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enjoy it while you can, smears…
this is just a test flight.
Ambig!!!
Love ya, man!
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Noted…
Actually, it’s just about done. All I have to do now is split it up, and add footnotes and citations. I’m hoping to have it posted by Saturday.I really want to get beyond this thing.
You have nothing to ‘not be’ proud of…
Sorry about that Mag. Got a little drunk, sloppy, and sentimental. Plus that, this piece I’m working on for Pav’s forum is kind of kicking my but.
But thanks for the sentiment.
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That all said, I will now share 3 experiences that have provided me with some profound insights into the present topic:
The first involves a historical narrative by my PC repair teacher, a southern gent with the associated conservatism, about the migration patterns of early Americans. As he told it, there were a large number of colonists, who migrated from the initial northeastern colonies west towards the Appalachians, then worked their way south. In contrast to those that stayed in the early colonies that had developed into cosmopolitan urban centers, this evolved into a culture of rugged individualism that was naturally informal and characterized by a deep seated resistance to authority. It was this disposition that under-lied the often unorganized approach and rag-tag appearance of the confederate army and remains with us to this day.And it explains much about the seemingly backward culture of the Bible-belt that perplexes and frustrates progressives so much. It becomes clear, for instance, why the issue of “small government” is so important to them and the rebel self image behind it, an image contrary to the conformist Baptist fanaticism we tend to associate with it. And we should also note that it was the south that held out the longest as far as smoking in bars was concerned.
And we can further extend this preference for informality to their staunch anti-bureaucracy sentiment. I received a telling initiation into this when my father died. He had left me his car. Unfortunately, when I got it back up north, I found that the title that came with it had a major tear in it which made it unacceptable to the local DMV. But I found myself amazed at the ease with which my uncle, who lived in the same Arkansas town as my father, was able to get a replacement and the efficiency with which he got it to me. This struck me as a positive reflection on good old southern simplicity and nobility -that is as compared to the bureaucratic complexity and cynicism of the north. Had I of tried to get that done where I lived, who knows how many hoops I would have had to pass through.
And we can see a loose connection here with the second point that involves my own history. I first started to gravitate towards my progressive and political orientation during the 80’s as a response to the reactionary movement that had been developing, ironically, since about 1984 when L.A. had shut down Glendora Mountain Road and chased the hookers off of Sunset Blvd. But my main issue was with the war on drugs which I had mistakenly laid the blame on Reagan and Nancy’s “just say no”, when it was, in fact, our vice president, Joe Biden, who had pushed the issue of a Drug Czar. At that point, I had associated a tolerance for drug use, and other vices, strictly with the liberal perspective. So one can only imagine my surprise when, having grown political, I found myself confronted with old 70’s stoner friends who had also grown political, only more conservative. I simply could not see why they would support an ideology that would seek to oppress their own autonomy. I mean I literally had people snorting cocaine, engaging in marital infidelity, and, at a time when “family values” was the catch-phrase of the day, arguing conservative policy.
Come to think of it it is the centralized media that pushes alot of the crap out there maybe with the internet there will be less focus on bullshit.
The problem with mainstream media is that it’s never enough to report the news, it has to sell it as well. To a great extent, it creates this divide between progressive and conservative because conflict is what holds people’s attention. Note, for instance, the way they cover the electoral process as if it is a sporting event. And everyday conservatives who have their beliefs and live cooperatively among others (both conservative and liberal) are not very interesting. IT’s the fanatics and extremists that sell news.
Redneck Rebels, 70’s Nostalgia, and Fairness
That all said, I will now share 3 experiences that have provided me with some profound insights into the present topic:
The first involves a historical narrative by my PC repair teacher, a southern gent with the associated conservatismsize=50[/size], about the migration patterns of early Americans. As he told it, there were a large number of colonists, who migrated from the initial northeastern colonies west towards the Appalachians, then worked their way south. In contrast to those that stayed in the early colonies that had developed into cosmopolitan urban centers, this evolved into a culture of rugged individualism that was naturally informal and characterized by a deep seated resistance to authority. It was this disposition that under-lied the often unorganized approach and rag-tag appearance of the confederate army and remains with us to this day. And it explains much about the seemingly backward culture of the Bible-belt that perplexes and frustrates progressives so much. It becomes clear, for instance, why the issue of “small government” is so important to them and the rebel self image behind it, an image contrary to the conformist Baptist fanaticism we tend to associate with it. And we should also note that it was the south that held out the longest as far as smoking in bars was concerned. We can see in this a strong insistence on personal autonomy.
And we can further extend this preference for informality to their staunch aversion to bureaucracies. I received a telling initiation into this when my father died. He had left me his car. Unfortunately, when I got it back up north, I found that the title that came with it had a major tear in it which made it unacceptable to the local DMV. But I found myself amazed at the ease with which my uncle, who lived in the same Arkansas town as my father, was able to get a replacement and the efficiency with which he got it to me. This struck me as a positive reflection on good old southern simplicity and nobility -that is as compared to the bureaucratic complexity and cynicism of the north. Had I of tried to get that done where I lived, who knows how many hoops I would have had to pass through.
And we can see a loose connection here with the second point that involves my own history. I first started to gravitate towards my progressive and political orientation during the 80’s as a response to the reactionary movement that had been developing, ironically, since about 1984 when L.A. had shut down Glendora Mountain Road and chased the hookers off of Sunset Blvd. But my main issue was with the war on drugs which I had mistakenly laid the blame on Reagan and Nancy’s “just say no”, when it was, in fact, our vice president, Joe Biden, who had pushed the issue of a Drug Czar. At that point, I had associated a tolerance for drug use, and other vices, strictly with the liberal perspective. So one can only imagine my surprise when, having grown political, I found myself confronted with old 70’s stoner friends who had also grown political, only more conservative. I simply could not see why they would support an ideology that would seek to oppress their own autonomy, that held so much contempt for the very things they were doing. I mean I literally had people snorting cocaine, engaging in marital infidelity at a time when “family values” was the catch-phrase of the day, and arguing conservative policy. It made no sense.
It wasn’t until recently, through a step by step process, that I began to get a clearer sense of it. One need set aside the idealism surrounding the era, such as in movies like Dazed and Confused, and look at it as a whole in the Midwest. There was, as in the movies, that kind of laid back generous attitude, but with a catch: it was only shared with those who stayed within a certain criteria: middle class white who was willing to experiment with drugs. There was always a very strict sense of group identity that one knew to stay within. It was a time when, influenced by pre-civil rights parents, and having no other influence, the n-bomb dropped out mouths like nothing, and we told stories of gays coming out of the closet in the same way one might tell dark tales around a campfire. There were, of course, the occasional token black friend -mainly among the athletes. At that time, desegregation hadn’t really taken hold and in the schools we went to, African American students were small in number. And Hispanic immigration had not reached the degree it has today. And it wasn’t until I spent a year in L.A. and went to high school that I had even met a gay person, much less had one that hung around the same circles I did. On top that, the degree of personal freedom and tolerance for our vices were a lot higher then. You could smoke almost anywhere. Even High Schools had smoking lounges for the students. Teacher joked when they saw you were stoned in class. It was usually pretty easy to buy beer underage and go into bars. And when we joined the workforce, being high there, as long as did your job, didn’t present much a problem. The laws, as well, were enforced loosely. It was not uncommon for cops, on a good day, to let people go for drunk driving or, if they found you with pot, took it from you and sent you on your way. Consequently, the drugs were much better and cleaner because it was much safer for legitimate labs and farms ran by non-criminal types to make and sell them. The contradiction in it, though, was that, despite this, we clung to our identity as stoners to the point of cliché in the sense of considering “the man” public enemy number one. We all considered government, via law enforcement, the primary obstacle to our natural right to party on since corporate influence was not all that apparent at the time. Our economic lives seemed relatively simple as well. As we saw it, our destinies lay in the good paying factory and construction jobs our parents worked. The need for higher education wasn’t nearly as pressing as it would seem to be now.
We indulged together, then watched, in despair, as it was slowly but surely dismantled -like a carnival. We all shared the nuisances of the war on drugs, the consequent loss of quality, the urine tests in the workplace, increased restrictions on smoker’s rights with increased taxes, stricter drunk driving laws, a major influx of cheap immigrant labor, and a job market that offers less and less security to those with college degrees, much less those without them. We hold a lot of common concerns, I and my peers. The only difference is that they have come to other conclusions about the cause and the solution. Whereas I, perhaps because of my intellectual and creative curiosity, see it as the power structure as a whole, as the increasing influence of Capitalistic values on social policy, they see it strictly as a big and overbearing government. And this isn’t hard to understand when I look back to the 70’s when “the man” or “Fuzz” or “Pig” and the government behind them was the only enemy we knew of. And given our lack of appreciation for higher education, it would seem no wonder they would never seek out the kind of knowledge that would help them see beyond the popular mythologies and scapegoats that they cling to in order to maintain the old perspective they refuse to grow out of.
It seems to me that what is at work in the conservatism of my friends is a frustrated social libertarianism seeking shelter in that which offers a family resemblance (the Republicans), one that also offers answers and scapegoats (immigrants, social programs, and even Calvinistic appeals to moral failure such as that of homosexuals) to explain the loss of the old economic order. It’s as if in hearing the catch-phrase “small government”, they read into it what they long for most: the old sense of autonomy, the lack of government intrusion, and economic order. And it should not surprise , immersed in the illusion as they are, how easy it would be to overlook complicity of corporate influence in all this, of how the workplace of late, through drug testing and smoking policies, has been the most effective agent of social control thus far, and that if government is the problem, it can be a government in service of producer/consumer Capitalism.
But then I can’t really blame or condemn them. I love these people. And as I see it now, what was once a contradiction and failure of reason is now the result of looking back to better times and longing. And who hasn’t felt the unease of contrasting a now to a better time? Therefore, I, we, anyone of my age or a similar experience, can now reasonably propose that the conservatism of my peers, though once seemingly malignant, was always little more than a by-product of our common experience and that if there is a failure of rationality in it, it can only be the un-reason of despair. But more notable is the irony of that which brought me so much confusion, frustration, and anger proving to be little more than a nostalgia for the 70’s.
Finally, in a Recent episode of the radio talk show PhilosophyTalk, Cooperation and Conflict, the guest, Christina Bicchieri brought up a distinction between 3 kinds of fairness: need, equality, and merit. Now, as the title suggests, the primary theme of the show was Game Theory which has always had some important social and political implications. But there is a clear application to our present purposes in thinking about how the differing ideologies of liberalism and conservatism give privilege to the 3. First of all, we can agree that both sides give worth, to some extent or other, to all of them. No conservative has completely neglected need as to do so would be to go beyond the fringe into the sociopathic. And for a liberal to neglect merit would be to condemn themselves to a psychotic egalitarianism that lacks all connection with reality. Furthermore, the aspect of equality being about equality of opportunity (even if it is purely theoretical), I would think both sides of the spectrum about even.
But, for our purposes, the most important consideration is a matter of emphasis. The liberal, of course, will tend to emphasize need more than the others. To them, it is always a matter of knowing that no matter how far we fall, we will never go so low that we can’t get back up. Of course, this means making sure that basic needs are met until the individual can get back on their feet. In this sense, the liberal is the benefactor of Rawl’s Original Position concept and the Veil of Ignorance. The conservative, on the other hand, tends to put emphasis on merit to the extent that even if it comes at the expense of need, it is justified since it supports the greatness of man as a whole. In other words, if someone dies from lack of access to healthcare, it will only be so that a great man can live. What poor fucker dying like that would accept such an explanation?
I guess this didn’t end as generous as I started out to be. But, at the same time, even progressives have to recognize the value of incentive, even if it allows the arrogance of conservatives to assume that it has a right to exceed at the expense of others. And in this sense, this is the excellence of the progressive. They don’t care if they have to fight the fight forever. What they care about is what they achieve along the way. This is what will insure the progressive’s constant striving for greatness, for that which is beyond anything that has been done before. It is inherent within the very term “progressive”, and it is in the long run why progressives have always won out in less dramatic ways. Civil Rights, Environmental issues, labor laws, and lately the legalization of pot. This has been because throughout the history of our cultural language game, our argument has always been one of an appeal to reality -much as it will be on the issue of Global Warming. Theirs has always been one of an appeal to self-interest. And because of that, reality has always proven us right. Most arguments we can make can only be a set-up for the reality that is about to happen. Still, they are our friends and family. We have to love them, as they love us, and try.
Progressives have always been a reflection of our cultural evolution which has always been a reflection, due to plasticity, of our physical evolution. Conservatism has always been little more than a hesitation, a glitch, in the process of that evolution.
size=85 This, in a sense, establishes the connection between conservatism and classicism. This was the same teacher that went into the argument, concerning whether if a tree falls in a forest, and there no one around to hear it, argued, resolutely, that of course it does: because it makes sound waves (the scientific method). What he failed to recognize was that the question was asked in a phenomenological sense. He assumed that sound waves were sound as compared to the actual experience of hearing them. He clearly had a distaste for hippy-crap. [/size]
Summary and Conclusion:
In the preceding, we have covered a lot territory, territory I foolishly thought I would be able to cover in in less than 1500 words. And as my previous experience with this on The Academy has shown, I can pretty much assume that I have done this strictly for myself. However, in the hopes of accommodating the more drive-by approach we take on this board, I will offer a brief summary of the points made and make some final remarks.
I read this right before I started work, Carleas. And you gave me a lot to respond to while work gave me a lot of time to think about it. So I apologize ahead of time if this turns out long.
I don’t know if you know this, but there was strait across adaption made back in the late 80’s with John Malkovich and Glenn Close:
It was an excellent movie that was nominated for several academy awards. You should check it out if you get a chance.
That said, if you’re as young as this makes you sound, given your achievement as a computer tech and given that you’re now studying law, I would say you are a lot more accomplished than I was at your age.
Yes, this would be closely related in that it makes sense for the mind to seek to protect the present sense of self (the ego) by fabricating in the face of past actions that threaten that sense of self. The main thing I’m focused on here is the idealizations of ourselves that the anonymity of the board allows. Not that I think we completely fabricate ourselves, but that we embellish a little. In a sense, the board for us now is our mirror serving pretty much the same function that Lacan describes the mirror serving for the child: cloaking the multiplicity of our mental make-up in an illusion of wholeness and unity: the Ego. One could as easily see Narcissus staring into a computer tapping on his keyboard as gazing into a pool of water. This is the underlying idea of the final scene with Vol’s character, Neoromaniac, in that he holds characteristics common to us all –except that he takes them to a less agreeable extreme.
On this, I have several points to make and it’s where this could get long. Please bear with me.
First of all, as much as Vol would like your scenario, this scene is more about his character having been a major nemesis to the main character (in the spirit of Kafka): d63. Throughout the story, Neuro has evoked a curiosity in d63 about the psychological makeup of such people that he thinks of as a variation of a troller or, more appropriately, a flamer, a curiosity he has expressed many times on the board. This is why your character (KarlTeck) and Pav’s (as yet unnamed) contacts d63 to meet them since they have tracked him down, through certain computer skills you’re a little less public about, found out he lived close to them, and have discovered something of which d63 is completely unaware: that Neuro is handicapped. You have to consider here our point concerning the necessity of creating these fictions and narratives for ourselves. For me, at least, it’s kind of a sad scene really. But I think it a good way to end in that it amplifies the underlying nature of everyone’s interaction with the board. I would also note the symbolism of Neuro’s face lighting up as the computer screen comes on and the half-grin as he sets to work whether for good or ill –the common satisfaction we all get.
(To give you an idea about how d63 and Neuro interact, at one point d63 has gone into some exposition about some experience with the board and when he finishes, it switches to a close-up of Neuro (once again, played by Jim Parsons) who snorts, sarcastically, as he rolls his eyes ,”dear diary”. Then it switches to a close up of d63 who grins and says: kind of a katty little fellow, isn’t he? This was something Vol actually threw at me one time. As much as I should have been insulted, I actually thought it kind of clever.)
As far as The Blind Watchmaker, I now realize that it may not be the best analogy since it has more do with Dawkins and his concept of genetic evolution. It seems now that I have confused it with Deism’s concept of creation as God having just wound up the clock and set it loose to do as it will. At this point, d63’s interactions with your character has not been that developed, but this exchange has been helpful. It seems to me now that the exchange would be something like:
D63: I thought you were the man behind the curtain.
Karl: No, d63, I’m more like the guy who wound the clock to watch it unwind. Or like a playground designer who does it to just sit back and watch people play.
At this point, he could go into an explanation of how the board works (including the ship rebuilt at sea analogy) and of the non-hierarchal nature of it.
Ultimately either he or Pav’s character would finish with we’re all the man behind the curtain.
At that point, Neuro’s van would show up.
In a sense, Karl’s character would be a kind of anti-climax in that it would be expected that he was the one most like the Wizard at the end of Dorothy’s adventure. But note the similarity of his statement is to that of the Wizard to Dorothy and crew, how he basically doesn’t so much give d63 what he is after or expects as makes him realize he already had it. But I’ll have to work on it some more.
It’s funny you should bring up the Matrix. For one it further reveals your age not in bad way, but in the sense that it reveals a slight cyber-punk sensibility. Furthermore, I hadn’t really thought about the association with the Nero character in the movie. I was thinking more in terms of the Roman emperor. As I suggested, the name Neuro was an abbreviation of the username Neuromaniac based on a term I got from a guest on the podcast for Philosophy Now. It’s basically, like Vol, someone who is fanatical about reducing all mind states to physiological processes: an extreme form of materialist. But most important is something I thought about the other night at work after my last post to you. I’m now starting to realize that there is a paradoxical relationship emerging among the realities involved that can best be demonstrated through the way the usernames are being used. Now on one hand, we have our reality with other posters with usernames, people I’m allowing to inspire the characters in the story. However, in order to cushion them from the behavior of their respective characters, I have decided to come up with altered usernames for them that try to approximate the spirit of the people I’m basing them on. At the same time, in the reality of d63, the character, he is also cushioning the people he is writing about in his article by doing the same thing so that they will be more willing to meet him. Now at this point, nothing seems out of place. It’s just two realities in parallel, the real and the fictional, engaging in a feedback loop. However, what will hopefully slip under the radar, at first, is that throughout the story, in the narrative parts, all the characters are referring to each other with their altered usernames, which at first might seem like a gaffe. But if it is thought through, one realizes that the whole thing is merely a movie version of the article d63 is writing. In a sense, what is developing is something like a Matrix, a simulacrum, but a more down to earth one in a Baudrillardian sense in that it is basically a complex feedback loop of realities feeding up, in parallel, from our reality and d63 the character’s reality into the fictional reality of the story that feedbacks to the fiction article that feeds back to both realities that, in turn, are connected. This is why I have decided to start it all with the popular philosophical paradox:
Everything I tell you is a lie.
This, in turn, compliments another emerging interaction of feedback loops. One of the things d63 goes into an exposition on is the difference between the philosophical elite and the synoptic approach to philosophy. The elite approach, of course, is the academic approach as reflected in such journals as The Harvard Review of Philosophy. They’re the ones that have access to information that most people can’t get to. He even goes into a spiel about how the business of philosophy supports by pointing out the price of philosophical journals such as The Journal of Consciousness Studies at about 160$ for a 1 year subscription and how much it costs to access philosophical papers which can run up to about 35$. The synoptic, on the other hand, are those who consume what trickles down from the elite and puts it to work in the real world. They’re generally people who are doing something else such as art, computer technology, writing, or maybe even becoming a lawyer. And, of course, most of the people on the board are of the synoptic type, if not all of them. But, because of this, we have this complex of interacting systems and their respectful discourses. We have the system and discourse of philosophy interacting with art, writing, music, computer technology, law, or even just plain living.
What emerges from it all, and hopefully what I’ll be able to bring out, is a 3 dimensional rhizomatic network in the sense of Deleuze and Guattarri.
You’re probably right. But then, even if someone did steal it, it might be the difference between it being made into something and just sitting on my hard drive or rotting in my closet. It’s moments like this, when shit is just flowing together, like you’re walking along throwing seeds in front of you and rosebushes are just popping up, that hold me to this sickness. And it’s why, when I could have committed what intellect I have to things that could have actually gave me a more comfortable life (and actually did for a while), I chose this. I’m quite sure you have some sense of what I’m talking about.
(But then that is one of the drawbacks of the board. It allows me a quick fix, thereby distracting me from what I should be doing: working on more finished things.)
But the coolest thing about this is that I have never worked on a screenplay before; but it seems the medium most compatible with me right now. I mean let’s face it. I don’t see me publishing in the Harvard Review. I’m not sure I care to get that deep into the abstract technicalities. At the same time, when I’m reading, I find it difficult to want to take in anything else but philosophy. Unlike 20 years ago, I find it difficult to break away from it long enough to read some fiction or poetry –though I’m always glad when I manage it. But screenwriting, through the voiceover, allows me to put philosophy to work for me in way that allows to focus on how I say things rather trying to introduce some profound truth to the world.
Plus that, I started with music then went poetry. These mediums always gave me the satisfaction of a click when they were done. This was because they were the product of my natural swooping approach of seeking out parts that gave me pleasure until I had enough that they just naturally came together into a finished piece. Screenwriting accommodates that to the extent that I can work on the smaller aspects of scenes until they click and put them with other scenes that clicked.
At the same time, it works with the emphasis on process that allows me to just do it and worry about how it looks later that developed as a I moved into fiction and art. It’s a form bricolege to extent that I can just throw anything together (a fragment of writing, a short story, a dialogue, or summary), put them in a working order, then go back later to pull out the details. And no matter where I’m at in that process, there is always something to work with. If you’ve listened to as many directors commentaries on DVDs as I have, you find out that even the most polished script is revised as it goes into production. Like a post on this board, it is merely something for other talented people to bounce off of.
Anyway, I’ve ranted at you enough. Thank God (whatever it is) I was tired. This could have been worse.
BBIG (But Before I Go): Something I thought about while writing this: given Karl’s reference to the deistic god and the playground designer, maybe he is the one man (or woman) behind the curtain among others. But he would, archetypically, be the one at the end of the yellow brick road. Therefore, maybe Neuro, archetypically, is the bald ghostly head roaring commands above the explosions of fire.
PS: something I just thought about: wouldn’t seem it like Neuro’s insistence that the mind is just the brain might have something to do with his handicap? Which would actually make him heroic since he is facing his process of decay with the honesty of knowing that he is disappearing with the decay of the physiological infrastructure of his brain.
“Huh.”
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