jannotes

A while back I put a whole bunch of money (relative to my perception of “bunch”) into a much anticipated IPO and watched it jump up the first day, thought I was a regular plutocrat, then within two days I had lost half of what I put in; I got out and cancelled my eTrade account and decided I would rather be an ethics professor than a mogul. It makes me feel that I am not at the mercy of the irrationality of millions of other people who think they are heroic because they reinvest tiny portions of their (generally) inherited fortunes in “risky” ventures while showing their patriotism by refusing to pay taxes and thanking veterans for their service. How simple it is to be wealthy and find ways to rationalize the love of mammon and murder by invoking one’s own Marketeering courage, heroism, appreciation for “Warriors” who take care of the dirty work for you, and villainizing as ungrateful parasites the vast amount of hard working people who are living on inadequate means for their daily needs. I never until recently bought into the idea of qualitative class differences in this country: it always seemed so “Marxist” and ideologically fixed to believe that an open country like this, with so much upward mobility, could have a class of people who literally are not connected with their fellow citizens in the underlying workings of the society we all live in and vote in. Recent reading on my part of the class issues of the 18th century that culminated in the French Revolution, and the ingrained attitudes of the Aristocrats of the day towards all other people in the society has opened my eyes to the fact of class as the separation and isolation of two groups of citizens, one extremely small, the other the vast majority. This attitude never went away, it merely moved over to the capitalists who in a democracy are the Aristocracy, every bit as disassociated and out of touch with the humanity of less entitled people as Marie Antoinette and every bit as convinced of their own innate innocence. When Paul Ryan screams: “Class Warfare!” in all of his wounded innocence, he is correct. What disturbs him is that warfare begins only when the person under attack fights back; until then, it is asymmetrical class domination, a let-em-eat- cakewalk of pillage coupled with the Big Lie, manipulation, Newspeak, impunity, immoral activities and supreme contempt for what Ryan must consider, since Ayn Rand is his spiritual foundation, a world of over 99% Parasites. What I now understand, contrary to my earlier beliefs that such a powerful, actual, as opposed to merely self-satisfyingly illusional, class distinction in both power and sense of innate superiority has us back in the 18th century. Like then, the neo-Aristocracy of our time is unaware of the problematic nature of its attitudes. They are born and raised into it; as in any other subculture, most of their axiomatic foundations are never examined; they are taken as natural truths. An existential sense of purity and absolute innocence underpins their attitudes and explains why such privileged people can be so angry while having so much. Their egos depend on their superiority based on innocence, which all others are denying in confronting them. And assurance of absolute innocence supports all actions that such people deem in their own interest, which they are convinced (sans any empirical evidence) will be in the interest of everyone else as well. “How can my self interest possibly be detrimental to yours”? they ask. “You can only benefit when I benefit.” The benefits of the class, then, must be taken care of first, all else will follow. Paul Ryan exemplifies the deep hurt (probably quite sincere) that rejection of of his Moral Budget Bill brings out. I am fascinated by how personally he takes criticism of thl, how sure he is that it must be exactly the way he designed it, and how all benefits to his class are not ae bilccepted as self-evident benefits to the whole society. He is innocent at the core, and those who oppose him must be guilty of horrible cynicism in their harsh and complete rejection of his plan for a Utopian future.

Just back from four days at the Convention of the Association for Psychological Science at the Sheraton downtown; It’s been a while since I’ve been around scientific people. People who think statistically and with confidence in what they knew to be so, and have no problem with that which can’t be considered yet, or is out of the question; this is because precise methods of testing their data allows them to come to confident conclusions regarding their hypotheses. Science is about the integrity of precise methodology based on empirically constructed theories which are thoroughly tested through plausible hypotheses. It was a pleasure to hear about so many fascinating human phenomena being newly investigated. The science of affect and feeling is one of the exciting areas that is just coming into its own, after eons of first behaviorism, then cognitive science, both of which are foundational to understanding ourselves: but the feeling state as well as emotions of a grosser type are now being looked at much more closely, including areas that I most appreciate, the psychology of moral affect and its relation to ethics and morality in general, i.e, as phenomena of social psychology. The work coming out investigates the concept of embodiment, that still outrageous (for many) idea that mentation is only understandable , not by including the body, by as the body. Dualism dies many deaths before its death. I hear a new term I need to more fully understand: biofunction Theory, which integrates all bodily action into a wholistic sense of the mind. Vaguely it reminded me of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology perhaps being given a hard scientific formality. Many trailblazers were there, and I got a chance to talk to some briefly and listen to the presentations. I spent most of the convention on that and cognitive psych and personality psych and feel refreshed since I have no situation to stimulate me like that at the moment – it was like being back at the U of Chicago again. My friends tell me that science is about “skepticism” and therefore we can’t be sure of anything a scientist says, and when they say they actually “know” something, they are being pretty poor scientists. Rough finding adequate friends; in my case, I’m either lecturing them or they’re screaming me down. No wonder I stay so isolated. The idiot SE Cupp, the Right Wing pundit that MSNBC has us wear as a token around our necks so that their other pundits will appear to be of at least average intelligence, tells us that she doesn’t understand why scientists have such a problem with people not accepting global warming, since science is supposed to be about “skepticism.” It appears that by insisting on global warming, they were either being hypocrites or that science had merely been coopted by the communist left in order to reap vast tax revenue from hard- hardworking billionaires. A friend of mine, a liberal who has no problem with atmospheric science (that’s good science, approved by Marx), holds a Ph.D from a World Renowned University in something like Peruvian criticism(I’ve never been too sure , but I know it’s extremely important Arcana); she, tells me, in almost the same words as Ms. Cupp, that true scientists would always consider any possibility because they are all skeptics, but those working nowadays are only out to make money through capitalism, e.g. in Big Pharma. Tools of the Koch Brothers, in other words. They insist that they can know with certainty about many things they are experts in; thus, this is not good science. Remember, science is “Skepticism.” I had insisted that there was much good evidence that certain anti-depressants were effective with at least a certain subset of patients diagnosed with depression. I guess since there was no time In this case give a lecture on the philosophy of science, I had to give in to any further debate with just a refusal to believe her thesis that ALL anti-depressants were merely placebos and the Big Pharma boys were making the steal of the century. the debate then generalized to psychiatry and evolutionary psychology. She confidently averred that in 50 years psychiatry and evolutionary psychology would have disappeared and our understanding of all things psychiatric and psychological would be unrecognizable from how it is understood today. And would still be equally wrong. She stated that her credentials for that knowledge were her Ph.D. and having read the entire works of Derrida and Foucault. I have never heard a more positive statement since an Illinois congressman, a couple of years ago investigating the fraud, told a climatologist that his global warming claim couldn’t possibly be true since in Genesis, God had promised to never flood the earth again. With all scientific thoroughness, he made sure to read the passage to the scientist. This is the only way to shut up a skeptic, after all. You have to know when you’re licked. So I shut up. I have read some Derrida and a fair amount of Foulcault, and I learned a long time ago that it is very unwise to disagree with authors that are entirely impossible to understand. Most of the words aren’t that hard; it’s just the way they follow each other that makes you suspect you have just suffered a lateral temperoparietal hemorrhage in Wernicke’s Area. Now add to that the new psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan. The late M. Lacan has a follower with the wonderful name, Willi Apollo, who, by a process of expunging some Lacanian Symbol from a patient’s unconscious, cures (sic) schizophrenia. Reading Lacan comes only after you have mastered the Dick and Jane of Derrida and Foulcault. The doctor’s hero and mentor, the anthropologist Claude Levy-Strauss, refused to take any credit for him, saying in effect, “I can’t understand a word he’s written.” This from the man you would suspect of having constructed by himself every possible combination of words in all of the Western Languages at one time or another. The beauty of the name is, that you can spill it out at intellectual gatherings and shut them down by saying: “it’s Lacanian.” One caution: if you plan to simulate that stance: don’t try to quote Lacan; you’ll never be able to remember any two words in proximity. When we sit around in isolation and our only intellectual stimulation is from Right Wing TV pundits and an occasional post-modernist sage, we begin to miss how refreshing it is to hear someone talk about complicated and interesting things they are on to; a new fact about the world given with cogent and unadorned clarity, fully aware of its validity and place in the world, and aware also of that which is not yet verified, and may never be . The second statement is not to be confused with ambiguity or skepticism. Usually, it was not because the phenomenon had been “disproved,” but because it didn’t have the requisite probability for us to accept it’s factuality. Since probability is the primal base of all natural phenomena, the measure of place and time in quantum mechanics, we might still have it in 50 years to help us along in learning about the world. In science things never get proved, but often verified; more often we hear words like “suggest,” and phases of the form: Until we learn more about A, we cannot be sure that Y is true of B. Through that procedure , often after a very long time, some phenomenon may have such a high probability that y is indeed true of B, we can scientifically state, not skeptically, that y is true of B is the case. We now know a little more about the world. And the World, Wittgenstein tells us, is all that is the case.

There is no better way to bring about a fascist state than to lead people into despair because of democratic impotence. Hobbes’s Leviathan is a sleeping giant lying behind all petty power playing and irresponsible recalcitrance. When people are fearful and deeply insecure, they lash out against all who look, talk, and act differently and demand unlimited cruelty to fix the cracks in their parochial comforts. When in pain, only relief from the pain is relevant, and whoever has no immediate antidote will be attacked. Freedom is ultimately only freedom from pain, and individual pain makes it impossible to feel for others or even care. A wounded animal attacks those who would help him unless they come well protected and forearmed with restraining chains. Absolute Authority is Absolute Comfort. In this country, the irony is that the discontent is over a lifestyle most of the world envies. A billionaire lashes out in wounded-dog-like rage when a penny is added to his taxes. The problem starts with the low threshold for pain we have in this country, especially by the pampered and metaphysically entitled. Regular, unwealthy people who two years ago screamed in rage that their Medicare was being stolen from them now want leaders who will abolish it altogether. When the planned austerity of the budget is put in place by the Republicans (and a White President, thank God!) the economy will plummet, but the clarion call to Patriotism and Exceptionalism, and bombs over Tehran will sooth the savage breast. There will be more reasons to laud the “Warriors” and their sacrifice and service at pregame Baseball First Pitch ceremonies. And we, “safe” at home, will starve, sans unemployment benefits, sans food stamps, sans a living wage, sans health care, sans everything. I remember reading a poem some years ago depicting a father beating his child brutally, and the child would keep coming back to his father crying, looking for comfort from him, only to be beaten again. This continued persistently, because, said the poet, “he had nowhere else to go.” This is the illusion the Republican Party is instilling in the electorate, and so many of them will throw in their lives in order to prevent a woman from receiving birth control or an unemployed worker from receiving food stamps, or a cancer sufferer from receiving medical care. If George Romney takes over, and the Republicans have congressional majorities, the abuse of the people of the country will be complete. And they will love every minute of it. After all, we are exceptional. What more could you ask for?

Do not confuse rightful anger at injustice and predation with hatred. Hate is all consuming and has a very general, impersonal focus. It is impersonal because the hater has no ability to meet up empathically with an individual as an individual, but merely as a token of primal otherness. Hatred sparks itself into violence, whereas anger is a reaction to personal threat requiring action for protection against predation. Hatred is a power that needs no external threat for action, merely the presence of alterity. Anger is focused on a specific injustice and seeks not to destroy the person but to rectify the situation that person has caused. Hatred seeks to destroy the other and requires dehumanizing that person, making him or her an Other, incapable of recognizing any feeling of shared humanity with the object of hate. This is the psychology of hatred, and it is based on primal xenophobic fear, a genomic constant. When society is knocked askew as in present times, primal behaviors will prevail. Xenophobia is scratched deep into the human genome and is safely funnelled into benign activities when times are pleasant, and takes over as a “warre of all against all” when terror becomes a social effluvium. At that point groups become the Other, whatever their identity: racial, ethnic, political, occupational, socioeconomic. It is irrational and in many people it is pathological. Pathological hatred becomes viral and infects the society en masse. The right wing feels deeply of and speaks only out of terror. And thus the resonance for so many. When we are incapable of seeing ourselves as connected with all human beings, empathically energized when in their presence, even in hostility understanding their needs and perspectives however they may clash with ours, but feel only Otherness of being, isolation amidst them, the toxins fulfill us and the will to power is spurred into bloodbathing. Anger must be felt and channeled into a positive action against the hatred itself that pervades this country and that is propagated so efficiently by the robotic little minds that articulate it. That one would worry deeply about becoming a hater in this resistance is assurance in itself that this person won’t become one. Self defense of oneself and the sole desire for not personal victory over the foe but with hope to bring such people back into the fold of common humanity with all of us, this should be the goal. Protect ourselves against hatred in whatever practical way is required, but always with the goal to forgive and reunite, not to destroy. We must know our foe, understand their humanity, desire the best for them, seek to regain their love, but refuse their agenda with whatever it takes. Remember Jesus’s last words on the cross and know that in a just battle, it is the victor who weeps.

Human rights belong to all by birth. The government does not “give” people rights, they always already have them. There are people who would deny rights to others. The government then has the Duty to Protect the rights of People that others would take from them. The legal protection of rights as a government function is one of the historically most radical innovations of the U.S. Constitution. Since its inception, the protections have always been there. Who needs to be protected has been slowly recognized over time. The answer to “Who” is simply “Everyone.” That simple fact could have saved us a lot of blood and tears. The majority has no “right” to decide who does and does not have rights. They are natural human entitlements and when denied the crime is the action of the denier. The need to dominate and deny another his or her full humanity is supported by the dark energy of Fear, Evil’s weapon of mass destruction. There is no safety in denying rights to others. There is only ongoing painful folly. The Golden Rule, that one apply reciprocity and empathy to all interpersonal actions, has many and varied iterations, and it is the final and elegant guide to true and lasting happiness for those who apply it. It is the antidote to Fear. My favorite form of the Golden Rule: Live and Let Live.

Why have I never heard of Maurice Sendak or “Where the Wild Things Are”? I feel I have had a part of existence denied me for something I did terribly wrong.
There was a wonderful program of interviews with Maurice Sendak on Fresh Air with Terry Gross today. I have never heard a person describe a personal philosophy so similar to my own. He is an atheist, who like myself, is unapologetic about his weltanshaung and not disturbed by the issues of ultimate purpose and the nonsense of afterlife (terror of death is the power behind modern religions, not morality or purpose) – he loves life and that is the purpose of life – to love it while it lasts, every moment of it. Accept the reality of true death and get on with things. Her most recent interview with him was last September by phone since he was immobilized by what he knew was a terminal state. She asked him about impending death and his atheism, and whether he had second thoughts. He said no, he had no reason to change his understanding of things and as for his own death, he merely said: “I am ready. I am ready. I am ready.” It was the death of others that made him sad, and he told her he was glad he would go before she would, since he will not have to be sad over her. This man is extraordinary, and I, the all knowing, never heard of him or his books before today. It is a hole in my life that I shall now begin to fill in.
“You know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson — she’s probably the top — Mozart, Shakespeare, Keats. These are wonderful gods who have gotten me through the narrow straits of life.”
- Maurice Sendak
On faith
“I am not a religious person, nor do I have any regrets.”
Like me, his spiritual life is enabled by reading and by listening to music. Today, for the first time, I felt validated as an atheist who finds meaning in the very living of life itself, accepts the inevitability of death as existentially final, and appreciating the gift given over the millennia of the experience of the human condition lived out in the words and art of the special human beings who set their experience to transmittable media – writing and visual and aural art. The art and literature of the species from the most distant past to the immediate present is the gift of human life. Having lived, when the time comes to dis-integrate and reorganize into something other than human, I hope my last words will be: “Thank you.”