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| Quick aside here, but too long to post to Facebook or Twitter, so onto this desolate wasteland of Xanga it arrives.
I was walking along the ASU campus, busily on my way from one place to or another, when a petition-taker approached me to sign his list. I didn't stop walking, but I slowed down enough to ask him what the petition was for. "We're trying to get another party on the ballot."
Not so quick aside, I would love to see the monotonous monopoly of the two-party system here in the United States subverted by the addition of multiple parties. This conservative/Republican and liberal/Democrat schism in the States has been perverted beyond all usefulness. Either/or bullshit that makes no sense. What does believing in pro-family, whatever that means, have to do with being rabidly pro-Big Business? If you believe in gay marriage, what does that have to do with government-backed health care? What do any of these propositions have to do with a belief in the soundness of the global warming hypothesis? Shit-all, that's what. Anybody who tells you differently is a tool too afraid to think for themselves.
Hell, I almost voted for Nader back in 2000 just to see the stranglehold of two-party politics broken. I didn't because Nader is an ineffectual backwater. You know, like Ron Paul was in 2008. Great idea, useless person.
Anyway, I said, "No, thanks" and kept walking. At that the petition-taker stopped like I'd punched him and said, "Whoa, hardcore Democrat."
Makes me wonder what party he was pushing. There was no interaction there that would describe mine or his political leanings. Except I didn't sign his petition, so obviously I was the enemy. His particular enemies were the Democrats, and if I wasn't for him, I must be against him. Thus, a Democrat.
There's a reason I'm a registered independent, even though it disembodies my voice in this fucked up system. To submit your voice to the group-think of followers is to give up one of the most valuable parts of yourself, your actual self.
I'm for truth and decency, and I believe there can be no decency without truth. The hardest blinders to remove are the ones you put on yourself when you weren't paying attention.
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| So a quick aside.
I'm sure everybody has an interest in understanding the world as it is. We all live in the same bewilderness, and we're all wondering if we could find the same signposts. I went back to school to make more money, but also because I have a restless intellect that will always seek out further explanation.
I would rather seek than find.
But anyway, I went back originally to get an anthropology degree because I wanted to know how human societies create themselves. After a few years I became interested in the biology of humanity. If you take reality, and I mean this truly bizarre reality we live in, I figured you would need to know how basic biology powers human belief.
But it created a ladder. To truly understand biology, you have to truly understand chemistry. But before you can understand chemistry, you have to truly understand physics. And if you want to understand physics, you have to know mathematics like the back of your hand.
Each of those steps take years of study. There is not a shortcut. But what I've found is that once a person dedicates themselves to understand one of those rungs, they very rarely climb back up that ladder to take a good look around.
It's rough. Once you get down to these bottom rungs, you start to think your mathematical tricks you're using to explain reality are the be-all-end-all. Those who study "hard science" look down on the "soft science" of the liberal arts. But what they forget is that all the complexity they are trying to simplify does not simply disappear when you climb back up that ladder. It's all still there. The complexity of what you can model at a quantum level is multiplied to a level you could not ever expect to model, unless you switch your point of view.
"Swinging to the rhythm of a new world order."
"Now you see that Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb."
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| Politics in this country is the absolute death of discussion. It's marching us to our doom.
If there is on thing people harp upon here, it is certitude. The idea that you are absolutely right is what people gravitate about, and God help you if you ever entertain the idea that there is more to the subject that your first ill-informed idea.
In America, we've got two parties with different ideas about every topic you could think about. And all of those ideas are hard-wired for no reason at all.
Let's take an obvious example, man-made climate change. Politically, there are two tacks. Either you think man-made climate change is a problem we have to combat right now, or that it is a made-up tactic for the left to take control.
Both of these ideas are true. The absolute change of the world environment by man is essentially an indisputable fact. If you want to argue with me about it, read the last few reports by the IPCC, and I mean actually read them. If you have any more questions, follow up on their citations.
At the same time, the liberal left will use them as a wedge to get themselves in power. They're power hungry politicians just like the rest of them, your party and the opposite included.
But here is where our doom lies. A politician needs to stake his ground right off the bat. He/She needs to pick sides, even if he/she has no idea about the deeper problem. It's all been decided before they step up the Congress floor. They've got moneyed interests behind them.
In between these two extremes, there is an actual reality. But politicians do not have the option to discuss it. They will always have to stick with the first ill-informed idea their electorate elected them upon. There is no possibility that the other party may have something worthwhile to say. They are the "other party" and fundamentally wrong.
Pity yourself if you ever consider that your original consideration was wrong. No matter how many reasonable conversations you have had with people, if you change your original consideration you will be viewed as weak and a "flip-flopper."
Imagine you still thought of the world the way you thought of it in middle school, the way you thought the world ought to be. Now never change your view of the world for any reason. Live your life by those creeds. That's what we have in political parties here in the U.S.
A slow steady march into perdition. And by god so many are willing to follow that path into destruction.
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| I may have gone on record several times as being easily annoyed by audience participation at music shows. Well, namely it was just me being really aggravated at the synchronized clapping at a show by The Format.
I'm not really against it. In fact, I think being in a good audience is one of the unsung virtues of entertainment. Being in a large group of people all focused on the same thing can be one of the greatest experiences you can have. The energy in a group of like-minded people is unlike anything else. It's the reasons why people get high on political rallies or start riots. There's nothing else quite like it.
That's part of the reason I watch so many stand-up comedy shows. Laughter is contagious, as is very well known. That's why TV shows include laugh tracks or are filmed with a studio audience. Laughing in a large group of strangers will warm your soul. It's a heady experience. In fact, the only thing I find more addicting is being the person causing people to laugh.
But I'm not just some misanthrope who watches comedy shows (yes I am), I also listen to music. Most live albums are terrible, but every once in a while you are greeted with a band who really know how to work an audience. One of my favorite examples of this is this song by Wilco:
This requires you to follow this link.
Did you listen to that? I must admit I was confused by the end of that song. If you're just listening to the song, the endless repeat of "nothing" makes no sense. However, go back and listen to it and pay attention to the audience. The musical instrument being played is the audience itself. They become an integral part of the song. I'm not a huge Wilco fan, but that's some serious musicianship in evidence.
My favorite audience participation song has to be this live tune by Pearl Jam:
Listen to it now!
Pearl Jam has been around long enough to expect their fans to know their songs by heart. In this performance of "Black," Eddie Vedder stops singing and lets the audience perform a crucial part of the song. After the audience have all bonded on their shared connection, Eddie Vedder swoops back down into and completes the melody. It gives me the shivers every time. I think we all know the songs that give you the shivers are the best songs.
I guess all I'm saying is that I love good audiences.
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| "I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us." | | |
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