Is Understanding the Lack of American Success at Roland Garros the Key to Solving Our Cultural Apathy?

Couldn't resist commenting on this article I just saw on the front page of ESPN.com . The attention getting question went like this

The French Open starts Sunday and yet, for fans of U.S. players, it almost seems as if the tournament is over before it begins. Why is it Americans no longer are willing to get their hands dirty?

Ummm...I think it would help to maybe acknowledge that this affliction is not limited to American tennis players. (Of course, it was ESPN..but still...) This is just another instance of our societal sickness. Let's look at the war in Iraq. (What a seamless transition!) First of all, we were sheltered by our government and told to go on living in the manner we had become accustomed: consume, consume, consume. Now it's debatable whether or not the war in Iraq is capable of being won using a military strategy, but it is less debatable that the public support waned as soon as it got the least bit costly. Interestingly, the same people who criticized George H.W. Bush for allowing Saddam to stay in power following his retreat from Kuwait, now criticize George W. Bush for agreeing with their position. What changed? Say what you will about lack of WMD's, impossibility of democracy, or poor planning and execution, but removing Saddam still achieved the humanitarian victory which was called for by those who currently criticize the war. People are dying now, but the hope is that, in retrospect, their lives will have been lost in the natural birthing pains of democracy. My goal is not to support or lampoon the war. I happen to think the war was probably doomed from the start, at least with respect to the publicly articulated goals, but it was a sticky situation: diplomacy and deterrence had wrought the Taliban, Saddam's Iraq, and 9/11. My point is to show that there is no consistency of principles among those who scream the loudest, the standard by which we usually have discourse. If there is one consistency, it is in people's tendency to waver and choose the most convenienent path that asks the least of them. Another interesting situation is in Darfur. Many of the same people who supported the overthrow of Saddam in 1991 wish for the United States to enter Darfur and end the genocide. How long would their support last once 5000 Americans died? Any action in Darfur would almost have to be through the UN and that requires Chinese support which is unlikely since they depend on Sudan for oil and oppose interventionist policies .

We are the kind of people that memorize without learning, act without thinking, and live without a self-defined purpose. We don't want anything to break the threshold of our pampered existence. We take the easy over the hard, the superficial over the deep, and relax on our couch enjoying the latest American Idol finale. In the words of Chuck Klosterman, we are killing ourselves to live. In a way, it doesn't matter if the terrorists follow us home or not. We're dead either way.

I feel like quoting Nietzsche from "Thus Spake Zarathustra"

Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the works of the inventors and the treasures of the wise. Culture, they call their theft - and everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them!


Just see these superfluous ones! Sick are they always; they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour one another, and cannot even digest themselves.


Just see these superfluous ones! Wealth they acquire and become poorer thereby. Power they seek for, and above all, the lever of power, much money - these impotent ones!


See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one another, and thus scuffle into the mud and the abyss.

A Radiohead Influenced Philosophical Excursion (Not an Uncommon Event)

Thom Yorke keeps insisting to me that "just 'cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there", but I can't get it through my thick fucking skull into my brain. (linky link to live version of There There)

This is the exact problem of the human condition: emotions, unregulated by reason, masquerade as truth. We think because we experience a particular feeling that it necessarily exists out in the world, outside of our mind; but this is often not the case. There are plenty of ways this could occur, but for the average human being the main environment is interpersonal relationships. This is a place full of fog and cliffs in every direction. I feel like I'm wrong nearly all the time. Every time I fall it is completely shocking, it's like I act with no body of previous experience to reflect on. That's alright, I think. Yeah, life is easier when we base the future on the past, but it seems this ease is also problematic.

To use Hume's example, I am not suggesting that one should doubt the sun will rise tomorrow in the face of all empirical knowledge. The assumption that the sun will rise again every morning permeats our existence. How would we live our lives if we doubted tomorrow's existence? For me, that is right up there with Nietzche's Eternal Recurrence of the Same (we should live our life as if we would be repeating the same exact life course for eternity) and Sartre's thought that the ethical life can be found by the individual in the question of universalization (What would be the effect of everyone acting as I act?) I guess a criticism of my question might be that it borders on the cliched "live today, like you're gonna die tomorrow." I think this is a fair point, however, it doesn't detract from the power of my statement in view of human being's lack of urgency. We are here for a limited amount of time and are blessed by nature with the ability to be aware of it. Shouldn't that be a propulsion for people to live well? An 'ought' does not an 'is' or 'must' make. Ideally, this would be case but if we're honestly trying to give an accurate picture of human behavior, it is far too idealistic. It assumes that people have enough self-knowledge to know when they are bullshitting, rationalizing, entering the spin zone, whatever you want to call it. Inside our own minds the craziest shit can seem to be true, and the next day we can believe the exact opposite! It is not easy.

Should convenience ever be involved in major discussions? When choosing which Jewel to go to, this is a perfect standard. If both Jewels are equal in everything else of value, then it's a no brainer: pick the most convenient location. And that's fine. There is no reason to waste time here with meaningless analysis. If everything is equal, most people will choose the closer store. But what about in matters of interpersonal relations or substantial life decisions? Should we do whatever is easiest, ignoring voices imploring us to explore a more difficult course of change? The answer has nothing to do with these questions. We should do what we think is right without regard for ease or difficulty. How do we decide the right course? (Hint: There's no formula) And how is this related to where I started with misleading emotions?

Oh yeah. Emotion must obey Reason. See Aristotle's Ethics.

There seems to be also another irrational element in the soul -- one which in a sense, however, shares in a rational principle. For we praise the rational principle of the continent man and of the incontinent, and the part of their soul that has such a principle, since it urges them aright and towards the best objects; but there is found in them also another element naturally opposed to the rational principle, which fights against and resists that principle. For exactly as paralysed limbs when we intend to move them to the right turn on the contrary to the left, so is it with the soul; the impulses of incontinent people move in contrary directions. But while in the body we see that which moves astray, in the soul we do not. No doubt, however, we must none the less suppose that in the soul too there is something contrary to the rational principle, resisting and opposing it. In what sense it is distinct from the other elements does not concern us. Now even this seems to have a share in a rational principle, as we said; at any rate in the continent man it obeys the rational principle and presumably in the temperate and brave man it is still more obedient; for in him it speaks, on all matters, with the same voice as the rational principle.

Therefore the irrational element also appears to be two-fold. For the vegetative element in no way shares in a rational principle, but the appetitive and in general the desiring element in a sense shares in it, in so far as it listens to and obeys it; this is the sense in which we speak of 'taking account' of one's father or one's friends, not that in which we speak of 'accounting for a mathematical property. That the irrational element is in some sense persuaded by a rational principle is indicated also by the giving of advice and by all reproof and exhortation. And if this element also must be said to have a rational principle, that which has a rational principle (as well as that which has not) will be twofold, one subdivision having it in the strict sense and in itself, and the other having a tendency to obey as one does one's father.

The First Night

Last night, I was smoking a cigarette in the parking lot of my hotel, sitting on a partition. The next day held quite a bit of power but it was ambiguous: triumph or tragedy? I was unpacking the possibilities of various hypothetical scenarios when I looked straight out, over the edge of the wall, and became quite still with rapture. The moon was obviously in its crescent stage but it was out of focus; its color and form blurred chaotically with the squinting of my eyes. I sat there for half a minute with my mind motionless.

The shape in the sky appeared progressively brighter and closer. From my seat around the tires, this was certainly not the moon anymore. If not the moon, then what? Is this an asteroid science has somehow missed? Am I losing my fucking mind? Is it full blown dementia from here on out? I rushed forward to the railing. I needed resolution. What was this unidentified, amorphous object, floating in space, hurtling itself closer and closer to the moment when it would be the cause of my death?

I looked out above the now visible interstate and saw a dark mass of clouds floating quickly over my head, conforming my perception of the moon to its own will.

Hey, 'Just for Men', Find a Tailpipe and Suck...

(...to paraphrase the great Bill Hicks.)

Is "Just for Men" serious with this ad? Is there really a strong link between hair turning gray and being fired? Well, apparently they think so. I guess that's the way of the corporate world.

"Will people still see me as a valuable player? Is my career going down?:

This is a superb example of irrational marketing playing on the fears of the consumer. It can only exist in a superficial society like our own where emotions rule over reason. Men probably do equate graying hair with aging, loss of virility, or power, but this thought is not founded. There is no real link between gray hair and any of those possibilities. It just happens to have that social connotation. A correlation is not a cause. But the fact does remain that the thought exists within the minds of men, it's real to them. Maybe it is because emotion is allowed to reign over reason, or maybe there is some other cause, a natural insecurity. Either way, this ad capitalizes on that fear.

The underlying thought here is that man, at his essence, is a rational, emotional animal who must use the former to regulate the latter. They are both equally capable of expressing man's excellence, but emotion must obey reason for the simple fact that it provides some sort of filter on the world. Without reason, emotion rules without purpose. Reason provides direction to emotion. That's the basic thought I'm working from. So, man has this inherent battle. If we take it from birth, it would seem intuitively correct to say that the conflict would exist regardless of any environmental influence. Which way is it leaning at birth? I have no idea. That's probably a genetic issue. Ok. It doesn't really matter though if there are predispositions in either direction. It's either pretty even or skewed. How each of these capacities are nurtured determines the extent to which we move from potential to actual. It's the defining question of our existence. Not determined by some book but revealed simply by looking at the basic capabilities which separate us from the rest of nature. It's our consciousness reflecting on its own cause. I can't think of anything more natural.

Bringing this back to the Just for Men ad, is it in our best interest as a species to provide environmental influences which stack the deck against reason?

But Steve maybe it is true that people will judge your competency based on the color of your hair? In this case, wouldn't it be perfectly appropriate, and even ethical, to impart this message to consumers?

Nice try, and way to divert the conversation to ethics, but it doesn't matter if it is a true reflection of human behavior. All that matters is that the ad plays directly to the emotionally thinking consumer; there is no evidence, only rhetoric. It's not as if there is some strict rule banning gray hair. If this did exist, then the thought process resulting in the decision to use hair coloring would be reasonable and not driven by emotion since it would be grounded in the desired end of keeping one's job.

If there is such widespread discrimination against graying hair maybe we need a special interest group protecting the rights of men with gray, charcoal, and white hair. Better yet, and the facetious part is over, we need a special interest group protecting all of humanity. That would seem to defy the rules governing special interest groups, though. Namely, that the emphasis is on our unified capacity for reason, emotion, self-awareness, and community, but, not focused on the segmentation and splintering of society according to our beliefs or historical and genetic differences.

There is very little questioning today, aside from mostly partisan political discussion. Everything is just accepted as the best possible scenario. We are so goddamned content. We're Rip van Fucking Winkle. Ahhh..the joy of modernity. (Deep exhale of exasperation) I'm very underwhelmed by these "great" things man has done. Yes, I think technological advancement and recreational time are absolutely essential for a successful civilization, and we have some cool toys. And, of course there have been significant strides towards true freedom for every individual. It's this paradigm of Consumerism that has me worried. We love the meaningless.

I've been asking myself some variation of this question for the past few years: Isn't there more to human freedom than the ability to purchase? Or for that matter the disgusting attempts by individuals making others an instrument to their will. It makes me sick the way our freedom is squandered. We are complicit in our obsolescence, but our blame is small. By the time we are able to pick up the pen and start really directing our own lives, there are major blows to perception of the world like middle and high school. It's very difficult for well nurtured children to go through high school and not become affected by their infected classmates. Speaking from personal experience, my view of human nature was completely destroyed. Ruined my life. But you adjust (one of the two facts of life, along with death) with the aid of reason and move on, learning.

We need to maximize everything that promotes learning and minimize anything that injures it. There are enough obstacles as it is. Nature poses the same evolutionary question to us that the Greeks and Romans faced 2,000 years ago: Towards what end is our reason directed? The way we deal with our capacity for rationality determines the ultimate fate of our species. Can we agree on this? Can we at least talk about it a little?

This I Believe: On Writing

Language is communicated in two ways: through the vibrations of vocal cords, or speech, and the physical, written form of transferring ideas from abstract to concrete.

I write to better understand my world. I write to harness a vague emotion or thought process, and convert it into a more universal format, speculating on possible consequences and questions. I write to better understand my understanding. I write to express the beauty and ugliness ever present in the human experience.

I believe that conversation is important. We are naturally social beings and it is a prerequisite for any success within our representative democracy that honest, open, and rational discourse exist among the citizens. Writing lays the foundation for solid self-knowledge which, in turn, slicks the wheels for ethical interpersonal communication.

Most speech has two or more participants; there is usually at least one listener. There is always a shot clock, a very finite, immediate amount of time to develop an appropriate response. In writing, this is not the case. It is mostly a contemplative, solitary activity with temporal pressures coming not from the immediate presence of another but from Death, deadlines, or inner discipline. Decreased immediacy in this case means increased time. Increased time allows for tighter editing. Many opportunities to alter, fix, and refine pave the road to a more objective truth. The writer strives to provide the most authentic and complete view of the world as possible.

I write to better understand myself, those around me, and the world we all co-habitat. It isn’t easy or immediately clear, but I believe that The Most Complete Human exercises his capacity to write for writing as such and to further test and determine any weak or limited areas that can be improved in the name of the whole. The sum of all the individual parts should be quite a bit less than the work as a singular, unified whole. Each sentence should add meaning and value. Each sentence should work towards the same end, the same end that ignited action in the first place: the expression of truth.

Whether it’s to change a paradigm and get in the way or if it is a more aesthetic need to express Beauty, I feel a propulsion to write that is painful to ignore and difficult to begin. I believe that I write for the same reasons I think, love, and live: because I have to. I believe that writing is an ethical imperative.