A few months ago, I missed mentioning the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, which was on February 21, 1965. It was one of those blog-posts I start to write but never finish. It seems apropos to think about it, however, in light of “Baltimore” and the many other events reflecting the dysfunction of racial and racialized politics in the US.
I don’t visit The Atlantic website on a daily basis, as I used to. At some point, I became fed up with the their constant efforts to pander to the lowest common denominator in the new internet-driven culture industry – so much in the same vein that I boycott the Facebook, I have been in a “soft boycott” (meaning not absolutist, but merely trying to avoid it for the most part) – I have stopped visiting The Atlantic website for the most part. Their recent reformats of their website were especially annoying, as it was all re-written to be “mobile-friendly” I guess, which is fine – but programming a website to have a “mobile” version and a “computer” version is technically trivial (well, not trivial, but certainly within the abilities of a competent IT department). So why “dumb down” one on my computer screen, too, making it more difficult to see all the different content they have?
Oops, OK, that was a digression (or a rant). I was intending to write about Mr X.
I mentioned The Atlantic because there is one editor / blogger at The Atlantic whom I nevertheless seek out and read on a regular basis. That is the journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. He recently mentioned Malcolm X in passing when discussing the way in which Obama’s rhetoric on personal morality (of “people of color” – e.g. Baltimore) versus his rhetoric on issues of government policy forms a kind of “bait and switch.” This is cogent and uncompromising reasoning – as is almost always my experience with Coates. Anyway, I will let you read his thoughts, here.
However, Coates’ mention caused me to revisit X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech from April, 1964.
Some people might find it dissonant that Malcolm X is one of people whom I most admire in history. I am neither black, nor a muslim, nor a revolutionary. I am not, arguably, American anymore, either. Furthermore, I have strong philosophical opposition to nationalisms of all flavors, and there is no denying Malcolm X’s nationalist bent.
I think I admire him because he seemed devoid of hypocrisy and self-deception, which is possibly the human failing I most dislike – both in myself and in those around me. Malcolm X called out hypocrisy wherever he saw it. His was a righteous righteousness, therefore.
It’s possible, too, that I admire him as a rhetorician. Certainly now, when I am, in essence, a teacher of rhetoric (if you want to reframe middle-school EFL in as grandiose manner as possible), I am very conscious of and inspired by his control of the spoken word. Even before my current career, however, I was quite drawn to talented speakers.
Regardless of why I admire him, I will merely conclude with an acknowledgement that I consider him one of the greatest Americans – something I’ve commented [broken link! FIXME] before on this blog, admittedly.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]
Category: Politics, Economics & Current Affairs
Caveat: Barking? No, the other end
Ha. The "surveillance state" is going to the dogs, now.
The well-named municipality of Barking and Dagenham, in the UK, is going to be genetically testing dog poo and requiring pet owners to register their pets' DNA – this will allow unambiguous attribution of guilt to owners who don't clean up after their pets.
How far we've come. This seems like one of those fake news snippets from a 1960s-era Heinlein novel.
Really, though… could George Orwell have foreseen this?
What I'm listening to right now.
Informatik, "My True Love." The lyrics are stunningly banal – not what I would hope for from goth-rock. But whatever… I guess I like the sound of it.
Lyrics.
My true love – the only one for me
And the other there will never be
My true love – always there for me
When I'm feeling so lonely
My true love calls my name
That's when I go running
My true love will never let me down
Please don't let me down
The more that I see you
The more that I need you
This feeling just won't go away
I can't live without you
I won't ever doubt you
I'm begging you – don't go away
My true love whispers to me
Tells me all the things that I want to hear
My true love takes over me
Will never let me go, never set me free
My true love is my everything
Everything I am, all I'll ever be
My true love will never let me down
Please don't let me down
The more that I see you
The more that I need you
This feeling just won't go away
(Won't go, won't go away)
I can't live without you
I won't ever doubt you
I'm begging you – don't go away
(Don't go, don't go away)
You have left your mark on me
I will never be the same
Even if I walk away
Your heavenly embrace
Not so easy to erase
Will I ever have the strength
To say goodbye to you
The more that I see you
The more that I need you
This feeling just won't go away
I can't live without you
I won't ever doubt you
I'm begging you – don't go away
[daily log: walking, ]
Caveat: Concrete Reality
Surprising fact-of-the-day: China used more cement in the last three years than the United States used in the entire 20th century.
I learned this from the marginalrevolution blog, and then saw it referenced again later by the Washington Post.
That's a lot of cement.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]
Caveat: University of malware… expected to do a rampant
Google translate is truly horrible, for Korean->English. I admit that at least for most major European languages, I am nevertheless impressed, and it does a great job. With those languages, there is a sufficiently large body of precisely parallel texts (mostly due to EU integration and language policies) that a statistical translation such as the google attempts can yield decent results. But Korean… the results can be truly weird.
Sometimes, I get text messages from my phone service (LG+). In case they are important, I will copy-paste them directly into google translate in an effort to decide if I can freely disregard the message or if I have to take some action on it. A message received earlier today was a great example where the google-translate version is hilarious and weird but nevertheless allows me to know that I can comfortably ignore the message.
The paragraph I laughed at came out in google as:
To celebrate the 24-year civil life cohesive, Courier, New Year greetings, New Year's gift quarterlies, University of malware, including entrance fees (SMS phishing) are expected to do a rampant.
The original was:
새해를 맞이하여 생활 밀착형 민원24, 택배, 새해 인사, 새해선물 연말정산, 대학 입학금 등 악성코드(스미싱)가 기승을 부릴 것으로 예상이 됩니다.
The gist is that I should watch out for spam SMS (which is definitely a problem in Korea – I delete 3 or 4 such messages each day from my phone), and maybe subscribe to their extra spam-fighting service … which I won't. I only pay attention to messages that are from a known source (e.g. a person I know or officially from my provider, like this one). It's hard to fall for phishing attacks in a language you don't know well. Speaking of which, when and how did some Russians decide I wanted to read vast quanties of Russian-language spam? Does anyone else have this problem with email spam in Russian?
And speaking of Universities of malware… maybe North Korea has one. Maybe there's a university of malware, doing a rampant, up the road in Kaeseong, 30 km from my home here in Ilsan. Somehow it's pretty easy to visualize.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]
Caveat: Detour-de-force
I ran across this on another blog I look at sometimes. If you don't know about toxoplasma, you might want to read up on it to understand better – it's so bizarre that it seems like something in science fiction. Slatestarcodex writes a blogpost about memes, starting off with PETA, riffing on Ferguson and police brutality, and concludes discussing what it means to write about controversial topics on blogs. But meanwhile, he takes a little speculative detour that strikes me as tour-de-force of memetics:
Toxoplasma is a neat little parasite that is implicated in a couple of human diseases including schizophrenia. Its life cycle goes like this: it starts in a cat. The cat poops it out. The poop and the toxoplasma get in the water supply, where they are consumed by some other animal, often a rat. The toxoplasma morphs into a rat-compatible form and starts reproducing. Once it has strength in numbers, it hijacks the rat’s brain, convincing the rat to hang out conspicuously in areas where cats can eat it. After a cat eats the rat, the toxoplasma morphs back into its cat compatible form and reproduces some more. Finally, it gets pooped back out by the cat, completing the cycle.
What would it mean for a meme to have a life cycle as complicated as toxoplasma?
Consider the war on terror. It’s a truism that each time the United States bombs Pakistan or Afghanistan or somewhere, all we’re doing is radicalizing the young people there and making more terrorists. Those terrorists then go on to kill Americans, which makes Americans get very angry and call for more bombing of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Taken as a meme, it is a single parasite with two hosts and two forms. In an Afghan host, it appears in a form called ‘jihad’, and hijacks its host into killing himself in order to spread it to its second, American host. In the American host it morphs in a form called ‘the war on terror’, and it hijacks the Americans into giving their own lives (and several bajillion of their tax dollars) to spread it back to its Afghan host in the form of bombs.
From the human point of view, jihad and the War on Terror are opposing forces. From the memetic point of view, they’re as complementary as caterpillars and butterflies. Instead of judging, we just note that somehow we accidentally created a replicator, and replicators are going to replicate until something makes them stop.
Replicators are also going to evolve. Some Afghan who thinks up a particularly effective terrorist strategy helps the meme spread to more Americans as the resulting outrage fuels the War on Terror. When the American bombing heats up, all of the Afghan villagers radicalized in by the attack will remember the really effective new tactic that Khalid thought up and do that one instead of the boring old tactic that barely killed any Americans at all. Some American TV commentator who comes up with a particularly stirring call to retaliation will find her words adopted into party platforms and repeated by pro-war newspapers. While pacifists on both sides work to defuse the tension, the meme is engaging in a counter-effort to become as virulent as possible, until people start suggesting putting pork fat in American bombs just to make Muslims even madder.
What I'm listening to right now.
Hooverphonic, "Eden."
Lyrics.
Did you ever think of me
As your best friend
Did I ever think of you
I'm not complaining
I never tried to feel
I never tried to feel this vibration
I never tried to reach
I never tried to reach your eden
Did I ever think of you
As my enemy
Did you ever think of me
I'm complaining
I never tried to feel
I never tried to feel this vibration
I never tried to reach
I never tried to reach your eden
[daily log: walking, 1.5 km]
Caveat: the winter will crave what is gone
Last week at some point, while searching for some utterly unrelated pedagogy-related material, I ran across a PDF of a PhD dissertation by a Korean-American graduate student at Georgia State University. The title is "Korean Teachers' Beliefs about English Language Education and their Impacts upon the Ministry of Education-Initiated Reforms," and was written by Cheong Min Yook in 2010 (it is accessible online here). I was so intrigued by the premise of the dissertation that I downloaded and read a significant portion of it, hoping to find some insight into the sometimes beffuddling beliefs my coworkers exhibit in the realms of pedagogy and TESL. The dissertation is pretty dry (of course), and frankly I didn't feel it was particularly revelatory, but there was something else that struck me most profoundly, and was quite dissappointing: there is an almost complete disregard for what is, in my mind, the primary locus of ESL in Korea: the hagwon industry.
Aside from a few single-sentence, off-hand mentions of the fact that parents often resort to "commercial supplementary education," the author seems to view the existence of the hagwon industry irrelevant to ESL in Korea. This strikes me as naive to the point of seeming like an alternate reality. In fact, I think that the hagwon industry (and the Ministry of Education's preoccupation with it, in the negative sense) is likely the single most significant factor in why reform in Korean ESL is so necessary yet also at the same time so incredibly difficult (especially if researchers like this graduate student are pretending the hagwon industry is marginal and nigh irrelvevant).
I have attempted, anyway, [broken link! FIXME] elsewhere, to go into the history and structure of the ESL industry in Korea, although I confess I probably need to get back to it and make changes as I no longer entirely agree with everything I wrote there. Without going into a lot of that, however, as I read Cheong (is that the surname? I'm not clear if US-name-order or Korean-name-order was used, but Cheong is a more common surname than Yook so I went with that as a guess) I got a lot of insight into the timeline of what was going on with respect to "reforms" and changes in the Ministry of Education's approach to public school ESL. I was struck with a kind of insight or brainstorm about how that must have had a direct and probably uninintended consequence in the hagwon industry. Here is a brief outline of that brainstorm.
The "boom" in the hagwon business which occurred in the early 2000s wasn't just demographic (which is always how I'd conceptualized it, before) – it was also a direct market response to the government's effort to emphasize a more modern pedagogy in the public school system. That is because the government failed to support their programmatic methodological changes meant for the classroom with sufficient reforms to the exam system (i.e. the 4-times-a-year 내신 in middle and high school, as well as the 수능 [Korean "SAT"]).
As a result, what ended up happening was that the reforms, oriented toward spoken English and CLT ["communicative language teaching"], which occurred in the public schools in the late 1990s and early 2000s, rendered English education – as it was being provided by the public schools – irrelevant to what parents wanted and needed. What parents want and need, always, is adequate preparation for exams. The exams remained focused on passive-skills – mostly grammar, vocabulary and reading, with the only, arguably fairly minor, reform being some increase in a listening component. (As an aside, it's worth mentioning that the intended nation-wide TOEFL-style [therefore CLT-based and with a speaking component!] English exam, NEAT, was an utter flop, although I'm not clear as to the reasons for that). Thus, to the extent that public school ESL focused on communicative competence and speaking skills, to the exact same extent it became irrelevant to the national exams. Parents essentially fled the public system (not by quitting, but by simply ignoring it and influencing their children to ignore it) and instead invested even more money and hours in private supplementary education (i.e. hagwon) in order to adequately to prep their kids for the exams.
That makes a lot of sense to me, when I reflect on it. I wonder, therefore, if the current drawback in the hagwon industry is therefore also not just demographic, but is rather also a consequence (intentional or otherwise) of further changes to pedagogy in the public schools. Certainly I think the effort to increase emphasis on speaking and CLT in the public schools has been scaled back substantially – abandoned in middle schools and reduced in elementary schools. Just look at the reduction in foreign native-speaking teachers being employed by public schools. One could argue that the government was disappointed by the results, but it seems just as likely that at some high, administrative level they realized their previous reforms were driving the hagwon industry to new heights (which they didn't want) and so they reversed direction.
Actually, there is one other factor driving the current travails in the hagwon industry that I might as well mention, as long as I'm writing about it, which is that the cost of 과외 [private tutoring] has veritably plunged in recent years, driven, I suspect, by the increasing number of English-fluent Koreans in the country, mostly returned emmigres who abandoned the Anglosphere due to the economic hardships post-2008. Unlike me or other foreigners who must be here on business-sponsored visas (E2), these returnees can work however they want, as self-employed one-on-one tutors, and there is zero regulation. Given the choice of paying the same for one-on-one with a native speaker or time in a raucous classroom with a native speaker only half time if they're lucky, it's easy to see why parents would pull their kids out of hagwon and find a tutor for them.
By the way… uh, merry christmas? Frankly, it was a sucky Christmas. Bah humbug, then.
What I'm listening to right now.
Future Islands, "Seasons."
Lyrics
-Verse 1-
Seasons change
And I tried hard just to soften you
The seasons change
But I've grown tired of trying to change for you
Because I've been waiting on you
I've been waiting on you
Because I've been waiting on you
I've been weighing on you
-Chorus-
As it breaks, the summer will wake
But the winter will wash what's left of the taste
As it breaks, the summer will warm
But the winter will crave what is gone
Will crave what has all gone away
-Verse 2-
People change
But you know some people never do
You know when people change
They gain a piece but they lose one too
Because I've been hanging on you
I've been weighing on you
Because I've been waiting on you
I've been hanging on you
[daily log: what?]
Caveat: Punningly
You may have heard that the Chinese government is has officially banned puns. I ran across some (serious) discussion of it on a linguistics site I frequent, Language Log. Ultimately, however, another site (Slate Star Codex) I have taken to frequenting nailed it, punningly:
China bans puns on the grounds that they may mislead children and defile cultural heritage. Language Log is on the story, and discusses the (extremely plausible) theory that this is part of a crackdown on people who use puns to get around censorship. Obligatory link to the Ten Mythical Creatures here. There’s no censor sensibility to the law, and it seems likely to cause Confucian and dis-Orientation among punks and pundits alike in its wonton disregard for personal freedom and attempts to bamboo-zle the public. It’s safe Tibet that dissidents who just Taipei single pun online will end up panda price and facing time in the punitentiary or even capital punishment – but those Hu support the government can Maoth off as much as they want and still wok free. I Canton derstand how people wouldn’t realize that this homophonbic bigotry raises a bunch of red flags. In the end, one Deng is clear: when puns are outlawed, only outlaws will have puns.
But even better was the following comment on Language Log by someone named Matt, in reaction to Slate Star Codex's punning:
You can definitely understand the Party's fears, though; after all, repurposing homophones or near-homophones in written Chinese has always resulted in radicalization.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: linguistics or hegemony, but never both together
Speculative Grammarian observed yesterday, "Today is Noam Chomsky’s birthday. To celebrate, discuss linguistics or hegemony. But never both at the same time! Why is that?"
More seriously, this is a Chomsky quote in linguistics that is worth remembering, and fundamental to linguistics.
The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the 'creativity of language,' that is, the speaker's ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately understood by other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are 'familiar.' – Noam Chomsky
What I'm listening to right now.
TV On The Radio, "Careful You." The lyrics aren't that interesting, but I like the song anyway.
Lyrics.
Oui je t'aime, oui je t'aime
À demain, à la prochaine
I know it's best to say goodbye
But I can't seem to move away
Not to say, not to say
That you shouldn't share the blame
There is a softness to your touch
There is a wonder to your ways
[Chorus]
Don't know how I feel, what's the deal?
Is it real? When's it gonna go down?
Can we talk? Can we not?
Well, I'm here, won't you tell me right now?
And I'll care for you, oh, careful you
Don't know, should we stay? Should we go?
Should we back it up and turn it around?
Take the good with the bad
Still believe we can make it somehow
I will care for you, oh, careful you, careful you
Oui je t'aime, oui je t'aime
From the cradle to the grave
You've done a number on my heart
And things will never be the same
Freeze a frame, freeze a frame
From a fever dream of days
We learned the secret of a kiss
And how it melts away all pain
[Chorus] x2
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Inventing Modernity. Or Not.
I finally actually finished a book. I read Arthur Herman’s popularizing history about the Scots, entitled, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It.
Scottish history is a topic I haven’t actually read that much about – although I felt comfortable in my understanding of the broad outline of English History (and therefore British history post-Union), I never really spent any time studying Scotland, specifically – unlike Wales or Ireland. So I picked up the book in hopes of filling some of that in. In its purely historical aspect, I got a lot out of the book, including a much better understanding of the Scottish Enlightenment and some of the historical events surrounding it (Knox, the Covenanters and the Scottish Reformation; Bonnie Prince Charlie; etc.).
In fact, my main complaint about this book is probably the same as one of the other recent history titles I made a brief review of some time back, which is: good book, bad title. The title’s thesis (i.e. the idea that Scots invented modernity) seems unproven (and unprovable). It occured to me in looking up the text online just now that the title might not even have been the author’s chosen title, but rather the work of some hyperbolizing editor.
In any event, if the title had been something more modest to the effect of the Scottish Enlightenment’s impact on modernity (Hume, Smith, et al.), and their disproportionate contribution to the Anglosphere’s modern global cultural dominance, I’d have been less preoccupied with trying to decide if Herman did an adequate job proving his main thesis. As it was, I kept hoping the next chapter would explain exactly how it was they invented modernity. I’d say inventing modernity was a collective endeavor, in which the Scots definitely played a suprisingly outsized role.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Busytown 2.0
When I was a child I had an inordinate fondness for Richard Scarry books. They weren’t really stories at all – they were cartoonified reference books with only the barest hintings of plot. Although which would be cause and which effect is not clear, I have ever since enjoyed refence books more than seems appropriate.
I ran across a comic in the series TomTheDancingBug, which I reproduce below. It is in Scarry’s classic style, “updated for the 21st century.” Funny.
I never realized that Lowly Worm was an immigrant. But seeing here that he is, it makes perfect sense. I read once that Lowly was the “true protagonist” of all of the Busytown books. Now I see that he is possibly illegal. Suddenly I want to write a postmodern novel about him. This feeling will pass.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 hm]
Caveat: DARPA Brings Burning Man to Jalalabad
I ran across an article about hippies-as-defense-contractors in Afghanistan, that I found compelling and read at one sitting, which with longer-form journalism as found on the web really isn't that common for me. More typically these days, I simply skim an article or will read it in parts over some period of time.
The article isn't that new – it dates from over a year ago – and the material it treats seems rather like the conceit to a novel rather than a simple journalistic account of something the really happened… it's a kind of William Gibsonesque or Thomas Pynchonesque take on the Afghan War. So it is like reading some kind of fiction, but I suspect it is mostly true. It almost (I said only "almost") makes me imagine going to Afghanistan. Perhaps if my inner demon metastasized, I would – just for a last hurrah.
Speaking of which, I get to spend tomorrow mid-day (before work) at the hospital, getting a regularly-scheduled CT scan and check-up. I always feel nervous for these things, even though it's essentially just a roll-of-the-die.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Die For Your Country
I had long suspected this as a long-term trend (even since I was myself in the Army, 25 years ago), but finally I saw it confirmed: more US soldiers now die from suicide than in combat – despite the fact we have low-grade wars going on in various places. This is the new, drone-powered army.
[daily log: walking, 1 km]
Caveat: More Korean War Reading
Having finished that Halberstam book I was working on, last week I started yet another Korean War book, which is also from the collection of books I acquired from my friend Peter when he was leaving the country "forever" last summer (I saw him on Saturday, so his "forever" hasn't worked out).
It's a book by a Korean War general named Paik Sun Yup (백선엽). After Halberstam book, it provides a very interesting and distinct perspective on the War, and I'm enjoying it more than the other book although I find myself speculating too much between the lines about his possible roles in the subsequent dictatorships in South Korea, given General Paik's noted anti-communism. Regardless, I read almost half of it on my low-tech Sunday, and I can recommend it.
According to the wikithing, the General is still alive – see picture below. It's hard to imagine how he must perceive the South Korea of today vis-a-vis his experiences.
[daily log: walking, 6km]
Caveat: Three Stars of Complexity
“Samsung” means “three stars” in Korean. It is, I reckon, now the most widely known Korean word in the world – although few realize the word means anything more than fancy electronics, and a lot of Americans, for example, have the parochially mistaken belief that the name is Japanese.
I ran across an interesting diagram the other day, that has been circulating online. It shows the complex cross-ownership patterns of the many different “Samsung” companies.
In fact, this wacky diagram (you can click to embiggen) doesn’t even show them all, since there are some Samsung companies that are no longer “related” to the vast Samsung empire held by the Lee family (e.g. Samsung Motors, and automotive company, Korea’s third-largest, that is an owned subsidiary of the Renault-Nissan Group, but which retains the Samsung name for historical and brand-loyalty reasons). Not including these unrelated Samsungs, the Samsung Group allegedly comprises about 20% of the South Korean economy – a fact I first remarked on this here blog 4 years ago.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: Pervasive Corruption
Yesterday (Wednesday), I had a brief discussion, via Kakao chat, with my friend Peter over the nature of the recent spate of deadly "accidents" and disasters that seem to be befalling South Korea. There was the ferry boat sinking last month, there was the fire at the bus terminal on Monday here in Goyang, and yesterday another fire at a nursing home or something. There were some subway crashes, too, last month.
The public sentiment seems to be that there is a big problem with corruption as being an underlying cause or correlate of the neglect of public safety in these events. I pondered this after our brief chat, because I decided it might make an interesting debate topic.
I did something I haven't done much, so far, but I consider it to be the ultimate objective of my debate teaching: I went from "chosen topic" to actual debate in a single class period. At the start of class, I explained the topic, which immediately grabbed the kids attention because it was topical. I then crafted a proposition on the fly, which was something like this: "The recent spate of disasters in Korea (ferry sinking, fires, etc) indicates a problem of pervasive corruption."
We brainstormed some as to what would be some PRO and CON reasons, and I ran to my desk for a moment, went online, and found a recent and older editorial from the Korean English-language press on the topic of corruption, which I printed out. We did not read these exhaustively – rather, I presented the materials as a sort of instant research resource. Then we assigned sides and I said, "OK, 20 minutes." After the kids had prepared their ideas, we had our debate.
Normally the class has four students, which is perfect for debate – 2 to each side. However, one student was absent, so I stepped in and took a position in the line-up. When I do this, I handicap myself by denying myself the opportunity to adequately prepare – I have to speak completely off-the-cuff. As such, I would say my 2 speeches are less well organized than those of my students, even if they are, obviously, of higher quality in terms of referentiality and nativeness of the English.
So here's the debate. I think these students did really well with short notice and a difficult topic. Even though I'd told my friend Peter I thought there was, indeed, corruption, notice that I'm taking the CON side of the debate below, with my student James, against the girls Jisoo and Andrea.
Caveat: State vs Capital
My mother recently asked me how I feel about the NSA, the prospect of Big Brother via technology, the much-announced end-of-privacy and all that. She also mentioned the preponderance of "conspiracy theories" in the media universe that arise in relation to these issues.
I started to write a long, involved answer in email form, but decided to just give her a short answer and save the long answer for some kind of blog post. Here is that blog post.
One can't think about the state except in relation to what lies beyond it, the single world market, and in relation to what lies this side of it, the levels of minorities, becomings, and the "people." Beyond the state it's money that rules, money that communicates, and what we need these days isn't a critique of Marxism, but a modern theory of money as good as Marx's that goes on from where he left off. – Gilles Deleuze
I don't buy much into conspiracy theories, but concede the "scariness" of bigbrotherism via emerging technologies. My own marxian counterpoint is to observe that capital and the state are not natural allies. As antagonists, they tend to damper each others' totalizing tendencies. When google or facebook get out of hand with their accumulation of user data, the governments tend to step in. When the governments get out of hand with their spying on citizens, the corporations and the technoanarchists step in. This is a broad tendency, and of course there will be many exceptions and counterexamples in both directions, such as the apparent cooperation of US phone companies with the NSA or the recent failure of the government to back net neutrality.
As a reflection of this principle, I will note that a new internet browser was created recently by everyone's favorite Swedish anarchists at Pirate Bay, that "bypasses" the government sponsored DNS system through use of the same technology as the file torrenting systems, and therefore makes possible a sort of "stealth" internet that regulating governments can't "see."
The state-capital conflict is a long-standing interest of mine, and perhaps it is a source of my continued optimism for the lot of the little guy vis-a-vis big brother, even now. I think that Marx over-estimated the role of the "worker" (collectively) but that he also in some ways under-estimated the role of the state – hence his hoping that it would whither away under communism, for example. But this miscalculation in his theoretical work does not invalidate the perception that there is a sort of conflict at work, and my own tendency is to apply the more recent insights of cybernetics and ecological system to realize that it leads to a kind of "balance" that is, over the longest run, a steady state (different meaning for state, here).
The South Koreans know everything I do online. I have a very strong faith in their collective incompetence, and thus worry very little about it. My take on ALL conspiracy theories returns to the theorem: "Never attribute to malice that which is better explained by stupidity."
Caveat: The Culture
The blogger formerly known as IOZ, who has resurrected himself at some point in the last year as Blogarach, is one of my favorite bloggers – not just because I am sympathetic to his unapologetic marxism (if I can't always agree), but because he is a brilliant stylist, as I've observed before.
In a recent blog entry, he discusses the possibility of a post-scarcity society, and concludes our current problems with poverty and inequality are ultimately little more than a "supply chain problem." This both understates and oversimplifies the problem, and yet I think he is fundamentally correct.
He quotes Buckminster Fuller, who made post-scarcity arguments way back in the 70's. Here is the quote – I think it's interesting, as does the blogarach, in part because of how long ago the argument was made.
We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.
But the most intriguing thing about his essay is the title: "The Culture."
That title is the only reference, except in the tags at the foot of the blog entry, to the recently deceased author Iain M. Banks' stunningly fascinating and deeply-wrought science fiction concept of post-scarcity in his "Culture" novels, launched in 1987's Consider Phlebas. I like that kind of subtlety. Anyway, my recommendation is: read Blogarach's blog entry; read Buckminster Fuller; read Banks' novels. That is the path to understanding my core optimism for humanity's long-term future.
Even if I sometimes end up foregoing that same style of optimism vis-a-vis the narrower futures that pertain to my own existence.
[daily log (1145 pm): walking, 5 km]
Caveat: Kennedy Stewartized
"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can stop your country from doing." – Jon Stewart, paraphrasing (updating) Kennedy to match the current approach to lawmaking in Congress.
If Kennedy's original is a kind of soundbitized (soundbitten?) touchstone of progressive (liberal) sentiment, then Stewart's parody seems to represent the apotheosis of the contemporary Randian anti-liberal tendency.
[daily log (1100 pm): walking, 5 km]
Caveat: ius linguae
There are two main systems for deriving citizenship, which, being essentially legal concepts, go under their Latin names: ius sanguinis and ius solis. The idea of ius sanguinis, or “right of blood,” is that citizenship derives primarily from the bloodline. This is the traditional way of determining citizenship in countries that are primarily monocultural, as the nations of Europe were in the early modern era. Modern Asian countries also mostly use this model. The alternative is ius solis, or “right of soil,” where citizenship is derived from where one is born. I’m not sure that any modern country has a strictly ius solis model, but most modern “Western” countries – especially immigration-driven countries like the US, Canada or Argentina for example – use a combination of ius solis and ius sanguinis to decide citizenship.
I have thought about the issues around these definitions a lot, first of all as someone who was something of an immigration reform activist in the US prior to my own somewhat unintended emmigration (I say unintended in that I never meant for my emmigration to be permanent or even so long-term, but it has definitely evolved that way), but also as someone who is intrigued by the slow, difficult path Korean society and government is navigating toward a more open attitude toward immigration.
I have been observing with some degree of fascination my recent coworker Razel, who is Philippine-Korean. She acquired her status via marriage, but the extent to which she is integrated into Korean culture and society is breathtaking, and although I have no doubt that she occasionally experiences racism and prejudice, she says it’s in no way the defining feature of her experience. I feel jealousy for her level of Korean Language speaking ability – listening to her on the phone talking to her friends, code-switching between English, Korean, Tagalog and Visayan (the latter being her “native” Philippine languages) leaves me in quiet admiration.
Korean culture is uncomfortable with the idea of immigration. They welcome ethnic Korean “returnees,” called 교포 [gyopo], because they can be more confident of their ability to integrate into Korean society, and they more-or-less accept the idea of mixed marriages as an inevitability, too – as in the example of my coworker. But Koreans resist the idea of foreign individuals or families arriving and simply becoming Korean. It doesn’t sit well with their traditional Confucian concept of the predominance of ancestry and their ius sanguinis model of citizenship.
The other day, however, I had a weird brainstorm as I was thinking about my coworker’s mostly successful integration into Korean society. What if we could define a new, third model of citizenship? Specifically, for a more culturally and linguistically homogeneous society such as Korea, we could grant citizenship rights based, essentially, on the ability to participate in the culture – which is to say, the capacity for the language. It wouldn’t be that hard to say something to the effect of “citizenship for those who pass the language test” – though this would require an ethical and corruption-free administration of a well-designed test, which I’m not sure is the current status of Korea’s de facto standard Korean Language test, the TOPIK. But it would be a workable goal. So that would be ius linguae, “right of language.”
One thought that springs to mind is that this is a model that many in the US would be pleased to adopt – force all those “damn immigrants” to learn English before they get a green card or citizenship! Yet even as I’m happy to propose ius linguae for Korea, I recoil at the idea of applying it in the US. What is the difference? Mostly, history. Korea is historically essentially a single language / culture / state – for hundreds at least if not thousands of years. The US, on the other hand, was almost from the beginning a state defined by some concept of essentially “right of arrival” – to recall one of my favorite quotes on immigration, from Herman Melville, “If they can get here, they have God’s right to come.”
There are tensions within this, but that is the essence. Further, the US project is complicated by the preexistence of linguistic minorities – both Native American and French, Spanish, etc. – groups of people who were in place when the US essentially appeared “over” them through war or annexation. The US is an empire, not a unitary state. It hardly seems fair to impose as a requirement for citizenship the imperial language, since to do so guarantees the possibility of stateless permanent residents within your country, similar to the horrific legal status of Koreans living in Japan even today, 70 years after the end of the War. That Japanese example is a perfect one: the inevitable consquence of applying a ius sanguinis citizenship model in the context of empire is inequality and injustice.
I think Korea, however, is sufficiently compact and homogeneous that applying this type of ius linguae model of citizenship might represent an excellent compromise path between the traditional and inevitably racist ius sanguinis and the more modern ius solis / sanguinis hybrids, the latter of which would lead to an increasintly multi-cultural society and the emergence of linguistic / cultural ghettos – Korea already is beginning to have these in places where there are large numbers of foreigners, such as the area I call “Russiatown” that I like to visit sometimes. Granting citizenship only to immigrants who have already shown a commitment to integrating into Korean culture via the acquisition of the language would be a great solution, maybe.
This is just a brainstorm – a first draft – that occured to me mostly while walking back and forth to work over several days. I’m sure it’s subject to plenty of criticisms and refinements, but I wanted to record my thoughts and put them down.
In other news: yesterday, I turned off the internet and my phone and did almost nothing. It was a lazy day but I think I needed it. I am in danger of social burnout given the teaching load I have taken on (willingly), so I’m going to nurse my off-time for maximum isolation, as my alone time is recuperative for me.
[daily log (1100 pm): walking, 5 km]
Caveat: 청보에 개똥
This is an aphorism from my book of aphorisms.
청보에 개똥
cheong·bo·e gae·ttong
blue-wrapping-paper-IN dog-shit
[…like] dog shit in blue wrapping paper.
This is like that wonderful English aphorism about putting lipstick on a pig – the outside doesn’t match the inside: the problem of false advertising.
What’s the solution? Transparency, transparency, transparency. I guess I’m thinking about work.
Want to hear something funny? Typically when I’m typing up these aphorisms, I will run a google search on them, just out of curiosity or to see if anything interesting comes up. I will do a web google search and an image google search.
Guess what the first image was that came up when I put this aphorism in to google? A picture of former president Lee Myung-bak (이명박) giving a speech, with the title “청보에 개똥을 쌀 놈, 이명박” (“guy who wraps dogshit in blue wrapping paper, Lee Myung-bak.”).
Caveat: And the Panda Says…
A while ago I [broken link! FIXME] posted about the fad song circulating online by Ylvis, "What Does the Fox Say?" It's a funny and entertaining song.
Now the parodies and imitations have begun. This is a China-bashing parody out of Taiwan. Also funny, in a different way.
Related to the "Fox" song, I also ran across this meme-image.
Caveat: Alternative Energy
Lately electricity prices have gone negative during peak hours in Germany, according to an aside in a recent article about Elon Musk's photovoltaic empire-building in California. The meaning of the idea of negative electricity prices is that because of everyone installing solar panels on their roofs and being on the grid, during sunny afternoons (which are peak electricity consumption hours) these buildings are pushing more power onto the grid than they're drawing off of it. Normally, afternoons are peak consumption times, and so coal-fired plants are also scheduled to peak production at these hours. The result is that suddenly the German electricity market is flooded with excess electricity, and prices go negative. Imagine all these coal-fired generating plants suddenly having to pay to put their electricity on the grid. In general, Germany is turning into a literal powerhouse of alternative energy – which is very interesting vis-a-vis other political and economic trends, both in Europe and world-wide.
I've been doing a unit with my recently re-started debate class about the viability of nuclear power in South Korea, and part of that unit means discussing alternative energy sources as well – so this is worth reading and thinking about for me. Korea had placed some major bets over the last two decades on nuclear power, raising domestic dependency on nuclear power to around 30%, but the Fukushima disaster, so close-by, has been prompting some re-thinking.
So far, I've been impressed with the Korean nuclear regulatory authorities' commitment to safety – rather than go on blithely after Fukushima, they have closely inspected all their plants both from a physical and procedural standpoint, in a clear effort to prevent a "next Fukushima." The consequence has been a huge electricity shortage in Korea, with more than half the nuclear production facilities shut down for inspections and repairs and upgrades. People find this alarming, but in fact, this is exactly how nuclear power safety should proceed, to be as safe as possible. So I take much solace in it.
Nevertheless, the South Korean government has been examining the possibility of putting some of their eggs in other baskets, too. One possibility that is very promising here, on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by seawater, is tidal generation. The Shilwa project is an example of this.
The picture, below (taken in June), shows an "electricity holiday" (정기휴일) banner on a closed store that was across the street from my old apartment near Juyeop. Most stores have these government-mandated "electricity holidays," and it was the reason the electronics mart was mostly closed the other day when I tried to take Jacob there. I'm quite sceptical about their ability to enforce power conservation in this way, but it is indicative of the scale of the problem, anyway.
Caveat: Calhoun
OK, so sometimes I just read history, fairly randomly. Not only books, but online, too – reading wikipedia articles. The other day I was surfing around articles on 19th century US history.
I was reading an article about John C. Calhoun, the senator and slavery-defender. I observed that in the picture in the wikipedia article, he is a scary-looking dude. So I went to see if there were more flattering images of him, and instead I found this (at left) – which made me laugh.
Caveat: you’re in America now
This anecdote was circulating on teh interwebs. I doubt its actual veracity, but I nevertheless found it compellingly funny.
(I'm waiting in line behind a woman speaking on her cellphone in another language. Ahead of me is a white man. After the woman hangs up, he speaks up.)
Man: "I didn't want to say anything while you were on the phone, but you're in America now. You need to speak English."
Woman: "Excuse me?"
Man: *very slow* "If you want to speak Mexican, go back to Mexico. In America, we speak English."
Woman: "Sir, I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go back to England."
Caveat: Yay TSA
I saw this article in the "Strib," and it helps one realize how pointless our "security theater" is with respect to airline travel: a 9-year-old boy snuck onto a flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas. It's kind of funny that it wasn't even an accident – the boy did it entirely intentionally: he planned his actions and then did them, over at least two days. Having spent time in the supremely disorganized Minneapolis-St Paul airport, this hardly surprises me that he got away with it so easily.
Speaking of airports, I'm going to Incheon this morning to send Wendy back home to the US. See you later.
Caveat: That is cool… sophistical contrivances
Here is a very clear message, through time, from the first Republican president to the current Republican Party:
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events. This, plainly stated, is your language…
In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"
To be sure, what the robber demanded of me – my money – was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle….
Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored – contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong…
This was said by Abraham Lincoln, in his Cooper Union address of 1860. (Hat tip to James Fallows blogging at The Atlantic for pointing this out and quoting this.)
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Healthcare Explanations
I like this video because it's so concise, yet without over-simplifying. It addresses the giant question: why is US healthcare so messed up?
I have a sort of peripheral interest in this, given my political news addiction on the one hand and on the other, my current experience with the South Korean healthcare system, which, while far from perfect, seems much less messed up than the US system, especially as far as the rationality of costs.
Caveat: Minneapolitan Abroad
I am still, in a legal sense, a Minneapolis resident. My congressman is Keith Ellison, and it's a Minnesota absentee ballot that I vote on when I vote. After Arcata (Humboldt County), California, Minneapolis-St Paul is really my second hometown, and if I return to the US, it's at the top of the list of places I would choose to live.
Minneapolis is having a mayoral election, which is "wide open" this year because the fairly popular incumbent, Rybak, isn't seeking reelection. It's also wide open because they've implemented a new ranked voting system that changes the dynamics quite a bit. Basically anyone can run and there's no primary. So a lot of weird candidates are coming out of the woodwork. Apparently they're coming out of the lakes, too.
I wasn't planning to go through the rigamarole of voting in the election, as it wasn't that interesting or compelling to me, but the race is getting quite strange. Here's one possible candidate's ad.
So, how could I not vote, with such brilliant options as a foul-mouthed aquaman such as Jeff Wagner? Plus, he swims and drinks coffee at the same time. "The Legend of the Loch-Ness Mayor" begins…
Caveat: Ability without concomitant ambition
So, it’s been a long time since I thought much in this mode, but I ran across something on the Marginal Revolution economics blog that was interesting to me.
There was a time, between about 2004 and 2007, when I was very close to going to business school and getting an MBA. Some people don’t know that about me. I took the GMAT, got a pretty good score (good enough to get unsolicited, pre-filled-out admissions documents from some first rate schools), and I even started the application process.
I was fascinated by the field of project management, and the idea of building teams to solve “business systems problems” such as I’d been involved in with ARAMARK and the IBM and Oracle consulting teams that were working on the comprehensive IT overhaul there (projects that ultimately failed, to the best of my knowledge, and about which I have no small number of strong opinions as to why). Then there was my work later at HealthSmart Pacific and their pharmacy division. I genuinely thought I had the ability – but I had doubts about whether I really had the drive.
“Ability without concomitant ambition” has been my curse (and motto?) since grade school. I wrote exactly that phrase on the cover of a journal I kept in high school – really.
The conclusion, obviously, was that I didn’t go to b-school. I made the decision that what I wanted instead was to follow my heart’s ambition and return to my previous career track, into teaching. Nevertheless, I sometimes think of these “paths not taken.”
This blogpost I ran across referenced, in turn, a short post at kottke.org which in turn pointed to a powerpoint (posted as PDF) by someone at Stanford. The topic is “getting things done” – but within the Silicon Valley Biz-School “Creative Destruction” discourse paradigm. The Coveyesque title is: “The Five Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done.” As a person who eternally struggles with getting things done, this was immediately interesting me. What do the b-school gurus have to say about it?
Here they are:
1. Personal exceptionalism
2. Dichotomous thinking
3. Correct overgeneralization
4. Blank canvas thinking
5. Schumpeterianism
Schumpeter was (I think – not going to check) the originator of the “creative destruction” idea in economics, as an engine of progress and growth.
Which of those “cognitive distortions” do I have? Should I try to score myself? How do I rate, 0~10, on each of these axes?
1. Personal exceptionalism – only on good days: 4/10
2. Dichotomous thinking – terribly: 10/10
3. Correct overgeneralization – hard to judge, but I’ll say: 7/10
4. Blank canvas thinking: I’m an artist at heart: 8/10
5. Schumpeterianism: this is where I fall down: 1/10? I’m too chicken to “creatively destroy” things. I instinctively lean toward consensus-driven models of work, which, as anyone who’s tried to be a Quaker knows, is nigh impossible. I’m not clear on the theoretical relationship between a consensus model of organizational change and Schumpeter’s concepts (they’re slightly different semantic domains, clearly), but my intuition is that they’re in conflict.
So under this discourse frame, do I have a chance of getting stuff done? I’d say not excellent, but something, anyway.
Something to think about. (Picture at right: Schumpeter.)
What I’m listening to right now.
Fitz and The Tantrums, “Out of My League.”
[daily log: walking, 6 km.]
Caveat: 3 Miles From Damascus
I played a game called Where’s Damascus?
It’s a really short game. You find on a map where Damascus is – I guess this is relevant given the US might start bombing there sometime.
I got within 3 miles, from a satellite map with no borders. I feel very… geographical. Here is my result screen – I trimmed the screenshot so you can’t see Damascus – I wouldn’t want it to be too easy.
On my way to Damascus, I experienced no epiphany.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]
Caveat: Terrorists Everywhere!
I guess the South Korean government, feeling jealous of all the fabulous anti-terror work being done in the US (see comic, below – it was sarcasm, OK?), decided they could play that game, too.
The South Korean government arrested some left-leaning parliamentarians from the UPP (members of the national legislature, i.e. Korean congresspeople!) on charges of plotting to destroy infrastructure and collaborate with North Korea. This is way too reminiscent of the current president’s father’s dictatorial behaviors in the 1960’s and 70’s. Sigh.
Here is an interesting editorial on the subject.
Thanks to my friend Peter for pointing this out to me. I had a good visit with him yesterday, when he came out.
Here’s a comic I ran across, unrelatedly, but that seemed oddly relevant in its USA-centric way.
Caveat: 폭력을 당해서 이 회사를 떠나고 싶습니다
I have been intending to write this blog entry longer than any other unwritten blog entry.
The story behind it is that maybe 4 years ago, I ran across a book in a bookstore entitled Quick and Easy Korean for Migrant Workers. Of course, my interest in immigration policy combined with my interest in the Korean language made the book a guaranteed “win.”
I was prompted to write this entry now, after so many years of having it just beyond my consciousness in the back of my mind, because I’d pulled the book off my shelf to show to my brother Andrew, who is visiting.
After spending some time with the book, I discovered some really revelatory and interesting phrases. Of all of the worst of these phrases, however, this phrase, from page 82 (image below right), takes the cake. I remember very hard and yet bittersweet laughter because of reading this 4 years ago.
폭력을 당해서
pok-ryeok-eul dang-hae-seo
violence-OBJ experience-CAUSE
이 회사를 떠나고 싶습니다
i hoe-sa-reul tteo-na-go sip-seup-ni-da
this company-OBJ leave-CONN want-FORMAL
I want to leave this company because I have experienced violence.
I rather like the poetic version given by the googletranslate, too (although like most of googletranslate’s oeuvre, it is incoherent): “Five people I’d like to leave the company of violence.”
Or as the book translates it: I want to leave this company because I was beaten.
This is a sorry commentary on the state of migrant labor in Korea. Foreigners working in the hagwon and EFL biz don’t really realize that we are truly elites, no matter how badly we are treated.
Caveat: Life is nothing and that is sublime
One unexpected but happy outcome of my recent announcement on this blog (and hence in facebookland, too) that I have been diagnosed with cancer, is the outpouring messages and notes from distant friends, relatives, and acquaintances. I'm utterly grateful for all of that.
It really makes a difference in my ability to keep a positive outlook on this experience – please don't stop no matter what! Thank you – I love you all so much.
Among these messages, however, there have been some examples of what I can only term "religious outreach and sharing." I don't mean people who are saying they are praying for me – this is nigh universal, and completely unproblematic from my perspective. I mean people who take the opportunity to share something of their beliefs, or experiences with Jesus, etc., and who inquire as to my own religious standing.
Viewed charitably, people are offering me solace with displays of where, in their own lives, they have found their own meaning and solace. Taking a less charitable view, they're seeking to exploit me in a moment of weakness and hoping to gain a "deathbed" convert.
For the record, my faith is quite strong.
I realize these solicitations are meant in all kindness, but I don't take them as kindness. Efforts to convert me – even in the best of times – will, if anything, turn me against the belief system being advocated.
Perhaps it is the case that aggressive evangelism is in some ways admirable. Certainly it is worth noting the level of commitment and strength of faith that it requires, and the depth of human character that it draws upon. I deeply respect if not downright envy people of strong faith of all kinds. Nevertheless, that kind of "vested outreach" ("caring, but with a dogmatic agenda") strikes me as disrespectful to the intellectual autonomy of others.
Try to consider it from my point of view: "So sorry to hear your news about your being sick, but, by the way, what you believe is completely wrong. I sure hope that you can fix up your deficient belief system in the time remaining to you on this Earth, or… you-know-what!"
Ah. Thank you so much for making me feel better.
I am an atheist. If that changes, over time, then so be it, but in this moment, my faith is unshaken, firm and unwavering.
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." – Thomas Paine
Paine was called a "a demihuman archbeast" in an American newspaper contemporary to him. That being the case, how can we say that the voices in the current media are so alarming?
To digress further, briefly, for no reason, in a different vein: I once owned a horse that I named "Thomas Paine." I thought it a fitting name, as the horse seemed strongly anti-authoritarian and freethinking in character. I probably thought of the name because I was carrying around a slim copy of Paine's Age of Unreason at the time, which was the period of my disillusion with my previous "Quaker" identity. Thomas Paine was the only horse I ever owned. I didn't own him for long. When my several-months-long horseback oddessy in the mountains of Michoacan ended unpleasantly in the Spring of 1987, I gifted Thomas Paine to my friend Jon, who sold the horse later.
Thus when I think of Thomas Paine, and so too of religion and anti-religion and freethought, those meditations enchain to visceral memories of sitting atop a spirited horse in the pine forests of the high country of southwestern Mexico, or of eating carnitas and fresh tortillas and inhaling wood-smoke and shaking scorpions out of my shoes in the early morning.
For me there is a literal, viscerally-felt smell to be evoked for that sense of freedom from the anxieties of dogmas.
I should return to the question at hand: some of my friends' and acquaintances' sudden evangelical zealousness.
I assert that I am a "faith-based" atheist.
Some people might protest that I have repeatedly represented myself as Buddhist in this blog, and… isn't that a religion too?
Well yes… but no. Buddhism is indeed a religon, for many.
For me, though, Buddhism is only a practice, nothing more. It requires me to believe absolutely nothing. When my Buddhist friends talk to me of karma, I choose to interpret it metaphorically, and when they speak of reincarnation I nod politely and try to smile. Most pointedly, though, no one has ever suggested to me that it is a requirement that I believe such nonsense. So I very much appreciate that there exists a group of people that for the most part not only steadfastly refuses to dogmatize their beliefs but is even willing to affirm that I can be "one of them" without having to make any changes or adjustments of any kind to my own beliefs.
I suppose that when I was an active Quaker, 25 years ago, it was similar. Christianity, though, has an undeniable and unavoidable dogmatic burden: it requires of each believer the unambivalent affirmation of God's personal and accessible existence to each of us. No church, therefore – not even the Quakers or the Unitarians – are really able to dispense with all the metaphysical hocus pocus. If you're going to hold the Bible to some standard of eternal truth or even the broadest symbolic sacredness, you're joined at the hip to an irrational worldview. I could never feel comfortable pretending about that. I disliked my own imagined hypocrisy too intensely when I was an openly atheist "Quaker," and I felt unwelcome among Unitarians, too, for the exact same reason. They welcome all views, but, caveat: "hey, don't you think you're being a little close-minded, being an atheist?"
My "faith-based atheism" is strange to many people. Probably, it is even utterly unfathomable. People may ask, "How is it possible to have such a strong belief in, um… nothing?" As if atheism was an affirmational belief in "nothing." It's not nihilism. From my perspective, God is only one thing. So… Everything, minus one thing, is still almost everything. And that's what I believe in: I believe in everything that is in the world, everything that I can hear and feel and touch and see and taste and know and learn and achieve through my own rational mind.
In a way, I even derive some significant comfort from my atheism, in this difficult moment in my life. Where others, who have strong belief systems in benevolent or purposeful deities, would find their faith challenged or shaken by a revelation of their own possible imminent mortality, I am merely affirmed.
Of course life has no purpose, I can affirm in this moment, with a broad smile. And yet… what beauty there is in the world! What kindness other people can show! And how remarkable, then, that this happens for no reason whatsoever.
A miracle – utterly sublime.