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P'sMW- page 2
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Photos of the spring fair in Sevilla in a new window

Why Humans prefer other Humans to be like themselves

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Associative Personality Disorder

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20,000+

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P'sMW- page 6
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P'sMW- page 7
Why do artists paint?

A Monk's Funeral


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We'd be better off without Religion

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Note of introduction added to the Masculine-
feminine article

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P'sMW- page 9
I'm back!

Masculine versus feminine, Muslim versus Buddhist.


Driving with Muslims or Buddhists

Peter Feldstein & Stephen G Bloom's Oxford project

How to argue

On 'happiness', in answer to Ivan's comments.

Thoughts on Happiness

The birth of Chiang Mai

War Story

Happiness Versus Suffering

Cogitations upon observing the life of an ant, from its birth to its death by old age, while I lay in a bathtub.

Scopes II pg 1 of 11

At the beginning of what the media began calling the ‘Scopes II’ trial I thought it would become more polemical than it turned out. I began collecting media reports, commentary, cartoons, defences & attacks published here & there by some of our leading scientists -- I started at the very beginning & continued for about four months.

*  I collected everything from science & Church to morality, philosophy, etymology, politics, poetry & parody, like the clever & funny web-site called the Spaghetti Monster. Also a bit of history, historical quotes on the subject & transcriptions of interviews & debates with Richard Dawkins & the like.

* Unfortunately the trials weren’t as amusing as they might have been if the Intelligent Design camp had better arguments & more credible support but in the end I think I have compiled a fascinating & entertaining document.

* It covers both sides thoroughly &, I hope, with a minimum of repetition (& includes links to further reference).

* I have added my two cents here & there in red. It is chronological with dates noted.  I originally saved it to a very large (260 page) Word.doc which I have converted to 11 pages of web site weighing between 30 & 130 or so kbs each.

Scopes II pg 1 of 11


Self portrait Sept 09. oils on panel 10 x 8 inches (25 x 20 cm)

Self portrait May 09. Oils on panel 10 x 8 inches (25 x 20 cm)

Self-portrait Jan 31, 09. Oils on panel 10 x 8 inches

Self-portrait May 2008

Self-portrait 1994. Oils on canvas on board 100 x 50 cm

Self portrait 2

Self portrait 4

Self-portrait 2004. Oils on gold ground on panel. 45 x 45 cm

Self portrait 5

Self portrait 6

Self portrait 7

Self-portrait 2007

Oil sketch. Oils on panel


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Paul's Mental Workshop, pg 9 of 9
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Last updated- 18th of November 2006

Self-portrait


Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not
everyone lives.
A. SACHS

When inspiration comes it should find you with a brush in your hand.
PABLO PICASSO

Art cannot be modern... art is primordially eternal.
EGON SHIELE

Art never expresses anything but itself.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has ever known.

Both by OSCAR WILDE

Click here to try Paul's fun & challenging:
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page 9

Saturday, November 18, 2006 (270 words)

I'm back! I hated to neglect my blog so long but I've been travelling & busy with other stuff. I'm only adding a short entry today, something I think is funny & still on the theme of Thai culture, but will be back soon with something more serious, promise!

I know a Dutch woman who has been all over the world because she used to be a flight attendant, air hostess, stewardess or whatever it is they are calling themselves these days. She surprised me by saying she didn't like Thailand: "But why not? What's not to like?" I asked.

"Because they smile all the time but don't mean it." She answered.

Though a little startled by this point of view, I replied without hesitation: "Well, I think it is better than Dutch people who don't smile & do mean it."

I was only joking but of course there is truth in what she says, I have seen Thai babies who can't talk yet or even walk but already know how to wai & return a smile. When everybody smiles all the time you can't expect that every time you see beautiful white Thai teeth it is a genuine & sincere smile but in my opinion, the same smile to a stranger that can easily get you into a fight in New York city, should be much more likely to turn into a genuine friendly exchange than an exchange with a stranger that begins without. Or put another way—that even a smile motivated strictly by politness is more likely to generate real smiles than none at all.

RBP said...

I have come across that comment many times from foreigners in Thailand, that to smile too much is a sign of insincerity. This seems to be more of a sad comment on our own culture than on Thai culture, that to look unfriendly is more sincere than looking friendly. In fact the misunderstanding arises because in our culture the smile has only a narrow range of interpretation whereas in Thailand the smile can mean many things including being pissed off, so when they smile they do actually 'mean it'. Your stewardess/hostess/flight attendant has fallen into the trap of many 'amateur' travellers (regardless of how many countries they have visited- it's about attitude) of projecting their own values and preconceptions onto others.

Paul Herman said...
Yes, your comments are right on the nail as usual. Though I was only referring to smiles between strangers I recognise what you say is true. My least favourite Thai smile is that of embarrassment & after three years living here I still have trouble with
--for example-- "I hired you to fix my computer & instead you have broken it " Thai person: "smile..."!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006. (270 words)

A note in answer to some questions I received about the subject of the article below: it started with a visit to the dark & dingy Pakistan embassy in Bangkok to request a visa. It was early in the morning & my flight left that afternoon, I first had to bribe the fellow behind the desk to get the thing in time. I was then made to wait a couple of hours though there was only one other applicant & no visible work being done by the three or four employees. When I was finally asked back to the desk the officious fellow reached up without looking at me for the papers & passport I proffered. Once in his hand & still without looking at me he said: where's your such-and-such paper? I answered that I neither had nor knew what the paper he asked for was.

He looked up at me for the first time & explained: "Why, the paper from the company you work for that explains the purpose of your visit."

"I don't have any such paper, I work for no company & my only purpose for this trip is to see your beautiful country" I answered.

At first his mouth fell open like one of those antique, carnival fortune-teller machines & then a slow laugh began to gurgle in his throat & grew till he was slapping his knee in merriment. I stood & waited until finally, he wiped the tears from his eyes & directed his attention once more to the papers before him: "So I'll just put 'for the purpose of tourism', shall I?"

Friday, July 21, 200 (1890 words)

Masculine versus feminine, Muslim versus Buddhist.

Well, here I am again with the wild and wacky fundamentalist Muslims. I have been living among the essentially feminine, light-hearted and frivolous northern Thai Buddhists for almost three years now and the differences are stark. Northern Thailand joined the rest just three hundred years ago to form Siam, prior to that it has its own long history and particular traditions. Up until just one hundred and fifty years ago all men from the north owed the king six months of every year in labour. The men went off to be soldiers or whatever the king assigned them and the women learned how to run things on their own in the men's absence. When the men came home they found everything working and took a (well-deserved) rest, this became a tradition that has made the northern Thai man, even today, famously lazy while the women are industrious.

In my town of Chiang Mai you will find most shops, restaurants and offices run by women while the men abandon their children, cheat, drink and gamble. When one walks down the street the women meet one's eye and invariably return an honest smile.

Transvestites and homosexuals are folded easily into the social mesh and the only prejudice they might be subject to, is being liked more readily. Personally, I found it very easy to get used to going to the post office, bank, or anywhere else, to be greeted by an, often, beautiful man dressed beautifully as a woman. Everywhere, everything is clean, service is eager and everyone smiles easily, like I said: a feminine culture.

When I stepped off the thirty-six seat Fokker*(footnote) in Peshawar, onto the cracked tarmac undulating in the afternoon heat, my first impressions included the big, belligerent, grey-headed crows familiar from years ago further south in India. Above their cackling swoops though, wheeled far larger birds in still and flapless flight: falcons. More falcons than I've ever seen together, falcons the colour of the sun-dried brick that made the buildings, the colour of the earth that filled the dusty air, the colour of the men who trod beneath them. Upon walking to the airport building from the 'plane, I found the people there were all men, all bearded, or at the least—moustachioed, and all but the uniforms dressed in Shalwa & Tupee. The Shalwa were mostly white with two other popular colours—light blue or cream. In my entire five weeks there I never saw another foreigner. In the street outside, the cars competed with flat topped wooden wagons (in other words: a flat platform on wheels) on which the men stand, reins in one hand, whip in the other. They are pulled by skinny horses, tiny donkeys no larger than Great Danes, cows, or pot bellied water buffalo all black-skinned and shiny as if their hides had already been tanned.

When I reach my friend Zahir's house, I am greeted with Arabic hospitality, the best in the world. Within minutes I have washed the sweat off and am lounging like a Roman on the beautifully carpeted floor of a cool room on a dripping hot day. We four or five men lie in a rough circle, feet to head, left elbows propped on pillows. The carpets are the colour of wine, the walls are a rusty, sunset-orange marble with veins of blood red; the high windows are coloured glass that bend warm light through the hash smoke of our atmosphere. Big brawny men with big black or white beards, one wears a Pakistani beanie (the tupee) another an Afghan turban. They break the chewy, flat medallions of bread with right hands only (the left being used for intimate hygiene never touches food at a polite cloth) strong, veined, peasant hands. They laugh easily, even childishly, but are fundamentally serious; men who pray five times a day and mean it.

I try to remember Islam's table etiquette, never dip the same bread twice in the communal dishes we share, wait until the head of the household offers before helping yourself to the meat dish... in my experience even in the simplest Muslim farmhouse, everyone will notice your manners though they would never be so discourteous as to show they don't like them. The mutton is as soft as butter and redolent of a dozen herbs and spices. The women billow in like shadows every once and awhile, to set the cloth on the carpet, cover it in food, remove the detritus, bring more courses, replace the teas (though the head of the household does at least the first pouring, everyone helping themselves after).

The women are dressed in pleated black tents that hang from the only place they show a body shape: the top of their heads. The only skin visible is their hennaed hands or if they wear a veil instead, sometimes just one eye, the other covered by the veil attached to the cloth at the forehead and obscuring the other eye. Their hems are weighted against an honour-damaging breeze and their sleeves are connected by a loop to their middle fingers against any accidental revelation of the wrist.

I have never been introduced to my host's wife, for all I know she may be bearded or be a different woman each time I visit. None of the men there look at her or address her in any way, what conceivable reason, after all, could a man have to speak to another man's wife?

Lunch is followed by talk in five or six languages, broken English and French added for my benefit, otherwise they all speak Pashtoon, Arabic and Urdu and many speak Parsee or Turkish as well. Talk is accompanied by a series of different and delicately spiced teas along with dried or fresh fruits, nuts and olives. In this pleasant atmosphere and good company I didn't notice the time (in-fact at one point I asked the time only to discover that not one of us wore a watch) until, without having shifted my position, we were being served dinner.

Between lunch and dinner Zahir sent someone out at my bidding to do two things, namely, put a local SIM card in my phone and to fetch a tailor. The tailor measured me for a few Shalwas that he brought back by lunch the following day (and I had to fight with Zahir to pay for them). With my Shalwa shirt hanging to my knees, baggy pantaloons with wide cuffs, lovely white-silk Tupee on my head and the beard I’d been growing for some time (one suffers an intangible but palpable diminution of respect if he finds himself hairless among fiercely bearded Muslims) and despite my light skin and green eyes I was, as often as not, mistaken for a light skinned Kashmiri or as being of the tribe of Afghans that are blonde and blue-eyed (the original aryans- from the shores of the Caspian sea), thus avoiding the attention that I would otherwise be smothered with. Like most countries the first question to the stranger is inevitably : “Where are you from?” To which I usually shrug my shoulders and answer: “I don’t know; I can’t remember” which is much closer to the truth than mentioning any of the places I have lived or the one I happened to be born in (which I left in infancy) but still, it usually gets a laugh.

I remember the same results when bearded and caparisoned in a beautiful Chilaba in Morocco, but though my few words of Arabic and couple of hastily learned Pashtoon words (the first? Thank you) couldn’t get me past a greeting and first interaction without giving myself away—to 'Salam Aleykum' I answer: 'Aleykum Salam', handshake and bring the hand to the heart with a slight bow of the head. “Would you like tea/food?” “Yes please” after that, anything they said to me was likely to be incomprehensible and even when it was not I had to answer in English or my painfully thin French.

But even then, once they realise I am European, my beard & dress might mean I am Muslim which, in itself, is enough to erase political borders and allow me in the club. It is this quality, the clearly defined morality and behaviour that makes Muslim societies so comfortable and, in a sense—noble in attitude.

Once back in Thailand the social pressure is so overwhelming that I must shave my beard, to the Thai, a beard is just something that holds sweat and dirt. To them Santa Claus, rather than evoking feelings of huggability, is instead, thought of as a little disgusting with his big dirty beard.

Many of the men in Peshawar walk around armed and I don't mean little pansy pistols neatly holstered, but Kalashnakovs, and not strapped over a shoulder but held in the hand, to all appearances ready at a moment's notice. Once, when walking with Zahir past one of the many shops with their hand-painted signs proclaiming their office as: 'Arms Dealers' I asked: "What do you need to go in and buy a gun?" He looked at me like I was daft and answered: "Money...?"

Unlike Thailand, outside the home, everything is done by men, shops, restaurants and offices are all staffed by men for every task. Hence, everything is dirty and unkempt and service is slovenly as well as inefficient. On the streets men jostle each other to pass without ever saying "Excuse me" or "Sorry". The streets are hard-packed earth running muddy where the sidewalks should be. There are no public trash bins and everyone just throws their refuse to the ground where they stand. A minimal waste removal effort can be seen mostly in the form of an occasional man pushing a wheel-barrow overflowing but still being filled by him with the aid of two small pieces of wood—one for scooping, the other for scooping on to. As a consequence many of the town's streets and food markets smell of putrefaction. It is the antithesis of Thailand, it is a place that takes its socks off and throws them on the floor, leaving them there until they become its cleanest pair, then wears them again.

It is a masculine place and I must admit, despite everything, it is nice, very nice, to be a man among men again.

For photos of the Northwest frontier & Afghanistan, click here.

* This same little Fokker went down a few days after my arrival, killing the 41 people on board. My return was on an old army cargo plane (it looked, to me at least, of pre-jet-engine design!) Just me and a few soldiers who were transporting some equipment. The plane was minimalist on the inside with a few cloth seats along its length, some hammocks strung one above another and all the workings visible since there was no covering on the inside, we looked at the inside of the metal wall that made up its outside. Well, barely visible as the only light came from a couple of port-hole windows placed too high to see out of. No seat belts, no temperature control, no emergency exits, just the platform that drops at the back and allows men to push cargo up it. I tried to photograph the aeroplane from the outside but the soldiers stopped me in no uncertain terms, I did, however, sneak a couple of shots of the inside, I will publish them when I get them developed. Back to footnote link

(Click here to see a photo of the aeroplane)

posted by Paul Herman | 5:19 PM | 2 comments links to this post email this post to a friend
RBP said...

Interesting your characterization of the two societies as masculine or feminine but I think it is actually more complicated than that. I have lived in both the societies and to me they are both shaped by masculine considerations, the difference is more in their relations to the feminine. Thai men in general have as strong or stronger a macho outlook as anywhere and have set up a society that is in many ways an ideal expression of this, they also have a martial tradition as strong as any Muslim country (Muay Thai is the fiercest and most effective fighting art on the planet). However there is an intense awareness and appreciation of the feminine and this adds the particular Thai texture to the society that you have described.

You will agree, I think, that much of what motivates us as men is to make an impression on women and this often leads to some of our finest moments (as well as some of our worst). Cultures such as the one you have described from the North West Frontier essentially attempt to make the feminine invisible or inconsequential and therefore you have men that are only interested in making an impression on each other, a kind of arrid macho without the juice of sexual posturing. There is certainly an appeal to this attitude (you mentoned the enjoyment of being a man among men), it makes life so much less complicated but I think it becomes sterile and unfeeling when taken to an extreme. What can be seen in our own culture is an ongoing experiment in social engineering that is shaping the women to be more masculine with the inevitable consequence of making the men more feminine resulting in some confusing paradigms.

Paul Herman said...

Yes, you make some interesting & valid points, the only one I will comment on though, is when you say: '...to make the feminine invisible or inconsequential' In-fact, I think it is at bottom, a simple expression of male insecurity & the only way to ensure that the land is left to heirs that are genuine genetic offspring of the man. In non-agricultural societies, hunting/foraging or nomadic, it is not unusual to find people are promiscuous as the land inheritance issue is irrelevant.

TOP

Friday, July 21, 2006. (840 words)

Driving with Muslims or Buddhists.

When an American or European person first drives on Thailand's streets it seems insane and impossibly dangerous. The majority of Thai people on the road have purchased their driving licences illegally without ever taking a class and such things as fast or slow lane, lanes themselves, or even double yellow lines dividing oncoming traffic are completely ignored. People drift from one lane to another, on any two-lane road everybody drives in the fast lane and it is not unusual to find people driving against the flow of traffic even on highways. Mopeds carrying five people at once are common, all helmetless with infants hanging on for dear life at the back or suffocating between the adults -- the drivers themselves of any age old enough to reach the pedals & handlebars at once. Red lights are optional, and are generally taken as more of a suggestion to slow down and look both ways. Since Thailand is a feminine and courteous society, however, nobody beeps or gets angry when one driver does something that puts another's safety at risk. If one wants, for instance, to pass the slow moving car in the fast lane ahead, instead of beeping rudely, one moves into the thousands of clueless buzzing motorbikes that drift all over the slow lane and pass the slow moving car from the wrong side and lane. This reflects the feminine attitude as shown by the nicest compliment a Thai person offers another: 'He/she is greng jai-- jai guang' generous and considerate to others.

Driving in some Muslim societies is equally insane and dangerous but in a very different and masculine way. In the northwestern frontier of Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan everyone beeps. When? At what? Well, all of the time and at anything that moves: other drivers, chicken beside the road, bag blowing across the road... now, you might think that aside from the cacophony created by all the beeping, the effect for drivers would be the same as no-one beeping, but no! The aggressive Muslim in his strictly male world has taken this fact into consideration and no matter how old and beat up his vehicle, he has gone to the expense of installing a customised horn, each car (like mobile phones) looks for his own sound and the only thing they all have in common is decibel level. I even noticed mopeds with simulated Mack truck horns.

At one point I was passenger in a van driven by someone I knew, a friend of a friend, maybe fifty years old, big grey-white beard but no moustache or hair on his head, dressed in shalwa and driving me through Peshawar at night. We're going down a dirt road with no sidewalks and bordered on either side with a market, the road ahead and behind full of milling crowds. He drives either with his high beams on or no lights at all. We are ploughing through the crowds, beeping with desperate urgency, bouncing through potholes and mud with near misses to all sides when an exceptionally old man, frail and bent, sees us coming towards him. The old man quickens his pace as much as he can but with mincing steps hardly accelerates at all. Ahmed, the driver, is looking with laser-like concentration but doesn't slow, I unconsciously push back in my seat pumping the non-existent brakes on my side. Now we are just inches from him, he still hasn't cleared our path, we are going far too fast to brake in an emergency, when... Ahmed swerves by the minimal amount necessary to pass the old man just an inch or two on the other side of the glass of my window... the old man throws a look of fear and outrage back over his shoulder, his face lit like Boris Karloff in our high beams. Ahmed turns to me and laughs with hearty, boyish glee.

The agreed upon modus operandi on the road is that whenever there is another vehicle visible you race to within inches of its rear bumper or its side and beep insistently and incessantly. If you catch the other driver off-guard or manage to intimidate him, you race in front of him even if there is literally not enough room for the volume of your vehicle but if the manoeuvre means a few cars must screech or swerve to accommodate you, no-one is upset, they will even give each other triumphant smiles as they pass and then the car they just passed moves to within inches of his rear bumper and beeps and swerves trying to overtake him in his turn.

The Buddhist femininity (The Thai (Theravada) Buddha is depicted as androgynous, symbolising the fact he was on a plane higher than those where gender is relevant) expresses itself in cooperation, where the manly Muslim competitiveness has at its root the firmly ingrained attitude that if it is the appointed hour of your death, nothing (like driving carefully) can save you, and if it is not, than nothing can harm you.

For photos of the Northwest frontier & Afghanistan, click here.

posted by Paul Herman | 2:45 PM | 0 comments links to this post email this post to a friend

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Peter Feldstein & Stephen G Bloom's Oxford project(300 words)
(click on thumbnails to go to www.OxfordProject.com)

1984

Peter Feldstein moved to the tiny town of Oxford, (6-700 people) Iowa, 32 years ago to teach photography at the State university. In 1984 he set up his camera & took photographs of many of the town's natives. In 2005 he did the same thing.

The resulting project is garnering increasing amounts of attention with articles in the NYTimes, television coverage & now, Peter informs me: a book deal. Why is this project so universally interesting? Well, I think the answer is obvious, it is a symbol of our own lives encapsulated.

It brings to mind the last line of that strange film: 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' purportedly the true life of Chuck Barris the 1970's game show host who invented the 'Gong Show' & 'Dating Game'. In the book the film was based on, Mr Barris claimed his television persona was really just a cover for his real job as CIA assasin. In the last line of the film Mr Barris' character says, in a voice over, (paraphrasing from memory): Hey! I have an idea for a new television show: we get three old men on stage & give each of them a loaded .38. We then talk of the dreams & aspirations of their respective youths. The last one alive wins a refrigerator!

The idea that most people's dashed dreams of glory would cause them to commit sucide upon looking back, holds enough truth in it to make it morbidly funny. The Oxford project offers something of the opposite- people whose dream's smallness are matched only by the tininess of their satisfactions or disappointments. I'm not sure I can find any humour in it but it is inarguably a fascinating look at the fellow humans whom I (as socially marginalised artist) at least, never get an opportunity to meet.

2005
Mindy Portwood 1984 Mindy Portwood 2005
Mike Hennes 1984
Mike Hennes 2005
Iowa Honn 1984
Iowa Honn 2005
Darrel Lindley 1984 Darrel Lindley 2005
Jim Hoyt 1984
Jim Hoyt 2005
Pat Henkleman 1984 Pat Henkleman 2005

posted by Paul Herman | 2:48 PM | 6 comments

Paul,
Thanks for including our project on your blog. It's funny, but I never thought of the dreams of my subjects as small. But clearly it all depends on one's perspective. My guess is that survival in a small town requires that. And the converse of that would be that surviving in a large city would require larger dreams.

However, I don't think the successes and disappointments are any smaller than anywhere else, again, from the point of view of the individual.

Peter Feldstein


Paul Herman said...

I can see by your comments that my own must sound condescending, & yes, I must admit, it is the anthropologist in me rather than the humanitarian that responds to your project. Of course the written copy that accompanies each of the images is short & has been edited by your partner Stephen, so it is both a mere glimpse into each person's psyche as well as one that has been filtered.

However, I would like to point out the impression that it gives from my perspective, & I hope I say nothing offensive as I do realise these people are your neighbours, but the truth I would like you to consider is that no-one who appreciates the art in these photos, who buys them, who displays them, will be like the people in the photos themselves.

Behind the artful images themselves the project offers us the concept of life in a nutshell & I think the people who will appreciate them will do so for questions of pathos & poignancy more than any sense of Rousseau-like nobility. Let's take Mike Hennes for example. "I'm a foreman for the County secondary road crew. I get up at a quarter to four, then I go online to read the local news. On my way to work, I eat a Pop-Tart." I understand that not having a routine of any sort makes me the odd man out but still our introduction to Mike is extraordinarily mundane, with the Pop-Tart forming the almost filmic touch that is practically a symbol of the prosaic & banal.

He goes on: "...My Dad retired from Amana Refrigeration. I've been at my job for twenty-six years, from the day I graduated high school. " Mike's father made a career of refrigerators; Sinclair Lewis would be hard put to find a better symbol of mediocrity. Mike himself has been at the same manual labour since before he became a man. I don't mean to demean the labour itself but personally I can't imagine still wanting what I did when I was eighteen; I have lived several lives since then (I am forty-four) & it seems to me Mike has hardly lived one.

He follows this family history with: "I once had a job offer in Missouri, but I got cold feet." Combine that with: "...& three (children) from my previous marriage. My first wife & I were high school sweet-hearts. We broke up after I found out she was having an affair with someone she was working with. Maybe I could have done something different. Maybe not. " It is unclear what he means by doing something different, perhaps he means if he had behaved differently his wife wouldn't have looked elsewhere, or maybe that he should have tried to win her love back, or maybe something else. But this is not the deep feeling Henry Fonda in 'Grapes of Wrath' but rather a man who seems adrift not only from choosing his own destiny but from his own feelings, a man out of touch with his own passions.

We aren't told much about his eldest son & he may be just a simple anti-social character who deserves nothing better than jail but his father's statement: "My eldest son isn't doing much these days, & that is a disappointment. He's been in jail a couple of times. His purpose in life seems to be deer or pheasant hunting." Makes me feel the son is questioning the way of things, challenging authority, taking risks & finding his own path. Like I said, that path may be no more than that of a useless criminal but it might also mean that by searching & fighting he forms his own moral infrastructure which, in my opinion, will make it far stronger than one whose morality is structured by unquestioningly following the rules. The man who doesn't steal because he has learned that the pleasure in ownership goes hand in hand with the pre-requisite labour; the man who discovers this by failing to enjoy the ownership of something he himself stole, has far greater conviction than the one who never stole. The man who will fight for his honour is the man that has seen that honour imperilled. The man who questions authority in his youth is the one you can count on in a crisis. The man who has floated with the tide & followed the rules doesn't himself know if he will stand or run when it is time to risk all.

I don't know if I've made my point but I would like to add an experience from my childhood to close: I remember when I was about thirteen, an age when I, like many, was questioning who I was; sure I was extraordinary but lacking experience, I had no supportive evidence for my sense of superiority. At that age I believed my potential to be inexhaustible & any choice I made was mine for the taking. Without a father figure I decided I wanted to be Clint Eastwood! Not the sensitive & intelligent man his recent work in cinema has shown him to be, of course, but the character he played so well in his youth, the strong, silent, uber-cool Clint of the silver screen. It wasn't long before I realised that I wasn't trying to imitate a person but a symbol of a person caught in two hours of eventful & exciting moments.

In a way the text that accompanies the photos, the text that imbues the images with their respective characters is merely a symbol & might even reflect Stephen's frame of reference, better than the people pictured, but still, it is the impression I come away with.

11:31 PM
RBP said...

You may be wrong in your assumption that peoples "dashed dreams of glory" would depress them when they looked back on their lives, I think that the truth is that most people have no such dreams. I think that they value a sense of security more than adventure thus they limit their dreams to the realm of the possible. The overall sense that I get is that these peoples' lives turned out pretty much as they expected and when it didn't it was usually because of something not of their own volition. The fact is we can't all be iconoclasts because to break taboos they must already be in existence and mediocrity becomes so because it is the way of the majority. The thing that struck me most about the project was how perfectly the photographs represented the text making the writing almost superfluous.

3:41 AM
Ivan said... (& Paul responded in red)

I decided to contact you by email rather than on your blog. Should you, on reading this, believe it belongs there, feel free to post it. But in our previous blog correspondence, and in the current debate, you might feel you’re being subjected to some loss of face and, for whatever reason, I like the qualities I see in you far too much to voice public disagreement.

Please don't be so kind or considerate, I enjoy an intelligent conversation with someone I disagree with much better than a conversation with people who unthinkingly agree with me. I do not feel you can make me lose face for two reasons: firstly- I am familiar with my own opinions & can argue any one of them with the reasoning I came to before the opinion, & secondly- if your opinion/argument changes mine, convinces me I was wrong, I will thank you for bringing me closer to the truth instead of resenting you for showing me the faults in my cognitive process or lack of relevant criteria...


Actually, on first reading your comments on The Oxford project, I understood what you were saying completely. At the same time I found myself uncomfortable and even a little embarrassed because I felt sympathy with that view.
 
I understand, I suppose it can seem somewhat snobbish but I am willing to dissect the thoughts in the belief the aspect of snobbishness becomes irrelevant when the issue is properly examined.
 
I wanted to respond, but didn’t know how to give voice to this dichotomy and it was only by reading the commentaries of the others that everything became clear. It harkens, in a way, to our previous conversation about Drama versus Doing. Most people just “do” their lives, their chief goal being to accumulate some modicum of comfort while they avoid pain.
 
Well said! In an existentialist universe the difference in the attitude you describe & the understanding of the universe Stephen Hawkins or Immanuel Kant might have, becomes insignificant. Yet, to certain people, artists & philosophers among them, finding a modicum of comfort while avoiding pain seems a trifling & tawdry pursuit when compared to placing a higher importance on creativity or truth than comfort & abscence of pain.


Then there are the artists, the dramatists, the authors, dancers, performers all, in a word, the creatives. It’s both the pleasure and the pain of being creative that allows us to add the element of Drama…indeed, to make drama the all-important element. For without drama, who would look at our paintings, view our films, read our books?


I would even argue that without the fundamental drama (& desperate injustice!) of our own mortality the arts would not exist.


Rembrandt painted burgermeisters, Vermeer charladies, Van Goth mailmen. Tennessee Williams wrote about Stanley and Blanche, the same sort of people as did Faulkner, Hemingway, even Dostoevsky and Stendhal.
 
Yes, good point. Though each of your examples, with the possible exception of Van Gogh who had no opportunity, dealt as easily with other social strata. The Great Russian writers, Dostoyevski, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy (who was himself a landed aristocrat & owned tens of thousands of 'souls' which is how the 19th century Russians counted serfs & thereby the value of the land, even after 1861 when serfdom was abolished) showed only humanism & depth of psychological understanding, without prejudice, describing the thoughts & motivations of aristocrats as easily as the mind of the simplest farmer. In the end, real depth of understanding, must do away with all prejudice.
 
Rembrandt may have used domestic staff or anyone at hand for practice or as model when teaching, but he was extremely interested in the prestige, society & luxury money bought. He may have done several paintings of Saskia, the simple house-maid he married, but only after having his first wife locked up in a mental institution so that he would continue to receive her pension. It does not take great men to make great art, I was surprised to discover, for instance, that Ibsen (that profound observer of human nature & the underlying drama of life) was, in real life, a dandy who cared more for fashionable clothes & society than the deeper questions. Indeed, I have always been better attracted to Voltaire than Rousseau, I have experience & doubt the existence of such a thing as Rousseau's noble savage.


My last word would have to be a return to a point I made earlier in this thread: in the end the ones who appreciate all the great artists & thinkers you mention, are not the lower class subjects of the painting or writing you refer to but the aristocrats. Of course the definition of aristocrat has changed since the end of the 19th century & people are far more socially mobile (at least in the Occident) aristocracy today is based, I think, much more on education than birth. (Examples? Capote, Pollock (Jack the Dripper, one of very few abstract artist whose work I find fascinating & valid) or even Hemingway)


They give their very ordinary people drama to create a story and to entertain an audience. Even your Henry Fonda in Grapes of Wrath was just a dramatization. Paul, in reality, he was simply another Okie trying to find work and feed his family, much like the people in the Oxford project.

Quite right! I agree without reservation, though, I think, the Rousseau-ish depth of feeling that make the dramatization a classic, is a good example: it is not the appreciation by 'Okies' that make the film an enduring & moving testament of human drama but by non-Oakies.

The psychologists say creative people tend towards being bipolar.


Have you read Jamison's 'Touched with Fire' (Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament)?
 
It’s a tool we reach for in creating drama, both in our art and often in our lives. Perhaps we think we are the whole show, when we’re really no more than the entertainment for ordinary folk.
 
In case my opinion is still not clear let me re-cap- I disagree with the summation in your last sentence. Though your 'ordinary folk' may be capable of genuine emotional, or artistic reaction to Van Gogh, it takes a certain education to understand Rembrandt or our greatest contemporary painter: Lucian Freud. Ordinary folk (& I assume your definition (ordinary people) does not refer to IQ or social class but rather an ordinary level of mundanity, whose Latin root, mundus, means 'world' in other words: of the world, as opposed to higher interests, id est- art & philosophy).


It is ordinary folks who insist every person's opinion of the visual arts is valid, when in fact, just like anything else (science or engineering, for example) true appreciation is the result of an elitist pursuit, an esoteric knowledge that implies the ambition necessary to learn the language. I'm not sure I am explaining myself clearly & will be interested in your retort but here is an experience you might share with me that will illustrate the concept: Did you study Shakespeare at school? Have you read Shakespeare on your own? Notice the difference?

Thursday, July 20, 2006
Ivan said...

Paul,
Having gone back and forth with you on this subject several times, I’ve arrived at an interesting conclusion. We really are in total agreement. Else why would I read so much of your arguments as confirming my own beliefs?

You write of the Russian writers living aristocratic lives. Tennessee Williams, Capote, Hemingway, Faulkner, Mark Twain and Tom Wolf today, relished playing dandies of sorts. Rembrandt, indeed, is a marvelous example. Besides the examples you gave, look at all his costumed self-portraits. Creative people live for and by dramatizing lives, both their own and the protagonists they write of. Even poor Vincent was guilty of dramatizing his life, though in a less socially acceptable way. Come to think, in today’s psychological era, Vincent becomes a hero. Recall Don McLean’s melancholy salute, “Starry, starry night”. Now I think I know what you tried to say to me, How you suffered for your sanity, How you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they're not listening still. Perhaps they never will...
Look what being a drunkard did for Jackson Pollack.

Perhaps you’ll conclude our differences come under the heading of Political Correctness. I hope not. What it comes down to is this. In your first comment you expressed a kind of disdain for those ordinary folk, or as you put it mundane people. But you went a step further. You describe them as “fellow humans whom I (as socially marginalized artist) at least, never get an opportunity to meet.” The thing that most bothered me was that you indeed see and meet such people every day. They are the lovely people of Thailand who wait on you every day and who you recently described so beautifully. The are also the Afghani tailor and Pakistani drivers in your recent posting. You just choose not to meet them on those term

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Wednesday, June 28, 2006
How to argue. (1130 words)

There are good arguments & there are bad arguments, there are valid arguments & there are stupid arguments. The good or valid arguments lead to deeper knowledge & harmonious agreement, while the bad or stupid arguments lead to negative emotions & deeper disagreement.

Plato claimed truth was in the air all around us, the proof being that two men who are ignorant of a certain knowledge can, through correct dialogue, pluck that knowledge from the very air... the correct discourse referred to, defines all the terms used in their arguments. It can be tedious at times but it is surprising how much can be learned when defining to mutual satisfaction even the simplest of commonly used terms; how little there is left to 'argue' about, & finally, how magically the insight sprouts from barren ignorance.

In the orient, Confucius' ideas which became such a thoroughly pervasive influence, fought the negative confrontational aspect of argument with a strictly defined protocol in the allowed form of response. In a word: manners. With manners that make it impossible to cause one's opponent to 'lose face', all negatively charged emotional exchange is channelled instead into communication.

In the context of learning I think Socratic argument beats Confucian for sheer efficiency.

Personally I think Hegelian dialectics (with its roots in the pre-Socratic Greeks) where thesis & antithesis are reconciled in a synthesis can make for interesting dialogue but finds mutual conclusion with more difficulty; these & other thoughtful, reasonable, approaches to argument, however, are generally ignored by most people, indeed most arguments between friends & colleagues (not to mention enemies), even those whose disagreement has nothing to do with their cherished relationship, affect that relationship negatively. The reason for this is not that most people like the person they argue with less because of an opinion that is different to their own, but rather because they don't know how to argue. It is this process that demeans the friendship within which the argument plays out.

By arguing badly or stupidly, other considerations aside from the difference of opinion being discussed enter into the feelings they are being discussed with. Instead of being interested in each other's point of view & continuing to exhibit the respect each combatant has for the other (often a pre-requisite to the eventual heat the argument generates, not the opinion) they 'argue' through repetition & emphasis of their own standpoint while repeating with ever-greater force that the other person's perspective is wrong.

Personally, though I am not immune to the sting of pride: to the 'bad' feeling that something I believed in & argued for, turns out to be wrong, but that petty feeling is overwhelmed by the pleasure (when convinced by good argument that I am wrong) in having a new & better truth to believe in & argue for. Replacing the faulty truth with a new one means I won't be seen as wrong again in the future, as a point of pride that alone is reason to be grateful to the man who convinces me, through argument, of a fallacious belief.

Professor Beebe, PhD in philosophy, explains the simple rules of 'good' argument:

An argument is= a set of statements that include just two components-
a) A conclusion, which is the main point the argument is trying to establish.
b) The premises, which are reasons given in support of the conclusion.

There are two main requirements an argument must satisfy if it is going to qualify as a good argument:
1) The premises must be true.
2) The premises must support the conclusion.

One must be careful here because though the statement is simple the possible variations for the purposes of manipulating the logic of the argument (in order to confuse & mislead) are subtle & diverse. To start with it must be re-iterated that,
1- though the list of premises may be true, the conclusion drawn from them may not. (For various reasons we will examine)
2- though the list of premises may be false, the conclusion may still be true.

Professor Beebe points out some common forms of fallacious argument: (parenthetic examples & comments are mine)

A) Appeal to Inappropriate Authority = fallacy committed when a conclusion in one area of human inquiry is supported by appealing to the authority of someone whose authority or expertise lies in an independent and unrelated area of human inquiry.

B) False Dilemma = fallacy committed when:
(i) a decision is portrayed as being a choice between two (or more) options;
(ii) all but one of the options presented is obviously bad; but
(iii) there are, in fact, more options than are represented.

(A man giving a speech to a gathering about zoning a section of forest as protected habitat might say: Would you like to see this beautiful forest turned into a strip mall & parking lot? He hasn't said that it is the choice between his zoning suggestion & a shopping centre but the people gathered might come away with the impression that if they sign his petition they are indeed choosing the better option of the two)

C) Straw Man = the fallacy of attacking a position that one's opponent does not really hold and thinking that one has thereby attacked the opponent's position.

(When used well the opponent in question can sometimes even be induced to defend the irrelevant position thereby validating the criticism.)

D) Slippery Slope = fallacy committed when:
(i) someone argues against a certain proposal by claiming that it will set off a chain reaction that will ultimately end in disaster; but
(ii) there is no good reason to believe that such a chain reaction will (or is likely to) occur.

(That because hard drug users generally smoke, or have smoked, marijuana, smoking marijuana inevitably leads to hard drug use. That because violence on television is desensitising, kids who watch Popeye cartoons will exhibit violent behaviour)

E) Ad Hominem (latin- against the person) = fallacy committed when someone erroneously attacks the person giving an argument rather than the argument itself.

(A nutrition expert might have his statement about nutrition attacked because he is overweight. The connection might seem superficially accurate in an intuitive way, when in fact there may be many reasons aside from ignorance of the subject that causes him to be overweight. It might even be a reason the critic does not recognise though logically he should be able to accept it, such as that the nutrition expert feels he is more attractive when overweight & works hard to keep from losing those kilos.)

F) False Cause = fallacy committed when someone concludes that one event is caused by another simply because the one event follows the other.

(Every time I forget my umbrella it rains!)

Ivan said...

I certainly enjoyed this brilliant essay on How to Argue. I might, however, debate only the last line. For me, it never rains when I do carry my umbrella.

I appreciated your description of valid and stupid arguments. I thought of a third category of argument I am often guilty of engaging in, and wanted your opinion:

It is the argument we engage when we want to know the thoughts of the person we're debating with better... really a form of play where we try to expand on each others concepts.

Have you read a wonderful little book titled Finite and Infinite Games, by James P Carse? It's subtitled A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. He describes a finite game as one that will end when some one wins, while an infinite game is played without rules, boundaries or even winners, so as to involve an ever-expanding number of players.

I like that concept and thought perhaps, that is what you were thinking when you started this delightful blog. Bravo

10:23 PM
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Friday, June 23, 2006
On 'happiness', in answer to Ivan's comment. (370 words)

Ivan wrote:
Happiness, in itself is a silly, giddy thing. Rather it's the 'pursuit' of happiness that's of value. Imagine a life engaged in the pursuit of misery.
Ivan Sherman


Yes, I think that is a valid point Ivan, that a life in pursuit of happiness can be defined as more successful than one that becomes complacent upon accomplishing some pre-defined state of happiness. I think a good analogy to the concept among artists like you and I, is my belief that if an artist ever manages to define his inner vision perfectly on his canvas, it becomes time for him to do something other than paint. In other words: it is the element of experimentation, of striving for the indefinable aesthetic, that keeps an artist's work live. Making the opposite true, i.e.- an artist who knows precisely what his painting will look like before he begins produces- dead paintings.

Your idea reminds me of a quote by someone brilliant (who I can't place in my memory to attribute properly) who said: "The only true happiness a man may experience is in the contemplation of future happiness." This is proven by the fact that whenever we do achieve the object of our desire we immediately generate a new fantasy of future happiness.

I don't however, agree with the last part of your statement, "Imagine a life in the pursuit of misery" it might be difficult for men such as you & I to imagine a life such as that, but I think it is not so unusual for people to do just that, most, I think, without realising it.

It is interesting and valid to define the terms of our dialogue in this Socratic manner but I think nothing has been said about the term 'happiness' that conflicts with my statement that a successful life is not measured in quantity or even quality of happiness but rather, in the more mature ability to appreciate the drama offered by the range of emotional possibility our lives present. I will close by offering another quote from my book (Life is Good Even when it's Not) as an example: (when enough time has passed)- "...I know when I look back, that I cherish the memory of a broken heart alongside the joy I remember at seducing the woman who broke it. Both are examples of living deeply. It is about drama."
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Thoughts on Happiness. (250 words)

In response to some of the comments posted to the essay - 'Happiness Versus Suffering' (below) I would like to offer this excerpt from my book: 'Life is Good Even When it's Not':

The idea of life as a project or series of projects may not be unusual, but the deeper significance is interesting: it has made my satisfaction with life tied largely to my level of productivity, rather than my volume of happiness.

Looking at a painting I did sometime in the past, I realized I couldn't remember how I felt when I painted it. Or perhaps I worked on the same painting--one day happy, the next, angry, and a third, melancholy--and all that was left of those moments was the painting. This made the painting of greater importance than how I felt, and I eventually developed the theory (or made the discovery) that the phrase, "man's inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness" in the U.S. Constitution, constitutes a basic flaw in cultural philosophy: a successful life cannot be measured according to the amount or even degree of happiness, but rather by appreciating the drama provided by the range of our emotional life.

The fact that it is possible to be miserable one's whole life does not change the fact it is impossible to always be happy. It probably has something to do with what Chekhov said about happiness being a thing defined in a subtle range of greys--no single one concrete, the same thing that makes you happy today (like someone's company) can make you sad or angry tomorrow--while unhappiness is easily defined in its negative quality as the absence of happiness.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
The birth of Chiang Mai. (450 words)

To the Thai, a city is a living body that can get sad, angry, happy, bored, sick... it is a cooperation of its inhabitants akin to the collaboration of cells in a human body. After the kings of Lampun and Phayao came to the aid of Mangrai, the king of Chiang Rai to repel the invading Burmese, the three kings from Chiang Rai in the north, Phayao to the south, and Lampun in the east, decided to band together. They looked for a site between their kingdoms to build the Capitol of their new country.

The three kings were strong idealistic young men, each sovereign to kingdoms already old enough for pride in their traditions, in Lampun originated the beautiful celadon ceramics of delicate translucent green glazes whose roots are in China. Sukothai represents much of Thai culture known to the West, the folk dances, apparel and most importantly, the enamelled gold and incredibly intricate linked chain jewellery they still make today, while Chiang Rai makes beautiful women.

The Kings met bare-chested and gold crowned, along with their parasol wielding, fan waving entourages, in the verdant and fecund valley which is now the Rose of the North: Chiang Mai. At 300 metres above sea level it was cool and had water tumbling from the surrounding mountains into the Mae Ping, or Ping river. Here they agreed would be a sublime city representing a perfect friendship and the first unification of northern Thailand. They designed a the town within a square moat a little over one kilometre to a side with four fortified entrances each half-way between two corners. If a city is a living body, however, it must be conceived instead of simply built, and so, along with their soothsayers, the auspicious date was decided and on the 8th day of the waxing moon, the month of Visakha, the year of the monkey, or April 24 1296, at exactly four a.m. Chiang Mai was born.

At the northern wall its head, whose opening was called the White Elephant gate, a lucky symbol, through which good things like a visiting sovereign or a celebratory parade might enter the city. The southern entrance is the other end of the body out of which the bad like the dead, the exiled and the sewage are expelled. At this southern point also is the prison, while to the east, where the river runs outside the walls, the rising sun lights the mind with schools and library. To the west: workshops for jewellery, arms, furniture. All around the outside of the moat the rice paddies and finally, at its centre, its navel, spiritual and physical health, temples and grain storage.
Patcharapon Kanchanapongpaisal said...

I live in Thailand and I found your story of Chiang Mai's birth lovely! What you didn't mention, for the benefit of those unfamiliar, is that our lunar calendar is now in the year 2549 of our Lord Buddha, I have found most foreigners are unaware and surprised by the fact we live in a different year to them!
11:53 AM

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Sunday, June 11, 2006
War Story (1400 words) (removed)
Happiness Versus Suffering. (410 words)

Christians are always talking about suffering & in the foremost Christian countries the whole religion has become a cult to suffering with the virgin mother as its centre (the Dolorosa) but all the saints are either crying or bleeding or at the very least in an anguished pose of ecstatic revelation (pain/pleasure of physical climax). Even the priest's celibacy is seen as sacrifice. The 33 years of life of the Christ himself, where he taught with surprising success, is portrayed in churches mostly through the 12 hours of the Passion & final crucifixion. The religion's symbol might have been a Jesus standing in the act of teaching, or perhaps forgiveness (arguably the main ideological difference introduced by his teachings to those of the old testament) but the church chose, & people worship instead, his mutilated body dying on a cross.

As men imagine the thorns thrust into their own scalps or nails into their feet, or the humiliation of the scourging in the street as reward for doing/being good, they can empathise & therefore worship Him for that sacrifice... that willingness to suffer instead of doing what most are taught to do, are taught is right: the pursuit of happiness & evasion of suffering. In the United States it is even written into the political infrastructure for Christ's sake!

But in-fact all religions deal with this question of suffering first, & then the three big questions (where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we destined?). In the Orient (beginning even in ancient Greece with the slave-philosopher Epictectus) they say: Want nothing & you will want for nothing, id est: avoid suffering. In the occident they say: life is suffering, but if you accept it you will get a reward after, like my mother used to say on my frequent childhood visits to doctors & dentists- if you don't cry I'll give you an ice cream after... the former denies passion, the latter, ecstasy, neither is satisfying, truthful or in tandem with human nature.

Now consider this: perhaps it is happiness & not suffering that is life's bane. Exactly like opium which turns life into a satisfyingly sweet dream just as it sucks one's vitality & passion. Maybe Happiness is the part of life we can barely stand & it is only the balm of suffering that relieves us of its burden. Perhaps without suffering we would be crushed by the weight of happiness.
Ivan said...

The way we create substance, when faced with a blank canvas, is to begin blocking in darks. In this act we begin to learn there is light, even within the dark.

This is probably the real joy behind making art, whether visual, or verbal. We create something where there was nothing and in the process celebrate contrasts. It's akin to being a God.
12:19 AM

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Saturday, June 10, 2006
Cogitations upon observing the life of an ant, from its birth to its death by old age, while I lay in a bathtub. (1530 words)

Without being too scientifically punctilious we all know ants come in what can essentially be described as three sexes, the only female of a colony is the Queen ant, she mates once, storing the sperm for her entire lifetime in her own bloated body. She is doted on by worker ants that make it possible for her to dedicate her remarkably long life to egg production, fertilizing each with the stored sperm. In some species she might run this egg factory for dozens of years before dying, in the world of arthropods: an age, an epoch, a very long time indeed. The workers make the second sex of three; they are in-fact, sexless, incapable of sex since, like bees, evolution has turned their originally female genitalia to other purposes. They also can have very long lives, six, seven even eight years, though their life style often means they are squashed or eaten long before reaching old age. The third sex, of course, is the male—the example of the species I happened to be watching as I lay in the hot water of my tub. He flew out with apparent joy along with thousands of his brothers to hurriedly mate while flying frantically around any light source, its instincts telling it the artificial light must be the moon since up until recently the moon was the only light there was at night time. Whether or not their lives culminate in the climax of injecting their sperm into the queen, within thirty minutes of being born, their four wings fall off & their bodies shut down. Everywhere outside of my house the ground sparkles with discarded wings for days surrounding the ritual.

The feelings my observations anthropomorphically instigated were that, emerging from the pupal stage with wings & immediately aiming directly at the moon was a joyous moment. But when I considered a little further I recognised the impossibility of the sense of joy in an ant brain when in fact, they don't even have a brain, & must make do with a rudimentary bundle of nerves which allow them very little experience or sensation. I began to think about it & came to the conclusion that their design really only allowed two activities. They needn't feed themselves as the energy necessary for their short lives has been given them by workers since they were legless, sense-less larva. They don't have any means of defence & appear in-fact, at least to casual observation, to not even have the sense or capacity to try & evade their predators. So what are they capable of? Well, of moving from one place to another, locating the female & mating with her, nothing more. Despite the honour of having sex with the queen, it seems, in my judgement, a rather dull & uninspired existence.

But then I considered still further my summary appraisal & asked myself which quality was it exactly that allowed me this opinion of the male ant's life when compared to my own? What was the actual substance of the difference between the two versions of the experience we shared, the one we define as life? It is obvious to me that despite the importance that ant might have had to the hive, had he actually managed to find his queen circling another light source outside of my bathroom. Or even to the gecko that might have fed on him, why was his life insignificant while mine wasn't? Was it a question of longevity? Does the fact I may live seventy years compared to his thirty minutes define the difference between us? Well, though thirty minutes is a tiny multiple of seventy years, when viewed within the big picture, the age of our planet for instance, or even just the age of our species, the difference in longevity pales.

In this context one might even consider the fact that there are many more species of ants alone within their genera, than there are animals within the class of mammals, & most of them have been around much longer.

If we are to include longevity as a measure of significance, than what of the lichen that lives thousands of years without another living thing in sight of its frozen habitat, finding sustenance quite literally in the chemicals extracted from rocks. As successful at aging as lichen may be there seems, at least to the human mind, a complete, absolute & unmitigated lack of purpose & therefore significance to its life, & yet it seems to want to BE with a will at least equal to our own.

What's more, since physics has proven that time as a constant is a human concept with no real meaning outside of human perception, maybe that male ant experienced a human second as equivalent to what it takes a human a year to experience. In fact, when I stop to think about it, time is not even a human concept as I described it above, but rather a human invention, the proof being that without calendars & clocks to tick away the time in a constant manner, man would have no way of knowing how long a day was or how long he had lived. A cave dweller, who spends a hungry day stalking an animal to kill & eat, would later recall that day as much longer than the one that followed when he lay in the shade of a tree digesting it.

So if that difference, a blink of an eye in geological time, is negligible, what else might it be? Might it be the difference in intelligence? Well, if level of intelligence is a possible explanation for the difference in significance between the life of a male ant & my own life I suppose I would have to examine the purposes & uses of intelligence.

One example of the consummately astonishing results of human intelligence is that billions of people around the world, every second of every day, (with the tiny exception of a few hundred) decide to stop the ton of metal they are conducting at lethal speeds instead of smashing them into one another, simply because of a flashing red or green light. But then ants, which some say make up as much as 25% of the macro-animal bio-mass of the world (E. O. Wilson has estimated that there are 10,000 trillion individual ants alive at any given moment), sometimes live in colonies of millions of individuals with supremely intricate cooperation & they not only possess no intelligence as defined by humans but they do not even have brains... hmmnn... ok, shelter, weapons, care of the young, herding other species as food source, storing food for the future & a hundred other examples of human intelligence are equalled if not excelled by ant societies, but there is one aspect of intelligence that we beat them at: the consciousness we exist. In fact our intelligence in that context is so sophisticated we are even capable of believing we don't exist.

The first thing to consider when examining this concept is the obvious one that though each individual ant seems no more than a chemically programmed automaton, perhaps the ant colony is actually a highly couth & mature intelligence made up of unthinking individuals just as humans are made up of unthinking cells that don't know they form part of us. Indeed, the ant colony as a whole may be so far advanced in its intelligence & self-awareness that it cannot conceive of a manner functional enough in its crudity to communicate with us poor individual humans.

Putting aside the theoretical possibility of that supposition, the entire history of recorded human philosophy (& I refuse to give theology more respect or credence than this single parenthetic mention) consider human self-consciousness an indication of a higher level of evolution than any other living being, since we don't recognise it in any but our own species. This could be it! This might be the proof there is indeed some significance to my life that the ant, whose entire life I witnessed, lacked. How exciting! But we would have to define the purpose of life to prove or disprove whether self-awareness qualifies as a significant factor.

Proof is a far rarer thing in philosophy than is a disproof, a refutation. But I would argue thusly: if all of the estimated 30,000,000 living things on this planet have only one thing in common; without any exception, not one single other quality that all life shares, mustn't that be the most likely purpose of 'life' in the abstract?

As it happens there is one easily defined characteristic: reproduction, or when examined more closely, replication. If we can agree on that then the whole enigma quickly unravels to a simple & obvious solution, ergo—the life form of greatest objective significance is the one that is most successful at replication. The intelligence & self-awareness, that made me capable of the thoughts & ideas I have just written down, or that allowed you to read & understand them, are simply & entirely irrelevant. The list of most evolved 'life' would be topped by bacteria, followed quite a ways further down by ants & somewhere well below them by me lying in my bathtub considering it all.
Ivan said...

I think. Therefore, I think I am.

8:28 PM

Paul Herman said...

In fact your version of Descarte's maxim could be said to be more accurate. The philosophical criticism of the original statement being that the first 'I' of the statement presupposes the self's existence, but then I was told by a Frenchman that in the original French this is not true, that the first 'I' is more akin to 'it'...?

10:47 AM

Paul Herman said...

The original statement by Descartes in French is: "Je pense, donc je suis", which occurs in his Discourse on Method (1637). Which, in fact translates exactly to the English: I think therefore I am. In Latin: Cogito ergo sum, translates to: "I am thinking, therefore I exist", neither of which deal with the objection that the statement is fallacious due to the initial 'I' presupposing the existence of self.

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Mental Workshop- pg 1 | pg 2 | pg 3 | pg 4 | pg 5 | pg 6 | pg 7 | pg 8 | pg 9 |<previous

Links to post titles:

P'sMW- page 1

California, first impressions
India
Conspiracy theories
I love you; thanks’; you’re welcome
Errata
Fear
Egon & the other animals
A note about price:size ratio in paintings
Strange tales

P'sMW- page 2

Christ’s devil
Timelines
Life's funnel
Souvenirs
Moon Myth
How chaos was subdued in the Japanese genesis myth
Noah Lukeman & the murky world of today’s book publishing
Morality and religion
Music and Love
Temeris Mortis
The Dream
Peace
God's Tick
Old Man (short story)
Intuition

A Curious Fact

P'sMW- page 3

Why Humans prefer other Humans to be like themselves
A letter to painters

Why do people talk?

The Painter's Eye

I'bn al Alhí's treasure
(short story)
Associative Personality Disorder
Love poems, death poems
The Golem

Elitism in Art

Theory of the Mind

Death Scenes
Politics II
Rock & Roll
Words II- more words
Words

P'MW- page 4

Confidence
How to steal from gullible artists
Priests behaving badly
How to make a painting
Oats & history
A note about signatures on paintings
Bob Dylan
Number of atheists among scientists
Theoretical physics & me
Faust & Mephistopheles
Children's reading habits
How to get good photos of firework
The 20th century
Further Dialogue on the 20th Century article (here) with comments by Bobby Porter
Love is
Civilisation
Martial Art as Sport
Blind Boy Fuller
Becoming an artist
Insomniac notes
Mind-brain
Age
José Tomás
Black Adder
This is not a Blog

P'sMW- page 5

Dammit! (final comments on the article Karma without metaphysics)
Laic morality (comments on Karma without Metaphysics)
Karma without metaphysics
Chivalric ethics
Shibumi
Shibumi: Comments by Bobby Porter
Oxford Project revisited
How to travel
How Wang-Fô was saved
Fish memory
The artist’s relationship to his work
Bobby's response to The artist’s relationship to his work
Egon
20,000+
Memories of my father II

P'sMW- page 6

Men & Women
Girls: come closer & I'll tell you a secret about men
Catholic Spain
Art is
Bad luck
Dogs are the Best People
Tough Love
Dense, intense and condensed: a short love story.
Cubans, Norwegians & me
From the Guggenheim to Santiago's tomb
Memories of my Father
Ecco il uomo
Divorce & maturity
Inspiration & process
Bulls & men

P'sMW- page 7

Truth & beauty
Bugs as food
What is art? part II- Is modern art, art?
A painter’s thoughts about self-portraits
The Piraha of the Amazon jungle
Thailand: stories

P'sMW- page 8

We'd be better off without Religion
East Meets West
Thoughts on Memory
Scared
Frank Zappa
Art & Dreams by Ilene Skeen
Indoctrination
Rush to change names in Isaan
The Artist & Emotion
The art critic
What is Art? Part I
Note of introduction added to the Masculine/feminine article
Rebuttal to Raymond S Kraft

P'sMW- page 9

I'm back!
Masculine versus feminine, Muslim versus Buddhist.
Driving with Muslims or Buddhists
Peter Feldstein & Stephen G Bloom's Oxford project
How to argue
On 'happiness', in answer to Ivan's comment.
Thoughts on Happiness
The birth of Chiang Mai

War Story
Happiness Versus Suffering
Cogitations upon observing the life of an ant, from its birth to its death by old age, while I lay in a bathtub.
June 10, 06

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