With regard to the proposal by Nicholas Negroponte to create and subsequently sell $100 laptop computers geared for use in underdeveloped and developing countries around the world. Vincent has a decidedly skeptical view (update: skeptical to me, he says otherwise), which I disagree with on many points. What follows is an address to a couple of the biggies. This here is slightly edited from that there:
I'm not really sure this $100 laptop thang is gonna fly. (See in Cyrus Farivar writing in Slate.com.) But assuming it does in some form, it is an interesting development. After your introductory paragraphs, you start to attempt to make your points, and you write:
Seeing the above as potential leap in the exterior social dimension, or in Wilber-speak the Lower Right Quadrant, from a more interior cultural perspective could this possibly mean that entire Ethnocentric countries could make a leap to Worldcentric awareness?
Your reasoning falls apart at and after this sentence. Primarily because you lose all sense of context. Exterior social dimension -- of what? Lower Right Quadrant -- of what? Interior cultural perspective -- of what?
Your answer to "of what?" appears to be, rather startlingly, all underdeveloped and developing countries. If you feel comfortable collapsing all the various contexts of these countries into a single context, more power to you. But don't expect to win many real debates. But don't fret, you and baldy share this problem. His famous four quadrants diagram lacks real context, as well. I still think I'm the only one to have cited this problem.
If gov'ts want to purchase computers for their citizens, then on balance I say go for it. It is an investment, and every investment carries risks and rewards. These gov't don't all have the same situation or context, so it really is a case by case basis to assess postives and negatives of such a move. Regardless, it still takes time to learn how to use computers, time to learn how to think in ways that take advantage of the computer's multiperspectivity, and time to build any sort of online community that lasts more than a day. There is a learning curve for all technology, moreso for computers, perhaps the most complex medium ever available to mass culture.
Thus I see no evidence that a 'rush' of any kind would ensue, at least in the sense that your 'certain chaos' means anything real. This sounds like some sort of bastardized Gravesian "momentous leap" and it is equally speculative, and unproven. My god, even first worlders have reservations about the actual benefits of computers. Outside of email and word processing, many people loath to work at their machine. It is too private and isolated an experience for many people.
This part of Negroponte's interview is very compelling, as well as an answer to your seeming paranoia:
"WN: Here's a potential downside: How long is it going to be before somebody writes a computer virus that takes advantage of this mesh network to start spreading?
Negroponte: You've got to be careful here. That's a little like saying you ought to not teach people how to read and write because they could write messages to each other about how to build a bomb. Anything you tell me that has to do with education, I can tell you how it's not a good idea because they could read a book on how to make a bomb or something.... I'm more worried about the reverse."
Unless we believe our own development, in a first world environment, is an overall bad thing, then we ought not fear the development sure to ensue from the spread of the computer medium.
Now, if you want to write a book on computer ethics 101, that would be a different issue entirely. By all means write that book, because education goes hand in hand with technology. It took me several months to persuade even my mother to refrain from the chain-mail forwards -- "send this to 10 friends in the next 10 minutes and you will be a millionaire" -- and this, bless her heart, is a college educated woman, about to start a PhD program. Now if she is reading this then don't worry Mom—we all go through this initial phase with email. :) (no x-mas presents for me this year...)
Thankfully, that and porn, lots and lots of porn, is about as bad as it gets with computers in most cases. Viruses are a problem but so what, these will always be problems, and problems of some kind are built into existence. The rest of the computer downside is basically left-over flack from the medium of television, and I don't hear anyone sermonizing about how we should keep televisions away from developing countries. Which is a good thing. A very good thing.
I believe in life. I believe in treasuring it as a mystery that will never be fully understood, as a sanctity that should never be destroyed, as an invitation to experience now what can only be remembered tomorrow. I believe in its indivisibility, in the intimate connection between the newest bud of spring and the flicker in the eye of a patient near death, between the athlete in his prime and the quadriplegic vet, between the fetus in the womb and the mother who bears another life in her own body.
I believe in liberty. I believe that within every soul lies the capacity to reach for its own good, that within every physical body there endures an unalienable right to be free from coercion. I believe in a system of government that places that liberty at the center of its concerns, that enforces the law solely to protect that freedom, that sides with the individual against the claims of family and tribe and church and nation, that sees innocence before guilt and dignity before stigma. I believe in the right to own property, to maintain it against the benign suffocation of a government that would tax more and more of it away. I believe in freedom of speech and of contract, the right to offend and blaspheme, as well as the right to convert and bear witness. I believe that these freedoms are connected -- the freedom of the fundamentalist and the atheist, the female and the male, the black and the Asian, the gay and the straight.
I believe in the pursuit of happiness. Not its attainment, nor its final definition, but its pursuit. I believe in the journey, not the arrival; in conversation, not monologues; in multiple questions rather than any single answer. I believe in the struggle to remake ourselves and challenge each other in the spirit of eternal forgiveness, in the awareness that none of us knows for sure what happiness truly is, but each of us knows the imperative to keep searching. I believe in the possibility of surprising joy, of serenity through pain, of homecoming through exile.
And I believe in a country that enshrines each of these three things, a country that promises nothing but the promise of being more fully human, and never guarantees its success. In that constant failure to arrive -- implied at the very beginning -- lies the possibility of a permanently fresh start, an old newness, a way of revitalizing ourselves and our civilization in ways few foresaw and one day many will forget. But the point is now. And the place is America.
Psychologists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University in Britain found that professional artists and poets have about twice as many partners as other people.
Their creativity seems to act like a sexual magnet.
But Dr Daniel Nettle, a psychologist at Newcastle University's School of Biology, said it is a double-edge sword.
"Poets and artists have more sexual partners but they also have high rates of depression," he told Reuters.
The White House has provided a 38-pg PDF to the public, called "National Strategy For Victory In Iraq". It is an update of the document originally provided in 2003. I couldn't help but notice this goal, part of 'strategic pillar eight' on the last page:
Providing technical assistance and training to support a free, independent, and responsible Iraqi media (including television, radio, and print) that delivers high-quality content and responsible reporting throughout Iraq
...because as McLuhan reminds, the 'mosaic' nature of the newspaper and televised media, no matter the content, in and of itself fosters the diminishment of mono-perspective in favor of multi-perspectivity. To even be able to process the often chaotic delivery nature of the newspaper's information requires a complex view of the world. That is not to say that Iraqis don't have a complex view of the world, but it is rather to say that multi-perspectivity is a foundation of participatory government and democracy. Which is to say that I'm glad the the US has this as one of its goals for Iraq, beyond the reasons listed in the document.
From a column posted today. The third paragraph is where the real insight into political discourse lies:
It's funny, for years now Bush's critics have denounced the president for his "moral absolutism." His "you're either with us or against us" rhetoric was too "black and white." The French, intellectuals, liberals, diplomats—these are the enlightened who can see in shades of gray. John Kerry, the master of nuance, was the real statesman because he understood that one must draw fine distinctions and grasp the "complexities" of every situation.
Well, we now have a situation where the Bush administration is asking for liberals—and some conservatives—to see beyond the spectrum of black and white. But the supporters of the McCain Amendment, which would ban "coercive" measures and impose constitutional strictures of due process on the war on terror, insist that there are only two choices. Either you can agree with them and support the bill or you must love torture. Complete and total moral absolutism is the order of the day.
This inconsistency—or hypocrisy, if you're so inclined—is itself instructive insofar as it demonstrates that almost all political arguments boil down to moral absolutism at some point. It's just that we have disagreements about where we should be absolutist and where we should make compromises with necessity.
I underlined the key point. To me, this is spot on. Another way to put this is that explicit moral absolutism is a necessary component to politics. Even if the speaker or debater is not, as a person, prone to moral absolutism, nonetheless rhetorical absolutism is necessary for the purposes of debate in a democracy.
And that goes for everyday life, too, in many instances. People often don't have the time to deal with the nuances of your perspective, or be able to sit down and see the shades of grey. The demands of life mean we often take the subtleties of a situation for granted. You drive down a busy thoroughfare, you don't care about the subtleties of the situation of the pedestrian who, in their infinite wisdom, holds up traffic because that person crossed the street while traffic was a full blow. The simple assessment of the situation functions has a kind of absolutism—action by person dumb, effect on you equals frustration.
Or if you own real estate that you argue with the management company about the selling price of your property. Nuances get trampled upon by the big personalities required to function well in the real estate culture environment. You have to speak in simple, declarative sentences, and convey your meaning in a kind of absolutism. "This is what I want, no discussion. This is my property, not yours." Without an absolutist approach, then you don't get the take-away cash that you would have. Absolutism is good business sense.
Of course, the mere fact that we can talk about moral absolutism means that we are not beholden to it, and there is a developmental clearing beyond absolutism. A person who is a dyed in the wool moral absolutist simply cannot talk about being an absolutist. When absolutism grips a psyche, it is woven into the subjective awareness. It is the invisible operator of the person. It colors the world you see, and the responses you have to the world. And deeply, the absolutist worldview, like all worldviews, is anchored by semiotic frameworks—how you process signs, language, codes, and establish internal relationships and associations, both intuitive and conscious. Every worldview has it own semiotic dogma, if by 'dogma' you mean its original definition of 'seems right'.
All that said, while I have not examined President Bush beyond his public statements, it is highly unlikely that he is any kind of moral absolutist at the core. He appears far more developed than that. He may sometimes speak in tones reminscent of m.a., but that, as I have shown, is a different matter, one where one's rhetoric is pitched for the context. It is a sign of poor thinking when, in today's day and age, in the highly pluralistic culture of America, you hear critics of any stripe call someone a moral absolutist without heavy qualification and explanation. What they really mean is, "I disagree" but merely stating that doesn't have the same impact as the ad hominem. "I disagree" is, ironically, not moral absolutist-sounding enough.
Stereo sound ... is 'all-around' or 'wrap-around' sound. Previously sound had emanated from a single point in accordance with the bias of visual culture from its fixed point of view. The hi-fi change-over was really for music what cubism had been for painting, and what symbolism had been for literature; namely, the acceptance of multiple facets and planes in a single experience. Another way to put it is to say that stereo is sound in depth...
...When l.p. and hi-fi and stereo arrived, a depth approach to musical experience also came in. Everybody lost his inhibitions about 'highbrow', and the serious people lost their qualms about popular music and culture. Anything that is approached in depth acquires as much interest as the greatest matters. Because 'depth' means 'in inter-relation', not in isolation. Depth means insight, not point of view, and insight is a kind of mental involvement in process that makes the content of the item seem quite secondary. Consciousness itself is an inclusive process not at all dependent upon content. Consciousness does not postulate consciousness of anything in particular.
McLuhan is famous for his dictum that "the medium is the message" and this passage is a classic example of his thought. McLuhan draws distinctions between medium and content, and here he draws a picture of the 'medium' of stereo sound. He suggests that the experience of stereo sound itself begets a kind of aural structure, the architecture of which is what truly stirs new consciousness, not the content of the music (actual sounds, tones, rhythms, phrasing, etc.). The distinction, then, is between the banks of the river and the river itself; between the circuitry of home's electrical wiring, and the electricity itself; between the programming of a computer's hard drive and the files a person saves on it. That content itself is less important is demonstrated, as he writes, that now people appreciate both popular and high-art relatively interchangeably. Both make up the river which flows through the multi-faceted irrigation of stereo sound, a higher formal complexity than mono, and which through its programming, offers insight equally, no matter the quality/artisanship of the content delivered.
In my essay Polysemy, I discuss the role of syntax in the overall sign package of artwork, and investigation of the overall syntax of different mediums, and the effects of the differences upon consciousness, is McLuhan's primary area of study. He is truly a master of detecting subtle but profound ramifications of various media, from the wheel to phonetic language to clothing, clocks, photography, the telegraph, typewriter, films, and more. For him, the implications of content in artwork are secondary to the implications of the structure of the media itself. All media are extensions of the human body/mind. Stereo sound (and now, surround sound) is an objective extension of our subjective capacity to hear inclusively from all directions.
Of course content is fundamental to artwork. That goes without saying, McLuhan's own emphases aside. What is notable about content, in whatever form or medium of art, is that its installation and placement in the artwork object is propelled by the artist and his or her intuition. We put things in our art, often, because it just feels right to do so. The same content in the hands of different artists yields different perceptual responses, generally speaking. The same notes of a melody performed by Miles Davis versus John Coltrane yields differences far too notable to dismiss, beyond mere differences of instrument used (trumpet v. sax).
This reality has always meant to me that artists have to strive to feel free to express intuitively, while also taking steps to, in essence, train or inform that intuition through formal study of craft and composition. Follow your bliss, but take ongoing steps to educate it first.
PAGLIA ON ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART AND MULTICULTURALISM
In a 1997 Salon.com column, Paglia discusses Afro-centric interpretations of Egyptian artwork, and the paradox of it in its extreme posture:
Militant Afrocentrism has stirred up poisonous resentment against the supposed European suppression and erasure of Egyptian culture. In point of fact, it was Africans who almost immediately looted and smashed up the royal tombs and afterward neglected or stripped and dismantled the sacred monuments. The great Egyptian sites, including Deir el Bahri, Karnak and Abu Simbel, were piles of rubble buried in sand for 2000 years until Europeans took an interest in them.
Rogues and cheats there certainly were among the early excavators of Egypt. But it was Europeans who painstakingly deciphered hieroglyphics and who first explored, mapped and catalogued the magnificent ruins of Egypt. Indeed, archaeology as a systematic technique of analysis and conservation ultimately descends from Greek science.
Egypt and all of Africa deserve a much expanded place in the academic curriculum—but not at the expense of European intellectual history, which invented the very tools that multiculturalism needs to understand the world.
UPDATE: Victoria is riding the same wave, and so check her out.
Just a quick update on Twyla's 4 mo. check up. Dr. Lang said her growth and development are just great!!
She weighed in at 14 pounds, 13 oz and was 25 2/3 inches long, which means she's more than doubled her birth weight and has grown a total of over half a foot. CRAZY!
She also had her first round of immunizations today too. She did well--fussed when she got poked, but quickly recovered. She was a champ. I think that now, however, her little thighs are a bit sore from the shots and she's a bit fussy, but nothing too awful. I'd be fussy too.
We've both been sleeping most of the afternoon. I have a bit of a sore throat and cold, so it was nice to spend the afternoon in bed together.
It is the atist's job to try to dislocate older media into postures that permit attention to the new. To this end, the artist must ever play and experiment with new means of arranging experience, even though the majority of his audience may prefer to remain fixed in their old perceptual attitudes.
I streamlined my Music page, and added the Flash Album for Spiral Suite. Check it out. Look for more Flash Albums (for Curious Brew and for A Bird In The World) very soon.
The age of the compact disc, like the age of the phonograph, the lp, the seven-inch, the eight-track, and the cassette tape, has ended. Anyone paying attention knows we have entered the Age Of The MP3. Aidin Vazeria of the San Francisco Chronicle runs down the possibiliites of today's dominant channels of music distribution. With one's television integrated with one's computer, home stereo, and portable stereo (iPod, etc), all networked to wi-fi web, basically what this means is that the web will be the main river of recorded music for the near future. And I think this is a very good development that both allows more creative freedom and obliges to more artistic responsibility to be able to rise above the conventional.
The next 100 years of music will likely be the most experimental period the world has ever seen. The world is our stage, the planet is our audience, and the histories of music from all cultures are our library. To make music is simpler than ever: you live, you listen, you learn, you expand, you experiment. And then, of course, you perform and record. For me music beings with the most embodied, most engaged, and most vibratory practice possible. You sing.
Now each film opens in its own pop up window over a black background. Check those films out. It is a whole new frame.
And if you aren't able to get the popups to work, let me know. I'm getting into an area of web development where things are more experimental, and might not work right away. So feel free to drop me a line if you can't see/hear/navigate through parts of my site.
As Hannah's been writing about on her blog, the Dallman 3 are giving strong consideration to a move to a different part of the metropolitan Chicago area. (Which, by the way, is not called by Chicagoans as the 'metropolitan Chicago area' but rather by the startling 'Chicagoland area'. Does any other city attach the '-land' as a suffix?)
Gee, honey let's move to the Seattleland area, whattaya say? No? Well then how 'bout over the pond in Londonland?
But this is a far outskirt section of Chicagoland. So far that in fact it is in southeastern Wisconsin. What? you say, Chicagoland extends into another state? Why yes it does. In fact it extends into two other states—southeastern Wisconsin as well as northwestern Indiana. Chicago, as it were, is not just part of Illinois. No, it has gone trans-Illinois. A special, elite form of high-end sociocentrism.
The reason for this possible move, no sooner than May, is basically that our little T-bird came a bit earlier than we originally planned, and so what was a two-income household transformed into a one-income household. The kind lender-folks who gave us a mortgage on our properties, though, don't give a rip, in their game of dollar-sign semiotics. Thus Dallman family dollar-sign semiotics point us ever so intuitively towards a sale of our house in Chicago proper, and a move to a town in sw Wisconsin called Kenosha.
We would still be Chicago-centric. I would continue to work in the Loop; Hannah would continue to study film at Columbia College; Twyla would continue to learn how to say the word "she kaw gho" and "coor rupt shun" and other words particular to our favorite town ever. We really love it here. After living in St. Louis, Minneapolis, Boston, St. Paul, Brooklyn, and Milwaukee, seriously—Chicago is just the best on all levels. And we both find it to be a very inspiring place to live, as artists. I like the idea, suggested by a sign in the downtown, that "Chicago is the pantry for the world". I like how it is a bit of a thinker. I like how it connects the city's merit to the act of biological sustenance. And I like how it is absolutely true.
Financially, assuming things go as they reasonably should, the economics of the move will be a home run. We'll spend half as much as we do now to live in a single-family home twice the space of our current place. We can commute into the city via the Metra commuter line, the last stop of which is Kenosha. So we are guaranteed our choice of leather seats.
Emotionally (which is shorthand for emotionally, spiritually, artistically), there is both upside and downside. The downside is that we are an 80-90 min trainride from Chicago, and all the fun stuff that the city offers. We love the cache of living in the city. We love taking quick drives to our friends' places, our grocery stores, our yoga studio, our coffee shops, our theatres, rock clubs, restaurants, all of which have that "chicago cool" thang.
But the upside has a lot of appeal, too. Twyla will be able to have a room of her own, as well as a backyard, some play space in every room, fresh air, and a mommy and daddy less stressed about dollar sign semiotics. And mommy and daddy will have more space for their art, with a dedicated space for Hannah's filmmaking and my music making. I. Can. Play. The. Piano. When. Ever. I. Want. To.
Dammit.
Cuz even though we are home owners now, we own a 3-flat, which means we have tenants, which means I don't want to piss them off cuz they help pay our mortgage to the nice lender folks. Living in a house with lots of wood floors, sound carries, big time.
Kenosha—the home of Orson Wells and the Jelly Belly factory, and for some reason populated with street cards in the downtown area—also means we are close to my dad, Hannah's Dad, her step-mom, though a bit further from my mom. But overall, within 35 minutes of those grandparents means the occasional babysitting from them. Which means a movie now and then for us two lovebirds.
I'm basically thinking of this as our artist retreat. Like Pollack had a shack far outside of New York City to paint, we'll have a single-family outside of Chicago, but still tied tightly to Chicago, for us to do our creative thang. We've talked this through with our family, and everyone thinks it will ulimately be an upside on all counts, though in the short term there will definitely be some nights when we feel isolated or removed from the big city. Kenosha has 90,000 people, and is the 4th largest city in Wisconsin, but, still, compared to our beloved Chicago, well, you can't compare the two. And we'll just keep it that way.
More spot-on, priceless commentary from James Lileks, this time excoriating Kurt Vonnegut for his reprehensible remarks that appear to have the author of Slaughterhouse Five applauding the efforts of suicide bombers. Follow the links in Lileks' piece, and you be the judge, of Vonnegut's remarks as well as Lileks' commentary. Here's Lileks' kosmic kwote:
If these comments are reported accurately – if they didn’t remove the part where he says “nevertheless, they are horrid madmen who willingly slaughter children in the service of a depraved concept of God and human society” – then this ought to be a deal-breaker. This ought to be the point where the man is shunned, not feted, and held to account in every subsequent mention of his name and works. As in “Vonnegut, whose early works exposed the madness and nihilism of war, would later support the ‘sweet and honourable’ nature of men who set off nailbombs in public squares in the name of the organization that killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Muhammad Ali walked down the red carpet at Saturday night's gala opening of the Muhammad Ali Center in his hometown. Ravaged by Parkinson's disease, the champ could not talk, and sometimes he stumbled as if he was in a high tide. The center is near the Ohio River, and much has been made of how Ali has come full circle. That's not enough.
Ali was walking down the carpet and passing into the future.
The six-story center opens to the public today. Only a portion of the center is devoted to boxing memorabilia. The rest of the facility features interactive exhibits geared to children, as well as an emotive 55-foot long, 10-foot high installation composed of more than 5,000 tile drawings by children from 141 countries. This project was underwritten -- to the tune of more than $100,000 -- by actress Angelina Jolie, who attended the opening with Brad Pitt.
In fact, the opening concert was delayed by 40 minutes because President Bill Clinton had a one-on-one with the Ali family. Do not be surprised if the center is used in the future as the location for conflict resolution in the spirit of the United Nations. As the poetic champ might say, "Museums are for gawking -- this one is for talking."
And then the ex-prez offered a striking remark about Ali:
"You thrilled us as a fighter, and you inspire us even more as a force for peace and reconciliation. This center will enshrine both your thrills and your inspirations. But I want to say something more bluntly than anybody else has said tonight. ... When your body slowed down, your heart speeded up. I never saw anything quite like that. You proved once again that the power of example matters a lot more than the example of power."
From Jay Nordlinger at NRO, talking about Michael Steele, Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, who is running for U.S. Senate. He is doing so as a Republican, as a conservative. And he is black:
I believe that black Republicans — black conservatives — are among the bravest people in America. I've talked before about the conservative on campus. But black Republicans must have the harder path. They risk so much: ostracism, scorn, defamation. As we've seen, they're jumped on by the black Left, and jumped on by the white Left (which feels no compunction). And they're no doubt condescended to by some conservatives. If you're a black Republican, you'd better have that elephant's skin that Mike Steele talks about. Those who do merit our highest esteem.
I've gotten enough notes over the last couple weeks saying "Your page loads too slow!", and I have gotten the idea. I appreciate the feedback, immensely. Any web developer will attest to the fears that either a page won't load in timely fashion, or (worse) that a reader's computer set up won't allow them to view, in my case, my embedded movies, mp3s, or recently my embedded philosophy essays. It is part of the reality of web development in a technologically pluralist world.
I think I know the solution to a large part of the slow-loading time issue, so next time you see a film posted to my blog, compare the loading times, and let me know if things are still molasses. Your feedback is very crucial so thanks to you all for the honesty.
Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?
And he doesn't stop there:
How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.
There is basically no reason whatsoever to consider 'intelligent design', or other theories that are sympathetic to installation of a divine force beyond the act of faith (which is important but still, ultimately, is faith), as any kind of science whatsoever. And those in the left take note—Krauthammer is one of those very very evil 'neocons'. Well isn't that interesting.
Efforts to revive an endangered species of white stork:
TOKYO (AP) -- An oriental white stork whose beak snapped off last year after getting stuck in metal wiring got a replacement Friday, a news report said.
...Dentist Toshiaki Chiba attached a plastic resin prosthetic to the end of Taisa's broken beak using a dental adhesive, according to the report.
About Wilber criticism. One thing I'd really like one of ya'll critics to address: what do you project as the true consequences for Ken, i-i, and the world in general of Wilber/I-I/AQAL proceeding apace without addressing all of the mounting criticism? What really is at stake here, beyond just the integrity of scholarly writing in the future? What happens if AQAL captures the imagination of a million people, gets them to meditate, label everything with quadrants, and view themselves and their worlds in integral terms? How bad could it be?
Me: Like I said in the post, to critique is to show that you care about the subject. In other words, that you care about integral in the world, the integral worldview.
I don't think there is a single critic (I can barely count myself in this group, but I do cuz I have posted criticisms, though most relatively short) that aims to deconstruct Wilber's integral for its own deconstructive sake. Nobody is a Wilber nihilist. That is a crucial distinction that separates this from the average mode of criticism, such as in the mainstream media, and I might add, NOBODY has given the group of critics credit on that point. Especially not Sri Baldy.
If a million people start talking integral jargon, I'd be scared, cuz then we have Scientology without the Travolta.
(There have been more than a couple people who have written me to ask about the real difference between Wilber's integral and Scientology. And I don't see all that much practical difference between integral and intelligent design, which i've written about before. These are intriguing juxtapositions that those who have bought into Wilber ought consider).
What is at stake? Well, intellectual integrity is no small potatoes. Ideas matter. Ideas have far-reaching consequences, which is the case for both good ideas and bad ideas. In my mind, there is a real risk of fostering more superficiality in the world. As Jonah Goldberg wrote, "Unity" is high politics, but low philosophy. "Seeing Unity" of the kind Wilber has publically declared is one of his personal missions, is rather perfect for mass consumption, but bad for people who take it seriously, and think through the implications. The only way to even try to accomplish this is to rip truths from their context, much as Chomsky rips political truths from their contexts.
There is a reason people devote their lives to a particular field of thought (it is to really grok the context of that field) and there is a reason why it is so offensive for Wilber to not fulfill that requirement and write so superficially about so many different fields. He has not really demonstrated that he groks the inherent contexts of politics, art, ecology, and so on. He has demonstrated grok-ed-ness about Hindu/Buddhist spirituality, and some parts of Western psychology, so he is earned the right on those fronts. Outside of those areas, he gets a lot of things either wrong or thinly. And guess what—details matter.
Look, I advocate meditation to a certain extent. But let's not be silly about it. I have written that a "1% rule" for silent meditation is pretty good. That is, meditate for about 1% of your waking hours, which is about 10 minutes or so, everyday. At least for a couple years, this is good practice, in my view. But you shouldn't use meditation to, as Wilber says it, develop through several levels of consciousness when the proof that such a thing would ever happen is nonexistent. Nor is there evidence that 'petitionary prayer' is fundamentally any different than silent meditation, zen koan, or for that matter, non-silent meditation such as singing, writing, watching television, talking a walk, or having a good conversation with a friend. The point is to engage, period. To presume that people don't engage, and thus must be tricked into meditating, is extremely patronizing.
To me, all that sort of advocacy on the part of Wilber, through several of his books, is hot air. To blindly adhere to it is equivalent of a blind adherence to intelligent design, scientology, or any number of systems that purport to explain in total terms. And would anyone like to take a shot to prove that meditation will help the environment, will ease terrorism, will end war, will save the world? I mean, isn't that the logical ramification of the belief in meditation's sociocultural power? And isn't that an utterly ridiculous contention?
I will say this: I think integral institute making products of the kind that the outfit offers is probably the extent of what it can and should be doing in the world. Making a university around the work of one thinker is not what it should be doing. Trying to make a rockstar out of Stuart Davis and even Wilber is also ill-advised. So by all means, throw its products out for mass consumption. Give it a shot. I mean, why not? If there is a demand for something like integral in a box, then providing the supply for it is perfectly reasonable. If i-i didn't do it, some other start-up would. Let's just not pretend that if the institution, its primal thinker, and its primal philosophy are all founded upon strange, unsupportable assertions, that to call those out is not important. That is the point of public debate, where people assert their point of view, attempt to back it up with evidence, and then see how it all shakes down. If truth gets corrupted in the marketplace, then that is Wilber's own damn fault. Nobody is forcing him into the marketplace.
In my own limited case, I hope it is evident that while I occasionally criticize Wilber, I also work my tail off to offer my own works of philosophy, still growing, that I feel are at least more applicable than his to working artists. (I might be wrong about that, but we'll just have to see how things go.) I'm not just throwing potshots from the acorn gallery, but I'm attempting to walk the walk myself, through my actions and deeds. This is not to self-serve, but to emphasize the point I made above—that I feel the group of critics around Wilber have earned the right to their position.
This is not, by the way, to call for a debate amongst critics and Wilber. I don't think he is capable of such debate, knowing his personality like I do (or did as of a year ago, our last personal contact). You can't debate speculation, and the hard stuff I'd rather hash out sans baldy. I think he's done enough.
It is demonstrably preposterous that President Bush lied about WMD in Iraq. And for what it is worth, I think it will soon be evident that it is, on the other hand, demonstrably accurate that he is lying when he now says, "We do not torture." My prediction, anyway. Yet the latter in no way negates the former, a point which is apparently to much to grasp for what passes as the American left today.
He has posted a new essay to the web. It has to do with Wilber's novel/book Boomeritis, and the myriad false and/or unproven assertions, distortions of truth, and redundancies. Andrews calls them his "20 Blunders". I personally read Boomeritis once and planned to never read it again. Andrews' essay is another nail in that board. Read it here (via Geoffrey Falk). Excellent stuff.
In my opinion, it is both funny and intellectually rigorous, which is a tough tango to make work, but Andrews succeeds in a very solid way. He also ends with a short list of tips to the Wilber fan who wants to transcend mere Wilber—a list I find to be a good starting point for that endeavor.
(For what it is worth, I would also end all reliance upon Spiral Dynamics, save its use for the barest of introductions to those new to developmental studies and worldviews. Show me the verifiable evidence for SD and I will change this recommendation in a heartbeat).
And just to head off what would be a poor argument against Andrews' piece—yes, of course Wilber's book is an attempt at fiction. But the same intellectual framework that undergirds that books undergirds the last five or so non-fiction books from him. In Boomeritis, Wilber basically created fake characters to mouthpiece the same material from his other books. He created a flimsy narrative to make it seem like his assertions weren't of his own creation. His critiques of postmodernism, narcissism, academia, politics, art, environmentalism, and so on are all found in other works, in much the same language. To claim, "Oh, well Boomeritis is fiction, and Wilber wrote it to be superficial" is beside the point, and is more an indication of the superficial reading of Wilber on the part of those who make this claim. Sorry, try again.
Through the tireless work of Andrews, Falk, other critics such as Mark Edwards, as well as those in the integral blogosphere, we are seeing the further development of something I think is very important—informed, reasoned, and intellectually rigorous skepticism, one that holds Wilber accountable to earn the claims he makes for himself. True skepticism is founded upon an open-mind. Planet-centric skepticism takes it to the next moral level. To hold the perspectives of both an open-mind as well as skeptical mind is, in fact, multi-perspectival in its own right.
This mode, essential to really, really, deal with the implications of an integral worldview, is far beyond some sort of prepersonal 'Kill Mommy' dynamic, and far beyond some sort of sophmoric 'reintegration' of Wilber's ideas, as if those are absolute truths, the coming to terms with is our mere responsibility. Such a 'synthesis' would only be true if Wilber is the equivalent to a guru, and all else are followers, equivalent to a cult. Poppy cock, and the worst of apologetic maneuver. We are all adults here, who have already gone through our Kill Mommy phases when we were, what, 16.
To critique something is to show that, deep down, you care about the subject. To not critique when you know something is off is to be just along for the ride. Critique is essential to the endeavor of truth and validity. You care about getting it right, based on solid reasoning, evidence, and scholarly integrity. To mix in provocative and even challenging language is more risky, but succeeds if the intellectual rigor is stringently maintained. To help the world is not to just ignore when someone, even a philosopher, is in a position of power and, over and over again, gets things wrong, or gets things far too superficial. It is to mention, shout, even scream, Sorry Baldy, but you couldn't be more off.
If you don't care that Wilber contorts the research of others (such as with Abigail Housen) to fit his own model, his own system, his own marketable product, then that is your choice. But you also lose the right to be listened to when you complain when critics point this out, even when they do so with righteous indignation. If it was only indignation, that would be one thing. If critics get too personal with their gibes, however, then a critique of that behavior is, of course, fair game. But, for example in the case of Falk, his indignation is founded upon sincere, reasoned arguments that show where Wilber has made grave errors, the stuff that is inexcusable in conventional intellectual circles. To hold him accountable, given the position he is in, is a moral imperative. To expose holes is the equivalent of a bodhisattva vow, only for scholars. It must be done. There is no choice. And in this case, Jim Andrews has again showed the way.
I'm about halfway through the rather large task of revising everything I've written for a new edition of my entire integral art philosophical works. This is in preparation for me jumping to the next level, that of getting a book deal. Culling together everything I've written so far, even pieces from almost three years ago, is weird, to say the least. But I'll be happy when I reach the top of this mountain, and present you all with the revised essays.
The fruits of this endeavor you have started to see, in the various Art Philosophy Portals I have posted over the last two weeks. I will continue to utilize this web mechanism in larger and deeper ways, the first big project of which is in fact my revised collected art essays, presented in a way that is (I think) completely unique on the web. Things are gonna get 3D, with essays within pages, films within pages, cellph shots within pages, and so on.
Speaking of which, if you have not been able to see the contents of the blog entries that are in fact Art Philosophy Portals, I would love if you LET ME KNOW. What browser and type of computer do you use, which can't see the portals?
And she offered this bit of wisdom. Applies to art, without a doubt.
"What do you make the perfume from?" I asked Miss Loren.
"Make it?" she said. "What from?"
"Like flowers or stuff?"
"I don't make it myself, you know," she said. "I don't stir it up."
"No, but I just thought --"
"It doesn't matter what goes into it, as long as it smells so nice," she said.
I have found this a valuable rule over the years.
Too often we get caught up in the "how" part of artwork production, and not in the final result, the final art object, the more or less strictly formal perspective. Which is really the only thing that matters to 99% of your audience, when they first see your artwork. Or as Paglia puts it (and I paraphrase)—art is first the surface appearance (no exceptions); meaning only comes later.
At the initial viewing/absorption of your art by someone new to it, the aesthetic response must meet the 'this art fits' requirement (a version of Housen's Stage II response). If your art object 'doesn't fit'—in other words, if it doesn't the deliver upon the basic expectation of artwork in your medium, if it isn't basically 'conventional' (even if it is also far more)—then it will be dismissed. The importance of "knowing the conventions" of your medium I have written about before.
It has got to sound like music is 'supposed' to sound, taste like 'dessert' is supposed to taste, read like 'poetry' is supposed to read, wear like 'adornments' are supposed to wear, read like a 'movie' is supposed to read, look like a sculpture of building is supposed to look, and so on. Even within the numerous sub-genres within each medium (classical, jazz, folk, tribal, etc., as well as those for other mediums), there is a more or less 'conventional' form required of the artist by the average audience person. Even wacked-out Noise Art has its conventions. If it doesn't sound like Noise Art is supposed to sound, then those crazywacky Noise Art fans won't listen to it.
Everyone is conservative about what they know best. Likewise, every art lover is conservative about the kinds of art they like best. Inertia of aesthetic preference is a natural human condition. Our tastes can change, but these changes come slowly. Even those folks that fancy themselves as the most avant-garde/experimental art lovers can be the worst kind of aesthetic sticks-in-the-mud. (The good news, for artists, is that by knowing the conventions, you are worlds closer to actually making post-conventional art than if you didn't possess conventional knowledge.)
As long as the kinds of aesthetic 'perfume' that tickles us indeed smells nice, then we gladly annoint ourselves with our favorite art. It is only when we start to think with deepening aesthetic nuance—by turns, like a classifying scholar (the historical names/dates), like an interpretive encounter-junkie (where meaning is shifting and experiential), and then like a re-creative contemplator (where an artwork is like a good friend)—only in these subsequent levels of aesthetic response do we think beyond the mere "it smells nice" or "it doesn't smell nice". Only then do we inhabit the other perspectives on an artwork, beyond the formal perspective.
There is nothing wrong with the "it smells nice" aesthetic response. It serves a very useful purpose in the aesthetic process. It is a filter. It is a bar that artists must meet in order that their artwork can play in the game. It is a challenge to meet, a standard to demonstrate competency. And it must be met by every artist who demands we appreciate their artwork.
It is a human kind of standard. It is not a superimposed fiat. It is not a rule that came down from the mountain of The Man. It is not another way that us poor artists are oppressed, or our native genius misunderstood, yet again.
No, this is a natural kind of semiotic hoop. To jump over it is something every artist since the beginning of time has to do. We honor our ancestors by being able to fulfill Housen's Stage II aesthetic response, by being able to make sure our artwork "smells nice." And frankly, each and every one of them would laugh heartily (maybe scowl, even sneer) at artists who don't think they have any obligation to the audience, any responsibility to at least make sure that their artwork smell nice, that it generally looks the way it is supposed to. They would say, "who the hell are you that thinks you have the right to dismiss this simple demand of the audience?" And without exception or any possible counterexample, they would be 100% right.
