First off, full disclosure: I know Ms. Maddow prefers the ladies, but O! what I wouldn't give to just snuggle up with her for an hour or two. (Rachel? Call me!?)
I'm feeling a bug coming on, I'm watching my DVRed Olbermann and Maddow very late last night, virtually gargling with strong beer to bathe my throat in numbing ethyl alcoholic splendor. And Rachel - the smartest pundit on Unistat TV - by a very long margin, no one's even close - began her show with her thesis that, all along, Herman Cain's candidacy has been one long bit of performance art. She's kicking herself for not seeing it ALL sooner. The gnomish hints were there from the earliest Republican debates, when Cain read his prepared final remarks by citing the words of a "poet" who turned out to be Pokemon. And the gorgeous Ms. Maddow goes on to marshal quite a lot of data to support her thesis - Cain's numerology, the absurdist responses to questions about abortion, surrealistic campaign ads, etc - and it was very entertaining, but I'm not convinced, for reasons I'll get to after this clip - the one that lays out Maddow's thesis/interpretation:
What I found particularly interesting about Maddow here: this is the sort of pattern recognition that very intelligent people use to make artistic and scientific breakthroughs. It's also a mode of thought that brilliant minds can use to convince themselves that some sequence of data that supports a hypothesis is cogent, each piece of information suggesting a "fit" in a puzzle in which, following the logic of the original abduction, reveals the hypothesis as "true," when it will later be found to not be true. There's an overall plausibility when you're "in" the hypothesis and excited about the robust richness of your overarching idea. It's seductive, and encourages the brain to continue on, deeper into the thesis, making connections.
If anyone takes issue with me implying Maddow has come up with a "conspiracy theory," please be aware that I admire conspiracy theories for their artistic components, whether the theorist(s) see themselves in their own act of creation or not. To be blunt: my stance towards conspiracy theories is by and large Ironic, and I'm not sure of this could be helped, after so many years of reading the works of Robert Anton Wilson so closely.
And besides, many conspiracies contend in the night, despite what Academia tries to tell you. Watergate, Iran-Contra and the buildup to the Iraq War by the NeoCons are all recent examples. History is filled with conspiracies, and when you re-read Shakespeare's oeuvre take note that at least half of the plays involve conspiracies, especially the history plays. Q: Where did Billy Shakes get these ideas? A: From history.
Rachel (Notice she's "Rachel" to me. I am a deluded heterosexual male, but I can dream, can't I?) can't make sense that Cain, despite not knowing anything about taxes or foreign policy or even basic geography, coupled with the fact that he's had to pay settlements for sexual harassment, is currently more popular than ever with Republican voters in polls. There must be some explanation that we're missing. He's clearly a motivational speaker with a book to sell. Why a run for President? Ahh...that's just the tip of it all. You need to have an IQ of 150 (or whatever Rachel's is) to see It.
This business of very intelligent, witty, whip-smart people (Rachel was a Rhodes Scholar) seeing something that might not be there is a phenomenon that has long fascinated me. For anyone interested, the thinking processes of smart people making errors in trying to make sense of the data in a complex sequence of events, is displayed in baroque detail in two novels, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's 805 page book The Illuminatus! Trilogy, and Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, tallying a mere 641 pages in my hardback copy. (Readers are invited to add other titles or films in the comments section.)
It was either Nietzsche or Oscar Wilde who said, I paraphrase probably, "We are all far greater artists than we realize." And this was derived from the observations of the propensity of the human mind to see puzzles when there may not "be" a puzzle in the first place, or at least not as assumed by the thinker trying to solve the Mystery. In tandem with this, we need a Narrative to explain to ourselves what we're doing. We need Narratives - at times rather ornate ones, apparently - like a junkie needs junk. The classic Occam's Razor can probably be seen as the obverse in this overall cognitive conceptual schematic I'm groping toward.
Why don't I buy Rachel's thesis? Because my intuition tells me this guy is more of a bumbling phony out to enrich himself. A shameless huckster. A classic American Type. Occam's Razor, folks. I admit Rachel's thesis seems far more intellectually interesting. (See the Isaiah Berlin quote at the bottom of this page?)
I think maybe stupidity can look artistic if placed within certain preconceived assumptions and within certain domains of "reality" in which we are not used to seeing stunning ineptitude. Art seems to me to require conscious intent. (IF Cain's consciously, intentionally doing art, I think how he ends the "piece" should be telling.) Rachel says something about three-four minutes in that Cain's level of gaffes don't occur "in nature." I like that line, but I'm not sure it's true. How easy it is to forget GWB43's daily idiocies! (See my faves, #5 and #1 HERE.) I think Cain's probably just a banality who knows he's full of crap politically, but may be surprised he hasn't dropped back into the single digits in the polls yet. He figures it's only a matter of time, and he sure as hell ain't trying. But the money is rollin' in, the Koch Bros keep throwing cash at him, his book's selling.
But consciously artistic? I don't see it. I have to wonder about the mentality of people who hear, "Don't blame the banks and corporations. If you're not rich it's your fault!" and cheer loudly. Unistat is brimming with mindless drooling fascists, lapping up every other sociopathic "motivational speaker" who comes along. I see THAT as a major problem...And Cain probably has a lot of people working for him who don't believe he's viable, and they're sub-mediocrities he met on the pizza circuit at some point. It also doesn't hurt that the mouthpieces representing the mainstream media seem dumber every year. (This thesis begs the question: how come so many saw through the females Bachman and Palin? Is there somehow a gravitas that aids a verisimilitude that attends a dapper, glib African-American MALE, no matter his vacuity? And if so, what does this imply about some sort of unconscious sexism in our culture?)
I find Maddow's thesis provocative and highly entertaining, and also hold a steady suspicion ever since seeing her lay out her explanation about the Herman Cain Conceptual Art Experience/Put-On, that she's in turn ironically putting the thesis forth. She has her reasons. (This might constitute a meta-conspiracy theory?) One only need understand that Maddow's politics are very very far away from Cain's putative dumb-show, I Know Nothing and I'll Try To Act Like I Care and I'm Proud of It Act. To float out a proto-meme that might go viral, that Cain's making you look like a fool if you take him at his word, could have an effect on the race. IF Maddow is consciously doing ironic art herself here, I applaud her. Who gets it?
Finally, my understanding of the sociology of knowledge and neuroscience and the logic of perception and reasoning from an abduction and other areas requires me to admit Rachel Maddow may be right and I'm wrong in asserting she was earnestly putting the pieces together in a brilliant, artistic Fool's Errand.
Another reason for her side: she's smarter than me.
I may be the Fool here. But if I am, Maddow is once again the Smartest Person in the Room, the first to "get it" and millions of Republicans will be shown to have been duped in a new way, the most artistic con yet. If anyone out there has on record a date before November 4th in which someone else declares definitively that Cain is pulling some sort of prank, let me know, please! As of the date above, millions of Republicans are apparently being "taken" in a way that seems a distant cousin to Jerzy Kosinski's Chauncey Gardiner, from the novel Being There. I will admit that I hope Rachel turns out to be right and I'm wrong. If only for the entertainment value of the reactions of fascist morons like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Bozell, who spent the past week defending Cain against the "liberal" attacks on him. (As if his settlements for sexual harassment weren't FACTS!)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politics as Art. If it's something like Maddow is suggesting, then what's the worst that can happen? We all realize there's another conceptual frame that may be used in politics. Art has had overt and covert political messages for eons. Maybe now it's time for Politics to use Art as a pinprick for our perceptions?
Maybe.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Speech That Sends Chills, and Chilling Speech
First off, something from the "writing of harlots," which is the Greek etymology for our word "pornography," and don't tell me this ain't porn, 'cuz I'm at least as Bad an American as former Supreme Court prude Potter Stewart, who couldn't define porn, but famously said "I know it when I see it.":
I have taken off my robe--
must I put it back on again?
I have washed my feet--
must I soil them again?
My lover thrust his hand through
the latch-opening;
my heart began to pound for him.
I arose to open for my lover,
and my hands dripped with
myrrh...
-As they say in the American South, "Lawdamercy!" Is it getting hot in here? I took this passage from a putatively "religious" (HA!) book commonly known as Song of Songs. I found this in a larger anthology-like book called...pardon me for a moment while I check the title, the OG tries to be precise in these things...Ahh. Here it is: Something called The Old Testament? Sounds a tad grandiose, but the author probably thought it would increase sales. Anyway, I copped the passage above from section 5, lines 3-5.
Presumably I will now be threatened by Google's AdSense people. Why?
This past Tuesday I woke to an email in my inbox from adsense-google@noreply.com and here was the subject heading:
I sought redress. It's not easy trying to figure out who to write to (forget calling!) when dealing with the "Don't Be Evil" Google Leviathan. I found an address I thought seemed close enough, and pleaded my case in a few sentences.
Here's what I got back:>gddsmith has posted an answer to the question "I don't think my two blogs or sex-related issues violate the Adsense terms, but they gave me three days":
No one was harmed in the making of this blog post.
I have taken off my robe--
must I put it back on again?
I have washed my feet--
must I soil them again?
My lover thrust his hand through
the latch-opening;
my heart began to pound for him.
I arose to open for my lover,
and my hands dripped with
myrrh...
-As they say in the American South, "Lawdamercy!" Is it getting hot in here? I took this passage from a putatively "religious" (HA!) book commonly known as Song of Songs. I found this in a larger anthology-like book called...pardon me for a moment while I check the title, the OG tries to be precise in these things...Ahh. Here it is: Something called The Old Testament? Sounds a tad grandiose, but the author probably thought it would increase sales. Anyway, I copped the passage above from section 5, lines 3-5.
Presumably I will now be threatened by Google's AdSense people. Why?
This past Tuesday I woke to an email in my inbox from adsense-google@noreply.com and here was the subject heading:
Google AdSense: You have 3 working days to make changes to your site
Date: November 1, 2011 5:25:27 AM PDT
Turns out a bot (let's hope it wasn't a human) took offense to my non-porn porn-writing in this post, which was supposedly in violation of the terms of my AdSense agreement. Here's the part of the agreement I apparently offended:
Adult content
The AdSense network is considered family-safe, which means that publishers aren't permitted to place Google ads on sites which contain adult content. In addition to photos and videos which contain nudity or sexual activities, here are some other examples of unacceptable content:
- Lewd or provocative images
- Crude or indecent language, including adult stories
- Sexual tips or advice
- Sexual fetish sites (e.g. foot fetish content)
- Adult toys or products
- Ads or links to external sites containing adult content
If your site has content which you wouldn't be comfortable viewing at work or with family members around, then it probably isn't an appropriate site to place Google ads upon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay: I don't see how I violated any of these terms. Do you? Was I being called out because I used the word "porn" in my post's title? (If so, you bloggers on food: watch out when using the now-fashionable term "food porn" or you run the risk of Daddy Google making you stand in the corner. Or worse.)I sought redress. It's not easy trying to figure out who to write to (forget calling!) when dealing with the "Don't Be Evil" Google Leviathan. I found an address I thought seemed close enough, and pleaded my case in a few sentences.
Here's what I got back:
>Well you might think it's ridiculous but that post & probably the sex post would not comply w/ their family friendly policy. So it's your choice, you can comply w/ the policy or find your site or the whole Adsense account disabled. There are many publishers that don't get a warning & simply find the ads already disabled so they are willing to give you a chance to fix the issue but it needs to be done within the three day span.
>Regardless of how intellectual & humorous that you think your post are there are a number of advertisers that would be outraged if they knew their ads were showing on a site/post on that subject. They cater to those that actually pay the bills & what business wouldn't if they actually want to stay in business.
>Also if there are any other violations of their policies they may still disable ad serving even though they didn't state those in the warning. When they review it it needs to be 100% compliant.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gosh, I knew they were just delightful folks over at AdSense, but did "gddsmith" have to lay the charm on so thick? "[...] or find your site or the whole Adsense account disabled." Whew! It's gettin' hot in here, I do declare! (But why didn't he/she/it sign off with a "sincerely and best of luck, gddsmith"? I feel hurt...) I'm so PRIVILEGED just to have a site and be allowed to display ads, that if I talk about Oprah talking about her vagina they might squash ALL MY WRITING here? Don't tell me: this "gddsmith" has a degree in Public Relations, right?
[The Overweening Generalist would like to remind his readers that the Electronic Freedom Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have been doing a crackerjack job, and if you want or need to donate to a charitable source - you might get a tax write-off! - the end of the year is approaching fast! These are two eminently worthy defenders of Free Speech. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.]
It's now been more than 72 hours since I received my warning, and I spent a lot of time in the interim asking friends and fellow-writers to review my blog, and say what they thought. A self-described conservative writer-friend in Texas said my post made her "blush" but she didn't think I had violated anything. Everyone else came back with the verdict that can best be summed up with the word "Bullshit!"
[The Overweening Generalist would like to remind his readers that the Electronic Freedom Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have been doing a crackerjack job, and if you want or need to donate to a charitable source - you might get a tax write-off! - the end of the year is approaching fast! These are two eminently worthy defenders of Free Speech. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.]
It's now been more than 72 hours since I received my warning, and I spent a lot of time in the interim asking friends and fellow-writers to review my blog, and say what they thought. A self-described conservative writer-friend in Texas said my post made her "blush" but she didn't think I had violated anything. Everyone else came back with the verdict that can best be summed up with the word "Bullshit!"
Which was what I thought, too. I think there's more eroticism in the Bible passage than anything I wrote; my intent was NEVER to titillate or inflame or be prurient in any way. If you read "Frank Talk About Porn, Jokey Talk About Sex" and DID feel titillated, please seek professional help. (If you work for Google, you can probably also afford remedial writing classes; no one working at Google should still be writing at an 8th grade level. Horrid epistolary prose is something I find, personally speaking, indecent.) I was trying to talk about issues surrounding the world of sex and porn that I had first taken notice of on commercial TV or mainstream news. Notice the links? I tried to put a humorous spin on the topics. (Humor is hard, folks. You try it.) I was trying to appeal to intellectual adults. And I grew up in a family that wouldn't have had a second thought about these topics. Must I assume Reverend Mathers Stickoopass and his family are reading and tailor everything to their emotionally-plagued minds? (Notice I never explained what a "money shot" was.)
For what I did, Google was ready to pull all ads from my site - which is all the ads I have - and I guess I'd have to relinquish the $30-odd I'd built up from ad clicks. But the issue of pulling the ads did not bother me, really. What bothered me was this bloodless notice threatening me for something I'd written. "Families" and "children" or "people at work" were going to see my blog and it was going to SCARE them or RUIN their day? They were going to feel embarrassed? And relate the content to the ads for some college a few inches away? REALLY? From this same guy who writes ad nauseum on Noam Chomsky? Who has a "thing" for Modernist Hungarians? Who at times can't help but choose to write on the topics of Aldous Huxley, or his favorite chemists, or epigenetics, or relatively free-floating unattached intellectuals in history? This dude who has a crush on 16th century essayist Montaigne?
REALLY? This is a significant threat to the people behind the ads I've allowed about institutions of learning, books, and political ideas? Hooo-kay!
REALLY? This is a significant threat to the people behind the ads I've allowed about institutions of learning, books, and political ideas? Hooo-kay!
So yea: more than 72 hours since the threat from the Don't Be Evil people. I still have ads up as I write this. If you're reading this and there are no ads, they came down on me. If you're not reading this because the blog has been banished by Der Googlemeister's little Fuhrers to the Land of Thud, well, I can't deal with your problem.
No notices. Nothing. Am I to assume some thoughtful person actually read my blog and said, "Why are we threatening this guy? Let him be." I don't know. Frankly, I do wonder about "gddsmith," though...
No notices. Nothing. Am I to assume some thoughtful person actually read my blog and said, "Why are we threatening this guy? Let him be." I don't know. Frankly, I do wonder about "gddsmith," though...
"When we compare stoic with Christian ejaculations we see much..." - from William James's classic The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 42 of the Modern Library version. Gosh, I hope my quoting of James doesn't ruin those businesses "that actually want to stay in business," as "gddsmith"put it to me, with such civility.
Note that a woman with the PhD in Molecular Microbiology was one of those who commented at the end of my post. She has taught 11 year olds sex education and found that kids are endlessly fascinated about this stuff. Note that she found the erotically-charged STATISTICS I cited to dovetail with her own experiences as a teacher.
To the people who get all wadded-up over the stuff I wrote, or the way I wrote it: What PRETEND world do you think you live in? What FAKE utopia do you pine after? What gutless, boring, moronic Valhalla is being preserved by trying to scare someone like me?
To the people who get all wadded-up over the stuff I wrote, or the way I wrote it: What PRETEND world do you think you live in? What FAKE utopia do you pine after? What gutless, boring, moronic Valhalla is being preserved by trying to scare someone like me?
To me, this was an attempt at a chilling effect. And maybe this particular blog post will get me kicked off Google's Blogger/Adsense/and well, half of the Internet. But if I do get kicked off, at least have a Human Being tell me why I was threatened in the first place. Charles Keating this! Don't hire some Palin to respond to my query about why I was threatened, 'cuz that was a load of Santorum.
May we all gather 'round the Great Turducken some day. That is all.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
post scriptum: I see my journalist friend Tom Jackson, on November 4th, has linked my non-family-oriented post with something that Robert Anton Wilson said in an interview, and for that I'm honored.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
John von Neumann: Hungarian...Martian?
The world is filled with stories of alien spaceships sighted, and if one looks one can easily find that some people believe that the aliens - wherever on Earth they landed - got out of their ships and mixed in with the humans. They are among us, even now.
I have always loved the variations on those stories, never believing any of them.
During the time of the Manhattan Project, there was an ongoing joke that the Hungarians (Leo Szilard, Edward Teller and a few others) were so smart they must be "Martians" and they were speaking Hungarian as a cover. The smartest Hungarian of them all - maybe the smartest mathematical-scientific-freakish mind of the 20th century - was, for my money, John von Neumann. Even if you don't read the long Wikipedia link there, just have a glance at the right hand column, under "known for." See what I mean?
Martian von Neumann, in 1945. Notice how his
eyes seem to look straight into your own brain.
Can he read your mind, from wherever he is now?
Born in Budapest in 1903 to an upper-middle-class Jewish family, he was able to exchange jokes in classical Greek at age six. At that same age he could memorize telephone directories on sight and could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head, almost instantaneously, down to a decimal. He mastered calculus by age eight. His family, like most Jewish families in Budapest at that time, highly valued education and culture. When John's father bought an entire library from an estate they rebuilt a large room in their house to accommodate it, and John read the entire 44-volume universal history series in German and memorized it as a boy, and had retained total recall at the end of his life. He had a photographic memory, and anyone can do research on von Neumann and come upon some anecdote that is freakish, astonishing, and frankly, sorta "Martian." A colleague asked if John knew the first words of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. One wonders what the colleague was looking for, as JvN's memory was legendary. Most of us would reply, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times," and be satisfied. John had to be stopped after 15 minutes.
A professor of history whose expertise was in the Byzantine empire, said that when he talked to JvN he realized JvN knew more about the subject than he did. How disconcerting...JvN tried to guard against this sort of thing - hurting people's feelings because he was so freakishly smart - but he was bound to fail every now and then.
The great Hungarian mathematician George Polya said, "Johnny was the only student I was ever afraid of. If in the course of the lecture I stated an unsolved problem, he'd come to me at the end of the lecture with the complete solution scribbled on a slip of paper." When JvN was teaching math at Princeton, he was not very good, because he'd talk so fast, demonstrate the math on the chalkboard, then quickly erase the equations before anyone had a chance to copy them. (He was probably bored? Absent-minded?)
The great physicist Hans Bethe, keeping with the Martian theme, said of von Neumann, "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man."
He earned a PhD in math from the University at Budapest at age 22, and there is very little evidence he ever studied. At the same time he earned a degree in chemistry from Zurich. He eventually made major contributions to mathematics in the fields of set theory, functional analysis, geometry/lattice theory, and there are now "von Neumann algebras." (Please don't ask for elaboration; I am no Martian!) JvN also helped revolutionize ergotic theory, underwrote the logic of quantum mechanics, and was a primary mover in the first atom bombs and other weapons for the US.
He made a signal contribution to economics: game theory, which has been used widely in other areas, including biology, logic (Prisoner's Dilemma), whether to cheat on your income tax, whether to donate to PBS if one watches it, the behavior of the stickleback fish, whether to believe the world is populated by cooperators or defectors, and how to conduct a Cold War under nuclear weapons. (Von Neumann, being persecuted as a child for his Jewishness and being exposed to authoritarianism, then seeing the rise of fascism in Germany, was a right-winger and favored a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviets ASAP. How odd that his Game Theory would lead, as he later came to understand, Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, a term JvN allegedly coined.)
He also invented a computer that he called the "Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical Integrator and Computer," or MANIAC.
In the 1950s JvN told the US Senate he was violently anti-communist and much more militaristic than the norm.
Oh, and he designed the basic architecture for computers. I've heard academic philosophers to this day refer to any computing machine as a "von Neumann machine." In the 1940s he invented cellular automata theory, the theory of self-replicating machines. He analyzed the function of self-replication using pen and paper and seemed to prefigure the digital-mechanical structure of the DNA double helix, ten years before Watson and Crick. JvN theorized that the best way to mine an asteroid was to create self-replicating machines. I feel compelled to reiterate that he thought of this idea, and sketched out how it must work...in the 1940s!
Von Neumann loved the US. He saw a practicality of thought, a bulwark for a free world against authoritarian communism and Nazism and other fascisms, and the US as a country that would allow him to maximize his intellectual capabilities. In 1930, when the Institute of Advanced Studies opened near Princeton, the first three geniuses invited to be paid for life and think on anything they wished, were Einstein, Godel, and von Neumann. He and his wife owned the biggest house on the block in the neighborhood near Princeton, and loved to have long parties, sometimes two per week. He was a dapper dresser and once wore a three-piece pinstripe suit on a ride down into the Grand Canyon. Before emigrating to the US, he enjoyed Berlin's 1920s cabaret night life, and was a prodigious drinker of scotch...and could still do amazing arithmetical feats even when drunk. (Or he should have been drunk: he drank tumblers of scotch and never really appeared to be drunk!) He loved off-color humor, Yiddish, and had what's been described as an Eastern European sense of humor. An example: A convict was playing cards with his jailers and when they found the convict was cheating, they kicked him out.
The virtuoso mathematician Stanislaw Ulam was friends with JvN, and they shared many in-jokes, my favorite being the one about asparagus. Asparagus was a delicacy in 1920s Berlin, and a man in a communal boarding house was eating more than his fair share. Finally, another boarder pointed out that others like asparagus too. Ulam and JvN turned this into a plan to write a twenty-volume treatise on "Asparagetics Through the Ages." What's so funny about this? Ulam and JvN had a code word, "asparagus," for anyone who tried "to obtain an unduly large share of credit for scientific work or any other accomplishment of a joint or group character." (p.221, The Martians of Science, Hargittai.) JvN was very open about his ideas, and never understood the rush to patent.
In Princeton circles, once more with the Martian theme, and according to William Poundstone in his book The Prisoner's Dilemma, von Neumann "was not human but a demigod who had made a detailed study of humans and could imitate them perfectly." A fellow Hungarian "Martian," Theodore von Karman, the father of supersonic flight and the US Air Force, claimed he was descended from Rabbi Loew of Prague, who created The Golem. Von Neumann made similar claims for himself.
This Martian died at the age of 53, in 1957, near Princeton, of cancer. As his mind began to falter, he was, by all accounts in terrifying agony, a screaming, uncontrollable terror. As he neared death, sedated, American guards watched his hospital room, wary that the Martian might babble high-level military secrets, but he began to speak in Hungarian, and the guards didn't understand it. His brother was at his side, and John von Neumann, going out of life on this planet, under heavy painkillers, recited Goethe's Faust from his photographic memory...
There is much, much more to be said about John von Neumann, the enigma. The Martian. But it seems unseemly for blog posts to go on too long...And besides, I'm due back on my own planet.
I have always loved the variations on those stories, never believing any of them.
During the time of the Manhattan Project, there was an ongoing joke that the Hungarians (Leo Szilard, Edward Teller and a few others) were so smart they must be "Martians" and they were speaking Hungarian as a cover. The smartest Hungarian of them all - maybe the smartest mathematical-scientific-freakish mind of the 20th century - was, for my money, John von Neumann. Even if you don't read the long Wikipedia link there, just have a glance at the right hand column, under "known for." See what I mean?
eyes seem to look straight into your own brain.
Can he read your mind, from wherever he is now?
Born in Budapest in 1903 to an upper-middle-class Jewish family, he was able to exchange jokes in classical Greek at age six. At that same age he could memorize telephone directories on sight and could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head, almost instantaneously, down to a decimal. He mastered calculus by age eight. His family, like most Jewish families in Budapest at that time, highly valued education and culture. When John's father bought an entire library from an estate they rebuilt a large room in their house to accommodate it, and John read the entire 44-volume universal history series in German and memorized it as a boy, and had retained total recall at the end of his life. He had a photographic memory, and anyone can do research on von Neumann and come upon some anecdote that is freakish, astonishing, and frankly, sorta "Martian." A colleague asked if John knew the first words of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. One wonders what the colleague was looking for, as JvN's memory was legendary. Most of us would reply, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times," and be satisfied. John had to be stopped after 15 minutes.
A professor of history whose expertise was in the Byzantine empire, said that when he talked to JvN he realized JvN knew more about the subject than he did. How disconcerting...JvN tried to guard against this sort of thing - hurting people's feelings because he was so freakishly smart - but he was bound to fail every now and then.
The great Hungarian mathematician George Polya said, "Johnny was the only student I was ever afraid of. If in the course of the lecture I stated an unsolved problem, he'd come to me at the end of the lecture with the complete solution scribbled on a slip of paper." When JvN was teaching math at Princeton, he was not very good, because he'd talk so fast, demonstrate the math on the chalkboard, then quickly erase the equations before anyone had a chance to copy them. (He was probably bored? Absent-minded?)
The great physicist Hans Bethe, keeping with the Martian theme, said of von Neumann, "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man."
He earned a PhD in math from the University at Budapest at age 22, and there is very little evidence he ever studied. At the same time he earned a degree in chemistry from Zurich. He eventually made major contributions to mathematics in the fields of set theory, functional analysis, geometry/lattice theory, and there are now "von Neumann algebras." (Please don't ask for elaboration; I am no Martian!) JvN also helped revolutionize ergotic theory, underwrote the logic of quantum mechanics, and was a primary mover in the first atom bombs and other weapons for the US.
He made a signal contribution to economics: game theory, which has been used widely in other areas, including biology, logic (Prisoner's Dilemma), whether to cheat on your income tax, whether to donate to PBS if one watches it, the behavior of the stickleback fish, whether to believe the world is populated by cooperators or defectors, and how to conduct a Cold War under nuclear weapons. (Von Neumann, being persecuted as a child for his Jewishness and being exposed to authoritarianism, then seeing the rise of fascism in Germany, was a right-winger and favored a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviets ASAP. How odd that his Game Theory would lead, as he later came to understand, Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, a term JvN allegedly coined.)
He also invented a computer that he called the "Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical Integrator and Computer," or MANIAC.
In the 1950s JvN told the US Senate he was violently anti-communist and much more militaristic than the norm.
Oh, and he designed the basic architecture for computers. I've heard academic philosophers to this day refer to any computing machine as a "von Neumann machine." In the 1940s he invented cellular automata theory, the theory of self-replicating machines. He analyzed the function of self-replication using pen and paper and seemed to prefigure the digital-mechanical structure of the DNA double helix, ten years before Watson and Crick. JvN theorized that the best way to mine an asteroid was to create self-replicating machines. I feel compelled to reiterate that he thought of this idea, and sketched out how it must work...in the 1940s!
Von Neumann loved the US. He saw a practicality of thought, a bulwark for a free world against authoritarian communism and Nazism and other fascisms, and the US as a country that would allow him to maximize his intellectual capabilities. In 1930, when the Institute of Advanced Studies opened near Princeton, the first three geniuses invited to be paid for life and think on anything they wished, were Einstein, Godel, and von Neumann. He and his wife owned the biggest house on the block in the neighborhood near Princeton, and loved to have long parties, sometimes two per week. He was a dapper dresser and once wore a three-piece pinstripe suit on a ride down into the Grand Canyon. Before emigrating to the US, he enjoyed Berlin's 1920s cabaret night life, and was a prodigious drinker of scotch...and could still do amazing arithmetical feats even when drunk. (Or he should have been drunk: he drank tumblers of scotch and never really appeared to be drunk!) He loved off-color humor, Yiddish, and had what's been described as an Eastern European sense of humor. An example: A convict was playing cards with his jailers and when they found the convict was cheating, they kicked him out.
The virtuoso mathematician Stanislaw Ulam was friends with JvN, and they shared many in-jokes, my favorite being the one about asparagus. Asparagus was a delicacy in 1920s Berlin, and a man in a communal boarding house was eating more than his fair share. Finally, another boarder pointed out that others like asparagus too. Ulam and JvN turned this into a plan to write a twenty-volume treatise on "Asparagetics Through the Ages." What's so funny about this? Ulam and JvN had a code word, "asparagus," for anyone who tried "to obtain an unduly large share of credit for scientific work or any other accomplishment of a joint or group character." (p.221, The Martians of Science, Hargittai.) JvN was very open about his ideas, and never understood the rush to patent.
In Princeton circles, once more with the Martian theme, and according to William Poundstone in his book The Prisoner's Dilemma, von Neumann "was not human but a demigod who had made a detailed study of humans and could imitate them perfectly." A fellow Hungarian "Martian," Theodore von Karman, the father of supersonic flight and the US Air Force, claimed he was descended from Rabbi Loew of Prague, who created The Golem. Von Neumann made similar claims for himself.
This Martian died at the age of 53, in 1957, near Princeton, of cancer. As his mind began to falter, he was, by all accounts in terrifying agony, a screaming, uncontrollable terror. As he neared death, sedated, American guards watched his hospital room, wary that the Martian might babble high-level military secrets, but he began to speak in Hungarian, and the guards didn't understand it. His brother was at his side, and John von Neumann, going out of life on this planet, under heavy painkillers, recited Goethe's Faust from his photographic memory...
There is much, much more to be said about John von Neumann, the enigma. The Martian. But it seems unseemly for blog posts to go on too long...And besides, I'm due back on my own planet.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Reinstall Glass-Steagall
Among the many reforms made by FDR in the desperate attempt to assuage the suffering of the Great Depression was what's commonly called the Glass-Steagall Act, which was germinated in 1933 and went into effect in 1934. Probably the major cause of the Crash was rampant speculation, and Glass-Steagall put into effect the FDIC and separated the commercial banking operations and the securities biz.
And, when the dust cleared after WWII it worked pretty well, until 1999.
In listening to the brain trusts (this is a diffuse network, but I define them as the ones who, when you wander around an Occupy site, are mentally equipped to explain in depth what's needed to happen to revive the world economy, if not the Unistat economy, for example, see the video at the end of this post), you will hear calls to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, or the "Financial Modernization Act". What was that? Isn't "modernization" good? (Yet another way words hypnotize us. Or are supposed to hypnotize us.)
It was the move sponsored by three Republicans to effectively get rid of Glass-Steagall. If you listen to this partisan d-bag (Max Keiser, first couple minutes), his assholic simple-minded message is that the Democrats deserve most of the blame and caused the problems actuated by the demise of Glass-Steagall. True, it was repealed under Clinton, but let's not pretend the three guys whose names are on the bill were not Republicans! Just who was supposed to be the targeted audience of dipshit Keiser's tired old line that the Republicans are the adults who understand money and the Democrats don't? This is really offensive, and I'm calling this asshole out, right here. Gramm (R-Texas). Leach (R-Iowa). Bliley (R-Virginia). Then the Hillbilly With a Perpetual Hard-on (D-Arkansas) signed it into law. There's plenty of bought-off blame to go around. We want to fix the problems, alleviate the sufferings and injustices and level the playing fields.
Oh yea: Check out North Dakota Democrat Byron "The Seer" Dorgan (3 mins):
Sidebar Here: What is it about North Dakota and their stark, staring SANE banking practices? HERE's a 2009 article from Mother Jones that lends some decent insight.
Dorgan (U.S. Senate, 1992-2011) deserves more credit for his fiscal responsibility.
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On the other hand, the "Gramm" in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that got rid of Glass-Steagall? That's one Phil Gramm, a U.S. Senator from Texas from 1985-2002. A Texas Republican "economist" who became a politician. Hey, what could go wrong there?
He made Time mag's "25 People To Blame For The Financial Crisis." Another, more nuanced analysis of Gramm's yeoman work for the 1% is HERE.
Righteously rubbing yet more salt into Gramm's deservedly tarnished cred, see #4 on THIS LIST of the 10 worst capitalists who helped bring on the economic collapse of 2008.
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During the S&L debacle of the late 1980s, early 1990s, possibly the one thing that kept that mess from being far worse was the Glass-Steagall laws, which were still in place. The idea that, less than ten years later no lessons were learned and the law was gutted, should be something culturally memorable, aye?
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This idea - gaining a lot of traction in Occupy encampments - of repealing Gramm-Leach-Bliley and reinstating Glass-Steagall is something more tangible (than "Make The Banksters Pay!") that can be done. It's possible, ladies and germs!
Sorry to point out that the corporate media haven't seemed to want to touch this (do you still wonder why?), but let's make the Missing Public Discussion about H.R.1489, The Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011, sponsored by Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), a tad less Missing. You can follow the progress of the bill HERE. As you follow along, note what I predict will be the Usual Suspects fighting tooth and nail so that the bill dies, or becomes inert, de-fanged. This too, should be no surprise. But if we pressure our Congressentities enough and talk about the bill enough, maybe, just maybe we can get this bit of elephant out of the room, leave us a bit more breathing space. It's a long road to hoe, and we know it. But we gotta, right?
Two Occupy manifestoes of clamor for reinstating Glass-Steagall provisions (proto-pro H.R. 1489 statements?) are HERE and HERE.
Has deregulation ever been a good idea? I'm willing to listen to arguments for deregulations in the comments section, but by and large I agree with Double Dip Politics.
YES on H.R. 1489, the Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011!
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Here's yet another dirty, stoned hippie from Occupy Wall Street, patiently explaining to the cops what the repeal of Glass-Steagall wrought:
And, when the dust cleared after WWII it worked pretty well, until 1999.
In listening to the brain trusts (this is a diffuse network, but I define them as the ones who, when you wander around an Occupy site, are mentally equipped to explain in depth what's needed to happen to revive the world economy, if not the Unistat economy, for example, see the video at the end of this post), you will hear calls to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, or the "Financial Modernization Act". What was that? Isn't "modernization" good? (Yet another way words hypnotize us. Or are supposed to hypnotize us.)
It was the move sponsored by three Republicans to effectively get rid of Glass-Steagall. If you listen to this partisan d-bag (Max Keiser, first couple minutes), his assholic simple-minded message is that the Democrats deserve most of the blame and caused the problems actuated by the demise of Glass-Steagall. True, it was repealed under Clinton, but let's not pretend the three guys whose names are on the bill were not Republicans! Just who was supposed to be the targeted audience of dipshit Keiser's tired old line that the Republicans are the adults who understand money and the Democrats don't? This is really offensive, and I'm calling this asshole out, right here. Gramm (R-Texas). Leach (R-Iowa). Bliley (R-Virginia). Then the Hillbilly With a Perpetual Hard-on (D-Arkansas) signed it into law. There's plenty of bought-off blame to go around. We want to fix the problems, alleviate the sufferings and injustices and level the playing fields.
Oh yea: Check out North Dakota Democrat Byron "The Seer" Dorgan (3 mins):
Sidebar Here: What is it about North Dakota and their stark, staring SANE banking practices? HERE's a 2009 article from Mother Jones that lends some decent insight.
Dorgan (U.S. Senate, 1992-2011) deserves more credit for his fiscal responsibility.
----------------------------------------------------------
On the other hand, the "Gramm" in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that got rid of Glass-Steagall? That's one Phil Gramm, a U.S. Senator from Texas from 1985-2002. A Texas Republican "economist" who became a politician. Hey, what could go wrong there?
He made Time mag's "25 People To Blame For The Financial Crisis." Another, more nuanced analysis of Gramm's yeoman work for the 1% is HERE.
Righteously rubbing yet more salt into Gramm's deservedly tarnished cred, see #4 on THIS LIST of the 10 worst capitalists who helped bring on the economic collapse of 2008.
---------------------------------------------------------------
During the S&L debacle of the late 1980s, early 1990s, possibly the one thing that kept that mess from being far worse was the Glass-Steagall laws, which were still in place. The idea that, less than ten years later no lessons were learned and the law was gutted, should be something culturally memorable, aye?
---------------------------------------------------------------
This idea - gaining a lot of traction in Occupy encampments - of repealing Gramm-Leach-Bliley and reinstating Glass-Steagall is something more tangible (than "Make The Banksters Pay!") that can be done. It's possible, ladies and germs!
Sorry to point out that the corporate media haven't seemed to want to touch this (do you still wonder why?), but let's make the Missing Public Discussion about H.R.1489, The Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011, sponsored by Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), a tad less Missing. You can follow the progress of the bill HERE. As you follow along, note what I predict will be the Usual Suspects fighting tooth and nail so that the bill dies, or becomes inert, de-fanged. This too, should be no surprise. But if we pressure our Congressentities enough and talk about the bill enough, maybe, just maybe we can get this bit of elephant out of the room, leave us a bit more breathing space. It's a long road to hoe, and we know it. But we gotta, right?
Two Occupy manifestoes of clamor for reinstating Glass-Steagall provisions (proto-pro H.R. 1489 statements?) are HERE and HERE.
Has deregulation ever been a good idea? I'm willing to listen to arguments for deregulations in the comments section, but by and large I agree with Double Dip Politics.
YES on H.R. 1489, the Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011!
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Here's yet another dirty, stoned hippie from Occupy Wall Street, patiently explaining to the cops what the repeal of Glass-Steagall wrought:
Thursday, October 27, 2011
#Occupy Everywhere as of the Morning of October 27th: The Banker Question
With the police actions of the last 48 hours, I fear the movement has already reached a tipping point. Has the worm turned? Are we heading towards mass violence? Who among us actually believes that what happened - as seems to still be ongoing as I write this - in Oakland will make things better? We seem to be very very sophisticated but poorly wired robots who learn nothing from history, much less how to fix our own wiring (which I actually think we are capable of doing, at least theoretically).
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What's going unsaid?
What is the function of a banker, really? Why are they allowed to function as more than a civil servant? Someone please answer that question for me.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, for my "money" (ha!) one of the most interesting philosophers alive, on October 18, was on Bloomberg TV, afraid that it's "too late," that violent class warfare will now open like a running sore (my words, not Nassim's), that banks really should be more like public utilities, and that the gross bonuses and salaries bankers are paid is absurd, and that this needs to be fixed ASAP. It gets wildly interesting - for me - when Nassim starts explaining a part of Hammurabi's Code and how we ought to model banker's behavior. You need to devote about 14 minutes of your time here, but you might find it worthwhile; I know I did. Here it is:
Some of the take-away points regarding bankers:
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What's going unsaid?
What is the function of a banker, really? Why are they allowed to function as more than a civil servant? Someone please answer that question for me.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, for my "money" (ha!) one of the most interesting philosophers alive, on October 18, was on Bloomberg TV, afraid that it's "too late," that violent class warfare will now open like a running sore (my words, not Nassim's), that banks really should be more like public utilities, and that the gross bonuses and salaries bankers are paid is absurd, and that this needs to be fixed ASAP. It gets wildly interesting - for me - when Nassim starts explaining a part of Hammurabi's Code and how we ought to model banker's behavior. You need to devote about 14 minutes of your time here, but you might find it worthwhile; I know I did. Here it is:
Some of the take-away points regarding bankers:
- "They caused the crisis, we know that. Last year, they had a record bonus. This is not something that is rational."
- "They are hijacking the American economy then saying that you need to pay us bonuses'."
- "The core of this situation is a problem concerning bank compensation."
- "The only information you get from bank earnings is the compensation. Only valuable information you can get from [bank earnings] is how much they pay themselves."
- "Anything above zero is too much money....if we bail you out, you should not be paid a bonus."
- "If you are a banker, and we will bail you someday, then you cannot earn more than a civil servant of a corresponding rank."
BANK BONUSES
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Frank Talk About Porn, Jokey Talk About Sex (from a generalist geek)
First off, apologies to anyone who typed "porn" or "sex" into their search engine, hoping to immediately land on some "HOT PICS BARELY LEGAL" or something like that. This is not your thing, believe me, and I can see you've already moved along...
I wrote on some ideas about sex HERE a month or so ago, and it got a lot of hits, and I thought people were appreciating my humor. But that dashed-off post continued to get hits, sometimes five or eight times the number of the next article people found from the OG. Now I realize people accidentally found me when they typed in keywords. <sigh>
A friend asked me why I put "pornography" in my About Me dealio here (in margin---->). Mostly because it's taboo to say it. I think most adults like porn of some sort, but virtually no one will admit in some public forum that they like porn. It's just not done. And so how can a guy like me resist? I do like porn. And so do you. Sometimes I really enjoy it. Other times - most times - I agree with Erica Jong, who once said - I paraphrase from memory - "When I watch porn, after about five minutes all I want to do is fuck. After about ten minutes, I never want to fuck again."
Aye, consuming porn and the Law of Diminishing Returns...
Ubiquity of Porn
I had no idea how accurate I was when I asserted the almost-universal popularity of porn, especially on Internet. I came across this 2009 study discussed in the London Telegraph in which scientists at the University of Montreal couldn't find any men who didn't consume porn. And the average age in which the men first consumed some porn was ten (10). And they don't seem to have turned into maniacs, depraved perverts, or chainsaw-killing pedophiles. Admittedly the sample may be small. ("That's what she said.")
But if the sample is small, what do we make of 14.7 million web searches in 2009 as monitored in the study discussed HERE? When looking at what the 13-18 year olds typed in (YouTube, Google, Facebook, Sex), it's interesting to note the 8-12 year olds typed in those same four terms, in the same order of popularity. But Under-7 year olds typed in "porn" in fourth place? What do you make of this? Is it a pseudo study meant to alarm parents about the importance of "filters"? Maybe. To quote from Stairway To Heaven, out of context: "Ooooo, really makes me wonder."
Let's get this straight. According to the study of search engine use among kids 7 (seven!) and younger (!), the top four keyword searches did NOT contain "Miley" or "Spongebob" or "Barney" or "Dora the Explorer" or "game with lots of monsters." Nope. "Porn" showed up in the top four. Hoo-kay!
Let's get this straight. According to the study of search engine use among kids 7 (seven!) and younger (!), the top four keyword searches did NOT contain "Miley" or "Spongebob" or "Barney" or "Dora the Explorer" or "game with lots of monsters." Nope. "Porn" showed up in the top four. Hoo-kay!
This may be reaching, but if we combine a five year old male typing in "porn" and then becoming part of a study at a place like the U. Of Montreal years later, hey, the kid's alright! Good for him!
A Very Good Reason To Study This Stuff
The stupendously great and underrated phenomenological sociologist Alfred Schutz developed a term translated to English as "finite provinces of meaning." Schutz thought one inhabited a "primary reality" but this - whatever it is - splinters off constantly into finite provinces, which are alternate "realities" one may temporarily escape into, away from the primary reality. And these are numerous and familiar: aesthetic experience, humor, what William James called "the varieties of religious experience," worlds of abstract thought, sex, and I'll let you think of a few more. This interest in sex - not only your own experience, but what Others find there - seems ultra-healthy and (I hate this word) normal.
And yet in some other semantic sense there's no way in hell I'm normal. And I hope you aren't either. (Or why are you reading the OG?)
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Relax and take in this pic (author unknown) before moving onto the next bit:
A Curious Practice in Porn Films
The porn film empire-biz in the San Fernando Valley is in a tizz, because an AIDS prevention group wants the "adult film industry" to quit with the "money shot" already. They think it sends a bad message, or perhaps a milky, somewhat viscous reminder? Meanwhile, the skin flic industry sees the "money shot" as a distinctive feature of their genre's overall style and ethos, its bread and butter. So we have yet another conflict of values. See this wonderful reportage from the L.A. Weekly.
First off, not one of us is reading this unless some private, carefully-confined, even "sacred" money shot occurred, in some jungle-like midst. It probably was not filmed, although with the relatively sudden omnipresence of camera phones, etc, on the historical stage, probably a lot more will be recorded from here on out. Onto hard drives. Can you imagine? As we've learned above, it's not unthinkable that soon, one seven year old boy will ask his friend, "Hey! You wanna see the night I was conceived?" And then whip out the latest iEverthing gadget. All that worrying about porn was crying over spilled milk! <rimshot?>
First off, not one of us is reading this unless some private, carefully-confined, even "sacred" money shot occurred, in some jungle-like midst. It probably was not filmed, although with the relatively sudden omnipresence of camera phones, etc, on the historical stage, probably a lot more will be recorded from here on out. Onto hard drives. Can you imagine? As we've learned above, it's not unthinkable that soon, one seven year old boy will ask his friend, "Hey! You wanna see the night I was conceived?" And then whip out the latest iEverthing gadget. All that worrying about porn was crying over spilled milk! <rimshot?>
These kids grow up so FAST these days, I tells ya!
I confess I never quite "got" the appeal of the "money shot." It seems like some highly stylized baroque ending to a performance, much like some mad free-flight virtuoso cadenza from Romantics like Liszt. A raw display of elan and male potency... It's graphically, astoundingly crass to some exponential point that's somehow magnificent and contrived at the same time...I've never known carnally any women who thought that was the preferable way for the...uhhh...efflorescence to occur. As they used to say on Internet in 1996, "YMMV," or Your Mileage May Vary. And I kinda hope it does. What do I know? Maybe I just tend to run with a somewhat less theatrical crowd?
Vaginas, Vaginas Everywhere, But Not a Drop...
Because I find it difficult to keep up with some strains of very popular culture, it took me awhile, but I found that, suddenly, ever since Oprah talked about her "va-jay-jay" on her show, mainstream media, including TV, has witnessed a seemingly much more wide-open discourse about women and their relationships with their genitals. Which seems suspicious to me, I don't know about you. (See HERE for something about the alleged sudden Appearance of the vagina in the public eye.)
Why no big discussion of penises too? Something seems askew here. Although I have noticed a higher-than-normal level of douchebags in the mainstream media, that's mostly just the political coverage, I suspect. Statistically within the range. But I concede the "cradle of civilization" point. And just in general, I think It's a real swell site, my kind of thing - the vagina, that is.
But when I read that article about increasing popular acceptance of the cradle of civ, I thought of a famous sociological paper by James Henslin called "Behavior in Pubic Places: The Sociology of the Vaginal Examination," which the experienced Mae A. Biggs helped him research. Basically, when a male gynecologist does his thing, it's a heavily planned series of events, ritualized behind a professional-specialist's bureaucratic veneer, meant to smoothly and delicately transition the doctor-patient relationship temporarily into a doctor-vagina-nurse standing-nearby to talk with doctor relationship, and then back into the doctor-patient relationship. And it's hard not to see the vagina as treated like a truly Sacred Thing. Very near the end of the article, just before the footnotes, we read:
Apart from the husband and significant others, except in a medical setting and by the actors about whom we are speaking, no one else may approach the vagina other than the self and still have it retain its sacred character.
After the word "character" there's a footnote, which reads:
It is perhaps for this reason that prostitutes ordinarily lack respect: They have profaned the sacred. And in doing so, not only have they failed to limit vaginal access to culturally prescribed individuals, but they have added further violation by allowing vaginal access on a monetary basis. They have, in effect, sold the sacred. - retrieved from Down To Earth Sociology, 12th edition
This would constitute just about the deepest level, for me, in the arguments for and against the legalization of prostitution. I'm for legalizing it, considering it a victimless crime and no matter for the State, but this "sacred" argument does carry some appreciable weight with me.
Is Oprah culturally guilty of anything here? I leave it to the better crackpots to decide this, for now. This OG crackpot gotsa keep movin' along...
Is Oprah culturally guilty of anything here? I leave it to the better crackpots to decide this, for now. This OG crackpot gotsa keep movin' along...
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A "Rubenseque" Beauty:
Getting Personal
I love reading personals ads. I think it instructive how people present themselves - quite often entirely in language - and how they seem to want to be perceived in a relatively abstract medium. I wonder what I would write were I in that...market. And who knew some hetero-identifying guys seek Asian transexuals, or how seemingly quite a lot of females seem to frankly have "Daddy" issues they want to work out? Etc, etc, etc. For some reason the personals have perennially provided an intellectual's springboard, and see HERE for a recent glaring example. Note how Dalrymple assumes a coding and decoding, a secret language. Which I guess is about right...
I love reading personals ads. I think it instructive how people present themselves - quite often entirely in language - and how they seem to want to be perceived in a relatively abstract medium. I wonder what I would write were I in that...market. And who knew some hetero-identifying guys seek Asian transexuals, or how seemingly quite a lot of females seem to frankly have "Daddy" issues they want to work out? Etc, etc, etc. For some reason the personals have perennially provided an intellectual's springboard, and see HERE for a recent glaring example. Note how Dalrymple assumes a coding and decoding, a secret language. Which I guess is about right...
Prof. George Carlin once attempted to write a personal ad that would attract no one:
I've always wanted to place a personal ad no one would answer: "Elderly, depressed, accident-prone junkie, likes Canadian food and Welsh music, seeking rich, well-built, oversexed female deaf mute in her late teens. Must be non-smoker."
Next Installment: Molly Gets Her Wig On!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Political Corruption: Three Takes, Possibly Illuminating?
I can't count how often I read some Citizen complain how the Democrats are so corrupt, always have been, always will. They're incurably rotten, those Democrats. Another Voter opines in three steady shades of black that the Republicans have ruined the country, because, why...dontcha see how "corrupt" they are?
I think I remember sorta buying this in my early twenties. I thought the Republicans were more corrupt than the Democrats. And of course this...needed to end? How could I have ever been so naive?
Since then I've changed my mind quite a lot. The charges of "corruption" on the part of one or both parties leave me a tad embarrassed for the naivete of the speaker. It's called "projection" in Freudian terms: I'm projecting myself onto the speaker who's agonizing over a world that, gosh dernit, would be so much better if not for all that corruption.
The unpleasant corollary for me in this is that I now realize how many times I've looked back and remembered that I actually sorta believed certain political ideas, and I blanche; this seems to strongly imply that whatever I think now might embarrass me a few years hence. It's a tough one to swallow, but I gotta live with it.
Perhaps it's a small price to pay if I'm trying to be intellectually "honest."
I said "trying." Gimme some slack? Some slack from the Slacktivists?
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I remember reading a lot of history in my late twenties and just being overwhelmed to the point of amusement over how utterly normal political corruption is. And after awhile, maybe you start to develop your own scale of how much true damage corruption can do to the Average Joe, Mrs Calabash down the street, poor kids, someone's dad who's trying to eek out a living for his family, etc.
There's a sort of corruption that seems partisan. I guess it hurts almost everyone a little, but if almost everyone, then hardly anyone, right?
(Is there a sort of corruption that does hurt almost everyone? Say 1% hurt the other 99%? What sort of corruption would that be? What do you call it? I know it sounds far-fetched. Forget I ever brought it up.)
Then there's the kind of corruption that various factions of the Ruling Class deem too damaging to the official narratives. I think that's a big reason Nixon went down. (There are many more historical examples.)
I guess a Reader starts to develop some vague, inchoate and heterogeneous taxonomy of corruption. But the thing is, you do expect it. It's not cynicism, it's realpolitick, or maybe just "living in the real world." Hence, my visceral reaction when a fellow citizen complains about corruption. I often feel a mixture of contempt, embarrassment, and admiration of a naive yet noble worldview.
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1.) Noam Chomsky
When I started reading Noam Chomsky I quickly came across numerous variations of his views on corrupt politicians. Basically, the Chomsky view is this: He's glad when politicians are corrupt, because that's normal. One corrupt one undermines another, then the undermined one's allies return the favor. It cancels power out. If some dipshit politician is in it for the money and himself and his pals, the local machine: at least they'll eventually get busted by some other competing corrupt group of opposition. On and on, welt sans kaput.
For Chomsky, the problem is the True Believer with charisma, who really wants power in order to change Everything and make it right. Like Hitler. And Chomsky has been saying for at least 30 years that American fascism, just below the surface, harbors these creeps, and we're subject to one sooner of later. And that's scary. He's perfectly happy to see yet the same old narrative of some jackoff preacher-politician, railing about "morality" and then getting caught with 15 Rolls Royces and a homosexual boy in a motel room. On tape. On the Six O'Clock News. That's no threat.
Here's a typical Chomsky bit on corruption, among many variations:
"If Hitler had been a crook...We're very fortunate in the United States, we've never had a charismatic leader who weren't a gangster. Every one of them was a thug, or a robber, or something. Which is fine, they don't cause a lot of trouble. If you get one who's honest, like Hitler, then you're in trouble - they just want power." - interview with Matthew Rothschild, 1997.
Boss Tweed, synonymous with "political corruption" in
Unistatian history
2.) Robert Anton Wilson
The middle period writings of RAW (which I consider as 1975-1985, with 1959-1974 the first period and 1986-2005 the third and last, not that anyone had asked) contains an abundance of non-Euclidean political writing, by which he meant that he saw value in left-libertarian and traditionally anarchist thought, and individualist-"right" libertarian ideas. Thinking beyond the stale left/right metaphor of political ideology. And other ideas too. (For a particularly brilliant elaboration of breaking out of right-left political thinking, see this Wilson essay here.) He rarely had much use for the Democratic or Republican parties. Which is an understatement. He seemed to pretty much loathe the Republicans always. And when I interviewed him we took a break on his balcony so he could smoke and I distinctly remember him talking about the Democratic party (in 2003) and ending his funny little diatribe with a big audible raspberry.
He used various sorts of libertarian ideas in a whole host of ironic moods, and I think he not only liked to play with any idea that was about individual freedom, but he thought there should be far more Ideas about politics in the public mind, period. And in his 1980 book The Illuminati Papers he used his pirate-libertarian free market anarchist-individualist character from his novels, Hagbard Celine, as a persona in articulating a set of "Celine's Laws."(see pp. 118-125) I consider each "Law" a gem of ingenious political satire, and yet each one holds a profound "truth," also. The First Law is National security is the chief cause of national insecurity. The Second Law states Accurate communication is only possible in a nonpunishing situation. It's the Third Law that applies to our subject of corruption.
Celine's Third Law states, An honest politician is a national calamity. Wilson explains that do-gooders, politicians who truly "mean well" tend to pass more and more laws, which creates more and more criminals. Why didn't I realize this before I read RAW? The more laws, the more restrictions on individual freedoms. "The chief cause of the rising crime rate is the rising number of laws being enacted. An honest politician, who keeps his nose to the grindstone and enacts several hundred laws in the course of his career, thereby produces as many as several million new criminals."
The thing about RAW here: this is hilarious and sorta mostly "true." The man had a gift for being wise and cosmically comedic at the same time. An interviewer once told Wilson that when he read his books he was never sure when he was serious or when he was joking. And RAW replied:
"I'm most serious when I am joking."
Back to RAW's Hagbard and our topic of corruption, and that an honest politician is a national calamity.
"At first glance, this seems preposterous. People of all shades of opinion agree at least on the axiom that we need more honest politicians, not more crooked ones. Please remember, however, that people of all shades of opinion once agreed that the Earth is flat."
Which then follows RAW's take on corruption, and compare and contrast this to Chomsky's:
"Your typical dishonest politician (bocca grande normalis) is interested only in enriching himself at the public expense, a goal he shares with most of his fellow citizens, especially doctors and lawyers. This is normal behavior for our primate species, and society has always been able to endure and survive it." (p.124, The Illuminati Papers)
3.) Gustav Papanek
Who he? Here's some background on Papanek. I encountered him a year or so ago when reading desultorily in economics. I was reading a bunch of sociology of religion stuff and was interested in emerging economies (like China and especially Indonesia and the Far East, but also Latin America) and how religions linked to development of markets, modernities (I'm convinced there are many variations of "modernity"), and just generally the weird mix of belief systems and economics. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss and Al Franken: O! The Things I Don't Know!
I took a load of notes, and I have some good ones from Papanek in a book with the boring title of Business and Democracy.
But more recently I read the semi-autobiography of one of my favorite intellectuals, Peter Berger, who I tend to not harmonize with on politics, as he's too conservative for me, but I love his thought, his writing, and he's funny. His 2011 book is titled Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore.
Berger's talking about his collaborations with Papanek near the end of the book, about certain ideas that contribute to emerging economies - such as "the state pursues intelligent economic and social policies - that is, it favors economic growth and has a concern for the welfare of its population." Another item that caught my eye and which pertains to our subject: "Corruption should be kept within reasonable limits."
Berger wonders why economists can't seem to tell the difference between "bad" and "good" corruption, and Papanek tells Berger he can elucidate the difference, calling it "the Papanek principle of corruption." Very briefly, "the corruption may not exceed the corruption itself." Wha?
It gets unpacked this way by Berger, after talking with Papanek:
"It is acceptable corruption if the head of government appoints his wife's uncle to a position in which he has nothing whatsoever to do (indeed he may have an office without a telephone that he ritually visits once a month to collect his salary check). But, as a result of the position, he draws a huge salary, lives in a government-supplied villa, and drives a government-supplied Mercedes. However, the corruption becomes unacceptable if the position entails real power over a sector of the economy - such as the power to wreck the state-controlled electricity company." (p.219)
-------------------------------------------------------------
There may or may not be a "lesson" to be learned by combining Chomsky, Wilson, and Papanek in these ideas about political corruption. I don't wanna get all didactic on my Dear Readers, if any. And besides I'm stoned and want to go play my guitar now, but before I send this blogspew into the Ethernet, I'm reminded of a zen anecdote I gleaned from the aforementioned Dr. Robert Anton Wilson.
I remember it thus:
A zen student asks the zen master, "What is world peace?"
And the zen master replies, "Two drunks fighting in an alley."
Thanks for reading, grasshoppers!
I think I remember sorta buying this in my early twenties. I thought the Republicans were more corrupt than the Democrats. And of course this...needed to end? How could I have ever been so naive?
Since then I've changed my mind quite a lot. The charges of "corruption" on the part of one or both parties leave me a tad embarrassed for the naivete of the speaker. It's called "projection" in Freudian terms: I'm projecting myself onto the speaker who's agonizing over a world that, gosh dernit, would be so much better if not for all that corruption.
The unpleasant corollary for me in this is that I now realize how many times I've looked back and remembered that I actually sorta believed certain political ideas, and I blanche; this seems to strongly imply that whatever I think now might embarrass me a few years hence. It's a tough one to swallow, but I gotta live with it.
Perhaps it's a small price to pay if I'm trying to be intellectually "honest."
I said "trying." Gimme some slack? Some slack from the Slacktivists?
------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember reading a lot of history in my late twenties and just being overwhelmed to the point of amusement over how utterly normal political corruption is. And after awhile, maybe you start to develop your own scale of how much true damage corruption can do to the Average Joe, Mrs Calabash down the street, poor kids, someone's dad who's trying to eek out a living for his family, etc.
There's a sort of corruption that seems partisan. I guess it hurts almost everyone a little, but if almost everyone, then hardly anyone, right?
(Is there a sort of corruption that does hurt almost everyone? Say 1% hurt the other 99%? What sort of corruption would that be? What do you call it? I know it sounds far-fetched. Forget I ever brought it up.)
Then there's the kind of corruption that various factions of the Ruling Class deem too damaging to the official narratives. I think that's a big reason Nixon went down. (There are many more historical examples.)
I guess a Reader starts to develop some vague, inchoate and heterogeneous taxonomy of corruption. But the thing is, you do expect it. It's not cynicism, it's realpolitick, or maybe just "living in the real world." Hence, my visceral reaction when a fellow citizen complains about corruption. I often feel a mixture of contempt, embarrassment, and admiration of a naive yet noble worldview.
--------------------------------------------------------
1.) Noam Chomsky
When I started reading Noam Chomsky I quickly came across numerous variations of his views on corrupt politicians. Basically, the Chomsky view is this: He's glad when politicians are corrupt, because that's normal. One corrupt one undermines another, then the undermined one's allies return the favor. It cancels power out. If some dipshit politician is in it for the money and himself and his pals, the local machine: at least they'll eventually get busted by some other competing corrupt group of opposition. On and on, welt sans kaput.
For Chomsky, the problem is the True Believer with charisma, who really wants power in order to change Everything and make it right. Like Hitler. And Chomsky has been saying for at least 30 years that American fascism, just below the surface, harbors these creeps, and we're subject to one sooner of later. And that's scary. He's perfectly happy to see yet the same old narrative of some jackoff preacher-politician, railing about "morality" and then getting caught with 15 Rolls Royces and a homosexual boy in a motel room. On tape. On the Six O'Clock News. That's no threat.
Here's a typical Chomsky bit on corruption, among many variations:
"If Hitler had been a crook...We're very fortunate in the United States, we've never had a charismatic leader who weren't a gangster. Every one of them was a thug, or a robber, or something. Which is fine, they don't cause a lot of trouble. If you get one who's honest, like Hitler, then you're in trouble - they just want power." - interview with Matthew Rothschild, 1997.
Unistatian history
2.) Robert Anton Wilson
The middle period writings of RAW (which I consider as 1975-1985, with 1959-1974 the first period and 1986-2005 the third and last, not that anyone had asked) contains an abundance of non-Euclidean political writing, by which he meant that he saw value in left-libertarian and traditionally anarchist thought, and individualist-"right" libertarian ideas. Thinking beyond the stale left/right metaphor of political ideology. And other ideas too. (For a particularly brilliant elaboration of breaking out of right-left political thinking, see this Wilson essay here.) He rarely had much use for the Democratic or Republican parties. Which is an understatement. He seemed to pretty much loathe the Republicans always. And when I interviewed him we took a break on his balcony so he could smoke and I distinctly remember him talking about the Democratic party (in 2003) and ending his funny little diatribe with a big audible raspberry.
He used various sorts of libertarian ideas in a whole host of ironic moods, and I think he not only liked to play with any idea that was about individual freedom, but he thought there should be far more Ideas about politics in the public mind, period. And in his 1980 book The Illuminati Papers he used his pirate-libertarian free market anarchist-individualist character from his novels, Hagbard Celine, as a persona in articulating a set of "Celine's Laws."(see pp. 118-125) I consider each "Law" a gem of ingenious political satire, and yet each one holds a profound "truth," also. The First Law is National security is the chief cause of national insecurity. The Second Law states Accurate communication is only possible in a nonpunishing situation. It's the Third Law that applies to our subject of corruption.
Celine's Third Law states, An honest politician is a national calamity. Wilson explains that do-gooders, politicians who truly "mean well" tend to pass more and more laws, which creates more and more criminals. Why didn't I realize this before I read RAW? The more laws, the more restrictions on individual freedoms. "The chief cause of the rising crime rate is the rising number of laws being enacted. An honest politician, who keeps his nose to the grindstone and enacts several hundred laws in the course of his career, thereby produces as many as several million new criminals."
The thing about RAW here: this is hilarious and sorta mostly "true." The man had a gift for being wise and cosmically comedic at the same time. An interviewer once told Wilson that when he read his books he was never sure when he was serious or when he was joking. And RAW replied:
"I'm most serious when I am joking."
Back to RAW's Hagbard and our topic of corruption, and that an honest politician is a national calamity.
"At first glance, this seems preposterous. People of all shades of opinion agree at least on the axiom that we need more honest politicians, not more crooked ones. Please remember, however, that people of all shades of opinion once agreed that the Earth is flat."
Which then follows RAW's take on corruption, and compare and contrast this to Chomsky's:
"Your typical dishonest politician (bocca grande normalis) is interested only in enriching himself at the public expense, a goal he shares with most of his fellow citizens, especially doctors and lawyers. This is normal behavior for our primate species, and society has always been able to endure and survive it." (p.124, The Illuminati Papers)
3.) Gustav Papanek
Who he? Here's some background on Papanek. I encountered him a year or so ago when reading desultorily in economics. I was reading a bunch of sociology of religion stuff and was interested in emerging economies (like China and especially Indonesia and the Far East, but also Latin America) and how religions linked to development of markets, modernities (I'm convinced there are many variations of "modernity"), and just generally the weird mix of belief systems and economics. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss and Al Franken: O! The Things I Don't Know!
I took a load of notes, and I have some good ones from Papanek in a book with the boring title of Business and Democracy.
But more recently I read the semi-autobiography of one of my favorite intellectuals, Peter Berger, who I tend to not harmonize with on politics, as he's too conservative for me, but I love his thought, his writing, and he's funny. His 2011 book is titled Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore.
Berger's talking about his collaborations with Papanek near the end of the book, about certain ideas that contribute to emerging economies - such as "the state pursues intelligent economic and social policies - that is, it favors economic growth and has a concern for the welfare of its population." Another item that caught my eye and which pertains to our subject: "Corruption should be kept within reasonable limits."
Berger wonders why economists can't seem to tell the difference between "bad" and "good" corruption, and Papanek tells Berger he can elucidate the difference, calling it "the Papanek principle of corruption." Very briefly, "the corruption may not exceed the corruption itself." Wha?
It gets unpacked this way by Berger, after talking with Papanek:
"It is acceptable corruption if the head of government appoints his wife's uncle to a position in which he has nothing whatsoever to do (indeed he may have an office without a telephone that he ritually visits once a month to collect his salary check). But, as a result of the position, he draws a huge salary, lives in a government-supplied villa, and drives a government-supplied Mercedes. However, the corruption becomes unacceptable if the position entails real power over a sector of the economy - such as the power to wreck the state-controlled electricity company." (p.219)
-------------------------------------------------------------
There may or may not be a "lesson" to be learned by combining Chomsky, Wilson, and Papanek in these ideas about political corruption. I don't wanna get all didactic on my Dear Readers, if any. And besides I'm stoned and want to go play my guitar now, but before I send this blogspew into the Ethernet, I'm reminded of a zen anecdote I gleaned from the aforementioned Dr. Robert Anton Wilson.
I remember it thus:
A zen student asks the zen master, "What is world peace?"
And the zen master replies, "Two drunks fighting in an alley."
Thanks for reading, grasshoppers!
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