I gather from the comments of some of the fans of the program W Strone Sztuki (Towards Art) on Polish Radio 2, now discontinued, that they do not like the new program Jest Taki Obraz (There is such a painting) which replaced it for the same reason for which I do not like it. The new program is... well, American. It discusses contemporary art as if it were the same category of activity as the classical arts, so you get Van Eyck and Damian Hirst side by side (indeed, you get entirely meaningless comments like "Van Eyck inspired Damian Hirst"); often discusses works from which I tend to shrink -- the sort that belong in the other room; and when it does discuss works which I like, which belong in this room, it discusses them in ways which strike me as either vulgar or dumb.
Or, usually, both.
But above all, in American ways: whole programs are nothing but a repetition of what the participants gleaned in American art criticism. A better -- more honest -- title for the program would be "American Theory of Art in 100 Objects".
With such a title, the program might be considered a kind of popularizing program. Such programs do have their place, they are a kind of translation project, I suppose. But if so, then this one does not qualify because it does not translate well: it does not translate into Polish -- a language traditionally used in polite society in Poland -- but into some horribly mangled and perverted, degrammatized and gracelessly foreignized thing. Its so grammatically and phonetically inept that it sounds... unschooled, retarded -- the foreign terms used are both formed and inflected no better than an elementary school kid from the provinces might.
Thus, for instance, today's program talked about dezajnerzy, by which the participants meant projektanci (designers). It's a bad import: anyone who speaks English half-decently knows the word is pronounced [dih-zahy-ner] meaning that the Polish equivalent, if one were needed, should be dyzajner.
Of course, the participants wanted to use the word dezajner because it sounds with it (American), whereas the word projektanci sounds -- well -- old (Polish). But if that is the case, then why not have the program in American English? That would sound even more with it. Better yet, why not make the program in American English and air it in Texas and leave us alone?
More to the point: when we use the word dyzajner because it sounds better than its equivalent projektant, we are engaging in a kind of deception. Our message is not merely the equivalent of the English concept "designer", for which purpose the word projektant would do just fine. The meaning of the term dezajner is "a cool, fashionable person engaged in the old business of projektant which this person makes very exciting through his superior coolness". Clavell's readers will fondly remember the dwarf deer; Orwell's -- The Ministry of Truth.
Like any attempt to pervert language, the exercise is deeply suspect.
Just how suspect is made apparent by a parallel from the anglification of Japanese politics. When a Japanese politician uses the new word manifesto instead of the tried and true seiken kouyaku, he replaces a familiar, legible word, made familiar by its frequent use and additionally transparent by its being written in ideograms which make its semantic roots abundantly clear; he replaces this word with an unfamiliar word which is on account of its unfamiliarity naturally hard to grasp. This new word is slippery by virtue of its lack of dictionary definition, and its use allows the speaker to be vague, to make uncertain and deniable claims and promises. In short, the use of the word manifesto is intentionally deceptive.
Five hundred years ago the great astronomer Copernicus described the phenomenon known in English as Gresham's law; he was not the first to discover it: Arab scholars had written about it two hundred years ealier. The principle is summarized in the dictum that bad money drives out the good. In other words, when the government begins to debase the currency by issuing coinage with lower metal content, people prefer to use it to make payments (thereby getting rid of it) while they hoard the good money, with the result that the good money disappears from circulation.
We better take care.
If it is true that good writing depends on good thinking, then, it follows that good thinking depends on good language -- a language which is clear, or, as the evangelist puts it "Yes, yes, no, no". When we have debased our language and replaced it thoroughly with the new, useless coinage, a language of vague images rather than clear meanings, we will become even dumber than we are already.
You have been warned.
Feb 20, 2011
Feb 6, 2011
Lying about ugliness
It is customary for women to make fun of men for being the silent types, by which they mean -- not talking through their problems like "normal" people should. But it is often not possible to talk about our problems: first, because our interlocutors generally do not understand them -- as most for instance do not understand that it really does upset me to be in ugly rooms, surrounded by ugly, badly dressed people; but, more importantly, because by talking about our problems honestly, we tip our hand. For instance, if I were to tell anyone that I have never overly loved my mother (i.e. never particularly desired to have her company, approval, or sentiment), my interlocutors would most likely say (or at least think) that I am cold, selfish and ungrateful, by which they would in fact understand that I am not likely to develop and emotional co-dependency and therefore not easily emotionally manipulated.
It would of course be all true, but unwise to advertise. People are willing to enter into barter with us when they think that they can easily have the better of us; if they suspect that may not be the case, they will simply refuse to play along.
And this is the reason why we do not talk through our problems, not because we are tough or silent or because we want to pretend that we are.
*
Now, not being able to talk to anyone is a bad thing, because it prevents us form dressing our true thoughts in words and therefore from taking a closer look at just what it is that we think we are thinking. My purpose here is to write things which I could never write in any of my public blogs -- so that I can see what they look like once they are dressed in words. Things such as as my finding that I have never overly loved my mother: which, once I have written it, makes a lot of sense to me.
(There is a downside to writing here, though: the honest view of the world, when one surveys it, is truly very dark; if taken seriously, it discourages any human contact at all).
*
Or writing openly, for instance, that looking at ugly people depresses me.
To say this seems unkind, but it is an aesthetic fact. The ugly may tell us all they want that slighting them on account of their ugliness is unfair, or even immoral, but the truth is that we pretty people simply cannot help ourselves, and trying to be otherwise is like putting a lion on a vegetarian diet -- both we and the lion will simply wither away. Of course, we pretty people have to keep mum about this fact for fear of offending the uglies -- and the timid -- and one consequence of that silence is that all public discussion of aesthetics is fake, missing its central element: the way experience of beauty differs between the pretty and the ugly.
Keeping mum about our true feelings regarding ugliness also has a negative impact on our own selves: forced to dissimulate about the way we feel about ugliness and the uglies -- which, given that the uglies are in massive majority we must for strategic reasons -- we sometimes manage to convince ourselves that we do not mind, thereby losing the clarity of mind and purpose needed for successful pursuit of happiness. It's a rare man who can talk and behave as if he thought or felt some way without letting that thought or feeling confuse his self-perception. Not speaking about ugliness, its dangers and effects, not confronting what it does to us, not staring the truth in the eye has a debilitating effect on us. Unrecognized beautism drills within us like the worm of unrecognized homosexuality might an ostensibly male man.
It would of course be all true, but unwise to advertise. People are willing to enter into barter with us when they think that they can easily have the better of us; if they suspect that may not be the case, they will simply refuse to play along.
And this is the reason why we do not talk through our problems, not because we are tough or silent or because we want to pretend that we are.
*
Now, not being able to talk to anyone is a bad thing, because it prevents us form dressing our true thoughts in words and therefore from taking a closer look at just what it is that we think we are thinking. My purpose here is to write things which I could never write in any of my public blogs -- so that I can see what they look like once they are dressed in words. Things such as as my finding that I have never overly loved my mother: which, once I have written it, makes a lot of sense to me.
(There is a downside to writing here, though: the honest view of the world, when one surveys it, is truly very dark; if taken seriously, it discourages any human contact at all).
*
Or writing openly, for instance, that looking at ugly people depresses me.
To say this seems unkind, but it is an aesthetic fact. The ugly may tell us all they want that slighting them on account of their ugliness is unfair, or even immoral, but the truth is that we pretty people simply cannot help ourselves, and trying to be otherwise is like putting a lion on a vegetarian diet -- both we and the lion will simply wither away. Of course, we pretty people have to keep mum about this fact for fear of offending the uglies -- and the timid -- and one consequence of that silence is that all public discussion of aesthetics is fake, missing its central element: the way experience of beauty differs between the pretty and the ugly.
Keeping mum about our true feelings regarding ugliness also has a negative impact on our own selves: forced to dissimulate about the way we feel about ugliness and the uglies -- which, given that the uglies are in massive majority we must for strategic reasons -- we sometimes manage to convince ourselves that we do not mind, thereby losing the clarity of mind and purpose needed for successful pursuit of happiness. It's a rare man who can talk and behave as if he thought or felt some way without letting that thought or feeling confuse his self-perception. Not speaking about ugliness, its dangers and effects, not confronting what it does to us, not staring the truth in the eye has a debilitating effect on us. Unrecognized beautism drills within us like the worm of unrecognized homosexuality might an ostensibly male man.
Feb 5, 2011
Self-talking cure
Recently, by accident, the old wounds opened up. For a month I was miserable remembering how my mother tormented me and how cruelly my father, when I rebelled, rejected me.
How strange is our memory: it has been twelve years since then; six since I even remembered about it last; but now the wounds opened up and it was as if they had been cut only yesterday.
Strangely, what cured me -- quite suddenly -- was not to reflect on how undeserved it all was; and how decent I had been throughout; but the opposite: to reflect on my mother's good reasons for having treated me as she had. In some way, her love for me had been spurned, rejected, unrequited, disappointed: I had fled from her to Asia.
After all, I realize this now, I fled to Asia only in part to get away from America, but also, and perhaps mainly, to get away from my mother's demands on my time and emotions. I could argue all day, of course, that she had no business loving me as much -- or, to paraphrase a philosopher, wanting as much from me, which is, in fact, the same thing; that it was unreasonable of her to expect that I would put her above my own ambitions or my own lovers; etc. But there is no arguing with facts, and the facts are these: she did raise me expecting me to make up to her for the sacrifices she took for my sake unasked; and I refused.
Did she have the right to feel spurned? No. Had I asked her to make these sacrifices for me? No. Was I right to rebel against her demands. Absolutely.
But is it understandable that she would feel spurned?
Yes.
So the story isn't, in fact, what I had thought all these years it had been: that I'd loved my mother and she rejected me. It is the opposite: that I had rejected her long before that, long before she set out to hurt me and withdrew from me my father's love.
Realizing this suddenly parted the clouds. Not because I understood how she had felt, but because I convinced myself that it was me who did the ditching first.
The unexpected therapeutic effect of this realization showed me in stark relief how our psychology works: we don't really care to see ourselves as just -- there is actually no satisfaction in that; we just want to see ourselves as having dealt better than we got, justice be damned. We're not very different from baboons really.
How strange is our memory: it has been twelve years since then; six since I even remembered about it last; but now the wounds opened up and it was as if they had been cut only yesterday.
Strangely, what cured me -- quite suddenly -- was not to reflect on how undeserved it all was; and how decent I had been throughout; but the opposite: to reflect on my mother's good reasons for having treated me as she had. In some way, her love for me had been spurned, rejected, unrequited, disappointed: I had fled from her to Asia.
After all, I realize this now, I fled to Asia only in part to get away from America, but also, and perhaps mainly, to get away from my mother's demands on my time and emotions. I could argue all day, of course, that she had no business loving me as much -- or, to paraphrase a philosopher, wanting as much from me, which is, in fact, the same thing; that it was unreasonable of her to expect that I would put her above my own ambitions or my own lovers; etc. But there is no arguing with facts, and the facts are these: she did raise me expecting me to make up to her for the sacrifices she took for my sake unasked; and I refused.
Did she have the right to feel spurned? No. Had I asked her to make these sacrifices for me? No. Was I right to rebel against her demands. Absolutely.
But is it understandable that she would feel spurned?
Yes.
So the story isn't, in fact, what I had thought all these years it had been: that I'd loved my mother and she rejected me. It is the opposite: that I had rejected her long before that, long before she set out to hurt me and withdrew from me my father's love.
Realizing this suddenly parted the clouds. Not because I understood how she had felt, but because I convinced myself that it was me who did the ditching first.
The unexpected therapeutic effect of this realization showed me in stark relief how our psychology works: we don't really care to see ourselves as just -- there is actually no satisfaction in that; we just want to see ourselves as having dealt better than we got, justice be damned. We're not very different from baboons really.
Racims without the coloreds
Polish racism is a fascinating phenomenon: it is entirely theoretical: it serves no purpose; it is entirely disinterested.
Western-European racism of the past several centuries had a purpose once: it was a useful ideology with which to justify foreign conquests: the coloreds were stupid, and therefore the White Man had to intervene for their own good. Today, in Western Europe racism appears on the wane -- mainly because the traditional roles have changed: Asians and Africans are today our customers, and increasingly -- investors. And customers, well, you know, our customers are our masters, as the saying goes. Therefore, the dominant mainstream ideology in the West today pretends that we are all equal, whether white or colored. What's more, it leans towards the sycophantic: after all, if you are trying to sell somebody a product, it's a good idea at least to say that you admire their culture.
Polish nineteenth century antisemitism, as ugly as it was, made sense, too: if you are a poor, lower-middle class semi-professional and find it difficult to compete with others on the basis of job skills alone, antisemitism can be a useful tool: the anstisemite says -- just as the South African racist did -- "Don't hire the dirty so-and-so, hire me". It's ugly, but it works.
But today there are neither Asians nor Blacks in Poland (and only 7,000 Jews). Hating them therefore serves no purpose. It is entirely theoretical. It is -- disinterested. It is, as it were, racism pure, unsoiled by self-interest.
Its source is probably the very strong desire not to be a B-class nation anymore; imagining oneself member of the Great Ruling White Race probably helps us with low perception of our own worth and status. Perhaps, also, a strong desire to join the imagined Western Team (which, basically, means The A (for American) Team) also plays a role. For people who have not thought about the issues much, the Western team seems to be European, Christian, and white. (The idea that the Western Team may really be about law abiding, human rights and personal liberties is probably too sophisticated for most of us). Strongly desiring to be on the team, we want to be European, Christian and white. And, a little like the new boy in the playground, we feel that expressing strong animosities towards those who aren't on the team will somehow buy our way in.
Ironically, our outspoken racism has the opposite effect: it embarrasses precisely those into whose sympathies we wish to creep.
Symbolically speaking, our racism is a retread. Economically, we have graduated from driving previously-owned German cars, but only in time to test drive some previously-owned German ideas.
Western-European racism of the past several centuries had a purpose once: it was a useful ideology with which to justify foreign conquests: the coloreds were stupid, and therefore the White Man had to intervene for their own good. Today, in Western Europe racism appears on the wane -- mainly because the traditional roles have changed: Asians and Africans are today our customers, and increasingly -- investors. And customers, well, you know, our customers are our masters, as the saying goes. Therefore, the dominant mainstream ideology in the West today pretends that we are all equal, whether white or colored. What's more, it leans towards the sycophantic: after all, if you are trying to sell somebody a product, it's a good idea at least to say that you admire their culture.
Polish nineteenth century antisemitism, as ugly as it was, made sense, too: if you are a poor, lower-middle class semi-professional and find it difficult to compete with others on the basis of job skills alone, antisemitism can be a useful tool: the anstisemite says -- just as the South African racist did -- "Don't hire the dirty so-and-so, hire me". It's ugly, but it works.
But today there are neither Asians nor Blacks in Poland (and only 7,000 Jews). Hating them therefore serves no purpose. It is entirely theoretical. It is -- disinterested. It is, as it were, racism pure, unsoiled by self-interest.
Its source is probably the very strong desire not to be a B-class nation anymore; imagining oneself member of the Great Ruling White Race probably helps us with low perception of our own worth and status. Perhaps, also, a strong desire to join the imagined Western Team (which, basically, means The A (for American) Team) also plays a role. For people who have not thought about the issues much, the Western team seems to be European, Christian, and white. (The idea that the Western Team may really be about law abiding, human rights and personal liberties is probably too sophisticated for most of us). Strongly desiring to be on the team, we want to be European, Christian and white. And, a little like the new boy in the playground, we feel that expressing strong animosities towards those who aren't on the team will somehow buy our way in.
Ironically, our outspoken racism has the opposite effect: it embarrasses precisely those into whose sympathies we wish to creep.
Symbolically speaking, our racism is a retread. Economically, we have graduated from driving previously-owned German cars, but only in time to test drive some previously-owned German ideas.
Royal panties
I am unable to make up my mind how to feel about Princess Royal's new line of sexy lingerie. Is it more dumb -- trading the long term value of the royal brand for a quick profit on a ridiculous product; or more pitiful -- a princess aspiring to be... a fashion designer?
What's next? Personal trainer?
What's next? Personal trainer?
The Cambodian border ado
Watching the unfolding Thai-Cambodian border conflict is like watching a surrealist comedy: Monty Python could not have come up with anything more absurd. In one statement, for instance, the PM promised to solve the land-title problems of those Thais who live in the disputed areas. I read it at breakfast and nearly choked to death on my egg: if he does that, then Thais living in the disputed areas will be better off than the rest of the nation -- 95% of Thais don't have a clear title to their land because the state has failed to build the necessary legal infrastructure where it is perfectly free to do so. Clearly, it's in their favor, then, if Cambodia should dispute not just 4.5 square kilometers but the whole of the country. But seeing my gym assistant this morning shake his fist at the pictures of Cambodian army on TV I realize that he at least has not stopped to think about it.
Feb 4, 2011
The tale of two cities
A funny thing happened on the way to the dentist: arriving at the waiting room I was assailed by the sheer ugliness of everyone there: misshapen faces, flabby bodies, shapeless feet, very bad skin, cloudy eyes, dressed in rags, with uncombed, stringy hair. The waiting room, equipped "utilitarian" -- cheapest paint and chairs unrelieved by a single picture or flower; windowless; with low ceiling -- also smelled -- on account of the "carpet" -- an idiotic idea in any climate, but absolutely deadly in the tropics. I was compelled to wait nearly thirty minutes while trying not to mind the fetor and averting my eyes from the room and towards the off-grey walls.
My toothache turned into a headache.
I returned home depressed.
This is life in the big city. In the small city, people are perhaps not better looking, but they take care to dress decently -- iron their shirts, match colors, sit properly on their chairs instead of slouching. They comb their hair. They decorate their waiting rooms with a flower or a picture.
The people here on the other hand don't do a thing to look decent. Are they so demoralized by the ugliness of the environment? Do they not bother to make themselves look nice because they know the waiting room will be relentlessly ugly and so will be everyone there? Have they -- given up? Or perhaps they never had the aesthetic sense to begin with? Are they born aesthetically blind? The way people in my apartment building can sit on the hot chlorinated jacuzzi and not suffer skin irritation from the hot acid like I do?
I spent the next few days locked up in my apartment, not daring to go out. This has happened on several occasions before, when the relentless ugliness of a place got the better of me. I got that in college, in America; the ugliness of that place cast me into a long depression which I only managed to cure by leaving. Later, I suffered the same in Taipei -- and ended up leaving soon afterwards. I will leave here soon, too. I must.
Does this happen to you?
My toothache turned into a headache.
I returned home depressed.
This is life in the big city. In the small city, people are perhaps not better looking, but they take care to dress decently -- iron their shirts, match colors, sit properly on their chairs instead of slouching. They comb their hair. They decorate their waiting rooms with a flower or a picture.
The people here on the other hand don't do a thing to look decent. Are they so demoralized by the ugliness of the environment? Do they not bother to make themselves look nice because they know the waiting room will be relentlessly ugly and so will be everyone there? Have they -- given up? Or perhaps they never had the aesthetic sense to begin with? Are they born aesthetically blind? The way people in my apartment building can sit on the hot chlorinated jacuzzi and not suffer skin irritation from the hot acid like I do?
I spent the next few days locked up in my apartment, not daring to go out. This has happened on several occasions before, when the relentless ugliness of a place got the better of me. I got that in college, in America; the ugliness of that place cast me into a long depression which I only managed to cure by leaving. Later, I suffered the same in Taipei -- and ended up leaving soon afterwards. I will leave here soon, too. I must.
Does this happen to you?
Ignoramus XVII
Łysiak tells us that Chinese and Japanese painting does not count because it's mere calligraphy.
I wonder what he means by "does not count". If "does not count" = "Łysiak does not like", then, I think, he is right, though I suspect one should really parse Lysiak's "X does not count" as "Łysiak does not know first thing about X". Thus "Japanese painting does not count" becomes "Łysiak does not have a clue about Japanese painting".
All's in order, then.
In order, but still an embarrassment: the dismissal of Oriental painting as calligraphy isn't novel: various Europeans have been pronouncing it since the 17th century. One must wonder at the point of writing -- and publishing a book of plagiarized nonsense. I mean, novel nonsense -- e.g. "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" -- is just nonsense, why not publish it; but plagiarized nonsense is simply shameful.
Of course, the first European to dismiss Chinese painting as mere calligraphy was not expressing an original thought, either: the idea is Chinese and goes back to Yuan dynasty, when total disappearance of official sponsorship for painting starved the profession to death and left the art in the hands of scholar-poets, who recognizing how weak they were at what they were doing, called it, self-deprecatingly, "my graceless doodles".
European painting is certainly great, but European thinking about it isn't terribly original.
I am curious what Łysiak means by The White Man, by the way. He wouldn't mean The Great Pinko-Grey Race, by any chance, would he?
I wonder what he means by "does not count". If "does not count" = "Łysiak does not like", then, I think, he is right, though I suspect one should really parse Lysiak's "X does not count" as "Łysiak does not know first thing about X". Thus "Japanese painting does not count" becomes "Łysiak does not have a clue about Japanese painting".
All's in order, then.
In order, but still an embarrassment: the dismissal of Oriental painting as calligraphy isn't novel: various Europeans have been pronouncing it since the 17th century. One must wonder at the point of writing -- and publishing a book of plagiarized nonsense. I mean, novel nonsense -- e.g. "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" -- is just nonsense, why not publish it; but plagiarized nonsense is simply shameful.
Of course, the first European to dismiss Chinese painting as mere calligraphy was not expressing an original thought, either: the idea is Chinese and goes back to Yuan dynasty, when total disappearance of official sponsorship for painting starved the profession to death and left the art in the hands of scholar-poets, who recognizing how weak they were at what they were doing, called it, self-deprecatingly, "my graceless doodles".
European painting is certainly great, but European thinking about it isn't terribly original.
I am curious what Łysiak means by The White Man, by the way. He wouldn't mean The Great Pinko-Grey Race, by any chance, would he?
Moralizing with adjectives
The night before, still in Phnom Penh, in a vain effort to forget my misery, I took a novel to bed (I think it was Murdoch's The Sea The Sea) but I had to put it away: the introduction was that awful.
It was relentless moralizing with adjectives.
"Moralizing with adjectives" is a category of discourse. It is the favorite rhetorical form when addressing one's own party members. It's a particularly empty form of rhetoric: because an adjective can morally praise or dispraise anything, a sock could be characterized as smug, or self-sacrificing. Such a characterization does not tell us anything at all except that the author likes the sock (or does not, as the case may be).
(Is it fair to generalize that proper speech -- one conveying meaning -- should contain no adjectives at all?)
The introduction was just such a succession of meaningless, value-laden adjectives relentlessly beating up on Yuppies, Margaret Thatcher, and -- well, some kind of invisible, unnamed enemy: "we are told", "we are made to", "we are taught", all wrongly of course, but the passive mode of the expression makes it resoundingly unclear we are told by whom.
The introduction's only discernible message -- one that could actually be tautologically paraphrased -- was the -- patently wrong -- claim that Buddhism's does not recommend withdrawal from society.
The overwhelming impression of the piece was the sensation of the utter and complete A.D. (agitated discombobulation). I felt both intense pity for the author, realizing in how much pain he was writhing, but I was also terrified to know how wrong and how confused a mind could be. Here I was looking in detail at the kind of unstable state of mind in which suicides or murders are committed.
Unbelievably, the publisher let the piece run.
Why?
Sick in Phnom Penh
Cambodia depresses in many ways. Phnom Penh is the same excrement cavity it was 5 years ago, littered with garbage and reeking of urine, and, as is the case with all 4th world countries, it is still expensive — featuring much lower standards for much higher prices than next-door 2.5th world Thailand. If anything, Phnom Penh is worse than it was five years ago: it now has hellish rush hour traffic, too.
(I suppose the minister of finance might argue that the extenuating circumstance for this traffic is that every other car on the road is a Lexus).
The National Museum’s collection is much less worth seeing than I had remembered it, perhaps because I have seen the Guimet since. Perhaps only one item’s really worth the trip — a shard of a gigantic reclining Visnhu from an island in the Western Mebon, disconcertingly smiling head plus fragments of three arms, which they will not allow you to photograph whether legally or illegally (too many staff busy selling offering flowers to bribe one’s way). There are also a gigantic Vishnu/Balarama/Rama group in black soap stone, and a sandstone headless squatting hunchback with a pigeon chest, a lintel with a Dhurodhyana-Bhima fight, and three pretty good Narasimhas — but none is worth the price of the trip.
There is no catalog for sale, either. I suppose I bought the last catalog they had — of female divinities in their collection — five years ago.
Airport departure tax is $25. This is an omission. It should be $1,000 and — I should have paid it.
Alas, the worst of the trip does not stay behind in Phnom Penh but packs into the airplane with me: they are my fellow tourists. Am I suffering from severe depression, or are they really what they seem to me: dirtier, poorer, uglier, more thoroughly tattooed and pierced and more disheveled than elsewhere? All look as if they’d been dragged out of garbage. And the faces, oh, the faces, goodness gracious, the faces: they aren't just ugly -- who of us dare cast the first stone -- they look positively wrong, misshapen, as if their maker dropped their freshly clay-shaped heads on the floor while they were still wet.
Mercifully, I say to myself, the flight is only an hour. But the seat’s so tight I am unable to move; and the back support curves inwards meaning anyone over 6 feet tall has to hunch. (Make sure you never ever fly Air Asia). Someone behind me opens a bag of some smelly... feed – chips? — and I nearly throw up smelling it.
I couldn't smell the thing without retching, but someone was eating it and no one else seemed to mind.
Jul 4, 2010
Absence of mind, indeed
Arguments presented here are -- er... shall we say -- disarmingly naive. Their caliber reminds one of the statistic that the higher the IQ the lower the chance of being religious. Thus, for instance, neither lady appears to understand the debate regarding the concept of the "selfish gene".
Ladies: the gene is "selfish" not because it makes us selfish but because it is only interested in propagating itself (it is itself "selfish", but as it is an unthinking thing, that's only a metaphor, ok?). Now, in order to propagate itself, the gene may need us, its unwitting carriers, to behave altruistically from time to time; which, please, believe me, all of us do, the religious and the irreligious alike, although, I suppose, if one wanted to be mean about it, one could argue perhaps that religiously motivated altruism isn't really altruistic, but a self-interested pursuit of salvation? This would mean that only we atheists can be truly altruistic?
(By the way, it seems to me that the whole brouhaha regarding the altruism puzzle exaggerates greatly the frequency of the phenomenon: cases of altruism are highly notable precisely because they are so... rare. Sorry).
The final notion of the review that atheists lack spiritual life -- "long, long conversations with oneself" -- is untrue, untutored and -- intentionally offensive. It is calculated to put atheists on defense ("prove to me you have an internal life!"). And it is silly. What is spiritual about "and He shall smite them with a rod of iron"?
Ladies: the gene is "selfish" not because it makes us selfish but because it is only interested in propagating itself (it is itself "selfish", but as it is an unthinking thing, that's only a metaphor, ok?). Now, in order to propagate itself, the gene may need us, its unwitting carriers, to behave altruistically from time to time; which, please, believe me, all of us do, the religious and the irreligious alike, although, I suppose, if one wanted to be mean about it, one could argue perhaps that religiously motivated altruism isn't really altruistic, but a self-interested pursuit of salvation? This would mean that only we atheists can be truly altruistic?
(By the way, it seems to me that the whole brouhaha regarding the altruism puzzle exaggerates greatly the frequency of the phenomenon: cases of altruism are highly notable precisely because they are so... rare. Sorry).
The final notion of the review that atheists lack spiritual life -- "long, long conversations with oneself" -- is untrue, untutored and -- intentionally offensive. It is calculated to put atheists on defense ("prove to me you have an internal life!"). And it is silly. What is spiritual about "and He shall smite them with a rod of iron"?
May 24, 2010
How John's mind works
John H. of Bronte Capital writes a good financial blog -- one of the best out there, when he has the time to write it, that is, which, to our chagrin is not often enough. It is also a task from which, alas, he has lately allowed himself to be diverted to make the sort of blog entries of which the blogosphere has far too many already: you know, the sort that sport millions of hits and tens of thousands of comments, but whose point is something windy along the lines of "all Japanese/not-all Japanese are Nazis" or "Hillary wears/does not wear army boots". (The basic publicity concept being: if you violently stir the beehive, the bees will fly).
His most recent beehive-stirring-post is an exercise in political sermonery -- of which, we should think, the internet already had more than enough -- and true to the sermon genre -- it is copiously tinged with self-loathing.
The sermonery upbraids the Thai middle classes for denying the poor their vote and then -- shooting them.
(Fair enough, I suppose, about the shooting bit, though in their defense, I suppose, it could be said that the Thai government was acting in defense of private property, a principle which a financial adviser like John should not take lightly if he values his job. But John wheezes on the voting: he mistakes the right to vote for a moral principle. The view is unexamined -- a surprising thing in a man who examines so well the books of banks. I mean, can there really possibly be a natural universal human right to vote? The answer should be plain: voting is a practical mechanism we resort to because it works, not because it is somehow divinely instituted. In Thailand it has not worked for quite some time: what could possibly be the point of voting yet again?)
But I don't wish to debate any of that. Rather, I am moved by something else: when he condemns the Thai middle class, he speaks of people like me. His point is this: in the course of researching an investment idea he'd talked to a lot of Thai middle class, liked them and -- is now riven with self-loathing for having liked them -- now that they have rejected the results of the ballot box (he says) and have shot at demonstrators. I feel moved to reassure John: there is no need for self-loathing: he bears no responsibility for the crimes of the Thai middle class, whether real or imagined. They are people like him in some way; but all people are like him in some way.
John's Thai outburst is interesting in many ways. First, it is interesting to see how compartmentalized his mind is: a cool, rational, skeptical financial man can turn out to be a hot, passionate, "principled" political animal; "principles" in this context meaning something rather special: i.e. "strongly held beliefs of uncertain universality". The more uncertain a principle, the stronger the emotional commitment required to hold on to it.
Second, the post underscores the surprising proximity of moral opprobrium and self-loathing: John was inspired to write his post by the fact that he had identified with Thai middle class. Was John equally firebrand about the Burmese military shooting monks three years ago? Probably not, I imagine: he'd not identified himself with the Burmese military; therefore, there was no temptation for self-flagellation; therefore there were no condemnatory articles. Moral opprobrium would seem a kind of narcissistic navel-gazing, then.
And third: it shows that the best of minds are never safe from the rhetorical temptations of demagoguery (says Lord Vader: "the dark side... is easier... faster"). John can discuss dispassionately aspects of silicon wafer production; but disagree with his political views and you are confronted by cheap rhetoric. "Should we shoot people because they make less than $500 a year?", he asks at one point. How can we convince John that he is obliged to live up to a higher standard of discourse? That for someone of his stature this kind of discourse is simply not allowed?
His most recent beehive-stirring-post is an exercise in political sermonery -- of which, we should think, the internet already had more than enough -- and true to the sermon genre -- it is copiously tinged with self-loathing.
The sermonery upbraids the Thai middle classes for denying the poor their vote and then -- shooting them.
(Fair enough, I suppose, about the shooting bit, though in their defense, I suppose, it could be said that the Thai government was acting in defense of private property, a principle which a financial adviser like John should not take lightly if he values his job. But John wheezes on the voting: he mistakes the right to vote for a moral principle. The view is unexamined -- a surprising thing in a man who examines so well the books of banks. I mean, can there really possibly be a natural universal human right to vote? The answer should be plain: voting is a practical mechanism we resort to because it works, not because it is somehow divinely instituted. In Thailand it has not worked for quite some time: what could possibly be the point of voting yet again?)
But I don't wish to debate any of that. Rather, I am moved by something else: when he condemns the Thai middle class, he speaks of people like me. His point is this: in the course of researching an investment idea he'd talked to a lot of Thai middle class, liked them and -- is now riven with self-loathing for having liked them -- now that they have rejected the results of the ballot box (he says) and have shot at demonstrators. I feel moved to reassure John: there is no need for self-loathing: he bears no responsibility for the crimes of the Thai middle class, whether real or imagined. They are people like him in some way; but all people are like him in some way.
John's Thai outburst is interesting in many ways. First, it is interesting to see how compartmentalized his mind is: a cool, rational, skeptical financial man can turn out to be a hot, passionate, "principled" political animal; "principles" in this context meaning something rather special: i.e. "strongly held beliefs of uncertain universality". The more uncertain a principle, the stronger the emotional commitment required to hold on to it.
Second, the post underscores the surprising proximity of moral opprobrium and self-loathing: John was inspired to write his post by the fact that he had identified with Thai middle class. Was John equally firebrand about the Burmese military shooting monks three years ago? Probably not, I imagine: he'd not identified himself with the Burmese military; therefore, there was no temptation for self-flagellation; therefore there were no condemnatory articles. Moral opprobrium would seem a kind of narcissistic navel-gazing, then.
And third: it shows that the best of minds are never safe from the rhetorical temptations of demagoguery (says Lord Vader: "the dark side... is easier... faster"). John can discuss dispassionately aspects of silicon wafer production; but disagree with his political views and you are confronted by cheap rhetoric. "Should we shoot people because they make less than $500 a year?", he asks at one point. How can we convince John that he is obliged to live up to a higher standard of discourse? That for someone of his stature this kind of discourse is simply not allowed?
Mar 7, 2010
On Beauty (2)
Some observations on Taiwan and the Taiwanese
The food at my breakfast place is great; so is its bustling atmosphere. But what impresses me most is the speed with which the food is cooked, served, and paid for. The workers do all the math in their heads, at lightening speed: take, pass on, and fulfill orders, wrap, bag and serve, and calculate what was consumed, total due, change to be made. Instantly. What a difference with Thailand where everything is slow and where adding two two-digit numbers requires repeat use of calculator (since so often mistakes are made on its first use, one has to calculate and then -- recalculate: 55 + 22 = 77; I am not making this up).
So: this is my first observation: these people are smart. It could be genetic -- the settlement of Taiwan was a gene-selecting process, the dummies, one assumes, stayed behind; or perhaps just didn't make it in the scramble of the settlement (throughout 17th and early 18th centuries there were about 8 men to every woman here, presumably the women preferred the smart guys and the dummies failed to reproduce); or it could be cultural -- Taiwanese, being Chinese, believe in education and rote learning; my sister's daughter must memorize the Mendeleyev chart for her high school entrance exam (do I hear you ask: what is Mendeleyev?); or it could simply be the function of a better government which provides better schools; which in turn insist on students memorizing the multiplication table. Whatever the causes, god save the Thais if they ever have to compete with the Taiwanese on anything like a level playing field.
(To some extent, they already do: prices -- other than of real estate -- are about the same in both countries; yet wages in Taiwan are about five times higher. If the difference is due to higher productivity, then Taiwanese breakfast places should be expected to serve food five times as fast. Direct observation bears this out).
The second observation: these people are ugly. The women have neither breasts, nor hips, nor buttocks. All faces are flat, all buddies tubby, all legs short -- the calves especially. The skin is often dull and mottled. This is not to condemn them: my best friends are ugly and I find their ugliness endearing; it is to state the obvious fact. Among South East Asians, Taiwanese stand out for their marked absence of good looks. This has nothing to do with racial prejudice: all Asians can see this obvious fact -- the Taiwanese themselves included. "If you see an ugly, poorly dressed girl, she's Taiwanese", they themselves say. Yes, as everywhere, some people are better looking than others, but generally, the standard is low. Good looking Taiwanese are almost always waishengren -- usually northern Chinese, but there are a few chaozhouren, too; unless they are aborigines. You can walk safely Taipei's streets: you will not be struck by sudden passion at first sight.
The causes of this deficit of good looks are mysterious. Was Taiwan (Fujian?) subject to differential migration? (Did pretty people find it easier to survive on the mainland and therefore experience less pressure to migrate?) Was there -- in an environment of arranged marriages -- a breeding preference for health, intelligence, and brawn which discounted value of good looks? (Since Mommy didn't care if her son's bride is good looking? Indeed, perhaps preferred one who isn't?)
The second suggestion -- that beauty has been bred out of the Taiwanese -- seems to have some evidence in its favor: the Taiwanese are not just ugly; they also lack the most basic aesthetic skills. It is as if they were... beauty-blind. They normally do not dress up; but when they do -- such as when they go to national theater -- the results are so bad that they are -- funny. My dearest friends live in ugly apartments, sit on indifferent furniture, wear non-descript clothing, and when we all go shopping for porcelain together, they appreciate high price ("this stuff is expensive") and a good bargain ("I haggled 35% off this thing!"); they notice neither the color nor the shape nor the workmanship.
As a result, when the Taiwanese do make a fortune, as many do, their standard of living does not improve: they may move to a bigger house, and that house may be in a better neighborhood, but it will be just as uncomfortable and as ugly-furnished as the one before.
Yet, the second suggestion -- that sensitivity to beauty has been bred out of the Taiwanese -- cannot be entirely true: the Taiwanese are not blind to human good looks. Which is my third notable observation about the Taiwanese. All foreigners like to visit Taiwan because the Taiwanese are so famously hospitable. (This virtue was common among all Chinese prior to the cultural revolution; Russell's famous description of the hospitality of Penkingese ca. 1930 still applies to the Taiwanese, even if it does not to the Pekingese anymore). But the good-looking foreigners -- even the mildly so -- are loved to death here: wined and dined, served, cared for and entertained. Seeing one, the Taiwanese will exclaim: oh, he is so good looking! He looks like a movie star!
It is as if, in the arms race which goes on among men, the Taiwanese have decided to specialize entirely in intelligence and hard work to the exclusion of good looks; and they have invested all their assets there. For all this, there remains with them the ability to perceive good looks in others; they have not managed to breed out the mechanism of beauty perception; when they see human beauty, they do recognize it; indeed, they are struck by it; and they then set out to secure through their native great charm and profligate gift-giving.
So: this is my first observation: these people are smart. It could be genetic -- the settlement of Taiwan was a gene-selecting process, the dummies, one assumes, stayed behind; or perhaps just didn't make it in the scramble of the settlement (throughout 17th and early 18th centuries there were about 8 men to every woman here, presumably the women preferred the smart guys and the dummies failed to reproduce); or it could be cultural -- Taiwanese, being Chinese, believe in education and rote learning; my sister's daughter must memorize the Mendeleyev chart for her high school entrance exam (do I hear you ask: what is Mendeleyev?); or it could simply be the function of a better government which provides better schools; which in turn insist on students memorizing the multiplication table. Whatever the causes, god save the Thais if they ever have to compete with the Taiwanese on anything like a level playing field.
(To some extent, they already do: prices -- other than of real estate -- are about the same in both countries; yet wages in Taiwan are about five times higher. If the difference is due to higher productivity, then Taiwanese breakfast places should be expected to serve food five times as fast. Direct observation bears this out).
The second observation: these people are ugly. The women have neither breasts, nor hips, nor buttocks. All faces are flat, all buddies tubby, all legs short -- the calves especially. The skin is often dull and mottled. This is not to condemn them: my best friends are ugly and I find their ugliness endearing; it is to state the obvious fact. Among South East Asians, Taiwanese stand out for their marked absence of good looks. This has nothing to do with racial prejudice: all Asians can see this obvious fact -- the Taiwanese themselves included. "If you see an ugly, poorly dressed girl, she's Taiwanese", they themselves say. Yes, as everywhere, some people are better looking than others, but generally, the standard is low. Good looking Taiwanese are almost always waishengren -- usually northern Chinese, but there are a few chaozhouren, too; unless they are aborigines. You can walk safely Taipei's streets: you will not be struck by sudden passion at first sight.
The causes of this deficit of good looks are mysterious. Was Taiwan (Fujian?) subject to differential migration? (Did pretty people find it easier to survive on the mainland and therefore experience less pressure to migrate?) Was there -- in an environment of arranged marriages -- a breeding preference for health, intelligence, and brawn which discounted value of good looks? (Since Mommy didn't care if her son's bride is good looking? Indeed, perhaps preferred one who isn't?)
The second suggestion -- that beauty has been bred out of the Taiwanese -- seems to have some evidence in its favor: the Taiwanese are not just ugly; they also lack the most basic aesthetic skills. It is as if they were... beauty-blind. They normally do not dress up; but when they do -- such as when they go to national theater -- the results are so bad that they are -- funny. My dearest friends live in ugly apartments, sit on indifferent furniture, wear non-descript clothing, and when we all go shopping for porcelain together, they appreciate high price ("this stuff is expensive") and a good bargain ("I haggled 35% off this thing!"); they notice neither the color nor the shape nor the workmanship.
As a result, when the Taiwanese do make a fortune, as many do, their standard of living does not improve: they may move to a bigger house, and that house may be in a better neighborhood, but it will be just as uncomfortable and as ugly-furnished as the one before.
Yet, the second suggestion -- that sensitivity to beauty has been bred out of the Taiwanese -- cannot be entirely true: the Taiwanese are not blind to human good looks. Which is my third notable observation about the Taiwanese. All foreigners like to visit Taiwan because the Taiwanese are so famously hospitable. (This virtue was common among all Chinese prior to the cultural revolution; Russell's famous description of the hospitality of Penkingese ca. 1930 still applies to the Taiwanese, even if it does not to the Pekingese anymore). But the good-looking foreigners -- even the mildly so -- are loved to death here: wined and dined, served, cared for and entertained. Seeing one, the Taiwanese will exclaim: oh, he is so good looking! He looks like a movie star!
It is as if, in the arms race which goes on among men, the Taiwanese have decided to specialize entirely in intelligence and hard work to the exclusion of good looks; and they have invested all their assets there. For all this, there remains with them the ability to perceive good looks in others; they have not managed to breed out the mechanism of beauty perception; when they see human beauty, they do recognize it; indeed, they are struck by it; and they then set out to secure through their native great charm and profligate gift-giving.
Mar 5, 2010
Beauty is a totalitarian tool
Beauty is a tool of totalitarian power. It controls minds; and is rare enough to be easily monopolized.
Feb 6, 2010
Talking with Chris (or the virtues of loneliness)
Chris is 60, thrice divorced, and, since a year ago, single for the first time in his life. I say "for the first time" because he'd never until now experienced any extended period in which he lived by himself. He'd moved from Mom's straight to his first wife's, from her to his second, and so forth. But now he is alone. To his surprise, he's discovering it is a nice way to live.
Feb 5, 2010
On beauty (1)
On beauty and injustice
"He... has beauty which... makes me ugly", says Iago about Cassio. Beauty -- not penis -- envy drives one of our literary canon's most diabolical intrigues.
Here, in a nutshell, is our modern aesthetics, too. The thesis that beauty is relative is pronounced most strongly by those who know themselves to be ugly. The same people produce ugly works demanding that we appreciate them. The plot is Iagonian: to overthrow what makes them look ugly. The strategy is two pronged: on the one hand, active vandalism, on the other -- verbal denial.
Democracy perhaps makes the success of the plot inevitable. At most 20% of us are good looking, the rest -- are at best plain: the theory that the beautiful are not at all beautiful but only seem that way is bound to be a smash hit.
Good old feudal injustice did not have to deny beauty: the powerful did not have to deny beauty since it was attainable: they could have it through force of arms (Yudishthira: "The cause of all war is beauty") or expenditure of resources (His Holiness to Michelangelo: "Thou shalt paint for no other man but me"). Why, by acquiring beautiful females they could in successive generations become beautiful themselves. (The looks of the ruling class over time approach its aesthetic ideal). But democracy limits the rulers' ability to sequester beauty; and it gives voice to those who can never dream of achieving it.
Beauty being unjust -- so few of us can have it -- can perhaps only be formally highly regarded in unjust societies; any society which is even remotely egalitarian will have to pretend that beauty is not important; or, as we have recently started to do, that it does not even exist.
Here, in a nutshell, is our modern aesthetics, too. The thesis that beauty is relative is pronounced most strongly by those who know themselves to be ugly. The same people produce ugly works demanding that we appreciate them. The plot is Iagonian: to overthrow what makes them look ugly. The strategy is two pronged: on the one hand, active vandalism, on the other -- verbal denial.
Democracy perhaps makes the success of the plot inevitable. At most 20% of us are good looking, the rest -- are at best plain: the theory that the beautiful are not at all beautiful but only seem that way is bound to be a smash hit.
Good old feudal injustice did not have to deny beauty: the powerful did not have to deny beauty since it was attainable: they could have it through force of arms (Yudishthira: "The cause of all war is beauty") or expenditure of resources (His Holiness to Michelangelo: "Thou shalt paint for no other man but me"). Why, by acquiring beautiful females they could in successive generations become beautiful themselves. (The looks of the ruling class over time approach its aesthetic ideal). But democracy limits the rulers' ability to sequester beauty; and it gives voice to those who can never dream of achieving it.
Beauty being unjust -- so few of us can have it -- can perhaps only be formally highly regarded in unjust societies; any society which is even remotely egalitarian will have to pretend that beauty is not important; or, as we have recently started to do, that it does not even exist.
Jan 13, 2010
Talking with Chris (or what to do about boring girls)
Chris has worked all his life to build up a good gene-investment portfolio. He has six well-made children (healthy, good looking, intelligent) by three different, quality women (healthy, good looking, hard working, filial) of every different genetic stock (some European, some Asian). Should a disaster -- a flu epidemic, say -- strike the general population, at least some of his genes should survive while mine are headed directly for extinction.
Chris feels defensive about it, explaining why his women left him, and how he is not to blame. But one wonders: is there something going on here even Chris does not realize?
It's been 9 months since his last wife left him, and 7 since he's picked up a new girlfriend. She's much like his last wife: good looking, decent, hard working, and filial. Because she is filial, she won't move in with him, which is what he's complaining about. Chris is 60, but, if the girl were to move in with him, I think he'd reproduce again, diversifying even further his gene portfolior. I want to share my life with someone, he says. He means: I want to keep diversifying my gene portfolio.
His advice for me is to stay away from whores. There are so many nice girls around, he says.
There are.
The problem with the nice girls is that they all want ""relationship": they want someone to spend inordinate amounts of time with them, holding their hands, and talking to them, and this I cannot do. These girls are simply too boring -- all conversations with them are for me one way -- me talking, them listening because I know that nothing new can ever emerge out of their mouths.
This bores me; but, well, I am a generous fellow and, I suppose, could put up with boredom if the sex were great. But -- worse -- this situation irritates them. You are so intelligent, they say at first, full of amazement at my brains, but then, gradually, but not all too slowly, they begin to resent the fact that all the talking is one way, as if it were my fault that they had nothing original to say. They don't only want someone to hold their hand, they also want someone to listen to their drivel.
God.
It gets worse, of course. Few people are naturally happy and free of personality foibles; these last often emerge only in the close proximity of cohabitation; getting used to them, or "ironing things out", as people say, takes a long time and requires hard work. So, for me, any relationship is bound not only to be boring but also require hard work. Then the sex peters out. What could possibly be the point? Why not just pay for the sex instead and be done with it?
Chris's way to deal with the problem is to engage in serial monogamy: marry a girl for 10 years, play at mom and dad, and then, when he gets bored and the sex peters out, quit and move on. I wish I had his patience for personal foibles; and I wish I were not so well read and so easily bored with the untutored opinions of the uninformed. I wish girls didn't bore me to tears.
Chris feels defensive about it, explaining why his women left him, and how he is not to blame. But one wonders: is there something going on here even Chris does not realize?
It's been 9 months since his last wife left him, and 7 since he's picked up a new girlfriend. She's much like his last wife: good looking, decent, hard working, and filial. Because she is filial, she won't move in with him, which is what he's complaining about. Chris is 60, but, if the girl were to move in with him, I think he'd reproduce again, diversifying even further his gene portfolior. I want to share my life with someone, he says. He means: I want to keep diversifying my gene portfolio.
His advice for me is to stay away from whores. There are so many nice girls around, he says.
There are.
The problem with the nice girls is that they all want ""relationship": they want someone to spend inordinate amounts of time with them, holding their hands, and talking to them, and this I cannot do. These girls are simply too boring -- all conversations with them are for me one way -- me talking, them listening because I know that nothing new can ever emerge out of their mouths.
This bores me; but, well, I am a generous fellow and, I suppose, could put up with boredom if the sex were great. But -- worse -- this situation irritates them. You are so intelligent, they say at first, full of amazement at my brains, but then, gradually, but not all too slowly, they begin to resent the fact that all the talking is one way, as if it were my fault that they had nothing original to say. They don't only want someone to hold their hand, they also want someone to listen to their drivel.
God.
It gets worse, of course. Few people are naturally happy and free of personality foibles; these last often emerge only in the close proximity of cohabitation; getting used to them, or "ironing things out", as people say, takes a long time and requires hard work. So, for me, any relationship is bound not only to be boring but also require hard work. Then the sex peters out. What could possibly be the point? Why not just pay for the sex instead and be done with it?
Chris's way to deal with the problem is to engage in serial monogamy: marry a girl for 10 years, play at mom and dad, and then, when he gets bored and the sex peters out, quit and move on. I wish I had his patience for personal foibles; and I wish I were not so well read and so easily bored with the untutored opinions of the uninformed. I wish girls didn't bore me to tears.
Jan 5, 2010
Some thoughts on filial piety
My aunt came and stayed for four days around new year's.
I had invited her because the new year's is the anniversary of her son's death and she said she didn't want to be alone during that time. Out of desperation, and acting on past experience, I refused to put her up at home and instead arranged for her to stay in a hut next door: that way at least at night -- and in the morning, until, driven out by hunger I emerged from my bedroom -- I could be left in peace. Even so, she came over at daybreak and laid a siege to me till late at night, talking at me incessantly.
Most of the talk may have seemed harmless enough: she mainly repeated old jokes and anecdotes (all of which I had heard countless times already) or recounted to me major news events she heard on the radio or read in the press (which, of course, by then I had heard or read myself); but she disturbed my work -- she'd talk to me even though she could see I was doing something; and, worse, disturbed my peace -- those moments when I sat outside to enjoy the balmy weather and the peace and quiet of my garden.
It would have been alright, I suppose, if I had been allowed to ignore her words -- tune them out, somehow; but my aunt expected me to hear her words, process them, and make a reply, doing which placed on me a tremendous amount of pressure. I had spent years of sacrifice and hard work to cut myself off from people who bore me. Why must it be my duty now to be bored by my own aunt?
It is a truth generally held that it is my filial duty to help my aunt; the logic of this argument says that I owe her, in her gradually more and more helpless old age, the care she'd given me when I was a helpless child. Very well, then: I am happy to help her financially; and, further, I am prepared to sacrifice a great amount of my time in just helping her accomplishing ordinary life tasks -- drive her places, help her shop and move things, arrange her drivers, show her how to pay her bills, etc. But does it really need to be my duty to suffer her incessant talking?
Can there really be such a thing as right to be entertained? Or the corresponding duty to entertain?
More importantly: why does my aunt need somebody to talk at in order to feel better?
It's worse of course when she offers life advice: it is she who needs my help, not I who needs hers; what makes her think that I am remotely interested in her advice? Or wish to explain anything about my personal life?
I had invited her because the new year's is the anniversary of her son's death and she said she didn't want to be alone during that time. Out of desperation, and acting on past experience, I refused to put her up at home and instead arranged for her to stay in a hut next door: that way at least at night -- and in the morning, until, driven out by hunger I emerged from my bedroom -- I could be left in peace. Even so, she came over at daybreak and laid a siege to me till late at night, talking at me incessantly.
Most of the talk may have seemed harmless enough: she mainly repeated old jokes and anecdotes (all of which I had heard countless times already) or recounted to me major news events she heard on the radio or read in the press (which, of course, by then I had heard or read myself); but she disturbed my work -- she'd talk to me even though she could see I was doing something; and, worse, disturbed my peace -- those moments when I sat outside to enjoy the balmy weather and the peace and quiet of my garden.
It would have been alright, I suppose, if I had been allowed to ignore her words -- tune them out, somehow; but my aunt expected me to hear her words, process them, and make a reply, doing which placed on me a tremendous amount of pressure. I had spent years of sacrifice and hard work to cut myself off from people who bore me. Why must it be my duty now to be bored by my own aunt?
It is a truth generally held that it is my filial duty to help my aunt; the logic of this argument says that I owe her, in her gradually more and more helpless old age, the care she'd given me when I was a helpless child. Very well, then: I am happy to help her financially; and, further, I am prepared to sacrifice a great amount of my time in just helping her accomplishing ordinary life tasks -- drive her places, help her shop and move things, arrange her drivers, show her how to pay her bills, etc. But does it really need to be my duty to suffer her incessant talking?
Can there really be such a thing as right to be entertained? Or the corresponding duty to entertain?
More importantly: why does my aunt need somebody to talk at in order to feel better?
It's worse of course when she offers life advice: it is she who needs my help, not I who needs hers; what makes her think that I am remotely interested in her advice? Or wish to explain anything about my personal life?
Dec 31, 2009
There is a gigantic hole in the middle of my philosophy
Over the last eighteen months or so I have been working out a new approach to life. Not new in general terms, as there have been plenty of misanthropes before, but one new in relative terms, because... one new to me. In short, I have decided to stop wasting my time on human contact. The strategy is undemonstrative: I am not going to move onto an uninhabited island or into a tree; as far as the outside world is concerned there won't seem to be any difference: I continue to be friendly and polite; I say hello to my neighbor and to my fish monger; I attend some new year and birthday parties; and I answer -- briefly, but not by any means coldly -- the correspondence I continue to receive; I am still prepared to run small errands or lend money. But, unlike before, I put no psychic energy into any of these interactions; and I limit my investment in them to the bare minimum: I smile, I say Happy New Year, and Fine, thanks!, send a card, and -- move off. In other words, the way I used to handle my interaction with 98% of the human kind -- polite but stand-offish -- I now apply to 100% of them. No more intimate conversations, no more bosom friends, no more lovers. I now live my life totally alone, in silence, between myself, my books and music, my journal and the occasional blog entry -- whose only reader I am. The only person I ever talk to about anything important is the only person who has ever had anything interesting to say to me -- myself.
The theory has been that since no one I have ever met in the flesh (including all the commentators on all my blogs past and present) has had anything interesting to say to me (and with good reason, most being less intelligent than I am, less well-read, less well-informed and less well-traveled); and since most of those I have met though their books have likewise proven undeserving of my intellectual attention (vast majority of books having been a disappointment); indeed, even many of those who have written great books -- books which I consume with passionate pleasure -- Thomas Mann, for example -- have likely been dull in personal contact; I would simply be better off not wasting my time on any of them. And, so far, it's working. The most difficult aspect of the plan, I had expected, would have been the absence of women in my bed, but even that I do not seem to miss. I no longer have disappointing conversations, I am not bored, I do not have to stoop to low intellectual levels, I do not have to unravel hidden agendas, I do not have to please. There really is such a thing as zhu-che, it turns out, self-sufficiency.
The success of this plan has led me to entertain a kind of extreme philosophical position: that the existence of other people is totally indifferent to our happiness.
But, of course, that is not true.
A typical happy day in my life will be filled with two kinds of experiences: nature and culture. Nature -- sunbathing, riding a motorbike in the mountains, watching reflections in the water, sitting through a sunset, dusk and nightfall while listening to birds and breathing in the perfume of tropical flowers wafting on the evening breeze, strolling in my garden in the moonlight or at day-break -- seems to prove the point: in those experiences the fewer people around the better, zero being the ideal number. But culture disproves it. Opera, film, drama, ballet, painting, calligraphy, philosophy, architecture -- all of these take up at least half of my time; without them my life would not be as rich or as happy as it is; and they are, alas, the work of -- men. Not the sort of men I have known, or ever can; and, if Thomas Mann is any guide, not the sort of men one would want to talk to in person any way, but men all the same.
So, it proves, that men are essential to my happiness.
And that is a very disappointing thought.
*
The theory has been that since no one I have ever met in the flesh (including all the commentators on all my blogs past and present) has had anything interesting to say to me (and with good reason, most being less intelligent than I am, less well-read, less well-informed and less well-traveled); and since most of those I have met though their books have likewise proven undeserving of my intellectual attention (vast majority of books having been a disappointment); indeed, even many of those who have written great books -- books which I consume with passionate pleasure -- Thomas Mann, for example -- have likely been dull in personal contact; I would simply be better off not wasting my time on any of them. And, so far, it's working. The most difficult aspect of the plan, I had expected, would have been the absence of women in my bed, but even that I do not seem to miss. I no longer have disappointing conversations, I am not bored, I do not have to stoop to low intellectual levels, I do not have to unravel hidden agendas, I do not have to please. There really is such a thing as zhu-che, it turns out, self-sufficiency.
The success of this plan has led me to entertain a kind of extreme philosophical position: that the existence of other people is totally indifferent to our happiness.
But, of course, that is not true.
A typical happy day in my life will be filled with two kinds of experiences: nature and culture. Nature -- sunbathing, riding a motorbike in the mountains, watching reflections in the water, sitting through a sunset, dusk and nightfall while listening to birds and breathing in the perfume of tropical flowers wafting on the evening breeze, strolling in my garden in the moonlight or at day-break -- seems to prove the point: in those experiences the fewer people around the better, zero being the ideal number. But culture disproves it. Opera, film, drama, ballet, painting, calligraphy, philosophy, architecture -- all of these take up at least half of my time; without them my life would not be as rich or as happy as it is; and they are, alas, the work of -- men. Not the sort of men I have known, or ever can; and, if Thomas Mann is any guide, not the sort of men one would want to talk to in person any way, but men all the same.
So, it proves, that men are essential to my happiness.
And that is a very disappointing thought.
Dec 17, 2009
More on loneliness
.
1.
My aunt – an elderly childless widow living in exile – feels lonely and phones me up to chat. "What are you doing today? And what did you eat for lunch?" I stifle my benign yawn, put aside the book - or perhaps the porcelain cup, or the snuff bottle, or the Ten thousand li of mountains and streams - and humor her: I am nothing if not filially pious, and if this sort of verbalization eases her loneliness, then I am glad to provide the outlet – be her receptacle, so to speak, when she needs to go. Yet, I do not have the slightest clue why or how this act of conversation should serve to make her un-lonely: I, for one, do not usually derive much spiritual gratification from learning that others have had, say, an oyster pancake for lunch. Do you?
A friend also feels lonely – despite having good, frequent relations with her family, gobs of friends whom she meets several times a week, and a job where she interacts with dozens of customers everyday. Frustrated, she’d overcome her loneliness, she is sure, if she only had a man to live with her. Taking walks together, she thinks, would splendidly do the trick.
But this is far from certain, as the case of yet another friend proves: he is married: he has a wife with whom to take his walks, a wife with whom, he says, he is intellectually compatible. Yet, he too, feels lonely, complains about his inability to connect (with her and others), and remembers wistfully some occasion on which he exchanged glances with a stranger; and another on which he told some insignificant other how he felt about this or that, stuff, he says, he couldn’t have told wife. "We connected then”, he continues downcast, as if that exchange of glances could possibly have meant a damned thing; and as if he could not have confessed his innermost feelings to a cat, or a fish, or a wall with the same result.
2.
Loneliness is one of the most basic concepts in popular psychology: it is used as self-diagnosis, as explanation for the actions of others, as a mechanism for successful business plans (e.g. Friend Finder et al.), of political ideologies even ("alienation"). It might seem therefore that we all understand it -- the term being so ubiquitous and so easily used by everyone; but the truth is that -- we don’t. The term’s dictionary definition -- “absence of others” -- how very Aristotelian of the Webster! -- seems weak. Furthermore, it does not appear to have an antonym, meaning that it is unfalsifiable (and thus, some might say, nonexistent): “presence of others” means nothing, certainly nothing good, and sure as hell does not cure the disease: as every other pop song will tell you, one can feel desperately lonely in the midst of the thickest crowd.
(OK, pop songs do not use big words like “desperately”. Still, you get the point).
The truth is that the term “loneliness” is used automatically, mindlessly, out of habit, to cover every instance of unease and discomfort for which we do not have some other, immediate explanation. If we have not eaten, we are hungry; if he have not drunk, we are thirsty; if we lack money, we are poor; if we want to take a holiday, but can’t, we are burnt out; if we experience sexual desires but have no release, we are frustrated; if we break our leg, we are in pain; but if we feel a kind of unspecific blah – well, then, we say, we must be lonely. It is a catch-all term, and like all catch-all terms, it means perfectly nothing.
"Loneliness" is a word we use out of intellectual sloth: when we do not feel like peering deeply into our souls to see just what it is that is really wrong with us.
3.
Watching The Wire (it may well be the best drama produced for TV ever) in the company of a pop-psychologists (i.e. every normal person) is instructive: observing the frustration, the drinking, the desultory sleeping around, the catastrophic marriages of the heroes and heroines, the couch pop-psychologist, if s/he gives it a thought at all (which s/he almost never will), will say:
"These people are -- oh -- so lonely".
And, having said that, s/he will get a chorus of appreciative murmurs all around from all the other pop-psychologists couch-assembled:
"Yeah, dude! Lonely!"
But the pop-psychologist is of course bullshitting us -- and himself (or herself): these people are not lonely, they are dumb. They work a frustrating, exhausting job -- in itself enough to make anyone unhappy and which therefore they should quit forthwith and god only knows why don't; but, as if it were not enough, crucially, when they are done with it, they don’t know what to do with themselves; a problem which could easily be solved if they learned how to read, for example. Really, would not an evening with Dem Zaubergberg be more satisfying than drinking and whoring and feeling miserable afterwards?
Alright, perhaps reading is not their forte, maybe they are dyslectic, or just not verbally minded -- they do all seem to know but four words of English (though they conjugate them rather well). But are there no other options? How about chess, for crying out loud, or Argentinian tango, or pickling cabbages, or collecting bottle caps?
Contentment, says Czikszentmihalyi, comes from performing an absorbing activity; but in order to discover what that activity is for us, we must be what he calls autotelic -- i.e. capable of setting ourselves our own goals ("telos"). The Wire illustrates what happens to people who can’t -- which is everyone around, it seems.
To call this problem “loneliness” is thus not just to misdiagnose it – which is bad enough, since a misdiagnosed disease is per force maltreated; it is also pathetic: an attempt to blame other people for these people's own failures. It is to say: "These folks do not feel bad because they are stupid and do not know what to do with themselves" (which comes down to saying, in simple terms, "they are so damn boring that they bore themselves"); "Oh, no! They feel bad because they are lonely!", which is to say, if you parse it with the help of the same Webster: "because nobody loves them". There: it is their parents’ fault, their wives', their girlfriends', their siblings', their colleagues’; everyone’s. Poor little unloved they. What did they do to deserve this, eh?
The maltreatment of the condition which follows from this misdiagnosis is the prescription of a relationship – usually understood as romantic love – as cure; which is bound to failure: take two bored, helpless, unhappy people, who have no inkling as to what to do with themselves, put them together and – presto! – you get... happiness? How is that supposed to work?
But the prescription is eternal: people have always and everywhere sought happiness in love -- without any proof positive that it is to be found there.
Says a philosopher: when someone tells us “I love you”, the correct reaction is to ask “what do you want?” Cute, but not especially insightful. After all, it is not necessary to ask. We know what they want. They want us to un-bore them.
1.
My aunt – an elderly childless widow living in exile – feels lonely and phones me up to chat. "What are you doing today? And what did you eat for lunch?" I stifle my benign yawn, put aside the book - or perhaps the porcelain cup, or the snuff bottle, or the Ten thousand li of mountains and streams - and humor her: I am nothing if not filially pious, and if this sort of verbalization eases her loneliness, then I am glad to provide the outlet – be her receptacle, so to speak, when she needs to go. Yet, I do not have the slightest clue why or how this act of conversation should serve to make her un-lonely: I, for one, do not usually derive much spiritual gratification from learning that others have had, say, an oyster pancake for lunch. Do you?
A friend also feels lonely – despite having good, frequent relations with her family, gobs of friends whom she meets several times a week, and a job where she interacts with dozens of customers everyday. Frustrated, she’d overcome her loneliness, she is sure, if she only had a man to live with her. Taking walks together, she thinks, would splendidly do the trick.
But this is far from certain, as the case of yet another friend proves: he is married: he has a wife with whom to take his walks, a wife with whom, he says, he is intellectually compatible. Yet, he too, feels lonely, complains about his inability to connect (with her and others), and remembers wistfully some occasion on which he exchanged glances with a stranger; and another on which he told some insignificant other how he felt about this or that, stuff, he says, he couldn’t have told wife. "We connected then”, he continues downcast, as if that exchange of glances could possibly have meant a damned thing; and as if he could not have confessed his innermost feelings to a cat, or a fish, or a wall with the same result.
2.
Loneliness is one of the most basic concepts in popular psychology: it is used as self-diagnosis, as explanation for the actions of others, as a mechanism for successful business plans (e.g. Friend Finder et al.), of political ideologies even ("alienation"). It might seem therefore that we all understand it -- the term being so ubiquitous and so easily used by everyone; but the truth is that -- we don’t. The term’s dictionary definition -- “absence of others” -- how very Aristotelian of the Webster! -- seems weak. Furthermore, it does not appear to have an antonym, meaning that it is unfalsifiable (and thus, some might say, nonexistent): “presence of others” means nothing, certainly nothing good, and sure as hell does not cure the disease: as every other pop song will tell you, one can feel desperately lonely in the midst of the thickest crowd.
(OK, pop songs do not use big words like “desperately”. Still, you get the point).
The truth is that the term “loneliness” is used automatically, mindlessly, out of habit, to cover every instance of unease and discomfort for which we do not have some other, immediate explanation. If we have not eaten, we are hungry; if he have not drunk, we are thirsty; if we lack money, we are poor; if we want to take a holiday, but can’t, we are burnt out; if we experience sexual desires but have no release, we are frustrated; if we break our leg, we are in pain; but if we feel a kind of unspecific blah – well, then, we say, we must be lonely. It is a catch-all term, and like all catch-all terms, it means perfectly nothing.
"Loneliness" is a word we use out of intellectual sloth: when we do not feel like peering deeply into our souls to see just what it is that is really wrong with us.
3.
Watching The Wire (it may well be the best drama produced for TV ever) in the company of a pop-psychologists (i.e. every normal person) is instructive: observing the frustration, the drinking, the desultory sleeping around, the catastrophic marriages of the heroes and heroines, the couch pop-psychologist, if s/he gives it a thought at all (which s/he almost never will), will say:
"These people are -- oh -- so lonely".
And, having said that, s/he will get a chorus of appreciative murmurs all around from all the other pop-psychologists couch-assembled:
"Yeah, dude! Lonely!"
But the pop-psychologist is of course bullshitting us -- and himself (or herself): these people are not lonely, they are dumb. They work a frustrating, exhausting job -- in itself enough to make anyone unhappy and which therefore they should quit forthwith and god only knows why don't; but, as if it were not enough, crucially, when they are done with it, they don’t know what to do with themselves; a problem which could easily be solved if they learned how to read, for example. Really, would not an evening with Dem Zaubergberg be more satisfying than drinking and whoring and feeling miserable afterwards?
Alright, perhaps reading is not their forte, maybe they are dyslectic, or just not verbally minded -- they do all seem to know but four words of English (though they conjugate them rather well). But are there no other options? How about chess, for crying out loud, or Argentinian tango, or pickling cabbages, or collecting bottle caps?
Contentment, says Czikszentmihalyi, comes from performing an absorbing activity; but in order to discover what that activity is for us, we must be what he calls autotelic -- i.e. capable of setting ourselves our own goals ("telos"). The Wire illustrates what happens to people who can’t -- which is everyone around, it seems.
To call this problem “loneliness” is thus not just to misdiagnose it – which is bad enough, since a misdiagnosed disease is per force maltreated; it is also pathetic: an attempt to blame other people for these people's own failures. It is to say: "These folks do not feel bad because they are stupid and do not know what to do with themselves" (which comes down to saying, in simple terms, "they are so damn boring that they bore themselves"); "Oh, no! They feel bad because they are lonely!", which is to say, if you parse it with the help of the same Webster: "because nobody loves them". There: it is their parents’ fault, their wives', their girlfriends', their siblings', their colleagues’; everyone’s. Poor little unloved they. What did they do to deserve this, eh?
The maltreatment of the condition which follows from this misdiagnosis is the prescription of a relationship – usually understood as romantic love – as cure; which is bound to failure: take two bored, helpless, unhappy people, who have no inkling as to what to do with themselves, put them together and – presto! – you get... happiness? How is that supposed to work?
But the prescription is eternal: people have always and everywhere sought happiness in love -- without any proof positive that it is to be found there.
Says a philosopher: when someone tells us “I love you”, the correct reaction is to ask “what do you want?” Cute, but not especially insightful. After all, it is not necessary to ask. We know what they want. They want us to un-bore them.
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