I've written a bunch of posts on spirituality, the meaning of life, humans and human interaction, and yet, I continue to gravitate toward the subject. The learning is never over, and while watching the finale of "Avatar: the Last Airbender" (yes, the children's cartoon series), I was reminded of my queries all over again. I am going to quickly recap the moral struggle faced by Aang in the last episode:
The main character, and the last airbending nomad alive, Aang, is conflicted over how he will be able to defeat the scourge of humanity that is the Fire Lord. This guy is so in need of an ass-beating, it's insane. Everyone knows it, yet no one is powerful enough to defeat him except Aang, but Aang is doesn't want to kill him. Aang's crew, even his true love, Kitara, all want him to kill the Fire Lord to save the world. Conflicted, Aang, sleep-swims (?) to an island off the coast of the beach where he and his posse have set up base. When he wakes up on the island, he realizes that it's moving. He's far away from his friends, but tries to use the time to meditate and to reach his former lives. Even his past incarnations as the Avatar, including the previous airbender avatar, all ask him to consider sacrificing his convictions to save the world. Their arguments are based on ridding the world of evil and injustice, and rooted in utilitarianism. Logical and based in their own experiences as the avatar, Aang cannot deny their wisdom, but also cannot accept it.
Finally, he confronts a truly universal master, an ancient Lion-Turtle, whose back Aang has been riding on (it's so massive, it's an island). The Lion-Turtle, once a guardian of humanity, had something very interesting to impart on Aang, "The true mind can weather all lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed. From beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light. In the era before the Avatar, we bent not the elements, but the energy within ourselves. To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable, or you will be corrupted and destroyed."
Aang literally "sees the light" as the Lion-Turtle shows him how to bend pure energy. In his final battle against he fire lord, when given the opportunity to kill him, he does not. As any real villain would, the Fire Lord interprets this as weakness and tries to destroy Aang. Yet, Aang ultimately is able to bend the Fire Lord's energy to remove his ability to bend fire and wreak havoc on humanity. He takes away the Lord's abilities instead of killing him, leaving him to think about his abuses of power until he understands and accepts what he did.
I agree with Aang. I don't think I could kill someone even if they were evil and destructive. It's not my place to wield power like that, nor do I think it's any human's. Today we couch our killing in legal language to sanitize it, take the "messiness" out of it by ensuring no blood is spilled (in the US anyway), and call it "capital punishment." It's still expunging another life and it's still against most everything that is preached in every religion and moral code employed by humankind. Killing is killing. The STATE killed Murderer X, but we are the state. It's not some sort of external entity that we passively watch, although many of us do act like that.
My beliefs in this are only further strengthened by something that I saw/heard on the science program "Cosmos." Host Neil deGrasse Tyson was walking along a "cosmic calendar" to put into perspective universal versus human existence. Only in the last 14 seconds of the cosmic calendar do ALL recorded human events (re: history) exist. He says something so simple and yet so poignant, that I can't stop thinking about it. All the heroes, kings and queens, anyone we've ever known or have heard of, all did it in the last 14 seconds of the cosmic calendar (here's Carl Sagan saying it - and it makes me cry every fucking time). Wow. No, like seriously contemplate that. Wow. Recorded history is 14 seconds of almost 14 billion years of time. And to even understand the whole of what brought you (yes, YOU) here right now, is almost unimaginable.
How many twists and turns every atom that makes up your presence has gone through - how many life cycles of birth, death and rebirth (in some way), each particle, each cell has experienced to bring you to be here had to have happened an infinite number of times and could have turned out a similarly infinite number of ways. But it didn't - because you're here now. And I think that just makes me wonder what the hell we ARE doing - as a species, as a society, as individuals. ON ALL LEVELS. We're here because we're here and now what? We've been awakened to the vast beauty of the world around us only recently, and have squandered so much with our careless touch - even the destruction of ourselves.
And an argument for killing (notice I didn't use execute, or remove, or get rid of, but kill) rapists and murderers is that it's impractical to provide for them for the duration of their lives since they've wronged others. And yes, it's impractical if the key point of human society was to be efficient and tidy. But is it? The Nazis were pretty efficient. And no, I'm not conflating capital punishment with genocide, but utilitarian arguments have the same cold edge to me no matter the scale.
So now what? Way back in my first post, I joked that we needed a fascist of love to spread a new message. But I really don't think forcing anyone to do anything will ever work. Again, it's a clean and efficient way of working - force submission and expunge the outliers, but it isn't sustainable. It breeds more problems than it solves. Aang's crew, all those who supported his power, but questioned his sanity when he could not use it to destroy, were converted into believers when they saw how his choice played out. He didn't destroy the destructive force. He took away its power and yet showed acceptance of its existence. Maybe those "evil" beings that use their power for wrongdoing and self-gain need to experience the removal of their power, whether it be physical strength, intellectual acuity, money, et al. To sit and realize that they're HUMAN just like everyone else. That their power will fall one day - to another, stronger power, or even just to mortality. Our desire to create a name for ourselves, to live forever in the annals of history is laughable when we put it in perspective - the final 14 seconds of 14 billion years of time. And those 14 seconds won't mean much if humans aren't around to continue to propagate the message through time and space. Seems so futile and desolate if you look at it from an angle of self-preservation, but freeing and beautiful if you consider that you even got a chance to play at all.
30 December 2014
09 December 2014
The Stranger
“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?”-Camus
When I get to points like this, there's little I can do or say to really make myself feel better besides laughing at the absurdity of everything.
'Cause right now, I'm like the Dude in this scene of The Big Lebowski and I need a "Stranger" to set me straight:
Why am I like this? I'm frustrated. At myself, at society, at humanity in general. Maybe a cynical eye is blinding me to the wonderful possibilities in this world, but it surely seems like the bad guys are winning. What does that even mean? The bad guys are winning? Am I living in a fucking soap opera? Thankfully, no, although I do understand the reason that people create drama - to entertain themselves and to distract from the ultimate downer, death (whoofa). In the past few weeks, I have been thinking about a few different aspects of life, but I haven't had cause enough to sit down and write a coherent, fluid post. Maybe this will end up being disjointed in the end, but maybe not. The two main threads I keep coming back to are "time" and "freedom."
Way back in the spring, in my initial post, I had contemplated pulling an all-out Thoreau, moving to some remote area and never looking back. While that urge has hit me more than a few times since then, I have yet to do so. Is it out of cowardice on my part? Or inertia? Or is it that I am not ready to give up on this path yet? In this pondering of why I haven't left for sincerely greener and more isolated pastures, I come back to the idea that I can find what I am looking for wherever, and can also find sadness, frustration and discontent wherever I run to. So if I move to Montana or the Yukon, my new locale will not solve my problems? Nope, not quite. But there is something that I think can be taken away right here, or wherever your "here" may be -that comes from this sort of quiet lifestyle, and that is the dissolution of time. Why does time seem to move more slowly in the American South? Or the countryside? Or, hmm, anywhere but a world-city like the NY-Metropolitan area? Because it actually does. There's not that infernal, constant ticking looming over every aspect of life in those areas further removed from the bustle of modern society. The tendrils of constant connectivity to the life-force of the city are weaker. Don't get me wrong - I love being in NYC. If I lived there, I would be OK with it. But I would probably have to walk a lot to be able to get out of the hustle-and-bustle headspace of the rat race.
Smashing our concept of time and its effect on our lives is something I am trying to cultivate. Can I speed through my chores to sit on a computer for an extra 20 minutes? Sure, but what if I just spent time actually peeling potatoes for the act of peeling potatoes? What would I get out of that? Would there be some sort of satisfaction in this rote action?
This practice of being present is a Zen realization on the importance of everything that you do, according to Alan Watts - “Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.” Not especially enlightened or creative, but this type of mindfulness, I have found, is important in feeling as though you're not constantly under pressure. Similarly, and in a much lighter vein, according to Ron Swanson of Parks and Rec, I should never half-ass two things, but "whole-ass" one thing because the outcome will likely be more satisfying if done right. It's funny how libertarian, manly-man carnivore Swanson coincides with the Zen attitude that I admire and try to emulate, but I think it takes repeated efforts to show us humans that the way to contentedness always takes the same (but in a good way), measured steps even thought it may come to us in different packages (Alan Watts, Ron Swanson, Winnie the Pooh, The Dude, etc).
I go in and out of modes of being - sometimes I am pretty good at just "peeling the potatoes" and other times I am full of frenetic energy that leaves me wanting to punch through walls (or faces). This wildness, when trapped in our regimented social order, is a bad combination. It furthers my frustration, leading to feelings of despair and hopelessness. Millions of questions fly through my mind - how can people not SEE that this way of life is stifling creativity, destroying dreams, destroying the planet, etc? Is there a solution to this sort of trapped feeling? Yes and no. I don't expect everyone to sympathize or even understand the sentiments I am expressing here. Which is OK as long as others can even consider that there may be some alternatives to what we're doing now, as a society. This is what Rousseau was getting at with the corrupting nature of society. And for whatever reason, I am bad at suppressing these feelings sometimes. But that also begs the question, should I even have to?
Ultimately, "peeling potatoes" is what I need to continue to propagate within myself because the hours of worrying over all of the elements that I cannot control is truly a wearying, thankless task. I am in good company though because even Ron Swanson has had some missteps along the way of becoming a true master of life.
01 November 2014
Never Fear Love
When I wake up, especially for work, my exact sentiment is a Peter-Steele-Type-O-Negative bass utterance of, "I hate the morning (4:46)."But then I get out of bed, get into the rhythm of the day and think, "Fuck, I'm alive," and just start living the day. I'm frightened by the prospect of death sometimes, but then I realize that I'm living right now - it's the same sort of message as in the first scenario. I don't exactly know when I reached metaphysical awareness of this, although, I suppose it really began to click when I stopped caring if I died in the big picture sense of it.
And I think we get caught in trying to capture or understand the purpose/meaning to life and what we do, but then we can't. The entire journey is just that - one epic journey. It's been said so many times and is such a cliche in and of itself now. That's fine too. We gave meaning meaning in the first place - with the development of symbols (language, concepts, reason). Some people try to apply that to everything to reduce the jagged edges of life from appearing (and there's a time and place for ripping a paper along the perforation but fringies on a damn paper shouldn't bother anyone that much). But everything isn't smooth all of the time, which we have to remember (otherwise we go crazy).
The post-structuralists were all about this. Humans have tried to explain everything - so many of us are insistent on this point. We are seeking a level of perfectionism and understanding over everything. What a clever gilding! But it, too, is only a gilding - it doesn't last and can be peeled away.
Even the best meaning breaks down in the presence of pure fear, pain or love. So we, as a species, end up controlling our environment so much as to avoid: fearing an unknown, feeling an unabated pain, or experiencing true love for anyone or anything, including life. Here's an example from our society of all three rolled into one - American social norms make women feel as though not being married by 30 is somehow terrible, causing fear and anxiety to rise up. Once a woman is with someone, even someone who treats them poorly, they stay, to avoid pain of being alone and heartbroken. In the end, even for those truly in love, their intense feelings of affection are tamped down by a ritual devoid of any actual experience of individuality and spirituality.
There's a pattern throughout all of these posts - go out and live. Experience. Stop thinking sometimes. It's good for you. Cheesy as this is, once again, never fear love.
And I think we get caught in trying to capture or understand the purpose/meaning to life and what we do, but then we can't. The entire journey is just that - one epic journey. It's been said so many times and is such a cliche in and of itself now. That's fine too. We gave meaning meaning in the first place - with the development of symbols (language, concepts, reason). Some people try to apply that to everything to reduce the jagged edges of life from appearing (and there's a time and place for ripping a paper along the perforation but fringies on a damn paper shouldn't bother anyone that much). But everything isn't smooth all of the time, which we have to remember (otherwise we go crazy).
The post-structuralists were all about this. Humans have tried to explain everything - so many of us are insistent on this point. We are seeking a level of perfectionism and understanding over everything. What a clever gilding! But it, too, is only a gilding - it doesn't last and can be peeled away.
Even the best meaning breaks down in the presence of pure fear, pain or love. So we, as a species, end up controlling our environment so much as to avoid: fearing an unknown, feeling an unabated pain, or experiencing true love for anyone or anything, including life. Here's an example from our society of all three rolled into one - American social norms make women feel as though not being married by 30 is somehow terrible, causing fear and anxiety to rise up. Once a woman is with someone, even someone who treats them poorly, they stay, to avoid pain of being alone and heartbroken. In the end, even for those truly in love, their intense feelings of affection are tamped down by a ritual devoid of any actual experience of individuality and spirituality.
There's a pattern throughout all of these posts - go out and live. Experience. Stop thinking sometimes. It's good for you. Cheesy as this is, once again, never fear love.
15 October 2014
The Hurt Locker of LIfe
Toward the end of the movie, The Hurt Locker, the main character, William James, experiences an existential crisis while shopping for groceries. As he stares at a sea of choices, you can see him trying to comprehend what he's doing there, why there are so many goddamn choices for cereal and whether he'd be better off doing something more....worthwhile. He even admits this to his own son, as to why he's leaving once again, "...But you know what, buddy? As you get older... some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-a-Box. Maybe you'll realize it's just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And the older you get, the fewer things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things. With me, I think it's one." The closing scenes of the movie show him back in Iraq disarming IEDs and even though he's putting his life in serious danger, he's content.
How does a seemingly innocuous trip to the supermarket end up causing a full-blown crisis? What does he see on the shelves - perhaps in between the Cocoa Puffs and the Cheerios - that countless others don't? I think I know. Recently I had a similar moment in a local store. I went food shopping on a dreary afternoon in the late summer. Usually I don't mind going but on this day I was already not feeling it as I walked in. As I was pushing my cart down an aisle, an in-store advertisement interrupted the flow of shitty music that you so often hear playing in supermarkets and retail stores (the kind of music that makes you wonder if the person who composed it was a sadist or on their deathbed or a catatonic schizophrenic...). As the advertisement blared on, I became awash with a feeling that I was actually in a virtual world, like some tv host would burst through a display, shouting, "You're on candid camera!!!!" while twenty of my closet family and friends surrounded me, laughing and cheering, or even worse, that the shelves would roll away to reveal that I had been in The Truman Show all along. Maybe I have read too many dystopian novels or maybe there really is something lacking from our world that cannot be replaced by consumer choice. If I happen to watch too much television, or sit in front of a computer for too long, or are bored through a series of nothing meetings at work, I experience the same feeling.
But what is this feeling? How do I classify it? There's definitely a hint of boredom. A sense of an unknown - what does this all mean? Ennui would probably be the best way to sum it up. I think a lot more people than just me and a guy who disarms IEDs for "fun" feel this way too. Today, during a suicide prevention workshop, the presenter mentioned that one of the signs of suicide is suicidal ideation (thoughts of suicide). I had to not laugh and then afterward, I had to remind myself that it's normal to consider your own mortality, having an expiration date, etc. Read this blog. I think about this shit a fuckton. I'm not suicidal. Sure, I think that CAN be a sign of suicide, but our society has some real hang ups about death. We don't handle it well. I think that's why we have shrines set up to youth and beauty (#selfies) and also why we hide old people away unless they have a sense of humor (we love you, Betty White). It's probably why people in the US are so losing their shit over the ebola outbreak that has killed thousands in Western Africa and 1 person in the US so far. 1 person. 1. 1...
What's missing? What is the undercurrent that joins these feelings of ennui? A lack of identity? A loss of community? We're all increasingly alienated - we construct shaky self-images and then categorize any outside force that may cause these to change as "threats." From trolls on 4chan to ebola to communism to...you name it, people somewhere, at some time, have railed against it. A profession as old as teaching falls in and out of favor with the public. Currently we're out of favor. And the insults lobbed at us run the gamut from strange progressives filling the next generation with lies about their "country" to inept and overpaid ("those who can't, teach" - don't even get me started on that straight line of bullshit). Instead of looking for ways to better their own working conditions and to raise everyone's standard of living, people look toward elected leaders and media talking heads to make their decisions for them. But shrewd politicians and media moguls of all political persuasions have been pretty effective at dividing and conquering a populace through those threats I spoke about earlier. Your tax money isn't going to fund my weekend getaways to the Bahamas that aren't happening, nor my yacht, nor my $400 riding boots. In fact, it's going back into your community where I also live and work and play. So I'm down to go cut some noble's head off and shove grass in its mouth when you finally come to the realization that you've been duped all these years, but I don't think we really need to go that far. Locking arms and saying, "NO!" firmly might do the trick, but even then, we're too scared. Save hate for those who really deserve it.
And what can be done to change it? Well, as always I posit some ideas, but am always looking for input.
How does a seemingly innocuous trip to the supermarket end up causing a full-blown crisis? What does he see on the shelves - perhaps in between the Cocoa Puffs and the Cheerios - that countless others don't? I think I know. Recently I had a similar moment in a local store. I went food shopping on a dreary afternoon in the late summer. Usually I don't mind going but on this day I was already not feeling it as I walked in. As I was pushing my cart down an aisle, an in-store advertisement interrupted the flow of shitty music that you so often hear playing in supermarkets and retail stores (the kind of music that makes you wonder if the person who composed it was a sadist or on their deathbed or a catatonic schizophrenic...). As the advertisement blared on, I became awash with a feeling that I was actually in a virtual world, like some tv host would burst through a display, shouting, "You're on candid camera!!!!" while twenty of my closet family and friends surrounded me, laughing and cheering, or even worse, that the shelves would roll away to reveal that I had been in The Truman Show all along. Maybe I have read too many dystopian novels or maybe there really is something lacking from our world that cannot be replaced by consumer choice. If I happen to watch too much television, or sit in front of a computer for too long, or are bored through a series of nothing meetings at work, I experience the same feeling.
But what is this feeling? How do I classify it? There's definitely a hint of boredom. A sense of an unknown - what does this all mean? Ennui would probably be the best way to sum it up. I think a lot more people than just me and a guy who disarms IEDs for "fun" feel this way too. Today, during a suicide prevention workshop, the presenter mentioned that one of the signs of suicide is suicidal ideation (thoughts of suicide). I had to not laugh and then afterward, I had to remind myself that it's normal to consider your own mortality, having an expiration date, etc. Read this blog. I think about this shit a fuckton. I'm not suicidal. Sure, I think that CAN be a sign of suicide, but our society has some real hang ups about death. We don't handle it well. I think that's why we have shrines set up to youth and beauty (#selfies) and also why we hide old people away unless they have a sense of humor (we love you, Betty White). It's probably why people in the US are so losing their shit over the ebola outbreak that has killed thousands in Western Africa and 1 person in the US so far. 1 person. 1. 1...
What's missing? What is the undercurrent that joins these feelings of ennui? A lack of identity? A loss of community? We're all increasingly alienated - we construct shaky self-images and then categorize any outside force that may cause these to change as "threats." From trolls on 4chan to ebola to communism to...you name it, people somewhere, at some time, have railed against it. A profession as old as teaching falls in and out of favor with the public. Currently we're out of favor. And the insults lobbed at us run the gamut from strange progressives filling the next generation with lies about their "country" to inept and overpaid ("those who can't, teach" - don't even get me started on that straight line of bullshit). Instead of looking for ways to better their own working conditions and to raise everyone's standard of living, people look toward elected leaders and media talking heads to make their decisions for them. But shrewd politicians and media moguls of all political persuasions have been pretty effective at dividing and conquering a populace through those threats I spoke about earlier. Your tax money isn't going to fund my weekend getaways to the Bahamas that aren't happening, nor my yacht, nor my $400 riding boots. In fact, it's going back into your community where I also live and work and play. So I'm down to go cut some noble's head off and shove grass in its mouth when you finally come to the realization that you've been duped all these years, but I don't think we really need to go that far. Locking arms and saying, "NO!" firmly might do the trick, but even then, we're too scared. Save hate for those who really deserve it.
And what can be done to change it? Well, as always I posit some ideas, but am always looking for input.
20 September 2014
A Simulation Inside a Simulation Inside a....
Don't worry, I am not going to just tell you about a tv show....this will go somewhere.
On an episode of the Adult Swim cartoon, Rick and Morty, the grandfather-grandson team are kidnapped and manipulated by aliens seeking the recipe for dark matter. Rick, being the genius he is, immediately knows that the aliens have created a rich simulation to try to trick Rick into revealing the recipe. Morty, initially confused, goes along with the simulation until Rick shows him the tell-tale signs simulated environments over actual, physical ones. The aliens pull the old "simulation-inside-a-simulation" trick on Rick, not only making him give up the recipe, but it is also revealed that Morty has been a simulation all along. Rick, always one step ahead, actually provided the aliens with a recipe for an explosive reaction, and well, the only aspect he didn't seem to see coming was that Morty would be part of the simulation as well. That evening, Rick, never the sentimental one, gets drunk and enters Morty's room. He hugs him, then pulls a knife, seemingly to test whether his Earth Morty is real or a simulation. Poor Morty is left shaking once Rick leaves.
The other character drawn up into the simulator somehow is Morty's loser father, Jerry. The aliens provide bare-bones simulation for Jerry's storyline, as not to have him interfere with their plans of tapping into Rick's mind. Jerry, his own worst enemy, has a personal breakthrough despite being in the most unoriginal and tell-tale simulation ever. When it is revealed that he's not actually experiencing any successes in his real life, he has a breakdown, cradling a simulated award until, that too, disappears.
The show is completely ridiculous and hysterical, but this episode made me pause. After viewing it, I couldn't help but think about it's reflection on modern society. The "realness" of the virtual experience is great while it lasts - Rick and Jerry both think they're in total control until they realize that the entire situation is predicated on falsehood. They both "break down" in different ways - with Rick's violent outburst and Jerry's self-loathing whimpering rounding out the possible spectrum of human responses to such a setback. We see this in real life too - from the loser, lone gunmen type who shoot up movie theaters and college campuses when they "don't get respect," to the dudes who reject women for not being porn star-esque, to the 33-year-old single women who constantly beat themselves up when scrolling through the profiles of their Facebook "friends" who post pictures of their weddings and babies. But, unlike a full-fledged simulation, which is designed to trick us into accepting it as reality, how do we become so invested in online virtual realities that we know we can walk away from to pursue different paths? What draws us into staying trapped within these patterns?
I don't know - but I am trying to understand why we do this to ourselves. Is the internet a new form of religion? Will we ever be able to break away from it controlling our lives? Is there a technological Reformation in our future? Will there be a Martin Luther of the internet?
This week, during a discussion on globalization, my students asked me how I survive without a smartphone. I laughed, but they were serious. And I think part of the reason is that I am OK with having to reflect and be alone with my thoughts. I don't need to have constant distraction. Due to my line of work, I am granted the opportunity to see thinking in action. I watch students' faces when I ask a question. For many, they just avert their eyes so that I do not call on them. They are clearly afraid to be left to thinking about something. This is nothing new. However, there is a change in that this look comes across their faces even when they are not posed with a problem to solve. Being left alone without stimulation has become the problem.
In the study hall period, when students can do homework, chat, draw, eat, knit, what have you, many, even if they do sit and talk, whip out their phones and scroll through Snapchat stories, Vine, Twitter, Instagram and/or Facebook while they do. They're partially in a conversation with their neighbor, partially engaged with their virtual world. Why? Well, no more awkward pauses that are noticeable to everyone, because they're all multitasking. The entire scene, to the observer, is one long awkward pause, because they don't even realize how often they're not paying attention to what's going on in front of them. This happens in my office with adults as well - there are some points during the lunch period where 3 out of 6 people at the table are all of a sudden dead to the environment in front of them because they are so engaged with the device in their hand. It's kind of creepy, actually. I feel like I am just left as an observer of an alien race. And maybe if I had a smartphone I would be just like that, but I don't, so I am left to just witness it happening instead of partaking in the phenomenon. Let me tell you though - to be in this position is to experience a totally new kind of loneliness. One that makes me want to tweet at the world so that all of my thoughts and observations can be validated by all of my friends and online acquaintances? Not quite yet, but I can understand why that sounds appealing.
And I feel like I've seen all this before, in history, in some form or another, which leads me to ask is there Life on Mars? Check the lyrics and meaning.
On an episode of the Adult Swim cartoon, Rick and Morty, the grandfather-grandson team are kidnapped and manipulated by aliens seeking the recipe for dark matter. Rick, being the genius he is, immediately knows that the aliens have created a rich simulation to try to trick Rick into revealing the recipe. Morty, initially confused, goes along with the simulation until Rick shows him the tell-tale signs simulated environments over actual, physical ones. The aliens pull the old "simulation-inside-a-simulation" trick on Rick, not only making him give up the recipe, but it is also revealed that Morty has been a simulation all along. Rick, always one step ahead, actually provided the aliens with a recipe for an explosive reaction, and well, the only aspect he didn't seem to see coming was that Morty would be part of the simulation as well. That evening, Rick, never the sentimental one, gets drunk and enters Morty's room. He hugs him, then pulls a knife, seemingly to test whether his Earth Morty is real or a simulation. Poor Morty is left shaking once Rick leaves.
The other character drawn up into the simulator somehow is Morty's loser father, Jerry. The aliens provide bare-bones simulation for Jerry's storyline, as not to have him interfere with their plans of tapping into Rick's mind. Jerry, his own worst enemy, has a personal breakthrough despite being in the most unoriginal and tell-tale simulation ever. When it is revealed that he's not actually experiencing any successes in his real life, he has a breakdown, cradling a simulated award until, that too, disappears.
The show is completely ridiculous and hysterical, but this episode made me pause. After viewing it, I couldn't help but think about it's reflection on modern society. The "realness" of the virtual experience is great while it lasts - Rick and Jerry both think they're in total control until they realize that the entire situation is predicated on falsehood. They both "break down" in different ways - with Rick's violent outburst and Jerry's self-loathing whimpering rounding out the possible spectrum of human responses to such a setback. We see this in real life too - from the loser, lone gunmen type who shoot up movie theaters and college campuses when they "don't get respect," to the dudes who reject women for not being porn star-esque, to the 33-year-old single women who constantly beat themselves up when scrolling through the profiles of their Facebook "friends" who post pictures of their weddings and babies. But, unlike a full-fledged simulation, which is designed to trick us into accepting it as reality, how do we become so invested in online virtual realities that we know we can walk away from to pursue different paths? What draws us into staying trapped within these patterns?
I don't know - but I am trying to understand why we do this to ourselves. Is the internet a new form of religion? Will we ever be able to break away from it controlling our lives? Is there a technological Reformation in our future? Will there be a Martin Luther of the internet?
This week, during a discussion on globalization, my students asked me how I survive without a smartphone. I laughed, but they were serious. And I think part of the reason is that I am OK with having to reflect and be alone with my thoughts. I don't need to have constant distraction. Due to my line of work, I am granted the opportunity to see thinking in action. I watch students' faces when I ask a question. For many, they just avert their eyes so that I do not call on them. They are clearly afraid to be left to thinking about something. This is nothing new. However, there is a change in that this look comes across their faces even when they are not posed with a problem to solve. Being left alone without stimulation has become the problem.
In the study hall period, when students can do homework, chat, draw, eat, knit, what have you, many, even if they do sit and talk, whip out their phones and scroll through Snapchat stories, Vine, Twitter, Instagram and/or Facebook while they do. They're partially in a conversation with their neighbor, partially engaged with their virtual world. Why? Well, no more awkward pauses that are noticeable to everyone, because they're all multitasking. The entire scene, to the observer, is one long awkward pause, because they don't even realize how often they're not paying attention to what's going on in front of them. This happens in my office with adults as well - there are some points during the lunch period where 3 out of 6 people at the table are all of a sudden dead to the environment in front of them because they are so engaged with the device in their hand. It's kind of creepy, actually. I feel like I am just left as an observer of an alien race. And maybe if I had a smartphone I would be just like that, but I don't, so I am left to just witness it happening instead of partaking in the phenomenon. Let me tell you though - to be in this position is to experience a totally new kind of loneliness. One that makes me want to tweet at the world so that all of my thoughts and observations can be validated by all of my friends and online acquaintances? Not quite yet, but I can understand why that sounds appealing.
And I feel like I've seen all this before, in history, in some form or another, which leads me to ask is there Life on Mars? Check the lyrics and meaning.
06 September 2014
A Nation of Wimps
Rant!! Strong language ahead. I do have a point though.
I recently had a small epiphany about the benefits of taking a gradualist's approach. And as much as it pains me to admit it, the "slow and steady" approach may be the only way to actually effect real change over time. While making pancakes this morning, I was thinking about this and realized my problem with gradualism in the recent past* was that I was conflating it with, to put it bluntly, being a pussy. There is a difference - the gradualist, while critical of the revolutionary spirit, shares many of the same goals as the revolutionary, while the pussy is totally hell-bent on self-preservation. Many times this cowardly individual thinks their inaction is the right course - they're pacifistic, stoic, unflappable -yet, these adjectives are euphemisms for what they really are - a pussy.
Pussies come in all ages, shapes, and sizes. They are not always outwardly meek and unassuming. Bullies fall into this category - fearful of something in their own personalities or lives that they cannot control or change, they seek out a scapegoat over which to exert control, often rallying others around their cry. Historically, there are many, many examples of this type of behavior. Hitler would be the ultimate example - culling favor among the downtrodden, encouraging them to do his bidding, and then taking the easy way out before he could answer for his activities.
Within our own, modern society, the cowardly have gathered the reins, steering everyone toward self-interested activities, breeding fear and mistrust, and discouraging critical thought. A quick look at the top headlines on Yahoo! News or CNN.COM is enough to make even the most vapid among us wonder how selfies, Dancing with the Stars and celeb marriages constitute news in any sane universe. And so we slog on, with these ridiculous headlines and more and more personal uploads of our friends' children, pets and dinners clogging up every moment of quiet reflection we may have. A friend recently said to me, "these are the times we live in now," referring to cell phone culture. I can accept that - to a degree. Why do I have to buy into a culture I have no interest in? If I weren't into BDSM and that suddenly rose to the forefront of popular culture, I wouldn't accept it completely either. I can live with people being on their phones all the time or updating everyone on their every move - different strokes for different folks - but that doesn't mean I have to adopt something just because it's popular and because my refusal to ultimately makes them question their own actions and beliefs. It's similar to the religious right's claim that Christianity is under attack in a country where nearly 85% of the population identifies as Christian. How much more do you want? Apparently 100%. One of us-one of us.
We see the pussification of the next generation starting at an early age. There are a lot of conservative circles that have jumped on this topic - decrying the wussification of America and the loss of the strong, virile men of the past. For the FoxNews crew, their focus tends to be on women (and evil feminists) somehow making everyone sensitive by leaving the house (their natural habitat) and boldly demanding that they be allowed equal footing. Yet, this Psychology Today article explains more of what I am talking about. There's obviously some overlap with the conservative movement mentioned, but the Nation of Wimps argument documents the current focus on shielding every individual from the gaze of the world around them, from judgment even in the slightest degree because it might lead to hurt feelings. For sure there should be accommodations for students with learning disabilities and processing issues. Accommodations for students who climbing the academic ladder, are TigerMom-ed out but cannot psychologically handle it should not exist. It's like finding a loophole in the tax code. My kid gets extra time on the PSAT because she has trouble with gestalt thinking (see Psych Today article). What?? Yes, most children have a hard time with that until they develop beyond a certain age and have shed the myopic, insular tendencies of adolescent thought (Everyone is looking at my pimple! Someone will make fun of the way I read out loud in class! My thigh gap is shrinking!). By accommodating that behavior, we're continuing to cultivate that tendency. We're infantalizing instead of raising children. Parents hovering over their children, and subsequently anyone who comes in contact with their child (principals, teachers, coaches, friends, parents of their children's friends) has become all too common. The helicopter parent has also started to follow their child to college and into the workforce. Your boss reprimanded you because you were late? Have your mom call and complain. When will the child learn to advocate for themselves? There is a massive disservice being done to this child for life in the name of love (and surely in the name of control).
These trends also occur within the classroom. Modern education reforms (from promotion of STEM careers, to new forms of testing, to ending teachers' unions) smack of the same values. The underlying principles of streamlining and standardizing the student experience from K - 12 ensures that they're ready for the post-high school lifestyle of being a good, productive worker bee in a standardized, consumer-driven market. Their parents can rest assured knowing exactly where there child will be and what they will be doing at all times of the day. I am sure someone is working on closed-circuit cameras in classrooms so that parents can watch from afar at any time (less cute than the puppy cam or panda cam by a long shot).
Children also learn to compete against each other at an early age -for grades, attention from their teachers and for friends. And in the wired, media-heavy culture we have created today, they're also learning how to compare their own accomplishments and qualities with endless streams of photoshopped pictures and unrealistic expectations for beauty, love, friendship, success....(you name it). Some teachers that I work with ration out grades - only so many students can receive an A, B, C, etc - forcing students into a fabricated bell curve. Some even post their students' averages (up to and including decimal points - a 93.3 for Marcus versus a 93.4 for Johnny) in the front of the room so that the children know exactly where they stand, breeding competition through public examination. There's no community in a classroom like that. How could there be? Teachers like that are not guides toward personal enlightenment and achievement. Their transactional approach of filling students with information, only to have it repeated back to them exactly as it was given, is egoistic and poor practice in the end. The end product of years of being taught in such a manner are people that are incapable of shrugging off these societal-set standards for their own intuitive values. Over and over again have they been forced to compete and be judged by external forces that you're left with a populace that's afraid, and really unable, to think for themselves. And for what? Check out this Alan Watts wisdom, set to animation by Matt Stone and Trey Parker and ask yourself what we, as a society, are doing to ourselves and our children by continuing to promote these trends.
*P.S.: Confession: My distaste for gradualism was so strong for so long has a similar story to the reason why ex-smokers are the most annoying types of non-smokers: I used to be a gradualist. So here's the story -my high school was not highly competitive academically. Being intelligent was an afterthought for the administration at the time. However, within the honors and AP classes, there was competition driven by some of the students, and more likely, their parents. For 4 years, I excelled, studied to get the top grades in every course, and then when it came to that end point, my classmate whose mom was on the Board of Education ended up having a higher weighting to his lower numerical GPA for taking a computer literacy course over the mechanical drafting course that I had taken. For a long time, this pissed me off. I had done everything right, played by all of the rules, taken challenging classes, worked hard, and for what? To have someone with "political" connections come out ahead in the end. Not very shocking honestly, but it taught me that even if you follow every direction to a T, the predicted outcome may be thrown off course by some virtual wrench at the last minute. This obviously didn't throw me into a revolutionary spirit but it did affect my outlook on the efficacy of gradualism. And when you come back to the revolutionaries, versus the gradualists, I guess that would be my greatest criticism of the gradualist approach. It's more controlled, and can surely adapt to conditions down the pike, but there's a naïveté to that. The virtual wrench can be thrown in at any moment, derailing years of planning and progress. Not to say that the revolutionaries aren't naive about their approach either - throwing in all the chips when you're pretty sure the other side has every advantage is risky, and oftentimes, stupid and nihilistic.
I recently had a small epiphany about the benefits of taking a gradualist's approach. And as much as it pains me to admit it, the "slow and steady" approach may be the only way to actually effect real change over time. While making pancakes this morning, I was thinking about this and realized my problem with gradualism in the recent past* was that I was conflating it with, to put it bluntly, being a pussy. There is a difference - the gradualist, while critical of the revolutionary spirit, shares many of the same goals as the revolutionary, while the pussy is totally hell-bent on self-preservation. Many times this cowardly individual thinks their inaction is the right course - they're pacifistic, stoic, unflappable -yet, these adjectives are euphemisms for what they really are - a pussy.
Pussies come in all ages, shapes, and sizes. They are not always outwardly meek and unassuming. Bullies fall into this category - fearful of something in their own personalities or lives that they cannot control or change, they seek out a scapegoat over which to exert control, often rallying others around their cry. Historically, there are many, many examples of this type of behavior. Hitler would be the ultimate example - culling favor among the downtrodden, encouraging them to do his bidding, and then taking the easy way out before he could answer for his activities.
Within our own, modern society, the cowardly have gathered the reins, steering everyone toward self-interested activities, breeding fear and mistrust, and discouraging critical thought. A quick look at the top headlines on Yahoo! News or CNN.COM is enough to make even the most vapid among us wonder how selfies, Dancing with the Stars and celeb marriages constitute news in any sane universe. And so we slog on, with these ridiculous headlines and more and more personal uploads of our friends' children, pets and dinners clogging up every moment of quiet reflection we may have. A friend recently said to me, "these are the times we live in now," referring to cell phone culture. I can accept that - to a degree. Why do I have to buy into a culture I have no interest in? If I weren't into BDSM and that suddenly rose to the forefront of popular culture, I wouldn't accept it completely either. I can live with people being on their phones all the time or updating everyone on their every move - different strokes for different folks - but that doesn't mean I have to adopt something just because it's popular and because my refusal to ultimately makes them question their own actions and beliefs. It's similar to the religious right's claim that Christianity is under attack in a country where nearly 85% of the population identifies as Christian. How much more do you want? Apparently 100%. One of us-one of us.
We see the pussification of the next generation starting at an early age. There are a lot of conservative circles that have jumped on this topic - decrying the wussification of America and the loss of the strong, virile men of the past. For the FoxNews crew, their focus tends to be on women (and evil feminists) somehow making everyone sensitive by leaving the house (their natural habitat) and boldly demanding that they be allowed equal footing. Yet, this Psychology Today article explains more of what I am talking about. There's obviously some overlap with the conservative movement mentioned, but the Nation of Wimps argument documents the current focus on shielding every individual from the gaze of the world around them, from judgment even in the slightest degree because it might lead to hurt feelings. For sure there should be accommodations for students with learning disabilities and processing issues. Accommodations for students who climbing the academic ladder, are TigerMom-ed out but cannot psychologically handle it should not exist. It's like finding a loophole in the tax code. My kid gets extra time on the PSAT because she has trouble with gestalt thinking (see Psych Today article). What?? Yes, most children have a hard time with that until they develop beyond a certain age and have shed the myopic, insular tendencies of adolescent thought (Everyone is looking at my pimple! Someone will make fun of the way I read out loud in class! My thigh gap is shrinking!). By accommodating that behavior, we're continuing to cultivate that tendency. We're infantalizing instead of raising children. Parents hovering over their children, and subsequently anyone who comes in contact with their child (principals, teachers, coaches, friends, parents of their children's friends) has become all too common. The helicopter parent has also started to follow their child to college and into the workforce. Your boss reprimanded you because you were late? Have your mom call and complain. When will the child learn to advocate for themselves? There is a massive disservice being done to this child for life in the name of love (and surely in the name of control).
These trends also occur within the classroom. Modern education reforms (from promotion of STEM careers, to new forms of testing, to ending teachers' unions) smack of the same values. The underlying principles of streamlining and standardizing the student experience from K - 12 ensures that they're ready for the post-high school lifestyle of being a good, productive worker bee in a standardized, consumer-driven market. Their parents can rest assured knowing exactly where there child will be and what they will be doing at all times of the day. I am sure someone is working on closed-circuit cameras in classrooms so that parents can watch from afar at any time (less cute than the puppy cam or panda cam by a long shot).
Children also learn to compete against each other at an early age -for grades, attention from their teachers and for friends. And in the wired, media-heavy culture we have created today, they're also learning how to compare their own accomplishments and qualities with endless streams of photoshopped pictures and unrealistic expectations for beauty, love, friendship, success....(you name it). Some teachers that I work with ration out grades - only so many students can receive an A, B, C, etc - forcing students into a fabricated bell curve. Some even post their students' averages (up to and including decimal points - a 93.3 for Marcus versus a 93.4 for Johnny) in the front of the room so that the children know exactly where they stand, breeding competition through public examination. There's no community in a classroom like that. How could there be? Teachers like that are not guides toward personal enlightenment and achievement. Their transactional approach of filling students with information, only to have it repeated back to them exactly as it was given, is egoistic and poor practice in the end. The end product of years of being taught in such a manner are people that are incapable of shrugging off these societal-set standards for their own intuitive values. Over and over again have they been forced to compete and be judged by external forces that you're left with a populace that's afraid, and really unable, to think for themselves. And for what? Check out this Alan Watts wisdom, set to animation by Matt Stone and Trey Parker and ask yourself what we, as a society, are doing to ourselves and our children by continuing to promote these trends.
26 August 2014
America the Sick
Schadenfreude - n- the feeling of joy or pleasure when one sees another fail or suffer misfortune. from German - literally translates as "harm-joy"
The concept of schadenfreude is not unique to the society that coined the term, German. In fact, I'd argue that modern American society's mood is strongly grounded in this concept of seeing others fail and reveling in it. Sure, we've all had a good laugh at that woman who was stomping grapes until she fell through the platform. But I am talking about topics that aren't so absurd as this. In fact, more mundane things like - 24 hour news coverage, endless new incarnations of reality television, the explosion of personal recording devices - have bred within us a desire to witness the failures of others. For all the hubris American politicians bring to the table - endless talking points about the uniqueness and exceptionalism of this country - an outsider to this culture would probably expect more from us. Instead, we not only gossip about those that we know - our family members, friends and coworkers- but also about those we don't. And there is an abundance of source material that allows that to be the case. We can discuss, in detail, the lives of politicians, celebrities of the lasting or 5 minute fame types, and even random Joes that happen to make it to the headlines.
Sure, engaging in a little gossip here or there is fun and probably healthy, or at least, doesn't really hurt anyone, but when every news broadcast is a form of escapism in which the viewer is thanking God their neighborhood isn't going to shit like Ferguson, or their child hasn't killed their classmates, or their wife hasn't driven into a lake with their two young children strapped into their carseats, you have to wonder what is really going on. Furthermore, the validity of all of these news stories is confirmed for many viewers when degrees-for-hire (tv psychologists, sociologists, medical doctors, economic analysts, et al) nod their heads in time with the tsk-tsking of the news anchors. A panel of experts is ready to speculate on the character and motives of any perpetrator of any crime, and if you notice, what seems to always come across is how not-ordinary these "criminals" are in the end. They're diseased, they're troubled, they had a seedy past that no one really was aware of until now, they listened to Black Sabbath backwards, they did WEIRD things that the rest of us just don't do. And yet, when you hear a coworker go on and on about Casey Anthony's guilt, you can't help but wonder if we're all as fucked up as those that we watch crash and burn.
None of us are immune to the power of the "vicarious" - how we can impartially view terrible conditions away from our own lives without any real reflection or consideration as to what constant harping on such distractions might say about our own culture and our own lives. What sort of items are we missing out on that are being buried under hours of footage of OJ Simpson driving a Ford Bronco on the California freeway system? And is there an ulterior motive of instilling fear into the general population by constantly reporting the worst of the worst instead of anything positive? Does this fear let us, the viewers, be OK with more surveillance? More restrictions on our own lives in the name of safety? Less real choice?
When I was a sophomore in college, I was eating oatmeal and watching the news on a lovely Tuesday morning when a plane crashed into one of the two World Trade Center towers. As the news anchors were reporting on this terrible event, another jet crashed into the other tower ON. LIVE. TV. Everyone in my apartment was speechless. We had never seen anything so tragic as this on television ever. Maybe if I had grown up in the 1960s, the footage of Civil Rights clashes and the Vietnam War might have prepared me for this, but even those events were not shocking in the same way. We knew about those struggles. This event was a surprise for most Americans.
Since then, I've really hated watching the news - not because I fear I will see other iconic buildings struck by tragedy, but because since then, the news has become a cesspool of hate and fear. honestly don't think that America has ever recovered from that day. We're almost 15 years out from 9/11/01. What has changed is a lot. If America lost its innocence in Vietnam, it lost its hold on itself after 9/11. Our worldview was irreparably shattered by that day and the aftermath. Instead of being able to pick up the pieces and move on, as many affected have been able to, the collective consciousness (represented by the media) of this country has doubled down on tragedy. Furthermore, the political course of action since that day has carried through 4 presidential terms and marks an outdated, heavy-handed response to the problems that led to that fateful day in September. There has been no reflection on America's faults in order to learn and change, instead, whether led by a semi-literate goofball or a Harvard-educated professional, we're still coming to the table with Cold War era tactics of throwing our weigh around and expecting to get results. The world hasn't worked that way in some times. Having the most money, the most guns, the most technology didn't work in Vietnam, nor did it work in Iraq, and seems to be entirely hopeless in Afghanistan as well, but we're still sticking to it. I guess you really can't change a horse in mid-stream. Or so it seems. Our culture and our selves need to change or we're headed for an even bigger disaster than 9/11 -the collapse of this entire system.
Nietzsche's concept of "ressentiment" fits perfectly in with what we're experiencing as a culture. His idea here is that the weak-willed, the inactive, the petty, what have yous, are unable to move beyond themselves. "Things done to them" become their only focus. We've seen this historically in places like France after their embarrassing loss in the Franco-Prussian War, in Serbia after the annexation of "their" land by the Austro-Hungarian empire, in fascist Italy, Japan and Germany during the 1930s, in Rwanda after the Belgians left the Hutus in charge after years of repression. All of those situations ended poorly for everyone involved. Ressentiment keeps us tied to the past, never moving forward. Listen to the rhetoric supported by many American politicians as well as media outlets - are the problems in this country ever collective? Are people homeless or unemployed because there are real systemic issues that need to be changed or are they that way because they're not trying hard enough? Or because immigrants took their jobs? Or because they're so fixated on the "other" being the problem that they haven't been willing to move on and try something different within themselves? Imagine an America that went back to actual (Nietzschean? Pirsig-ian?) values of individualism and self-determination. To making something of yourself without hoping to get something out of it beyond satisfaction? To succeed on one's merits instead of playing political games and kissing ass? That could happen if 1. there was equity, not equality for all (which might mean that some get MORE now to make MORE of themselves in the long run), 2. people actually took time to reflect on how their own thoughts, attitudes and actions might be at fault.
Two quotes to consider:
“To be incapable of taking one's enemies, one's accidents, even one's misdeeds seriously for very long—that is the sign of strong, full natures in whom there is an excess of the power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget. Such a man shakes off with a single shrug many vermin that eat deep into others; here alone genuine 'love of one's enemies' is possible—supposing it to be possible at all on earth. How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!—and such reverence is a bridge to love.—For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture 'the enemy' as the man of ressentiment conceives him—and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived 'the evil enemy,' 'the Evil One,' and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a 'good one'—himself!” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo
“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Sure, engaging in a little gossip here or there is fun and probably healthy, or at least, doesn't really hurt anyone, but when every news broadcast is a form of escapism in which the viewer is thanking God their neighborhood isn't going to shit like Ferguson, or their child hasn't killed their classmates, or their wife hasn't driven into a lake with their two young children strapped into their carseats, you have to wonder what is really going on. Furthermore, the validity of all of these news stories is confirmed for many viewers when degrees-for-hire (tv psychologists, sociologists, medical doctors, economic analysts, et al) nod their heads in time with the tsk-tsking of the news anchors. A panel of experts is ready to speculate on the character and motives of any perpetrator of any crime, and if you notice, what seems to always come across is how not-ordinary these "criminals" are in the end. They're diseased, they're troubled, they had a seedy past that no one really was aware of until now, they listened to Black Sabbath backwards, they did WEIRD things that the rest of us just don't do. And yet, when you hear a coworker go on and on about Casey Anthony's guilt, you can't help but wonder if we're all as fucked up as those that we watch crash and burn.
None of us are immune to the power of the "vicarious" - how we can impartially view terrible conditions away from our own lives without any real reflection or consideration as to what constant harping on such distractions might say about our own culture and our own lives. What sort of items are we missing out on that are being buried under hours of footage of OJ Simpson driving a Ford Bronco on the California freeway system? And is there an ulterior motive of instilling fear into the general population by constantly reporting the worst of the worst instead of anything positive? Does this fear let us, the viewers, be OK with more surveillance? More restrictions on our own lives in the name of safety? Less real choice?
When I was a sophomore in college, I was eating oatmeal and watching the news on a lovely Tuesday morning when a plane crashed into one of the two World Trade Center towers. As the news anchors were reporting on this terrible event, another jet crashed into the other tower ON. LIVE. TV. Everyone in my apartment was speechless. We had never seen anything so tragic as this on television ever. Maybe if I had grown up in the 1960s, the footage of Civil Rights clashes and the Vietnam War might have prepared me for this, but even those events were not shocking in the same way. We knew about those struggles. This event was a surprise for most Americans.
Since then, I've really hated watching the news - not because I fear I will see other iconic buildings struck by tragedy, but because since then, the news has become a cesspool of hate and fear. honestly don't think that America has ever recovered from that day. We're almost 15 years out from 9/11/01. What has changed is a lot. If America lost its innocence in Vietnam, it lost its hold on itself after 9/11. Our worldview was irreparably shattered by that day and the aftermath. Instead of being able to pick up the pieces and move on, as many affected have been able to, the collective consciousness (represented by the media) of this country has doubled down on tragedy. Furthermore, the political course of action since that day has carried through 4 presidential terms and marks an outdated, heavy-handed response to the problems that led to that fateful day in September. There has been no reflection on America's faults in order to learn and change, instead, whether led by a semi-literate goofball or a Harvard-educated professional, we're still coming to the table with Cold War era tactics of throwing our weigh around and expecting to get results. The world hasn't worked that way in some times. Having the most money, the most guns, the most technology didn't work in Vietnam, nor did it work in Iraq, and seems to be entirely hopeless in Afghanistan as well, but we're still sticking to it. I guess you really can't change a horse in mid-stream. Or so it seems. Our culture and our selves need to change or we're headed for an even bigger disaster than 9/11 -the collapse of this entire system.
Nietzsche's concept of "ressentiment" fits perfectly in with what we're experiencing as a culture. His idea here is that the weak-willed, the inactive, the petty, what have yous, are unable to move beyond themselves. "Things done to them" become their only focus. We've seen this historically in places like France after their embarrassing loss in the Franco-Prussian War, in Serbia after the annexation of "their" land by the Austro-Hungarian empire, in fascist Italy, Japan and Germany during the 1930s, in Rwanda after the Belgians left the Hutus in charge after years of repression. All of those situations ended poorly for everyone involved. Ressentiment keeps us tied to the past, never moving forward. Listen to the rhetoric supported by many American politicians as well as media outlets - are the problems in this country ever collective? Are people homeless or unemployed because there are real systemic issues that need to be changed or are they that way because they're not trying hard enough? Or because immigrants took their jobs? Or because they're so fixated on the "other" being the problem that they haven't been willing to move on and try something different within themselves? Imagine an America that went back to actual (Nietzschean? Pirsig-ian?) values of individualism and self-determination. To making something of yourself without hoping to get something out of it beyond satisfaction? To succeed on one's merits instead of playing political games and kissing ass? That could happen if 1. there was equity, not equality for all (which might mean that some get MORE now to make MORE of themselves in the long run), 2. people actually took time to reflect on how their own thoughts, attitudes and actions might be at fault.
Two quotes to consider:
“To be incapable of taking one's enemies, one's accidents, even one's misdeeds seriously for very long—that is the sign of strong, full natures in whom there is an excess of the power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget. Such a man shakes off with a single shrug many vermin that eat deep into others; here alone genuine 'love of one's enemies' is possible—supposing it to be possible at all on earth. How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!—and such reverence is a bridge to love.—For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture 'the enemy' as the man of ressentiment conceives him—and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived 'the evil enemy,' 'the Evil One,' and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a 'good one'—himself!” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo
“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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