rock action

an inconvenient truth

2007-01-14T23:13:00.000-05:00

Tonight a new campus group at St. John's held a screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," the global warming documentary/Al Gore biopic. I didn't catch it in theaters so Maggie and I checked it out. The movie was informative overall, so that was successful -- but as I slunk out of the theater, embarrassed not to be signing the petitions everyone else crowded around (I agree with them in spirit, but I'm skeptical about the effectiveness of petitions, and anyway I hate the feeling of being "handled" by an event), I couldn't help wondering about Gore's role in the film.

At first glance I thought it was unbelievably ambitious of the director to feature Gore so prominently. After the 2000 elections debacle he pretty much got tagged as a personality black hole, and if I were looking to make a documentary on global warming he would be the last guy I'd look too, no matter how much of an authority he is or how snazzy a slideshow he carries around. Watching the movie left me with a much different impression of the man, as just about every other person who saw it can tell you -- it turns out, once there isn't an election at stake, Gore is intelligent, witty, and even inspiring. And his slideshow is indeed super snazzy.

But I couldn't get away from wondering what the director must have thought in the early planning stages of the film. His credits are almost entirely TV-based (including, interestingly, the right-leaning "24"), so it's not like he's some documentary specialist. Perhaps -- probably closer to definitely -- he saw Gore's presentation and felt inspired. But if I were in that position, I imagine I would agonize over whether my impressions would be felt widely, considering the recent election. And when I say consider I mean it strongly enough that I don't think I could find the cojones to go with Gore.

What made the decision such a curiosity to me was that "An Inconvenient Truth" doesn't just center on Gore's long crusade for global warming awareness; half of the guy's life is laid out before us. There are profoundly personal moments, as Gore narrates us through the near death of his young son, his own childhood spent on a farm and in DC, and his early career as an idealistic young representative. Director David Guggenheim always brings it back to global warming eventually, but the connections are oftentimes tenuous at best (i.e. the near death of 6-year-old Gore the younger gives Al a fresh understanding that "the things we love may not always be there"). In fact, the centerpiece of the movie for me was a brief but very candid bit of narration from Gore. Set against a series of images and videos of his agonizingly slow 2000 presidential campaign defeat, Gore sadly intones that "it was hard news to take, but it reminded me what was important--" then a pause, as if he knows we don't believe him when he says that, because he doesn't believe it either-- "...I started doing the slideshow again."

"The slideshow" is what we see Gore doing mostly, and credit goes both to the man himself and Guggenheim for mostly filming "today's Gore" giving the presentation, or on his way to and from giving it. It's striking that, for all his talk about the majesty of nature, Gore is not afraid to show his daily life as it really is -- he is a workhorse for the environment, and it doesn't look like he has much time to enjoy it himself. Gore is constantly driving his car, or flying on a plane; and he is absolutely glued to his laptop at all times, scanning satellite photos detailing glacier retreat. He probably puts a hell of a lot more greenhouse gas into the air per year than you or I. But rather than detract from the genuineness of his plea, seeing his real life activities only adds to the appeal -- we're spared the usual campaign ad nonsense of seeing the slick politician fishing with his kid (for the first and last time), or kissing babies (that he couldn't care less about), tossing a frisbee to his dog (whose name he's forgotten). The overall impression is not that Gore is a hypocrite, but just the opposite -- that he is absolutely busting his ass over this problem, and that the rest of us should be, too.

But the more I thought about it, the more this initial impression was consumed in doubt. By the end of the documentary, I was ready to hear about what I could do to help stop global warming -- that's saying something, because I am usually an incurable skeptic, and as I said dislike being propagandized at and handled.

So I don't know what it was -- budget constraints or time constrains or a secret despair or what -- but I swear to god the damn movie just peters out right there. We see one graph of obscurely labeled "solutions" which are never explained, and in light of this Gore's assurance that we have the ability today to turn this disaster around just feels hollow. The movie ends lamely with a website to visit -- so lamely that I honestly haven't checked it out yet. It seems so obvious to me that if you want to make a documentary that "galvanizes the base," as the say out there in super-hip political blog-land, you want the components to get people pissed, and then get them active. It seems clear that the only reason you might trip over the second half of the equation is if you honestly didn't really know how best to get people active. Some Johnnies from the new club, SF squared, gave a little song and dance post-show, perhaps in the spirit of recovery; but their encouragement to sign petitions and write letters doesn't really do it for me. By the time the whole affair was done, I mostly felt like Gore owed me an electric car so that I could feel a little better about myself without first having to come up with tens of thousands of dollars.

The bad taste in my mouth got my conspiracy prone higher brain wondering at possible ulterior motives for giving global warming and Gore himself equal billing. The truth is, the science of the movie may not be rigorous; the audience has no way of knowing, because nothing is really cited or explained. That's not an indictment -- it's only fair to expect a mass-marketed movie to involve some theatrics. It's just to say that there are some philosophical and scientific questions that are left noticeably unanswered: "is it really in the best interest of the US to do something just because lots of other countries are doing it?; is Al Gore mixing up some priorities palling around with the Chinese?; is it a bit exploitative to equate allowing the WTC memorial to flood with allowing a repeat of 9/11?; and who said it is our duty to save the world, rather than destroy it a la Nietszche?" (the last a bit of fatalism those singing dancing Johnnies made an honorable attempt to deflect).

With that in mind I began to suspect that keeping the focus on Gore himself was meant to trick the audience into ignoring these questions, and others of a more statistical nature. The battle over global warming has reached (or perhaps has always been at) a level of complexity that can be intimidating to laymen (laymen here being essentially everyone). But if Guggenheim can show us a good man -- straightforward, hard-working, passionate and honorable -- fighting for this thing, maybe we can comfortably ignore those lingering questions and join the good fight with our good ole VP.

I don't really see that possibility as impugning Gore's character, since he really does seem to be all of the things mentioned above. Nor in fact would it really ruin Guggenheim for me, if it were true -- global warming looks like it could be a real problem, and perhaps it's worth sacrificing a little honesty to get people making the right decisions on an issue that few have the time or patience to delve into in depth. But still, I left FSK with something of a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

moon landing

2006-11-01T15:56:00.000-05:00

when the Greeks were victorious in battle or strategic planning they were in the habit of erecting 'trophies' -- little pillars of enemy armor and detritus -- and dedicating these to their patron gods (i.e. when they reach a critical island position ahead of the Persian foe, etc.) likewise the Romans and their notorious crosses (though there were of course ulterior motives for these). Christians have now appropriated that monument, and historically as they explored the world the church was always one of the first things to be built. the austerity and oftentimes super-abstractness of government monuments and memorials today. the rational scientists, on the other hand, don't really impose much of anything on their surroundings, preferring rather to take from the new environment in order to more comfortably assess its qualities from the confines of the lab. their impositions (experiments) too are transient, not meant to last except in the minds of those performing them.

there is nothing on the moon except that plastic flag, which we consider a symbol of our country but is perhaps better understood as one of the chief idols of americanism (an idol common to all countries, of course, but those ancient stone gods were all made of stone, weren't they?) understood as a religion. is it fair to point to the moon landing as indicative that america is not a christian nation but in fact imposes its own unique religion? we did not leave a cross behind, or anything besides the flag and the new vacuum caused by the experiments our men performed and the samples they brought home. one might object that we were PC enough in '69 not to make a religious gesture, but it seems like landing on the moon was an extreme-enough accomplishment that it would have overrided that nitpicking. is the moon landing then evidence that our real religion in this country is a kind of new rationalism/science combined with a highly obscure kind of idolatry? or is it just evidence that our country is controlled by people who maintain this religion? or neither? does anyone know if any of those astronauts brought things of faith with them on that flight, and maybe even if they surreptitiously left a few behind? or maybe actually leaving earth for the void is enough to kill anyone's old fashioned christianity.

the future and Israel

2006-08-13T17:48:00.000-04:00

This summer I had the opportunity to attend a Saturday afternoon class with a "futurist" from Bar-Ilan University, Dr. David Passig. Those scare-quotes should indicate how I felt going into the class -- I'm not exactly sure what a degree in future studies from U of Minnesota is worth, but my intuition told me "not so much."
However, I was pleasantly surprised to find Dr. Passig to be an entertaining and intelligent speaker. He began by assuaging my fears somewhat with his explanation of "futurology," which appears to just be a kind of advanced statistics/history/current events cocktail. I still think it's a stupid term, but the concept of the predictive power of statistics applied to the future is interesting, and though Dr. Passig himself admitted that in general you're looking at a likelihood of 20% for the average prediction, it is better than nothing.
Dr. Passig, whose expertise in prediction is, I gather, tied up in technology and electronics, had been asked to speak on a topic he has recently branched into: the political future of the state of Israel. (It should be noted that, though the site alleges this paper is online, I cannot open that page due to some kind of PDF bug.) His talk focused, as does the paper, on the motivations or "sense of destiny" of the Jewish people in Israel yesterday, today, and tommorrow, a comparison that occurred to him on a recent flight and which he noted, in classic nutty professor form, on a cocktail napkin. Though his observations on this general point were interesting, I have to admit I don't remember them all. Anyway, I was more interested in what he said in passing: the effect of the European Union on global politics.
According to Dr. Passig, who may or may not be a reliable authority, the European Union has already started a global trend of regional politics, the likes of which the world has never experienced. As anachronistic nationalist fears and loathings have begun to evaporate on a global level, and countries have begun to seek out alliances and agreements from afar with the use of new communications technology (i.e. the internet), it seems there is still one defining characteristic that nobody can shake: location. This has led to the genesis of the EU, a sort of super country destined for greatness by virtue of its sheer size and economic power.
But the rest of the world is paying attention. Dr. Passig believes a similar eastern Asian alliance can't be far away, including China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and other countries in that region. Likewise, we in the USA have seen the beginnings (albeit rocky) of a North/South American union in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Presuming that income levels will eventually normalize between Canada/USA and Central/South America, it's likely that NAFTA will expand.
All these aside, there is one notable group also likely to begin to form a supercountry: the Arab world. As is apparent in Iraq's civil war, the region is still fiercely sectarian and divided. However, Dr. Passig believes these kind of national/racial tensions are going to be forced to evaporate in much the same way those between eastern and western Europeans, or the Chinese and Japanese, or Mexicans and Americans, have been and will be forced to evaporate. Which left me with one question that I was very much hoping Dr. Passig would address: when Arabic tensions begin to dissipate, what will that mean for Israel?
Unfortunately, due to many interruptions and a somewhat chaotic discussion atmosphere, Dr. Passig was soon distracted and did not return to assail that question, but it seems to me to be a fundamental one if we want to learn something of the future of Israel. Will formation of a united Arab supercountry mean the destruction of Israel, or its acceptance, or neither?
The future leaders of the Arab world, the ones who will see the economic and political necessity for this supercountry, are sure to be voices of moderation within their communities. The philosophy that would bring an end to nationalist, religious, or racial divides within the Arab world is a necessarily liberal one, and it will not be espoused by the radical terrorist groups currently flexing their short-lived muscle in the region. In fact, the economic effort that would be needed to develop a supercountry would most likely mandate at least a decade of curtailed government spending -- meaning that countries in that region that usually devote a substantial portion of their funds to terrorist groups, like Iran, will most likely need that money for other, more constructive projects.
In the short-term, then, such a supercountry would be good news for Israel, as many or all of its terrorist enemies would find themselves short on cash and long on bad karma. But what about long-term consequences?
The idea of a unified Arabic front at first sounds like nothing but bad news for the Jewish state. Though Israel has proven resilient against individual attacks from the Arab countries, and even against more coordinated assaults between three or four of them, a war that saw real, full support from wealthier countries like Iran would probably be too much to handle.
However, a full on war with Israel would be an expensive proposition, and politically difficult to justify in most cases. While these considerations haven't always deterred Arab leadership in the past, we are assuming a scenario in which Arab moderates have taken over. So the question becomes this: just how moderate is an Arab moderate? Is he willing to leave Israel to its own fate, without continuing the 60-year effort to destroy it? Dare it be proposed that, being so moderate, he is able to see through decades of Zionist/Jew-hatred to the one country in the middle east that is legitimately pluralistic, democratic, and free-market?; and that, seeing this, he is inclined to make his new supercountry partially in Israel's image? Is inclined to allow Israel to join his supercountry? And if that last, incredible possibility becomes an option, how would Israel respond?
Hopefully I'll be able to read Dr. Passig's paper soon, and he will address some of these issues.

rereading Maus

2006-04-05T15:38:00.000-04:00

So I landed a position next year at the Temple teaching 9th graders, a substantially different job and much closer to what I actually wanted all along. This year it's been nothing but 5th and 6th grade, and while those kids are cute my skills don't lie in that area -- I was made to relive the early adolescence I squandered so foolishly not five years ago.

After finally beating this into Ellen's head, she gave me the job and asked that I start thinking about developing a more solid curriculum. With that in mind I took a look at the current 8th grade syllabus, as well as the 9th grade books. Ouch. First of all, the current book for 9th grade is some kind of comparitive religion manual from the 80s, which is not only inept but also I think possibly racist, or something. The most it has to say about the polytheistic south Americans, for example, is to show an engraving of a man having his heart torn out of his chest by some native priests and some snide caption about polytheists not knowing right from wrong. No thanks!

In my quest to develop some new material I noticed that the 8th grade was supposed to have read Wiesel's Night and done an entire unit on the Holocaust, which due to something or other they did not ever get to. Tonight I'll propose to the director that the 9th grade instead be in charge of this part of Jewish history, and that we approach the subject not with Night but Art Spiegelman's Maus.

I am no comic book elitist and in fact I loathe those people, but Maus is...well, it's uniquely affecting. Wiesel wrote a powerful book, but the heaviness of it I think defeats high school efforts to use it as a teaching text, especially in the religious school environment, which is typically light on work/heavy on fun. If nothing else, Maus is a quicker read (I did both volumes in a day), which ought to encourage the kids to actually complete the assignment.

As for Maus itself, I have to say it surprised me once more, not only with its power to draw the reader in immediately, but also the fluid mixing of 1970s America with 1940s Germany. There's something striking about Vladek's (the main character, father of the author and artist Art) religious conviction, often alluded to during his wartime experiences but completely absent from his later portrayal, much like his son. Vladek maintains a knowledge of Judaism which he expresses by way of little bits of information: Gematriah, the parsha system, a few Hebrew or Yiddish phrases here and there. Otherwise, though, he defines his life by the scrappy existence he learned in the death camps.

Art, on the other hand, knows nothing at all about his religion. He read torah at his bar mitzvah, and we are left to assume it was the last time. He married a goy (though she converted), recited from the Tibetan Book of the Dead at his mother's funeral rather than the Kaddish, and otherwise seems utterly detached from the religious side of his father's life. When Art grapples in his studio with how to understand and portray the tragedy of the Holocaust, he grapples with a human tragedy, not a religious one. More strikingly, he does not seem to be aware that he is missing or ignoring this aspect; he is completely unconcious of the omission. He feels himself to be part of the terror of the Holocaust because he would have been killed, too; because his brother was killed, his parents terrorized; but not because he has a religious connection to the victims.

Somehow it seems like that approach, whether it's genuinely naive or an extremely subtle comment by the author, has a lot more to say about the state of modern Judaism than Wiesel's frequent musings on the same subject. I had the opportunity to read over Rebecca's shoulder over Spring Break an essay by the philosopher Emil Fackenheim, who in his discussion of the Holocaust said two things that stuck with me: first, that the tragedy of the Holocaust is distinctly modern in character; and second, that it was at least in part responsible for the modern Jewish impulse to maintain both strong secular communities and good public relations.

What Fackenheim meant by the first point I confess I can't know for sure, because I didn't have time to finish reading. But I can think of plenty of ways to see the Holocaust as "modern." It's conception and execution in a Western European country which I am inclined to think of as a peer of America, and therefore modern, is the most obvious of these. But perhaps what Fackenheim meant goes a bit deeper.

What were the accusations levelled against the Jews of Europe? What did the propaganda say? Surely, much of it must have seemed nonsense initially; Jews stealing children, putting blood into their matzah, etc. But some of the rhetoric was more sinister in that it was not unbelievable. The Jews were blamed for a crumbling economy, and accused of having such control over the market and politics of Germany that even in the minority they literally controlled their countrymen.

What happened to killing Jesus? This seems to be what makes the Holocaust, for Jews, a uniquely modern crisis: the accusations are financial and political, not spiritual, not even doctrinal. Somehow, the Nazis created a magic potion that allowed them to single out a group characterized and classified by religious beliefs for crimes completely separate from religion: crimes that could impact the modern, secular world, enlightenment crimes.

At Hillel one night I suggested in a discussion that the primary incentive for Jews to stick together today was that as a people we had very recently seen a great terror. At the time it was just an idle thought, but having read Maus again I wonder if it didn't have some truth. It does seem to me, at least at this point in time, that the Holocaust basically negates all spiritual loyalty to Judaism. If this sounds like a concession to Nazism I apologize, but it is difficult for me to see how one might take seriously a covenant with a God sworn to protect, who then proceeds to allow such an act to take place in the modern world. If we as reasonable and curious humans don't take the Holocaust as a sure sign that God is not interested, exactly what are we waiting for?

Judaism then, for Fackenheim (maybe, don't want to put words in his mouth) and for Art Spiegelman, and for me, was reduced in the early 1940s to a primarily defensive gesture. No one born into it can escape it -- the Nazis' meticulous geneological records prove as much. Yet anyone born a Jew, because he finds himself alive in a time where the Holocaust must be able to happen, since it did happen, must if he is smart or afraid or both realize his duty to his people. IE, he must accept that part of his life will be spent defending his faith or blood, ingratiating it to others, and always waiting for the first sign that the modern west has pent up enough rage to let loose upon him once more.

a little bit of what I've been doing lately

2006-03-29T15:32:00.000-05:00

If the New Law justifies properly, then, and the Old Law does not, why is the Old Law preserved? One answer might be that the Old Law, though it could not cause internal justice, was still an external representation of justice, and therefore useful for understanding the nature of the divine will. However, even this falls flat for Thomas, as he clarifies that Jesus not only internalized the Law but actually improved it, by “explaining the true sense of the Law…prescribing the safest way of complying with the statutes of the Old Law…[and] by adding some counsels of perfection.” (107—2) The New Law, then, is more than just an internalization of the Old Law – it contains additional commands. Thomas quotes Jesus, who “said to the man who affirmed that he had kept all the precepts of the Old Law: One thing is wanting to thee: If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell whatever thou hast;” (107—2) a precept clearly lacking from the Old Law. These changes came because the Old Law “could not accomplish…the justification of men.” (107—2)

...

There is very little offered to answer this question, only the inescapable fact that Thomas does handle the Old Law, and that further he does not make the case against it as strongly as he might. For this latter point, the clearest example of Thomas’s unwillingness to completely “destroy” the Old Law comes from his citing of Jesus as saying just that: “On the contrary, Our Lord said (Matt. V. 17) : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” One possibility, then, is that Thomas takes on the Old Law out of the divine principle. However, Thomas might just as easily have quoted Matthew 9:
“Jesus said unto them…no man pieceth an old garment with a piece of new cloth…neither do men put new wine into old vessels, for then the vessels break…But they pour new wine into new vessels, and so are both saved together.”

Jesus seems to refer here to the practicing of the ceremonial precepts, and why such things are not to be done when the time of redemption is at hand. Yet, even though Thomas is not actually advocating the practice of the ceremonial precepts, could not his preoccupation with the fulfilled Old Law be seen as an attempt to “pour new wine into old vessels”? For if the New Law is the moral precepts of the Old divorced from the ceremonial, surely this is the case. Why does Thomas cite a comparably mild verse, which cautions against the destruction of the Old Law, rather than this one, which seems to make it quite clear that the Old Law has little place in the New?

...

Thomas seems to want to claim that a true Christian is above such doubts, and that being filled with the Holy Spirit is not an internal state which can or need be questioned – certainly an attractive state of mind for the potential convert. However, if this is the case, why are any external acts at all prescribed by the New Law?

...

Speaking about the nature of theological study, Thomas says that “even as regards those truths about God which human reason can investigate, it was necessary that man be taught by a divine revelation.” (1—1) Is this a suggestion that there is no way to convert a man who has not already understood certain divine truths? How are we to know which truths about God are assailable by reason, and which must instead be divinely imparted? Thomas answers this with a yet more subtle division: just as
“the science of optics proceeds from principles established by geometry…so it is that sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles made known by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed.” (1—2)

Somehow, the study of sacred doctrine is a science, subject like other sciences to human reason and scrutiny.

...

God...come...s...o...n...science.
-----
Thank you and goodnight!

kids say the darndest things

2006-02-19T02:59:00.000-05:00

The best question: why are things the way they are, and not some other way?

Why are things? Why would they not be? Are things that are not? Where are we to begin there, the boat of reason so thoroughly swamped that even the words confuse us?

For those just tuning in I am a religious school teacher. For a moment we'll set aside all of the baggage and qualms that come with being an atheist well-paid by a religious organization to inflict dogma on minors, in favor of relating an anecdote.

Student "J," a nice enough kid but perhaps one of the dumbest in the class is sitting blankly this Wednesday night. Nothing new; he is 12 and dumb, and staring at walls or tables is symptomatic of these two big problems. But tonight there's something else in his eyes. We're in the middle of an activity, so watchful if somewhat frigid Mr. Socol descends, in that casual but purposed hawk-swoop that he has somehow channeled from his middle school teachers of yore, in order to encourage participation.

"J, what's going on, man? Having trouble thinking of ideas?" [We have asked them to assign a name to their own Jewish state.]

J: Looking up slowly and with conviction "Mr. Socol, why do we go to school or even do work if everyone dies in the end anyway? Does anyone know what it all means?"

Mr. Socol: Reeling "..."

Why are things the way they are, and not some other way?

Friday night is a lecture on literature. Mr. Socol, having resumed the alter-ego Max, attends with most of the rest of the school. The tutor, stiff but not humorless, says all significant literature concerns death or aspects of death and ending. Just like significant philosophy. Max leaves with his brow furrowed, wanting to make connections but at the time unable. Too many puns, maybe.

Then Saturday morning, crossing the 150 feet from the door of his building to the dining hall, it strikes him suddenly, or part of it strikes him, some bit of debris from the clouded information explosion of Friday's lecture. What makes the question of death significant? Isn't the significant question "why are things the way they are, and not some other way?"

But we can break that one down into many smaller questions. Why do we see in color? Why do insects have so many eyes? Why am I 5'11 and not 6'? (No but seriously on that one, why.) Why do things end and die? Why do we die?

Those last two, those are whence "Why are things...?" derives its power. To ask one
question is almost the equivalent of asking the other. Supposition A.

So then returning to J's question: why do we do what we do, if we do not know the purpose? Why are we the way we are, and not some other way? It's difficult or maybe impossible to inquire seriously into that dangerous subject, for if we do and find our answer lacking we are capable of doing things we might later regret deeply. Why does J go to school? Why does he get out of bed? Why does he get in bed? Will he ever know?

And if that is the equivalent of "why do we die?",[supp B] will he ever know that? Do we die because we can't think of a good reason why we ought not to? [conclusion]

The obsessive ramblings cannot linger past 3 AM without losing the last of their
cohesiveness. But, to finish that short dialogue:

Mr. Socol: continuing to be at a loss "..."
Student B: sensing weakness in an authority figure "Well? How come?"
Mr. Socol: rallying, authoritatively "Oh, you find out the meaning of life when you graduate college. They print it on your diploma. In Latin."

Victory

some authors on death

2006-01-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

I think about death probably more than the average person. That sentence was rewritten four times with 0% success at making it sound less weird. But it is something that can be helpful to think about, sometimes, not in a 'jesus christ I can't write this music paper I wish I were DEAD' way, but more in a 'let's make sure we're keeping priorities straight' way.

Vladimir Nabokov, on death (in particular suicide by falling):

The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off -- farewell, shootka (little chute)! Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler pigeon, and sprawl supine on the eiderdown of the air, or lazily turn to embrace your pillow, enjoying every last instant of soft, deep, death-padded life, with the earth's green seesaw now above, now below, and the voluptuous crucifixion, as you sttretch yourself in the growing rush, in the nearing swish, and then your loved body's obliteration in the Lap of the Lord.

Once we've taken a moment to appreciate how Vlad can make literally any scene be the most beautiful thing in the world, let's evaluate the perspective here. The narrator is a Christian, a bit nuts, but a believer in an afterlife. He balks at suicide because it is a sin, though he does mention that "we who burrow in filth every day may be forgiven perhaps the one sin that ends all sins." Still, even this man who is a believer in Heaven, or this author who is trying to inhabit such a man, sees the bliss of the last instant as stemming primarily from life's being "death-padded." One can no longer expect anything of life or have anything expected of one, plummeting to earth in those last seconds; therefore is life a new kind of wonderful.
It strikes me as unusual that the viewpoint of a Christian (setting aside his insanity for a moment) would be written in this way.

Ever since I read John Crowley's Little, Big, I've been trying to think of death differently. Or, maybe, death has been slowly changing its shape in my mind. I still find it terrifying, to the point where ocassionally I will have a dream wherein I die and will wake up feeling as though I might actually die, from the fear. But Crowley's death undergoes some kind of severe metamorphosis. Without giving anything away, because it is a wonderful book and you should really go read it, the story revolves around a "Tale" which must be fulfilled by a particular family living in upstate New York. The Tale is never made explicit to them; they know only that they are an inextricable part of it, that everything they do is because it has allowed or forced them to, and that it somehow relates to these tiny gnome people who live in a kind of alternate dimension (I promise it's good, it sounds weird summarized though).

So basically for the whole book there's this kind of unspoken tension, because the family's final generation (about which the story focuses) must somehow make a "journey" to this alternate realm to complete the Tale, and even though no one says it at first it's clearly on everyone's mind that the word "journey" may actually mean "death." Finally, in the last section, Daily Alice Drinkwater (who must depart first) confesses her fear to her sister.

"Sophie," she said softly. "Do you think it's death?"
Sophie had fallen asleep, her head resting against Alice's shoulder. "Hm?" she said.
"Do you think that dying is what it really is?"
"I don't know," Sophie said. She felt Alice trembling beside her. "I don't think so. But I don't know."
"I don't think so either," Alice said.
Sophie said nothing.
"If it is, though," Alice said, "it isn't...what I thought."
"You mean dying isn't? Or that place?"
"Either." She pulled the afghan more closely around them. "Smoky told me, once, about this place, in India or China, where ages ago when somebody got the death sentence, they used to give him this drug, like a sleeping drug, only it's a poison, but very slow-acting; and the person falls asleep first, deep asleep, and has these very vivid dreams. He dreams a long time, he forgets he's dreaming even; he dreams for days. He dreams that he's on a journey, or that some such thing has happened to him. And then, somewhere along, the drug is so gentle and he's so fast asleep that he never notices when, he dies. But he doesn't know it. The dream changes, maybe; but he doesn't even know it's a dream, so. He just goes on. He only thinks it's another country."
"That's spooky," Sophie said.
"Smoky said he didn't think it was so, though."
"No," Sophie said. "I bet not."
"He said, if the drug was always supposed to be fatal in the end, how would anybody know what its effect was?"
"Oh."
"I was thinking," Alice said, "that maybe this is like that."

We play this game with Crowley right to the end, this oscillating back and forth between believing the Tale will kill them and the Tale will actually transport them. But it's strange that, even though there's only a short range of possibility there, so much can still be revealed. As events march ever onward towards the final crossing, the distinction between death and adventure fades until it almost seems meaningless, like the story that Daily Alice relates.

There are, the book seems to say, two great adventures to which we are privy in our lives: love and death. Is this why adults stop playing "let's pretend?" The impulse for adventure is with us from our earliest conscious memories -- have adults simply come to understand that there are two truly unfathomable journeys which are not only accessible, but also unavoidable? If so, what is the content of a great adventure? I did not think love counted. But I am in love and I see that there is more to it than I ever could have thought, and what spots were still fuzzy for me Crowley has made great strides in filling in. I may never love my way to a land of gnomes, but is the fact that the gnomes play almost no part in 99% of Little, Big mean that like me, Crowley suspects we have all we need already with us?

Death is terrifying because we do not and cannot know anything about it. Medical experiments on cadavers, theological parsing, philosophical girding: those things are wonderful but they will never cross the breach, unless they have no plans to return. That longing that we all feel, that thing that makes us read and write and paint and just generally love beautiful things because they give us a taste of something greater than ourselves: have I been wrong to be sad because I thought I would never have access to it? Will I get to know beauty when I die?

I don't know exactly where I was going to take this, but I guess it can be summed up just by saying that maybe for the first time I've found a book that has genuinely given me hope, and a lady (woman? girl?) who has begun to validate it. And I'm very pleased about that.

Higher education?

2006-01-04T16:10:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of my mom (hi mom), this just in:
Literacy of College Graduates is on Decline

"Literacy experts and educators say they are stunned by the results of a recent adult literacy assessment, which shows that the reading proficiency of college graduates has declined in the past decade, with no obvious explanation." - Washington Post

Come parse that sentence with me, for a moment. Educators are "stunned" by a study of over 19000 American "college graduates" age 16 (?!) and up which seems to suggest that
A) Only 31% of these college graduates "can read a complex book and extrapolate from it" and
B) "Only 41 percent of graduate students tested in 2003 could be classified as "proficient" in prose," where prose for reasons unknown to yrs truly seems to mean short instructional texts which ask the reader to complete such mental gymnastics "as computing costs per ounce of food items, comparing viewpoints on two editorials and reading prescription labels."

Are you stunned, too? Perhaps for the full stun to sink in it would help to know that in 1992 only 41% of college graduates could parse complex literary works, and only 51% could deal with the travails of prescription medication directives.

College graduates. College motherfucking graduates.

The stunned educators and "literacy experts" (your guess = mine) spend most of the rest of the article casting about for possible explanations at headless-chicken levels of franticness/directionlessness. Among the various leads suggested for identifying the problem (which I for some reason cannot help but imagine as headlines on newspapers that come swirling out of a dark screen like in old newsreels and cartoons) we have:

"It may be that institutions have not yet figured out how to teach a whole generation of students who learned to read on the computer and who watch more TV. It's a different kind of literacy." - Mark Schneider, "commissioner of education statistics" (again...what?)
Perhaps "most college instruction is offered at the intermediate level because students face reading challenges."
"There is a failure in the core values of education. They're told to go to college in order to get a better job -- and that's okay. But the real task is to produce educated people." - dreamer Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association
"The slip in scores could be attributed to most state schools not being particularly selective, accepting most high school graduates to bolster enrollment."
"In addition, Schneider said schools may not be taking into account a more diverse population, and the language and cultural barriers that come with shifting demographics."
"There is a tremendous literacy problem among high school graduates that is not talked about. It's a little bit depressing. The colleges are left holding the bag, trying to teach students who have challenges." - Dolores Perin, "a reading expert at Columbia University Teachers College" (where do they get so many experts?)

Of all of these, I humbly submit that we can dismiss anything Mark Schneider has to say, as well as perhaps dismiss Mark Schneider from his job, as long as it does not immediately threaten national security. Mr. Schneider's "different kind of literacy," which sounds wonderfully tech-savvy and progressive, breaks down when one considers that
A) if anything, tech reading is even more data parsing/instruction oriented, meaning that a bunch of college grads too stupid to figure out how to read a chart of prices per ounce are going to be hopeless messes in the tech world, and
B) TV, for obvious reasons, has nothing to contribute to literacy beyond building vocabulary, which your best bet there is to watch a lot of "Jeopardy!", and nobody should have to do that, and
C) the whole thing is just one huge and gross and irresponsible cop-out anyway. If these people are struggling because they would rather watch "The Price is Right" than read a book, then it's time for us to either decide that "The Price is Right" has as much or more to offer than any book (which taking a stab here I'm going to say it does not, and that even huge tool Michael Schneider would agree) or that part of being in college is watching less goddamn television and doing more goddamn reading. Which seems to have escaped Mr. Schneider, which is possibly an explanation for why he has been effectively neutralized in government education theory by being made Mr. Statistics.

Except that it doesn't really explain Mr. Schneider, since it's clear that as a country we are completely oblivious about the redeeming qualities, if there are any, of higher education, and also about how one goes about structuring or giving or receiving a higher education. Which brings us to door #4: selection processes for state colleges and universities. Are they lax? It certainly seems that way. But why?

The purpose of a private college is two-parted. We have that ideal goal which takes the forefront of the admissions literature: to educate/open/explore/mold/refine young minds. This goal may be expressed in a seemingly unending number of pithy slogans, which will bombard the innocent high school student in such guises as admissions mailings and uncomfortable anonymous phone calls. Then we have the nitty gritty: the preservation of the college, the need for the college to make money. The constant balancing act that a private college is faced with is to maintain a genuine interest in the intellectual wellbeing of its students while also acknowledging that continued existence as a school probably means that some sacrifices will have to be made. And the first of these sacrifices is always: not everyone is going to get an education. There are admissions standards that must be kept. It is unfeasible for the college to teach students who cannot learn or cannot pay to learn, if the college is to survive.

Similar circumstances beleaguer the government's public education system. There is only a certain amount of money that can be allotted for educational purposes, so the first thing to go is the democratic notion of equal education for all (in truth, the same problem is to be found in the public high school system, but for some reason it's distasteful to suggest that a high school education shouldn't be made available to everyone; but that's a can of worms for another time). Instead, state schools, despite being classified as "public," are not so. You cannot, despite being a member of the public, simply waltz into your public university of choice and demand admittance. You must apply, and you must pay.

What is the government's interest in providing higher education for a certain subset of the citizenry? The obvious answer seems to be that an educated population is capable of doing more for itself and its country, in terms of promoting economic wellbeing as well as military and environmental technology. Some other goals, considered secondary but still kept in mind, are the fullfillment of a certain national vanity WRT the arts - we like to see Americans win awards for their writing and art and music, we like to think of ourselves as cultural leaders and political models; and this requires that we maintain an edge over other countries with education in these fields. Finally, there is the mysterious and scary idea of public indoctrination - a serious national goal of public education is to educate people to love or at least appreciate democracy, and America, and the things which America purports to stand for. Even more scary, in fact, when you realize that the entire reason the idea of indoctrination is scary to Americans like us in the first place is that we believe in democracy, and democracy hates indoctrination except, of course, where democracy itself is concerned. But to return to the topic: these seem to be the relevant modern goals of national education.

So then, the relevant question here is: what could possibly have fooled the government into thinking that it is advantageous for anyone to dilute public schools with people who are not cut out to be in them? A question which seems to have no answer, until you start to think about how public universities actually work. The university system is decentralized - every school is responsible for its own welfare. It is subject to state and federal laws, but these laws are more concerned with the financial issues than with those pertaining to curriculum. At most, these laws dictate certain admissions policies on the part of the university, IE affirmative action etc.

The real way the government controls public universities is by the money it gives out. It should not take much to imagine the scenario: the federal government, debatably well-meaning, notoriously clumsy, decides that it is time for "education reform." The best idea proposed for the undertaking is some kind of dynamic funding, wherein a university receives more or less money based on criteria within the national interest: number of students admitted compared to number graduated, number of students enrolled in the grad schools, number of students graduating from programs in the school which will help alleviate national academic deficiencies, number of minority students admitted/graduated, etc. How these numbers are reached is left to the school's discretion; they simply must be reached if the school expects to see much in the way of funding at the start of the next fiscal year.

Suddenly we have the makings of serious educational crisis, one which might be referred to by such personalities as Gorman as "appalling," or even "astounding." Because the public universities, facing the very imminent prospect of not having any money, have decided that the only course of action to take is to start admitting underqualified students to meet one of the above criteria or criteria similar in spirit. Perhaps if they slacken entrance requirements their graduation rates will go up due to sheer quantity of student body. If not, perhaps it is also time to tweak graduation requirements so that they are easier to fulfill. Specialized degrees proliferate in an effort to get everybody in and out with the right papers. Business school is invented, despite the fact that it is a bastardization of economics so lowbrow and anti-academic that it's basically a constant sore point for any educators who still remember what education was supposed to be about. Those commerials you see on TV for "degrees" in such things as air-conditioning repair and makeup start associating themselves with honest-to-God accredited universities. Online courses are invented. Online degrees are invented. Soon, one can graduate from college without actually going to college. And soon, apparently, one can graduate from college without knowing how to read or understand in any way written information.

It is a common belief that the depreciation of the Bachelor's Degree is primarily because so many people have them now. And that seems at least partially true; supply and demand re college grads in the business world is not tough to digest. But it may also be worth wondering whether some of that depreciation is due to the fact the undergrad school really is just 99% bullshit. It seems obvious from this study that you can be a genuinely stupid person, incapable of even understanding the directions on your pill bottle, and still have successfully graduated from college. What sort of organization could then be fairly expected to give a shit about college education? What corporate exec is going to look at my business school diploma and not think to himself, "my mechanic has this same piece of paper"?

We come now to door #3 and Mr. Gorman, the only person cited in this article who seems to have any idea what the actual problem is. A "failure of the core values of education" sounds alarmist, maybe. But is it so far from the truth? If we acknowledge already as a country that higher education must be undemocratic - must be determined by admissions requirements - then what could this diluting of the current and immediate past undergraduate student body be other than a nationwide failure to remember the whole point of the university undertaking in the first place? How can we simultaneously say out of one side of our mouths that someone who has graduated from college is "educated" and out of the other that perhaps a 30% literacy rate amongst college grads is due to "shifting demographics" or "reading challenges"? Is it so terrible to suggest that a person with "reading challenges," however tragic or unjust, is not fit for higher education, and will not be in any sense unless those challenges are overcome? Is it racist or otherwise bigoted to suggest that a
person who cannot speak or read English is not fit for higher education in the American system, and will not be until he or she learns English at the equivalent level of a graduating American high school senior?

What is an educated person made of? How many degrees does she need to prove her worth? Has she specialized since freshman year? Is she an expert in her field, or is she well-rounded? Can she speak other languages? Does she appreciate literature? Does she talk about transfinite numbers like they are members of her family? These are the questions to which I am drawn when I start to wonder how to "produce educated people." They are difficult questions and especially so in a modern academic environment that is so unsure of itself, an environment where the humanities are constantly at war with one another for primacy, and where math and science have reached levels of complexity that discourage the dilettante and frown on all other disciplines as being few steps up from make-believe.

But despite those headaches, it seems like we can safely lay claim to certain things which must be within the scope of higher education, those things which fall broadly under the category of "truth" which must always be the goal of any education; and of those certain things reading and reading comprehension are most definitely members, not just the utilitarian concern of knowing how many blue pills you are supposed to take but also appreciation for and at least some comprehension of works of literature. These are indispensable to real education, and no person can be called educated without them.

So who will make the stand? Which major university will be the first to shut down its business schools and phony degrees, to deflate its absurd grades and stop coddling students with "intermediate" class levels? Will we as a country continue to say "yes" to men like Mark Schneider, makers of catchy phrases and national apologizers, while we continue to laugh at men like Michael Gorman for harping on "true purposes"? Or is it time to call a halt to the national education machine, and to find a new way to do it? I wonder if we have it in us.

More notes on art

2005-11-11T17:40:00.000-05:00

A couple months ago, when I was home for some sort of break or other, I had something to drink and an argument with a friend of mine about art. She is an art student, majoring in painting I think, or some pure art type major in any case, and obviously knows a great deal more about it than I do. When it comes to the theory behind art, it has just enough of an investment in philosophy that I can at least hold up one side of a conversation about it, though not gracefully and usually incorrectly.
The argument we had concerned the merits abstract or "modern" art v. concrete or "classic" art. You can tell by the terms that the discussion was free-ranging to a fault. I think what prompted the whole thing was her mentioning the artist Christo, most famous for his recent "Gates" exhibit, which covered much of central park in orange flags. As she was informing, he's embarked on similar projects since the 70s, apparently including covering an entire island in plastic wrap, and other things in that vein.
My understanding of art rebels against the idea that Christo can be considered an artist. This is not because I am a stuffy or unimaginitive person (well, it could be, but I think there are reasons besides). A few years ago, if someone had asked me to define art I would have scoffed at them. I was modern man and I knew very well that everything was art.
That may be true, and since it can't be disproven I suppose that's why the idea has come into vogue. But it has since become clear to me that, true or not, such a dismissal does not lend itself to any discussion of art. A definition which claims the all for itself necessarily excludes itself from any intelligent grasp of the subject. If we want to understand anything about art (or types of art), we have to be able to get farther than 'it is everything.'
So that's where we were in this little hipster coffee house, thinking about Christo and art.
Then, months later, I would take a trip to Washington, DC, where, among other things, I had the opportunity to visit the National Gallery, which I know very little about except that it is a large art gallery full of very beautiful things, which tend to be older, since the modern art gallery nearby takes care of all modern needs. While I was there three pieces struck me in particular, the sorts of ones that make you inhale sharply and then exhale slowly, and stand and stare, and forget your feet are tired and a lot of noisy people are near you.

Vermeer's Lady Writing a Letter
A Sculpture by Magni
A small painting of a maypole in a forest that I cannot find anywhere

I tried to argue with my friend, in Greensboro, that what Christo was doing wasn't "art." The man had neat ideas about aesthetics, but that is not the same thing. Art touches something deeper than that which is merely pretty, or intriguing, or absurd. A bunch of orange flag in a usually non-orange park is striking, in terms of both color and scale. But such a sight doesn't reach the same place the above works of actual art do. It can only reach me in terms of its out-of-placeness and its striking aesthetic; it is otherwise stripped of meaning.
Trying to understand why I felt that to be true, I asserted that true art has to involve concrete form, has to feature actual characters or scenese which we can encounter in the real world and which therefore carry with them some sort of interpretable significance. We could take "The Gates" to mean anything, because in actuality it means nothing; perhaps therefore real art had to mean something already, something which came to us from it.
Then, in the National Gallery, I came upon a couple of rooms showcasing impressionist paintings. Van Gogh and Monet in particular struck me. I have seen impressionist painting before, of course, being a semi-literate American, but I hadn't been thinking of it at all during the earlier argument (which, due to my being in the Gallery, was in the forefront of my mind). The impressionists do deal with real material, it's true. The scenes they depict have a kind of form. Yet the form is purposefully distorted, sometimes to the point of losing key information, in order to achieve a certain aesthetic effect.
If I believed my own argument back in the coffee shop, I should have in my mind denounced or at least frowned on these paintings. But instead, I found them extraordinarily beautiful. Not the beauty of Vermeer, but nonetheless very close to it. The splotchy style gave light whole new meaning, and could render even a basic sketch of the outside of a Spanish farm so full of dream-like significance it was impossible to take in all of the angles at once.

Later on, I attended a lecture on "Aspects" here at school, delivered by the tutor John Verdi. Like most tutor-given lectures, it was somewhat scattershot, and its hypothesis unclear at best. However, he concluded his lecture (which in broad terms dealt with the idea of seeing, well, anything in different ways by looking at this function in visual cognition -- that is by showing us optical illusions on a projector screen) with a methodical deconstruction of The Calling of St. Matthew, a Caravaggio painting. This analyzation included the aesthetic aspects: the light at Jesus's back, the window separating the men at the table from Jesus and Paul, the indeterminate nature of the lighting in the rest of the painting, and so on. Verdi went further, though, calling into account the story of the calling of St. Matthew itself. Because the figure in the center of the painting, presumably pointing to himself, is the one called Matthew. Yet his face is clearly hesitant, where Matthew never was; Matthew went with Jesus immediately. Only the young man closest to the Christ, sword visible, foot already turned, fits the bill.
Verdi stopped short of asserting this to be the unequivocal truth. However, his reevaluation of what was before a primarily aesthetic exercise in light of its historical exercise was everything I had been trying to say months earlier.

What about Monet and Van Gogh, though? Is it simply that there can be intellectual enjoyment of a piece, and aesthetic, and they do not have common ground? When I see something beautiful, that is 'beautiful' in the serious sense. So, not just the colors in a sunset together, but the thing about a sunset or a picture of one that makes your throat clench. Maybe not an intellectual response, exactly, but not an aesthetic one alone, nothing I feel matching a tie to a blazer.
And the intellectual? Learning Verdi's opinion on St. Matthew in the final bit of his lecture, I felt as though the ground had dropped out from under me. He had completely immersed me in the story and its depiction in Carvaggio, and that immersion seemed to make the room swim when he suddenly shattered my preconceptions about the painting. Is that art? I can explain what made me feel the way I did, for the most part, which seems to preclude tagging it with something as nebulous as 'art.' But it's not only intellectual, for sure.

I still don't think Christo is art. And I still think pieces like The Calling of St. Matthew are art at some of its finest moments. What I am now failing to understand is the impressionist style in particular, and in general how and to what extent aesthetics and intellect incorporate themselves into real 'art.' Still, as Leo Strauss has been pointed out to say, "But if we cannot decide which of two mountains whose peaks are hidden by clouds is higher than the other, cannot we decide that a mountain is higher than a molehill?" So, then. Christo: industrial-sized, donor-funded party gags, not art.
I think.

In and out

2005-09-20T16:31:00.000-04:00

in and out
Originally uploaded by rock action.

To disclaim: this post is going to spend the majority of its bulk musing about St. John's again, since this is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. Go ahead and stop reading now if you don't find it all that interesting.

A few weeks ago I saw my friend Mitch again (the photo would be of him if I had one). Mitch is a very distinctive guy- tall (at least 6'5"), with a beakish nose and unfailingly too-baggy pants (no, really, more baggy than you're thinking). He's also an uncommonly nice person, and laid back as well. Last year, about halfway through, he was expelled by the college for dealing drugs. He was not, in fact, dealing drugs, but he did have enough paraphernelia/weed in his room to make expelling him inevitable anyway.

Without going into my feelings on that situation too much (which are definitely mixed), suffice to say that Mitch and/or Mitch's parents saw a need to make some changes. He is now drug-free, and this year, rather than reapplying to St. John's as was his right (with the understanding that provided with significant evidence that he had changed his ways the college would readmit him), he is going to a small art school in Florida.

I know personally two other kids who both dropped out of St. John's after sophomore year to go to art school, and know of many more through other people. There is even a sort of assumption on a large part of the student body that anyone who leaves school with the dual intention of not returning and going somewhere else must be going to art school.

Being myself someone who is in some ways an artist (though certainly not of the order of Mitch's abstract, technically brilliant ink-and-paper sketches), and also a person who daily considers his options outside of St. John's, it occurred to me to wonder about the appeal of art school for the ex-Johnnie.

What I think it has to do with is a sneaking suspicion that I believe all of us here have, namely that there is a significant portion of life which cannot be explained logically. At least, this is the only thought I can (and occassionally do) have that is capable of shaking my faith in the program.

Though I think the college would probably deny an official association, it seems pretty obvious to me that a lot of what we do here is based on the philosopy of Plato, and more specifically through the character of Socrates. Nearly half of freshman year is spent with him; quotes by and about him litter the walls of our buildings; many of the more famous deans wrote extensive essays and books of commentary about Plato, while there is a relative lack of such commentaries on later philosophers or philosophical movements. And, anecdotal but striking: the last book we read here, rather than being the most recent, is Plato's Phaedrus, a prominent Socratic dialogue (and very beautiful, at that).

One thing that Socrates deals with in the Phaedrus, with his young, impressionable friend of the same name, is the matter of writing, which he says

"shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You'd think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever." (275D)

This is an opinion which Socrates preserves whenever he encounters the matter of art. Though he considers writing to be the superior art because it does have the ability to at least tell the truth (just not necessarily to the right people or in the right way), painting gets no such reprieve.

This strong stance is based on the Socratic and generally philosophic belief that reason is the highest good, and that all things which are good can be found through it or taking part in it. Thus, in the philosophic world, art not only holds a lower position, it actually holds a sort of contrary, contemptible position, because it is inherently unreasonable - good art is seen as best when it stirs in us serious passion in a way that is unaccountable and illogical for us (else why would we need art in order to come into contact with this part of ourselves?)

(An aside - these notions of art are philosophically challenged, and in other philosophic systems art is placed as high as alongside reason. But once again, St. John's' loyalty, if it can be said to have one, lies with Socrates, not Nietzche).

In general American education this is definitely not the viewpoint, nor is it amongst Americans in general. Art is something to be lauded, treasured, and encouraged; and though it often takes a back seat in public education, not even the biggest budget-cutter on the school board would be ridiculous enough to imply that art funds were cut because art was somehow bad. And it wouldn't be just because he was a politician and a good liar - it seems safe to say he would really believe in the goodness of art, if simultaneously viewing it as unnecessary.

At St. John's this is not the case. The college certainly doesn't occupy some kind of Socratic stance wherein art is not permitted. Fine arts courses are available as extracurriculars to students, and there is an art gallery and classic movie viewings and two years of required music study and Greek tragedies read in seminar. Yet all of these things are approached with the balance Socrates recommended when one approaches the arts, with an eye for their intellectual value. At no point would anyone in the college be comfortable saying that art was good for its own sake, something which I imagine would be common knowledge amongst larger universities.

The point is that here even art is subordinated to reason, and that this is the key element that makes the college stance regarding art Platonic in nature. And it is precisely that sort of attitude that I think drives many exiting students to art school. Because we are faced daily with a question which we are not always consciously aware of but which pervades everything we do: can reason really assess and subordinate everything?

If the answer is no, as I sometimes suspect it may be (most often when I listen to really beautiful music or read or write poetry or stories), the panicked Johnnie can find no refuge more perfect than the unfathomable freedom from definite meaning that art school more or less represents. And that is where Mitch is going.

St. John's and Ramah

2005-09-02T15:58:00.000-04:00

runway1
Originally uploaded by rock action.

After week 1 of school I have decided to pick this thing back up, at least for awhile. Poking through my more recent photos, wondering if there was anything worth posting, I noticed this little gem. It was taken at Ramah this summer during our fashion show program, wherein the kids were allowed to dress up the counselor of their choice and then parade him or her down the runway.

It's possible that, in this photo, we have captured most or all of what it is that draws me continuously back to Camp Ramah, for what will be if I return next summer literally a decade of summers spent in that place. Without making this too scientific an undertaking, it's safe to say I would never be caught dead making that big of an ass of myself anywhere else, either at home, or especially at school. But this photo has captured one second of what was something like a two minute performance, including the runway "strut" required of all the models, as well as my special talent (pulling my underwear out of my pants - classy).

The school environment here is very serious, though I'm not really sure most of the students are aware of exactly HOW serious, or at least exactly why. We work hard, certainly - but that's true of any decent college or university in the US. What I think might make St. John's a little more unique (not necessarily in a positive way) is that our playing is also very serious. Now, 'work hard/play hard' is a phrase that gets bandied about by any undergrad who wants to excuse his looming alcoholism. That's not what I mean. The seriousness with which we engage in our 'fun' times here, which fun times consist on a school-wide basis of 100% partying, is a committment to excel. Parties are not thrown together. They are advertised with professionally-done flyers; they often have a certain dress code; they purchase and provide alcohol at a level of excess I was wholly unaware existed; and they make sure all of this is made expressly clear to the student body.

It may be partially an internal perception of an outside stigma - that kids at St. John's can't possibly have any fun - that to my knowledge doesn't actually exist. Certainly that's got to account for some of the unusual dedication; the average Johnnie you talk to (provided you're an outsider) will be quick to point out how intense the party life at the school can get. But I actually think it's got more to do with the structure of the entire college. The small student body and student run classes, while by design and in some ways successfully made for the sake of fostering an academic community, at the same time develop among students intense feelings of competition and showboating and showboating-awareness. Huge amounts of energy are put into classwork, and yes it's partially because we believe in the material, or at least I do. But it can't be denied that when you step into a classroom, there are probably some motherfuckers you intend to take down, and some fuckable-mothers you intend to impress.

This attitude translates with little loss into the party environment. The success of a party is a direct measure of the party-throwing - and by extension fun-having - skill of the throwers, and equally importantly is known by everyone on campus as soon as the party happens (and debatably even before, since you can usually tell by the flyers whether the thing is worth going to). This is the sort of seriousness I mean: having fun is itself a perverse part of the program, something to be succeeded at like any other class (for any Johnnie will make sure to tell any other Johnnie about all of the crazy shit he's embarked on since Friday afternoon).

Which is all a long way of conveying that this sort of attitude permeates all aspects of existence at St. John's, and that there is zero room for things like that which you saw portrayed above. There is no mugging for the camera, unless the mugging has been carefully
prepared and assessed to be maximally effective on a social and possibly even academic level. Which makes it not really mugging at all. St. John's is an environment where someone like the character above could succeed, but only if he committed to the part in a way that must have taken nothing short of a step-by-step plan for runway domination, and accomplished nothing less.

What I appreciate so much about Ramah, especially now that I find myself in this cutthroat environment, is not only the ability to relax a little bit, but that the relaxedness itself has a purpose and direction that is critical in the role of a counselor (and camper, as well). It is not only the privilege of the counselor to dress up in ridiculous clothing and act like a jackass on stage for a few minutes - it is in fact his job to do this. It
entertains the kids, boosts morale, and most importantly it encourages the frightened among them to take action and be as goofy as the older kid they are theoretically (and in practice usually) looking up to. Ramah provides the blessing of proving to me every summer that there actually is a place that wants me to do things like this, and that wants to hire me for my failure to see the point of calculated meta-fun more designed for personal gain than actual fun/humor value.

More on this later, probably. This is a big party weekend, and I think a lot of these issues are going to be on my mind. In the mean time, enjoy some pictures.

Leo Strauss.

2005-05-04T20:51:00.000-04:00

I have mentioned once or twice on this page the name Leo Strauss, a semi-famous professor (and, some say, philosopher) who fled Germany to escape the Holocaust, and went on to teach at the University of Chicago, and then at St. John's.

Strauss believed in some unusual things. Unusual, at least, for my modern American sensibilities, though Strauss himself thought them perfectly natural conclusions. He was a noted interpreter of the Platonic dialogues, and brought to them a sense of contextual awareness and eye for sublte meaning that seemed previously to have escaped most readers. It was Strauss's belief, in fact, that all of Plato's writings contained both exoteric and esoteric meaning - that is, some interpretations obvious and some very subtle - and that this was a concious decision on Plato's part. To Strauss, truth was a privilege - one to which not all were privy.

Fast forward now to more modern times (basically the 80s but it's difficult to date all of this stuff). Another U of Chicago professor, Allan Bloom, is Strauss's premiere student, and perhaps one of the first to be considered a "Straussian" himself. Bloom is best known for an excellent translation of Plato's 'Republic,' and it can't be denied the man knows his stuff. However, when he publishes his own book, he does not expect to rock the academic and political world as strongly as he does.

The book is called 'The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students.' It's an immediate success, even making national bestseller lists. It's not hard to see why: the book is culturally blunt, even violent, in its treatment of multiculturalism, relativism, and the indoctrination of the young by a democratic government that can only produce good citizens if it produces them stupid.

I'm about half way through this book right now. It caught my eye at a large used book sale at the home of a tutor emeritus of the college, and I immediately recognized Bloom's name from my copy of the Republic.

More to the point, I recognized his name because I have become fascinated with Straussianism over the past semester. It started with my language tutor telling us stories of all the Straussians at St. John's alone (he is himself a part of the lineage, but his field (the biology of Aristotle) precludes him from really being involved). Fascinated, I found this site
, which, among other things, offered me a detailed list of all current notable Straussians. It seemed as though nearly half taught at St. John's, including the Dean (and, interestingly, the incoming Dean for next year). When I ran across the Bloom book, I realized I had the opportunity to remove Straussianism from a shadowy intellectual cult, and to try to understand it myself.

A week or so later, and as I said about half the book, I am completely sucked in. The opening of Mr. Bloom's book:

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.

If you're in college now, like me, or if you attended post-60s revolution, that should have struck home with you. It certainly did for me - I entered St. John's as a moral relativist. I will be leaving this year wholly changed. Before, I could not explain very well why this was. I knew that Socrates had convinced me that there really was more to my world than my body and the things that it could sense. But I didn't know why that was important.

If nothing else Bloom has been a great help in this. Relativism, as he says, is not a solution to the problem of discovering goodness, rightness, or virtue. Relativism gazes into our human past and sees the bigotry, the ethnocentricism, the hate and folly and failing, and evaluates them critically, as it should. The problem is: relativism says that, in light of these human defeats, we must not try to correct our errors; we must simply assume that there can be no error, or that we are perpetually at its mercy.

Relativism is not a solution. It is a retreat, and a surrender.

Today, speaking with the aforementioned language tutor before class, I jokingly told him that my math tutor was out to get him for being a Straussian. Unphased, he rejoined: "That's fine. But you should know, Mr. Socol, that I just got finished reading your [somewhat text-analysis-heavy -ed] paper, and it appears you've become a Straussian, too." Rather taken aback, I sat down.

"Was it a bad paper?" I asked.
"No," he said. "Actually I liked it a lot. But you had better be careful - you seem to be Straussianizing rather unwittingly."

I realized that never before in my life have I been in a place that could change me on an intellectual level. The changes I made in the past - my loss of faith, my devotion to the sciences, my committment to reading and writing - were all things I had imposed on myself.

No longer is that the case. I have spent a year in which, unbeknownst to me, my whole intellectual outlook has been heavily modified. So heavily modified that I didn't even realize it until someone told me. The feeling is both exhilirating and frightening.

I have much more to say about this soon, but this is getting to be far too long.

A protest.

2005-04-17T19:38:00.000-04:00

IMF protest
Originally uploaded by rock action.

This weekend I spent a lot of time in Washington DC, about an hour from Annapolis, protesting the annual meeting of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund. In this picture, taken and published by the Washington Post, my arm is just barely visible at the bottom right, supporting the giant face. I pushed this face from the park in front of the World Bank all the way to Dupont Circle.

How I came to be a part of what was primarily an anarchist/socialist event (I subscribe to neither one of these ideas) takes a little bit of time to lay out. Originally, I was interested in going to DC Friday afternoon and evening in order to attend a
series of lectures on
Seth Benardete. Benardete, as those links will tell you, was a noted philosophical scholar (the story goes he frowned on being referred to as himself a philosopher, much like his teacher, Leo Strauss), who spent a few years teaching at St. John's (as did Strauss) before he was unceremoniusly fired. Today, it is Benardete who has the last laugh, as many students, including myself, use his translations for many books in ancient Greek.

Benardete died a few years ago, and in my general quest to understand Leo Strauss, neo-conservativism, and those things' relationship to the college, I'd gotten quite interested in him, as well. So, when my Greek tutor mentioned that this conference was taking place, I decided to go, as did my anarchist friend and classmate Caleb.

Unfortunately, we couldn't really find a ride. So, in a last-ditch effort, we asked our tutor if we could ride with him. Mr. Tipton immediately agreed (to our surprise), but could not give us a ride back, since he had to leave the very same night.

It was then that Caleb hatched the plan. He got in touch with his anarchist cohorts, whom he found out were planning this elaborate World Bank/IMF protest for Saturday. They told him that, if the two of us were willing to pitch in and help, we could sleep on the floor in a Cathedral in the city where they were staying.

I should say that I am not a protester. This is not due to political apathy; I canvass for the Democratic Party, and I fought tooth-and-nail for the Dean campaign. But I don't protest, because I really just don't think it works.Protests are part of the entertainmentizing of American politics, albeit a rather old part. When a protest occurs, in my observation three things happen:
*The protesters become self-righteous or belligerent;
*Those who are uninformed are bemused or alienated;
*Those who disagree are angered or at least indignant.
All of these things combine handily to shut down open political dialogue. Everyone feels just as they did before the protest, but now so strongly that there is no hope of ever getting to the truth of the matter.

I came to understand this just before the war in Iraq, at a time when I wanted nothing more than to be a part of a protest. My first one (and only one, until now) was a candlelight vigil outside of the local Quaker meetinghouse. While standing with my lit candle, a guy in a truck, stopped at a red light up ahead, rolled down his window near me. Leaning out, he said to an older man a few people down from me: "Fuck you!"

Said the older man: "Fuck you."

The light changed. The man drove off.

At first, I wanted to point out to the older man that perhaps saying what he had said was not really the best way to win the hearts and minds of the people. I was suddenly struck, though, by the thought: this entire display, of candles and banners lining the street,
forcing itself into the public eye - this is a collective "fuck you" to everyone who disagrees, and a collective "fuck yeah" to everone who agrees. That's all that's happening.

Quietly, I put down my candle, walked to my car, and drove home.

Read more about the protest.

st. patrick's day

2005-03-17T00:57:00.000-05:00

st. patrick's day
Originally uploaded by rock action.

HAVE A GOOD ONE FOLKS

Spring Break ends

2005-03-13T01:01:00.000-05:00

group unc shot
Originally uploaded by rock action.

There you have it, folks. The Last Great Vacation Milestone before I officially complete my first year of college. It seems safe to say that this year has left me more confused, rather than less. I count this to be overall pretty unfortunate; but the good thing about not knowing anything about yourself is that you might turn out to be really awesome, once you figure it out. Right?

This picture is of me with some of my good camp friends. For those not interested in clicking the link, it's Mel, me, Hayley, Alyssa, and Josh. Everyone but me and Alyssa is from UF (I talked about them last time), and we're all of us visiting Alyssa (this picture was taken in her room). Alyssa and Hayley were, in fact, the first two people at my summer camp to ever make friends with me, after they forced me to talk to them (I make all my really good friends this way; it's a strategy I like to call "crippling introversion"). Anyway, they mean the world to me, and it was great to spend three or four days with them.

If you're able to muster the strength to click that tiny picture, you'll get a bigger one, and from there, if you're smart, you might be able to find even more pictures from that little excursion.

The vote: am I tall? Or are they short?

same party, different day

2005-03-08T23:57:00.000-05:00

swing with Donna
Originally uploaded by rock action.

So I'm home from four or so days at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I visited some camp friends who were themselves visiting our mutual camp friend who actually goes to that school (the visitors, excluding myself, all go to University of Florida).

UNC was not on spring break, but we were, so we tried to find a happy medium. What that entailed was reading books and playing boggle by day, and drinking and dancing by night. Those things were very nice, but the trip was really only worth it to see my friends (and on that count it was quite worth it).

Anyway, the title is a little sad because I'm a little sad right now, but more importantly it's an explanation, since this picture is NOT from my time at UNC, but actually of me and Donna still at Tal's Bar Mitzvah, swing dancing. It's also a better shot of the tie. No voting today.

Spring Break begins

2005-03-01T22:25:00.000-05:00

old friends
Originally uploaded by rock action.

Greetings from warm (cold), sunny (icy), Spring (2nd Winter) Break! It's been quite busy so far, and everything kicked off last weekend with my young friend Tal's Bar Mitzvah.
Put more accurately, Tal is the younger brother of my good friend Daniel, whom I have known since like 1st grade. Since my oddly timed Spring Break fell over Tal's festivities, the family was nice enough to invite me to attend. Other close friends returned as well, as you may see from the picture: I am on the far left, then Sarah, Jason, and Donna, three of my oldest friends. Jason and I met in Kindergarten and have been very close ever since. Sarah, his girlfriend of four years, went to the same school, though we didn't really become friends until she started dating Jason (and, to some, we might appear to STILL not be friends, though that is not the case). Donna is Sarah's best friend and I became friends with her about the same time. Taking the picture is the aforementioned Daniel, who will appear here later.
Jason is at Georgia Tech now; Sarah and Daniel at Brandeis U; Donna at Johns Hopkins; and myself at St. John's, of course; so we don't see so much of each other. When we are able to all get home at the same time, however, it is a recipe for awesome disaster.
Anyway, this is four of us at Tal's party last Saturday night. More of these pictures in the next couple of days, since I have a lot of them.
P.S. It's time for more voting! The vote: is my tie awesome, or what? I know you can't see it well here, but you will be able to in the next photo, so this is like a fun vote where it actually turns out some of you will be definitively right!

einstein@home

2005-02-20T16:38:00.000-05:00

einstein@home
Originally uploaded by rock action.

So, not really a photo, but a screen capture is the next best thing when no photos come my way, I suppose.

For the past month or so I've been ploughing my way though Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos," a book relating the recent history and newest discoveries of astrophysics. It came out late last year and is getting a lot of press, primarily because of Greene himself, who is an unusually talented and down-to-earth writer for an astrophysicist. His tone is similar to Stephen Hawking's in the latter's "A Brief History of Time", which I read last year, but he's a little more accessible, which is good for the easily-confused reader like myself.

Anyway, I've really been enjoying the book, when I get time away from the Program to get into it. So when I heard about this new distributed computing project (think SETI@Home) called 'Einstein@Home', I got very excited in a wanna-be science nerd sort of way (which I guess is even nerdier than regular science nerds). Basically, Einstein's relativity theories depend upon the existence of gravity, which up until this year has been unprovable; even though we can see its effects, we can't see IT (hence 'theory of gravity' rather than 'fact of gravity'). Finally, however, the technology exists to take stock of 'gravity waves', and see if Einstein really was right, or if we've all been quite misled.

'Einstein@Home' uses home computers to analyze the data being pulled in by three main gravity wave observatories: LIGO Hanford (blue line in the picture), LIGO Livingston (green line), and GEO600 (red line). Also represented on the screen saver are the principal stars in the constellations we see in the night sky (gray dots and yellow lines), supernova remnants (purple dots clustered around the milky way), and an orange marker indicating where the current analyzed data has originated from. It makes for a badass picture, that rotates.

Well, I've gone on long enough. More information on the screensaver: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/starsphere.php.
To download it and start computing yourself, which I hope you will: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/.

photo blog or mideast politics blog? YOU decide

2005-02-14T23:57:00.000-05:00

Protection Team Feb 1 2005
Originally uploaded by rock action.

Because I can't.

My cousin and friend Kirby (short, red-haired one, second from right) has been in Diplomatic Security for the State Department since I was 13 or 14, and it's always been an interesting conflict for me. On the one hand, the work he does is good, and, more importantly, badass. Seriously, take a good, long look at that man; he is the coolest my semi-immediate family will ever, ever get.

On the other hand, it's his job, primarily, to guard the people who I feel strongly are ruining my country. Look at Ms. Rice, standing there in the middle. Is she REALLY the best we can do? Really?

I don't believe it. Not for a minute.

I actually hadn't seen Kirby in a long time until last Thanksgiving (he was stationed in Beirut, and I don't get around to checking Beirut out all that often), when, due to our newly tight geography, he drove me down to Turkey Day festivities in West VA at his folks' house. We mostly talked about drinking and how fucked up our family is, truthfully; and when we did talk about Middle East stuff, I made sure not to get into the political side, which might have been a mistake, as Kirby is one of my few Republican relatives. Next time I see him, the strategy might be a little different.

Anyway, get a load of the guy on the far right, next to Kirby. Asshole, or has-a-cramp-in-asshole? Vote in the comments.

the first photo

2005-02-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

chalkboard
Originally uploaded by rock action.

here it is, folks, the photo blog's first photo! it's tiny, grainy, and poorly-lit, but what can i say? it's hard to have a photo blog when you don't have a camera - this was taken on ciaran's cell phone.

it's a portrait drawn by julie, his girlfriend, depicting Chase 105 (and jake), as you can maybe read at the top left. far left is ciaran, then me, and then roommate #3 mike to my right. jake is in a tree in the back throwing pebbles at mike, since he hangs out with us but doesn't live in the room. and i guess since he likes to throw pebbles? julie has an imagination.

please notice my prominent biceps. mark it down as the only time 'noticing max's prominent biceps' will ever be something that happens to you. mike is depicted with his 'i am my own father' glasses, a handle of jack daniel's, and the unsettling grin he gets from said jack.

anyway, this is as good a place to start as any, since in one picture there are three people who have a significant day-to-day impact on my life. get to know them well!

Congratulations!

2005-02-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

What's up, Israel?

Israeli rabbis were planning on Sunday to hold special sessions in 100 synagogues to pray for the failure of this week's summit between prime minister Ariel Sharon and new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.

If you're reading this, you already know about something that no one in any Synagogue across America will hear about in this weekend's sermon! Excellent work.

I certainly am sorry this blog could not start with photos, particularly of me! But sometimes the world does not wait for photos.

welcome to my photo blog

2005-02-06T18:49:00.000-05:00

it will contain photos. it will use buzzwords like 'blog.' it will satisfy my deep need to broadcast myself!