For those of you who haven't been told yet, I have a Carl Wilkerson Fan Club Mailing List. Topica is hosting it. Click here to go to the club's web page, which includes subscription information.
I am suffering through Buy Nothing Day today. Pattie and I agreed we would have to consume electricity, but otherwise, we should be able to make it to tomorrow. It strikes me that most days I don't buy anything, anyway. I'm not sure why it seems so spooky when I make it explicit.
Friday, November 29, 2002
Sunday, November 10, 2002
I put together a long response to Pattie's blog today. I thought it would be apropos to post it here as well:
Nice post. It's good to see you speak to these issues, if only because you are contributing to others' understanding in your attempts to make sense of all these atrocities. Atrocities are often referred to as "senseless," but that implies a uniquely determined logic by which they should be assessed. Often, the atrocities follow a very perceptible pattern, a quite rigorous "logic." It's just that the implications of the pattern are distasteful to us. Cause: the ozone goes away. Effect: we die. Not what one would have, but not logically inconsistent.
Check out discussions in literature of the "prisoners' dilemma" for a specific example of how disastrous results can occur "logically." The way to escape from such consequences is often to do some assumption-checking (beginning with assumption-marking, inevitably) and see where it gets you. In the specific case of the prisoners' dilemma, it is in the assumptions that the "logical" outcome of mutual destruction is set up. In particular, the forced competition ensures the results (and, BTW, shows up the "invisible hand" model as presumptuous). Logical systems always presume. A high-school geometry student knows the distinction between an axiom and a theorem (although his attempts to apply this knowledge anywhere but geometry class may well be followed by painful consequences, particularly if the application is well-suited, which only begs the issue of contextuality), and college calculus is littered with inescapable "regularity conditions."
I bring all of this up because much of what you lament is a result of American "logic." Development is good, ergo kill all the trees. Fat is bad, ergo shovel the fat people into the already-enormous slave class. The LOGIC, in the strict sense of that word is fine in and of itself; it's the ASSUMPTIONS being
(a) only several of many conceivable starting points from which "logic" could proceed (and an arbitrary subset thereof),
(b) productive of other conclusions beyond the ones that those who are still at liberty to speak want you to draw, or
(c) just plain erroneous
that causes the trouble.
Assumption-checking is no longer permitted in American culture except by the ruling class and the police class. Members of these two classes may attack the validity of specific premises in others' arguments. Anyone else doing so is met with, "Are you calling me a liar?" and will be beaten, killed, or lose permission to pursue sustenance. Attempts to attack purely logical considerations are somewhat better received, but one notes that as long as the party free from considerations of assumption-checking can continue to spout off propositions that must be considered a priori truths by his opponent, the ball game is essentially over before it begins.
Your perceptions are fine. The surreality you perceive in your situation is largely caused by having to speak to a culture with extraordinarily shabby standards and norms of discourse, some of which I have mentioned above. You are too good to be saddled with lowest common denominator rules of engagement, and that is the source, in my opinion, of your frustration. Somehow, though, I get the feeling that you will be better able to deal with such matters as time progresses and you continue your writing.
Thank you for inspiring me to write this.
Love,
Carl
Nice post. It's good to see you speak to these issues, if only because you are contributing to others' understanding in your attempts to make sense of all these atrocities. Atrocities are often referred to as "senseless," but that implies a uniquely determined logic by which they should be assessed. Often, the atrocities follow a very perceptible pattern, a quite rigorous "logic." It's just that the implications of the pattern are distasteful to us. Cause: the ozone goes away. Effect: we die. Not what one would have, but not logically inconsistent.
Check out discussions in literature of the "prisoners' dilemma" for a specific example of how disastrous results can occur "logically." The way to escape from such consequences is often to do some assumption-checking (beginning with assumption-marking, inevitably) and see where it gets you. In the specific case of the prisoners' dilemma, it is in the assumptions that the "logical" outcome of mutual destruction is set up. In particular, the forced competition ensures the results (and, BTW, shows up the "invisible hand" model as presumptuous). Logical systems always presume. A high-school geometry student knows the distinction between an axiom and a theorem (although his attempts to apply this knowledge anywhere but geometry class may well be followed by painful consequences, particularly if the application is well-suited, which only begs the issue of contextuality), and college calculus is littered with inescapable "regularity conditions."
I bring all of this up because much of what you lament is a result of American "logic." Development is good, ergo kill all the trees. Fat is bad, ergo shovel the fat people into the already-enormous slave class. The LOGIC, in the strict sense of that word is fine in and of itself; it's the ASSUMPTIONS being
(a) only several of many conceivable starting points from which "logic" could proceed (and an arbitrary subset thereof),
(b) productive of other conclusions beyond the ones that those who are still at liberty to speak want you to draw, or
(c) just plain erroneous
that causes the trouble.
Assumption-checking is no longer permitted in American culture except by the ruling class and the police class. Members of these two classes may attack the validity of specific premises in others' arguments. Anyone else doing so is met with, "Are you calling me a liar?" and will be beaten, killed, or lose permission to pursue sustenance. Attempts to attack purely logical considerations are somewhat better received, but one notes that as long as the party free from considerations of assumption-checking can continue to spout off propositions that must be considered a priori truths by his opponent, the ball game is essentially over before it begins.
Your perceptions are fine. The surreality you perceive in your situation is largely caused by having to speak to a culture with extraordinarily shabby standards and norms of discourse, some of which I have mentioned above. You are too good to be saddled with lowest common denominator rules of engagement, and that is the source, in my opinion, of your frustration. Somehow, though, I get the feeling that you will be better able to deal with such matters as time progresses and you continue your writing.
Thank you for inspiring me to write this.
Love,
Carl
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
P. and I went to Vancouver last weekend for business reasons, and the trip went well aside from my not being able to drink the water or breathe the air. Oddly, I had been to the Lower Mainland half a dozen times before, including trivial visits involving little more than driving through it to get to the ferry to Victoria a couple of times, and I had never had any such problems. The air was especially, um, visible this time around, though, and it might have tipped the balance. My recovery time from long walks was out of whack, and my contact lenses also went on the blink at times. The conditions reversed themselves as soon as I got back to Vic and got a good night's sleep, however, so don't make plans to attend my funeral yet.
The business part of the trip went well. We did lunch with a married couple who constitute a film production company re: specific and general considerations we had, P. went to a conference at BCIT re: her day job, and I visited the HQ of the magazine Adbusters (and was unimpressed). Not too productive on the surface, but one has to sow a certain number of seeds, and P. felt that the BCIT conference was especially promising in that respect.
"First Person, Plural" is still in production. Episode 23 made it to initial broadcast last week, and Episode 24 is right on schedule to go out this week. We're still on every Thursday at noon (Pacific Time) on CFUV.
The SHOUTcast option is still available to me, but I'm going to save it for "utility" purposes, i.e., on a need basis instead of just broadcasting continuously. I'm not sure yet what uses I will put it to, but what I'm not going to do is pursue the "music-and-ads" format that seems to be mandatory for commercial success even among Internet radio stations. I expect I'll be firing it up on a case basis: it's there if I need it.
The business part of the trip went well. We did lunch with a married couple who constitute a film production company re: specific and general considerations we had, P. went to a conference at BCIT re: her day job, and I visited the HQ of the magazine Adbusters (and was unimpressed). Not too productive on the surface, but one has to sow a certain number of seeds, and P. felt that the BCIT conference was especially promising in that respect.
"First Person, Plural" is still in production. Episode 23 made it to initial broadcast last week, and Episode 24 is right on schedule to go out this week. We're still on every Thursday at noon (Pacific Time) on CFUV.
The SHOUTcast option is still available to me, but I'm going to save it for "utility" purposes, i.e., on a need basis instead of just broadcasting continuously. I'm not sure yet what uses I will put it to, but what I'm not going to do is pursue the "music-and-ads" format that seems to be mandatory for commercial success even among Internet radio stations. I expect I'll be firing it up on a case basis: it's there if I need it.
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