We have, mainly, two great axes today upon which modern explanations of social phenomena turn. One, the economic/Marxist reduction; two, the religious/secular dichotomy, the latter a distinction which has carried such a load of late that it is in danger of spilling out and spoiling everyone's complacency.
A third analysis of why we do what we do comes from German philosopher Hegel, who plucked from Ancient Greece the tripartite conception of the person (reason, desire, and thymos). It is the thymos, he said, that drives history. Thymos is roughly the desire to be recognized. It's what makes us feel shame. Or pride. It is rooted in a conception of human freedom that is, at bottom, the notion that we are not understood completely by desires or by reason (roughly, by Marx or by Enlightenment secularism). The thymotic urge is a warriors urge, in us all, and finds its basic expression in the willingness to risks one's life to prove that one is free. Animals, when thirsty, just drink. People have the ability to delay desire, and they have the ultimate capacity to demonstrate that they are not animals by risking their lives (in modern times, we can cash this out as "dying for symbols of freedom", like medals, or honors).
Unfortunately I'm travelling tomorrow and have (true to form) hardly packed or even gotten my hotel room yet, so I can't burrow into this to the depth that it deserves.
Suffice it for now to say that the modern mind, trying to fit bad things around us into either an economically disadvantaged model (Marx) or a whacky-religious model (Enlightenment), is I think inadequate. What they want, and what makes them feel so alive, and so much better than the desiring "last men" who no longer care about honor but just material comforts before they too perish from the Earth, is recognition. How to change the debate such that they can have it, is surely worth talking about.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Magazines
None, right now. I did purchase a Wired a while back, but in a section titled "Here are three things we got wrong, 1993-2008", they cited Fukuyama's The End of History. Among the more bone-headed claims I've seen in print lately, this gem stands out:
"
Francis Fukuyama proclaimed that history ended with the demise of the Soviet Union. The future would be characterized not by the literal but only the figurative war of ideas. We believed him.
We were wrong. Wired failed to see how a new generation of fanatical geeks would use the Internet in their effort to take over the world. Instead of ending, history looped back on itself, and we are now confronted by a recrudescent and particularly virulent religious ideology straight out of the Middle Ages.
We recognized a world in transition, but we missed the danger in front of us. We eschewed conventional wisdom, but we couldn't escape it. Takeaway: Be contrarian, and then be contrarian again.
"
Yes, that's the takeaway, you shiny paged, over glamorized pseudo-intellectual gee whiz nitwits. That's precisely not what Fukuyama said. I'm sure he's philosophical about getting misrepresented in the popular like-to-seem-smart media. If I were him I'd laugh or cry, but kindly suggest to the editor of Wired that they stick to GPS enabled toilet paper, laser sighted lipstick, and whatever other techy auto-erotica adorn the pages of this unfortunate 'zine.
"
Francis Fukuyama proclaimed that history ended with the demise of the Soviet Union. The future would be characterized not by the literal but only the figurative war of ideas. We believed him.
We were wrong. Wired failed to see how a new generation of fanatical geeks would use the Internet in their effort to take over the world. Instead of ending, history looped back on itself, and we are now confronted by a recrudescent and particularly virulent religious ideology straight out of the Middle Ages.
We recognized a world in transition, but we missed the danger in front of us. We eschewed conventional wisdom, but we couldn't escape it. Takeaway: Be contrarian, and then be contrarian again.
"
Yes, that's the takeaway, you shiny paged, over glamorized pseudo-intellectual gee whiz nitwits. That's precisely not what Fukuyama said. I'm sure he's philosophical about getting misrepresented in the popular like-to-seem-smart media. If I were him I'd laugh or cry, but kindly suggest to the editor of Wired that they stick to GPS enabled toilet paper, laser sighted lipstick, and whatever other techy auto-erotica adorn the pages of this unfortunate 'zine.
Newspapers
Print
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Austin American Statesman
Online
Whatever shows up on my Yahoo page and in occasional targeted searches
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Austin American Statesman
Online
Whatever shows up on my Yahoo page and in occasional targeted searches
Books
Hast du mein Buch? Here they are for 2007-2008, going back about a year, not including Ph.D. research
Nonfiction I've read, in no particular order:
1. The Social Life of Information By Brown and Duguid (philosophy of information technology)
2. Deep Survival By Laurence Gonzalez (survival accounts with neuroscience analysis)
3. The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand (historical account of pragmatism in America)
4. The Search By John Bartelle (biography of Google)
5. The End of Faith By Sam Harris (critique of historical religion)
6. The End of History by Francis Fukuyama (political philosophy)
Nonfiction I've read at least half through (and mostly plan to finish):
1. Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam (political science)
2. Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig (legal issues in technology)
3. A Good Hard Kick in the Ass by Rob Adams (some good hard boring business book)
4. The World is Curved by David Smick (economics)
5. The Necessity of Experience by Edward Reed (philosophy)
Nonfiction I've read before and returned to re-read large chunks again:
1. After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre (political philosophy)
2. Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche (who's Nietzsche?)
3. Consilience by Edward O. Wilson (philosophy of science)
4. The Mind Doesn't Work That Way by Jerry Fodor (philosophy of mind, Artificial Intelligence)
5. Nonzero by Robert Wright (philosophy of history)
6. Blown to Bits by Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster (business, technology)
Nonfiction I've started on, but haven't made much progress on yet (maybe <= 25%):
1. Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi (philosophy of science)
2. Making Globalization Work by Joseph Stiglitz (politics, economics)
3. Chances Are by Michael and Ellen Kaplan (probability theory)
4. Linked by Albert - Laszlo Barabasi (technology, science)
Nonfiction I've referenced pretty extensively:
1. Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick (political philosophy)
2. The Portable Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann (who's Nietzsche?)
3. The Conscious Mind by David Chalmers (philosophy of mind)
Fiction I've read:
By Michael Crichton
1. Next
2. State of Fear
3. Airframe
4. Timeline
5. Prey
Started on:
6. Disclosure (won't likely finish)
Other fiction I've sampled:
7. Short Stories of Hemingway (read, notably, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and a few others)
8. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (a reread)
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Books I'm currently reading:
1. Churchill by Roy Jenkins (biography of Winston Churchill)
2. The World is Curved by David Smick (referenced above)
3. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (just started)
Nonfiction I've read, in no particular order:
1. The Social Life of Information By Brown and Duguid (philosophy of information technology)
2. Deep Survival By Laurence Gonzalez (survival accounts with neuroscience analysis)
3. The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand (historical account of pragmatism in America)
4. The Search By John Bartelle (biography of Google)
5. The End of Faith By Sam Harris (critique of historical religion)
6. The End of History by Francis Fukuyama (political philosophy)
Nonfiction I've read at least half through (and mostly plan to finish):
1. Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam (political science)
2. Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig (legal issues in technology)
3. A Good Hard Kick in the Ass by Rob Adams (some good hard boring business book)
4. The World is Curved by David Smick (economics)
5. The Necessity of Experience by Edward Reed (philosophy)
Nonfiction I've read before and returned to re-read large chunks again:
1. After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre (political philosophy)
2. Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche (who's Nietzsche?)
3. Consilience by Edward O. Wilson (philosophy of science)
4. The Mind Doesn't Work That Way by Jerry Fodor (philosophy of mind, Artificial Intelligence)
5. Nonzero by Robert Wright (philosophy of history)
6. Blown to Bits by Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster (business, technology)
Nonfiction I've started on, but haven't made much progress on yet (maybe <= 25%):
1. Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi (philosophy of science)
2. Making Globalization Work by Joseph Stiglitz (politics, economics)
3. Chances Are by Michael and Ellen Kaplan (probability theory)
4. Linked by Albert - Laszlo Barabasi (technology, science)
Nonfiction I've referenced pretty extensively:
1. Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick (political philosophy)
2. The Portable Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann (who's Nietzsche?)
3. The Conscious Mind by David Chalmers (philosophy of mind)
Fiction I've read:
By Michael Crichton
1. Next
2. State of Fear
3. Airframe
4. Timeline
5. Prey
Started on:
6. Disclosure (won't likely finish)
Other fiction I've sampled:
7. Short Stories of Hemingway (read, notably, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and a few others)
8. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (a reread)
9. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Books I'm currently reading:
1. Churchill by Roy Jenkins (biography of Winston Churchill)
2. The World is Curved by David Smick (referenced above)
3. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (just started)
Questionable Ethics
There's an interesting article in the Austin American Statesman today about a University of Texas at Austin astronomy professor, John Lacy, quitting work on a NASA project that seeks to "determine the chemical makeup of objects light years away." His problem? The instrument Lacy developed, along with a telescope, are afixed to a modified Boeing 747 that will be flying about four times a week between 8 - 12 hours each time, according to the article. It's too much pollution for Lacy.
It's true, those who travel by jet are serious Co2 emitters; scientists attribute "up to 3 percent of all carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming to plane engines." Planes are specifically troubling to GW proponents because their deposits of pollution in the upper atmosphere have a more severe warming effect. (To the rich, who've taken up GW as their cause: stop flying around telling us that the planet has a fever! What's next, I visit restaurants, chain-smoking, telling people about the horrors of second hand smoke?)
Anyway, Lacy's out. Of course he's been supported (publically) by other scientists, though curiously with luke warm language. Nicholas Veronico, head of the project, gave his obligatory plaudits to Lacy in the article, then pointed out that there's an average of 28,537 commercial flights handled by air traffic control each day. The effect, he says, will be minimal. That's an understatement, Mr. Veronico.
Lacy's argument seems a little like a scientist who refuses to perform research on developing better prosthetic limbs because it requires use of a certain non-degrading plastic compound. Sounds pretty ethically first-rate, perhaps, until one realizes that the compound is used in thousands of other projects and products, and the percentage of the total amount used for improving prosthetics is miniscule. Or, insert your favorite argument here.
As much as fellow scientists said kind things about Mr. Lacy, I think most reasonable people should be skeptical of the value of his decision. I hope I don't hear that he's flying home for Christmas any time soon.
It's true, those who travel by jet are serious Co2 emitters; scientists attribute "up to 3 percent of all carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming to plane engines." Planes are specifically troubling to GW proponents because their deposits of pollution in the upper atmosphere have a more severe warming effect. (To the rich, who've taken up GW as their cause: stop flying around telling us that the planet has a fever! What's next, I visit restaurants, chain-smoking, telling people about the horrors of second hand smoke?)
Anyway, Lacy's out. Of course he's been supported (publically) by other scientists, though curiously with luke warm language. Nicholas Veronico, head of the project, gave his obligatory plaudits to Lacy in the article, then pointed out that there's an average of 28,537 commercial flights handled by air traffic control each day. The effect, he says, will be minimal. That's an understatement, Mr. Veronico.
Lacy's argument seems a little like a scientist who refuses to perform research on developing better prosthetic limbs because it requires use of a certain non-degrading plastic compound. Sounds pretty ethically first-rate, perhaps, until one realizes that the compound is used in thousands of other projects and products, and the percentage of the total amount used for improving prosthetics is miniscule. Or, insert your favorite argument here.
As much as fellow scientists said kind things about Mr. Lacy, I think most reasonable people should be skeptical of the value of his decision. I hope I don't hear that he's flying home for Christmas any time soon.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
BCS Confusion
Texas Tech beats Texas in a Hail Mary pass to Crabtree with a second left. They then implode against the Sooners, and the surging Sooners now beat OSU in the "Bedlam" matchup in Stillwater, 61-41. Now, a three-way tie for the Big 12 Championship game. BCS rankings decide, with the Longhorns holding a slim advantage over the Sooners. Tech, who struggled against Baylor today, winning by 7 (Tech 35, Baylor 28), is probably out of contention for the national title, and with the Sooners victory in Stillwater they are definitively out of the Big 12 Championship.
So, the BCS rankings decide between Texas and Oklahoma. Although there is no rule against, it is nonetheless an unwritten "rule" that teams who fail to secure conference titles are not voted into the BCS title game. So, if the Sooners pull ahead of Texas later today, the Longhorns are likely out of the national title hunt. Unless, perhaps, the Sooners drop the Big 12 matchup to Mizzou. But don't count on it. If that unlikely event happened, my guess is that no team from the Big 12 South would go. Maybe then the winner of the SEC championship (Alabama or Florida) would end up matched against... USC?
Let's hope the voters keep in mind that Texas beat the Sooners this season, on neutral ground, 45-35. Hook em'.
So, the BCS rankings decide between Texas and Oklahoma. Although there is no rule against, it is nonetheless an unwritten "rule" that teams who fail to secure conference titles are not voted into the BCS title game. So, if the Sooners pull ahead of Texas later today, the Longhorns are likely out of the national title hunt. Unless, perhaps, the Sooners drop the Big 12 matchup to Mizzou. But don't count on it. If that unlikely event happened, my guess is that no team from the Big 12 South would go. Maybe then the winner of the SEC championship (Alabama or Florida) would end up matched against... USC?
Let's hope the voters keep in mind that Texas beat the Sooners this season, on neutral ground, 45-35. Hook em'.
Homicide Bombing (or, could you repeat that?)
I really wish Fox News would stop using "homicide bomber" to describe suicide bombings. For one, it's redundant. If we know that a bomber kills 12 in Iraq, we already know that there was a homicide. Just say "Bomber kills 12 ..." and be done with it. Two, the "suicide" modifier adds information about the nature of the bombing; it tells us that in fact the bomber was also and intentionally killed by his detonation of the bomb. That tells us something new. Fox, please, stop munging the language in a dreadfully obvious attempt to place emphasis on those killed by the bomber. No such linguistic machinations are required. I'm sure your viewers will not be tempted, even remotely, to sympathize with the bomber, at the expense of the innocent people brutally killed. You can go ahead and use the language correctly; it'll be all right.
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