and news media grabbed hold of immediately after this political event. A line from this Reuters article retells the story pretty well: "The rampage renewed ... soul searching over whether the vitriolic tone of U.S. politics had encouraged violence against elected officials." So it is the tone in which words are said that is to be evaluated. The words themselves we can take at face value. This is the silent conclusion to this public dialog on What Caused the Violence in Arizona.

-Remarks by the President at a Memorial Service for the Victims of the Shooting in Tucson, Arizona: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/12/remarks-president-barack-obama-memorial-service-victims-shooting-tucson
-Arizona university founds civility institute, 02/21/2011: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/21/us-shooting-university-idUSTRE71K67K20110221

Quick Thrill

If I had to choose one by Foucault, I'd take Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison over his more noted Madness and Civilization. I seek the same kind of satisfaction from both, but they are very different in approach and style.

Now over two-thirds into the book, this week I read chapter VII, "The Great Fear". Heading into the 1800's, Foucault here describes how the public imagination began to see madness as "the strange contradiction of human appetites: the complicity of desire and murder, of cruelty and the longing to suffer, of sovereignty and slavery, insult and humiliation". This conception inspired both fear and attraction to the mad and to the houses in which they dwell.

And still every Halloween people flock to haunted houses in search of a thrill.

Diplomatic Puzzle

Today, a selection from the February 17, 2011 New York Times article "Unrest in Bahrain Presents Diplomatic Puzzle for Obama":

For the second time in two weeks violence has broken out in a restive Arab ally of the United States, confronting the Obama administration with the question of how harshly to condemn a friendly leader who is resisting street protests against his government ... At least five people were killed early Thursday when heavily armed riot police officers fired shotguns and concussion grenades into a crowd ...

... What the administration does with Bahrain is likely to be a telling indicator of how it will deal with the balance between protecting its strategic interests, and promoting democracy — a balance some critics said it never properly struck in its sometimes awkward response to the Egyptian turmoil. What will make this diplomatic maneuvering even more complicated is Bahrain’s proximity to Saudi Arabia, another Sunni monarchy with even greater strategic value to the United States.
 - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world/middleeast/18diplomacy.html

I would suggest that the dilemma, as stated in bold above, suggests that the government always chooses one, and if the other follows, then bully for us.

* The above cited article was expanded later that day under the title "Bahrain Turmoil Poses Fresh Test for White House", available here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world/middleeast/18bahrain.html

Love Liza

The film Love Liza depicts the struggles of a new widower, his name is Wilson, played flawlessly by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Watching, I wondered if the film's use of comedy was aimed at emotionally rattling viewers. By letting me voyeuristically watch Wilson's most vulnerable moments, the film made me vigilantly aware of his intense loss, sadness, and isolation. But in and between tragic scenes, I often found myself laughing. The laughing always felt inappropriate, and quickly gave way to the uneasy silence after the laugh. Uneasy silence and inappropriateness are two grand understatements of what I imagine Wilson felt: This feels wrong, I feel wrong, I should not be feeling this. The film has one pivotal scene that speaks to this interpretation: In it, Wilson is seated with co-workers at the office where he works, and one co-worker is sharing an anecdote. A few co-workers chuckle when she finishes, but then Wilson lets go a long, uninterrupted laugh that continues after his tense co-workers have silently excused themselves. It is a laugh over a cry. Love Liza very powerfully relates that feeling and mania.

Moral Charge

"The Great Confinement", the first chapter of Michael Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, traces early reactions to a set of people, including the mad, whose common condition was idleness. His tracing includes a discussion of the role of Europe’s churches; with the aid of the Church, houses of confinement, which frequently doubled as work houses (sources of cheap labor), had a moral charge to assign labor and condemn the idle. Armed with a moral charge, they operated without oversight, without checks on their power, without critical analysis of their judgments because they had the faith of the state. Idleness was a sin, the reasoning went; because of Original Sin men were condemned to labor forever, Earth being no longer a paradise fit to sustain him without aid of his toils.

Recently I attended church and heard this Gospel:

Mt 5:13-16
Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its strength, how can it be made salty again? It has become useless. It can only be thrown away and people will trample on it.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a mountain cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and covers it; instead it is put on a lampstand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine before others, so that they may see the good you do and praise your Father in heaven."

Dallas Snow & Ice

 

 

Pronouns and Self-deprivation

Finished Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End, the author's first published and popular work. While reading, I focused on how Ferris' speaker uses the pronoun "we" to tell the story. The story is about what happens during a few weeks of downsizing at a Chicago ad agency, and its faceless voice is both a member and anonymous witness to this shrinking peer group of professionals.

I also noticed the speaker frequently recognizes as trivial the obsessions and concerns of this group--what he relates as the petty disputes and insignificant interests of an over-privileged sect. Ferris' storyteller is, naturally, one of these self-professed overpaid, over-insured professionals.

The element of self-deprecation made the characters somewhat more endearing. But, as the reader, it also left me unsure of where exactly I fit in: Have I been petty and undeserving, too? At the novel's conclusion, the reader is addressed as a member of the pseudo-saga, one of the group, the in-crowd.

The use of "we" and element of self-deprecation at first don't feel like pivotal elements to the storytelling. But they are for two reasons.

First, the self-deprecation starts off sounding a tad insincere, maybe, but eventually it feels obligatory, as if by rote. So I'm left with the feeling that this group, who are representatives of a generation, have been judged, and that the verdict on these people is that their predilections are trivial, a primary element of their zeitgeist, and that this is a real failing, comparatively speaking. So, it is a cultural truth that these people are undeserving overachievers. This truth is, to my mind, a real idea we have about the succession of generations in this country.

Second, this use of "we" and constant self-deprecation also allows the reader to excuse himself as he becomes engrossed by the story's "trivial" action. Perhaps it even affords him the tools to be engrossed. Points for that.

Extra! Extra!

A number of voices call for the legal prosecution of Julian Assange. The permissibility of prosecution on the charge of Espionage hinges at least in part on the question, Is he a journalist? The answer matters because journalistic status summons the Freedom of the Press argument--possibly in addition to other professional protections--and it heightens the claim to Freedom of Speech. Of course, even if he is a journalist, these protections could be turned away in the name of national security or some other interest.

The matter of whether Assange is a journalist of course denotes the larger question, What is journalism? New media and what's called Citizen Journalism force us to re-evaluate the word. We have taken the definition for granted because our immediate, albeit vague, assumptions seemed to provide us clues, if not the answer: Journalism involves print written by reporters employed by businesses whose job it is to sell news and advertising; furthermore, to state slightly less explicit assumptions, reporters are professionals employed by institutions with the authority to confer job titles, thereby defining a class of people with privileges and protections beyond those of Citizen X. To many minds, no longer are these assumptions clear.

But without a traditional institution behind Assange, his status as a journalist is immediately cast in to doubt in other minds; I would image that to these people, his claim to be a journalist is as legitimate a one as a woman’s to be a homemaker. Which is to say, it isn’t, really.

Dystopia

A few thoughts on George Orwell's 1984:

During the "2 Minutes Hate" citizens of Oceania are prompted to scream, spit, and hurl insults as the words and face of The Party's enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, play on the telescreen. If they were attending a town hall meeting, they would be the ones shouting people down.

I especially like the part in which orthodoxy is described as unthinking. Only orthodox views can be expressed in a sound byte. Anything else would require elaboration, arguments, and examples.

Other things I like:
(1) How Winston is captivated by purposelessness.
(2) How sex was, for Winston and Julia, at first a political act. Then emotions enter into it. That it became emotional, that Winston and Julia soon felt a sort of allegiance to each other--an allegiance only broken through extreme torture--was, I gather, the inevitable infusion of humanity, according to Orwell.

Who Done It?

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler: I read this late December, early January. It was OK. The social commentary surprised me, that it was in there and so biting.

The Real Thing

Discussions about movies (The Matrix, Dark City), a story on the radio about philosophy classes, and advertisements depicting people out in the world being entertained by their hand-held devices: Simulated reality, the idea keeps surfacing.

To some, physical presence is a precondition of authentic experience; dreaming of a walk through the Louvre is not the same as flying to Paris and visiting the Louvre. But to others, being hooked up to a dream machine and spending life in a coma would be no less "real" than a life lived awake and in the world.

If my whole life was spent dreaming and I never knew it, then I would have no regrets, and I believe as a person thinking myself to be physically present here and now that a dreamed life is as real as this. But if I lived 60 years in a dream, on waking I would be confronted with deciding whether the previous 60 years were a waste or a perfectly well-lived life. In my case, I imagine I would be heartbroken that my body had not been present one moment. Why? I wonder if for people who privilege physical presence, long distance relationships are more difficult, TV and films less satisfying, death more tragic. Probably not, huh?

2010: So long.

 

New Year's encourages reflection. During my usual reflections I focus on the feelings I had or the feelings I have postmortem. So at New Year's I can pretend a more objective view, group past events and relationships into good and not-so-good. This accounting creates a distance--a distance reinforced by the idea that I am ending one time and starting another with the changing of the calendar.

My calendar and my accounting are both rhetorical acts. The calendar helps gather and organize my perceptions of experience. I demarcate periods in which I have, for example, grown so much in this way, or lapsed in my efforts towards this or that. The calendar is a tool in my self-accounting and self-creation, and I can use it when I  point to this or that period and argue that my behavior then was affected by some other concern, or by carryover from events in previous days.

If I could see time otherwise.

Being in the World

A few lines from Thomas Russo's novel Straight Man caught my attention. These lines come during a discussion between the book's protagonist, Hank, and his son-in-law, Russell. The topic at hand is Julie, Hank's daughter, Russell's wife, who keeps buying furniture she and her husband can't afford, being already underwater on their new house. Her behavior baffles both men:

How did two people like Lily and me manage to raise such an acquisitive daughter? is what he wants to understand. He actually seems to want me to explain it to him. What I'd like to explain is that I don't think Julie in her heart of hearts is all that acquisitive either. She's just unhappy and frustrated and she hasn't yet discovered how to "be" in the world. Unsure what to desire, she simply wants. Or this is the conclusion I've come to. A father's too generous theory, perhaps. Applied evenly, it might be a rationale for acquisitiveness in general, not just in my daughter. Who is truly at home in the world? Who is sure what to desire? Well, lots of people, I answer my own question.

The implication in part here is that a man's actions are motivated by his ambitions; and so a person without ambition will act inconsistently, inscrutably. Is understanding one's goals the key to understanding one's self?

Continuing with Hank's line of thought: A person who "simply" wants, as opposed to desires, is overly invested in the material world. Being "at home in the world", then, is entirely a spiritual act, an original act. So, what is the world?

In Straight Man, Hank is a self-avowed student of William of Occam, and so he believes the simplest explanation is usually the best. But when it comes to people, he comes to see that the matter is often not so simple.

Rhetorical Turn

After reading some nothing article in Wikipedia, I hit the "Random article" link and was given this:

Max Naumann (1875-1939) was the initiator of Verband Nationaldeutscher Juden (League of National German Jews), which promoted elimination of Jewish ethnic identity. The league was outlawed by the Nazis on November 18, 1935.

Along with Julius Brodnitz, Heinrich Stahl, Kurt Blumenfeld and Martin Rosenblüth, Naumann was one of the Jewish activists who were summoned to a meeting with Hermann Göring on March 25, 1933, during which Göring tried unsuccessfully to enlist their help for the prevention of a rally against Nazi antisemitism which was planned in New York for March 27.

Opposing other Jewish organizations, such as the Centralverein or the Zionist groups, he advocated total assimilation as an answer to anti-Semitism. During the Weimar Republic Naumann was active with the German People's Party. He was quoted in Michael Brenner's book The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany as saying "The election campaign must not be a struggle of religious conceptions, it must be a decisive struggle about our Germanness!" in reference to the 1933 election that resulted in Hitler's rise to power.

In this all too brief article, I note two ideas at odds. First, Max's words: "The election campaign must not be a struggle of religious conceptions, it must be a decisive struggle about our Germanness!" Second, the author's intro: "Max Naumann (1875-1939) was the initiator of Verband nationaldeutscher Juden (League of National German Jews), which promoted elimination of Jewish ethnic identity."

To my mind, Max's urging to define a people's Germanness is not quite the same as eliminating their Jewish ethnic identity. Today, a pundit might call Max "politically savvy".

Few other scenes from history are cited as much as Nazi Germany as an example of the power of propaganda and public relations. So, this rhetorical move towards tolerance: Where does it come from? Fear and self-preservation? Bravery? Nationalism? Was he a fraud? And what happened after the 1933 election?

I will be looking for books and more information on Max. But this article could be bunk.

Hope is Right

My grandmother wrote at least one book. Nothing of hers was published. Oddly, my grandfather wrote a single poem--a parody based on a famous poem--and immediately was published in some collection, somewhere.

Anyway, my grandmother. She once wrote and sent this letter to a publisher:

Enclosed is a short synopsis and the first three chapters of my manuscript, "West Winds of Hope". It is part of me. I felt every word of it.

I was born in western part of Texas. I haven't participated in any wild escapades. You can say, I'm just an ordinary home-maker who loves to write. I'm finishing a murder mystery now.

"West Winds of Hope" would make a great mini-series. It is quite a dramatic story. I hope you will consider it. It is two hundred ninety three typed pages. My manuscript has been edited. It is also registered with copyright.

I belong to several clubs and everyone is ready to purchase my book.

Her book, with its not-at-all cliché title, West Winds of Hope, was based on her own experience. She fails to make this clear in the letter. Regardless, she offers herself, her devotion, and not the book, to the publisher. I read this and hear the desperate plea of an 11 year-old girl begging father for a pony. To her credit, she was concise, and tried to appeal to the man's pocketbook, offering her friends as potential customers, hopefully representatives of the larger population of everyday women yearning to feel drama blow in from the West.

The letter, as much as the book, is autobiographical: "I haven't participated in any wild escapades." No wild escapades. Is she speaking with a pang of regret? Is she apologizing? Confessing? And, then: "You can say, I'm just an ordinary home-maker who loves to write." She turns suddenly, painting herself the underdog in this tale of aspiring author surrendering her fate to the silent whims of this powerful publisher. An underdog. A crazy kid with a dream.

I miss her dearly.

Quickie on Process Management

Current discussions of process management styles depict specific priorities in competition. Agile and other styles go a step further and attempt to privilege certain priorities, sometimes called values, over others. What effect does this value privileging have on actual work?

My guess? Not very much.

Let's assume that a certain set of priorities actually are in competition: For example, the more a worker invests in fine tuning the product's performance, the less he is able to fully document the requirements and changes. In our hypothetical process management style, we privilege product performance. One possible effect of explicitly emphasizing one priority over another is the exaggeration of pre-existing work habits. If Worker 1 has always authored weak documentation, now his documentation may all but disappear. If Worker 2 is learning his trade, he may not learn or develop a round skill set because he is coached to always direct his time and efforts in one direction.

Process management styles tend to assume all people are equal. They are not.

While adopting a process management system with explicitly emphasized values may have less impact on worker habits, it may play a large role in shaping the office culture. I would argue that an office culture can be viewed as a personnel filter. People seek out and thrive in certain settings. A worker whose habits and style are at odds with an office culture may become isolated, lose motivation, and then eventually quit or be fired.

I also wonder if this treatment of values is really all that different from how other, less self-conscious styles of process management deal with competing priorities. Might revisit this later.

Binx Bolling & Authenticity

Were you to accompany Binx Bolling to a movie, you'd be carted off to some out-of-the-way cinema. Once there, you'd witness his small talk with the cashier or the manager, him asking after their well-being and goings-on, and maybe his inquiring about the film itself. Not the movie: The actual reel of film. In short, you'd get a sort of show before the show. Bolling, protagonist of Walker Percy's 1961 book The Moviegoer, does all this in hopes of guaranteeing his own authenticity. He figures anyone can go see the 7 o'clock show. And being anyone is exactly what he wants to avoid.

Bolling differentiates his experience--and by extension, himself--by growing it from a simple routine act to one enmeshed in a variety of happenings. If he should he go to the 7 o'clock show, Bolling must learn that the reel of celluloid winding away overhead isn't just any old piece of celluloid, that the ticket-taker isn't just any ticket-taker. It seems anonymity is contagious.

This interested me, so I began to think of the result of living such a perspective. He can look back and relate a memory. And what is memory? The result of defining the Then from the Now. Then and Now: A duality fabricated or correctly perceived? At any given time either concept may be privileged: The good old days or Carpe Diem?

But are they really different? Isn't the event still happening? Why must it be happening immediately in front of you to be "happening"?