Episteme

"When sex becomes the subject of self-improvement, when couples monitor the frequency and intensity-the regularity and reciprocity-of their erotic contact, it becomes as dull a drudgery as their day job, as boring a routine as biceps curls."

Say what you will of bicep curls, Cristina Nehring writing about a new book about sex, marriage and ourselves, is right. I find myself keeping mental logs of these things (well, we did it twice last week, once this week -- OMG! there must be something wrong if we're not humping every day!), and am embarrassed to say as much because it's really foolish and neurotic.

But I've been reading almost every column, article, blog entry I can find on women, sex and marriage. I'm not close to being married and even farther from kids (something I find complicated and terrifying) but I can't help but wonder how women are doing it -- marriage, kids, personal life, sex, careers -- without ending up divorced and destitute when they are 50 or completely giving their identities to marriage. Are any of them doing without those problems?

What ends up being our choices? A frigid horrible bitch, like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada or the anonymous but ubiquitous soccer mom. I wonder how Simone de Beavior handled it (wrote amazing books on philosophy) or Margaret Mead (if you read Betty Friedan, Mead really fucked it up for the women's movement)?

And there's Britney's crotch shots and Paris Hilton's sex tape and I get totally confused -- are they liberated or just stupid, entitled sluts? Is that where post-feminism is leading us or is that another incarnation of the "feminine mystic"? Nehring cites Walt Whitman (who knew a thing or two about sex and self) and says simply "We all...contain multitudes." It's layers upon layers of ourselves that crowd our thinking and even being with family, going home to the most familiar human beings on Earth, it seems like I know less and less of them because we spend little time together throughout the year and these aren't subjects we broach in the politest of terms.

Posted by Dawn at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So my not-so-noticeable absence can be explained by one word: disruption. I've just been disrupted the last few weeks and as I sit on my bed now looking around a room half in boxes, I realize I'm almost through it. Almost.

But I haven't stopped wondering about things, which brings me to my primary point: terrorism. I don't really understand what goes through the minds of people who want to kill bystanders and threaten the fabric of free societies, so I won't guess. I do know when I board a plane headed to Europe next weekend, I won't be able to bring any liquids me with as a consequence. It's going to be a wonderful vacation, one I've worked hard for almost a year to pay for, but nonetheless, I am - as all airline passengers are - in the drag net of terrorism. And that makes it seem a little less joyous or maybe it should be even more so. But really, I'm going to drink beer and see friends, nothing else. I'll let you know when I get back.

Continue reading "The Bigger Threat Is Us" »

Posted by Dawn at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Standing in line, waiting for some ice cream over the weekend (a weekend full of swimming and hiking and thoughts on Nature), a chatty lady with a purple plume in her hat began a conversation. We covered our jobs, where we live, etc., and then, I can't remember how, we got on truth. Or Truth, perhaps. We didn't call it truth, but that's what is was, in a way. Remember the author of "A Million Little Pieces" being exposed being raked across the coals by Oprah, whose become the premiere forum for confessionals and purification?

We didn't talk about it in that way, but what the woman said, how James Frey lied, how what he wrote was peddled as truth but it was all lie, that surprised her so much she recalled it to me nearly seven months after Frey's public excoriation in the church of Oprah. But didn't the publisher insist in changing the book's genre from fiction to memoir in order to sell more books?

Maybe I'm making that part up but what does this say about our attitudes toward truth in a time of "reality TV" and 24-hour confessionals? With a war in Iraq, the origins and reasons of which are muddled, and world where language is made opaque by newfangled corporate adages and bureaucratic vernacular, how can we possible know what is true? Is Frey another witch burned at the postmodern stake? We aren't sure what's true anymore, perhaps. I need some more time think about this with Foucault.

Posted by Dawn at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are there limits to what's acceptable for debate in a democracy? As I heard Alan Dershowitz discuss his views on torture on NPR this morning, his belief that torture should be legalized insofar as a warrant would need to be issued (or the act formally sanctioned) by the highest echelons of the government (read: the White House). He makes the point that the US government is in a terrible situation because not only does it use torture but it publicly denies that it uses it and denies that it sanctions it. Abu Ghraib wasn't the work of some rogue underlings, he said, but an order from the top. He isn't asking for torture to be condoned but rather for there to be public acknowledgement that no matter, in times of conflict, torture will be used and there should be a legal framework in place to address that.

With all the sham debates going on in Congress right now (as prep for the election) over things like gay marriage and flag burning, a debate on torture might sober up the place or at least make clear to voters exactly where members of Congress stand on something that has stained America's image abroad and ruined America's credibility in many places of the world. But who has the courage to purpose public discourse on such a horrible subject? Maybe this is the failing of democracy. Perhaps discussing how a country based on the principles of equality and universal dignity can engage in such deplorable behavior (this also the same country founded with the belief that blacks were only 3/5 citizens) would uncover too nakedly the seamy underside of humanity. After all, Susan Sontag said the photos are us.

Posted by Dawn at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's weird to think about Al Gore having a movie. It was weird to see Al Gore in one. Sure it was mostly of him giving his lectures and reflecting on his life and global warming, but with the financial backing of people like liberal environmentalist Laurie David (wife of Larry David. She's the reason why he drives a Prius in "Curb Your Enthusiasm", the best show ever!) it's meant to be more than a mere documentation of Gore's numerous lecture.

In keeping with the theme of democracy, something Gore said has stuck in my mind. He was comparing fuel efficiency standards for various countries to make a point the combating the problem of global warming is possible and the political does exist in places to do it. He showed a chart of the different standards from various countries, the US at the bottom of course. China, in the midst of economic doom and mass migration unseen in history, has already outpaced the US in its standards. China has mandatory mileage of standards of about 35 miles per gallon (if I'm remembering correctly), while the US is somewhere in the high teens. Gore makes the obvious point that the American motor companies (which are going through a major period of transformation) can't sell their cars in China (that oppressive dictatorship!) because they don't meet Chinese standards.

Gore goes on to say, near the conclusion of his film, that Americans need to use their democratic tools to institute change, namely elect officials who will push for higher standards. To me, implicit in his argument is the question is our democracy capable of making those changes? Is living in centralized state like China more effective for making dramatic changes to environmental policy?

Continue reading "One Vote At The Top" »

Posted by Dawn at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What are you allowed to know (a function of education and, to some degree, persistence and personal curiosity) is very much a part of the political environment and whether the political leadership and institutions support such thinking is also critical. Maybe that's the burden of democracy, you as a participant in this experiment are required to work diligently to be informed and rational about the information choices before you. Those aren't ingredients for a tedious life but then again exhaustion inevitably leads to defeat and when information is fractured and facts called into question, all information seems like misinformation. Is the "system" like this deliberately or does the proliferation of 24 hour cable news, endless partisan talk shows, customized news aggregates and customized everything, stem from a need in our society to reinforce what we already know regardless of context, historical or present? Hell, The New York Times thinks 24 hours news killed the CIA.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad, in his recent 18-page letter, wrote this to Bush, "Mr. President: Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems. Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things."

Continue reading "The Mind and Every Where Else " »

Posted by Dawn at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times Magazine from last week did something I just love: look at historical precedent to explain a contemporary predicament. Today's troubles have their roots in the past, though to hear our politicians speak about it, these are unprecedented problems which require radical, sometimes unlawful, actions at the expense of everything else.

The article postulates that liberals (Democrats) need to look to their 20th century history to see how they can create a compelling, coherent foreign policy to rival the conservatives in this election year and beyond. Undoubtedly, the Democrats are impotent because they are beset by extraordinary problems and have a diverse (ideological, economic) base to appeal to. The legacy Democrats should turn to? That of Reinhold Niebuhr. I made some mention of his ideas before because I too see them as a way of understanding the predicament American now finds itself, one that is hubristic and radical.

Niebuhr said the atrocities of early 20th century in terms of humanity's move away from a doctrine of fallibility to one of extreme idolization of the individual. In the United States’ policies during the cold war he, along with George Kennan, cautioned that Americans cannot lose sight of their own wickedness and injustice and regard themselves as “morally pure” in contrast to their communist enemies. Even democracies are capable of bring great tyranny on their people and others.

Peter Beinhart, author of the Times pieces concurs: "in the first years of the cold war, Niebuhr's emphasis on moral fallibility underlay America's remarkable willingness to restrain its power." The danger, Beinhart writes, of these current times, is America's movement away from this restraint but calling itself a "benign empire" and having grand ambitions of "exporting" democracy to everyone, whether they want it or not. "In other words," Beinhart writes, "the United States would rid itself of external impediments but nonetheless act in the global good, uncorrupted by the temptations of unrestrained power."

Beinhart continues with what I think is a good encapsulation of the problem: "On global warming, an American liberated from international restraint has acted irresponsibly; in our antiterrorist prisons, we have acted inhumanely." Liberals, it seems, have not been able to come up with viable solutions because they have been able to explain this hubris in a way that provides any glimmer of hope for change or convinces people that they would do any different if they were in power. They haven't been able to explain, to a national audience, how the current conservative administration has focused on foreign affairs at the expense of domestic ones. Beinhart provides a good example: "That is the hidden backdrop to the great popular revolt against the Dubai ports deal earlier this year - an isolationist, nationalist spasm by a public that feels the government is more concerned with the interests of foreigners that with its own."

So what is to be done? Liberals have to embrace promoting democracy abroad but like how it was done after WWII: by providing economic opportunity with it as well and accepting that democracy in this country is an experiments and its health is dependent on our belief in the system. They can also talk about bringing the focus back to domestic front because, as Beinhart points out, "America is not a fixed model for a benighted world. It is the democratic struggle here at home, against evil in our society, that offers a beacon to people in other national struggling against the evil in theirs."

Filed under Current Events, History, Politics

Posted by Dawn at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jane Jacobs died this week while I was in the middle of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I saw her give a lecture at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco little more than a year ago. If I had read her book(s) at the time, I probably would remember more of what she said, but I do remember is how she got into writing, urban planning and journalism: all by accident. She loved New York City, what made it New York City, at a time when the great experiment of suburbanism was getting underway and people were evacuating cities as though to escape pestilence.

Continue reading "Death of Cities, Death of Jane " »

Posted by Dawn at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

German director Werner Herzog (whose movies I've never seen) captures perfectly the spirit of tenuous humanity (something I think about every time I see the pyramids of apples in the grocery store):

"Herzog was born in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in 1942. The disaster of Nazism, he said, informs his brooding world view. 'I try to understand the ocean beneath the thin layer of ice that is civilization,' he said. 'There's miles and miles of deep ocean, of darkness and barbarism. And I know the ice can break easily.'"

From a recent issue of The New Yorker.

Filed Under Philosophy, Current Events

Posted by Dawn at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)