“So what do you think my problem is?”
“You ever hear of the Cargo Cults?”
“I’ve heard the name, not much else, though.”
“Well, they break down like this. In World War II, both the US and the Japanese built air bases all through the Pacific. Suddenly both sides are flying in goods that the natives had never seen, oftentimes sharing it with the local guides and such. Only since it was a war, there weren’t any missionaries or anthropologists to explain what was going on to the natives. They could only watch, puzzle and take what cargo they were given.”
“Interesting enough.”
“Problem is, the war ended, and the cargo stopped coming. For the natives, this was all magic and these cults started springing up that imitated what they saw the Americans do to bring the cargo. They built faux runways, did military drills with mocked up or salvaged weapons, carved coconut headsets and worked wooden radios. They imitated the behaviors they saw, hoping to bring cargo from the gods, without knowing what any of the real meaning of the activity was.”
“Wow. That’s weird as hell, but why bring it up.”
“Because that’s you.”
“What?”
“That’s you with women, heck, it’s you with people in general. You’ve watched everyone interacting your whole life. You understand scraps, you imitate the little rituals. You’re funny, you pay complements, you wink and nod and smile and laugh at bad jokes… but there’s a disconnect there. That’s why it doesn’t work. That's why you say the wrong thing or just spin your wheels. You’re the cargo cult of human relationships.”
He didn’t respond. He just sat there, looking somewhat depressed and frustrated. Part of him was clearly searching for a response but the rest was trying.
“There is a bright side.”
“What?”
“Sometimes… when a plane got struck by lightning or got lost in the dark, the pilot would look out and see a runway complete with lights. It didn’t matter that the lights were just torches and the runway packed dirt. It was close enough. You see. Sometimes… just sometimes… the rituals worked. Sometimes the cargo came.”
Showing posts with label Deadly Sin: Pride. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deadly Sin: Pride. Show all posts
Monday, May 3, 2010
Thursday, December 24, 2009
A Liberating Foolishness on a Cold Winter's Day
I’ve never been much for Christmas. For reasons I won’t go into here, my mother’s side of the family didn’t celebrate. They had alternative fests. Much like pork, it was the sort of thing I never quite got a taste for. It isn’t that I dislike the holiday, it just wasn’t important. All Christmas really meant was spending time with friends and/or family, and sometimes, the giving and receiving of gifts. Any religious or traditional significance beyond those acts is more or less superfluous.
This Christmas, however, had a certain uniqueness thanks to the weather. Oklahoma rarely has white Christmases. The snow and ice tends to come more in January, and usually in the form of crippling sheets of ice and sleet rather than in the white, powdery snow children dream of playing in. This December 24th, however, the snow came down hard, laying down more than four inches in an evening, and trapping myself and my friend Russ Trippett inside what was, for another week or so, my house.
Earlier in the evening I’d driven the half-block to his house to see him, and we decided to go back to my house for dinner. I had leftover pizza, and there was fun to be had with good company. Coming back to my home, it had taken a herculean effort to move my car into the inclined driveway. In the end, it was stuck and barring a change in the weather or a concerted act of several physically capable individuals it would remain there indefinitely.
When it came time for Russ to leave, he called his folks to come get him. This was at about 10 in the evening, and we rationalized that the roads would be good enough for them to reach my house and drive back, so long as they didn’t attempt to navigate the inclined driveway that trapped my own car.
After about ten minutes, Russ’s iphone rang.
“I’m stuck.”
I could hear a bit of the conversation from across the room, through the tinny, muffled speaker of Russ’s cell phone. His father had gotten stuck in the snow. We had to mount a rescue.
A lack of typically snowy weather tends to equate a lack of snow-ready clothing. I threw on a long sleeved knit shirt, donned my coat, thick socks, my sneakers, an extra t-shirt wrapped around my neck like a scarf and a pair of work gloves to keep out the cold. I topped it all with my only winter hat; a bright orange toboggan with “hat of shame” knitted into it. A gift from my college days, it was a drunk hat, to be worn by the person in the dorm who was, at that time, the most inebriated.
Thus, Russ and I set out in the cold. The snow had stopped coming down, but the wind still blew. The white snow and the thick clouds reflected the city’s light into an unnatural twilight and our vision was no more obscured than it might be on a cloudy afternoon.
Anyone who has ever been a boy can tell you that there is an exhilaration that comes only from doing amazingly stupid things. In the false-twilight of the winter snow I felt it in my bones. I laughed with each step, relishing the crunch of the snow and the tingle of wet and cold. Yards and streets were blown over with an even coat of snow. One footstep would sink a few inches, another almost a foot. We came up a rough hill, and saw Russ’s father in his car, stuck on 29th street.
Russ’s father was trapped in a six inch drift of snow that made street, curb and yard all into one unbroken plane. The cold and the absurd situation conspired to bring out the best in me. I laughed as, digging with gloved handsm we cleared the snow away from the tires. Braced against the ground and the bumper we shoved the car until it moved backwards, only to find it trapped again. Back and forth we pushed and shoved the vehicle, sliding it slowly down the hill.
Partway through our adventure, Russ’s mother appeared. She had walked from their house with a bag of kitty litter to provide extra traction. Again we pushed, shifted, and pulled. The car rolled slowly downhill.
“Keep going, don’t stop.”
It stopped and was stuck again. More digging, more pushing. I fell down as the car pushed out of my hands and rolled backwards. As the car drove slowly backwards I waved my arms and jumped about as though I were directing planes on an aircraft carrier. The wind snapped my pseudo-scarf into my face, blinding me as I shouted muffled directions. The shirt was hard as cardboard, layered with ice crystals and flecks of snow.
Finally the car was far enough back it could turn around and return home. Russ’s mom handed me the kitty litter to help me move my car and, not knowing what else to do, I took it and started walking home.
As I walked home, I thought of old stories I read in school. Most notably, To Build a Fire. Overcoming an obstacle with raw force and wit brings to life a feeling of power and accomplishment. Awash in the adrenaline high of the physical exertion and the tingle of the now everpresent cold and wet I trudged back home. Our footprints were already gone, reduced to small ruts by the sweeping wind that carved steppes and valleys in miniature in the shadow of electric reindeer lights and argon street lamps.
If this weren’t a city, if I were in the wild I imagined, I wouldn’t have found my trail back to camp. I imagined myself the archetypical hero in one of those old stories. I imagined the mundane, essentially silly set of circumstances, into a romantic adventure, complete with a beautiful girl waiting in some far-off place, wondering if I’d ever get home. ‘If I fall down and succumb to the cold right here’ I thought to myself, ‘would I have time to send a call for help, or perhaps my goodbyes, in a text message?’ I wondered if that would be poetic enough, if it would make a good enough story. If you die doing something stupid you ought to at least leave everyone a good story.
Thankfully, this adventure was a small one, a simulation of a larger man-against-nature struggle. While capable of stirring a form of nostalgia in the ‘racial memory’, it wasn’t capable of threatening my life. I wasn’t going to fall down and die in the snow. I wasn’t going to get lost and seek shelter in a fallen tree or an abandoned suburban. I could see my house from there, my car barely pulled into the driveway. Still, I felt like a man, brave and powerful, as the failing light glanced off the snowflakes that happened to face me.
The whole world sparkled like a snapped piece of white quartz.
In retrospect, if we’d just walked to Russ’s house, the problem would have been solved and the whole affair concluded with hot chocolate. We had done something foolish and soaking wet, encrusted with snow and blind from my glasses fogging up, I felt alive.
This Christmas, however, had a certain uniqueness thanks to the weather. Oklahoma rarely has white Christmases. The snow and ice tends to come more in January, and usually in the form of crippling sheets of ice and sleet rather than in the white, powdery snow children dream of playing in. This December 24th, however, the snow came down hard, laying down more than four inches in an evening, and trapping myself and my friend Russ Trippett inside what was, for another week or so, my house.
Earlier in the evening I’d driven the half-block to his house to see him, and we decided to go back to my house for dinner. I had leftover pizza, and there was fun to be had with good company. Coming back to my home, it had taken a herculean effort to move my car into the inclined driveway. In the end, it was stuck and barring a change in the weather or a concerted act of several physically capable individuals it would remain there indefinitely.
When it came time for Russ to leave, he called his folks to come get him. This was at about 10 in the evening, and we rationalized that the roads would be good enough for them to reach my house and drive back, so long as they didn’t attempt to navigate the inclined driveway that trapped my own car.
After about ten minutes, Russ’s iphone rang.
“I’m stuck.”
I could hear a bit of the conversation from across the room, through the tinny, muffled speaker of Russ’s cell phone. His father had gotten stuck in the snow. We had to mount a rescue.
A lack of typically snowy weather tends to equate a lack of snow-ready clothing. I threw on a long sleeved knit shirt, donned my coat, thick socks, my sneakers, an extra t-shirt wrapped around my neck like a scarf and a pair of work gloves to keep out the cold. I topped it all with my only winter hat; a bright orange toboggan with “hat of shame” knitted into it. A gift from my college days, it was a drunk hat, to be worn by the person in the dorm who was, at that time, the most inebriated.
Thus, Russ and I set out in the cold. The snow had stopped coming down, but the wind still blew. The white snow and the thick clouds reflected the city’s light into an unnatural twilight and our vision was no more obscured than it might be on a cloudy afternoon.
Anyone who has ever been a boy can tell you that there is an exhilaration that comes only from doing amazingly stupid things. In the false-twilight of the winter snow I felt it in my bones. I laughed with each step, relishing the crunch of the snow and the tingle of wet and cold. Yards and streets were blown over with an even coat of snow. One footstep would sink a few inches, another almost a foot. We came up a rough hill, and saw Russ’s father in his car, stuck on 29th street.
Russ’s father was trapped in a six inch drift of snow that made street, curb and yard all into one unbroken plane. The cold and the absurd situation conspired to bring out the best in me. I laughed as, digging with gloved handsm we cleared the snow away from the tires. Braced against the ground and the bumper we shoved the car until it moved backwards, only to find it trapped again. Back and forth we pushed and shoved the vehicle, sliding it slowly down the hill.
Partway through our adventure, Russ’s mother appeared. She had walked from their house with a bag of kitty litter to provide extra traction. Again we pushed, shifted, and pulled. The car rolled slowly downhill.
“Keep going, don’t stop.”
It stopped and was stuck again. More digging, more pushing. I fell down as the car pushed out of my hands and rolled backwards. As the car drove slowly backwards I waved my arms and jumped about as though I were directing planes on an aircraft carrier. The wind snapped my pseudo-scarf into my face, blinding me as I shouted muffled directions. The shirt was hard as cardboard, layered with ice crystals and flecks of snow.
Finally the car was far enough back it could turn around and return home. Russ’s mom handed me the kitty litter to help me move my car and, not knowing what else to do, I took it and started walking home.
As I walked home, I thought of old stories I read in school. Most notably, To Build a Fire. Overcoming an obstacle with raw force and wit brings to life a feeling of power and accomplishment. Awash in the adrenaline high of the physical exertion and the tingle of the now everpresent cold and wet I trudged back home. Our footprints were already gone, reduced to small ruts by the sweeping wind that carved steppes and valleys in miniature in the shadow of electric reindeer lights and argon street lamps.
If this weren’t a city, if I were in the wild I imagined, I wouldn’t have found my trail back to camp. I imagined myself the archetypical hero in one of those old stories. I imagined the mundane, essentially silly set of circumstances, into a romantic adventure, complete with a beautiful girl waiting in some far-off place, wondering if I’d ever get home. ‘If I fall down and succumb to the cold right here’ I thought to myself, ‘would I have time to send a call for help, or perhaps my goodbyes, in a text message?’ I wondered if that would be poetic enough, if it would make a good enough story. If you die doing something stupid you ought to at least leave everyone a good story.
Thankfully, this adventure was a small one, a simulation of a larger man-against-nature struggle. While capable of stirring a form of nostalgia in the ‘racial memory’, it wasn’t capable of threatening my life. I wasn’t going to fall down and die in the snow. I wasn’t going to get lost and seek shelter in a fallen tree or an abandoned suburban. I could see my house from there, my car barely pulled into the driveway. Still, I felt like a man, brave and powerful, as the failing light glanced off the snowflakes that happened to face me.
The whole world sparkled like a snapped piece of white quartz.
In retrospect, if we’d just walked to Russ’s house, the problem would have been solved and the whole affair concluded with hot chocolate. We had done something foolish and soaking wet, encrusted with snow and blind from my glasses fogging up, I felt alive.
Friday, December 11, 2009
The Video is Complete! Behold FROGSTAR!
We finished it.
Our first music video, for the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets' music video contest. I've got a good feeling about our chances. At long last you can see what we've been slaving over, and see me as the terror from space.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Everything is Different
To those who want to know how Trentmas went, don't worry, I'm going to be reconstructing a full account shortly. I have other more pressing concepts pressing on my brain in the meantime. Foremost of these is this:
Everything is different.
Normally, Trentmas is a much needed break. For a few scant days I'm kind of a big deal, and then I go back to being just some guy on a phone. The process leaves me refreshed and ready to weather the storm until my next Botcon. I dream about it. I long for it in my metaphorical heart. The friends, the events, the sense of freedom and joy... they all mix together with the sense of unbridled discovery of an unknown place.
This year, however, Botcon/Trentmas isn't a much needed break. It is a sea change.
There has always been this lingering, nagging voice in my head. This voice would say that every place, every life, would be roughly the same, and as such weathering my current existence was the best I could hope for.
But I've seen, first hand, that there are better things. My humid pit of misery and failure is a unique prison, and there are things beyond it, greater in scope and magnitude, that I have but to reach out and grasp. My soul-crushing job is a fetid, meaningless lie that is beneath me. And in this realization, the shackles begin to crack, and my ascendancy begins.
As such, I reintroduce myself to everyone here.
Hi, I'm Trent, maybe you've heard of me. I'm kind of a big deal.
Everything is different.
Normally, Trentmas is a much needed break. For a few scant days I'm kind of a big deal, and then I go back to being just some guy on a phone. The process leaves me refreshed and ready to weather the storm until my next Botcon. I dream about it. I long for it in my metaphorical heart. The friends, the events, the sense of freedom and joy... they all mix together with the sense of unbridled discovery of an unknown place.
This year, however, Botcon/Trentmas isn't a much needed break. It is a sea change.
There has always been this lingering, nagging voice in my head. This voice would say that every place, every life, would be roughly the same, and as such weathering my current existence was the best I could hope for.
But I've seen, first hand, that there are better things. My humid pit of misery and failure is a unique prison, and there are things beyond it, greater in scope and magnitude, that I have but to reach out and grasp. My soul-crushing job is a fetid, meaningless lie that is beneath me. And in this realization, the shackles begin to crack, and my ascendancy begins.
As such, I reintroduce myself to everyone here.
Hi, I'm Trent, maybe you've heard of me. I'm kind of a big deal.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
And with that out of the way.
Now that I've given the Republicans the Nelson Muntz laugh, I'd like to be serious for a moment.
I'm not certain where we're going from here. Politicians on the national stage don't like to talk about pride in their country as being conditional, but I'm not bound by that limitation. Pride is like forgiveness. If given out universally, without regard to to circumstance or reality, it has no meaning and it loses its value.
I haven't been proud of my country for the past eight years. Horrible things have been done in our names by worse people and the populace has stood idly by as the very foundations of our Democracy have been eroded. The United States has embraced fear. It has embraced mindless faith. It has embraced anti-intellectual thuggery. It has embraced torture, preemptive war, internal espionage, loyalty oaths and countless other terrors. And along those lines it has embraced the most shallow and subservient form of patriotism.
It is this patriotism that demands we 'support the troops' by not questioning their orders. It is this patriotism that says that the US is the Greatest Country On Earth(TM) regardless of its many failings. And it is this patriotism that finally failed.
I don't know what the future holds, but I know this: For the first time in a long time I am proud of my country because for the first time in a long time my country has done something to be proud of.
There is going to be a long road ahead. We have to rebuild and repair the damage done. There are criminals who need to be captured and punished and I hope that there is a will do so. President Elect Obama is not a perfect man or a perfect candidate but he strikes me as the right man for this time. It is cliche to evoke Kennedy here but I can't help but do so, perhaps in the vain hope that my generation will mean something the way the youth of that age did. If I even qualify as youth anymore.
True patriotism is bittersweet because for all of the swell of pride, it doesn't allow you to succumb to the easy high of tribalism and exclusion. There is responsibility there and the knowledge that maintaining this pride is not an easy path. I know now, however, that there will be millions on that same path with me.
-Trent
I'm not certain where we're going from here. Politicians on the national stage don't like to talk about pride in their country as being conditional, but I'm not bound by that limitation. Pride is like forgiveness. If given out universally, without regard to to circumstance or reality, it has no meaning and it loses its value.
I haven't been proud of my country for the past eight years. Horrible things have been done in our names by worse people and the populace has stood idly by as the very foundations of our Democracy have been eroded. The United States has embraced fear. It has embraced mindless faith. It has embraced anti-intellectual thuggery. It has embraced torture, preemptive war, internal espionage, loyalty oaths and countless other terrors. And along those lines it has embraced the most shallow and subservient form of patriotism.
It is this patriotism that demands we 'support the troops' by not questioning their orders. It is this patriotism that says that the US is the Greatest Country On Earth(TM) regardless of its many failings. And it is this patriotism that finally failed.
I don't know what the future holds, but I know this: For the first time in a long time I am proud of my country because for the first time in a long time my country has done something to be proud of.
There is going to be a long road ahead. We have to rebuild and repair the damage done. There are criminals who need to be captured and punished and I hope that there is a will do so. President Elect Obama is not a perfect man or a perfect candidate but he strikes me as the right man for this time. It is cliche to evoke Kennedy here but I can't help but do so, perhaps in the vain hope that my generation will mean something the way the youth of that age did. If I even qualify as youth anymore.
True patriotism is bittersweet because for all of the swell of pride, it doesn't allow you to succumb to the easy high of tribalism and exclusion. There is responsibility there and the knowledge that maintaining this pride is not an easy path. I know now, however, that there will be millions on that same path with me.
-Trent
Friday, October 31, 2008
The Merits of the 10, er... 3 Commandments
Recently, in the midst of a theological debate, a friend of mine asked me the following question:
"Trent, tell me honestly, do you think the world would be a better or worse place if everyone followed the Ten Commandments."
Now, I thought about this for a bit. I didn't want to answer one way just to be contrary, but I find that my knee-jerk reaction and my pondered reaction were similar. My answer was "worse."
I feel, however, that this requires explanation. The common man is accustomed to think of the 10 Commandments as some sort of codex of essential morality, a sort of fundamental quanta of humanness that proves that its authors were, if not divine, at least nigh-infinitely wise. Never mind that the commandments are just a portion of the law laid down in the old Testament and that, if the Leviticus apologists (who are thick as flies and twice as irritating) are right, would be just as essentially eliminated by a wave of Jesus hand along with the rest of the old law. The people on the submissive end of the victim/victimizer religious dichotomy seem to think that the Ten Commandments are all you'd need to live well, and, to be honest, I find this is not the case.
So let us dissect the 10 Commandments as ethical laws, divorced of the idea of a supernatural lawgiver to give them extra weight. Of course if Yahweh was real we'd want to follow these rules (or at least we should invest in iron chariots, Judges 1:19) but that isn't ethics, that's fear of an omnipotent dictator.
Commandment the First: Do not have any other gods before me.
Inherently meaningless without a 'me' to serve as the God. Also, religious pluralism is ultimately ethically harmless. The only advantage of universal monotheism is an unopposed Priest Caste and, arguably, a bit more societal homogeny. This gives us some wiggle room in regard to the value of cultural diversity but ultimately, this is irrelevant authoritarianism by the Great and Powerful Oz and, in my option, would simply make the world worse off.
Commandment the Second: You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Often summarized as the 'no graven images' clause, this is again, just religious powerbroking. On one end, yes, it would free up a lot of resources and man-hours currently spent churning out Mary Merch, Plastic Jesuses and Smiling Portraits of Saint Reagan of the Republican party. And if universally applied, then anything that reduces religiosity would be considered a good rule of thumb, but just as you can't legislate morality you can't legislate rationality. This fails as well, stop trying to sabotage the competition and show me some product, Jahova!
Commandment the Third: You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
I'm sorry, but at no point has "all must love and speak respectfully of the leader" been a positive social rule. Controlling speech and expression, sweet batter-fried baby Jesus on a spit, that's definitely going to make things worse. What's next? Thought crime?
Commandment the Forth: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
We're four in, and not a single one that controls anything except the means by which one must prostate themselves before supernatural authority and, by extension, its earthly representatives.
Commandment the Fifth: Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Ok, now we're to something resembling ethics. "Be nice to mom and dad". It only took us halfway to the list to hit something of social significance and yet its still pro-authoritarian jackbootery. I love my mother and my father. But they screwed up a lot, and they weren't even that bad as parents go. Should all people honor their parents, no matter how irresponsible, abusive, idiotic, neglectful or criminal they happen to be? Authority that isn't earned isn't ethical, its an open door to abuse and irrational control. So I toss #5 on the chopping block and head into the 'meat' of the commandments.
Commandment the Sixth: You shall not murder.
Sometimes rendered "Thou shalt not kill." Finally, an ethical rule, and one that is nigh-universal in societies the world over. This one gets the thumbs up, and would get a bigger thumbs up if it weren't for the fact that it specifies murder. "Thou shalt not Kill" is a bad translation, since there are plenty of acceptable means of dealing death according to the Bible, they're just not considered murder.
Commandment the Seventh: You shall not commit adultery.
Adultery is a betrayal of one's wife or husband or hufe or wisband or whatnot. Presuming, of course, that's the agreement. I'd say that betraying one's spouse by cheating is bad. It hurts feelings, causes conflicts and can cause issues with children and (other) STDs. But not everyone is in a monogamous relationship. I don't do the 'open relationship' thing personally, but some folks do. And if that's the agreement both spouses aspire to, then considering what they do criminal, not just a bad idea, but criminal, is silly and authoritarian. Can't support it without a lot more clauses, and this is one of the short ones, in both Exodus and Deuteronomy.
Commandment the Eighth: You shall not steal.
The theft of property is all but universally considered a bad idea in terms of societal norms. Gotta agree with that. For those keeping track, that's two.
Commandment the Ninth: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Well, this is often simplified, rather stupidly, to "Thou shalt not Lie". Actually, its an admonition against perjury, or, at the most expansive, lying about one of your own. For the sake of being generous, we'll ignore the 'your neighbor' clauses and assume that everyone, not just the persons in your own particular tribe of G-d fearing shepherds is to be given the benefit of these rules. Defaming others and lying in court are harmful, we have our third rule that yes, would probably make things better if universally applied, provided, of course, the subtle push for tribalism is ignored.
Commandment the Tenth: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Well, I was wrong. Thought Crime wasn't next, it was just coming. Wanting things other people have is a crime. Fantastic.
This sounds like a good idea on the surface. If you don't desire other people's things (insultingly enough wives and slaves are considered things one can own), then you're not going to be tempted to take them by force or trickery. This is often seen as the linchpin of the whole ethos. Don't want, and you won't be tempted to bad action to get. Too bad there are several flaws here. There are so many flaws, in fact, that this, the most unassuming of commandments, requires the largest rebuttal.
Firstly, this rule is impossible to follow. Desire is not something one controls, it happens, and a reasonable approach to modern psychology indicates that this isn't because we're morally corrupt or we're all evil misers waiting to happen. It is because we're wired that way. We want things that will give us advantage. Its our choice what we do with those impulses. This is, in essence, thought crime, and I can't support it solely on that level. Moreover, its presence is used, more often than the monstrous concept of 'original sin' (inherited criminality, would we tolerate that, even for a second, from a mortal authority? Or, more accurately, a mortal authority that doesn't claim to be speaking on the behalf of an immortal authority?) to ensure that everyone is guilty of something all the time. One cannot prove oneself innocent of thought crime, and thus the Church-Complex has something on you all the time. They need only have the will to act on your invisible and intangible wickedness.
But this exercise, which is the idea of everyone, universally, following these rules, actually allows for this prohibition to work, no matter how ridiculous it is in reality. To explain why, even in this scenario, the 10th Commandment is a hideous thing requires a little setup.
There's a lot of talk of why the Soviet Union failed. The most plausible reason, on a fundamental (and probably over-simplified level), that I have heard, however, is that it failed because of a crisis of motivation. With everything under state control, and everyone equal (except for the more-equal party leaders), there was no competition. No reason to stand out and do better than others because the rewards are all equal.
The story goes that a Russian Diplomat was amazed when his lodgings in the US had to be repainted. The painters did the whole place in a day. He marveled that the painters were so quick, since in Russia it would have taken a week or more. He was then informed that, since the painters were paid by the job, they had good reason to get to the next one. Their quality was due to the need to ensure that if their services were ever needed again, they'd be called back. This is the so-called 'enlightened self interest' that the MegaCapitalists like to shout about while they fight over the opportunity to sniff Ayn Rand's panties. Allowed to flourish unchecked, it is just as bad as the extreme in the opposite direction, but as a fundamental human motivation, self-interest and localized group interest (my friends, my spouse, my children, my family, my tribe) cannot be denied except by the most dewy-eyed Pollyanna.
The 10th Commandment takes the Communist system up a notch. It doesn't eliminate rewards and thus undermine the desire to achieve. It instead goes straight to the root of the problem and rips out the very desire to have nice things. What this Commandment dictates is not a sense of security with one's own possessions and position, but a lobotomized lack of desire for anything better. Enacted to its fullest, this Commandment, more than any other, would grind human progress to a halt. Thus, it can't be considered a good or positive thing in my eyes.
If I see my neighbor's car, and its a very nice one, I will want something like it. This doesn't mean I'm going to steal his car. Even without legal ramifications I wouldn't do that, as my ethics are derived from empathy. But wanting that car would, however, make me do what I could, legally, to buy one of my own. Or perhaps a better one, or even a less nice one that is more suited to my needs. This applies to all material goods: houses, livestock and other belongings all in sum total.
I don't count wives or slaves, because ownership of human chattel in any form is fiendish. Once a being reaches a certain point of mental development (I may address this point in a future essay on what it is to be human in regard to abortion rights and transhumanist definitions) a person owns oneself, according to my moral estimation. One needs only the most basic shreds of empathy to come to that sort of conclusion. That said, anyone with the Internet, eyes and at least one functional limb has likely coveted more than a few wives.
Conclusions
What I find most telling is what isn't in the Ten Commandments. Where is "Thou Shaft Not Rape?", "Thou Shaft not Vandalize" or "Thou Shaft Respect Thin Neighbor's Privacy"? Nearly half of the Commandments exist purely to put the Almighty Alcoholic in the tops position with his Codepedendant Mortal spouses. From there we have three universally good ideas (one with qualifications that makes it far less ethically useful) and three ideas that sound sort good on the surface until you really start thinking about them.
The world might yet be a nicer place if everyone followed the Three Commandments (No murder, no stealing and no perjury), but those aren't unique ideas by a long shot.
"Trent, tell me honestly, do you think the world would be a better or worse place if everyone followed the Ten Commandments."
Now, I thought about this for a bit. I didn't want to answer one way just to be contrary, but I find that my knee-jerk reaction and my pondered reaction were similar. My answer was "worse."
I feel, however, that this requires explanation. The common man is accustomed to think of the 10 Commandments as some sort of codex of essential morality, a sort of fundamental quanta of humanness that proves that its authors were, if not divine, at least nigh-infinitely wise. Never mind that the commandments are just a portion of the law laid down in the old Testament and that, if the Leviticus apologists (who are thick as flies and twice as irritating) are right, would be just as essentially eliminated by a wave of Jesus hand along with the rest of the old law. The people on the submissive end of the victim/victimizer religious dichotomy seem to think that the Ten Commandments are all you'd need to live well, and, to be honest, I find this is not the case.
So let us dissect the 10 Commandments as ethical laws, divorced of the idea of a supernatural lawgiver to give them extra weight. Of course if Yahweh was real we'd want to follow these rules (or at least we should invest in iron chariots, Judges 1:19) but that isn't ethics, that's fear of an omnipotent dictator.
Commandment the First: Do not have any other gods before me.
Inherently meaningless without a 'me' to serve as the God. Also, religious pluralism is ultimately ethically harmless. The only advantage of universal monotheism is an unopposed Priest Caste and, arguably, a bit more societal homogeny. This gives us some wiggle room in regard to the value of cultural diversity but ultimately, this is irrelevant authoritarianism by the Great and Powerful Oz and, in my option, would simply make the world worse off.
Commandment the Second: You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Often summarized as the 'no graven images' clause, this is again, just religious powerbroking. On one end, yes, it would free up a lot of resources and man-hours currently spent churning out Mary Merch, Plastic Jesuses and Smiling Portraits of Saint Reagan of the Republican party. And if universally applied, then anything that reduces religiosity would be considered a good rule of thumb, but just as you can't legislate morality you can't legislate rationality. This fails as well, stop trying to sabotage the competition and show me some product, Jahova!
Commandment the Third: You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
I'm sorry, but at no point has "all must love and speak respectfully of the leader" been a positive social rule. Controlling speech and expression, sweet batter-fried baby Jesus on a spit, that's definitely going to make things worse. What's next? Thought crime?
Commandment the Forth: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
We're four in, and not a single one that controls anything except the means by which one must prostate themselves before supernatural authority and, by extension, its earthly representatives.
Commandment the Fifth: Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Ok, now we're to something resembling ethics. "Be nice to mom and dad". It only took us halfway to the list to hit something of social significance and yet its still pro-authoritarian jackbootery. I love my mother and my father. But they screwed up a lot, and they weren't even that bad as parents go. Should all people honor their parents, no matter how irresponsible, abusive, idiotic, neglectful or criminal they happen to be? Authority that isn't earned isn't ethical, its an open door to abuse and irrational control. So I toss #5 on the chopping block and head into the 'meat' of the commandments.
Commandment the Sixth: You shall not murder.
Sometimes rendered "Thou shalt not kill." Finally, an ethical rule, and one that is nigh-universal in societies the world over. This one gets the thumbs up, and would get a bigger thumbs up if it weren't for the fact that it specifies murder. "Thou shalt not Kill" is a bad translation, since there are plenty of acceptable means of dealing death according to the Bible, they're just not considered murder.
Commandment the Seventh: You shall not commit adultery.
Adultery is a betrayal of one's wife or husband or hufe or wisband or whatnot. Presuming, of course, that's the agreement. I'd say that betraying one's spouse by cheating is bad. It hurts feelings, causes conflicts and can cause issues with children and (other) STDs. But not everyone is in a monogamous relationship. I don't do the 'open relationship' thing personally, but some folks do. And if that's the agreement both spouses aspire to, then considering what they do criminal, not just a bad idea, but criminal, is silly and authoritarian. Can't support it without a lot more clauses, and this is one of the short ones, in both Exodus and Deuteronomy.
Commandment the Eighth: You shall not steal.
The theft of property is all but universally considered a bad idea in terms of societal norms. Gotta agree with that. For those keeping track, that's two.
Commandment the Ninth: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Well, this is often simplified, rather stupidly, to "Thou shalt not Lie". Actually, its an admonition against perjury, or, at the most expansive, lying about one of your own. For the sake of being generous, we'll ignore the 'your neighbor' clauses and assume that everyone, not just the persons in your own particular tribe of G-d fearing shepherds is to be given the benefit of these rules. Defaming others and lying in court are harmful, we have our third rule that yes, would probably make things better if universally applied, provided, of course, the subtle push for tribalism is ignored.
Commandment the Tenth: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Well, I was wrong. Thought Crime wasn't next, it was just coming. Wanting things other people have is a crime. Fantastic.
This sounds like a good idea on the surface. If you don't desire other people's things (insultingly enough wives and slaves are considered things one can own), then you're not going to be tempted to take them by force or trickery. This is often seen as the linchpin of the whole ethos. Don't want, and you won't be tempted to bad action to get. Too bad there are several flaws here. There are so many flaws, in fact, that this, the most unassuming of commandments, requires the largest rebuttal.
Firstly, this rule is impossible to follow. Desire is not something one controls, it happens, and a reasonable approach to modern psychology indicates that this isn't because we're morally corrupt or we're all evil misers waiting to happen. It is because we're wired that way. We want things that will give us advantage. Its our choice what we do with those impulses. This is, in essence, thought crime, and I can't support it solely on that level. Moreover, its presence is used, more often than the monstrous concept of 'original sin' (inherited criminality, would we tolerate that, even for a second, from a mortal authority? Or, more accurately, a mortal authority that doesn't claim to be speaking on the behalf of an immortal authority?) to ensure that everyone is guilty of something all the time. One cannot prove oneself innocent of thought crime, and thus the Church-Complex has something on you all the time. They need only have the will to act on your invisible and intangible wickedness.
But this exercise, which is the idea of everyone, universally, following these rules, actually allows for this prohibition to work, no matter how ridiculous it is in reality. To explain why, even in this scenario, the 10th Commandment is a hideous thing requires a little setup.
There's a lot of talk of why the Soviet Union failed. The most plausible reason, on a fundamental (and probably over-simplified level), that I have heard, however, is that it failed because of a crisis of motivation. With everything under state control, and everyone equal (except for the more-equal party leaders), there was no competition. No reason to stand out and do better than others because the rewards are all equal.
The story goes that a Russian Diplomat was amazed when his lodgings in the US had to be repainted. The painters did the whole place in a day. He marveled that the painters were so quick, since in Russia it would have taken a week or more. He was then informed that, since the painters were paid by the job, they had good reason to get to the next one. Their quality was due to the need to ensure that if their services were ever needed again, they'd be called back. This is the so-called 'enlightened self interest' that the MegaCapitalists like to shout about while they fight over the opportunity to sniff Ayn Rand's panties. Allowed to flourish unchecked, it is just as bad as the extreme in the opposite direction, but as a fundamental human motivation, self-interest and localized group interest (my friends, my spouse, my children, my family, my tribe) cannot be denied except by the most dewy-eyed Pollyanna.
The 10th Commandment takes the Communist system up a notch. It doesn't eliminate rewards and thus undermine the desire to achieve. It instead goes straight to the root of the problem and rips out the very desire to have nice things. What this Commandment dictates is not a sense of security with one's own possessions and position, but a lobotomized lack of desire for anything better. Enacted to its fullest, this Commandment, more than any other, would grind human progress to a halt. Thus, it can't be considered a good or positive thing in my eyes.
If I see my neighbor's car, and its a very nice one, I will want something like it. This doesn't mean I'm going to steal his car. Even without legal ramifications I wouldn't do that, as my ethics are derived from empathy. But wanting that car would, however, make me do what I could, legally, to buy one of my own. Or perhaps a better one, or even a less nice one that is more suited to my needs. This applies to all material goods: houses, livestock and other belongings all in sum total.
I don't count wives or slaves, because ownership of human chattel in any form is fiendish. Once a being reaches a certain point of mental development (I may address this point in a future essay on what it is to be human in regard to abortion rights and transhumanist definitions) a person owns oneself, according to my moral estimation. One needs only the most basic shreds of empathy to come to that sort of conclusion. That said, anyone with the Internet, eyes and at least one functional limb has likely coveted more than a few wives.
Conclusions
What I find most telling is what isn't in the Ten Commandments. Where is "Thou Shaft Not Rape?", "Thou Shaft not Vandalize" or "Thou Shaft Respect Thin Neighbor's Privacy"? Nearly half of the Commandments exist purely to put the Almighty Alcoholic in the tops position with his Codepedendant Mortal spouses. From there we have three universally good ideas (one with qualifications that makes it far less ethically useful) and three ideas that sound sort good on the surface until you really start thinking about them.
The world might yet be a nicer place if everyone followed the Three Commandments (No murder, no stealing and no perjury), but those aren't unique ideas by a long shot.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Weight Loss Update - Pride Trounces Gluttony and Sloth
I'm a chunky dude.
I've been working on it, though. Since November I've lost between 45 and 60 lbs, but since my scale wasn't able to measure above 300, I have no idea where I started. My only scale was one at the gym at work, which is the old style sliding-weight design that I can never get an accurate bead on.
Well, I have a new digital scale. Huzzah. And because you may or may not be reading this, my ongoing self improvement is now your business.
Last week, I took my first Friday measurement: 318.2 lbs. More than I had thought (the scale at work had finally put me under 300, good gravy, where did I start at?) but still, a definate improvement.
As of Friday, 7/4/08 - 315.2 pounds. Three pounds lost in seven days. Not bad and well worth sacrificing my precious gummies. Oh gummies, how I miss you. Everything else that's bad for ya? Bah! screw it!
This has also come with a vast improvement in my general physical health. I've got more energy, more endurance, and my upper body strength (which I've been working on for reasons of proportion. My legs? Frikkin' tree trunks. My arms? Noodly.) has, if one takes into account what one does on a bench press machine, doubled since November.
It all goes to show you. If you pit your deadly sins against one another, you can come out ahead. Pride proved to be a major motivating force, being out Gluttony and Sloth.
-Trent
I've been working on it, though. Since November I've lost between 45 and 60 lbs, but since my scale wasn't able to measure above 300, I have no idea where I started. My only scale was one at the gym at work, which is the old style sliding-weight design that I can never get an accurate bead on.
Well, I have a new digital scale. Huzzah. And because you may or may not be reading this, my ongoing self improvement is now your business.
Last week, I took my first Friday measurement: 318.2 lbs. More than I had thought (the scale at work had finally put me under 300, good gravy, where did I start at?) but still, a definate improvement.
As of Friday, 7/4/08 - 315.2 pounds. Three pounds lost in seven days. Not bad and well worth sacrificing my precious gummies. Oh gummies, how I miss you. Everything else that's bad for ya? Bah! screw it!
This has also come with a vast improvement in my general physical health. I've got more energy, more endurance, and my upper body strength (which I've been working on for reasons of proportion. My legs? Frikkin' tree trunks. My arms? Noodly.) has, if one takes into account what one does on a bench press machine, doubled since November.
It all goes to show you. If you pit your deadly sins against one another, you can come out ahead. Pride proved to be a major motivating force, being out Gluttony and Sloth.
-Trent
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