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Moving out

Posted by TheBean on Thursday, January 15, 2009 2:36:38 PM
Conceptual Coffee has migrated to WordPress.

Swing by!

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Catharsis pt. 2--anger

Posted by TheBean on Monday, January 12, 2009 10:31:41 PM
The catharsis idea is even more dangerous when applied to anger. Go back to the money-wanting thoughts of the previous post; release from that obsession is attained not through more thought but through less. If the catharsis idea in its full form is accepted, you are in a totally deterministic zone with anger. When someone cuts in front of you in the line at the supermarket, you are allotted a supply of anger. When a yokel drives like a maniac on your freeway, you are allotted a supply of anger. The only healthy way to deal with this is to let it out, so you are not really responsible when you get home from work and yell at your kids.

Consider an alternative. Suppose that when you're angry, you go through a process of (1.) describing the exact nature of the dispute in language that does _not_ give you extra justice, (2.) reminding yourself that you do not want to be angry, (3.) deciding rationally on kind ways to think about and to treat the other party, and (4.) thinking about other things. You are still relating to the frustrating individual in the ways you want to and there is no room for anger.

More on this when I've given it some higher-quality thought...


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Catharsis pt. 1--gloom

Posted by TheBean on Monday, January 12, 2009 10:21:37 PM
Modern psychology, in almost every major form of therapeutic practice, subscribes to the idea that emotions, if not expressed, build up internally and must be released to prevent them from taking over the subconscious or otherwise damaging the psyche. The means of engendering this release (catharsis) is usually very open communication with a therapist. Many people, when depressed or under pressure, talk their situations out with friends to release themselves from their internal burdens.

The support for this idea is primarily a matter of (a.) the feeling of release and the departure of gloom that comes with its expression, and (b.) extrapolation from this that comes very close to being an argument by analogy (that of buildup/release).

Think, for a moment, about how you experience something like greed and how it is best dealt with. Suppose you had an insatiable lust for money and wanted to curb it. Would it help if you talked to your therapist about your love of money and got it out in the open? If you talked to your friends about how desperately you want to get rich? Kept an "I want money" journal?

The above is obviously not how this desire is best dealt with. If you feel that your desire for wealth is clouding your judgment, the clear path is to stop obsessing about it--to repress it.

Repression of gloom is not necessarily an appropriate approach to dealing with it. But, if the catharsis idea does not apply to some desires, it can be doubted in the case of depression. There are two obvious reasons why talking to a friend about problems would make you feel better, even without resolution: (1.) Friends can be very sympathetic and encouraging, and can grant a kind of legitimacy to what you're feeling, and (2.) putting problems into words is an interpretive process; what may have been difficult-to-handle mental images are rendered more manageable when put into the logical categories that words provide.

The implication of this is that the above process is a dangerous one. Social support should be taken with many grains of salt, because friends may grant the kind of personal legitimacy you seek without understanding the full nature of what's on your mind. They may help you distort your view of reality. Similarly, putting concerns into words can distort events; aesthetically pleasing or self-pitying wording may creep in and inaccurately describe a situation, leaving you unable to respond to its actual nature.

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Now that's commitment

Posted by TheBean on Friday, January 09, 2009 2:18:37 PM
I couldn't help but be reassured when I read that Mr. Obama is willing to work "on weekends if necessary."

Our country is in good hands.



Tags: Bailout   obama  
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Prediction: This isn't going to work

Posted by TheBean on Thursday, January 08, 2009 10:20:33 AM
As the horrifying 1.2 trillion deficit estimate broke the headlines, Chamber of Commerce president Donahue said, "We've got to be very, very careful that we don't make a larger government." Isn't it a little late for that?

Mr. Obama has helpfully pointed out that "We are committed to changing the way our government in Washington does business so that we're no longer squandering billions of tax dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of a lobbyist or an interest group." However, notes McClatchy, "while Obama stressed that he'll inherit the $1.2 trillion deficit — and on Tuesday called the Bush administration irresponsible for adding to the national debt — he didn't identify any Bush-era policy that he'd reverse to reduce the deficits and mounting debt."

The time is long since past when it was acceptable to criticize the squandering of billions without naming programs.

House Republican leader John Boehner aptly said that "The deficit estimate makes it clearer than ever that we cannot borrow and spend our way back to prosperity when we're already running an annual deficit of more than $1 trillion."


This from here.
Tags: Bailout  
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Sense of scale

Posted by TheBean on Wednesday, January 07, 2009 2:16:18 PM
BBC News: "Coalition troops have killed about 50 insurgents in operations across Afghanistan in recent days, US-led forces and Afghan officials say."

As ugly as this is, it's  still an amazing achievement that skirmishes with 50 casualties are newsworthy.
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Two cents

Posted by TheBean on Wednesday, January 07, 2009 12:36:48 PM
With the release of Viva La Vida, many die-hard anti-Coldplay activists have found their complaints suddenly unjustified. I finally got the chance to listen to the album last night, and it was far better than anything on A Rush of Blood to the Head (their best album to date, if I'm not mistaken). It was darker, more rhythmic, and less formulaic than their former work. Each song flowed fairly smoothly into the next (with the exception of the fourth and fifth tracks).

The high point of the album was track 5 (Yes) which kept an intense beat with strings and pulled off peculiar harmonic violin solos at intervals. The title track was also good stuff.

As usual, Coldplay's videos look weird and forced. Oh well.

You can hear Viva La Vida here and Yes here.

Tags: culture  
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What happens when the left controls pop culture

Posted by TheBean on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 8:13:03 PM
This.
Tags: culture  
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Postmodernism

Posted by TheBean on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 1:40:35 PM
Postmodernism resists definition. The definition that circulates most freely seems to be "the critique of Grand Narratives." Grand Narratives, simply put, are world-defining ideologies (usually cultural or religious).

Taken alone, there is nothing wrong with this idea. Overarching abstract schemes for How Things Work should be treated with great caution and approached only with the strongest of verification. A lot of the generalizations that fit under the Grand Narrative designation are just bad ways to describe and direct human life.

When all narratives are critiqued and condescended to with equal regard, problems arise. Postmodernism can slip into a frame of mind that characterizes all ways of describing the world as coping mechanisms; one person's is equal to another's, and we should live and let live. Ideas should be respected as ideas (they're all sort of wrong and overgeneralized anyway).

When this view holds sway, all ideas become personal. Objective judgment about the world we live in isn't really possible (or, if it is possible, it isn't done) so ideas are an extension of personality and should be treated the way people are treated.

This is the reverse of rational thought. An idea can only reasonably be judged on the basis of (a.) its accuracy, and (b.) the behavior it prescribes. Brutality toward ideas is absolutely necessary to reason, and its practice does not necessitate unkindness to the people who hold them.

Tags: sheep  
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Ehud Olmert muscles up and vooms

Posted by TheBean on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 1:06:51 PM
Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has started showing grit, and is finally telling the international community what they need to hear.

"'I am a man of compromise,' he began. 'I have conducted two negotiations in an effort to bring about compromise. However, on one thing I cannot compromise, and that is the security of Israeli citizens...We cannot reach a compromise that would enable Hamas to fire at yet more cities and towns in Israel.'"



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Pop culture

Posted by TheBean on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 12:42:33 PM
Mark Steyn tells us why we need to own it.
Tags: culture  
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Sorry, had to say it somewhere...

Posted by TheBean on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 12:36:46 PM
Morphophonemics is the study of the morphology of phonemes. Which is to say, the hot bods on those call-center employees.
Tags: sheep  
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The moral layout of the Gaza conflict

Posted by TheBean on Monday, January 05, 2009 1:59:53 PM
A friend of mine sent me a Glenn Greenwald article that put the Israelis and Palestinians in the same moral box and characterized adherence to one side or the other as tribalism. My response sounded very bloggish, so here it is...

Palestine has very old claims to it from both sides. At this point, the business of who deserves to be there based on these claims seems borderline irrelevant. The Palestinians have claim to lay on that spot if anyone does, but (a.) there is already a reasonably functional Palestinian state (Jordan) and (b.) They've been given the vacation spot of Israel to build another one.

They have built nothing. Gaza and the West Bank together have a -8% growth rate.

Instead, the Gazans shoot at Israelis. Unceasing rocket fire rains on every civilian target within range of Gaza. The Israelis are fighting for the survival of their nation. The Gazans have shown themselves to be constant aggressors while the Israelis have shown restraint well beyond the point of reasonable tolerance in not attacking until now. Attacks have been coming across the border for months. 

The Gazans have instituted a set of laws that, among other things, legalizes crucifixion. That is barbarism, pure and simple. The Palestinians are famous for putting explosives in toys for children to find and blow off their limbs with. The Israelis practice selective terrorism; the Palestinians practice random terrorism. The Israelis shoot at targets (sometimes civilian targets) with military significance. The Palestinians just kill whatever civilians are in rocket range.

The people involved are the concern, not the tribes involved. The people who inhabit territory A attack the people in territory B. The people in territory B retaliate while seeking peace settlements. Furthermore, we can reasonably guess that the territory B people have every desire to stop fighting and will do so when the people in territory A do so. Blowing people up (the aforementioned X) is more justified on the Israeli side because they have no other route; if they do not fight the Palestinians, the Palestinians will kill them all.

Yes, an intentional Israeli strike on a civilian target is absolutely unacceptable. Every time this is done, very excited folks point to it and draw broad moral equivalences. Civilian attacks are the exception for Israelis and the rule for Palestinians. The continuous aggression on the Palestinian side is so far beyond the pale that they have forfeited any right they had to the whole of Palestine. The Israelis hit Gaza defensively; they want a peaceful setup in the region, and it's about time the Palestinians dropped their land claims (since long-term land claims are part and parcel of tribalism) and built a responsible, viable state.



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White-collar liberation, pt. 1

Posted by TheBean on Saturday, January 03, 2009 3:09:12 PM
The late '90s saw the release of a series of classic white-collar liberation films. Fight Club and American Beauty were two of the best-known.
 
American Beauty is a pop-culture icon; critics and public raised their voices in unanimous praise of its "wit and insight". It follows the adventures of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a middle-aged man who is sexually obsessed with his teenage daughter's best friend. Burnham is internally freed by this pursuit, and finds through the self-awareness it brings that his responsibilities have sedated him. He quits his desk-job to work at a fast-food restaurant and starts smoking pot. He finds release and happiness through this and other imitations of his teenage years.
 
The thesis of American Beauty is that happiness springs from (a.) freedom from responsibility and (b.) independence from socially imposed standards.
 
The problem with this is that it's wrong.
 
Living for the moment and dispensing with self-control are not freedom, they are limitation. Imagine if you lived for the moment and quit your job to drink beer and watch TV. The financial freedom that working creates would disappear, and you would find your life a very cramped business in very short order. If you live for the moment in relationships, you will vent anger when you have anger and you will alienate the people you care about. If you live for the moment as you make decisions about eating, exercise, &c, you will probably gain weight.
 
American Beauty itself cannot realistically adhere to its ideas, and Burnham's character is redeemed in the viewer's eyes through exercise (discipline), better treatment of others (discipline), and a final decision to stay away from his daughter's teenage friend (discipline). The only ways, in fact, that Burnham's glibly espoused philosophy is followed are his job-switch and pot-smoking.
Tags: culture  
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White-collar liberation, pt. 2

Posted by TheBean on Saturday, January 03, 2009 3:06:41 PM
Fight Club presents an idea very much like that of American Beauty to start with--a desk jockey finds his way out of his office-maze world (though this time through fistfights and terrorism.) What many people miss about Fight Club is that the philosophy espoused throughout most of the movie is intended to fall apart at the end--Fight Club ends with exploding buildings and unnecessary death, not personal freedom.
 
There's a long-forgotten Soundgarden song that runs,
 
I woke the same as any other day
Except a voice was in my head
It said seize the day, pull the trigger
Drop the blade, and watch the rolling heads

The day I tried to live
I stole a thousand beggars' change
And gave it to the rich
The day I tried to live
I wallowed in the blood and mud with
All the other pigs
And I learned that I was a liar
Just like you.

Maturity has been famously defined as the ability to delay rewards. The kind of hippie freedom that American Beauty offers skirts very close to a definition of immaturity.
Tags: culture  
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