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Saturday, December 13, 2003
Lowered Expectations
I think I've written on this before, but it bears repeating: campaign finance reform is the starkest evidence that the majority of voters are incompetent, and that everyone knows this. The campaigning being regulated is the most vapid political discourse imaginable. Who in their right mind would cast an important vote on the basis of a television or radio advertisement?
Our republican form of government is predicated on the idea that the people need to be protected from themselves, but many of those protections have been eliminated, such as having senators elected by state legislatures, and others are seen as illegitimate, such as the electoral college. These aristocratic structures were in place to remedy two defects of the people: mob rule and a tendency to lay claim to the possessions of others.
Should a republican support these reforms? To some extent, it is hard to get worked up either way. Freedom of speech is important mainly as a guarantee that the truth can be spoken, but it is hard to see how the speech in question will contribute much to the question of truth, or how its absence will be greatly missed. There are slippery-slope implications, to be sure, and we may find that more important speech will be jeopardized in the future. (Talk radio, for example, while not the highest form of discourse, is valuable and potentially is a target of the Left.) It isn't clear to me, however, which way this slope will slide.
These restrictions on speech probably have little effect on republican vs. democratic concerns, but a great deal on Republican vs. Democratic concerns. Current law actually seems to favor the Republicans, but that may change, and we might end up being sorry to see who has the upper hand with the powers of persuasion.
Eddie 12:10 PM
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Dualism
Marathon races are visually a bit odd to me. The runners are moving at a strong pace, but not nearly with the speed of short-distance runners. This is true even up to the end; some runners will pick up the pace near the finish line, but many will not. Why wouldn't everyone finish the race with a full sprint? If you can run for two hours, can't you find the juice to go all out at the end? In short, it seems incredible that a world-class runner would finish a race running slower than I could do if I were going top speed.
The mistake I am making is in not realizing how carefully these runners can monitor their bodies. They push their bodies to the limit, and have enough experience doing so that they can calculate what pace they can maintain without injuring themselves. They can even tell what part of their body is most at risk at any given moment. I remember an interview one time with a runner who had finished second. He had finished right behind the lead runner, but at the end of the race didn't push the lead runner at all. He explained that he felt something threatening (perhaps a cramp), and kept a pace just below what he thought would trigger the problem. The lead runner, seeing that he wasn't going to be pushed, didn't see any reason to push harder either, and so what appeared to be a nonchalant finish was really just the careful calculation of two experienced athletes. These runners could respond to their bodies like a NASCAR team can respond to the changing performance of a race car.
Most of us, I suspect, do not have much experience with this kind of self-knowledge.
Even when I'm playing a sport, I try to keep a little bit in reserve. I have on occasion failed, but I've never played close to the edge of my physical ability for a long enough period to become that aware of what my physical limits really are.
The past couple of weeks, however, have been different. No, I haven't been playing sports. Rather, I have had so much to do with work and my children that I have found myself calculating my physical limits in a way roughly similar to the marathon runner. From last Thursday to Sunday, for example, my wife was out of town at a conference. I had to take care of my two children (one an eight month old infant, the other a nine year old in school) and grade two major assignments before classes ended on Monday, and another assignment before Tuesday. I found myself plotting my sleep deprivations, figuring out how long it would take me to recover from one before I could safely risk another. This included estimating just how coherent I would need to be to grade a paper or conduct my final classes. (It turns out to be 'fairly coherent' to grade, but only 'somewhat coherent' to lead class.) I also had to factor in the chance of my body seriously breaking down into illness, which would not only be unpleasant but which would make impossible everything else I needed to accomplish. I have found, for example, that if I get up in the middle of the night to start my work day, I can work until 1 p.m. fairly safely, but if I push it to 3 p.m., I risk a sore throat and maybe worse. (Yesterday, thankfully, I made it to 3 p.m. without incident.)
Becoming aware of one's body would seem to be a good thing, but I just find it disconcerting. For me to see my body as a machine, with an intimate appreciation of its limits, alienates me from it. I expect my body to be a natural extension of my will, and yet here I find myself scheming about how I can get the most use out of "it". It has become a means to an end.
It is easy to laugh against the old dualism, found in both religion and philosophy, that makes the mind (or soul) separate from the body. There is a strong scientific prejudice against it. Being the rational, modern man that I am, I am willing to affirm that prejudice, but I do so, as with so many scientific propositions -- such as things of unequal weight drop to the earth at equal speeds and things unimpeded will move in a straight line indefinitely -- even though my experience speaks against it.
Eddie 2:40 PM
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Tidbits
How To Tell That Your Students Aren't Reading: When you give them a selection from Augustine, in which he claims that Adam, before the Fall, could extend and retract his member at will, and none of them crack a joke about it.
How To Tell That Life Is Too Much: When you plan on going to the annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association to interview job candidates and it sounds like a vacation.
How To Tell You Aren't Writing Often: When you feel that, since you haven't written anything in a while, the next thing you write should be really important. I think I've just proven otherwise.
Eddie 2:05 PM
Monday, December 01, 2003
A Passing
My grandfather died on Friday at the age of 93. He came from good stock, as both of his parents lived into their mid-90s. He had been in critical condition for about a week. From what I'm told, a number of his systems finally gave out together. If we had much choice in the matter, this approach would have much to recommend it. How unfortunate to have one body function fail miserably while the rest are pulling their weight. Better to stretch the rubber band evenly in all directions, so that it will snap at the last possible moment.
He was much more a doer than a thinker; the only conversation of any substance that I can remember having with him was about seven years ago when he had a close scrape with death. But he did quite a bit in his lifetime. Among other things, he founded an electrical contracting firm which brought him and his three sons into a fair amount of prosperity. By the time I was born into this world, he had already made enough to retire. Consequently, even though he was a doer, I can't say that I really saw him do much of anything, other than travel. It is odd that you can know someone for over thirty years and yet never have known them during their time of productivity.
He had other virtues too. He was very generous. He had a sense of humor, although a patriarch doesn't need to be very funny to get a laugh. He enjoyed people, and people almost always enjoyed him too. And, when his health had failed him to the point where he needed a great deal of help from others, he was generally patient and not very demanding. I'm sure someone who knew him longer could add to this list.
When my mother died two years ago, most of what she worked for died along with her. She was the active center holding it all together, and it could not sustain itself in her absence. My grandfather was a center too, but more passively, as he was the center of a lot of concern for his well-being. What his passing will bring with it is hard to say. The electrical contracting firm will likely close in the not too distant future, but that will be an act of the sons, not the father. To his credit, perhaps, my grandfather never tried to challenge the vanity of our existence.
Tomorrow we bury him. He will go into the ground near both of his wives (he was twice a widower), his parents, and a brother who died young in the 1920s. He will be remembered by his children, his grandchildren, and some of his great-grandchildren too.
Eddie 12:13 AM
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Plans
In a recent e-mail, I asked A Mind That Suits to elaborate on why he thinks that our work in Iraq has been hurt by a combination of poor planning and lack of planning on our part. He is formulating a response, but I thought I would push the matter some myself.
Generally speaking, I don't think much of plans. When I was a kid, I occasionally played chess with my father, and I would always set up these plans that would almost immediately be frustrated. My father was a fine chess player, but what frustrated my plans the most was simply that his pieces weren't sitting still. See, I could think about where I wanted my pieces to be, but I couldn't predict where his would be, so I just left them out of the equation altogether!
Needless to say, I didn't win many games against him. I thought that what separated me from the really good players was that they could plan better than I could. I had heard of chess masters thinking forty moves in advance, and I knew that I couldn't do anything close to that.
When I was in college, however, I bought a wonderful book that had about thirty chess games in it, with a chess master commenting on every move of the game. What shocked me was that, once they got beyond the familiar library of opening moves, the chess masters were making most of their moves without a great deal of foresight. I remember in particular one move where a player moved a rook to an open file, i.e., a column with no pieces blocking movement from one end of the board to another. The chess master praised the move highly, and indicated that it is the kind of move that one should make quickly with little fuss. He didn't explain the move in terms of long-term strategy; it was simply the kind of move from which good things could be expected.
I've never taken up chess very seriously, but that book changed my understanding of the game and of quite a few other things as well. I developed an appreciation for what in chess is called a "combination": a series of moves that can occur anytime in the game (but usually in the mid-game) and which can be given a characteristic description. For example, one combination is the "revealed check," whereby you put your opponent in check by moving one of your pieces and having another piece behind it make the check. The power of the combination comes from the fact that your opponent must respond to the check, which means that the piece you moved doesn't need as much protection. It is a wonderful way to advance a piece into enemy territory.
The good chess player, I learned, doesn't do too much planning. Rather, he learns certain tactics that generally are productive. There is usually a point in the game, however, where the board becomes tight, with every piece holding down heavy responsibilities. At this point, it does make sense to stop and ponder for quite a while what to do. Planning works here, but only because the pieces are committed in such a fashion that most every move has a predictable response. Here a gifted mind could think forty moves in advance.
When I think about our military, it doesn't seem to me that its superiority is due much to planning. We have superior equipment, of course, but the main strength seems to me to come from our training. Our soldiers are taught how to prepare for contingency. I don't understand this very well, but it seems to me like a training in combinations. Read, for example, about a local Georgia hero who managed to lead 80 United States soldier against a surprise attack from 300 Iraqis. In this situation, the plan failed, but the training succeeded.
My opinion is that the only matter of great importance was that we act decisively against Hussein and stay committed to that action. I am interested in hearing about how our planning could have been better, but generally I believe that you find out what is needed only after putting yourself into the middle of a situation. Mistakes will be made. You adapt.
A final note: I know that A Mind That Suits is supportive of this war and believes that it is worth it even if the planning has been poor. There are plenty, however, who argue that the lack of good planning is a sign that this country, or at least this administration, cannot be trusted to undertake these kinds of ventures. What they really need to worry about, however, is that we will become practiced at this sort of thing and become good at it. With a little polish, our will for further ventures will only be strengthened.
Eddie 2:04 AM
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Flags
Howard Dean's fumbled attempt to woo Southern white males is telling, both in the need for Democrats to regain some strength in the South and the difficulty they will face in doing so.
The Democrats cling so much to the Civil Rights movement as evidence of their moral virtue that they simply cannot conceive of the Confederate flag as anything but a racist symbol, and cannot imagine that people displaying it are anything but racists. Even those, like myself, who don't display but are willing to defend it, are looked upon with the same suspicion.
In the November 24 issue of the New Republic, Jason Zengerle quotes an interesting result from a 1993 poll: "...while nearly three out of four Southerners considered the Confederate flag a symbol of regional heritage and pride -- rather than a symbol of racial conflict -- only 11 percent of Southerners actually owned a Confederate flag." I would be one of those who is part of the 75 percent but not part of the 11 percent. This is partly because I don't feel a particular need to display a Confederate flag (I don't wear triangle hats in memory of the American revolution either), but also because I know that, by displaying it, I would create distance between myself and others, black and white, whom I'd just as soon not have distance with. In restraining myself, I am not admitting to the truth of their perceptions. Rather, following advice similar to that given by the Apostle Paul, I just don't want to create a stumbling block for my relations with them. Plus, I suspect it becomes tiresome to keep defending the flag, especially when there are outright racists who do use it to their own ends. Pick your battles.
Last winter, I remember engaging people at various left-leaning sites in response to the misdoings of Trent Lott. I didn't defend Lott, but I did try to defend the idea of secession and those who remain committed to its study. The vitriol I received in return was fascinating. You would think that, even if you strongly disapprove of the South's attempt at secession, that secession itself would be a respectable topic for consideration. Not so, apparently. Furthermore, I got quite a chuckle at the obvious glee these folks had at calling the Southerners "traitors." I was heartened to find that their love of country runs so deep.
What the Democrats outside the South don't seem to understand is that race can be an issue in politics without their being a significant presence of racism. In my city, for example, a lot of people, mainly white, criticized the black mayor for using city funds to finance a trip to Africa in order to establish a "sister-city" relation with the city of Elmina in Ghana. The mayor claimed, incredibly, that this would further economic development for both cities. How so? Well, we could export cigarettes (Brown & Williamson has had a large plant here, but maybe not for long) and Blue Bird busses (based somewhere in south Georgia). Clearly race is an issue here. The mayor's opening up relations with an African city has some appeal to blacks, but not very much to whites. For the whites, is it racist to ask whether this is money well-spent?
In the most recent elections for mayor, the Republican failed to field a candidate. At the last minute, two white men decided to become eligible for write-in votes, and together ended up receiving about 30% of the vote. Given how high this number is for write-in votes, it is inevitable that some would claim racism. The issue, however, is not racism, but race. The local paper also included in its coverage poll workers in predominantly black precincts reporting with pride that no one in their precinct had cast a write-in vote. Were there many whites voting on the basis of race? Yes. Were there many blacks voting on the basis of race as well? Yes.
Race is a definite factor in Southern politics, but it isn't a story of victims and their victimizers. Unlike most other areas of the country, the concentration of black voters is high enough in the South that the black community has real power and, in places like Atlanta, decisive power. It should be no surprise that not everyone feels equally represented. It should also not be a surprise that the South produces some dynamic politicians, including black politicians that manage to win a decent share of the white vote and white politicians who can speak to the black electorate as well.
Nationally, the Democrats are remarkably patronizing towards blacks, and they run their campaigns in black areas as if they were talking to children. The Republicans are certainly guilty of using racial innuendo, but at least it is usually just innuendo. The Democrats speak openly in crass racial terms, such as when Gore suggested to a black audience that Bush would elect judges who would restore the three-fifths compromise. Southerners know that race plays an important part of politics, and that it goes both ways. Accordingly, Southern white men know that Democrats have a favorite bed-time story to tell, and in it the Southern white male is the wolf. Dean and the other Democratic candidates aren't going to improve their situation until they decide to tell a different story.
Eddie 11:51 AM
Friday, November 21, 2003
Marriage
With the recent ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Court, there has been a good bit of discussion again about the topic of gay marriage. I've written on this before, but here are some of my recent thoughts:
1. I don't see what interest the state or religion has in marriage other than its concern for the raising of children. Publicly committing to another may serve an important purpose for the individuals in a relationship, but I don't see why that would need legal or divine sanction.
As many point out, our society does not discriminate against heterosexual marriages that don't involve children, even ones that obviously will not, such as one involving an elderly couple. That seems ok to me, but mainly because I find it unthinkable to give either the church or the state license to investigate every marriage to see if children have been born or at least a good faith effort is being made. Since there are other goods served by marriage than just the raising of children, there doesn't seem to be much reason to make noise about it. Nonetheless, I think it safe to say that we don't anymore view marriage primarily in terms of children, which may be a real cultural loss.
Many of those who oppose gay marriage do so for the reason that it will finish the process of making the exception into the rule. Marriage will supposedly just become another kind of partnership. I'm not sure that these social conservatives are wrong, but I don't know how they can be very confident in their predictions either. If our concept of marriage is acceptable now, with its lowered emphasis on child-raising, then, it seems to me, it can probably withstand gay marriage too. Furthermore, while I think that it would be ideal for a child to have both a male and female presence growing up, there are a lot of children who would be better off with loving same-sex parents than the parents they have (or don't have) now. That is, to say that homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to marry because they can't bear children demands a solid argument as to why they should not be allowed to adopt or pursue other options.
2. That the state has the same interest in marriage that the church does indicates that the alternative of civil union may not be a plausible solution. If civil union is a blanket replacement for marriage, the medicine would be worse than the disease, because it really would make the exception into the rule. If it is instituted alongside marriage, it seems like we have created a mess that may accomplish very little. To make the distinction meaningful, the benefits and demands of marriage would need to be made greater than the benefits and demands of civil union. What an awkward situation, especially since it doesn't fully resolve the problem of discrimination.
3. I sincerely hope that this issue isn't settled by the courts. If this situation becomes like the abortion situation, we can expect a lot of ill-will and division. Decisions made in legislatures across the country would have greater authority, and would allow the same kind of federal experimentation that has been so successful in other areas.
Eddie 12:21 AM
Sunday, November 16, 2003
Pilgrims
Earlier in the summer, my wife got the idea of checking e-bay for things Macon to see what would turn up. Mainly she found a lot of postcards, but there was also a DVD being sold of Elvis Presley playing at the Macon Coliseum. Elvis! In Macon! I didn't find out until just the other day that Elvis regularly played in Macon during the 70s. Suffice it to say that we don't get acts like that anymore.
As advertised, the DVD was a bootleg shot with a basic home video camera. And, as advertised, the production quality was pretty bad. You could probably guess you were watching Elvis if you didn't know already, but you couldn't guess right away. Even the sound quality was terrible. In fact, while we were watching it, we started into conversations with each other immediately, because it was clear that the video itself couldn't hold our attention.
Poor quality aside, the short film does have its moments. From the beginning, for example, you see a guy walking up to Elvis, handing him various items. Some are just towels, which Elvis puts on and then hands to someone in the audience. Others are items that have been thrown on stage, and again Elvis redistributes them to the crowd. I can only think to describe the scene as religious. It brings to mind the people pushing just to touch the cloak of Jesus, hoping for a miracle. The songs themselves enhance this sensibility. Most of them are shortened, and some combined into the dreaded medley, just so people can say they were present when Elvis sang "Hound Dog" or some such.
Elvis throws in a few other crowd pleasers, such as striking various "Elvis" poses. I couldn't tell from the film quality, but there are a few times where he seems to have his eyes earnestly clinched shut. There is also an electrifying moment where he shakes his head back and forth, an effect amplified by the decision made to zoom in and out, Laugh-In style, with the video recorder.
It is easy to be amused by such a scene, but obviously my wife and I are a part of it as well, since we bought the video in the first place. We don't even listen to Elvis that much, and have a very small selection of his recordings. Nonetheless, my daughter can identify his voice when she hears him on the radio, indicating that we've helped make him a cultural icon for her as well.
Furthermore, a pilgrimage to Graceland has real appeal to me. I'm sure there are more authentic destinations, even ones related to Elvis, but a pilgrimage seems to demand that there be other pilgrims as well, and how many sites in this country really qualify? There are certainly worse choices. My wife and I stopped by this site in Clearwater, Florida, for example, to see an image on a bank window that looks to me like the thumb people from Spy Kids, but like the Virgin to others.
Are we making the sacred profane, or the profane sacred? Both, I suspect. I have been making a CD for myself of songs about Elvis, and it is impossible for me not to see the piety and the parody together. There's the country boy from Tupelo, the man with the powerful voice and powerful movements, the songs. There's also the drugs, Vegas, those remarkable jump suits, the insulation, dying in the bathroom. I am reminded of a story Nietzsche tells about Socrates: when accused by someone of being a monster, Socrates replies "You know me!"
Ancient cultures attempted to keep the sacred and profane separate, although the prophet Isaiah seemed to think that some of them weren't trying hard enough. Vico argues that this separation is due to the natural dullness of the primitive mind. For religion to work its way into the human animal, it had to become memorable, separate from the natural animal functions that so easily command attention. The problem, however, is that religion wants the whole man, so its separateness is immediately an obstacle to be overcome. But how can you take the routine out of the routine? Lots of prayers and sacrifices are a help, to be sure. Every act requires some god to be mollified. In time, however, this too just becomes part of the routine.
In our time, the effort of separating us from our animal functions, of sublimating the present into the past and the future, has reached such a state of perfection that forgetting is a more formidable task than remembering. Or, perhaps, it should be said that the memory we need is only possible after a healthy dose of forgetting. We crave the sensuous, and rightly so, given the long and intense effort to free us from it.
For us, then, the task is to find the sacred and profane together. By this I don't mean the religious and the secular. I have no sympathy for those who want to make a religion of politics or a politics of religion. I mean rather that we give thanks for those moments of our everyday existence that somehow manage to become something more. If you try to create those moments, you create kitsch. But even when those moments come of there own, there is still a sense of the vanity of it all, a recognition that the presence of the divine within this mortal sphere is a bit ridiculous. Piety for us seems to require a sense of humor.
Heraclitus was once visited by a group of would-be students who were disappointed to find the wise man at his stove stirring a pot, rather than sitting on top of a mountain. "What," he asked, "are there not gods here too?" Yes, there are, but I laugh anyway.
Eddie 12:53 AM
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