Having Children: Uh, What Are You, Insane?

Speaking as a person who has done so, sure, I can say that having kids is easy - almost anyone can do it, whether or not they actually want to.

And for most it's among the preeminent events of their lives.

But here's some truth up front: parents talk all the time, amongst themselves or with people they trust not to make fun of them, about how it's much harder to be a parent than anyone thought to mention beforehand. This is essentially because most trusted child development experts and other sources of parental wisdom either don't know what they're talking about on that particular point, or are, for their own selfish reasons, simply lying about it.

If you are thinking about becoming a parent yourself, try to determine whether you have serious doubts about whether you'd be a good one. If you do, or if you plan to wonder this sometime in the future, DO NOT PROCREATE.

I can't emphasize this strongly enough. Some of those aforementioned parents or experts will wax nostalgic about the rewards of parenting. It's a dangerous game they're playing. They're either deluding themselves with possible criminal intent, or their little bundle of joy is still helpless and inarticulate, unable to voice its pent-up feelings of unreasoning ingratitude and rage - at you, for bringing it into this veil of tears.

Okay, yes, in all honesty, it's been hugely rewarding being a parent so far, but it has also been a chrome-plated bitch and a half - and if anyone should display the temerity of skipping over that fact, check their back pocket for the bridge they probably want to sell. Many of those hugely rewarding moments of parenthood are otherwise known as learning opportunities, my dear credulous reader, and they don't come cheap. Actually this understanding usually comes after the fact, usually way too late ("Hm, I probably shouldn't have called my child weird to his face" or "Uh, I guess that career choice I made is now causing actual harm to my neglected baby - sorry, my bad." ) So most of these marvelous learning opportunities go hand in hand with thoughts such as "Ugh, now I'm sorry I (said/did/screamed) that."

But it's REALLY HARD not to make mistakes, what with being human and all. It's a bit of a problem that at first some mistakes aren't obvious, just extremely serious. There's a deadly difference between the two.

And perhaps the worst part is: you know if you'd just paid attention, you'd have maybe picked up one of life's little signs or signals. When I'm being honest, I admit that when I'm presented with the opportunity to stay ignorant of whatever life is trying to tell me, truly, sometimes I bloody well opt to stay ignorant. When my son describes to me his delicate interactions with life and acquaintances at school or camp, for instance the kids torturing one another about nascent sexuality issues ("You're a fag!" "No, you are!") or simply inflicting suffering on unlucky lower-order creatures ("Jessie was burning ants today with the magnifying glass she stole from school"), I get the shivers myself. I want to stop hearing about it. I can't help it - I remember what it was like to be that age, not knowing the tiniest little bit about anything, practically, including why people (myself included) were so cruel, or why life was so confusing, or what the future was going to be like if things kept on the way they were going. My God, it sucked, it sucked with such withering inevitability - why should a person want to do that to a child they love, knowing with such certainty what it was like to go through it themselves?

If this describes you and your experience in any level of detail, you've got some hard thinking to do, my friend. Because if you are to have any chance of keeping your emotional baggage to yourself and not loading your wide-eyed offspring up with unhelpful accoutrements that don't belong to them, you're going to need an iron will, nerves of steel, balls of brass - you name the metal-oriented cliche. And even with the best of intentions you're going to fail at this task more than a little. Be honest, not to say realistic, for a moment - when was the last time you kept a New Year's Resolution and were a loving, nurturing person at the same time?

And sadly, those most in need of advice are the ones who least heed it. If you're reading this, it's because you either admitted at least to the random-chance possibility that I'm right, or you've got ulterior motives and it's unlikely I could talk you into much anyway. But for those of us who are getting flattened under the genetic thumb of Mother Nature, our brains probably aren't wired to act on any of this. We're just. Gonna. Fuck.

That's life, I guess, and I hope the species is able to avoid procreating itself back to the Stone Age or worse - little thanks to certain people, of course. At least those people can reassure themselves with the idea that though survival does tend to favor the smart, it doesn't always.

And some people aren't cut out to be parents and desperately want to know it - they read books, talk to people who have been there, get a puppy, etc. They figure it out eventually. I applaud those people and their lonely, beautiful lives - you, folks, have done your best to keep us out of a Malthusian charnel house, you've sacrificed your opportunity to pass on your genetic heritage and almost nobody has recognized you for it. Thank you (and I do hope you know what you're doing).

But I digress from my planned digression, which was to observe that of course, once we're all back in the Garden of Eden, we'll be at liberty to indulge in that divine "Go forth and multiply" proclamation again.

Or, failing that, we might just shortcut across the karmic trail and hose ourselves out gradually across a vast universe, boldly going to encounter whatever is out there. We are categorically, congenitally, axiomatically incapable of anticipating most of it, so we may need some luck. Simply to contemplate the notion is practically insane. Like some other notions previously mentioned.

And maybe, just maybe, what'll be called for is a hardy type of person who can't get bogged down in the details of whether it'll be too hard, or worth doing, or whether or not they'll be a good enough parent to their kids. They're just gonna pump out those little kneebiters and fret about the mess later.

Which reminds me - She's got it coming and there's no possible way she doesn't realize it, so the next time I meet Mother Nature I'm gonna punch her in the snoot.

Would You Trust This Man With Your Country?

Ah, you thought ... oh. Nah. I was talking about this guy:

Not the lighthearted type, he - one might guess. The weight of the world on his eyebrow ridges, apparently.

I encountered the above gentleman (if I may stretch the term a tad) this evening in an unexpected context. My daughter needed a toothbrush, so we made our way to the local too-ubiquitous-to-name drugstore and she found a "beautiful" notebook without which her world would be poisoned by wanton tragedy and deprivation, and she remembered (I didn't) that she still needed to pay me back for the last impossible-not-to-purchase thing and - the rest is U.S. History.

That's right - this guy is on hard currency. Hover the mouse on him and all is revealed; hopefully you didn't ruin the suspense by skipping ahead.

So some rumors about the man are most likely true, such as his fondness for drink and his administration's ringing reputation for corruption. But the scandals that embarrassed his White House often originated before his inauguration and his enlightened (for the era) policies promoting the rights, dignity and autonomy of freedmen and native Americans should soften modern hearts towards his presidency. So is that why he's on a dollar coin?

I thought 'nope - he's there because he beat Robert E. Lee." Although recently there's been an upswell of love for past chief executives of the nation at the U.S. mint, I reasoned, "Well, surely not every president gets his own coin." But shame on me for my anti-egalitarian cynicism, because they do - apparently they just have to be dead.

 

And as it happens they mostly are. The Great Equalizer puts their mug in a bunch of pockets!

Putting Clothes on the Ghost: Why formulating and promulgating a "school of thought" is an admission of intellectual defeat

[DRAFT] Putting Clothes on the Ghost: Why formulating and promulgating a "school of thought" is an admission of intellectual defeat


--- To Exaggerate is Human, to Speak Plainly, Divine

It is an unfortunate likelihood of human existence that you know both more and less than you realize you do. The proof is both statistical and anecdotal, perhaps one of the symmetries most difficult to mistake in the entire scope of our existence. Many of us may never completely integrate the realization that the face we passed in the road, the forgotten punchline, the exact location of our cell phone when we needed it, were all stored electrically and/or biochemically on our physical or virtual person, and thus even when we couldn’t remember that frustrating something, we still in some comforting sense “knew” it. However, in a moment of deflated ego we might ponder: is it an intentional quirk of definition that we can still “know” things we can’t exactly remember?

--- Academic/Scientific Crime or Misdemeanor?



The author speaks not as an initiate, merely as an observer - but one may also notice that in the various disciplines of the Humanities there can be argued to exist a certain level of dedication to scholarship and textual accuracy among the various “schools”, which then go right on to extol a particular set of assumptions about their field of study, and denigrate or ignore the assumptions of other schools (which seems mainly the result of semantic difficulties arising from inevitable differences in experience and subsequent classification of that experience). Within the sciences there exists a similar unifying commitment to the scientific process and a similar (though perhaps more limited) distaste for others’ theory and practice. One might surmise this entirely human state of affairs results from competitive monetary pressures, and of course ego, interacting with the pragmatic realities of research and public events (and other related misfortunes) - and perhaps not go far wrong.


It is rarer to encounter the scientist or academic who both privately and publicly admits to the basic competence of those dissenting from their own august opinion, but in times of plentiful funding a core conviviality may rise to the top, and might just tamp down the rougher exposed surfaces of professional interaction, mixing rather freely with a pragmatic professional courtesy, and perhaps even a healthy dollop of personal respect between colleagues. Competitive pressures across a host of domains are assuredly known to wax and wane. It could happen.


The human mind seeming such a provincial entity, however, each one's individual owner appears most likely to opt for willful disagreement instead of more effortful commitments at understanding the nuances of a genuinely differing point of view. We assume this to be ingrained adult behavior and indicative of having a distinct (if not reasoned) opinion. The author will, time permitting, strive to clearly show it to be neither.
---

Ah, did you suspect you'd had an original thought somewhere back there? No? Hardly possible, isn't it, given the sweeping immense wash of existence that came before now? We're not even sure this is our first universe! (Have you checked?) So there's a definish chance that nothing'll ever be new under any sun. But the word "unique" has had its singular quality droned out of it by relentless profligate adverbiage, so no real harm done if your "unique" conception is impossibly more or less "unique" than what a silicon-based spider-crab a billion years and ten billion parsecs from here already came up with. It's all rather relative in the end and we should entertain the happenstance that "unique" as a concept can and probably should be written blithely off as axiomatically unworkable. Left unchecked, its unjustified glorification may well insult the very notion of intellectual perspective.

With that idea left sufficiently entertained in a quiet corner of the room, we can then move on to the question of who gets to choose what's acceptably interesting if nothing's "unique" per se. In our little corner of reality, surely in every era there exists a core system of rational beliefs that transmits a critical ontology, an essence of being, between civilizations, yes? How can we even pretend to know, for instance, that the ancient Greeks were referring to eternal, unchanging forms rather than some faddish, stultifying idea of perfection that we infinitely more modern minds recognize as laughably invalid? Need we extend every other culture - okay, let's be honest, every other mind - the generous benefit of doubt implied when, for instance, we acknowledge that a net of words has successfully entrapped some unfortunate intellectual actuality that's truly common between us? In the words of a clear-thinking writer just a few miles down the road from here, we are forced by honest appraisal to ask:

How do we know that X is ABC? If we answer this by saying that we know what A, B, and C are, and if we have to explain our understanding of A, B, and C in a similar way, there is no way out. 1

Faced with "no way out," who wouldn't want to throw their lot in with Plato's eternal forms? To many of us their appeal is undeniable:

They are independently existing entities whose existence and nature are graspable only by the mind, even though they do not depend on being so grasped in order to exist.

Ahhhh. A safe place to anchor our boat in hard epistemological seas. We're guaranteed there's something that predates our fallible knowing - you could almost believe that grasping an eternal form represents a kind of a priori knowledge that's independent of bumbling experience, and therefore trustworthy, eh?

Rather further to the west someone argues:

A priori knowledge is the condition of the possibility of knowledge in general. 2

Yes, these are related statements. We're going back a couple of millennia to argue that here you can trust something in particular [sic] to be specifically true [sic] because it was around before we got here and should therefore outlast us. A priori knowledge may have had all manner of common sense nonsense attached to it, in essentially the same fashion as the practice of war has been obliged to tow the precepts of the Geneva Convention around wherever it goes - but the fact remains that it's a type of knowledge that might actually earn that elusive badge of honor known as  "unique." Simply put, with a priori knowledge you either got it or you ain't.

--- That's It, I"m No Longer A Vegetarian

Let's be a little less silly about this assertion for a moment. A philosopher is basically saying this - the definition of philosopher being "that class of cynical idealist who believes that if he makes his words shriek in epistemological indignation consistently and mercilessly enough, he has arrived at an iteration of Truth which is not shameful in the eyes of The Infinite and his fellow verity-seekers" - basically, if a second philosopher leans on a priori knowledge even a little bit, then if they can't see things the way the first philosopher does, they're wrong. Or (as Aristotle delicately put it), they've got the brains of a plant. Either way, game over. You lose, Alfie.

That sounds familiar. I recall hearing that in several churches I only entered once (since my parents were pretty reasonable about such things). Those bodies of worship seemed incapable of brooking real inquiry, of sheltering the freethinking monk of David Drake and Eric Flint's An Oblique Approach (link).

I hear hackles going up in geographically diverse places at that one - which is good. Don't skip that link!

--- Oh No, I Smell More Italics Approaching

You get my point now? You may not be up for re-examining what you believe in light of, well, literally every other belief out there, but don't put your thumb on someone's scale with any pretensions to metaphysical authority. It's time to belabor the point to a cringeworthy extent, Ready? You're just fooling yourself - you literally can't convince everybody (or even everybody who matters to you) with literally the best arguments ever devised. 

And in the end, can you even convince yourself, if you're being honest?

--- Wait, So It's Questions All The Way Down?

 

Is "there are no absolutes" the only absolute worth trying to prove? 

What does that tell you about the nature of paradox with regard to "proving" your logic?

And what if you can't stop yourself from trying? What kind of brain are you running up there, if you insist on letting it follow a flawed argument, and don't let it form reliable, high-quality conclusions?

 

Sure, you can simply jump to them instead - and there have been plenty of charismatic, vocal cheering squads throughout history who will clap your back and personally escort your faithful carcass up to the Gates of Heaven … except they cannot give you the answer you need the most: that yes indeed, it's all real, it's all true. Of course that's where you go next. Life's fair after all, and you loved, suffered and were snuffed out of existence for a good reason.

I'm sorry - it's important to me that I believe what I can. Not what I should, or what I want, but what I'm CAPABLE of believing. It doesn't consistently follow that believing something comforting means believing something that's true.

But I want to feel good about what I believe.

Think again. That's a very limited analytical framework you're working with. It's reliable as far as it can be ... but it stops at your point of discomfort.

Ever seen something you were uncomfortable with, but had to accept?

Yeah, me too. And by (if you'll pardon the interjection) logical extension ... there's an awfully good chance that other things that are true in this mysterious universe aren't particularly comforting, either. I could advise you to put on your big boy / girl / appropriate label pants and just deal with it - but this isn't that sort of essay. 

I know what you mean when you say, for example, I want to feel good about what I believe.

Who would intentionally attack problems of this scope with a limited analytical framework? And why?

Who indeed. Us, that's who. Seriously, what choice do we have? If there's an intergalactic atlas somewhere in which our species has been honored to be included, our byline could usefully read "Limited analytical framework." That may describe us better than most phraseology could. It sure makes a great epitaph.

Science, one of our species' intellectual pinnacles, keeps discovering what a freaking miracle it is that it exists at all. Specifically in the area of brain science, we continualy beggar our own imaginations with the degree and expanse of our woebegotten state, our inbuilt disadvantages, and our murky propsects. We don't even like to think often about uncomfortable things!

Yet, we aspire to godlke intellectual power and grace. Certainly, we don't want foolish error to define our grandest inquiries. Yeah, we've got these wrinkly, fallible bags of fatty tissue as our primary tools for parsing Truth. 

So?

So, instead of "limited analytical framework," how about we just settle on "pretentiously presumptuous," for our epitaph (assuming we can make the appropriate arrangements)? What it lacks in charm, it makes up for in descriptive accuracy.

(editing note: Does it require systematic attachment damage to recruit an Islamist army of young boys? That's a dandy tangent to hang on this framework, eh?)

If there is something in our sweeping history of letters, of which we can be at least infinitesimally proud, it would be our collossal impertinence. We routinely admit of no realistic possibilities, we blithely ignore the very real chance that our own ignorance may obliterate us, we cheekily build Babel towers to the literal and figurative heavens with astounding unconcern for the miniscule import of our greatest works. Cosmic effrontery is our specialty.

---

Any other oddyssey of the mind will eventually become enmired in the limitations inherent to its perspective. I propose that despite the human intellect's grand intentions toward philosophical worldbuilding, it is ultimately gaining an understanding of the entire universe of worlds that can be built, rather than pursuing a more provincial focus on any of those individual, marvelous little worlds, which is the true mission of the intellect.

Also, that oddyssey (while being of immeasureably larger scope than any others it may encompass) must eventually be understood to have limits as well. A commonsensical approach to that problem will require a better appreciation of irony than this essay can muster.

Sources:

1  - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwiQzpPx5PDHAhUHD5IKHbarDpk&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffaculty.washington.edu%2Fsmcohen%2F320%2Fthforms.htm&usg=AFQjCNEPYv3NJtNJ0-lw_5Bc5dyHO2ZrYw&sig2=GvlxrVhe1GG_1xazR8P1TQ&bvm=bv.102537793,d.aWw

Downloaded 9/11/2015

2 - http://www.csudh.edu/phenom_studies/study/glossary.htm

Downloaded 9/11/2015

Tarantino / Hip Deep in Hyperbole

Why we may love Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" at our peril

One - Having just read "When Jews Attack," a very clever Newsweek review of Quentin Tarantino's recent "Inglourious Basterds," I thought about whether I would go and see this latest frothy tankard of Hollywood soft-core porn. I want to, because friends have said it's a lot of fun. But having read that review, I wonder if it might be a "Fun With Scapegoats!" kind of fun rather than a relaxing, an uplifting, an ennobling, enlightening, perhaps even bringing-the-human-race-together kind of fun. I wonder if it's the kind of fun I used to have when I stuck caterpillars down ant holes and watched them flail for their lives as the ants dragged them inexorably into their horrible tunnels. I couldn't exactly call those caterpillars Nazis (much less the ants), but I'm sure I could come up with something in order to justify the fun I was having - they're evil bugs, they destroy the plants we love and enjoy, er, something like that. There needs to be some reasonable rationalization in place in order to shut up that "hey, wait, isn't this wrong?" voice. In like fashion scapegoating truly works wonders, and Nazis have been making easy ones since before V-E day. A textbook case, they're easy to hate without compunction, dehumanize without consequence, and eliminate on film without guilt. They did it to themselves, you might say. Hm - am I just imagining I heard something like that in a dodgy translation of a scratchy old Hitler speech?

Hitler sure got people going. You could say he went from mixed-media to mass media in one grand, scheming leap. If you know German, aren't put off by his ludicrous posturing, and overlook his historical reputation as one of Satan's tools on Earth (if you'll pardon the incongruous-for-me Christian-flavoring), he gives the outward appearance of an inspiring figure, fighting for the rights of a beleaguered, trod-upon and indignant people. Factoring for the lies and maneuvering, he tailored his message for his audience in a time of great opportunity and got all the political power with which that audience felt like rewarding him. Of course, it wasn't just his audience who paid dearly for that zealous caprice.

Two - So Tarantino has learned his craft to at least the same degree of technical proficiency. Similarly, he has always used anger and vengeance as both vehicle and subtext in his work, and his final solutions are also similar, though small in scale, and incomparably more personal. But he's a fantasist, not a demagogue. Due simply to his tools, his methods, and the effect of his work, could you ever say Tarantino's a highly successful imp of Satan as well? Such an argument would surely imply that it's lucky his political ambitions are limited - and that he has a clear idea (up to now) of the dividing line between entertainment and incitement. And of course I say that as a card-carrying agnostic. So perhaps if I believed in Satan, and if Quentin Tarantino's campaign played rousing clips of his films to cheering supporters during a successful run for president, I'd have to conclude the Prince of Darkness was proud of his brown-eyed boy. But not yet, bub.

Three - Why would I malign an American success story this way, who once was a video store clerk, and who now commands such cultural power? I'd have to go with an ends-justify-means argument there. Do you really have to see such glorification of violence, or could you get by with a slightly less potent and clinically devastating brew for your cinematic grog? I say clinically devastating here because if the research hasn't yet been done to establish the likely damage to psyches and societies, it probably should be. So let me go out on a limb and assert that justifying violence (even as satisfying entertainment) is probably not a reliable way of addressing society's ills. It's got a bit of a reputation, hasn't it?

Four - So am I advocating censorship of this (or any) film? Hell no - but at the other extreme I don't advocate cigarettes for babies, either. I'm getting to be a big fan of balance and moderation the longer I inhabit the planet; maybe I'm actually learning something, or maybe I'm just getting more deeply invested in the process, I don't know. But I think people ought to have a clue what they're gorging on if it's going to change their brain chemistry (as the research does in fact show for intensely violent images).

I think you should know as much about what people are doing to you as the people who are doing it. That way you can use any part of your brain you like (not just your amygdala) as you're considering whether to vote the Pulp Fiction Party straight ticket.

Ok, I know, we're hip deep in hyperbole. But to twist the phrase "better the devil you know" - I would observe, better you know the devil. Speaking, as I mentioned, agnostically of course.

Hm. He's got a new one called "The Hateful Eight." Want to bet it caters to the Vengeance Instinct?