Still have to finish an essay tomorrow. And take a final. But hey, it’s almost over.
The image of “13”, the day of freedom, has kept me going so far. Another rough day is ahead tomorrow, but I just got to keep concentrating on the goal.
I am going to pull off an amazing feat tomorrow: I will write two essays in one day.
Granted, I do have a limited amount of time Saturday to complete the second essay, but I want to challenge myself to complete this essay-writing marathon.
After that, it’s over for essays. I’m done writing shitty papers that will only be read by one person.
There is at least one thing that makes me better than I was four years ago: The ability to entertain opposite positions. Things that were once considered sacrosanct are now up for debate. E.g.: Capitalism? Perhaps it’s not so great. I am definitely less dogmatic.
Those who’d like to simplify me would note my supposed “leftward” turn, as an Obama supporter. Yet how can I be sympathetic to this Chomsky On Adam Smith and this The Decline of Middle America and the Problem of Meritocracy, from a paleoconservative?
The same time that my politics have become more “liberal” (whatever that means — I guess supporting Obama and opposing braindead republicans), my lens for viewing history has become more “conservative” (which means respecting how tradition and habit shape culture, and how fragile it is when broken). I am reminded of reading Saul Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals and how attuned one had to be to local conditions and to meet reality how it is, not how one wished to be. I am reminded of Afeni Shakur’s speech during the MSE symposium and her pleas to help people within the community, and how we can’t rely on the government to do everything. And I can’t help but thinking that there’s some sort of theme underlying this, some sort of unifying thread to the critiques I’ve recently read of our modern society.
In my mind, I like to think how I’d advise my peers, were I to give a speech about what to do after college. It’s mostly advice for myself. In recent times, it has taken a direction towards service to the world. I think that’s profoundly wrong. There’s no such thing as a world community, or even an online community. There’s no “place.” There’s something about being “local” that is a necessary requirement for community. I think community can be enhanced by digital components, but you need a place in order to have a center. Specifically, I’m thinking of two examples: One positive, and one negative. My ATDP experience has been enhanced from digital interaction, but it only works because ATDP exists within a physical location and TIC in particular has continuity in location. JHU lacks community because there is no place for people to congregate. They recently tried this “Hopkins Infected” thing to try to change culture. But you can’t build culture with PR. You need a place. The only times I ever had any semblence of community interaction was when I watched the debates with people in the same place, on the same TV in Charles Commons. Other times, those common rooms weren’t really meant for common interaction. Another time was those tea parties I had in Gildersleeve, but we had to congregate in a hallway.
I guess what I’m getting at is that you can’t expect to change “the world”, and it isn’t really admirable to try to change the world. We think the online world has created this unique opportunity, but it can only work to enhance what we already do, not if we use it in lieu of normal democratic activity. To turn purely to the online realm is to lock us within an echo chamber. Where like congregates with like, and you never have to talk to the people you live next to or the people you see everyday. You never have to interact with the person whose house borders yours, or interact with the janitor who walks by your office. You never have to convince your conservative uncle to accept gay marriage; you just have to pontificate on a message board filled with like-minded people.
There’s something disturbing about this, uprooting ourselves from our real communities and creating virtual communities where we never have to venture far from our current dogmas. Yes, yes, you’ll say that the internet has all these alternate viewpoints, but how do we really interact with the internet? The primary method of interaction with information is the search. We are trained to find exactly what we want. This means what we want to hear, not necessarily what we need to hear. The internet is large, yes. But because it is so big, we can spend days within one tiny little corner, examining all the intra-party debates, without realizing that there is so much more.
Even worse, the internet is training us not to listen. I was deeply disturbed by the redesign of facebook. Someone left a comment on my wall and I looked for a way to reply. The only link I could find was “comment.” As I’ve said before, “We are no longer individuals. We are merely ephemeral memes, floating in The Stream.” Instead of talking to an individual, I could comment on their comment. Each comment was encapsulated. I no longer had to talk to a person. Our memes simply interacted with each other. The disturbing thing about facebook is that the method of communication has changed. Instead of exchange, it has morphed into broadcast. I write comments and hope that people care enough to “Like” the minutiae of my life. Broadcasting is a fundamentally narcissistic method of communication. Look at all the blowhards on talk radio and cable news. The problem is that broadcast means you do all the talking; you don’t have to listen. Memes don’t listen to each other. They briefly kiss in The Stream and then disappear forever. Not that oral communication itself doesn’t have a sense of ephemerality to it. But repeated interaction between real people in a real place creates something which twitter cannot.
This is not to denigrate the internet and to say we should throw away facebook or twitter. The phone is a fundamentally less satisfying way of communicating than face-to-face conversation, but at least we recognize that. We don’t pretend that the telephone is going to revolutionize democracy and turn us into entirely new people. The phone is best used to supplement our normal interaction. It is best used when it brings people together, to meet in real places. It is best used when two people are forced apart, such as by war, and they yearn for the day they can be reunited. When work draws family members apart, it can help them keep updated, but you can’t use it in lieu of annual or monthly or weekly visits. We must recognize that our digital communications have inherent limits and deficiencies. Digital “communities” are inherently inferior to real communities, and can’t replace them. The presence of my online “buddies” on AIM can’t replace the comfort of the presence of a person who is next to me, breathing. You can’t hear those people on AIM breathing; you can’t feel their life. Dualists have done great harm to our conceptions of reality. Two intellects interacting isn’t the same as two bodies interacting or two mouths speaking and four ears hearing. We are more than our consciousness; we are our bodies too.
I’ve talked also about world community. There’s no such thing, just as there’s no such thing as a digital community. There’s no world culture. Think of the hubris of the word “universal.” The universe is so vast that we aren’t even specks. Our entire solar system isn’t even big enough to be a speck within the universe’s vastness. To call a trait universal is to hubristically expand its bounds beyond what we can rightfully claim. It’s the same thing with “the world.” It’s too big. Our monkey brains can’t handle it. You can’t truly care about the world in the same way you can care about your sister or mother. 10,000 people dying thousands of miles away can’t truly affect you the same way the death of a close friend can. If the utilitarian calculus does affect you, then there’s something inhumane about your character. The death of a close friend should bother you more than 10,000 lives a million miles away. Part of it is evolution: Our monkey brains simply can’t care about so many people, especially when they’re far away.
If you care about global warming, then you shouldn’t do it for imaginary children who aren’t born. You should do it because you know children who may grow up in a violent, hot world. You have carried these children in your arms, and heard their excited voices dream of tomorrow. You want them to have a better tomorrow. You shouldn’t have to care about all the children in the world, or all the children in America. When you press your lips against their cheeks, and feel the love in your heart, that should be enough to press you into action. A living, breathing child who exists in front of you. It is their future you care about.
You shouldn’t do it for “the environment.” You should do it because you have actually walked in the forest. You have felt the sun filter through the leaves of the trees. You have felt the bark of the redwoods. You have breathed in the crisp air. You have felt the dirt between your toes. You have hiked the mountains. You have picked the flowers. You have watched the birds. You have dipped your feet in the streams. You can’t care about “the environment.” You can only care about real places, where you have interacted with the life. Yes, we can abstract to care about animals in the rainforest we haven’t seen. But it only works if it is built upon our real interaction with nature. If the sole interactions you have with the environment are tossing plastic battles in the recycle bin and buying reusable bags at Trader Joe’s, then something is seriously amiss. That credit card commercial about the kid forcing his dad to buy new products bugs me to no end. That is not caring about the environment. (Although it does at least have real people rather than online activists.) You need something real if you want to conserve. Go experience nature.
You can’t care about the world if you don’t care first for your community. You can’t save the world if you can’t first save your community. You can’t convince a nation unless you first convince your family and peers. Mobility and the internet can make us avoid the very hard work of convincing and organizing people in our own communities. We can feel smug in our bubbles of enlightened friends. How sad this is. How good can you feel sending $25 to feed a hungry kid in Africa while people die on your streets? That’s not to say we should ignore foreign aid, but we should not let all our attention be focused outward. How struck I still am today by Afeni Shakur… I don’t even remember her words, but I still remember the sentiment… Our children are dying.
It requires an absurd Messiah complex to think that one can change the world. You don’t owe the world anything. But you do owe your community everything. You owe your mother and father who brought you into this world. You owe your brothers and sisters. You owe your friends who put up with you. You owe all the rich and poor people who make your life what it is. If you can’t convince them, then you can’t convince anyone. You owe your nieces, nephews, students, and children a better world. If you can’t save them, then you can’t save anyone.
People and community and tradition. There are things that have been lost by our dogma of capitalism and individualism.
I have no solutions, no grand sweeping proclamations about how we must change the way society is structured. Of course, that may be against my program to some degree. But it may require a change of laws and governmental organization at some point. For now, I can only continue to read my disparate sources in hopes of forging some type of synthesis.
No, that’s not the only thing I can do. The most important thing to do is to begin to care about the actual people and places around me. To make sure I worry about the mores of my community before the mores of my nation. To look outwards instead of inwardly and abstractly. To cure myself of my own Messiah complex. That’s a start, at least.
I was supposed to write an essay today, but I didn’t feel like it. So I’m putting it off by studying for one of my finals. Hooray for structured procrastination!
It’s hard to fathom that the consensus amongst the punditry is against prosecutions for torture. They give all their reasons, but the essential proposition is to let war criminals go free. Not prosecuting means ignoring our laws and treaty obligations. How can we have the media openly calling for flouting the rule of law?
Maybe this is the logical endpoint of cable news and its ilk. When the world is viewed through a political prism, the law disappears. The only thing that matters is who wins and who loses in the partisan game. I don’t know. It is upsetting, no matter the cause.
Let the newspapers die. Yes, they did have some role in helping uncover some of these crimes. But perhaps the overall harm they have done to the republic, at this point in time, is greater. They were terrible in the lead-up to the Iraq War. The current op-eds are full of pundits allying themselves with war criminals.
I am reminded of Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Specifically, when he encourages the reporters to “write that novel you got kicking around in your head — you know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know — fiction.”
The press portrays themselves as essential to the function of democracy. But the story of them being a check on governmental excess — hasn’t that become a fiction? Even when the government engages in heinous war crimes, they want to pardon them.
This is what I originally wanted to post on the TCM Blog. It’s over-sharing on that blog, but not this one, so enjoy:
I want to give you an update on what my current plans are for The Chalkboard Manifesto, which will require some amount of information about my personal life. If you don’t care, feel free to skip the post. The short version is that big changes will probably be happening after this month. Now, to the long version.
I’m nearing the end of my undergraduate education. I’ve finished my last class, and I just have to make it through finals. This will keep me relatively busy. After that, I’ll be even more busy. I have to make time to connect with the important people in my life because this will be the last time I see any of them for who knows how long. My family will be coming to celebrate my graduation with me, and I’m really excited to spend time with them. I’ll also have to deal with moving across the country — packing, shipping, cancelling the cable, and all that stressful stuff that comes with moving. Like I said, I’ll be busy.
Before all that, I will be working on a buffer so that updates will continue as normal. It will be a hectic time, so even with the buffer, I will use at least one vacation day, and maybe up to 3. I’ll probably let you know at the end of this week what the deal with vacation days is going to be.
After that, well, I don’t know what the hell is going to happen. The long-term plan is to make this comic into my main source of income. The medium-term plan is have a job and work on the comic too. The short-term plan is job search plus working on this comic. While I search for a job, I will be working on this comic as if it were my full-time job.
So the short-term future tentatively involves new features and experimenting with the art. It involves number-crunching on my part to actually see what would happen with merchandise.
But like I said, I don’t know what the hell is happening job-wise. So I’m not ready to promise anything yet, except…
I can promise you that post-graduation, I will be spending a lot more time on this comic than I ever have previously.
In the past week, 10PM has come and gone, and I haven’t bothered checking my e-mail. The urge to check my e-mail has diminished greatly.
I’ve also been able to process every e-mail, for each day.
So far, so good.
It is odd how conservatives can, with all earnestness, argue for a proposition while holding contradictory positions. Here are some example abominable conjunctions:
Global Warming (AKA Massive Climate Disruption) is false because:
The Earth is naturally warming AND The Earth isn’t warming at all.
Only torture will make Al-Qaeda members talk AND We didn’t really torture.
Unfortunately, in the latter case, many conservatives have simply embraced the position of torture. I prefer the abominable conjunction to the disgustingly immoral position of being pro-torture. At least they had the decency to feign morality. Now, they have no shame.
Only a few more essays left. I’m writing one right now. In my four years here, nothing else has caused more pain, anxiety, and sleepless nights. I suppose one could say that having children would beat essays in all three departments, but at least the former experience would be balanced out by moments of euphoria and pride. I have occasionally felt euphoria while writing essays, but I am sure that this was caused by the alcohol. I feel zero pride for my essays, which I suppose has been part of the reason why my college experience was so miserable.
It takes a particular talent to write something so jam-packed with spectacular falsehoods, but Tom Friedman manages to do it. He recognizes that Americans tortured, but comes to the bizarre conclusion that we should not prosecute. He gets it right when he says, “Look, our people killed detainees, and only a handful of those deaths have resulted in any punishment of U.S. officials.” Yet he quells his moral outrage using sophistry.
His first argument is unsubstantiated and reveals a tyrannical mindset. He says:
The first [reason we should not prosecute is] because justice taken to its logical end here would likely require bringing George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials to trial, which would rip our country apart.
He never substantiates the claim that bringing George Bush to trial would “rip our country apart.” How, pray tell, would that happen? Would the gigantic number of Bush supporters go crazy? Would the Republicans threaten to filibuster every important bill in Congress? This claim is conjured out of thin air.
The worst part of it is that the idea of carrying justice to its logical end shocks Mr. Friedman. Yes, we could begin to prosecute low-level torturers. That would not tear our nation apart. But God forbid that we punish those at the top! Our elected officials cannot be prosecuted! That would be barbaric! That would tear apart the very fabric of the nation! It takes a very tyrannical mindset to shirk from the duties of justice when it pertains to those in power.
His second argument is worse, and it is wrong in so many ways, I’m not sure where to begin. Let us read the introduction of the argument:
Al Qaeda truly was a unique enemy, and the post-9/11 era a deeply confounding war in a variety of ways.
This is a complete non sequitur. Al Qaeda is evil; therefore we should not prosecute for war crimes. I fail to see the connection.
It gets worse.
Here’s Mr. Friedman’s cartoonish, Manichaean account of Al Qaeda:
First, Al Qaeda was undeterred by normal means. Al Qaeda’s weapon of choice was suicide. Al Qaeda operatives were ready to kill themselves — as they did on 9/11, and before that against U.S. targets in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Tanzania and Yemen — long before we could ever threaten to kill them. We could deter the Russians because they loved their children more than they hated us; they did not want to die. The Al Qaeda operatives hated us more than they loved their own children. They glorified martyrdom and left families behind.
First, Al Qaeda is not composed of evil supermen who will stop at nothing to kill us. Khalid Sheik Mohammed was merely a thug who loved to kill people and blow shit up. He was not a religious fanatic: “He was obviously pathologically antisemitic but not very religious himself. He wasn’t one to quote Saudi clerics.” Tell me, when did KSM plan on blowing himself up? He was having too good a time posing as a rich businessman and getting blowjobs.
Even if they were religious fanatics, this does not exonerate torture. If they’ll stop at nothing, then how is torture supposed to deter them? The fact is that the torture at Abu Ghraib was perhaps the number one propaganda tool of Al Qaeda recruiters. Thanks for encouraging the killing of our soldiers, Mr. Friedman.
Then, Mr. Friedman pulls out the old WMD playbook:
Second, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda aspired to deliver a devastating blow to America. They “were involved in an extraordinarily sophisticated and professional effort to acquire weapons of mass destruction. In this case, nuclear material,” Michael Scheuer, the former C.I.A. bin Laden expert, told “60 Minutes” in 2004. “By the end of 1996, it was clear that this was an organization unlike any other one we had ever seen.”
Oh please. Mr. Friedman’s argument for torture can be summed up in one word: FEAR.
It is interesting that Mr. Friedman chooses the word “compromise” to describe not prosecuting war criminals. He would gladly compromise our principles because he fears terrorist supermen. Nothing exonerates torture. I don’t care how evil Al Qaeda is; it does not excuse his sadism.
[There’s so much bullshit in here that I can’t write a coherent entry. Mr. Friedman pulls out the “flypaper theory” after talking about bombs. If Al Qaeda had a bomb, don’t you think they’d try to blow it up in the US before Iraq? How exactly will this deter them?]
The commenters are much more eloquent than I am.
EDIT: This post would’ve been much better if I had just focused on KSM.
Ross Douthat’s column in the New York Times is morally idiocy disguised by a veneer of reasonableness. Read this incredibly stupid passage:
He wasn’t alone. A large swath of the political class wants to avoid the torture debate. The Obama administration backed into it last week, and obviously wants to back right out again.
But the argument isn’t going away. It will be with us as long as the threat of terrorism endures. And where the Bush administration’s interrogation programs are concerned, we’ve heard too much to just “look forward,” as the president would have us do. We need to hear more: What was done and who approved it, and what intelligence we really gleaned from it. Not so that we can prosecute – unless the Democratic Party has taken leave of its senses – but so that we can learn, and pass judgment, and struggle toward consensus.
Learn, pass judgment, and struggle toward consensus? Has hundreds of years of history simply disappeared? I thought Mr. Douthat was supposed to be conservative, so it is strange that he would ignore the fact that our ancestors and recent predecessors have already figured out that torture is wrong and should be punished.
What is left to learn? Torture is cruel and ineffective. In the West, in Russia, and in the East, we see time and time again that the most effective interrogators eschew physical force and that systematic policies of torture result in false confessions. Here’s Liao-Fan in the 16th century: “Also, extreme beating can force an innocent suspect to plead guilty.” We have a long and dark history of the consequences of torture: the Spanish Inquisition, Stalin’s show trials, the Khmer Rouge.
What consensus is there to reach? That torture is wrong? That torture is brutal and immoral? One must have a malfunctioning moral compass in order to have not yet reached that conclusion.
Imagine that the President had kept slaves in the White House. Ah, but reasonable people agree that we must investigate in order to “learn, and pass judgment, and struggle toward consensus.” Never mind that the issue of slavery has already been decided.
We have already learned, already passed judgment, and already struggled towards consensus. History has already passed its verdict. We have the Geneva Conventions, and Ronald Reagan signing treaties against torture. What more consensus do we need?
We need none of what Mr. Douthat urges, unless you cleave the present from the entire history of Western Civilization. We already know everything we need to know about torture. What’s needed now is punishment for war crimes.
James Wilson:
The enemies of liberty are artful and insidious. A counterfeit steals her dress, imitates her manner, forges her signature, assumes her name. But the real name of the deceiver is licentiousness. Such is her effrontery, that she will charge liberty to her face with imposture: and she will, with shameless front, insist that herself alone is the genuine character, and that herself alone is entitled to the respect, which the genuine character deserves. With the giddy and undiscerning, on whom a deeper impression is made by dauntless impudence than by modest merit, her pretensions are often successful. She receives the honours of liberty, and liberty herself is treated as a traitor and a usurper. Generally, however, this bold impostor acts only a secondary part. Though she alone appear upon the stage, her motions are regulated by dark ambition, who sits concealed behind the curtain, and who knows that despotism, his other favourite, can always follow the success of licentiousness.
The answer depends, at least in part, on how we turn back the page. Is a Watergate- or Iran-contra-style congressional probe the way to go? No, for public hearings encourage—demand, really—dramatic plays for attention from lawmakers. Such a stage would lead to the expression of extreme views.
So we do not want that. Nor, I think, do we want to open criminal investigations into those who participated in brutal interrogation methods. And to pursue criminal charges against officials at the highest levels—including the former president and the former vice president—would set a terrible precedent. (The presidential historian Michael Beschloss suggests that the closest parallel to a president authorizing a probe of his predecessor can be found in the 1920s, when Calvin Coolidge appointed special prosecutors to investigate Warren Harding’s role in the Teapot Dome scandal.) That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case. [emphasis mine]
But having vowed to end the practices, Obama should use all the influence of his office to stop the retroactive search for scapegoats.
This is not another Sept. 11 situation, when nearly 3,000 Americans were killed. We had to investigate the flawed performances and gaps in the system and make the necessary repairs to reduce the chances of a deadly repetition.
The memos on torture represented a deliberate, and internally well-debated, policy decision, made in the proper places — the White House, the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department — by the proper officials.
One administration later, a different group of individuals occupying the same offices has — thankfully — made the opposite decision. Do they now go back and investigate or indict their predecessors?
That way, inevitably, lies endless political warfare. It would set the precedent for turning all future policy disagreements into political or criminal vendettas. That way lies untold bitterness — and injustice. [emphasis mine]
What a topsy-turvy world we live in! It is not torture that is the extremist view, but the prosecution of an inhumane and brutal crime that would be extremist. It is not letting people go free for war crimes that sets a dangerous precedent, but pursuing proper justice for criminals that sets a dangerous precedent. Nor is it the very act of torture that sets a dangerous precedent, but putting torturers in prison that would set a dangerous precedent. God forbid that our elected officials be subject to the laws! That would be bad precedent!
And in the most topsy-turvy statement of all, the pursuit of justice is turned into injustice. Indisputable war crimes should be ignored — that is justice. Prosecution for torture, following the Law of Nations, our treaties, our Constitution, and our laws — that is injustice. “Such is her effrontery, that she will charge liberty to her face with imposture.”
I may be “bitter,” but you, sirs, have no shame. The enemies of liberty are artful and insidious, indeed.
It’s been a productive day. I did a bunch of chores, and still managed to watch the draft. I’m really excited that Crabtree fell to the 49ers. Thank you so much Al Davis for picking Heyward-Bey, haha.
It’s Spring Fair. That means I have to eat Chicken on a Stick. Mmm. I guess that’s one thing I’ll miss when I get the heck out of here.
In other news, I bought maracas and a recorder. I am going to drive my roommates crazy.
It’s been a week since I’ve been trying to check and process my e-mail once a day. So far, I’ve been able to process all my e-mails during that one session, which I’m pretty proud of. That was a secondary goal, which I wasn’t going to focus on, but I still am doing it.
The primary goal is only checking my e-mail once. It was initially rough, but it’s getting easier. During the day, I didn’t feel any aggressive urges to check my e-mail. I didn’t feel anything while I was surfing online during lunch, nor did I feel anything after I was reading blogs after my last class. Usually the urge to check e-mail is worst in the morning, but I woke up kind of late today and didn’t have time to go on the computer.
During the week, there were times when I was forced to use e-mail before 10PM because I had to e-mail myself something. I refrained from reading my e-mails, though, and processed them all at the end of the day. I wish there was some way to send e-mails without checking your e-mail.
I’m very encouraged by this. If I can break this addiction, then I can break my other internet addictions.
I was remarking to my friend about how we were so close to the end.
She replied, “You know what that means? We get to be real people.”
Ah, the extended adolescence experience that is college.
My cousin just sent me this text: “Dynasty complete, I got semper fi”
I went to the same school as three of my cousins (all siblings). My older cousin played trombone, I played trombone, my younger cousin played trombone. We were all first chair in jazz and Wind Ensemble. We were all drum major. And we all got the semper fi award. Plus, my friend Daryl, who played second trombone under me for several years, succeeded me as drum major and first chair.
Trombone dynasty. I’m proud of my cousin for continuing the legacy.
I liked the suggestions in the op-ed: Up, Up and Out.
The prose in this article is not particularly eloquent. However, it expresses its ideas clearly and that is the most important element for writing, is it not? I recently said to a classmate that the purpose of language is to communicate and if your writing obscures meaning, then you’ve committed a sin. This has no such sin.
Here are the suggestions:
I’ve already seen the scrap the Air Force argument before and was convinced of it back then. The “up or out” thing is new to me, and Kane has persuaded me.
The mandatory national service program is definitely more complicated an issue. I do think it can do a lot of good, and the idea about having a bunch of young people dedicated to disaster relief is very appealing. I think I’ve also seen the argument before. Emergency response is one of the best things we can spend our money on, so I’m all for it. I haven’t thought much about the other ways we could use this service. He lists “intelligence assessment, conservation, antipoverty projects, educational tutoring, firefighting, policing, border security, disaster relief or care for the elderly,” and at first glance I have no objection aside from policing.
Is this kind of thing feasible? There are so many young people in the US. Maybe a national service would best be run by states? I really have no idea about the administration of this thing, but I do think a certain amount of localism would be beneficial. It could create some community in our hyperfragmented society.
I have been reading some right-wing responses to the torture memos, and they are really disturbing. One common trope is to invoke the specter of 9/11 and then accuse anyone who would oppose torture as also hating America. Apparently, we blame America first and do not want to do anything to prevent another 9/11. I am reminded of this passage from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning:
During this psychological phase one observed that people with natures of a more primitive kind could not escape the influences of brutality which had surrounded them in camp life. Now, being free, they thought they could use their freedom licentiously and ruthlessly. The only thing that had changed for them was that they were now the oppressors instead of the oppressed. They became instigators, not objects, of willfull force and injustice. They justified their behavior by their own terrible experiences. This was often revealed in apparently insignificant events. A friend was walking across a field with me toward the camp when suddenly we came to a field of green crops. Automatically, I avoided it, but he drew his arm through mine and dragged me through it. I stammered something about not treading down the young crops. He became annoyed, gave me an angry look and shouted, “You don’t say! And hasn’t enough been taken from us? My wife and child have been gassed — not to mention everything else — and you would forbid me to tread on a few stalks of oats!”
Only slowly could these men be guided back to the commonplace truth that no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.
It would be cheap and easy to say, “I was unaware that Viktor Frankl was a self-hating Jew. I was unaware that he blamed the Jews first and wanted to coddle the Nazis.” So I am not going to bother attacking the logic of the conservative’s absurd ad hominem attacks. Their worldview is so simplistic that they cannot comprehend that a political opponent might not be a traitor.
9/11/2001 reduced them to a primitive state of being. They have thrown out their morals. As long as they can invoke 9/11, they can justify any act, no matter how cruel. Here is Manadel al-Jamadi, who was tortured to death. “Yawn,” the conservative replies. “This was just a fraternity prank.”
Manadel al-Jamadi, ruled a homicide in CIA custody.
The trauma of 9/11 is not a rhetorical bludgeon for you to use. It is especially sickening to think that you’re using these victims’ deaths in order to justify torture and to excuse our political leaders from war crimes. I’m sure the dead would be proud. I’m sure that those dead firefighters are proud that their heroism is being used to justify slamming people into walls and then waterboarding them 183 times. It is sad that conservatives justify their sadism by defacing the memory of dead Americans. It is sad that conservatives take so much rhetorical glee and have such zest in remembering the deaths of 3000 people.
I have not forgotten 9/11. I merely choose to not use it to justify brutality, or to buttress every political idiocy I can think of.
Torture is sickening and should shock the conscience. I am unsure if those conservatives even have a conscience. You who purport to defend Western Civilization have thrown away what it means to be civilized.
War cannot excuse war crimes. I don’t care how many times you spit on the graves of dead Americans with your illogical rhetoric and vicious immorality. It will not justify torture. “No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.”
It’s currently 10:30PM. I had completely forgotten about checking my e-mail, until right now. (I was watching “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” on TV.)
I think it’s good that I was able to forget checking my e-mail. It shows a sense of the addiction waning.
The bad thing is the excited feeling I got that I now had the opportunity to check my e-mail. I felt a rush of excitement. Goodness. I may need more than two weeks in order to complete this detox.
I’m continuing my “check e-mail once a day” experiment. I just realized that checking my e-mail is like playing slot machines. It’s fucking addictive: Why is Slot Machine Gambling Considered “The Crack Cocaine” of Gambling Addiction?. I think they work through the same mechanism of intermittent reinforcement. Sometimes I check my e-mail and there’s something new in the inbox. Reward! Sometimes I check and there’s nothing new, or just spam. No reward. Play again later.
The reason why I checked my e-mail so often was because it was like a slot machine. Press a button, hope for reward. Because of the intermittent reinforcement, I became more addicted.
The same thing happens with blogs, too. I check for updates and feel a reward when I find an update amongst the myriad blogs I check everyday.
I’m going to work on one addiction at a time, though. So far, so good with the e-mail. I kind of self-medicate with other drugs (e.g. blogs) to get me through sometimes. Yesterday, however, my desire to check other things on the internets actually decreased. Not sure if that was actual spillover (a la cleaning my desk at random times), or just a blip. In any case, the focus is still e-mail.
Originally, I was going to limit myself to checking my e-mail twice a day. But most of my e-mails aren’t very urgent, so I knew I could get away with only checking once a day. I set that time for 10PM.
All throughout today, I kept feeling the urge to check my e-mail. I wanted to give in. I wanted to revise the resolution. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to check my e-mail twice a day, yes? I successfully fought the urge.
At 10PM I allowed myself to check my e-mail, and then deleted all the e-mails that I had received today. I find it rather ridiculous that I receive at least 10 e-mails a day. Most of these e-mails are useless and annoying. I’ll be glad when I’m done with school and can then instantly delete anything I get from JHU ever again.
Seeing how hard it is to break this e-mail addiction, I think it’s going to be even harder when I try to read less blogs. Ugh. That’s for later, though.
After a night of drunken typing, I only have 5 essays left. Yes!
The number 13 burns brightly in my mind. On May 12, I take my last final. On May 13, I’m free.
Of course, I’m well-aware that upon completing college, I’ll feel a kind of emptiness. I’ll be like, “This is it?” Unlike Super Mario Galaxy, I won’t even have a lame bonus level to complete. Oh wait, never mind, this is exactly like SMG: I have a stupid graduation ceremony to listen through. (Note: May want to do some type of protest when Speaker Pelosi is there and if Obama administration has not released torture memos yet.) Luckily, I have another goal lined up: Work on TCM.
Blargh. I’ve been feeling really anxious lately. All these essays I have yet to do weigh heavily in my mind. I can’t really have fun; they’re like oppressive black clouds hovering in the background. Honestly, I just want to crawl into a ball and give up. I don’t want to write anything anymore.
But let’s put this into perspective. In less than 1 month, I will be done. No more philosophy, history, whatever essays. I no longer have to write dull, uninspiring regurgitations. One month of suffering, of dark clouds, and then there is light.
Last semester, I had a lot more pages to write when it was finals time. Last semester, I didn’t have senior option for one of my classes. This semester will be easier than last semester. I was not anxious last semester; I felt calm despite the work. Should I not be less anxious now?
I just have to keep my eye on the prize, so to speak. Keep staring at that circled day, May 13. That precious day when I get back my freedom.
So back in January, I read Leo Babauta’s book, The Power of Less. I started on January 26th, trying to acquire a new habit. I wanted to write down my three most important tasks in the morning. I dropped a day or two, but I made it through the thirty days without missing two days in a row. By the end, I had a nice row of dots on my calendar, with one dot for each day I did this habit. I congratulated myself on a new habit in my notebook.
More than a month later, I am still writing down my three most important tasks in the morning. I forget sometimes, but I manage to write them down later in the day if I’m in a rush. If I don’t write them down, I feel bad, like when I go to bed without brushing my teeth.
I initially failed at starting a second habit. The idea was to focus on a task for 10 minutes at a time. I thought this sufficiently small. The problem was measuring this. Each time I did a task, I had to note the time, write the task down, and then measure whether I did it for 10 minutes or not. Constantly doing this throughout the day was a chore, and I quit.
I think I bit off more than I could chew. If I were to choose a similar habit, I just might make it something like: When you sit down to read, make sure you read at least 10 pages before getting up. I’ll make it task-specific.
After that failure, I decided to try something simpler. I cleaned up my desk, and made it my goal to clean my desk every night before I went to bed. I continued with the dot system. It went pretty well, until I went on vacation for a week. I didn’t clean my desk because I didn’t have a desk.
Once I got back from vacation, I went back to work. Since April 1st, I’ve dropped only one day. It hasn’t been 30 days since vacation, but I’m going to declare today the ending day and congratulate myself on a new habit.
Cleaning my desk at night has actually changed my behavior during the day as well. I will spontaneously clean my desk when it looks messy. I will put everything in its place. I will take notebooks and books off the desk and put them in their proper spot. I’m very happy about this.
I’m looking for the next habit to undertake. There are two things I want to do: Keep my inbox at zero, and only check my e-mail twice a day. Hm, and goodness, there are other sites that I obsessively check that I should limit.
I’ve decided I’m going to focus on checking my e-mail only once a day. I will do this for two weeks. In the meantime, I will try to delete my e-mails, but I will not focus on keeping the inbox empty. After the two weeks, I will move on to processing that inbox to zero.
Let’s see what happens.
For years, I’ve been prattling on about how habits are important. Only now has that theoretical knowledge become practical knowledge. Time to work on habit #3.
I think the text above the poll is one of the funniest things I’ve ever written: Panda Poll in TCM Blog.
I really to need upgrade my art skills. I just can’t do justice to comics like this: take off your ipod. That can be a summer project. (Well, a life-long project, but I can work more intensely after I finish school.)
In one month, I will no longer get to complain about this fact. Hooray.
UPDATE: Only 6 essays left on the year. Hooray.
As I walked to class the other day, I felt strange. You know when you first wake up in the morning, and you just feel weird? When you’re not sure if you’re really awake or not? Yeah, that’s how I felt. I wasn’t sure if the world was real or not.
Right then, a bird chirped. It interrupted my egoistic, metaphysical musing. My mind moved from inside my head, and I was shocked into the outside world. I saw the bird, sitting a couple feet away, and acknowledged, “Yes, you are real.” It was real; I was real; the world was real. Thank you, bird.
The rest of the walk to class was bizarre. I did my best to listen to the birds singing. I had finally noticed that they were all around, singing. However, I also saw people. I looked at each one of them and noticed that not one of them seemed alive. My eyes darted from person to person, and I felt the deadness within them. The birds were singing, and it seemed as if I was the only person listening. I don’t think I even saw a smile on anyone’s face.
Later, I walked to my second class. I heard loud music booming near Levering Hall. It was that sickening ad campaign for some Nissan car. I almost stormed over there. I wanted to knock over the tables and shout, “Turn off this music! The birds are singing! Stop this consumeristic nonsense!” I wanted to be like Jesus in the temple. Instead, I just continued on my way to class.
I wonder if I was right to shake off my wild impulse.
The birds are singing. Have you ever heard them?
Interesting article from the New York Times: When All You Have Left Is Your Pride.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my college experience. I will feel relief when I am done, but I will experience zero pride.
Goodness. Tell me, how is it that I have only 5 weeks left for classes, but I still have 7 papers due?
This, plus the hundreds of pages of reading.
No wait, 4 weeks of class. At least I’ll have a free week to work on two of the papers.
This is funny. I made a list of my papers so I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed, but this list has just made me more crazy.
I guess now I’ll just have to make a plan.