A loose shard of thought
Flips and twists about in
My brain,
Poking sensitive tissue,
And sending firestorms
Riffling through my circuitry.
I can't really say I feel each
Prickle or pierce, but they
Do make me wince, sometimes.
Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?
I certainly was as a young man, but increasingly I have shifted towards a more “citizen of the world” worldview. I’m no doubt influenced by my admiration for the life of Socrates (such as we know it,) who was said to have been a valiant and fearsome hoplite warrior in his youth but came to call himself a Citizen of the World. As one becomes governed less by passions and more by reason, it becomes easier to have a logically consistent ethics by doing so.
Consider the question: “Is it wrong to stab a person in the back without warning, a person who you do not know, a person who doesn’t know a thing about you and has never done you any personal wrong, a person who to your knowledge has always lived a good and virtuous life?”
Of course, the immediate impulse is to say that that act is clearly wrong. Really, the only case we can attempt to successfully counter argue would be a soldier in war or a military action acting on lawful orders against an enemy combatant. But everything becomes messy. Is it enough that the soldier is operating on “lawful orders?” In that case, is the soldier a moral individual, if he lacks agency? To what degree can a infantryman or spec ops soldier know that it is – in fact – a lawful order? Can a lawful order be morally and ethically reprehensible and indefensible? The questions abound, and that’s why I suspect Socrates – lover of questions as he might have been – had a shift in philosophy about the matter over the course of his life.
It may seem I’m arguing that this is growth or betterment, but maybe it’s just the natural progression of a life. Maybe we need more passion in our youth and more agency as we age.
Of course, in those elder / “citizen of the world years,” the Athenians straight up murdered their onetime hero, so maybe I have not picked the best role model.
Great Minds on Small Things: The Philosophers’ Guide to Everyday Life by Matthew QvortrupWhat could you do differently?
Literally, everything. That’s the gift and curse of being human.
If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
“If you think there’s a Hell, you’re already there.”
I think it works on two levels… at least.
What makes you feel nostalgic?
In order of frequency: 1.) music; 2.) some random memory; 3.) a pattern of colors.
How have your political views changed over time?
While pretty much the same place on the spectrum, they have softened with the realization that abstract principles may have value for understanding, but for a system of governance to work it must be in tune with human nature ( which is far too messy for dogmatic principles.) In short, my political views have become more pragmatic.
Most importantly, I have come to believe that the governance we get comes of a dialectical battle of ideas, and – therefore – a wide diversity of views in the fray is beneficial. Far from wishing our political opponents would go away, we should hope they force us to do our best by putting their best argument out there in the most astute and persuasive way. It will always be messy, with some cover hog temporarily stealing the warmth, but ultimately it’s better (less bleak and cold) than sleeping alone.
It does require sound and strong rule of law, select depoliticized domains (i.e. the military and judiciary,) a willingness of people to accept that ideas they hate can only be defeated by engagement and persuasion (not by silencing or canceling – i.e. intellectual courage is essential,) but it will yield something better (if often messier) than any political ideology.
I don't remember my dreams --
not in the middle of the night
and not in the morning.
But, sometimes, I catch a glimpse
at a random instant:
composing a poem,
reflecting on a passage
from a book,
eating a cracker...
But my dreams are like
frightened animals,
turning my attention
directly upon them,
makes them skitter off...,
vanishing into the thicket.
My dreams vanish like they
were never really there,
and I am left wondering
just what I saw.
The harder I try to remember,
the more severely I scrub
my mental hard drive,
purging all shapes and motions,
until my recollection is nothing
but a vague residue of feeling.
I don't KNOW that it was a dream.
I couldn't swear to it.
All I know is that it's an image
that I can't tie to my waking life,
can't tie to any person, place,
or thing I know to be real.
(And, often enough, it's an image
that couldn't exist in the real world.)
I couldn't remember it as a dream,
but - somehow - I intensely FEEL
that it was a dream,
but the Dream is deep down in its hole,
shaking like a critter that
was almost snatched up by
a monster too awful to
contemplate....
and, somehow, I am that monster.
No. I try to see wherever I’m at as being as good as any other place I’ve been. And, of course, it is — only my perceptions change and can drive value judgements. The places and the peoples are just different. If one starts ranking and rating places, one can kill the ability to see what is beautiful and spectacular about a particular place. If a place didn’t have redeeming features, people wouldn’t live there. And, by the way, if people don’t live there, that’s probably my favorite place on earth.
What will your life be like in three years?
Who can say? I could be dead. I could be one of the last humans alive after the next pandemic or a nuclear Holocaust or a solar flare that sends humanity back to the Stone Age, or some combination of these and / or other disasters. I could be sitting where I currently sit, doing what I’m currently doing.
I’m no fortune-teller. (If there’s one thing my time as a social scientist taught me, it’s that people think they are much better at making predictions than they are.)
Tiger Riding for Beginners 