You vote for Pat Robertson's protege, you get Pat Robertson's protege.
He is a bad representative of our state and our school.
OT, but on moral panic this type of hysteria has come up like clockwork every two or three years in Poland since the fall of Communism. Yes it exists, yes it sucks, no it is not remotely commonplace.
3: Interesting. Sort of the opposite (or not?) of being a "gallerina" in NYC.
Let me get this right. This twat is saying that not only is not against the law to discriminate, it's against the law not to discriminate?
5: You haven't heard this one before, Ginger? It's the right wing's #1 jam. How dare you limit my right to limit the rights of others!
5-6: Right. For instance, this also happened recently in the Old Dominion. (And I still think he looks like a turtle, dammit.)
8: Is there any significant pushback against any of this in Virginia. As I recall they campaigned on more "moderate" positions.
As it turned out, I spent more than the suggested cost of two visits to the Met during the less than six months I was there, and it's unlikely I'd have done that if the cost had been required.
8: Is there any significant pushback against any of this in Virginia
Not that I'm aware, but the story was on today's WaPo front page, so we'll see? I'm skeptical it's something many Virginia voters care that strongly about.
Stanley, I have no pointless story, but I found five dollars on the sidewalk today.
14: You should have waited two weeks to tell about it. Then you could have used the word "fortnight".
So, speaking of gender... (ok, fine, this is completely off-topic):
Nature has published a short story about a woman scientist whose career is derailed when she marries and has children. She tells her husband that sacrificing her career to bear his children was worth it, and then he dies and turns out to have been a space alien.
What the hell, Nature editors? And even aside from the sexism, it's a shitty story.
(Someone blogged about this here, if you can't access the link to the story itself.)
Interesting. Certainly this was how the municipal governments in Virginia work - they could only do the set of things that the General Assembly had authorized municipal governments to do ("Dillon's Rule"), and didn't generally have freedom to make rules on other matters. It doesn't seem totally absurd for the same rule to apply to public colleges, even if the result is asinine.
You mean he should've waited a fortnight?
18: I was re-purposing stealing a Demetri Martin joke, apparently with bad results.
17: What a strange way to run a state. Cuccinelli is, er, a piece of work, I must say:
The former Fairfax County senator has signaled that he will be an activist attorney general. This month, he sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency, challenging its ruling that greenhouse gases pose a public health risk by contributing to global warming.
Well, it did happen about a furlong from here.
And Demetri Martin has jokes now?
20. Maryland is also a Dillon's rule state.
It doesn't seem totally absurd for the same rule to apply to public colleges, even if the result is asinine.
It does if the rule doesn't actually apply as a matter of law, though. I have no idea if it does, but aren't colleges usually entities distinct from municipalities?
They're state-chartered entities, and the basis of Dillon's Rule is that the local powers of state-chartered entities should be viewed very narrowly. I don't know the actual language that chartered the schools; maybe it has some clause that gives it this freedom, but it might not.
22, 24: This is fascinating. Thanks (to Nathan as well). I confess I haven't been familiar with any of this.
For the truly wonky, this Brookings report goes into a lot of detail. 39 states use some form of Dillon's rule; 31 to all municipalities, and 8 to only some. Ten states shun it completely (Massachusetts is one such). Florida is weirdly unclear. The report does reinforce my belief that Virginia may be the most strict state on this subject.
Wonk-fight! No, wonk-pwn fight! No?
OT: What's with this bread I buy from a local bakery that in the last while has had gigantic holes in the middle of the loaf, discovered when I slice into the loaf? Holes the size of a golf ball. One cannot make a sandwich with this bread. It's delicious otherwise, but I don't know enough about making, say, a Sourdough Boule, to know what's going on such that the end product has such gigantic, willy-nilly air-pockets in the interior.
It's saddening.
Daaaaaaaaamn. This blog is sooo broken!
I am here but not commenting because I have recently (as of like 30 mins ago?) been seized by a sudden draft of totally crippling drop-jawed sadness, emerging from no identifiable cause. It's starting to pass now but wow. (I checked and I was not wearing an ugly sweater.) It's not like a crying thing; it's more like OMG I can't see straight because my whole life has been meaningless.
Just last week I watched one of those "How It's Made" shows that explained how they avoid big holes inside bread. But I forget.
Thinking, thinking. Could be a second or third rise.
Punching down properly gets rid of big holes.
because my whole life has been meaningless.
You say this like it's a bad thing.
Iggy Pop comforted me this afternoon.
"It's another year
For Me and You
Another year
With nothing to do."
There ya go.
It may be that I'm just going to have to make my own bread on a regular basis, finally. I doubt it's proper to report to the local bread company that they have big freaking holes in their bread. Probably everybody is too embarrassed to tell them.
You say this like it's a bad thing.
I'm with you. It's just that every now and then it strikes me that not everyone feels their life is meaningless all the time. And their error of judgment allows them to do all this cool shit I can't do. That makes me sad.
Maybe some people like big holes in their bread. Just saying.
I like big holes in my bread. Mmmm, holes.
It's just that every now and then it strikes me that not everyone feels their life is meaningless all the time.
Only, like, three-quarters of the time.
Some people say that loaves of bread got big holes/ Got big holes, got big holes/ Some people say that loaves of bread look like MOLES
I guess if you don't like holes, you could bunch up some of the non-hole loaf and patch it up or something. I'm with teo, though, if he's being serious. Big holey, airy bread. Yum.
Stanley and teo are Gentlemen of His Holeyness.
Sorry to hear that, AWB. I've experienced sudden waves of sadness--usually there's a discernible reason, but it may be from the distant past--and it really sucks.
I'm with teo, though, if he's being serious.
I basically am, although I don't actually eat much bread. I don't particularly care for sandwiches, so when I eat bread it's usually straight or with something on it, and in those contexts the types of bread with big holes tend to be very good.
You guys are also not appreciating the size of the holes in this bread.
And Stanley, "you could bunch up some of the non-hole loaf and patch it up or something"? I've done that, in fact, and eaten the resultant sandwich with a knife and fork. That's workable, but things do not have to be this way.
I'm OK. It just hasn't happened in a while. But yeah, it's something that's happened periodically since I was little.
AWB! I was still fucking raving about the baths this very night to a friend of mine and how kind you were not to let us look like fools and how wonderful and relaxing the experience was. Look right there: meaning! And that's like one of the little ones in the big scheme, but still.
32: You're not reading enough. The more I read, or, if painting, the more I listen to books on tape, the less crushed i am by the perfect futility of my existence. This could be a problem if you're writing. That's probably why writers are so prone to depression/alcoholism.
The other thing that seems to work is to have children.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of nosflow, this may help with AWB's troubles, or it may not. I know it has helped me get through similar episodes.
52: Absolutely. eekbeat's totally trying to get some fellow teachers to go.
Some people say that loaves of bread got big holes/ Got big holes, got big holes/ Some people say that loaves of bread look like MOLES
I had a dream, I wanted to COCK your knees.
50: You're not reading enough.
Huh, I wanted to say that as well, but was fearful to do so. It's my ultimate refrain: when in doubt, return to the books. They hold quiet, and peace against the noise.
It's just that every now and then it strikes me that not everyone feels their life is meaningless all the time.
True enough. I suspect the key is to live in the eternal present, without regard to the past and with a merely goal-oriented sense of the future.
32 is very good.
Yeah, I am in the midst of writing. Have to finish the diss this semester, about a chapter a month. It's pretty brutal.
Thing that invariably, and maybe irrationally, always puts me in a good mood, at least for a while: listening to the song "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying". Works better if I haven't heard it in months.
And OMG B&S are playing shows this summer. I thought they had pretty much retired. I'm crazy enough to consider flying to Norway for a chance to see them play again.
I mean, yeah. If you're feeling sinister.
B&S was one of the weirder concerts I've attended. My buddy and I wanted to basically rock out a lot and dance around playfully and the audience was resolutely doing the standing still. Maybe we were the arses.
One day at the end of the month she sat with books open before her, but by no effort could fix her attention upon them. It was gloomy, and one could scarcely see to read; a taste of fog grew perceptible in the warm, headachy air. Such profound discouragement possessed her that she could not even maintain the pretence of study; heedless whether anyone observed her, she let her hands fall and her head droop. She kept asking herself what was the use and purpose of such a life as she was condemned to lead. When already there was more good literature in the world than any mortal could cope with in his lifetime, here was she exhausting herself in the manufacture of printed stuff which no one even pretended to be more than a commodity for the day's market. What unspeakable folly! To write--was not that the joy and the privilege of one who had an urgent message for the world?
Her father, she knew well, had no such message; he had abandoned all thought of original production, and only wrote about writing.
She herself would throw away her pen with joy but for the need of earning money. And all these people about her, what aim had they save to make new books out of those already existing, that yet newer books might in turn be made out of theirs? This huge library, growing into unwieldiness, threatening to become a trackless desert of print--how intolerably it weighed upon the spirit!
64: The last time I saw them play they had a woman from the audience whose husband had written them and bragged about her singing ability get up on stage and sing the Monica Queen part from "Lazy Lane Painter Jane". She was a bit nervous at first but then really got into it and gave an awesome performance. It was pretty great.
I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond together,
Dangling this way and that, their links
Were made so loose and wide,
Methinks,
For milder weather.
When did people start adding "opinionated" to comments purporting to be from literary or historical figures? You can just put the names in. Opinionated is for specific occasions.
Or at least that's how it would be, if the style guide existed.
You're not reading enough. The more I read, or, if painting, the more I listen to books on tape, the less crushed i am by the perfect futility of my existence. This could be a problem if you're writing. That's probably why writers are so prone to depression/alcoholism.
As part of my reread of Milosz' poetry, I am spending the evening translating A Treatise on Poetry, accompanied by a cheap red. Such a nice way of forcing oneself to get into the language of the poet, and what sublime language it is. Khalid, torture, Guantanomo, health care... never heard of you folks, at least not tonight.
I'm not sure it's good for me to anaesthetize myself with books, though that's my habit from childhood. It's good to feel intense bouts of sadness, I think. There's a certain pleasure in being that overwhelmed. It's not depression, thank God, just intense sorrow.
my grandad just died. I got a text message from my mom from my sister's phone. I just hope he was at home in bed like he wanted, it seems so. 87 years old, at home in bed with your family there...I guess that's pretty much your ideal death, but I'm still really sad.
re: 66
Yeah, they do that sort of thing a lot. At their Albert Hall gig, years back, they got some girls out of the audience to sing. Asked them what they wanted to play, and when one of the girls said "The Final Countdown" [the Europe song] they made a pretty good stab at it, unrehearsed, before going into one of their own tunes.
Sorry to hear about your loss, Alameida.
It's good to feel intense bouts of sadness, I think. There's a certain pleasure in being that overwhelmed.
I do relate to this statement, as long as the bouts are spaced sufficiently far apart.
On the other hand, when I hear people saying life does or does not have meaning, I don't really know what they mean.
Isn't life always meaningless, in good times and bad? It doesn't mean anything. This isn't linked to sadness, for me.
I suppose they mean "My actions seem fruitless. I work so hard for so little effect."
Isn't life always meaningless, in good times and bad?
Yes.
77: Sure, life is always meaningless, and I'm always aware of it, and it's not particularly interesting. But usually there's a numbness that goes along with it; nothing really bothers me or gets to me. And then, suddenly, something does, and it's usually the realization that I've missed out on a lot.
usually the realization that I've missed out on a lot.
I can see getting down and sorrowful about this. Why does it get expressed in terms of life being meaningful or not? (Is this an obnoxious line of questioning? I'm using you as a proxy because I hear other people say this, too. Not that you're likely to be representative, though!)
As I said above, it's like the realization that life is meaningful for others that shocks me? And yeah, I guess if you don't have that feeling, I'm not sure I can explain it. There are circumstances that gave rise to it, of course, which I don't want to discuss.
Many times when I've heard somebody express despair at the meaninglessness of life, what they were saying was that they *thought* it had meaning, but the very thing that gave it meaning for them had turned out to be illusory.
Ah, mine's the opposite. I'm not sad that life is meaningless. I'm sad when I realize how much more I could experience in life if I could convince myself that it isn't.
You're like San Manuel Bueno, Martir.
84 makes sense, but is it really the meaningfulness or not of things that's important?
I've never sought meaning from life, and never felt that impulse that drives people to religion, or all-encompassing political ideologies. Life is meaningless, the universe is neither benign, nor hostile, things are non-teleological, stuff just is. None of that is remotely discomfiting.
But I absolutely understand the regret of not having pursued opportunities that might once have been, of having made poor choices, or continuing to generally waste time and fanny about when I could be doing more interesting things instead. When it comes to the fact that some people are driven to make better choices or do more interesting/useful things because they feel life to have meaning, the important bit (for me) is that they made the bloody choices, not that meaning was the motivating factor, iyswim?
All this analysis makes it sound as if I had an emotional outburst of overwhelming feeling because of a philosophical longing. It was actually something far more reptile-brained than any of this suggests. I'm just trying to explain it to myself, why most of the time I don't have longings, and then all of a sudden, I'm struck down.
"People who don't understand math believe that someone invented mathematics to torture them when in fact it was discovered."
I don't believe this student really got the question.
I'm meaning less when life is sad.
91: No, darling, that's the only time you mean anything to me.
Meaningless?
You mean it's all been meaningless?
Every whisper and caress?
Yes yes yes it was totally meaningless
Meaningless
like when two fireflies flouresce
Just like everything I guess
Less less yes, it was utterly meaningless
Even less
a little glimpse of nothingness
sucking meaning from the
rest of this mess
Yes yes yes it was thoroughly meaningless
and if some dim bulb should say
we were in love in some way
kick all his teeth in for me
and if you feel like keeping on kicking,
feel free
Meaningless
Who dare say it wasn't meaningless?
Shout from the rooftops
and address the press
Ha ha ha, it was totally meaningless
Meaningless
Meaning less than a game of chess
Just like your mother said
and mother knows best
I knew it all the time but now I confess
Yes yes yes how deliciously meaningless
Yes yes yes effervescently meaningless
Yes yes yes it was beautifully meaningless
Yes yes yes it was profoundly meaningless
Yes yes yes definatively meaningless
Yes yes yes comprehensively meaningless
Yes yes yes magnificently meaningless
Yes yes yes how incredibly meaningless
Yes yes yes unprecedentedly meaningless
Yes yes yes how mind-blowingly meaningless
Yes yes yes how unbelievably meaningless
Yes yes yes how infinitely meaningless
To me, math was discovered to give meaning to our lives.
Statistically, word choice is the most common cause of meaningless lives.
||
I don't think I realized the Academy Awards had such a convoluted plot.
|>
I drive good ,rationally speaking.
96: I don't see where you're talking about plot, but this seems weird:
The Academy has for several years claimed that the award show has up to a billion viewers internationally, but this has so far not been confirmed by any independent sources.
A billion? Honey, please.
A common philosophical mistake is to take the word "meaning" here at face value, and to try to understand "the meaning of life" by analogy to, say, linguistic meaning.
Really all people are talking about here is an overall motivational structure for their lives. When people say "life is meaningless" it generally means, "Any motivational structure will collapse if subjected to enough rational scrutiny." This probably says more about the nature of reason than reality.
I'm not sure why some people experience the collapse of their motivational structure as depression while others find liberation or ecstatic joy. I'd like to know, though, so I can change my own perceptions.
98: ah, they fixed it. There was a funny wikipedia fuck-up in there for a bit.
Meaning is really the wrong word, isn't it? Does a tree have meaning? A rock? A river? The Yukon? Yukon Jack? Spring Break in Ft. Lauderdale?
Isn't the concept people are really going for purpose, rather than meaning? And for purpose, you either have inadvertent purpose -- as did Ernesto Miranda -- intentional purpose (like Lee Harvey Oswald) or, perhaps, no purpose at all.
99: I guess when I think about "meaning," I'm thinking about the illusion of causality. There have been little moments in my life when I really, for a moment, thought something I did had an important impact on someone else, or that a situation demanded (from me or others) extraordinary behavior. For me, that always turns out to be proven false. Neither myself nor anything I do really has any important effect on anyone, and I always get totally destroyed when I've assumed that any of my relationships are important to anyone but me.
Most of the time this is fine. But then I hear about other people having these extraordinary feelings, or someone saying another person had some great effect on them that they felt changed everything, and I'm like, why does that work for them? Are they somehow in the world in a way that I am not?
98: up to a billion
As in "Mickey Kaus has blown up to a billion goats".
I killed a man in Reno, just to demonstrate in a minor way my importance to another person.
Yes, I know, I should preview when I spend a long time thinking about something. Gives the thing meaning.
AWB, if one becomes sad that every at bat doesn't result in a home run, one will spend a long time sad. Of course your interactions with people have an impact on them, some for good, others for ill, and some that don't really fit either category. How could it not be so?
102: Neither myself nor anything I do really has any important effect on anyone,
William Gerhardi in Memoirs of a Polyglot*Hugh Kingsmill and I stimulated each other to such a pitch that after the first meeting he had a brainstorm and I lay sleepless all night and in the morning was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
*Of which I know but that single quote which Thurber used to set up a great little short piece about one of his most memorable characters, Elliot Vereker. He never believed in doing anything or having anything done, either for the benefit of mankind or for individuals. He would have written, but for his philosophical indolence, very great novels indeed.
re: 99
Well, yes, but lots of people do think the universe, their lives, and other people's lives, have a purpose, beyond those they invest them with. I think those people would push back against the idea that 'motivational structures' is what they have in mind. An amazing number of people really do seem to think the world/universe/their-lives must have a given/external purpose rather than a created/subjective purpose in order for it to contain value. Think of how often people trot out tired and hackneyed arguments about the impossiblity of morality in the absence of God/a-prime-mover/whatever.
Even when talking purely about 'motivational structures' what I had in mind was that how people act or fail to act is somewhat orthogonal to whether they invest their lives with an overall motivational structure or not. Which is maybe also what you have in mind when talking about how the absence of such structures can be liberating for some people?
102:Narrative creates meaning. They're all fiction.
And it's fun!
It may cross my mind more than once a week:"Why do I have to believe in evolution? Wouldn't some pagan/Hopi creation myth just be more fun and useful?"
In any case:"There but for the Grace of me go her." is a very favorite narrative. It is sometimes called:"Parenting."
108: I agree, most people do think that the reasons that they structure their lives around are actually intrinsic features of the universe. I was thinking of the discovery that the central meaningful feature of your life isn't a real part of the universe as one way your motivational structures can collapse under rational scrutiny. Its probably actually the most common way a motivational structure collapses, in fact.
My condolences to alameida and her family on her granddad's death.
Neither myself nor anything I do really has any important effect on anyone
I have to call foul. I'll bet you anything that somewhere along the line, your reaching out to a friend who was in a bad way (for example), certainly had an important effect on him or her. From at least one perspective, that's the only kind of thing that matters. The rest is window dressing.
There's another perspective, of course, from which we would all like to be a Bach or a Gandhi, and considering their achievements mere "window dressing" is comical, but, you know.
I'm not sure why some people experience the collapse of their motivational structure as depression while others find liberation or ecstatic joy. I'd like to know, though, so I can change my own perceptions.
I'm also very interested in this question.
"I believe that mathematicians are intelligent people who know what they are doing when it comes to math and should not be questioned on whether what they know was invented or discovered."
Wow.
"The theorems were obviously invented because there hasn't been a new discoverer of mathematics mentioned in any of the million history books today."
I have to call foul.
Well, sometimes my friends start talking like me. And my students will sometimes be heard doing impersonations. There's that kind of influence. But mostly it's verbal/intellectual stuff. People remember what I say surprisingly often. I guess it seems like there's little (if any) emotional causality there? Or, even where there is, a positive/loving feeling toward me does not often result in kindness, but instead in increasingly implausible demands? That sounds whiny. I guess I've been trying to figure out why certain negative events in my past have affected me so deeply while others that should be more "important" have not, and it seems to be related to circumstances in which I thought, however briefly, that someone actually cared about me enough to think about my well-being, and it turned out they did not.
I'm fine. I was pretty over it after half an hour. But it made me realize that I have all kinds of relationship PTSD. I go along fine, fine, fine, and then get really shaken.
Sympathies, AWB. I know you don't really think you have no effect on anyone's life -- sounds more like mild catastrophizing of the realization that, in a particular case, you meant nothing to and had no lasting impact on someone who was important to you and to whom you ought likewise to have been important. I know that disappointment well; it sucks hard.
Of course, the value I have gotten from your introspective writings on such situations firmly disproves any claim that you have *no* impact. Just not the impact you are/were focused on.
113, 114: These really are priceless.
"I believe that Obama is an intelligent person who knows what he is doing when it comes to politics and should not be questioned on whether what he is doing is good or evil."
"There are plenty of downsides to college and they may seem overwhelming. But fear not! College is a purely beneficial experience."
It's so weird - they are really quite fluent in the basic melody of essays, but the content is total nonsense.
Future Sarah Palin speechwriters.
115 makes sense and is helpful, as analysis or explanation of your feeling. Thanks.
a positive/loving feeling toward me does not often result in kindness, but instead in increasingly implausible demands
I know you're talking about specific relationships and events, but if I may make a tangential point: there is a serious shortfall in kindness in our society. One could point toward all sorts of factors at different levels of explanation: we're increasingly self-centered; it's simply not cool to be kind -- it smacks of sentimentalism; it's girly; we don't think about the effects of our actions, or lack of action, on others, or we don't care. Our geographical and, I suppose, socioeconomic transience has begun to translate to a carelessness about human ties. Oh, and we're free-market capitalists. Our political economy has an effect on our moral compass. Etc.
That all sounds rather banal, I realize, but I do mean this: we've gone from 'why wouldn't I be caring and kind?' to 'why should I be so?' (It's possible to argue that we never adopted the former stance in the first place.)
There's not much solace there on a personal level, is there? Sorry -- just something I've been thinking about.
"You cannot just invent new numbers because all of the numbers that will ever exist are already there."
Take that, eleventy-seven!
121: I'm not sure what it is. But it does seem odd that people who "like" me are more likely to test or provoke me rather than be nice to me. Strangers are nice to me. Some of my friends are nice. My students spoil me rotten. (Seriously, after every class, they sort of line up around my desk to thank me for a good class and ask me to have a nice weekend.) But it was a pretty long time ago that I learned that people who are romantically interested in me, and even a lot of friends, eventually come to see our connection as an opportunity to be mean, apparently as some sort of test of my affection. I'm really baffled by it more than anything and don't know how to respond.
"High school can make you or break you. It's like the one and only crossroad that you stand on. One road is marked "college". The definition of success, determination, and greatness. The other option should be labelled "empty"."
119: It's so weird - they are really quite fluent in the basic melody of essays, but the content is total nonsense.
Heh. You know what intro-level philosophy papers look like, right? How do you get across this: You have to mean something in what you say, guys.
all of the numbers that will ever exist are already there
Where? Where? Oh god they could be hiding anywhere!
125: Maybe they heard somewhere that "life is meaningless" and didn't quite understand.
127: Sounds like someone has chosen the road marked EMPTY.
"Mathematics was invented instead of discovered by mankind because of the mandatory deliberation of the organization of math and because of the unlikelihood of any one event inspiring the discovery."
Concluding sentence of the paper containing 129: "Which is better, an invention or a discovery?"
Mathematics was invented instead of discovered by mankind because of the mandatory deliberation of the organization of math and because of the unlikelihood of any one event inspiring the discovery, statistically speaking.
even a lot of friends, eventually come to see our connection as an opportunity to be mean, apparently as some sort of test of my affection. I'm really baffled by it more than anything and don't know how to respond.
Maybe as a test of your affection, maybe something else. It's hard to know short of asking.
Is it at all possible to call them on it, explain that you're registering this as meanness, and ask what's going on? (I have a friend who's been doing the meanness thing lately, and I'll eventually have to call him out and, if nothing else, tell him to cut it out or be gone.)
re: 119
It's like that stage when babies begin to babble properly. It has all the intonation and rythms of normal speech, sometimes sentences end in question intonations, etc, but it's just random syllables.
132: Oh, it's like years ago since I was suckered by it. I'm just surprised by how much it still upsets me to think about it.
I learned that people who are romantically interested in me, and even a lot of friends, eventually come to see our connection as an opportunity to be mean, apparently as some sort of test of my affection.
A very smart friend of mine, practicing psychiatrist, once told me that people tend to be constantly trying to recreate the relationships in their life that they want to fix. Nothing was ever good enough for Dad? Then you end up gravitating toward relationships with hard-to-please men who give you that chance to feel like you can try one more time to prove that you are good enough. Mom was emotionally clingy? You are drawn to clingy women who give you a chance to work out how to establish boundaries. And so on.
134: Oh, I thought you were talking about something recent.
Heebie: what was the essay question these kids are answering? Did you say earlier and I missed it?
"Was math an invention or a discovery?" is a hell of question to spring on kids. But then they all keep talking about high school. I don't know why.
So the question was something like: What is the value of studying math in high school versus in college? Do mathematicians even know what they're doing? Did they just invent this shit to torture people, or is this, like, science? What are numbers, anyway? Discuss.
Hell of a question.
I'd agree with 135, and it's similar to conclusions I came to in therapy a while back, but I'm not sure how one goes about reconstructing a motivation for interest in other people when the pre-existing motivation has been analyzed and eradicated. I think that's what had me sad--remembering what it was like to feel hopeful and excited about a relationship, even if it was pathological.
138: I wish I had an answer to that question.
people tend to be constantly trying to recreate the relationships in their life that they want to fix
Groan.
The tide does wash away most of our footprints.
And by "most" I mean that those that remain are a nearly immeasurably small portion of the whole.
"Was math an invention or a discovery?" is a hell of question to spring on kids almost anyone.
No knock to heebie's question, but I keep tempering my reaction to these admittedly funny answers by reminding myself: I'm not sure I could do much better. I guess I'd go for some non-answer/questioning-the-terms-of-the-question type thing, but that seems sort of lame-o.
I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.
I guess I'd go for some non-answer/questioning-the-terms-of-the-question type thing, but that seems sort of lame-o.
Not lame-o at all. It's the only sensible answer. You could go on about how math is a language for representing the world, blah blah blah, and there are many possible languages for doing this, and if the construction of a language is deemed an invention, then math is an invention, blah blah blah. But on the other hand, the *relationships* math unveils and explores can be considered discoveries, blah. And, like, then you could talk about science, and prediction of future events, and how math can determine future outcomes, so it's like a discovery too.
Man. I thought this was a math class. I was told there would be no philosophy.
I contest 140. Not groan!
AWB, your life has had an impact on my life, insofar as I included your tea story in a spec script which has been well-received.
144: Oh, as long as the explanation in 135 places a heavy emphasis on the "tend", maybe even supporting it with a "may tend", it's workable. But generally I find that sort of explanation to be deeply strained.
147: I just read it! It's great!
148: I can see the frustration with childhood-narrative explanations like this, in that they can feel "true" to the point of being damning. And I've certainly dated my share of men who excuse all kinds of dishonesty and cruelty by saying, "Oh, well, my mother left when I was three, so I guess I act this way to get back at her through the women I date," as a way to continue being a douchebag without apologizing or trying not to be.
And I don't necessarily think of such narratives as "true" as much as potentially useful. If I can say, OK, the only reason I'm responding to this person is that he seems selfish and impossible to please because I spent my childhood failing to make my dad proud of me, then it does sort of take some of the fun out of being a pervert. What I want to know is what could possibly be as exciting and interesting as being an unabashed pervert? What replaces that once the thrill is gone? It's not like you can go back in time and have a sane and emotionally healthy childhood so you get really turned on when someone is nice to you.
I'm going to demand answers of my therapist this week.
What I want to know is what could possibly be as exciting and interesting as being an unabashed pervert?
Acid
Joyce & Mann
Prog-rock
Dog-Walking
Buffy
151: If nothing else, because it would seriously strain any interpretation of my own long-term relationships. I haven't reproduced any relationship with my father or mother. My father was an authoritarian; my mother complied with his wishes. I've never sought to reproduce that in my adult relationships; I've gone for equal partnership, very open communication.
Now, one might deploy the analysis in 135 to say that, sure, what I've just described is a case of my working out, by correcting, parental relationships. In that case, 135 has no explanatory value: it can be used to analyze any and every adult relationship.
This isn't to say that I don't fully acknowledge that one's current desires are formed from and framed by one's past experiences -- of course they are. What else is there? Likewise, our aspirations are framed by current and past experiences. Of course. I think 135 means to say more than that, though, and I don't buy it.
135 can also, by the way, be deployed to suggest that my understanding of my relationship with my father, say, is insuffiently nuanced, and actually my adult romantic relationships do conform to the pattern described in 135. That's a case of making the experience match the theory, rather than the other way 'round.
I completely agree with parsimon's groan.
153 is very good. Somehow it makes me happy that Bob was the first on to respond to that question.
I can see the frustration with childhood-narrative explanations like this, in that they can feel "true" to the point of being damning
I don't think the point is that we are slaves to our childhoods, that we are destined forever to re-enacting the same family dramas over and over. Rather, in all our relationships, we establish habits. Habits in childhood can be the hardest to break because we've been repeating them for so long. We get used to killing ourselves to impress Mr. Impossible-to-Please because we've been doing that so long it feels more "normal" than other ways of interacting might.
As for being turned on by healthy relationships, I might theorize that it's like when you change your eating habits -- after awhile, fresh veggies really do start to taste better than a Quarter Pounder. But I don't actually know if that's true.
I forget where I read some study of traumatized children where they said that, according to various statistical measurements, about one in five kids who's been through hell (seriously, no recall of the details, but violence/rape?) ends up seriously non-functional. Another one in five ends up bizarrely "fine." And most are somewhere in the middle. But it's not like there's a necessary link that says, "Oh, X happened to you so now you are Y." Trauma doesn't work like that. But for those who are non-functional, having a reason ("because X happened to me") can still be a lot more comforting than "I'm just a fucked up and bad person."
That's a case of making the experience match the theory, rather than the other way 'round.
The attractively shaped object or Wiener-schnitzel dream that the eager Freudian may think he distinguishes in the remoteness of my wastes will turn out to be on closer inspection a derisive mirage organized by my agents.
154: 135 did not intend to claim that we are all re-creating parental relationships. It can really be any problematic relationship that you've failed to adequately resolve. Presumably, well-balanced emotionally stable people would not see themselves in 135 because they wouldn't have unresolved issues to haunt them.
having a reason ("because X happened to me") can still be a lot more comforting than "I'm just a fucked up and bad person."
Yes. Didn't we just have this conversation, about Freud? That he's not unearthing the truth of the matter, but may have value in providing a narrative. The explanatory value of that narrative varies.
157: I might theorize that it's like when you change your eating habits -- after awhile, fresh veggies really do start to taste better than a Quarter Pounder. But I don't actually know if that's true.
It is true! I swear fresh veggies now taste better than a Quarter Pounder!
Most things taste better than a Quarter Pounder. What I am unconvinced of, though, is if there is anything that tastes better than French fries. (And I say that while loving non-deep-fried vegetables, very much indeed.)
Mmm, French fries. My healthy dinner plans are now ruined.
Healthy dinner plans would gain substantial support from the advent of spring, I must say.
I just had some nice spring asparagus. It was delicious.
152 reminds me of an observation that I heard attributed to Lacan: when you're neurotic, your symptoms not part of your neurosis -- they're the way you reward for putting up with your neurosis.
I have a certain amount of behavior that's probably at base pathological (Di's 135 completely fits me), but when I imagine giving the behavior up entirely, I can't see what could possibly take its place. I guess I solve the problem of meaninglessness by being a crazy person.
I can't see what could possibly take its place
Isolation and anxiety, I guess. In my case, I feel like I lost the taste for my symptom due to a really bizarrely traumatic event, rather than some kind of mature choice. And now, when it starts to express itself, it just feels like terror and hell. But most of the time, it just feels like nothing is there. I should theoretically be at my peak! And instead I'm like, what the fuck is there to look forward to?
Of course, if the meat analogy holds, I should be fine. I lost my ability to eat meat in a sudden, traumatic event, spent a few years listlessly eating tasteless vegetarian crap, and then taught myself to cook again from scratch, developed a better palate, etc. Took years though.
Took years though.
That's encouraging, actually. Having utterly lost my taste for romance over the course of the past couple of years, and despite being generally content with that in the moment, the possibility that I might get my appetite back somewhere down the road is surprisingly reassuring.
"High school can make you or break you. It's like the one and only crossroad that you stand on. One road is marked "college". The definition of success, determination, and greatness. The other option should be labelled "empty"."
I remember thinking like that at one point in high school. A lot of kids think that way, because a lot of adults tell them things like that, both directly and indirectly. It's almost a form of abuse.
Also, I think when it comes to extreme cases, like abuse, you can empirically show that victims will try to replicate their abusive relationship in later relationships.
The theory gets annoying when it is applied to ordinary relationships with all their ambiguity. I mean, maybe you thought your father was distant and disapproving, but really he was showering you with affection, certainly more than he ever got from his father, and all you ever did in return was punch him in the testicles and cram your peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the body of his acoustic guitar.
Geez, rob, the acoustic guitar didn't do anything.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth, Rob. At least a serpent doesn't punch you in the testicles.
Heebie: what was the essay question these kids are answering? Did you say earlier and I missed it?
They got to pick one out of four different questions. So the ones who picked the math question were opting for that difficult question. One was a total freebie - if you were designing a Life Class for 8th graders, what would you include? There have been lots of quotes from students who tackled that one.
The questions are posted at the bottom of the ATM thread where I asked for essay question topics about three weeks ago.
175.last: Ah. Yes, right. I had gathered that different questions were being answered, but it sure was amusing to suppose it was a single question, and to suppose that this was for a math class. I'd not have wanted to have to grade those essays in any case.
Unfortunately, they're all done. And Stanley is wrong that he wouldn't have done very well. There were plenty of decent essays; it was not a very hard task. I was just quoting the boners.
well-balanced emotionally stable people
I don't see myself in 135, am well-balanced, but not especially stable emotionally. Perhaps it's often but not always applicable, with some flavors of formative relationship stronger indications for validity. I do see it as a useful statement, just of limited scope.
177: I was just quoting the boners.
$5 a pound?
I was just quoting the boners.
Too soon!