tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346441982024-03-12T18:35:47.717-05:00Let Me Be FrankOn Humanism -- classical, civic, secular, and religiousStephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.comBlogger171125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-52806371394521824432014-08-16T22:01:00.000-05:002014-08-16T22:01:13.884-05:00Masculinity and Virtue<div>
<span style="line-height: 28px;">From <i><a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/08/12/masculinity-is-about-dominance-and-thats-a-good-thing/">The Federalist</a></i>, a blog that tries to find a happy place between libertarianism and traditional values:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeHwM4JH7Oubym6wKABN5ISpP1MbjXrn5H6E4ejiTenY2uy0u5lOnwcFqv0BTyoFEgzLH-vUoGzWCKL1rWUVwxe8e9jZDdKeU0EnGcuIeace5kc0ezNmtiAD3ksvLzaYbX0Kx_/s1600/virtuedefending.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeHwM4JH7Oubym6wKABN5ISpP1MbjXrn5H6E4ejiTenY2uy0u5lOnwcFqv0BTyoFEgzLH-vUoGzWCKL1rWUVwxe8e9jZDdKeU0EnGcuIeace5kc0ezNmtiAD3ksvLzaYbX0Kx_/s1600/virtuedefending.jpg" height="320" width="235" /></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 28px;">The object of a man’s dominance, power, and violence is himself alone, for to be a man is to have subdued one’s self entirely; and to do so is not at all a peaceable thing, for the bestial passions of man, his lusts and fears and selfishness are all quite strong, and so die hard. [...] A man is something that is made. He is made because his masculinity consists in the destruction of his own nature, not in the maturity of it. He is born subject to a slew of desires, some more despicable, such as an unbridled lust for sex and drink, and some more acceptable, such as a desire for fame and affirmation. Though some of these passions are perhaps less unbecoming than others, they all make the man a slave for as long as he is in thrall to them and acts according to them.</span><span style="line-height: 28px;">The act of being a man is realized when all such things are put under the rule of his will and are broken with a rod of iron; when he is no longer driven by his lusts as the Greeks would term it, or the flesh as it would be known among Christians, but rather commands them. Such is the dominance which is to be acquired by the power of his will and reason, and the acquisition of such dominance is called among us “virtue,” which is merely Latin for “manliness.” </span></blockquote>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-19374137089924728742014-06-14T23:35:00.000-05:002014-06-14T23:35:50.938-05:00Look UpRecently a friend of mine and I who met through Aol Instant Messaging 13 years ago were chatting about the way kids today spend all of their time chattering away on phones, and I wondered if it was really so different from the way she and I, and other teenagers of that generation, would stay up all night talking on instant messagers and sending one another funny pictures or .wav files. There are big differences, of course; we couldn't talk on MSN or Yahoo while we were at a dinner table with family, or while walking down the street If it were possible we certainly would have, I suppose. In another way that direct connection with the phone is far more intense than the computer messaging programs; phones have become the default way people experience the world. We navigate cities by phone, get restaurant reviews by phone, call cabs and reserve rooms by phone, take pictures of everything that happens by phone, and those square codes that can be read by phones for more information are popping up all over the place. They've become appendages. She responded by sharing this breathtaking video with me, a spoken-verse reading about the way technology impacts the way we experience the world and one another. I've included the transcription below, but the music and visuals really drive the performance home.<br />
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'I have 422 friends, yet I am lonely. </div>
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I speak to all of them everyday, yet none of them really know me.</div>
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The problem I have sits in the spaces between, </div>
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looking into their eyes, or at a name on a screen.</div>
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I took a step back, and opened my eyes, </div>
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I looked around, and then realised </div>
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that this media we call social, is anything but </div>
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when we open our computers, and it’s our doors we shut.</div>
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All this technology we have, it’s just an illusion, </div>
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of community, companionship, a sense of inclusion </div>
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yet when you step away from this device of delusion, </div>
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you awaken to see, a world of confusion. </div>
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A world where we’re slaves to the technology we mastered, </div>
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where our information gets sold by some rich greedy bastard. </div>
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A world of self-interest, self-image, self-promotion, </div>
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where we share all our best bits, but leave out the emotion.</div>
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We are at our most happy with an experience we share, </div>
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but is it the same if no one is there. </div>
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Be there for you friends, and they’ll be there too, </div>
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but no one will be, if a group message will do.</div>
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We edit and exaggerate, we crave adulation, </div>
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we pretend we don’t notice the social isolation. </div>
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We put our words into order, until our lives are glistening, </div>
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we don’t even know if anyone is listening.</div>
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Being alone isn’t the problem, let me just emphasize, </div>
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that if you read a book, paint a picture, or do some exercise, </div>
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you are being productive, and present, not reserved or recluse, </div>
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you’re being awake and attentive, and putting your time to good use.</div>
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So when you’re in public, and you start to feel alone, </div>
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put your hands behind your head, and step away from the phone. </div>
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You don’t need to stare at your menu, or at your contact list, </div>
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just talk to one another, and learn to co-exist.</div>
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I can’t stand to hear the silence, of a busy commuter train, </div>
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when no one wants to talk through the fear of looking insane. </div>
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We’re becoming unsocial, it no longer satisfies </div>
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to engage with one another, and look into someone’s eyes.</div>
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We’re surrounded by children, who since they were born, </div>
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watch us living like robots, and think it’s the norm. </div>
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It’s not very likely you will make world’s greatest dad, </div>
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if you cant entertain a child without a using an iPad.</div>
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When I was a child, I would never be home, </div>
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I’d be out with my friends, on our bikes we would roam. </div>
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We’d ware holes in our trainers, and graze up our knees; </div>
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we’d build our own clubhouse, high up in the trees.</div>
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Now the parks are so quiet, it gives me a chill </div>
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to see no children outside and the swings hanging still. </div>
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There’s no skipping or hopscotch, no church and no steeple, </div>
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we’re a generation of idiots, smart phones and dumb people.</div>
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So look up from your phone, shut down that display, </div>
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take in your surroundings, and make the most of today. </div>
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Just one real connection is all it can take, </div>
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to show you the difference that being there can make. </div>
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Be there in the moment, when she gives you the look, </div>
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that you remember forever, as when love overtook. </div>
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The time you first hold her hand, or first kiss her lips, </div>
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the time you first disagree, but still love her to bits.</div>
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The time you don’t need to tell hundreds, about what you’ve just done, </div>
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because you want to share the moment, with just this one. </div>
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The time you sell your computer, so you can buy a ring, </div>
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for the girl of your dreams, who is now the real thing. </div>
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The time you want to start a family, and the moment when, </div>
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you first hold your baby girl, and get to fall in love again. </div>
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The time she keeps you up at night, and all you want is rest, </div>
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and the time you wipe away the tears, as your baby flees the nest.</div>
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The time your little girl returns, with a boy for you to hold, </div>
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and the day he calls you granddad, and makes you feel real old </div>
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The time you take in all you’ve made, just by giving life attention, </div>
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and how your glad you didn’t waste it, by looking down at some invention. </div>
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The time you hold your wife’s hand, and sit down beside her bed </div>
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you tell her that you love her, and lay a kiss upon her head. </div>
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She then whispers to you quietly, as her heart gives a final beat, </div>
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that she’s lucky she got stopped, by that lost boy in the street. </div>
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But none of these times ever happened, you never had any of this, </div>
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When you’re too busy looking down, you don’t see the chances you miss.</div>
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So look up from your phone, shut down those displays, </div>
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we have a finite existence, a set number of days. </div>
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Why waste all our time getting caught in the net, </div>
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as when the end comes, nothing’s worse than regret.</div>
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I am guilty too, of being part of this machine, </div>
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this digital world, where we are heard but not seen. </div>
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Where we type and don’t talk, where we read as we chat, </div>
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where we spend hours together, without making eye contact.</div>
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Don’t give in to a life where you follow the hype, </div>
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give people your love, don’t give them your like. </div>
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Disconnect from the need to be heard and defined </div>
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Go out into the world, leave distractions behind. </div>
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Look up from your phone, shut down that display, </div>
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stop watching this video, live life the real way. </div>
Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-81346014044102953002014-02-08T10:19:00.000-06:002014-02-08T10:19:33.340-06:00The Emperor Drives an AT-ATNext year is an election cycle in the United States, and the airwaves will be filled with congressmen and other officials demonizing their rivals and hurling invective, promising change or restoration, before sweeping into office to do what their predecessors have done for dozens of years previously: very little of worth. A few years ago I <a href="http://www.let-me-be-frank.blogspot.com/2008/11/fate-of-democracy-in-us-i-problem.html">wrote</a> that the American political system had been ruined by finance-driven election campaigns. I still believe this, but in recent years I've begun to see it spoiled in another fashion. When considering how vast the government has grown in attempting to tackle complex problems, I suspect it has gotten too big to be effective. I consider it a truth that the greater the complexity in a system, the greater its fragility.<br />
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In 2008, I was <i>joyful</i> that Barack Obama had been elected president. Not that I voted for him; that was out from the moment I learned he had supported the PATRIOT Act. But -- in addition to dreading Palin and the bellicose McCain -- I had become fascinated with popular political movements, direct action, direct democracy -- the politics of people congregating in mobs and forcing the government to respond to them, as with the Civil Rights movement. Obama's language indicated that he believed in that, too; his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/us/politics/08text-obama.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">best political speech to date </a>was one given after he was beaten by Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary; he told a story of America that featured ordinary citizens as the agents of change, the central actors in the drama:<br />
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It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.<br />It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.<br />It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.<br />It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.</blockquote>
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Save for the mention of JFK's enterprising vision, , the people in this story were not civic leaders, and certainly not politicians; they were ordinary people effecting changes themselves. Maybe he had voted for the PATRIOT act so he wouldn't be criticized as soft on terrorism, I thought. In view of his emphasis on grassroots campaign financing, I dreamed: maybe the man and the vision were one, maybe he was a leader who wanted to empower people to help themselves. The president of the last six years hasn't been that man, however; he has instead been like the last man to sit in the big seat: frightfully comfortable with its power. The chair in the oval office is one that molds the occupant to its contours, rather than being molded by theirs. I do not believe Obama is malevolent; I believe the NSA scandals and the like simply bear witness to the fact that power is corrosive. People weren't meant to wield the power a president has; there's a <i>reason</i> lawmaking was supposed to be the province of a Congress that would spend its time arguing instead of <i>doing</i> things, because our brains can't handle the rush. Although I am woefully disappointed in the dream, the failing is in the system and not the man. Simply put, I do not believe Obama, Bush, or any congressman is actually in charge. The systems controlling American politics -- banking, economics, etc. - aren't under the control of any one man. Perhaps these systems aren't even under the control of a group of men, perhaps they're plowing along under their own inertia.<br />
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We look to the President or to the Prime Minister to do stuff because at heart we are chimpanzees whose idea of a leader is an alpha who can take direct, immediate, precise action. He can say "move", and the troop moves; "attack", and the troop attacks. Modern political leaders aren't in that position. Even if they sit in the big seat and amass power, , they can't do it because the things they're trying to do are too vast. A president can't dictate food prices, or alter the atmosphere. They can try -- they can pour enormous subsidies into agriculture, for instance -- but they won't necessarily get what they want. At that level, they're using so much power they can't predict what will happen. Nixon wasn't trying to create a nation where obesity and diabetes were more common than health, or where the life of rural and small-town American had been destroyed by agribusiness, but that's what he did. The politics of the modern state put a leader in a position of having to exercise enormous power that he can't really control; he is made captain of a runaway locomotive. The tracks dictate his course; he can blow all the whistles he likes, but the machine is moving on its own inertia. This brings to my mind -- my SF-addled mind -- the image of someone trying to drive an AT-AT.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje5v_3iuuXIvGtgpy9IwIAzJUkA34WEsAdm99zdcLaEpJr3yN_RER1iD8FOP_uTQ806uZXjn1srzhtLmZI5FLY_VY578CgW896zF88-oPG5qT7OA6g4uBGOgAiQiwYIOcPbwsT/s1600/dontrunweareyourfriends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje5v_3iuuXIvGtgpy9IwIAzJUkA34WEsAdm99zdcLaEpJr3yN_RER1iD8FOP_uTQ806uZXjn1srzhtLmZI5FLY_VY578CgW896zF88-oPG5qT7OA6g4uBGOgAiQiwYIOcPbwsT/s1600/dontrunweareyourfriends.jpg" height="203" width="400" /></a></div>
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The AT-AT, introduced in <i>Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back</i>, is the largest, most stupidly-contrived war machine one might imagine. They are enormous and under the direction of men sitting in their heads, who are somehow expected to move four clanking legs and direct fire from the head while being unaware of anything happening behind them. In the movie, the machines are not destroyed by weapons, but by their own clumsiness: the rebels trip the legs and the great terrible machine falls down. Imagine how destructive these machines would be in action, even without their guns; the clumsy 'feet' would constantly smash things on the ground even if the drivers weren't aiming to. AT-ATs are too big, too removed from the action, too sluggish to respond -- they are doomed by their own size, either to blundering or to eventual destruction.<br />
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For this reason I have lost interest in national politics, because it doesn't matter who is captaining the AT-AT: it's going to ignore important matters, crush life underfoot, and stumble ever-forward intending destruction. The state, I think, is a machine that answers to no one's direction, and takes would-be commanders of it along for a ride. National politics, because it seems to be an exercise is spending money, and arguing, neither of which fascinates me. What I am interested in, what I think we need all over the world, are healthier places and more fulfilled people. My politics are local, limited to my home, my neighborhood, my city. Beyond that governance is too abstract to bother with. I don't know how this emphasis will be expressed in my life; presently I am researching local, sustainable agriculture. There is a great deal of interest in that in this area, for we are an agricultural region and still peopled by those distrustful of those in power, from corporations to the state. Whatever the expression, I believe localism is going to be at the heart of my thinking, and both the end and the <i>means</i> have to be local. Living in a town with the painful history and lingering problems, I know we have to effect its healing on our own. Industrial agriculture can't restore topsoil and heal the land; that takes the careful husbandry of a few people on the ground, people with a stake in restoring it. The same is true of other political problems; we have to build on personal, civic responsibility. I am no longer interested in people forcing the government to respond to them; people ought to effect the changes themselves and let the AT-AT stumble about as it will. We have to create our own pockets of civic health everywhere.<br />
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-62513457670527646442013-12-26T22:24:00.002-06:002013-12-26T22:24:42.883-06:00For an Old Kentucky AnarchistI never thought one could have a favorite song, but having discovered this one a year or so ago, it is hard to imagine one that speaks more true.There's a lot bound up in it for me, but essentially it seems a celebration of an authentic life against an artificial one. It falls within the fascinating and delightful realm of music known as 'folk punk'.<br />
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High upon a mountaintop, lay a garden untended and dry<br />
'Twas a yard that hadn't felt children's feet runnin',<br />
for the mother long ago taught her children how to fly<br />
Within a simple cabin, untouched by industrial hands,<br />
sat the aged mother in her home.<br />
"You can't escape the picture frames -- there's too many," she said.<br />
"They keep me from bein' alone."<br />
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Well, she spoke -- "He was an honest man, he worked hard to put food on our plates<br />
"Well, we had more babies than we had arms -- we struggled all our lives, but the rewards were great<br />
"And when my son came home from the war, he rested his head on my breast, and said:<br />
"'Ma, I'm tired of being used and grinded down, I feel so low -- can you make me feel like I'm the best?'<br />
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"Well, my best friend truly wed a savage man -- he wore her like a bad tattoo.<br />
For his only love was for a bottle; she said 'There's only thing left for me to do.<br />
'To be wild once again, to take back my life, ran away and set flames to his truck<br />
He won't ever know what he's been missin', I did every day -- joy, freedom, dance and love<br />
Joy, freedom, dance, and love..<br />
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These are the stories this mother spoke to me as I brought her garden back to grow<br />
I was rewarded with a warm meal, tales never to be told --<br />
Some call it poverty, but they'll never know.<br />
She said, "All I got's my stories and this old guitar.<br />
"My crops have all come and gone away<br />
"I got a head full of recipes enticin' to the taste,<br />
and a likin' to wake up and greet the day<br />
"Got a bad back from raisin' my children,<br />
"From huggin' my husband so tight<br />
Hell, I never much for any government --<br />
" -- and I got my Jesus when I feel the time is right<br />
"Singing, 'I'm the richest I'll ever be --<br />
"I embrace the world I have all around me<br />
"So sing a dying song and slap your knee<br />
"Have a taste of true anarchy!"<br />
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<br />Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-8828037288341528942013-12-07T19:55:00.000-06:002014-02-08T10:41:20.093-06:00Accidentally Evil: Considering Libertarianism<br />
For years my operative definition of 'libertarian' was 'someone with all of the vices of a Republican, and none of the virtues'. That is, I regarded them as people who not only wanted to let the beast of the free market run riot over people and the environment, but who at the same time denied the wisdom of government maintaining systems too important to turn on profit - like education and healthcare. The appeal of libertarianism, I thought, must be limited to big business and psychopaths.<br />
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I eventually learned the difference between libertarianism, which had 'good' (read 'left') roots, but had been hijacked by the right, and Objectivism, which was what I took the former to mean. For most of my life, I regarded socialism and communism as functions of a coercive, oppressive State: those words were synonymous to me with Stalin and Mao. Thus, while the idea of equality and such was very nice, it wasn't workable because that kind of power cannot be trusted to human hands. If growing up under an authoritarian god and religion, and later revolting from it, had instilled in me anything, it was a contempt for force and coercion. Emile Carles' <i>A Life of Her Own</i> introduced me to leftists who believed in peaceful, democratic communism<i> -- </i>a government in which the ideals of communists were realized through democratic, not autocratic, means. They saw communism not as an ideal that had to be enforced from the top down, but which was a perfectly logical application and extension of democracy: self-rule. How could any one be at liberty when they did not have economic self-command?<br />
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This, for me, was the most valuable idea in Marxist thought. The labor theory of value was fine, the historical dialectic made sense enough, and class struggle was simply the human way of the Darwinian struggle for existence. But economic independence? It was an idea that took on momentous importance. At this time same, I was studying the life of Gandhi, whose commitment to nonviolence was seductive -- but his thinking was not limited to that. He stressed the importance of economic self-reliance for India and for Indians in general: they should not be swallowed up by the state economy or the world economy, but function as as people living in thousands of largely self-sufficient communities. For him, this was of spiritual importance -- and for me, a new student of Stoicism who now put great stock in self-command and independence, it was part of the allure. The essential reason for economic self-reliance, however, was practical: if you can fend for yourself, you won't depend on the Leader, or his Army, or the government. This I thought key to keeping endeavors at equality from being the victims of power. Keep the power distributed among the people, and you can have your revolution without simply replacing one tyrant with another.<br />
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All of these ideas -- Marxism, Stoicism, Gandhigiri -- mixed together in my mind, and I emerged from my university studies someone who thought of himself as a left-libertarian. I made no association with the so-called libertarians of the right, the Americans who were simply dressing up free market profiteering with the principle of liberty, but I shared with them a sharp disdain for authority and force. This was where the libertarian label came from in the first place: I didn't think I or anyone else had the right to order anyone about. Although I shared the ideals of communism in part, in truth my ideal community was a bit more old-fashioned. While thousands of communes in a world republic was fine, I'd be happy if the people in a given town owned the businesses in that town, and they bought their food from people who grew it just outside of town, and the people growing that food likewise lived just outside of town. The idea, for me, was that each community was independent and nominally self-sufficient. Though connected to a world economy that it purchased goods from, it was largely self-contained: people who know one another and be responsible on that basis. This is an old-fashioned notion, of course, but it was mine and it remains mine.<br />
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I've been mourning the loss of small-town communities, the kind described above, virtually all of my thinking life without knowing it. Early on I developed an obsession with cities of the early 20th century. At first I thought this owed to my wanting to live in a big city, but eventually I realized it was because I saw in these cities of the past a shadow of what I wanted in the present: to live in a town of healthy buildings filled with people whose lives connected to one in a myriad of ways every day. I realized this after I moved to my university town of Montevallo, whose setting evoked that feeling quite strongly. But before I realized that, I was obsessed with cities in general, and this has lead to odd interests in the details of transportation, energy, planning, infrastructure, and the various systems and technologies and practices that keep cities alive. Since graduating from the university, I've been engaged in private study of the holy trinity of urban civilization: food, energy, and infrastructure, which includes transportation. This is how I became slightly evil.<br />
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Without realizing it, studying the history of these subjects lured me into the dark side: the Other Libertarianism. The <i>American</i> libertarianism. The <i>market</i>-obsessed<i> </i>libertarianism. When I studied urban planning, I came to realize how the government promotes city-destroying urban sprawl through zoning codes and highway and housing subsidies. When studying food, I grew disgruntled after realizing how successful regulations and subsidies are to letting corporate giants monopolize farming and make it an industrial enterprise, reliant on disaster-inviting monocultures and cheap oil that destroys the land. Every field I studied attentively, I found regulation in the way. I was a big fan of regulation: I viewed big business with fear and wanted a government that would keep a pistol pointed in its face all the time. I wanted the lion of the market to be chained and caged. But now I was seeing instances of it hurting people -- and not just getting in the way of productive endeavors, but promoting power accretion. At first, I merely winced -- oh, here's bad regulation, we should remove it and make new regulation, regulation that will be good -- but as I continue to run into those bits of bad regulation, I realized they were popping up with unfortunate regularity. They weren't exceptions to the rule; they were the rule, an example of what happens when we ignore the limits of our knowledge and assume we can make things so by legislative fiat. I believe these community-destroying forces of sprawl and big business would hoist themselves on their own petards were they not on the life-support of public funding.<br />
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Though I've begun to appreciate the market as a means of sorting things out, I'm only <i>slightly</i> evil. I do not believe the chief end of man is self-satisfaction, or that money is the measure of a good life. My roots remain in simple living and the cultivation in myself the best fruits of the human condition. However much I might admire Emma Goldman's individualist stance, I don't know if it is one I share, for we cannot escape our biological status as social creatures, and more importantly as mortal creatures -- creatures for whom a connection to the group, to a community, to a <i>folk</i> of our own is our hope of living beyond the grave. If we live, it is because we are remembered. The philosophical mind may know there is no sting in death, but the animal flees from it as the instincts of million years triumphant urge it to. Not for me is the atomization of humanity into billions of self-absorbed creatures, who sit in a puddle of time and space and think themselves masters of the cosmic ocean. The older I get the more I recognize the importance of our connections to one another, connections perhaps more important than an idealized notion of liberty.<br />
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<br />Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-87050426417076616742013-08-14T20:58:00.001-05:002013-08-14T20:58:35.985-05:00Skepticism's sound and fury I must admit to being impressed by the prowess of the nascent skeptics movement, which in the US has managed to collapse into schism without even a credo to argue over. If you consider yourself a skeptic or rationalist and frequent the blogs and websites of the American movement, you're probably familiar with the ongoing debacle, starting from the initial ginned-up scandal of <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins#Gender_politics">Elevatorgate</a> and continuing as the two sides become increasingly shrill and entrenched. If you have spared yourself the misery thus far, I hesitate to be the one to inflict exposure: in general terms, the <a href="http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=37971">war wages</a> over sexism in the skeptical movement -- how serious it is, and how firmly it ought to be combated. The tenor of controversy baffled me at first, and has since completely soured me on the American skeptics. The Center for Skeptical Inquiry, to my knowledge the oldest and most accomplished skeptical organization in the United States, has been the loser, seeing contributors and staff desert it after its inadequate response to the call of the witch-hunt revolution. Point of Inquiry, once the most laudable of the skeptical podcasts, is now on hiatus. I'm sure Paul Kurtz and Carl Sagan would be quite proud of the skeptical movement: absent George Bush in the White House to rally against we have apparently decided to self-destruct. <i>Bravo</i>, skeptics. I am sure once the CSI has fallen under the ragefest of the puritans or its seeming inability to realize there are concerns to address, the American movement can be maintained by PZ Myers posting octopus pictures and pissing in the face of the Catholic church like a petulant schoolboy.<br />
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For years my concern with the skeptical movement has been that it limits itself too much to simply attacking religion, attacks which inspire nothing but defensive reactions and do little to apply the discerning blade of critical thinking against more pliable foes, improving the lives of people by arming them against consumer fraud (for example), establishing that skepticism is a useful tool for everyone, and not just the Foe of Religion, for which so many people have a sentimental attachment for. This skeptical schism is erasing whatever credibility we ever earned by broadcasting to the world: skeptics are just as irrational as the people they attack, and are willing to butcher one another in civil war to prove it. The New Skeptics are not the vanguard of a revolution that will create a humane world: we are doggedly working to become mere footnotes at best. Far from enlightening the world, from spreading reason's flickering flame as a candle in the dark, we are making skepticism to be a tale told by an idiot -- full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-43959967576378731902013-07-20T11:29:00.000-05:002013-07-20T11:30:20.534-05:00au Natural<br />
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Both the Stoics and the Epicureans advocated living according to nature, though each sought inspiration with different eyes. The Stoics believed in a universe bound up by a divine plan, and that a life of virtue meant living according to that plan, accepting what happened as the will of God -- or cosmic fate. Deities and their wills were more immaterial to the Epicureans, however, who saw more chaos than order in the cosmos and believed virtue lay in making the best of what we were given, of enjoying life while it lasted. There is wisdom in learning to adapt to whatever life throws at you, just as there is wisdom in enjoying it fully and not getting too distracted by mental chatter -- but there is more to living naturally than either.<br />
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What does it mean to live naturally? Outside of culture, beliefs, and ideology, human beings are fundamentally members of the animal kingdom in full standing. We use ideas to put distance between ourselves and that kingdom, but we are its subjects at every moment of the day whether we think we are or not. We are motivated by the same needs and instincts as every other animal on the planet, even if we dress those instincts up as feelings. Our instincts and needs are the products, not of perfect creation, but of imperfect evolution, of millions of years of trial, error, fix-it-on-the-fly biological compromise. To live naturally, first, is to respect that fact.<br />
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Before going forward, however, there is the matter of the naturalistic fallacy to address. Just because something is Natural does not mean it is good, or to be desired. Wariness and hostility toward strangers might be a natural instinct, but in modern times, chances are that the sudden arrival of group of strangers will <em>not</em> be a raiding party intent on killing your young, eating your fruit, and kidnapping your sisters -- a scenario our genes may be expecting when they produce anxiety in us at the appearance of an unknown person. Here is the wisdom of philosophy, in teaching us to overcome instincts that work to our detriment. However, we will presumably function best in the environment in which we evolved. That environment is not limited to the physical climate, but includes the kind of behaviors we're allowed to enact, the relations we engage in. Thus, humans are happier with one another than alone; we are happier sheltered from inclement weather than exposed to it; we are happier eating fresh food than rotting.<br />
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We must be conscious of our status as natural creatures, because instincts will manifest themselves with or without our permission. Hierarchies are ubiquitous among social animals, for instance, and in mammals there is often an alpha individual who rises to the top through strength, cunning, or in the case of certain primate species, cunning. Why then are we so surprised at the regularity with which political systems produce strongmen, and our easiness in accepting them? That monarchies persisted for so long, and that democracies become oppressive, is less a condemnation of political organization and more a mark against the systems which allow our natural weakness to lead to unnatural brutality. If Hitler had been the alpha male of a group of hunter-gatherers, the same strengths which brought him to power might have let him lead the tribe against threats -- and if they did not, or if those strengths failed him, he could have been displaced with ease. Civilization, however, has given alphas armies to expand their own power beyond natural limits, and given them means (like tradition or media outlets) to control by influence what they cannot touch by brute force. <br />
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We cannot turn back the clock and become hunter-gatherers. We must learn to work within the limits of our biology. In the realm of politics, the most rational response to our hierarchical weakness is to decentralize power as much as possible. Charismatic, strong, and cunning individuals will rise in every population and hold influence over people, but there is no reason their power must metastasize and become cancerous, dementing and corrupting them while abusing the public. Despite the lessons of the 20th century, political power, especially in the United States, is tending to become even more centralized, a trend that needs desperately to be reversed. Equally problematic is the power amassing in corporate entities, who are just as liable to tyranny as politicians, but who are even more wily, turning the very chains of regulation that we try to bind them by into weapons to whip their rivals and opponents with. <br />
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There is more to 'natural living' than politics, however. Evolution is starting to guide medicine more than in years past: we are now realizing that dropping anti-biotic bombs into our guts isn't the wisest course of action given our dependence on some bacterial species for basic processes like digestion. Some researchers suggest that our bodies need 'hostile' bacteria in them just to give our immune system something to do: otherwise, it attacks its own body. Or take matters of diet: just as a cat would not fare well on salad, or a dog on plankton, or a koala on anything other than eucalyptus leaves, so do we not fare well on many of the modern 'foodstuffs' filling the grocery store. In recent years a 'paleo' diet movement has arisen, maintaining that people should eat what we evolved to eat: meat, fruit, nuts, and some vegetables, leaving behind artificial food products like snack cakes, rolls, margarine, and imitation crab meat. <br />
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Many of the problems we face are caused by our attempting to live as something we are not, as creatures in a world of our choosing. We cannot drastically change our circumstances of living and expect the consequences to be marginal. We create an environment filled with fake food and no opportunities for the physical exertion our bodies were designed for, then wonder why obesity and diabetes have soared. We allow children to keep themselves overly stimulated with games on their tablets, or force them to sit in a box for seven hours a day quietly listening, and then label mark them as having attention deficit disorder. Perhaps it is our way of living, not ourselves, that are disordered. Maybe if children were taught the way they were evolved to be taught -- in the field, through the experience -- and played as they evolved to play, skin on skin with physical playmates -- they would not be bundles of neuroses. Perhaps if adults spent more time with one another and their families, and less time slaving at jobs producing profits for other persons, or stuck in traffic, they would not be as easy marks for depression and energetic religions. <br />
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Truth be told, I don't know what it means, entirely, to live naturally. I have some ideas, which is why I eat real food, voted libertarian in the last election, and practice simple living. In abstract, I can only say: to live naturally is to embrace our humanity -- to guard against our weaknesses while revelling in the experience of being human. <br />
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<br />Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-47031733682778070282013-06-22T18:18:00.002-05:002013-06-22T18:20:32.417-05:00The Edukators<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIVudfCd5yjDiZFRlvVhwZ6FfldZNbrlrMWEDpHKFQ2RGTTtpYdmPKxPeOp7CmZ_znjPjKPR28reH6EUfj5R6icUa8PdXqzWLYPlYBJD_2VtXm_57NJNSVvmhZCp9ACqc3skY3/s1600/diefettenjahresindvorbei.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIVudfCd5yjDiZFRlvVhwZ6FfldZNbrlrMWEDpHKFQ2RGTTtpYdmPKxPeOp7CmZ_znjPjKPR28reH6EUfj5R6icUa8PdXqzWLYPlYBJD_2VtXm_57NJNSVvmhZCp9ACqc3skY3/s1600/diefettenjahresindvorbei.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>German-language, English subtitles</i></div>
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What happens when three young soldiers of the class war accidentally take a prisoner? Jan, Peter, and Jule are working-class twenty somethings, each passionate about fighting corruption, injustice, and the values of consumerism, but with different means. Whereas Jule's placard-waving and protesting in the streets stays within bounds of acceptability, Peter and Jan go further. Breaking into the homes of the rich, they rearrange their furniture and leave the ominous message: <em>Die Fettenjahre sind Vorbei</em>. The days of plenty are over. Their actions are illegal, but do no harm other than rattling the cages of the powerful. When Jule sees her peaceful sign-holding friends beaten in the streets, loses her job, and is evicted in quick succession, she's invited by Jan (Peter Bruhl) to join him on a nightly raid. She's thrilled, but it results in their being surprised by the too-soon return of one of their targets. With no time to think, they <em>act</em> -- and kidnap him, fleeing into the mountains. There the revolutionaries and the fatcat live with one another as the kids grapple with what they should do next -- and with their consciences, for now they've gone far beyond their expectations. What does it mean to have a revolution?<br />
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As the four live together, they are forced by the virtue of interaction to see him less as a Class Enemy and more like a man -- one dangerous to their freedom, if he escapes, and one whose values they despise, but a man all the same. And for all their rage against the concentration and abuse of power, and for all of their petty acts of resistance, they are not vicious people. To hold him hostage and use media coverage to bring attention to their grievances is tempted, especially if they can get his wife to actually produce ransom money...but are they willing to pay that price? Their hold on the moral high ground is already tenuous, and they become even more uncertain as they talk with their foe, who reveals -- astonishingly -- that he, too, was once a class warrior. Their grievances are not new: another generation held them. That generation, the youth culture of the 1960s, once held every convention of society in contempt and sought to radically change it...but things change, and so do people. Or do they? The ardent beliefs of his captors stir something within the captive (whose name is Hartenburg), as he remembers his own youthful yearning for a better world, and wonders where he lost it.<br />
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I initially purchased this movie to both keep my ear for German tuned and to enjoy the passion and action of three rebels whose beliefs I have much sympathy for, and enjoy rewatching it ever so often just to witness the cross-generation conversation. In this age of overwhelming corporate power, the abhorrent triumph of consumerism and profiteering over the human soul and anything graceful, a movie like this is satisfying -- not only in portraying people putting resistance into action, but not losing sight of the fact that even 'enemies' are not as different from us. We are all vulnerable.<br />
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You may recognize the lead actor, Daniel Br<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 37px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ü</span></span>hl playing Peter, from <i>Joyeux Noel</i> and <i>Goodbye, Lenin!</i><br />
<br />Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-55982743353404036362013-05-10T20:19:00.000-05:002013-05-10T20:22:24.739-05:00Zero Waste<br />
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Ever since I lost so much weight and began experiencing life in a fundamentally new way, feeling perhaps like a once-earthbound caterpillar feels like when it emerges from its cocoon and begins to fly around, I've been obsessed and driven by the idea of making everything in my life "lose weight" -- eliminating excess, concentrating on essentials, and making lean, potent effectiveness my goal. One idea I've been batting around, and intend to start working toward, is that of Zero Waste. <br />
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Waste has become endemic to modern living. Virtually everything sold in supermarkets comes wrapped in plastic, and even if it is sold by itself, as perhaps clothing is, cashiers will insist on throwing it in a plastic bag. Food, too, is wasted, filling the dumpsters of grocers, and the trash bins of people at home. The urban environment of America is waste made visible, in the form of suburban sprawl which forces people to make automobile trips for every need, and to drive hither and yon across the landscape because no place is near any other place worth going. Laws, too, promote waste: traffic lights mar every intersection in cities, even in quiet neighborhoods, forcing drivers to sit burning gasoline to go nowhere, obeying the god-machine above them and defying common sense: no one is coming, so <i>go</i>. And if they do go, a police cruiser materializes out of thin air and promptly fines them. And the waste is not merely financial: people work fifty and sixty hours a week enriching someone else, while their children grow up on the sidelines, most of their childhood lost forever to their parents. <br />
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I have grown to hate waste. Life is short; time is dear. This is part of the reason I've been thinking more on simple living and minimalism. I am motivated, too, by my abiding belief in personal responsibility. I consider frugality a virtue: I despise spending money for the same reason I loathe realizing something I own has no worth, and am disgruntled at throwing something away. This belief in personal responsibility is interwoven with my sense of citizenship: every bag of trash I might produce is a municipal burden, every second a lightbulb glows is a teensy bit of local coal burned (though happily, most of my local power is generated by a hydroelectric dam). Why use the city's resources when I can open a window and let the sun in? Why burn petroleum when I can bike? Considering the United States' dependence on importing goods, saving energy and using less isn't just personally responsible and fiscally wise; it's positively civic.<br />
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So, how to work toward Zero Waste? Some ideas I have had..<br />
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<ul>
<li>Using hand tools instead of electrical ones. I had never used a hand-powered can opener before my electric one died; I'd never even <i>seen</i> one. But since then, I've found I enjoy the experience much more than listening to the screech of the machine.</li>
<li>Avoiding processed foodstuffs (always sold in boxes, bags, and individually plastic-wrapped packages) and buying whole foods instead, like fresh greens that aren't shrinkwrapped. Not buying processed foods means cooking my own, and exercising complete control over what is used and what isn't -- and culinary uses can be found for <i>everything</i>. </li>
<li>Bringing canvas sacks with me to the grocery store instead of using plastic bags; if said bags are used, take them back to the store. Both of the supermarkets I reluctantly patronize (no local grocers save seasonally-open produce shacks) have places to return plastic bags. </li>
<li>Only using kitchenware that is durable: dishes and utensils meant for one-time uses are obscene. Plastic glasses are a conundrum they're more likely to survive falls than actual glasses, but they can't be recycled and possibly leach toxins over time. </li>
<li>Finding simple entertainment offline, with people, instead of online. I choose to play frisbee with my nephew, for instance, instead of playing <i>Call of Duty</i> with him. It helps that he only has CoD on X-Box, and I am a PC purist and can't move quickly enough with one of those hand-held controllers..</li>
<li>Turning off lights when not needed, especially wise considering that in the summer, incandescent bulbs not only waste 90% of the energy put into them, but that waste comes in the form of heat that fans and air-conditioning have to combat. </li>
<li>Doing errands on foot or by bike instead of by car; I intend on putting a rack on my bicycle so that I can transport items like groceries with it. I also plan on moving closer to my work so that biking is more practical. I currently live three miles from work, but the first part of that is on a busy highway that is somewhat perilous on weekdays. </li>
<li>Growing my own food in a garden; unfortunately, this is where some of my ideas conflict. I can live in the city and walk to work, or live outside it and have a garden, but doing both isn't possible until I can afford a small home with a backyard, or an apartment with green space that the landlord allowed gardening on. I have an uncle who gardens, and am thinking of 'apprenticing' myself to him to learn the lore.</li>
<li>Refusing to buy goods that are shabbily made, or are made of materials (plastic) that can't be repaired. This means investing in a few high-quality items that retain their value. </li>
<li>Making my own household goods, like shampoo or jam. Not only would I avoid using a plastic bottle, but I'm sure I could find a recipe that's environmentally friendly. The jam, and other food-preserving ideas, would depend on having a garden. </li>
<li>Composting organic scraps that qualify: right now I just take biodegradable scraps out into the woods and scatter them. Composting them would help in gardening instead of scattering the nutrients willy-nilly.</li>
<li>Using a clothesline instead of a dryer to dry clothes. This would also be less doable were I living in a city apartment, considering that moderns see a clothesline as an unsightly indicator of poverty. I'm also concerned about the everpresent humidity in Alabama preventing clothes from actually driving in the summers: if the air is saturated with moisture, it seems to me water would have a hard time evaporating from the clothes. </li>
</ul>
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All these pertain to resources. I've yet to start running red lights, though these days I have to stop myself from treating them like stop signs, which is how I think they ought to be treated. I've been extraordinarily lucky in finding work in a field that is not only spiritually fulfilling (public service means helping people), but gives me enough hours to make a living but also allows for more leisure time than most people get. I work thirty hours a week on average, which is plenty for me considering my simple tastes. I decided years ago that working for money was not the life for me: I'd rather be poor and happy than wealthy and stressed. Money is only valuable inasmuch as it enhances our quality of lie.</div>
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Zero waste is an exacting goal, a high standard; I doubt that I will ever achieve it. But I intend to come as close as I can, so that my life brims over with value. </div>
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Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-80024097374152163522013-04-18T10:33:00.001-05:002013-04-18T10:38:24.871-05:00The Forge<br />
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Every morning, I run through the Forge. The Forge is not a physical location in the neighborhood where I run; it is a temporal location which can manifest itself anywhere. My morning runs always start off easily enough: I am immediately awakened by the bliss of moving swiftly through the universe, my legs churning beneath me. But soon enough they weaken, and my resolve to effect will into action is tested. This is the Forge. This, the place wherein I am most weak, is where I find my strength. For in those moments when the joy of running evaporates away and I know only the work of exercise, I am not merely laying the groundwork for easier running tomorrow. True, my stressed body is being tilled for growth: the message to my brain is being communicated,<i> invest resources here. Build muscle. Strengthen bones.</i> But more importantly, I am exercising the power of my mind, my will, over my emotions, over my body. I am pushing aside any inclination to laziness, to procrastination. I'm disciplining myself, forcing positive changes. I am applying a steady hand to the rudder of my soul, turning the ship of my being in the proper direction.<br />
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Exercise, running or cycling on my part, aren't the only places where the Forge is present although I experience it most tangibly there when I gallop down the road, focused only on the distant telephone pole I have chosen as my goal. It as though I am on a conveyor belt of ore, passing through a smelting fire, where the impurities are burned away and on the other side, behind the telephone pole, only gold emerges. The Forge is where weak things become strong, where iron becomes steel. We can all experience it: the Forge appears when we're raking leaves and think, "I'm tired of this; why don't I go inside and watch TV now, and do this tomorrow?" It appears when we're working on taxes, and tired of math, or when confronting other people and we wonder if maybe we couldn't just let the matter slide "this time". But nothing improves without effort, without energy, nor is anything maintained without the same. The best-built bridge will, in time, decay and fall. The most meaningful relationships will fade, the most beautiful garden will wilt, the best-toned muscles will soften without regular attention, without the chronic effort to turn will into action. And the effort has to be regular; the Forge works best when we pass through it repeatedly. <br />
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I don't regard the Forge with anxiety, or trepidation. Adversity is my ally, not my opponent.<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">Because of the Forge, I can run faster, farther, longer, day by day. Because of it, I can spurn temptations. </span>As S</span>eneca wrote..<br />
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<i>We see wrestlers, who concern themselves with physical strength, matching themselves with only their strongest opponents, and requiring those who prepare for a bout to use all their strength against them; they expose themselves to blows and hurt, and if they do not find one man to match them, they take on several at a time. Excellence withers without an adversary; the time for us to see how great it is, how much its force, is when it display its power through endurance. </i><br />
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And similarly, from the same source:<br />
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<i>Fortune lays into us with the whip and tears our flesh; let us endure it. It is not cruelty but a contest, and the more often we engage in it, the stronger our hearts will be: the sturdiest part of the body is the one that is kept in constant use. We must offer ourselves to Fortune so that in struggling with her we may be hardened by her; little by little she will make us a match for her; and constant exposure to risk will make us despise dangers. So the bodies of mariners are tough from the buffeting of the sea, the hands of farmers calloused, the muscles of soldiers strong to enable them to hurl the javelin, the legs of athletes agile: in each case the part of the body exercised is the strongest. It is be enduring ills that the mind can acquire contempt for enduring them.</i><br />
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Both of those quotations are taken from Seneca's essay, "On Providence".Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-23763537710943463272013-03-23T20:02:00.000-05:002013-03-23T20:02:06.048-05:00Reopening those "Simple Gifts"Recently some friends of mine and I were talking about the personal issues we are facing, and I brought up my having gotten away from simpler living. I used to be passionate about it, and still am -- but recently the value of simplicity hasn't been visible in my life. I adopted simple living as self-defense years ago, before I began living with intent. Starting my first job taught me that everything had a price not in dollars, but in time. After figuring out what my daily take-home pay was, I could evaluate every purchase as one which cost me hours of my life. Whenever I had an itch to buy something, I'd ask: is this worth a day and a half of my life to pay for? Three hours? Usually, the answer was no. Simple living became a lifestyle for me when I moved to university, though, aided by the fact that I was penniless. I had an on-campus job, but after tuition and so on I was reduced to practically nothing in terms of discretionary spending -- enough to make one trip home every month, and buy the odd used book.<br />
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Despite the lack of money, those first two years remain two of the best of my life, because I found everything I truly needed was there at the university. Not only did I have the basics of food, shelter, and companionship, but I was surrounded by beauty -- living on a campus of tasteful architecture, tied together with cobblestone roads and flowers -- and even outside of class, opportunities for intellectual and creative stimulation, like lectures and art galleries, abounded. The town library, that portal to a world of infinite ideas and experiences, was only a short walk away. Though my living quarters were spartan, I lacked for nothing. <i>Stuff</i> was valueless: my life was filled with meals shared with friends, days spent lounging under trees reading, and nights of stargazing or conversations over coffee.<br />
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Although there the simple life was forced on me by financial circumstances, while living it I learned to appreciate minimalism as a concept -- starting when I read Erich Fromm's<i> To Have or to Be?</i> wherein he criticized our tendency to base happiness on what we possessed, rather than who we were. Ever since then, I've been increasingly critical about consumerism. Simplicity became a 'spiritual' value for me: I enjoyed having so little to worry about -- not only did I have few things to protect or maintain, but I wasn't interested in getting more, or bothered if people thought less of me for not spending as much money as they did. My mind was as free of clutter as my room. <br />
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My studies, both private and academic, encouraged the flowering preference for simplicity. Inside the classroom, I studied history and sociology, where Marx redoubled my hostility toward consumerism and I began to see the world more deeply through the lens of conflict theory, and thought that if people were content to live simply, the needs of all could be provided for, and no one would need waste their lives in joyless work: I remembered all too well my days working in a factory, and counted every hour locked away in that noisy, dank warehouse cut off from natural light as a loss.<br />
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Outside the classroom, I explored philosophy -- Thoreau and the Greeks. I found many intersections between their critical perspectives and the knowledge I gleaned from history and sociology. Epicures promoted a quiet life of self-sufficiency, modest tastes, and the company of friends. Epicures is associated with an indulgent lifestyle, for he taught that the only good in life is pleasure, or enjoyability. His name is thus attached to revelers and hedonists, as well as to wine snobs and food critics who cultivate extravagant tastes and demands -- a cruel joke history has played on a man whose idea of a feast was a ‘little pot of cheese’. Epicures believed that if we keep our tastes simple, we are easy to please and hard to inconvenience. He preferred to live away from the hustle and bustle of the city, where people make livings by convincing other people to buy things they do not truly need. Stoicism taught that the only good in life was virtue, and that only the degree to which we conformed our lives to he will of nature mattered. Caring about the judgments of other people and trying to construct our idea of self around our possessions was nothing but foolishness. This echoed Erich Fromm's criticism of the modern conflation of ownership and identity. <br />
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There is thus no question for me about the wisdom or practicality of living simply. What has changed is not the value I place in it, but the environment in which I live. I don't currently live in a location where I can walk everywhere as I did in Montevallo, though one day I will, for Selma still has a downtown core which functions: it has lost some of its commercial activity, but not its soul, to sprawl. My peers have changed, as well: my companions at university were hippies, Buddhists, and environmentalists. Now I have peers who the Joneses aspire to keep up with. Financially, I'm much better off than I was as a student. I now have ample discretionary money to devote toward Buying Things, and<i> </i>bought them I have: the amount of money I spent on books last year, even though most of them were used and some purchased for a solitary cent, is embarrassing. And where have those books gone? <i>Everywhere</i>. When I returned home from a retreat a few weeks ago, I just sighed to view the disorderly stacks awaiting me. I used to dream of surrounding myself with books, of sitting serenely in a private library with books covering the walls. The dream has come true and I view the multitude of objects as a burden.<br />
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And so I have decided to begin reclaiming my life. I have already donated two boxes of books to the library, and plan on giving more: others are being circulated to friends. I am too ardent a lover of books to turn into a minimalist though: even when I am finished decluttering, I will still probably have "more books than blood cells", as I once mockingly described myself. My <i>hope</i> is that I can also dampen my rate of future acquisitions by using interlibrary loan more, and not becoming a book glutton. Last year I almost purchased <i>five books</i> on garbage and waste management. (I blame <i>SimCity 3000 </i>for ensnaring my interest in municipal elements as mundane as sewers, power lines, and potholes.) I need to adopt the same discipline towards book purchasing as I've learned to have toward eating: go more slowly, enjoy what you have, and sit back from the table lest you have too much. <br />
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My first steps toward reclaiming simplicity have already made me feel a hundredfold better. Living simply means far more than decluttering, though, and I am intent on continuing to rediscover the old contentment to be found in having less.<br />
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<br />Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-34526727718654880062013-03-02T15:55:00.000-06:002013-03-02T15:55:09.874-06:00ChangesYears ago, when I began this blog, I was a much younger man who had just escaped a constrictive, shallow culture and had to build my own worldview from the ground up -- my foundations being skepticism and human-centered values. I was then just starting my twenties: I am now entering their twilight, and feeling the advance of age (I am sure older adults will find that risible), not so much for a declining body but for the increasing weight of responsibility and outside demand for deepening maturity. That owes, in part I suppose, to age, but perhaps more to the fact that in pursuit of certain ends, I have voluntarily placed myself into positions where more would be expected of me. Such, I believe, is the key to self growth.<br />
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The ends I speak of involve my community of Selma. After having lived for three years in Montevallo, I was won over completely to the charms of small town life, and in particular to the fact that I spent so much time relating with other people in our common place. My friends ate together, we explored the town together: we frequently bumped into one another in the course of seeing to our own separate affairs. When I returned to Selma, I was determined to restore that sense of community in my life. Although Selma is my home, I had never considered it such until then. After returning from university, I began to walk its streets, and immersed myself deliberately in what social fabric it had: I began volunteering at the library as I looked for work, and even began attending services at the local Episcopal parish, since they offer opportunities for community life and spiritual/personal growth without the usual downsides of religion, the suppression of thought and coercion to authority. (The Episcopal church is of course very traditional, but the relationship between humans and tradition there is proper: there, traditions exists for humans and are maintained or changed at will.) In the time since I began both endeavors, I have become a member of the library's reference staff, and an increasingly involved member of the parish life of the church. <br />
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There's an essay in my making peace with religion, one I have attempted to write but have never published because it invariably involves experiences of mine which had a profound impact on my perceptions, but which are impossible to communicate to other people. Not that I was felled from my horse on the road to Damascus, but I eventually realized there was sometimes more to people's faith in divinity than an arbitrary, stubborn belief in a Santa Claus for adults. I think<em> most</em> people believe in deities for meaningless reasons, but I've developed an appreciation for the realm of mystery, of people being moved by things they can't explain. I don't think religion can be banished from the human mind any more than the abuse of authority can be riven from human politics. And while usually I wouldn't be one to settle for defeat, in this case I'm more willing to bury the hatchet with religion, and perhaps even embrace it as an ally, against anomie, meaninglessness, and consumerism. Marx wrote that religion was the heart of a heartless world, the soul of a soulless situation. It will remain with us for as long as people need comfort against oppression, and I cannot imagining that changing. That doesn't mean giving religion a free pass: I see it as useful, and sometimes benevolent -- but ever dangerous. It's like fire: protected against itself, kept in its place, it does good work and is charming in its own right. Outside of those bounds, destruction waits.<br />
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So the years have seen the furious fire of idealism within me be tamed into a murmuring hearth of their own; quieter now, but still hopeful despite a lessening of intensity. I think it a safe assumption that most people here will never be won over to some of the ideals I cherish, and so in the interests of relating with them and working with them, I turn to more pedestrian matters, matters of interest to everyone, subjects that cannot be boxed up and buried in a partisan camp -- matters like transportation. As I spend more time with people of different political convictions, I realize how perfectly asinine the liberal/conservative dichotomy is. Why should fiscal conservatives embrace war and the waste of suburban sprawl? Why should liberals tolerate the increasing dominion of the state over individual lives? The world of beliefs and values is more complicated than I ever imagined.<br />
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My own beliefs are not free of contradictions. There are moments when I am still the young social democrat, who believes in government and who thinks people should make health and education public issues out of pride: of <em>course</em> we should work together to do this, we're a team! And there are moments when I want to run away, to retreat into the woods living a simple life and<i> </i>subsist on fish and mushrooms or something. I dream of the future, of what the human race can achieve -- and yet look nostalgically toward the simpler past out of despair for what eager attempts to Create the Future have resulted in. In the end, of course, my world will neither be transformed into a <i>Star Trek</i> utopia, nor fall apart to such a degree that I would be justified in not being concerned with it. What is left for me is to continue to live in the world I currently inhabit, the one with messy politics and people who act in distressing ways -- to continue to live in it, and to work to create and preserve a worthwhile life, to make my local community a better place to live...to practice the noblest virtues humanity has conceived to aspire to.<br />
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In future posts, I will be working through the contradictions occupying my mind -- the tension between individualism and community life, for instance, or between the value I place in science and the annoyance I have with human life being overly complicated by and dependent on gadgets and technotoys. Practical philosophy, especially Stoicism, is still of interest to me, but I may muse about the human environment more, from the viewpoint of a concerned citizen. The particulars of the world in which I live are of increasing importance to me, not only because they give me an area to work with others to improve, but because as I grow older, I look at the world through the eyes of someone who may one day introduce children into it...and I want it to be as conducive to human flourishing as possible. <br />
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<br />Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-37792776755509745652012-08-21T13:23:00.000-05:002012-08-21T13:23:39.605-05:00Seneca on DeathLast week an aunt of my father's died, and he was asked to be a pall bearer. Unable to accept (being out of town), the honor fell to me, today. I began this morning reading from Oxford's collection of Seneca's <i>Dialogues and Essays</i>. In "Consolation to Marcia", Seneca writes to a Roman matron whose son died shortly into his adult life. The young man's mother Marcia carried her grief for three years, at which point Seneca took up the pen to offer advice. Although it would be easy to console herself with the idea that her son had merely gone somewhere, somewhere where she would one day meet him, the best course of action is to accept it as a necessary part of life. He borrows from the Epicureans by pointing out that death is nothing to be feared, because it is nothing in itself but the cessation of sensation. Only our opinion of it gives it substance, and our opinion can be changed.<br />
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What, then, is upsetting you, Marcia? Is it that your son hs died or that he did not have a long life? If it is his death, then you always had cause to mourn; for you always knew he would die. Reflect that no evils afflict one who has died, that the accounts which make the underworld a place of terror to us are mere tales, that no darkness threatens the dead, no prison, or rivers blazing with fire, no river of Forgetfulness, or seats of judgment, no sinners answering for their crimes, or tyrants a second time in that freedom which so lacks fetters: these are the imaginings of poets, who have tormented us with groundless fears. Death is a release from all pains, and a boundary beyond which our sufferings cannot go; it returns us to that state of peacefulness in which we lay before we were born. If someone pities those who have died, let him pity also those who have not been born. Death is neither a good nor an evil; for only that which is something can be a good or an evil; but what is itself nothing and reduces everything to nothingness, delivers us to no category of fortune. </blockquote>
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He points out additionally that death may be a savior: who knows what pains and disgraces might befall someone who lives a long life? He reminds Marcia of Pompey, who had he died of illness at the height of his power, might have been far more content then than he was years later, when Caesar had chased him into the sea, and to Egypt where he thought he might find refuge, only to be killed by the hands of those he thought friends.<br />
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Death frees a man from slavery though his master is unwilling; it makes light the chains of prisoners; it leads out of prison those forbidden to leave by a tyrant's power; it shows to exiles, whose eyes and minds turn always to their homeland, that it does not matter beneath whose soil a man may lie; when Fortune has unjustly distributed common goods, and has given one into the power of another, though they were born with equal rights, death makes all things equal; after its coming no man ever does anything again at another's bidding; it is death that makes no man aware of his humble condition; it is death that lies open to all; it is death, Marcia, that your father longed for; it is death, I say, that prevents being born a punishment, that keeps me from collapsing under the threatens of misfortune, that enables me to keep my soul free from harm and master of itself. [...] Life, it is thanks to death that you are precious in my eyes.</blockquote>
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<br />Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-63859567831793236202012-06-01T21:10:00.000-05:002012-06-01T21:10:56.008-05:00Feasts of fancyLately I have been toying around with the idea of likening religion, philosophy, and ideology to food and diet. The various world religions and philosophies are all quite different, but the ones which succeed have common ingredients, common virtues. For instance, most religions place a great deal of emphasis on love, and most have some kind of contemplative practice -- meditation in the east, prayer in the west. Just as we cannot prescribe a perfect diet to anyone by referring to specific foods, but only to generalities (the perfect diet must include the various nutrients humans need, for instance) so to we can we not prescribe to a perfect way of living by referring to any one philosophy or religion, even those we are partial to. We can only refer to the generalities that we need, or can use -- again, morality and contemplation. Like food, we are drawn to some religions and philosophies because they have ideas we find sustenance in....but like food, we are drawn to others that have attractors that aren't necessarily good for us. We do like sugar and alcohol, for instance, but too much of either is harmful to our health. The obsession some religious 'diets' have with having an exclusive hold on truth -- fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, for instance -- is like sugar. It tastes good to our minds -- how we love being Right! -- but that taste doesn't mean the substance is good for us. <br />
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In this view, moral and intellectual life is a banquet. I for one intend to sample as many dishes as I can, to learn from all -- to enjoy the particular tastes that people throughout the centuries and globe have created. For this reason, I think of myself as a universalist -- not because I believe "everyone goes to heaven", since I give no place to the supernatural -- but because I believe all humans can and have contributed something to the pool of human moral, intellectual, cultural, and pleasurable wealth.Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-66047362961909590032012-05-27T07:10:00.000-05:002012-05-27T07:10:01.246-05:00Jeffersonian AdviceI am fascinated by the refined nature of intellectuals in preceding generations, who saw a broad education as essential in forming individual characters, and who took character in general seriously -- who dwelled on concepts like virtue and prudence which are yawned at today. Recently someone shared a letter from Thomas Jefferson giving advice to his young nephew, Peter Carr, and it is replete with interesting gems.<div>
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_To Peter Carr_<br />_Paris, August 19, 1785_<br />DEAR PETER, -- I received, by Mr. Mazzei, your letter of April the 20th. I am much mortified to hear that you have lost so much time; and that when you arrived in Williamsburg, you were not at all advanced from what you were when you left Monticello. Time now begins to be precious to you. Every day you lose, will retard a day your entrance on that public stage whereon you may begin to be useful to yourself. However, the way to repair the loss is to improve the future time. I trust, that with your dispositions, even the acquisition of science is a pleasing employment. I can assure you, that the possession of it is, what (next to an honest heart) will above all things render you dear to your friends, and give you fame and promotion in your own country. When your mind shall be well improved with science, nothing will be necessary to place you in the highest points of view, but to pursue the interests of your country, the interests of your friends, and your own interests also, with the purest integrity, the most chaste honor. The defect of these virtues can never be made up by all the other acquirements of body and mind. Make these then your first object. Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose, that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly. Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises; being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death. If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances, out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Though you cannot see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one, will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.</blockquote>
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An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second. It is time for you now to begin to be choice in your reading; to begin to pursue a regular course in it; and not to suffer yourself to be turned to the right or left by reading any thing out of that course. I have long ago digested a plan for you, suited to the circumstances in which you will be placed. This I will detail to you, from time to time, as you advance. For the present, I advise you to begin a course of antient history, reading every thing in the original and not in translations. First read Goldsmith's history of Greece. This will give you a digested view of that field. Then take up antient history in the detail, reading the following books, in the following order: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophontis Hellenica, Xenophontis Anabasis, Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Justin. This shall form the first stage of your historical reading, and is all I need mention to you now. The next, will be of Roman history (*). From that, we will come down to modern history. In Greek and Latin poetry, you have read or will read at school, Virgil, Terence, Horace, Anacreon, Theocritus, Homer, Euripides, Sophocles. Read also Milton's Paradise Lost, Shakspeare, Ossian, Pope's and Swift's works, in order to form your style in your own language. In morality, read Epictetus, Xenophontis Memorabilia, Plato's Socratic dialogues, Cicero's philosophies, Antoninus, and Seneca. In order to assure a certain progress in this reading, consider what hours you have free from the school and the exercises of the school. Give about two of them, every day, to exercise; for health must not be sacrificed to learning. A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. Never think of taking a book with you. The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk; but divert your attention by the objects surrounding you. Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. The Europeans value themselves on having subdued the horse to the uses of man; but I doubt whether we have not lost more than we have gained, by the use of this animal. No one has occasioned so much, the degeneracy of the human body. An Indian goes on foot nearly as far in a day, for a long journey, as an enfeebled white does on his horse; and he will tire the best horses. There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue. I would advise you to take your exercise in the afternoon: not because it is the best time for exercise, for certainly it is not; but because it is the best time to spare from your studies; and habit will soon reconcile it to health, and render it nearly as useful as if you gave to that the more precious hours of the day. A little walk of half an hour, in the morning, when you first rise, is advisable also. It shakes off sleep, and produces other good effects in the animal economy. Rise at a fixed and an early hour, and go to bed at a fixed and early hour also. Sitting up late at night is injurious to the health, and not useful to the mind. Having ascribed proper hours to exercise, divide what remain, (I mean of your vacant hours) into three portions. Give the principal to History, the other two, which should be shorter, to Philosophy and Poetry. Write to me once every month or two, and let me know the progress you make. Tell me in what manner you employ every hour in the day. The plan I have proposed for you is adapted to your present situation only. When that is changed, I shall propose a corresponding change of plan. I have ordered the following books to be sent to you from London, to the care of Mr. Madison. Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon's Hellenics, Anabasis and Memorabilia, Cicero's works, Baretti's Spanish and English Dictionary, Martin's Philosophical Grammar, and Martin's Philosophia Britannica. I will send you the following from hence. Bezout's Mathematics, De la Lande's Astronomy, Muschenbrock's Physics, Quintus Curtius, Justin, a Spanish Grammar, and some Spanish books. You will observe that Martin, Bezout, De la Lande, and Muschenbrock are not in the preceding plan. They are not to be opened till you go to the University. You are now, I expect, learning French. You must push this; because the books which will be put into your hands when you advance into Mathematics, Natural philosophy, Natural history, &c. will be mostly French, these sciences being better treated by the French than the English writers. Our future connection with Spain renders that the most necessary of the modern languages, after the French. When you become a public man, you may have occasion for it, and the circumstance of your possessing that language, may give you a preference over other candidates. I have nothing further to add for the present, but husband well your time, cherish your instructors, strive to make every body your friend; and be assured that nothing will be so pleasing, as your success, to, Dear Peter,<br />Your's affectionately,<br />(*) Livy, Sullust, Caesar, Cicero's epistles, Suetonius, Tacitus, Gi<i>bbon.</i></blockquote>
</div>Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-5507486363569856562012-05-20T16:09:00.001-05:002012-05-20T16:09:42.438-05:00Fate<br />
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If I've learned anything in the last ten or so years of my life, it's to appreciate the fact that there's much in it I can't control...especially fate. Time and again I've set myself on a course of action and decided: "This is it. This is the way my life will go," only to look back later and realize how short-sighted I was. Regardless of the thoroughness of our plans, of the care and thought we put into them, they do not always come to pass...and this is not something to be bemoaned, either, because our plans for the future aren't necessarily the best that we might have pursued. In deviating from plans, either by accident or thoughtlessness, we may in fact put ourselves in a situation where we are better served.<br />
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For my own part, part of me sometimes thinks I might have been better off had I gone directly to university after high school, bypassing community college and the 'wasted' years between my graduation there and my entrance into a full university. But had I not gone to that community college, I would not have met particular people, people who changed my life. And the time I spent working a factory between college and university was most formative to the person I am today. It was there that I learned to be an adult, to stand on my own two feet - there that I learned the value of money and time, there that I started to question the way society worked. If I had gone directly to university following high school graduation, would I have gained anything by it? Would a Pentecostal boy have appreciated the intellectual stimulation of the university? Would I have flourished intellectually as an adult had the soil of my mind not already been tilled by those difficult years following graduation where I struggled to find myself?<br />
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I do not know, but I'm tempted to say, I doubt it. Maybe early separation from Pentecostalism would have freed my mind more quickly, but I for one think whatever mental strength I have came from the fact that I had to fight for my ideals, my thoughts, and my beliefs against oppressive dogma. There are other examples in this theme; for instance, when I moved to university I became friends with someone who betrayed me, and while part of me thinks if I had known that in advance I would have avoided him from the start, I am glad for the experience. The end of that friendship changed my life dramatically; it introduced me to the study of Stoicism, and made me aware of my own weaknesses. It gave me humility, which I never anticipated needing or profiting by. These little events could make quite a list. Time and again my plans for life have fallen apart, and for a time I thought myself lessened for it. I might groan at my mistakes, or regret hoped-for opportunities that never transpired. I might think my life had derailed...but every time my life has gone off the route I had planned for it, I've somehow found myself better off for it.<br />
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A more traditional person might say this is the Hand of God active in my life, moving me to where I am intended to be, working to ensure the best outcome. This is not the attitude I take, but when I reflect on my life I can't help but feel a sudden burst of gratitude. I didn't intend to live the life I'm living now, but I'm happy.<br />
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You may have heard the saying that fortune favors the prepared mind. This question of destiny is to me an interplay between fortune and virtue. Fortune, the happenstance of life, is fickle. It is a mistake to believe we can direct its course, either by praying to deities or relying on good luck tokens. For us, it is chaotic. One small action can set into action a course of events that leads in a different direction that we might have ever intended. We can't plan fortune; but we might manage it.<br />
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I mentioned an interplay between fortune and virtue, virtue being (in this case) preparing ourselves for the fickleness of fate. We do this in part by not becoming attached to any one series of events: we can't predict the ultimate outcome, so the attachment is foolish. An excellent choice one moment might set us up for great failure down the road, and a mistake might be a launching pad for greater success than we could ever imagine.<br />
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I'm reminded of a favorite fable or proverb I read a few years ago while doing readings in Buddhist philosophy.<br />
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<i>There was a man in a distant village with a prized horse, and one day the horse ran away. The man's neighbors approached him in sympathy, saying, "How terrible this is! Your best horse, gone! You must be distraught." The man only shrugged, and said, "We'll see."</i><br />
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<i>Shortly thereafter the horse reappeared, but he had attracted followers, his own herd. There were dozens of horses, and the man and his son corralled them all. They had enough animals to begin breeding them! Profits would be enormous! And the neighbors came by to celebrate, saying, "What a marvelous stroke of luck! You must be so pleased!". But to their surprise, the man only shrugged, and said -- "We'll see."</i><br />
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<i>The next day one of the horses kicked out at the man's sons; both of his legs were broken. Again the neighbors came in sympathy, saying, "Your only son, crippled! How terrible!". And the man shrugged, and said, "We'll see."</i><br />
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<i>A few months later, the nation went to war, and all the villages were called upon to send their young men into battle. The village's young men all went, with the exception of the crippled boy, who could not march. The nation's forces met in battle, and all of the village's sons were lost on the field. The grieving parents came to the man and said to him, "Of all of us, only your son has been spared. You must be pleased."</i><br />
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<i>And again, the man shrugged, and again, he said: "We'll see". </i><br />
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The fable ends there because all must end somewhere, but the point is that this interchange between the man and the villagers could have gone on forever. Life is never finished: it is a perpetual chain of events. We can never see what awaits us. That in mind, another way to be prepared for fate is to anticipate the responses we might need if life goes awry. For instance, I am saving up to go to graduate school and get a degree in library science --but I am also trying to find a way to learn less specialized skills, because there's no way of knowing that librarianship will be a viable career. The jobs may not be there, or the few which are may not enough to support me. That in mind, I want more resiliency. I also think we need to be courageous enough not to shy away from unexpected roads. Not only must we let go of plans which have been rendered impossible, but we have to move forward...and that is difficult to change-adverse creatures like ourselves. For my own part, I take courage in the words of Marcus Aurelius, who advised himself not to fear the future....for we will meet it with the same reason we have with us today.<br />
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All that we can do, essentially, is the best that we can do. We must make the best choices we can, in any given circumstance. If these turn out to be the wrong choices, or choices inferior to others (in hindsight), there is nothing to be gained in berating ourselves for these mistakes. We are not omniscient; we cannot account for everything, We have to make these choices moment to moment, based on information which is limited at best. Life is not a gaming competition: there's no scoreboard, no judge, no points to stack against one another. We're alive, so we might as well enjoy it.<br />
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<br />Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-50901100556324688212012-03-20T10:19:00.000-05:002012-03-20T10:19:40.234-05:00Spring (Vernal Equinox)Today marks the vernal equinox, the official beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere. Ever since the winter solstice, in December, the days have been growing ever-so longer. Today the day and night will be roughly equal, and beginning tomorrow the days will begin to be lengthier than the nights. Throughout most of my life I have begrudged the coming of spring: I like cooler weather, and when spring arrives I know summer -- summer, that endless stretch of months that smothers the south with a hot, sticky-wet blanket of air until October -- will not be too far behind. This year, though, I have experienced the winter more thoroughly than ever before. After a season of walking on cold streets with bare trees for company, I take positive delight in the arrival of spring. The trees are flowering, animals are chasing one another, and the days are just right for basking in the sun.<br />
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<i>Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king; </i><br />
<i>Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, </i><br />
<i>Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing.</i><br />
<i> Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!</i><br />
(Thomas Nashe)Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-64045697263483390972012-03-16T00:00:00.001-05:002012-03-16T00:00:04.260-05:00Freethought Friday<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3008/39522461.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Thomas Jefferson</i>, 1743 - 1826</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">"Life is of no value but as it brings us gratifications. Among the most valuable of these is rational society. It informs the mind, sweetens the temper, cheers our spirits, and promotes health."</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">p. 79, <i>Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: left;">For context, this was taken from a letter penned to John Madison from Thomas Jefferson, in which Jefferson invited Madison to retire from public life and buy a small farm near his estate, where Madison would have free access to the Jefferson library and the two could enjoy one another's intellectual company.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br />
</i></div>Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-91650697052860471162012-03-15T11:41:00.001-05:002012-03-15T11:43:26.900-05:00Adapting to a New Reality<div>From <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/03/13/the_new_oil_reality/singleton/">Salon</a>: </div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In energy terms, we are now entering a world whose grim nature has yet to be fully grasped. This pivotal shift has been brought about by the disappearance of relatively accessible and inexpensive petroleum — “easy oil,” in the parlance of industry analysts; in other words, the kind of oil that powered a staggering expansion of global wealth over the past 65 years and the creation of endless car-oriented suburban communities. This oil is now nearly gone.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The world still harbors large reserves of petroleum, but these are of the hard-to-reach, hard-to-refine, “tough oil” variety. From now on, every barrel we consume will be more costly to extract, more costly to refine — and so more expensive at the gas pump.</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Those who</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576572552998674340.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #cc0000; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">claim</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">that the world remains “awash” in oil are technically correct: The planet still harbors vast reserves of petroleum. But propagandists for the oil industry usually fail to emphasize that not all oil reservoirs are alike: Some are located close to the surface or near to shore, and are contained in soft, porous rock; others are located deep underground, far offshore or trapped in unyielding rock formations. The former sites are relatively easy to exploit and yield a liquid fuel that can readily be refined into usable liquids; the latter can only be exploited through costly, environmentally hazardous techniques, and often result in a product which must be heavily processed before refining can even begin.</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">The simple truth of the matter is this: Most of the world’s easy reserves have already been depleted — except for those in war-torn countries like Iraq. Virtually all of the oil that’s left is contained in harder-to-reach, tougher reserves. These include deep-offshore oil, Arctic oil and shale oil, along with Canadian “oil sands” — which are not composed of oil at all, but of mud, sand and tar-like bitumen. So-called unconventional reserves of these types can be exploited, but often at a staggering price, not just in dollars but also in damage to the environment.</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>In the oil business, this reality was first acknowledged by the chairman and CEO of Chevron, David O’Reilly</b>, in a <a href="http://www.chevron.com/documents/pdf/realissuesadtrillionbarrels.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #cc0000; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">2005 letter</a> published in many American newspapers. “One thing is clear,” he wrote, “the era of easy oil is over.” Not only were many existing oil fields in decline, he noted, but “new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically and even politically.”</span></blockquote><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Georgia, 'Droid Serif', 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</div><div>Isaac Asimov's <i>The Gods Themselves</i> is a fascinating science-fiction work with a sad message. In it, human beings accidentally discover a means of accessing virtually free energy, and quickly become dependent on it. The man who made this energy source available is hailed as a hero of humanity...but nothing is without its price. Another scientist is the first to suspect something amiss, and discovers that long-term use of this energy source will prove ultimately destructive. He finds, however, that getting people so accustomed to free energy to wean themselves off of it is night-impossible. Ultimately, another scientific breakthrough must save the day. While I've tried to avoid spoilers, the novel implies that it is more likely that the laws of the universe themselves will change than it is that human beings will be far-sighted enough to end behaviors which are attractive in the short run but which will prove -- in the end -- destructive. </div><div><br />
</div><div>We often prefer looking for ways to mitigate symptoms than to deal with the problem. Because we're not dealing with the source of the problem, though, it will keep appearing -- like a poisonous mushroom, no matter how many times we destroy the cap and stem, the underground spores will simply flower anew. For my own part, I increasingly prefer the direct approach of tackling the problem itself. This is why I'm particularly enamored of Stoicism: rather than dealing with the effects of emotions, Stoicism invites its students to address the emotions themselves -- to understand them, and so to deny them their power. The direct approach has served me well: it is why, in September when I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, I wasn't content to simply take a pill to regulate it. I didn't want to be stuck taking medication the rest of my life, and saw no reason for doing so if I had a choice. So I changed my diet to avoid too much sodium, and I committed myself to an active lifestyle. My doctor has since repeatedly slashed my prescriptions: while I once took 605 milligrams a day, I now take only 75, and I've lost 112 pounds to boot. Directness bears many fruits.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The above article's premise, that the era of cheap energy is permanently over, is thus problematic considering how much of the modern world is oil dependent. The amount of petroleum-derived products (plastics) we use in everyday life boggles the mind, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. The entire global economy --factories ships, airplanes, delivery trucks, many trains -- relies on oil-using transportation to function, and much of that economy consists of industries which depend on oil for other reasons. Automobile manufacture, supposedly the backbone of the American economy, produces a product entirely dependent on oil -- and even hybrids which can use electricity rely on power plants which use fossil fuels, including oil. In the United States, we have abandoned cities and mass transit in favor of suburbs and highway sprawl. Virtually everyone must use a car to go everywhere. All of this is already unsustainable -- the <a href="http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2011/6/14/the-growth-ponzi-scheme-part-2.html">infrastructure that sprawl demands</a> is too costly for the amount of people using it -- but oil will make this even more so. We can no longer take oil for granted. We must begin to force ourselves off the easy path and look for ways to live without using it as much. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Related:</div><div><i>The Long Emergency</i>, James Howard Kunstler</div><div><br />
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</div>Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-72768016281582107212012-03-05T20:44:00.000-06:002012-03-05T20:44:24.474-06:00The Joy of Living<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sseyUtOvetA" width="420"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Farewell you northern hills, you mountains all , goodbye</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Moorland and stony ridges, crags and peaks, goodbye</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Glyder Fach, farewell, Cul Beag, Scafell, cloud-bearing Suilven</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Sun-warmed rock and the cold of Bleaklow's frozen sea...</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The snow and the wind and the rain of hills and mountains</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Days in the sun and the tempered wind and the air like wine...</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And you drink and you drink till you're drunk</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>On the joy of living</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Farewell to you, my love, my time is almost done</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Lie in my arms once more, until the darkness comes</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>You filled all my days, held the night at bay, dearest companion..</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Years pass by and they're gone with the speed of birds in flight </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Our life, like the verse of a song heard in the mountains</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Give me a hand, then, love, and join your voice with mine</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>We'll sing of the hurt and the pain</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>And the joy of living</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Farewell to you my chicks, soon you must fly alone</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Flesh of my flesh, my future life, bone of my bone</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>May your wings be strong; may your days be long</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Safe be your journey.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Each of you bears inside of you the gift of love; </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>May it give to you light and warmth and the pleasure of giving</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Eagerly savour each new day in the taste of its mouth</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Never lose sight of the thrill and the joy</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Of living</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Take me to some high place of heather, rock, and ling</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Scatter my dust and ashes, feed me to the wind --</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>So that I will be part of all you see, the air you're breathing</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><i>I'll be part of the curlew's cry and the soaring hawk...</i><br />
<i>The blue milkwort and the sundew hung with diamonds</i><br />
<i>I'll be riding the gentle wind that blows through your hair</i><br />
<i>Reminding you how we shared</i><br />
<i>In the joy of living</i><br />
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</i>Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-74796136289578249882012-03-04T20:11:00.001-06:002012-03-04T20:13:01.953-06:00Confessions of a quasi-Luddite<i><br />
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Recently I surprised a <a href="http://emtmusings.blogspot.com/">blogger</a> at the KunstlerCast forums when I <a href="http://kunstlercast.com/forum/index.php?topic=5278.msg62545;topicseen#msg62545">mentioned</a> my minimalism regarding cellphones. I currently don't have one and rarely miss it: when I did own one, I kept it turned off until the late evening after my day of activity was over. My friends and I didn't need phones to keep up with one another, so I used mine to keep in touch with family. It doubled as an alarm clock. Unlike most of my generation, I never <i>took</i> to the cellphone. Early on I despised the way people answered them in the company of others, even at the dining table, and regarded the practice of talking while driving madness. I endeavor to keep the phone in its place -- turned off, and hidden deep in my pockets.<br />
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I suppose it is a little unusual that someone as young as I would have such a hostile attitude toward technology. I did grow up in a generation where being tech-savvy was the norm. Not a year went by without producing some new toy -- new game machines, watches with more features, CD players, mp3 players, etc. I used to keep up with it; I subscribed to appropriate magazines and spent long hours in the Electronics section of superstores, looking at all the wonderful stuff I might someday have. And yet, as I grew older, the allure faded. The constant stream of novelty began to bore me, as experienced prompted me to realize that no matter how excited people grew about one object or another, in a matter of months it would be broken and forgotten if not rendered obsolete by yet another gadget. By this time I'd entered the workforce and started to learn the value of money -- and for me, gadgets simply weren't worth my time and labor.<br />
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Beyond the factory, I've grown less starry-eyed about the advance of technology in general. I don't think our lives are actually improved by bigger televisions, smartphones, and monstrous vehicles with built-in TV players. History informs me that there are no actions without consequences, and the way people eagerly embrace changes without considering where they might lead concerns me. Take, for instance, cellular phones. I'm indebted to Neil Postman for giving me the vocabulary to articulate why the things bother me so: the ability to be connected constantly seems to have convinced people that we ought to be connected constantly, and moreover that there's something WRONG with not being connected. I for one like my privacy. I value solitude and quiet, and I truly despise the racket of a television and the obnoxious electronic whine of a phone. Every time one rings at home, I contemplate smacking it with a hammer. This ability of people to constantly demand one another's attention strikes me as entirely uncivilized: it is a medium of communication that demands virtually no consideration on our part, and the way people use them bears this out. They pull them them out everywhere, answer them everywhere, and let the world go by while their faces are drawn evermore frequently to a glowing blue screen, creating or reading some grotesque abortion of a sentence in English. Such is the practice of 'texting'.<br />
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Another example is that of automation. The term Luddite derives historically from a community of people who were angered that automation was rendering their work irrelevant. Their livelihood had been destroyed by machines, and rightfully they struck out against them. While I acknowledge that automation has made goods cheaper, I am also ever mindful of the human cost, and I cannot support its expansion unless some accommodation is made. I'm thinking of the other costs of automation, though: energy and the consequences of human inactivity. Although the US is in a prolonged energy crisis and over a third of Americans are obese (and susceptible to attendant health issues, like diabetes, hypertension, and cardiac woes), we insist on making life easier for people. We have constructed a society where most people MUST drive to get anywhere, by creating places unsafe to walk and bike, and spreading destinations across so wide an area that walking isn't remotely practical. Our homes are filled with 'energy-saving' appliances that force complete reliance on electricity, even when they're not in use. Considering that we are still relying on fossil fuels -- of which, in accordance with the laws of the universe there must be only a finite supply -- to power all this, the system is patently unsustainable. This is folly. We have made our lives so easy that we have to schedule time for 'exercise', whereas once we actually had to participate in life. I've come to believe that effort gives life meaning.<br />
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And so, for the last year or so, I've been phasing out dependence on some forms of technology when I can. I do this in part because I place so much value on sustainable -- reasonable -- living. I do this also because it makes my life simpler, quieter, and imminently more pleasurable. There are fewer distractions to badger me, and fewer drains on my resources. I'm evermore free to focus on the things which matter to me; the joy of living.<br />
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It's not that I'm a technophobe or an Amish convert. I'm enthusiastic about scientific advance and technological progress, but I don't confuse the latter with human progress. I simply believe we should be more mindful of our relationship with technology, considering its consequences. It's no more sensible to embrace novelty for its own sake than it is to cling to tradition for the sake of tradition. We should embrace or reject ideas based on their impact they have on our ability to enjoy happy, meaningful lives. A humanist in all things, I believe our actions and habits should be examined in the light of what they do for us -- or to us. We should be the masters of our tools, not the other way around, just as tradition and culture should serve us and not be our masters. So the next time the phone rings during your dinner, or while you are in the shower or reading a book, exercise your dominance over the phone. Don't answer it. Don't worry about it. And if keeps ringing, smack it with a hammer.<br />
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(Works for me.)<br />
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<b>Related</b>:<br />
<a href="http://let-me-be-frank.blogspot.com/2010/03/tv-and-me.html">"TV and Me"</a>Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-24724730709510621722012-01-22T20:18:00.000-06:002012-01-22T20:18:39.906-06:00An Odd Post: Science Advocacy<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/5725/guide1s.jpg" /></div><br />
If you play <i>The Sims 2, </i>I may have a treat for you in the form of a custom career, <b>Science Advocacy</b>. I wrote it in part to pay homage to the important role of science popularizers like Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Phil Plait. I attempted to create a logical progression of jobs, being guided sometimes by the aforementioned gentlemen's own careers. As I haven't learned to use the necessary software yet, another user (lientebollemeis) and I collaborated to insert this track into the game. I included quotations which stress the beauty and importance of science and science education at the end of every job description; you may recognize many of them if you've listened to "The Poetry of Reality", my favorite Symphony of Science production. If you would like to download the career, it is available at <a href="http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=466852">ModtheSims.com</a>.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/2141/gosci.jpg" /></div><br />
For those who play the game: the skills most needed are Charisma, Creativity, Cleaning, and Logic. Chance cards are currently being added. Here are the job descriptions.<br />
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<b>Gift Shop Employee</b><br />
Motivated by both the need for money and an interest in science, you've taken a job at a science museum's gift shop. Along with the usual retail duties of working the register and stocking shelves, the gift shop provides the more interesting challenge of explaining some of the items sold (including science experiment kits for children) to the families who enter. Your enthusiasm and communicative skills could very well ignite a spark of wonder that changes a life.<br />
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"Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works." - Michael Shermer<br />
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<b>Student Worker</b><br />
Now pursuing a degree in the scientific field of your choice, you've begun working for the school's science department. Duties include assisting the departmental secretary when not aiding professors during their lab classes. Sometimes you may earn some extra cash on the side as a tutor. Keep an eye on students mishandling microscopes or 'sharing experimental data' with their classmates, and remember -- if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.<br />
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"Science is a very human form of knowledge; we are always at the brink of the known." - Jacob Bronowski<br />
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<b>Teaching Assistant</b><br />
Now a graduate student beginning work on a thesis, your work keeps you in the classroom where you have taken on greater responsibilities. These include grading papers and preparing for the afternoon lab sessions. You'll be expected to take a more active role there, teaching in addition to checking student work. When class isn't in session, you can also expect to help your docent with his own research experiments.<br />
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"Science is a collaborative enterprise, spanning the generations. We remember those who prepared the way -- seeing for them, also." - Carl Sagan<br />
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<b>Museum Guide</b><br />
Though still a PhD candidate, your classroom studies are over: all that remains is thesis work. Moving away from the university requires a more steady paycheck, and so you've returned to where you began -- the science museum, where now you give guided tours, play movie presentations, and assist in the preparation of exhibits. Being able to explain concepts to a lay audience will be a boon here, so practice your communication skills.<br />
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"If you're scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you -- and that understanding empowers you." - Neil deGrasse Tyson<br />
<b>Assistant Professor</b><br />
Congratulations, doctor: your thesis completed and successfully defended, you are now a scientist and an educator. Chiefly you are responsible for freshman-level introductory courses in your field, so bear in mind the audience is largely disinterested in science and hostile given that they are taking your class only as per the requirements. It may be discouraging at times, but put in a few productive years and you may be hired on as a full-time instructor with license to teach your specialties.<br />
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"There's real poetry in the real world; science is the poetry of reality." - Richard Dawkins<br />
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<b>Scientific Journalist</b><br />
After a letter to a newspaper editor addressing careless scientific reporting on their part, you have been given the opportunity to write a weekly science column explaining to lay readers various new developments in science and outlining their potential. Introducing science to the public and interesting new minds in the field excites you, and so building on that you've begun to establish a web presence via a blog. Continue to work on those creative-writing skills if you really wish to shine.<br />
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"We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That's a clear prescription for disaster." - Carl Sagan<br />
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<b>Author</b><br />
A publishing firm saw the material on your blog and offered you a book deal, one which has proven to be a surprising success. The university is beginning to realize what an asset you are; look forward to a promotion in your near future. In the meantime, the public interaction you've achieved with your blog is quite satisfying and picking up traffic. If you attain enough name recognition, more book deals may be yours for the asking.<br />
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"The quest for the truth, in and of itself, is a story that is filled with insights." - Carolyn Porco<br />
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<b>Associate Professor</b><br />
Ah, tenure. The university has officially accepted you as one of its own. While still teaching the odd freshman course, the majority of your course load now consists of classes of particular interest to yourself, and which attract only serious students. Teaching like spirits is much more fulfilling than attempting to reach annoyed freshmen, but at the same time you find contributing articles to magazines and to your own blog even more exciting.<br />
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"I think that science changes the way your mind works, to make you think a little bit more deeply about things." - PZ Myers<br />
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<b>Professor</b><br />
At last you've reached the esteemed rank of full professor, a badge of honor which indicates expertise in your field, an esteemed reputation among your colleagues, and years of experience in helping succeeding generations understand and marvel at the world. Your blog is a roaring success, and you've started a twice-monthly podcast that has caught the attention of the national media -- and two more book contracts.<br />
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"It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it." - Carl Sagan<br />
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<b>Celebrity Scholar</b><br />
Host of an award-winning educational television show, author of no less than eleven books, and the news media's go-to expert for all science-related questions: you are The Face of science in the nation. People of all ages know your voice, and you've never been more popular. Through your work, adults have discovered a newfound appreciation for the world around them, and parents love your show for its ability to stimulate their children's imagination. More than a few young people have written to tell you that you were their inspiration for going into science. You're fulfilling your greatest ambition -- isn't life marvelous?<br />
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"The story of humans is the story of ideas -- ideas which shine a light into dark corners." - Jill TarteStephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-69470549697158255382012-01-20T10:44:00.000-06:002012-01-20T10:44:32.252-06:00Freethought Friday: the Measure of a Man<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/117/colbob.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Robert G. Ingersoll, 1833-1899)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">From "<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/civil_rights.html">Civil Rights</a><span id="goog_1682593513"></span><span id="goog_1682593514"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a>", since we in the United States observed Martin Luther King's birthday this week. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><blockquote class="tr_bq">I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart -- the best brain. Superiority is born of honesty, of virtue, of charity, and above all, of the love of liberty. The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.</blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
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</div>Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-44678619496667666032012-01-06T10:16:00.000-06:002012-01-06T10:16:02.245-06:00A Reading on Selfish GenesFrom Steven Pinker's <i>How the Mind Works, </i>p. 44<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">The confusion between our goals and our genes' goals has spawned one muddle after another. A reviewer of a book about the evolution of sexuality protests that adultery, unlike the animal equivalent, cannot be a strategy to spread the genes because adulterers take steps to prevent pregnancy. But whose strategy are we talking about? Sexual desire is <i>not</i> people's strategy to propagate their genes. It's people's strategy to attain the pleasures of sex, and the pleasures of sex are the genes' strategy to propagate themselves. If the genes don't get propagated, it's because we are smarter than they are. [...] Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is to build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.</blockquote>Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34644198.post-29968134771267906252011-12-23T10:33:00.000-06:002011-12-23T10:33:04.756-06:00Freethought Friday:<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/117/colbob.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Robert G. Ingersoll, 1833-1899)</div>From "<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/how_to_reform_mankind.html">How to Reform Mankind</a>".<br />
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<blockquote>Let each human being, within the limits of the possible be self-supporting; let every one take intelligent thought for the morrow; and if a human being supports himself and acquires a surplus, let him use a part of that surplus for the unfortunate; and let each one to the extent of his ability help his fellow-men. Let him do what he can in the circle of his own acquaintance to rescue the fallen, to help those who are trying to help themselves, to give work to the idle. Let him distribute kind words, words of wisdom, of cheerfulness and hope. In other words, let every human being do all the good he can, and let him bind up the wounds of his fellow-creatures, and at the same time put forth every effort, to hasten the coming of a better day.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>This, in my judgment, is real religion. To do all the good you can is to be a saint in the highest and in the noblest sense. To do all the good you can; this is to be really and truly spiritual. To relieve suffering, to put the star of hope in the midnight of despair, this is true holiness. This is the religion of science. The old creeds are too narrow, they are not for the world in which we live. The old dogmas lack breadth and tenderness; they are too cruel, too merciless, too savage. We are growing grander and nobler.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>The firmament inlaid with suns is the dome of the real cathedral. The interpreters of nature are the true and only priests. In the great creed are all the truths that lips have uttered, and in the real litany will be found all the ecstasies and aspirations of the soul, all dreams of joy, all hopes for nobler, fuller life. The real church, the real edifice, is adorned and glorified with all that Art has done. In the real choir is all the thrilling music of the world, and in the star-lit aisles have been, and are, the grandest souls of every land and clime.</blockquote><br />
<blockquote>"There is no darkness but ignorance."<br />
Let us flood the world with intellectual light.</blockquote>Stephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15097908023032528200noreply@blogger.com2