Another thought on re-watching Buffy
Saturday, March 1st, 2008 01:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerWhy is it that we still insist on using a goat's head to represent ultimate evil? OK, I know all the stuff about Christians demonising old pagan gods, but come on, a goat? Goats are silly creatures that go "meh" and eat clothes off washing lines. The worst thing goats have ever done is contribute to desertification by stripping leaves off shrubs. If you were being threatened by some Goat-Headed Evil Thing, a natural response would be "What are you going to do - nibble me?"
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Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 04:27 pm (UTC)I've studied both, if only in 2nd year anthro course, and would say that neither have established the security that comes from agriculture.
Without calling for some mythical perfection, weren't there times of relative amity? I've read that Islamic communities lived in relative peace, c/w religious tolerance.
But I'll stand by my point: many moderns don't have the sense to check see if their PC is plugged in when it fails to boot. There's no time in their daily lives that they related to phenomenal world except for traffic and retail purchases and such as that.
As for Seinfeld, I don't think all comedy is edifying ... because it's funny and popular really doesn't indicate anything at all. I don't think you want to make that show paradigmatic of the genre. I don't find it insightful, or ironic ... just this squirmy superficiality, puerile ... it really turns me off. ("South Park", on the other hand ... or "The Daily Show" ... kettles of different sorta fish.)
Sure, the social equivalent of "grass is always greener" ... I'm not suggesting that the dawning of a Golden Age is at hand ... but from where the notion that we have to run in panic from the paradoxes? from where the notion that self-awareness is impossible and so we much knee-jerk react away compulsively from whatever causes us discomfort?
Is my point almost entirely, that.
Something I learned from having been caught in a long prairie blizzard (I mean 4 days long, not 4 hours long): misery is quite detached from death ... that I'm uncomfortably cold really and actually means almost nothing, so long as I pay appropriate attention to those "DANGER DANGER DANGER - hypothermia on the horizon"
"I am not absolutely comfortable with everyone in my surround 24/7" becomes justification for splendid isolation? Lousy logic ... sounds like self-serving sophistry to me.
Maybe moderns can't stand discomfort because they're gut-weak ... or, more likely, they've contrived a culture where they get to reward themselves for their weaknesses. "I'm so easily bored; I'll got out tonight for the 4th time this week and again spend nearly a hundred dollars on myself. Because I must ... because I'm bored at home, even with my splendid stereo, my super-hot PC, my full library, and my big-screen TV ... because I simply cannot suffer through 2 or 3 hours of boredom ... I just can't."
Junkie-talk.
"we cannot sit quietly in our room by ourselves"
Point isn't, I suggest, to sit quietly or not, but rather: if a person cannot bring themselves to do /that/, then what?
The hundreds of millions of suffering ... what would they give for the chance to sit quietly, still, warm, secure, well-fed?
But moderns have to drink more salt-water to slake their thirst ... and drink more, and again ... and again ... and again.
With that sort of psychic orientation /of course/ they will endure social indignity or injustice in the work-place ... /of course/ they will make Dem noises and then line up to support the oligarchs ... they're junkies, pure and simple.
Me? I'm a traitor and deserve to be pushed away, because I've had a life-vow not to support the myths, not to contribute to entropy, not to make the false appear true, not to encourage others into inauthenticity.
I'm not poor because I'm a perfectionist, because I demanded too much.
I'm poor because I would accept pay to join in the project of rationalizeing a situation that is unwholesome.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 05:28 pm (UTC)But still you have a point. Forget even something like tithing; if everyone in the richest sixth of the world just once lobbed $100 at the Third World, that would be $100,000,000—probably enough to kick-start a few economies.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 06:21 pm (UTC)Yaaaaaaaaaaaaa! That's the stuff!
So, without having thought this through: make Bhutan an international peace zone ... start with a coupla think-tanks, one funded by UNESCO, one by *thinks* Clinton and Soros and Gates ...
Sidebar: the Vidyadhara, Chouml;gyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, when asked how he picked Halifax NS as his capital, said something to the effect that it was good because it had all the problems of any big city, so folk would have a vital reality to tune into, but not so bad that they would be dragged down.
That's how I feel about Bhutan: the problems they have with impoverished Nepali on their borders are very real. The problems with deforestation likewise. And consumerism, and materialism, etc etc etc. But /relatively/ pristine. And a well established mind-set relating to bodhicitta viz.: their national happiness index.
No Shangrila ... but a place where civics are lucid.
"why I remain a fan of the modern world"
"Freedom and tolerance" ... rates of obesity sky-rocket, the US has an extraordinary rate of imprisonment, incidence of mental-health problems also sky-rocketing ... every indicator of fundamental pathology.
I can't be a fan of a culture that celebrates acquisitiveness and ambition as virtues.
"if everyone in the richest sixth of the world just once lobbed $100 at the Third World"
That sorta thing was foundational to the 70s critique of what we now call "globalization", most evident in the "Fair Trade" coffee movement: if we paid 5c more for our cocoa, then cocoa-growers could put their kids through school. Just so.
Tell that to individuals who have no experience of sane phenomenal world and in a moment they'll come up with some self-serving sophistry.
Proof: in the 70s we had a nation-wide network of "learner-centered resource centers" dedicated to what we called "development education" ... they were systematically de-funded by conventional agencies. AFAIK 3 survive. I was with the International Education Center at St Mary's University when it breathed its last in 1995 ... I saw how those responsible damned the system with faint praise. They all got comfortable positions with more business-oriented entities.
BluePill always provides sufficient alternative reality in the form of convenient rhetoric, rhetoric that accords with prevailing views without need for critical lucidity. Pap. Jingoistic group-think.
p.s. a Canadian woman set up shops in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, where our troops are. Apparently pomegranates grow a-plenty there. The shops produce natural cosmetics. They can't keep up with demand! So there are actual case studies.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 06:48 pm (UTC)Looking on the bright side, it's nice that people get the chance to be obese rather than starving, and mental health problems are rising at least in part because people are more likely to see doctors about their problems, and doctors are more inclined to view normal misery as pathological. On the other hand, the US is a pretty bad example for the developed world; if I were to hold up a developed country as a model, it would be somewhere like Denmark or Sweden. Incidentally, the Danes are, according to an aggregate of studies, the happiest people in the world (though of course we don't have enough studies of traditional societies who are out of the development loop altogether).
a Canadian woman set up shops in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, where our troops are. Apparently pomegranates grow a-plenty there. The shops produce natural cosmetics.
Clever and brave. Coincidentally, the $100 I lobbed at the Third World was at RAWA (http://www.rawa.org/index.php). A drop in the ocean, but at least it's being dropped into a very feisty bit of ocean.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 07:24 pm (UTC)*blink*
Have you gone Poly-anna on me? Better that they self-destruct by neurotic over-consumption than that they experience historical accident?
I'm disappointed.
This is classic: you need to maintain loyalty to something? are willing to do violence to lucidity to do so?
How about "Sad that folk who have plenty pollute that, compelled to pathologize their wealth and ease". Or how about, "The basic guilt that cannot be named expresses itself by the failure to thrive."
"mental health problems are rising at least in part because people are more likely to see doctors about their problems, and doctors are more inclined to view normal misery as pathological."
My, you are bound and determined to explain it all away, aren't you.
FWIW good studies factor that in.
God ... this has suddenly become pointless.
Did you get a visit from the thought-police?
bye-bye
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 07:55 pm (UTC)I'd give that a qualified "yes". The people who starved by historical accident may well have eaten themselves to death if they'd had the opportunity (in fact if medieval art is anything to go by, a lot of their more fortunate contemporaries did). Choice is important, even if we make the wrong choices. Besides, I smoke, and probably drink too much, so who am I to criticise people for over-eating?
FWIW good studies factor that in.
Hmm, I should have thought of that. But the empirical evidence stands: people in liberal, democratic countries are, on average, happier than people in poor, authoritarian countries. (There are a few interesting anomalies, like Cuba, but that's a whole other story.) Now it may often be a dull, contented kind of happiness, but it still beats out-and-out misery. If Siddartha hadn't been born a prince, he might never have gone off and become the Buddha—he'd have been too busy trying to feed his family.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 09:11 pm (UTC)Classic: I point to the epidemic of obesity (also type-2 diabetes) as self-destructive, and after "sure beats going hungry!" the point is re-framed to seem judgmental condemnation.
I did not write that way.
And no, I won't make light of it.
I regret that lucidity has here died.
"people in liberal, democratic countries are, on average, happier than people in poor, authoritarian countries."
Yes.
So, therefore, everything's hunky-dory and finding fault merely shows my bad attitude.
Thanks for the reality check.
I can now honestly let slip the last of what I considered a reasonable optimism.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 10:17 pm (UTC)Sorry, that was in no way intended to be judgemental—I was just poking fun at myself, as I am wont to do.
So, therefore, everything's hunky-dory and finding fault merely shows my bad attitude.
I wasn't saying everything's hunky-dory, just better. I sometimes do a thought-experiment with my students (a kind of backwards version of John Rawls' "original position" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/) exercise) where I ask them to choose which time and place they would like to be born in, assuming that they would have no choice as to who they were going to be: race, sex, income, social status, health etc. are all random. Once we go through the ramifications (e.g. "Yes, the Ottoman Empire was kind of cool, but not if you were a galley slave"), only two options remain popular: hunter-gatherer tribes and modern social-democratic countries.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 11:03 pm (UTC)You mis-read me. I didn't say you were being judgmental of me ... I said what you wrote had the effect of making me seem to have been judgmental.
"I was just poking fun at myself, as I am wont to do."
Yes of course ... there's likely 108,000 ways to re-jig and spin such communicative gestures.
It had the deserved effect: at once derail the discourse and put me in a bad light.
*that's the cue for me to be presented as paranoid*
"only two options remain popular: hunter-gatherer tribes and modern social-democratic countries."
So fine: There Is No Alternative presented in the place of critical thinking.
Either be richer than is healthy or be poor ... exactly ... precisely ... nothing like explicating the obvious in uncalled for detail to avoid any incursion of lucidity.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 09:14 pm (UTC)You apply your logic selectively.
According to what you wrote above he should have kicked back and gotten fat and lazy.
You don't use him as a counter-example at all. Except to contradict me saying that poverty and oppression and starvation and disease were wonderful things and gifts to those who suffer them.
(Oh wait, I didn't say any such thing. *shrug* Who cares what I actually wrote. The point is: the emperor's new clothes are wonderful. Right?
I can resign from society knowing that it's being defended by more able hands than mine.)
reprehensible
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 10:33 pm (UTC)Umm, no. What I was saying was that as a prince, he was presented with the choice of getting fat and lazy, or of going off to seek enlightenment. As a peasant, he wouldn't have had the choice of being fat and lazy, and he might not have had the choice of going off to seek enlightenment—for example if he was the only son of aging parents and had to look after them or they'd starve. Sure, under those circumstances, he still could have gone off to seek enlightenment, but a moral quest based on an immoral choice probably wouldn't have ended well.
That reminds me—you might like Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum's work on the capability approach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach) to ethics.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 11:08 pm (UTC)But the point is entirely that my quasi-fascist cohort molly-coddle themselves with narcissistic self-justification while steering the world into hell. Precisely that: given the luxury of ease and wealth they chain themselves to career so as to pretend that they've no alternatives.
"As a peasant, he wouldn't have had the choice of being fat and lazy, and he might not have had the choice of going off to seek enlightenment"
Simply false. Monastic communities have always been a refuge for those who have no wealth.
Now, in my case, because dharma has been gentrified, I've had to go the other path ... learning on the street (literally) ... but I've had the benefit of good teachings from a fully qualified teacher.
And anyhow, from what I've seen of my cohort I wouldn't have it any other way. Those who aren't "Oh poor me, having been born into wealth is such a burden" are into "Oh poor me, I've slaved so hard to be wealthy and now find I must slave to stay wealthy."
I can't call them stupid because they're not. Simplest: they're brain-damaged.
In any case, there's no substance being discussed here ... a drop of ink in the vase of pure water and pelucidity is no more.
be well
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 09:15 pm (UTC)you actually feel that an apologia for our present dis-ease is your responsibility.
#matrix #borg
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 10:37 pm (UTC)No, I feel that speaking the truth is my responsibility. So do you, which is why I like you even though you're a grumpy old fart ;-) Our ideas about the truth clash, and maybe we get to learn something—fun, isn't it?
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 11:10 pm (UTC)Where? Where?
I declare that "Better to be obese than starving" is fatuous. Reprehensible.
But of course: you were just having fun.
Or one of the other 107,999 gambits.
And I'm just some version of sociopath.
whatever, just so long as I'm made to look bad
/whatevuh/ dewd, /what fucking evuh/
meh
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-02 11:25 pm (UTC)That's not a trivial truth. Of course there are some people who can be happy while starving (Gandhi springs to mind). But these people generally had favourable conditions to develop the mind-state that allowed them to do this. You get born into conditions where you grow up malnourished, and you don't get much of a brain. When I'm chatting to some of our cleaning staff, I'm shocked that I find it easier to construct sentences in Turkish than they do, and that's not just lack of education, that's lack of neurons. But surely you don't need me to tell you this—I assume that you're making a different point, but I'm not sure what it is.
So seriously, am I supposed to worry that some Americans are fat? Sure, I'd prefer it if they ate organic vegetables and exercised regularly, but the diseases of the privileged aren't really high on my list of priorities. I admit that I'm a pretty selfish person, but when I do take the time to consider the ills of the world, I don't cry over America.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-03 01:40 am (UTC)I would rather think that you were being intentionally argumentative than that you actually mean what you're saying.
How do you fix starvation? Immediately: $2 worth of nutritional supplment; intermediate: $15 worth of food; long-term: about $20/month.
What's the treatment for obesisty? None.
Really ... I can't imagine how you can't see how silly this is. As though some Magic Spirit pops out of the bushes and *ping* you're obese.
Plus: you evidently have no sense of the torment morbidly obese people suffer from their humiliation and alienation.
Really ... I'm shocked at how obtuse you're choosing to be.
More: truly disappointed. Hurt.
"I assume that you're making a different point, but I'm not sure what it is."
That while I've spent my life trying to establish a basis for non-hierarchical discourse (see Paolo Friere's pedagogy) good folk in positions of authority such as yourself are presenting people: "Choose: insanely over-consumptive or starving to death" without (apparently) the slightest self-awareness.
False dichotomy, to say the least ... propagating a radically distributed middle ... you should be shocked at yourself.
I find this disheartening.
Not sure I'll reply again.
I need this like I need another hole in the head.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-03 10:10 am (UTC)Well that's largely because obese people choose to eat they way they do, so you often can't treat them without violating their will. You can treat problems that cause weight gain other than eating (e.g. hormone problems), and you can offer counselling, but if people really want to over-eat, they will. That's what makes it similar to smoking or drinking, and very different from starvation.
Plus: you evidently have no sense of the torment morbidly obese people suffer from their humiliation and alienation.
I imagine it must be pretty unpleasant, and I wouldn't go around calling out "Hey fatso!" at every obese person I saw. But again, there's no comparison with starvation. Obese people have the options of not eating so much or accepting the fact they're obese and getting on with their lives cheerfully. Like you said, there's no magic wand that makes you obese, and no magic wand that makes you feel bad about it either. With starvation, you don't get a choice about being undernourished, and while you have some degree of choice over how you feel about it, it's much more limited, (especially considering how chronic malnutrition can mess up your brain).
We agree that starvation and obesity are both bad things, but are you really saying that they are equally bad, or even comparable?
"Choose: insanely over-consumptive or starving to death" without (apparently) the slightest self-awareness.
Except that I didn't present any such choice. All I'm saying is that in the developed world people have a greater degree of choice over their consumption than they do in the Third world, or, for that matter, in previous periods of history. If you live in America, you don't have to eat junk food or drive a SUV; plenty of people choose not to, as you've pointed out in your own journal.
And just to reiterate: I'm not holding up the US as a model. If I had to pick an existing country as a model, then it would probably be Sweden, but even that's a long way from ideal.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-03 03:54 pm (UTC)"are you really saying that they are equally bad, or even comparable?"
Why not ask me if I've stopped beating my wife?
You seem to have ridden to the defense of mindless consumption.
"And the poor will be with you always".
This really saddens me. (no sarcasm)
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-03 10:53 pm (UTC)1. Material prosperity contributes substantially to happiness at basic levels, but there's a curve of diminishing returns. If you double the income of someone who makes $1 a day, you'll make them very happy; if you do the same for someone who makes $1,000 a day, it won't have much effect.
2. Although material prosperity is what the Stoics called a "preferred indifferent", materialism, in the sense of placing a high value on material wealth, has been shown to decrease happiness at both a personal and a cultural level.
3. Here's the interesting and problematic one: community is important for happiness, but so is an individualistic culture (that's why Americans are happier than people in economically comparable countries like Japan or South Korea).
So what we're looking for is a society in which, as the Danes put it, few people don't have enough, and even fewer have too much. America is therefore not a good model; Denmark might be. As I said, social democracy might not be utopia, but it looks like the best we can hope for under the current historical conditions.
Re: Since we're on the subject ...
Date: 2008-03-04 01:09 am (UTC)Or something, yes.
"I certainly don't see anything in what I've written that constitutes a defence of mindless consumption."
Ok.
"Material prosperity contributes substantially to happiness at basic levels"
I disagree with that?
"materialism, in the sense of placing a high value on material wealth, has been shown to decrease happiness at both a personal and a cultural level."
This is some way dissonant with what I was saying?
"community is important for happiness, but so is an individualistic culture"
As a general rule dualism is wrong-headed; any view of this material that fails to grasp that it's essentially dialectical is mere sophistry. (W/respect ... that wasn't a deniable poke at you.)
"social democracy might not be utopia, but it looks like the best we can hope for under the current historical conditions."
The rhetoric I've developed over years in arguing at street-level provides me with this: it is the real attempt to actualize our best ideals by which we realize our best results. In a word: praxis.
33 years and counting that I've been working on a discourse system that at once aggregates best arguments (in a dialectical format, applying syllogistic logic and declarative analysis) and values the subjective narrative (by lofting "phatic" material the formal argument is preserved while the personal is safe-guarded against flames).
I haven't met even 1 person who's expressed real interest in that project. Not 1.
But arguments ... lots and lots of arguments. Usually arising from the fact that I'm a prick, or asshole, or SOB, or /something/ like that.
HeyHo, and so it goes.