tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56541827980425395502024-03-13T22:10:26.213-07:00A Neurotic in an Exotic LandA blog devoted to the the book of the same name--a short comic novel set in Central Europe. The picture you see should have been on the cover of the book, and, perhaps will be in the future.formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-88026723245460697412014-09-14T04:36:00.002-07:002014-09-14T04:36:53.954-07:00Once again: American Optimism and Slavic Fatalism....If you would like to read my essay, "American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism"---<i>read it<b> as opposed to merely cite it </b></i>as did (it would seem) a group of economists who have now replicated the earlier mis-citation by an economist. (I knew they couldn't write; but no one ever told me they also cannot and do not read.....), you can find it at my Academia.edu site. Look for me under my full name: Mark J. Lovas<br />
<br />
The article is not perfect, and I'm sure the relevant literature is far beyond what I managed to say. Yet, I continue to believe that the basics are there, and that they continue to be relevant as I listen to people playing the game of "essentializing" on the term "Russian"--behaving as if there were some common, timeless, and unchanging essence which the term "Russian " captures--a thesis which is both false, and for which my interlocutors have been unable to produce any sort of evidence. (I do not count one's personal experience of communism/totalitarianism as proof of anything. All experience can be misunderstood and itself requires analysis.)formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-34349570251296886822014-08-30T06:04:00.000-07:002014-08-30T06:04:08.545-07:00American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism and Mark "Locus" (sic)Several years ago I published an article titled "American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism" in the Journal of Mundane Behavior. The article has now been incorrectly cited twice.<br />
<br />
The first time, the offenders also managed to change my nationality. I've just discovered a second version of the mis-citation. AT <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1566014111000124">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1566014111000124</a><br />
<br />
To repeat: The author of the article "American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism" which appeared in the Journal of Mundane Behavior 2.3 is NOT "Mark Locus". Its author is Mark Lovas.<br />
<br />
Nor is its author an expert on the culture, language, or society of Central/Eastern Europe.<br />
He was trained as a Philosopher, and the paper reflects it. He presents arguments of sort for<br />
thinking that Americans are wrong to label Czechs or Slovaks "pessimistic", without considering<br />
their history and culture. And, if we do the reverse sort of thinking about Americans, we might<br />
think differently about their so-called "optimism". (Though in 2014 that may have already changed.)<br />
<br />
Oddly enough, the most recent citation manages to import the neo-Classical economist's divide between the market and everything else (aka 'interfering factors'). And, so my essay gets re-interpreted in a way I'd never endorse. If I had know that economists were going to be read the thing.... sigh.<br />
<br />
One final point. I've heard it said many times that economists don't know how to write. This most recent experience leads me to wonder if they even know how to read. <br />
<br />
If you'd like to read the actual article, you will find it at this site:<br />
<a href="https://independent.academia.edu/MarkjLovas">https://independent.academia.edu/MarkjLovas</a>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-5577023482110272682013-03-14T16:20:00.001-07:002013-03-14T16:20:24.696-07:00už toho dostWhat the fuck is this!
the Czech Republic is supposed to a country where atheists are supposed to be the majority! Yet there is all this bullshit about the new pope.
Sorry, but the school halls are dark because there's no money for electricity, and the state television is paying for a reporter to vist Rome.
Something here stinks.
Evidently, the powers that be want to distact us from the attack on our living standards.formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-16197967058962257612012-12-17T07:20:00.002-07:002012-12-17T07:20:24.414-07:00Wordclay defunctThere used to be a version of my novella available at "Wordclay", but they've gone out of business.<br />
<br />
I'd be happy to see my book with its proper cover, in a nice paperback format. So, if you're a publisher, contact me. But don't expect me to pay <em>you</em>!<br />
<br />
Otherwise, the book is available through Amazon Kindle. formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-73858751422515979652012-08-29T12:50:00.001-07:002012-08-30T02:54:52.387-07:00formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-74252960844122872192012-08-26T16:34:00.002-07:002012-08-26T16:34:39.708-07:00updateThe novel is now available on Kindle for $4.99. If you are in the UK, France or Germany you can buy the book there for the equivalent in the local currency.formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-55965605333301882292012-03-13T20:46:00.001-07:002013-05-03T01:21:27.026-07:00Short Story Excerpt<br />
<br />
<br />
An excerpt from : "Bob Billing’s Crisis", scheduled to appear in <em>Short Story</em>, Fall 2013<br />
<br />
Bob Billing bounced to the left and to the right as the tram swayed. He had forgotten his wallet at home and he was riding without a ticket. Normally, he would take a taxi to school, and the drivers knew him. But, today, he didn’t want to be late. The new director would be there and he wanted to make a good impression.<br />
<br />
He was uncomfortable. Too many bodies pressing too close to his own. Also he imagined that he didn’t fit in, that he looked like a foreigner. The US Embassy always warned us, he thought, not to stand out in a crowd.<br />
<br />
What was he going to do for lunch? Maybe he could borrow some money from Ferdo. Ferdo was a nice guy even if he wasn’t American.<br />
<br />
The thought of going without lunch made him nervous. Some students brought lunch from home in plastic containers. Exotic stuff but it smelled good. He was starting to get hungry just thinking about it.<br />
<br />
The bottles of olive oil in his briefcase clinked and clicked together. He wanted to reach down and adjust them, but he couldn’t. He needed to keep one hand holding on; otherwise, he’d just fall over.<br />
<br />
He couldn’t even see where he was. The windows of the tram were steamed up. But there, up ahead, in the front of the tram, was another teacher. One of the locals. She was pretty and he always tried to talk with her. Okay, he could get off when she did. She didn’t seem to notice him. But he could walk up the hill to the school with her.<br />
<br />
The tram skidded to a halt. The rain or ice or half-snow made things tricky. Bob almost fell getting out of the tram, and the pretty girl saw it. She laughed. He laughed too.<br />
<br />
He thought about lunch. No, he’d better not borrow money from her. “I forgot my wallet at home and I didn’t even have a ticket!”<br />
“Oh,” she said, “You are lucky there wasn’t a revizor!”. And she laughed as she said that. Bob feared the police and the ticket-checkers too. He couldn’t get it out of his head that this was a communist country. And even if it wasn’t communist any more, everyone said it was corrupt.<br />
<br />
He almost slipped on one of the steps, and she laughed again. “Careful! Your students would be very disappointed if you didn’t come today. After all, they’ve come in this bad weather when they would have rather stayed at home.”<br />
<br />
He managed to regain his balance and continue.<br />
Now they were at the top of the stairs and he could relax.<br />
<br />
Who would loan him money for lunch? This problem still bothered him. There was no guarantee that Ferdo even came to school today. He might have stayed home.<br />
<br />
In the hall, he passed several students who had bought pastries at the “Bufet”. He could smell poppy seeds. He did have breakfast, but maybe it wasn’t enough to last him until lunch. Three younger students walked toward him, each holding a pastry, “Mnyummmm, Mnyummmm”, one said provocatively, smiling at Bob. “I must look hungry!”<br />
<br />
In his classroom, Bob took off his coat, and put his briefcase on the teacher’s desk. He wondered. Maybe he’d left some cookies in the drawer. No, just an old rohlik. And it was hard enough to break a tooth. He arranged his olive oil bottles on the shelf near the window.<br />
<br />
How could he get through the day without food?<br />
<br />
He went downstairs to the teacher’s room. Maybe if he looked at the headlines it would take his mind off his stomach.<br />
<br />
In the teacher’s room there was a plate of home-made cookies arranged in a circle. Someone had written “Take one!”. He didn’t hesitate.<br />
<br />
As he sat down at the computer, Jana came into the room. She was checking her mailbox, when there was a commotion out in the hall. She went into the hall and spoke very sternly. He wondered what it was all about.<br />
<br />
He tried to concentrate on the newspaper, but he was still worried about lunch. Jana sat down at the computer next to his. “Bob, did you leave your lunch tickets in your wallet?”<br />
<br />
It was as if she were reading his mind! “Yes”.<br />
<br />
“Look, my boyfriend is taking me to lunch. You can have mine.”<br />
<br />
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that. I’ll pay you for it tomorrow.”<br />
<br />
“Don’t worry. You can pay me whenever you want.”<br />
<br />
She handed him the ticket.<br />
<br />
Normally, he did have a snack at ten and then again at two; so, he was one-third of the way there. His problem was only part way solved.<br />
<br />
He smiled and thanked her...............<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-3236898637867775412012-01-27T13:00:00.003-07:002012-03-10T19:54:22.393-07:00publishing update--update<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3366ff;">The book is now available (in English) in electronic format for Kindle on Amazon: USA, UK, Deutschland, France.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3366ff;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3366ff;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Neurotic-Exotic-Land-ebook/dp/B007AVZVW4">http://www.amazon.com/Neurotic-Exotic-Land-ebook/dp/B007AVZVW4</a></span><br />
<br />formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-9125968277291636852011-12-29T14:04:00.004-07:002012-06-27T13:17:36.129-07:00godless Communism<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;">As a child I heard the local Catholic priest lead prayers for the end of "godless Communism". I heard that countless times, and I wonder if my memory is distorted. Did the Irishman who loved whiskey not say it with a certain zest?</span><br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;">And is it only the godless variety he wished to end?</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;">So far as I know, many people lost a lot when "communism" ended.....but I am no expert. </span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;">A more sober and expert analysis will be found at the link below.</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;">Caveat: The link leads to an article primarily about Russia/The Soviet Union. It is, therefore, not of direct relevance to the subject of this blog. However, much that one could say about Russia would also be true in Slovakia. The change from what they called "communism" to whatever it is now had many collateral victims--and still does.....</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;">(Thanks to Brian Leiter for drawing attention to this link.)</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;">preview: (with added emphasis)</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;"><div style="color: #1d1d1d; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
....most American specialists no longer asked, even in light of the large-scale human tragedies that followed in the 1990s, if a reforming Soviet Union might have been the best hope for the post-Communist future of Russia or any of the other former republics. On the contrary, they concluded, as a leading university authority insisted, that everything Soviet had to be discarded by “the razing of the entire edifice of political and economic relations.” That kind of nihilism underlay the “shock therapy” so assiduously urged on Russia in the 1990s by the Clinton administration, which turned the country, as a columnist in the centrist <em style="padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 3px; padding-top: 0px;">Literary Gazette </em>recently recalled, into “a zone of catastrophe.” <b>None of the policy’s leading proponents, such as Larry Summers, Jeffrey Sachs and former President Clinton himself, have ever publicly regretted the near-destruction of essential consumer industries, from pharmaceuticals to poultry, or the mass poverty it caused.</b></div>
<div style="color: #1d1d1d; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
--Stephen F. Cohen, writing in "The Nation", link below.</div>
<div style="color: #1d1d1d; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The likes of Larry Summers, Jeffrey Sachs and Bill Clinton! <i>They</i> wouldn't look at the destruction they've caused! Of course not. No more would the likes of JP Morgan give a damn. Morgan caused a depression before the "great" one, and when asked about it by a reporter---Don't you owe an explanation to the public?---Morgan responded that he owed the public nothing.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6600cc; font-family: 'times new roman';"><br /></span></div>
</span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/165316/soviet-unions-afterlife"><br /></a></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff6600;"><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/165316/soviet-unions-afterlife">http://www.thenation.com/article/165316/soviet-unions-afterlife</a></span></div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-43682717868702938522011-10-12T00:56:00.002-07:002013-12-04T01:14:14.775-07:00American Optimism Meets Slavic FatalismIt would appear that the Journal of Mundane Behavior is once again on line.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
An article I published there several years ago is available at:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
THIS LINK, and the journal's name HAS NOW BEEN HIJACKED BY A SELLER OF ECIGARETTES<br />
SORRY, DEAR READER<br />
MOREOVER, I would like to suggest that given the history of cigarettes,<br />
and the outrageous behavior of their manufacturers,you should be<br />
sceptical about any claims about their effects upon your health.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">October 2001, Vol.2, no. 3, "American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism"</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-39317766466525045442011-09-17T13:54:00.002-07:002011-09-17T14:00:23.843-07:00something not about the novelThis is primarily a blog devoted to the novel,"A Neurotic in an Exotic Land."<div>However, it may occasionally attract the attention of readers with an interest in Central</div><div>or Eastern Europe.</div><div><br /></div><div>For them, it might be of interest to note the claim that the suffering of people under the so-called Communist regimes--while real, and even cruel--was not as bad as that endured by people in Central and South America. Put more bluntly, the USSR was a more benign master than the USA--and by saying that I do not endorse masters or power politics. Here is the source of this idea:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 25px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">It is not seriously in question, as John Coatsworth writes in the recently published Cambridge University </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">History of the Cold War</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">, that from 1960 to “the Soviet collapse in 1990, the numbers of political prisoners, torture victims, and executions of nonviolent political dissenters in Latin America vastly exceeded those in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites.” Among the executed were many religious martyrs, and there were mass slaughters as well, consistently supported or initiated by Washington.</span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 25px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">--Noam Chomsky, "The Responsibilityof Intellectuals, Redux", Boston Review</span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, Times, Arial, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 25px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/noam_chomsky_responsibility_of_intellectuals_redux.php">http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/noam_chomsky_responsibility_of_intellectuals_redux.php</a></span></span></span></div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-1955435545171473622011-05-05T00:58:00.001-07:002011-05-05T01:01:28.239-07:00Chapter One of "A Neurotic in an Exotic Land"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#6600CC;"><i>I AM NOW RE-POSTING Chapter One so that it will be at the front of the blog.</i></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#6600CC;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#6600CC;"><i>(further chapters will be found below if you scroll down---including Chapter Six, Part Two, which was inadvertently omitted from the published version)<br /></i></span><br />This is an excerpt from the book--the entire first chapter. (You will also find part of a later chapter posted here--the second half of Chapter Six.) Of course, I am hoping that once you have read the first chapter, you will be more likely to buy the book--if only to find out what happens next. (Or how the characters managed to find themselves in the situations described in Chapter Six........)<br /><br />Copyright © 2010 Mark J. Lovas; all rights reserved<br /><br />Chapter One: How Petra Escaped from Her Kidnapper<br /><br />How had this happened? He asked himself again and again. A wholly fruitless occupation, he knew, but one which came to him naturally. His life could be more miserable. He could be a student at this wretched institution. Come to think of it, what was he now? A middle-aged failure? Stuck at this third (fourth?) rate school in the midwest? No! Not stuck because he had only a one-year contract. Great! Living on thin ice in the middle of nowhere.<br /><br />He needed a change. Maybe an affair? But his students were so fat, especially the ones with pretty faces. It never ceased to amaze him. He could fall in love. Until they stood up. Hips! They seemed to be altogether a different species from the slim visions of loveliness he’d seen in New York last summer. Then there was Veronica, his so-called girlfriend. Hmmmph. More like a live-in roommate, someone who used to sleep with him when dinosaurs roamed the earth. (Why was that anyway? He couldn’t imagine that marriage was any different? How could anything but having affairs make sense?) But when V. was angry! That was like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Was he afraid of her? No, not at all, and, what’s more, he wouldn’t be afraid to be locked in a cage with a hungry tiger.<br /><br />Well, Veronica was different. She wasn’t fat, of course, and she wasn’t from the Midwest. And he was pretty sure that if he did have an affair, she would find out. So, that road was closed.<br /><br />And these bills! What exactly does bankruptcy involve? Better not think about it.<br /><br />What to do? What to do?<br /><br />Fat! Then, Petra was fat—and sexy, and smart, and rich. Hmmm. Her father was important in the government “back home”, as she liked to put it. She’d been to school in Europe, and went there every summer, always traveled to exotic places on vacations. Now, she had money, or her father did. Why she was at this school he did not know. She was smart enough to go somewhere else, and certainly could afford to pay higher tuition. In fact, if someone were to kidnap her, her father would pay a lot for ransom! What an idea! What a stupid idea! Where would he put her? And Veronica would find out!<br /><br />OK, he would just have to tell Veronica about it! Oh no, this is just too stupid.<br /><br />And she was his student! That would be too much. People would come to him asking about her. And he was a lousy liar. She’d have to miss class, and he’d have to give her a make-up exam. What a pain! Well, wait a minute. Maybe he could kidnap her after class on Thursday, get the money over the weekend, and she could be back in class on Monday. Her father would pay big bucks to get his daughter back!<br /><br />No. No. No. He was just losing it! Get your shit toether Lucas! Get back to work!<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />“Louis?” It was Veronica’s voice. Why was she home so early? God, he’d only just started to think seriously abut his work. She looked good too. (Better put that idea out of his mind.) “Hi. Home early?” “Yes, class was cancelled. The prof was sick” “Lucky you!’ “Lucky you!,” she said, as she put her arms around him. He was definitely losing his mind. This sort of thing didn’t happen any more. Well, even if it were a dream, he could enjoy it.<br /><br />Later, she nestled in the crook of his arm. He was obvlivious to his surroundings, in a state of semi-consciousness not full understand by neuroscience. (Some leading lights of neuroscience assert that the state of the male brain currently occupied by Louis’s gray matter is unique in its absence of cognitive functioning, but feminist critics take a dim view of the claim that male cognitive functions reach a uniquely low level in the post coital-period.) At any rate, Louis’s consciousness was roused by a voice which seemed to speak to him from far, far away.<br /><br />“Lou?<br /><br />“Yeahhhh?”<br /><br />“Have you ever wanted to have kids?”<br /><br />(Oh my God! He should have seen this coming.)<br /><br />“Uh, no, not really . . .”<br /><br />She sat up.<br /><br />“Are you serious? You don’t want kids?”<br /><br />“Well, no. It’s not exactly that I don’t want kids.”<br /><br />(Careful here Lucas. This is treacherous ground.)<br /><br />“I’m not… in principle… opposed to having<br /><br />kids. I just have trouble, realistically speaking,<br /><br />imagining myself (or anyone vaguely resembling<br /><br />me) as a father.”<br /><br />‘Lou!”<br /><br />He sat up.<br /><br />“You are evading the question!”<br /><br />“I am?”<br /><br />He gulped.<br /><br />(This was not supposed to happen today, not today. He could plead the demands of work. Wasn’t that Kafka’s excuse? But he knew this was going to hurt. Just when things seemed to be improving….)<br /><br />“But Lou, you’re just sooooh adorable. You should have kids someday….”<br /><br />(Whew! … He felt relieved. She’d thrown him a line with that little qualifier. The Lord be praised!)<br /><br />“Yes, Ver, maybe you’re right; maybe I should think about kids . . .someday…”<br /><br />(What had brought this one anyway? Was she pregnant?)<br /><br />She leaned across his chest and held him.<br /><br />“Lou, I am very fond of you.”<br /><br />(God! What was she getting at? Maybe she was having an affair!—With a guy who had kids?)<br /><br />She stared at him, glowing with the feverish intensity<br /><br />of a nuclear reactor’s core (or so he imagined)<br /><br />Relaxing her grip, she smiled and kissed him.<br /><br />“I agree. Having kids with you would be a problem.<br /><br />But that’s OK. I’m still young, and I can handle you.)<br /><br />(What in the world was she talking about? He didn’t think this was a good time to tell her about his kidnapping idea.)<br /><br />He had narrowly escaped a terrible fate. She still loved—err—was very fond of him, and apparently she wasn’t pregnant. He couldn’t believe his good fortune.<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />Lucas stood before his class, poised to deliver a lecture. My god, he thought, what a grimy bunch! The grunge look must have finally arrived at this benighted place. Or, maybe his glasses were smudged. Ever since he’d gotten these new non-reflective lenses, he’d been afraid to clean them. After cleaning them religiously for two months they’d become all scratched up and he’d had to return them to the eye doctor for a new coat of whatever it was, which took two goddamned weeks. His mother was right: we do all have our own cross to bear. Or, in his own case, right now, his own class.<br /><br />No. They most definitely were a dirty bunch. They also seemed to be in constant motion. Maybe his hormones had slowed down. Probably that was scientifically incorrect. Oh well, he had to plunge ahead.<br /><br />“Last time I was trying to explain the difference between two fundamentally different sorts of ethical theory. “ (Jeez! Why did he say trying? I know, because they are so dense. Oh no! Don’t say that.)<br /><br />The girl in the tremendous whadya call it. He’d heard them called “suckers” in Texas, but he could never use that word. It seemed so obscene. “Lollypop” sounded sill. But watching her go at it gave him ideas. Jesus Christ Lucas!<br /><br />The issue was not whether his students could comprehend the difference between two fundamentally different sorts of ethical theory. He knew that was hopeless. He himself often found the question confusing. But, there was this bit of terminology which people threw around as if there were a clear difference, and he felt a moral obligation to prepare his students (the innocent unbathed and unprepared louts) in case they ever met (or, even more disastrously, took a class from) one of his colleagues. Suddenly, he recalled that it was precisely this sort of thought which, when allowed to pass the barrier of his teeth, got him into trouble with Lisa. (Lisa came before Veronica, and was every bit as high strung as Veronica was mellow. When he thought of the difference between the two he felt as though he had narrowly averted another disaster.)<br /><br />There were thirty people here today. (High turn-out when there’s no exam in sight.) Fifty people were registered for the class. He knew some of the people whose names appeared on the official roster weren’t taking the class, but it always seemed so odd, such a curious inflation of souls. Like Lieutenant Kiji or something.<br /><br />(Lisa wouldn’t like that either!)<br /><br />The serious girl had a question. (He was afraid of her. She might be a fundamentalist or a Catholic. She was so serious and so stupidly cheerful. He hated that sort. Always asking questions but incapable of understanding anything—Lisa would nx that thought too! Hey. He’d better stop this internal bookkeeping. It was impious to Saint Veronica.)<br /><br />“Professor LOOO-KUSSS, last time you told us the opposite from what you are telling us today. You said that the GOOD theory was the DEE-ON-TOE-LOGICO and that the BAD theory was TEA-LEE-OH-LOGICO. I wrote it down in my notebook.’ (She gestured toward the historical record. God! What they didn’t write down. Maybe she wanted to be a lawyer or a judge. “Would the court reporter please read back to us the latest inanity from Professor Lucas? And Lucas, don’t go quoting Thoreau either! Not in my court.)<br /><br />He distinctly recalled writing the words on the board, but that left open the question of how she had actually transcribed them into the historical record. (He didn’t want to know.)<br /><br />“That’s not quite accurate. It would be more accurate to say that each theory has its own difficulties. Perhaps in your notes you will find that I raised objections to both?” (Was he a diplomat or what?)<br /><br />He knew why she’d missed this. His presentation—(god, that sounded like something that happened in a car dealer’s showroom! But what he said never seem organized enough to b considered a proper lecture.) –Well, whatever it was, it had been interrupted by a question. (He id love questions—real questions—not this infernal bookkeeping bullshit) and there had been a heated debate about abortion or aids or condoms, and that had clearly wiped out whatever came after it in her memory bank. (He was quite sure that there was empirical evidence for that sort of thing—and he believed that altogether independently of what he had experienced when he first met Veronica.)<br /><br />He turned on the auto pilot and attempted to locate yesterday’s snippet. (He could just imagine what her exam would look like. So strange. Seeing one’s words reproduced in a way that systematically destroys and distorts their original sense. And it is so easy to do. Omit a few words here. Delete a few thoughts there. Verbatim at odd intervals. Half gibberish. Spelling and grammar intolerable, of course, but just enough sense to remind one of the pristine original. Wasn’t this a punishment somewhere in Dante’s hell?) He tried to supply a new example. It must have been a good choice because the clever boy who sits on the left side of the room began to raise objections. He was fearless. Too bad he didn’t come to class regularly.<br /><br />When the buzzer (ugly noise) sounded, he felt (as usual) relieved. Why did they have to swarm up after class? What could he possibly say to improve upon the splendid performance he’d just delivered? Hadn’t they been listening? Oh god. What now? Something was wrong. Then it hit him. Petra had not been in class. But she never misses class!<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />On the way home, he found himself looking forward to seeing Veronica. He was embarrassed to admit that this was unusual. But, right now anyway, things were good.<br /><br />When he opened the door, she looked up at him, and on her face he saw something unfamiliar. Was it fear?<br /><br />“What’s wrong?”<br /><br />“One of your students has been kidnapped! You remember Petra Kral? She had us over for dinner. She’s from that mysterious country across the ocean. Remember?<br /><br />(This was too weird. Who had been reading his mind? And how could he sue them for stealing his idea?)<br /><br />They are demanding recognition for their political cause.<br /><br />But who are “they”? What cause?<br /><br />I couldn’t make it out exactly, but the guy who called said they represent a mistreated minority within Petra’s country. Her father is a representative of the oppressive ruling class?<br /><br />Veronica, do you believe all this? I mean, it sounds like a bad joke.<br /><br />No, I don’t know what I think. I think it’s weird, but I took notes when he called. Why didn’t he call her father? Why did they call here?<br /><br />I don’t know why. He explained but it makes no sense. They want you to call her father.<br /><br />(My god! This is too weird!)<br /><br />But what am I going to tell him?<br /><br />Look at my notes.<br /><br />She handed him a legal pad.<br /><br />(My god! It was complicated. Too many unfamiliar proper names! Just to read her notes he’d need a class in European History!)<br /><br />He decided to call up the kidnappers.<br /><br />“Hello.”<br /><br />“Hello, this is Professor Lucas.”<br /><br />“Ahhhh, Professor Lucas. I am so pleased that you have decided to help us.”<br /><br />“Wait a minute! I didn’t say that.”<br /><br />Then why did you call?<br /><br />So I could get information to decide if I was going to help you.<br /><br />Oh, Professor Lucas, this is a very delicate matter. I assure you that you will most definitely want to help us.<br /><br />You mean once you’ve filled me in?<br /><br />Of course. Everything will become transparent to you.<br /><br />(Where had this kid gone to school? He insisted that the delicacy of the subject-matter required them to meet face-to-face.)<br /><br />- - -<br /><br />When Lucas opened the door, a smartly dressed young man beamed at him. (How could a goddamned kidnapper be so joyously happy? This made no sense.)<br /><br />“Professor Lucas! I feel as though we’ve already met. I know all about you from what Petra has said!”<br /><br />(Was she holding lengthy tete-a-tetes with her kidnappers?)<br /><br />The young man proceeded into a lengthy disquisition which made his head spin. The story began a thousand years ago and involved land claims, blood ties, insults, imagined insults, and probably would have made a pretty good television movie with the right producer. But he couldn’t follow the plot at all, until it thickened, and the thickener was, predictably, money.<br /><br />“So, Mr. Kral need only arrange an electronic funds transfer from his Swiss Bank Account to my own.”<br /><br />(OK. Now, he ha him. Not a man of principle, but just an ordinary money-grubbing opportunist.)<br /><br />“But why your account?”<br /><br />“Because I am the official head of the organization which promotes the human rights of excluded minorities in our country.”<br /><br />“Can you document that claim?” (Yes, would you please show me your membership card? No, not American Express or Central Europe Express, but the Central European Minorities Defense Fund Card—good in over 500 hotels and restaurant in Paris alone. Diplomats always meet in cities with decent restaurants.)<br /><br />“Professor Lucas…. (The lad seemed to be ashamed of him.) You seem to have forgotten what I told you.”<br /><br />(As a matter of fact, he had. There had been so many irrelevant details. Hmmmm. That sounded familiar. He’d heard that somewhere before. Oh yes, his students. That’s what they said about his lectures. No! Cancel that thought! Self-examination was not appropriate at this crucial juncture.)<br /><br />What do you mean?<br /><br />Ours is a secret society….<br /><br />And with that he launched into another lengthy historical account.<br /><br />Okay, he said, just give me your name, and I’ll call her dad. (Jeez! He sure hoped the dad had heard of them!)<br /><br />But he hadn’t.<br /><br />>>><br /><br />Lucas could tell that the guy was a real charmer. Even over the phone and across the ocean, the guy just oozed savoir-faire. “Oh yes, Professor Lucas, it is a genuine pleasure to speak with you. I have heard so much about you.”<br /><br />(Yeah. Right! He could see it now. The entire Kral family, their sides splitting from laughter, at a five star restaurant in Paris. And at the center of attention is Petra, describing her philosophy professor in America. Oh well. Bringing a little joy into the desperate lives of the idle rich.)<br /><br />“I’m afraid I’m calling with bad news.”<br /><br />“Bad news?”<br /><br />“Your daughter has been kidnapped.”<br /><br />“She has?”<br /><br />“Yes, by the Hloupy Independence Front.”<br /><br />“The Hloupy Independence Front?”<br /><br />“Yes”<br /><br />“I’ve never heard of them.”<br /><br />Jesus Christ! Where were his (errr, Veronica’s) notes when he needed them? He motioned to Ver to bring her notes. After a few minutes Kral interrupted him.<br /><br />“Professor Lucas, I’m afraid this is all beginning to sound like a hoax.”<br /><br />“A hoax?”<br /><br />“Yes, the story you’ve told vague reminds me of a chapter of one of my books. It was totally fictitious. I can assure you.”<br /><br />“But, I’ve seen the kidnapper!”<br /><br />Lucas had scarcely gotten past specifying his height, age, and manner of speech when Kral interrupted and continued with a description of the youth which was so vivid that for a moment Lucas imagined he saw the wayward youth standing before his very eyes.<br /><br />“So, you know the guy?”<br /><br />“I do indeed. He has been attempting to woo Petra for a good number of years. I have forbidden their marriage. His true name is Tom.”<br /><br />(The tumblers fell into place. Now he knew why Tom wanted to run up someone else’s phone bill. Didn’t want the papa to recognize him! The irty rat.<br /><br />A hoax! And now a real kidnapping would never work!<br /><br />“But what should I do?”<br /><br />The father laughed. “Perhaps we should play along with him. Did he ask for electronic funds transfer?”<br /><br />“Yes, how did you know?”<br /><br />“Experience is our best teacher Professor Lucas. You should know that from your empiricist philosophers.”<br /><br />(Just what he wanted to hear. And Christ! He had called this guy. Oh no! It was going to be on his bill.<br /><br />Would it be rude if he asked Kral to call back?)<br /><br />“Just what do you have in mind?”<br /><br />“Your part in this adventure, Professor Lucas, will be rather small.”<br /><br />(Right! Do I believe him?)<br /><br />“You are to propose to Petra.”<br /><br />(Oh my god! This is crazy!)<br /><br />“But I won’t have to really marry her, right?”<br /><br />(Oh shit! I’ve insulted the father. At least I didn’t say that his daughter is fat.)<br /><br />“I mean I’m already spoken for…”<br /><br />(Oh shit! Looking at Ver, he couldn’t tell what she was making of all of this.)<br /><br />“Do not worry Professor Lucas. I understand that my daughter does not exactly correspond to your American standards of beauty.”<br /><br />(Christ! She fits right in among the girls of the heartland! Some of them make her look downright thin. Well, she might fit in if only she did not dress in such a snappy way. No doubt Papa’s wealth pays for the latest fashion.)<br /><br />“But, why, then, am I to propose?”<br /><br />You must teach this youg fellow that he is not the only fish in the sea.<br /><br />(Now that did sound scary. It did not sound like idle words. It might take deeds, and he was definitely not up for that. And what if she said yes? Oh my god.)<br /><br />“How do you know it will work?”<br /><br />“I know it will work. She has told me all about you. I believe that she has what they call a ‘crush’ on you.”<br /><br />(At this point he exercised saintly self-control.)<br /><br />“But excuse me, Mr. Kral, doesn’t that mean she might say yes?”<br /><br />“I’m hoping so.”<br /><br />(Nuttier and nuttier. And more and more dollars down the toilet to pay for the phone call!)<br /><br />“Why? If I may ask.”<br /><br />“Because I want that young buck to learn a thing or two.”<br /><br />“I’m sorry Mr. Kral. I can’t do it. It’s just too dangerous.”<br /><br />“Dangerous?”<br /><br />(Kral was really perturbed. For an instant Lucas was reminded of the last time his truly beloved was angry.)<br /><br />“Professor Lucas, my daughter tells me that you have considerable debt.” (How in the world?)<br /><br />“Well, I wouldn’t say, absolutely considerable, but maybe only relatively speaking. It’s nothing compared to your yearly income or the national debt. But it is considerable from my point of view.”<br /><br />That was the end of the story. He had no power to resist the proposal which Kral made. What would Veronica think? Nothing. She had predicted it. She was laughing to see him squirm.<br /><br />But, even worse, what would Petra think?<br /><br />Of course, she knew her old man, so she knew he’d offered to pay Lucas.<br /><br />Veronica hugged him. “You were so cute on the phone!” (Cute?) Apparently, she liked to see him squirm. But he wasn’t about to complain. Witnessing his torture had ignited her. (Again? He couldn’t believe it. The Lord works in mysterious ways.)<br /><br />>>><br /><br />Lucas called Petra up the next morning. He didn’t beat around the bush and neither did she. He asked her to marry him and she turned him down.<br /><br />“Oh, Professor Lucas. I’m so sorry you’ve been drawn into this. You know I can’t say yes. I know my father put you up to this. You’ve just got to explain to him that Tom and I are in love.”<br /><br />Oh Christ! Another long distance phone call!<br /><br />(Now, wait a minute. She hasn’t really been kidnapped. And I haven’t married her. And Ver is randier than ever. If I go bankrupt, will that kill me?)<br /><br />“Mr Kral! Yur daughter laughed at me when I proposed to her. She knew you put me up to it.”<br /><br />“That’s my daughter!” (He sounded positively joyous. Had the entire world gone bonkers?)<br /><br />“Well, what next, Mr. Kral?”<br /><br />“I’m afraid the only thing to do is to let them marry.”<br /><br />“Let them marry? I thought you were dead set against it?”<br /><br />“Yes, but the ingenuity of the young man. And the way he even used a story from my book. It’s really very flattering. So, I’ve decided to give in.”<br /><br />(And what about our financial agreement?)<br /><br />“Now, Professor Lucas, I understand that as a university lecturer, you are poorly paid.”<br /><br />(An understatement. Taxicab drivers in Toledo make more money.)<br /><br />“But I insist that you attend the wedding, which will, of course, be held here. And, perhaps there is someone special you’d like to bring with you? Do not worry about expenses. My secretary will contact you, and you will receive all of the necessary funds. And do not worry about the bill for the transatlantic phone calls. All of your expenses will be paid for. You have helped me see the true path to my daughter’s future happiness.”<br /><br />(Probably papa moneybags was kept awake all night with visions of the nutty professor as his son-in-law. After that a local boy looked pretty good, even if he is a bit of a hothead.)<br /><br />“You are too generous!”<br /><br />(Well, not really. Just generous enough if Kral pays the phone bill. As for the flight and the other costs associated with travel, who could say? He might end up deeper in debt. There’s always some extra expense for toothpaste or foot powder.)<br /><br />Ø > ><br /><br />“You’re quite a matchmaker Professor Lucas!”<br /><br />She threw her arms around him, and began to kiss him passionately.<br /><br />“You know, Petra really did have a crush on you.”<br /><br />“How do you know?”<br /><br />“She told me.”<br /><br />“When?”<br /><br />“When she had us for dinner.”<br /><br />“But I was there and it was a small apartment.”<br /><br />“You were there in the apartment, but you were not there where we were having the conversation.”<br /><br />“Oh, so you mean the minute I leave the room…”<br /><br />“Don’t be angry! I was gathering valuable information… on your behalf, I might add! She had a crush on you, but she said her whole picture of you changed when she noticed how smudged your glasses were…<br /><br />Don’t worry Lou! I think it’s cute! (She squeezed him.)<br /><br />Unfathomable depths in his very own past! He thought to himself, as they headed toward the bedroom, that this would be another productive weekend on the academic front. Christ! Talk about the winds of change… What could possibly happen next?</div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-50855135438511961862011-05-05T00:57:00.000-07:002011-05-05T00:58:09.022-07:00Chapter Six; Part Two<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF9900;"><b>APOLOGY: Part Two of Chapter Six was inadvertently omitted from the published version.</b></span></div><div><br /></div>Chapter Six, Part Two<br />of<br />A Neurotic in an Exotic Land<br />by<br />Mark J. Lovas<br />©Copyright 2010 by Mark J. Lovas; all rights reserved<br /><br />She rolled over, and opened her eyes. She smiled. Well, really, on any given day, there really wasn’t much infor mation in the newspaper anyway. . . . not really . . . .<br />BAMM-BAMMM-BAMMMM<br />What was going on? Was it an earthquake? The expression on Jana’s face changed from pleasure to something else, something unhappy.<br />“Lou! Lou?”<br />Shit! It must be Veronika. But she had a key. Okay, it would be worse if she had just come in. But why couldn’t she phone first?<br />“Look, I’m sorry. It’s Veronika. She must have come for her clothes.”<br />Jana looked worried. She leaned over and kissed him, got out of bed, gathered together her clothes, and went into the bathroom.<br />Lou fumbled for his clothes, pulled on his pants, and stumbled toward the door.<br />He opened it just a bit. Veronika’s face was determined and impersonal.<br />“I’ve got to have my clothes.”<br />“Sure.”<br />“I called you first, but you didn’t answer.”<br />“I didn’t hear it.”<br />“I know. I can imagine why. “<br />“I was sleeping!”<br />“Right.” She marched into the room, and began to pack. Lou was glad that Jana was in the bathroom.<br />“Look, Ver, I’m really sorry about all of this.”<br />“I’m not. Sometimes, that’s the way it is. And I’m not going to waste my time with somebody who thinks so little about me that he can sleep with me one night and sleep with someone he’s just met in the same bed the very next day.”<br />Lou was stunned. He couldn’t see any inconsistency in his behavior. In fact, whenever Veronika was mad at him, he always found himself turned on. Like right now, in fact. And he couldn’t understand why Veronika would imagine that the fact that she turned him on would rule out the possibility that Jana also turned him on. He felt confused.<br />He heard Jana in the bathroom. He hoped she wouldn’t leave. He wanted to finish what they’d started when Ver interrupted them. He decided to go on the offensive.<br />“But, look Ver. You haven’t exactly been devoting all of your thoughts to me since you got here. I mean, what about the way you dressed Saturday morning? I mean with that short skirt you were wearing, if you told me that you had decided to sell yourself, I would have believed you”<br />She took a few quick steps toward and slapped him, with full force.<br />He nearly fell over.<br />“Lou, when you get right down to it, you really are primitive. And you have no idea, absolutely no idea, how you’ve managed to take my life away from me. I am so glad that all of this has happened. I can finally be free.”<br />That was hard to swallow. He sat on the bed. He knew what she was talking about. He wanted to say something about compromises, but he felt unsure. Maybe she was right. What could he say now? He wished she’d hurry up. He wished that Jana would join him in bed. He wished he could just forget everything.<br />Ver had finished packing. “Well, I suppose I will see you at the reception. But, just remember. I don’t owe you anything, and I’m still mad.”<br />She slammed he door.<br />Jana emerged from the bathroom with an extra heavy mask of makeup, as if she had prepared herself for battle with chemical or radioactive agents.<br />But she kissed him affectionately, so affectionately that he felt guilty for criticizing the way that she contaminated her face with harsh chemical agents. Apparently, being in the bathroom, or else hearing Ver’s voice had done something to her. She pushed him down onto the bed.<br />< < < < > > > ><br />Veronika called Martin. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay in a hotel. Fact is she’d miss Lou.<br />“Hello”<br />“Martin, So, you finally woke up.”<br />“Yes, my sweet. I miss you.”<br />“And I miss you Martin, you charmer….”<br />Where are you now?<br />“I had to get my things from the hotel.”<br />“And you’re bringing them here?<br />“Do you want me to?”<br />“You know I want you to.”<br />Well, at least that was settled. She smiled as she thought of Martin. But Lou made her so mad. Anyway, there were a few hours before the wedding. Time for lunch, and maybe time for something else as well.<br />< < < < > > > ><br />Jana was talking about the Dalai Lama. She considered him to be the perfect man. Except, of course, for the fact that Buddhist Monks were not supposed to have sex. His mind began to wander. Jana noticed it.<br />“Well, if I am not interesting for you, maybe I should leave.”<br />“But we just ordered food!”<br />“You can eat alone. You’re not child.”<br />“I’m sorry Jana.” He tried to hold her. She pushed him away.<br />“But, you know, it’s just all so surprising.”<br />She looked interested.<br />“I mean, meeting you . . .”<br />She was waiting.<br />“How could I be so lucky?”<br />“So you don’t listen to me? You’re lucky?”<br />A knock. The food. Maybe the interruption would save him. He wasn’t sure she was convinced. He wasn’t sure he was convinced. If he told her the truth, what he really thought about the Dalai Lama, she was out of here. If he didn’t tell her the truth, she’d probably be even madder.<br />“Well, you know that business about reincarnation is really crazy.”<br />“What do you mean?”<br />“I mean babies don’t deserve to suffer.”<br />“Oh, you are just a Westerner. It is not easy for Westerners to understand Asian culture.”<br />And you are a Westerner, too, he was thinking. How can you understand it? But she seemed, for the moment at least, satisfied….<br />They were hungry. The food (and wine) changed the mood. For a moment, he felt better, until he remembered that Veronika was probably with that slime Martin.<br />The guy was obviously nothing more than . . . .<br />When they finished eating, Jana turned to him. “I have to call Martin.”<br />Why Martin?<br />I don’t have clothes. He has my clothes.<br />Fine with me, Lucas thought. Who needs a wedding reception anyway? But Petra would be disappointed. And then there was Mr. You-Have-Shown-Me-The-True-Path-to-My-Daughter’s-Happiness… Probably wanted to make another offer . . .<br />Jana rang up her ex. Then she exploded into violent consonants, with a few choice vowels.<br />He says he bought all of my clothes anyway. Says they are his.<br />Really? Lucas was worried. Did this girl expect him to buy her clothes too?<br />“I’m going there. The pig.”<br />She phoned for a taxi.<br />“And the wedding? The reception?”<br />She smiled, “I will be there.”<br />But where will you put your clothes?<br />“I am bringing them here.” She said.<br />< < < > > > ><br />Veronika smiled at Martin. When was the last time she’d felt so good? Her body was tingling.<br />BAM-BAM-BAM BAM BAM<br />Martin jumped up. “I knew it. The bitch.”<br />Ver was shocked by the tone in his voice.<br />Martin put on a robe. “My love. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of this and be right back.”<br />He went downstairs.<br />Veronika stared at the ceiling. She felt unsatisfied. And she was not happy about the situation at all. If there was a girl downstairs now, another girl, there’d be yet another girl just around the corner. Okay, she could accept that if he’d just come back to bed, soon…. But this didn’t look like an isolated incident.<br />Downstairs, Martin didn’t want to let Jana in. but she forced her way inside. In fact, she kicked him in the groin. As he fell aside, she made her way upstairs.<br />Veronika was surprised when Jana stormed in.<br />“I want my clothes.”<br />She pulled out a suitcase and began packing.<br />Veronika sat up in bed, pulling the bedcovers up to her shoulders. She began to study this woman. Vulgar. She had a full figure, and a rather blank, dull, but pretty face. She did not like what this told her about the inner character of the man she had once been in love with. And she did not like the fact that her interest meant she still felt something for her.<br />Jana had no interest in Veronika. If Veronika was studying Jana, Jana took no interest in her. She didn’t ignore Ver. It was as if Ver were invisible, and she found it annoying.<br />Martin was back upstairs.<br />Jana finished packing. She took lipstick and wrote on the mirror, in large letters, “PIG!”. She turned triumphantly to Martin, and screamed “Pig” as she stormed out of the room.<br />Martin turned to Ver, “I’m really sorry about all this.”<br />Veronika tried to smile, “That’s okay; let’s get some lunch. I’d like some fresh air.”<br />* * * * *<br />That night, Lou did his best to stay away from Martin and Ver. He tried not to look at them. In the beginning of the evening, Jana danced with him. But, as she began to drink, he noticed she was staring at someone else. And, then, she excused herself.<br />He sat down at a table and poured himself a glass of wine. He didn’t see Ver or Martin anywhere. Petra looked happy. She was dancing with Tom. Mr. Kral was nowhere to be seen.<br /><br />There were a few lovely ladies out on the dance floor.<br />Jana was back, pulling a rather large gorilla behind him. A gorilla in a tuxedo, but still a gorilla.<br />“This is Martin.”<br />(Another Martin? Lou was surprised, but he resisted the urge to comment upon the name.)<br />Martin shook Lou’s hand with an overly firm grip. His smile seemed relatively normal, but Lou was uncomfortable.<br />“Martin wants me to be in his new film!”. Jana was smiling.<br />Film?<br />Yes, Professor Lucas, Jana has incredible talent.<br />Lucas’s mind had wandered away from the subject of film. Yes, she was talented…<br />“What sort of film?”<br />Jana was bubbling over, “Martin is a famous director of erotic films!”.<br />Martin smiled in a controlled sort of way.<br />“I hope you won’t mind.”<br />(Mind? Why should he mind?)<br />This is a great opportunity for me!<br />(Yes. Lucas recalled the first time he’d seen Jana in a magazine. Why not a film? Easy come. Easy go.)<br />Yes. Of course. You must go.<br />She moved close to Lucas, hugged him, and began to kiss him. “But, I’ll be back….”<br />Fine. She’d be back. But by that time, where would he be? What the hell. It was as if he’d won a million dollars one day and then found out that he’d forgot to pay a big bill the next . . . and that the interest had been accumulating for a long time…. Nothing to do but have a drink, and another . . .<br />> > > < < <>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-57815811180177269502011-04-29T13:15:00.002-07:002011-04-29T13:20:02.748-07:00note about my profile<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">At the risk of distracting from Professor Lucas and his adventures,</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">please allow me to add a note to my "Profile"--which is too short to avoid</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">being in some way misleading.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">I describe myself as performing "unpaid work in the home".</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">When I say I perform "work", I mean that I am making a real contribution to the well-being</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">of other human beings. Those other human beings happen to be my parents, but as I said</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">recently in a letter to the two Senators from the state of Texas, I have no doubt in my mind</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">that my mother and father have made a greater contribution to world understanding,</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">peace between nations, not to mention simple civility, than the US Congress.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">Not that my parents are unique in that regard. On the contrary, I think most mischief in</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">the world is not due to people who get classed as relatively powerless.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">In any case, I am serious about the appellation "unpaid worker in the home",</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">but I have been inspired to think this way by Nancy Folbre, an economist who</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">has many important things to say in this area.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">I am now including a link to a short essay by Folbre:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><a href="http://www.republicart.net/disc/aeas/folbre01_en.pdf"><br /></a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><a href="http://www.republicart.net/disc/aeas/folbre01_en.pdf">http://www.republicart.net/disc/aeas/folbre01_en.pdf</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;"><br /></span></div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-59068194213449873972011-02-24T02:23:00.002-07:002011-02-24T02:26:37.343-07:00Publishers/Editors/Translators/AgentsTo any potential agents, publishers, translators who may happen to be out there...<br /><br />My book is available through "Wordclay", but I would prefer to make it available more widely,<br />with a better design, so I am hoping someday to meet an agent/publisher. I would also like to make it available in Europe, in countries where English is not the first language.<br /><br />But, in the meantime, there is this blog and the sample chapters, and the link to Wordclay.formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-53532365117106556192010-11-05T17:37:00.005-07:002010-11-24T21:15:00.232-07:00pre-publication version<p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN-LEFT: 2in" class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#ff6600;">(For Chapter One of the novel, or for the missing half of Chapter Four Please See the ARCHIVE for October--on the right side of this page..)</span></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN-LEFT: 2in" class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#ff6600;"></span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,153)" class="Apple-style-span">This is a pre-publication version of an article scheduled to appear in "Think; Philosophy for Everyone", a publication of Cambridge University Press. <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=THI">http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=THI</a></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN-LEFT: 2in" class="MsoNormal"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,153);font-size:medium;" class="Apple-style-span" >Citation or quotation should make use of the published version.</span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN-LEFT: 2in" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14;"><br /></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN-LEFT: 2in" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14;">to appear in <i>Think<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN-LEFT: 1in" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:18;"><b>The Difficulty of Understanding<o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN-LEFT: 1in" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"></span>Mark J. Lovas<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Adam Smith, discussed the emotions of sympathy and empathy in his book <i>The theory of moral sentiments</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">, and thought they were the glue that holds society together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We are able to experience these emotions precisely because our emotions of love, of anger, of sadness, of fear are universal, based on inherited systems of the limbic system; we share them with each other… A strong argument can be made that morality is based on such empathetic emotions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Keith Oatley, <i>Emotions; A Brief History</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004) p. 97<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">If emotions such as sympathy are to play the role Oatley envisages for them, they cannot be condescending; they must be based on some real understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is an essay about the difficulty of understanding, and, consequently, the difficulty of sympathy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, it is a challenge to any philosopher who seeks to understand morality by assigning a strong role to the emotions.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">In what sense would or might universal emotions ground ethics?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If well educated or properly socialized individuals share the same emotional reactions to the same action, then there would be a common ground for discussion and argument about what should be done. One would also expect a degree of regularity in the actions people took in response to a given situation. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">However, the thesis being broached should contain an important qualification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The <i>basic </i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">ways of responding, or the </span><i>basic</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal"> emotional reactions are shared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One might ask, however, whether emotions do not nevertheless vary between individuals. Are not some people more readily excitable and others calmer? You and I don’t have to love the same things or the same persons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even if the fundamental ways in which we respond to a given situation are the same, where is the guarantee that we share positive and negative evaluations?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What we like we move towards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What we hate we move away from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Surely some people love what I hate?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">What if two people disagree about what is important, and their disagreement emerges unexpectedly?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What if I lay primary stress on the autonomy of individuals, while you value intimacy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The linguist Anna Wierzbicka (<i>Cross-Cultural Pragmatics</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">, Second Edition; Mouton de Gruyter:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>London and Berlin 2003) has suggested that English speakers differ with Russian or Polish speakers on precisely these points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>English speakers with our generic ‘you’ also favor a more generalized friendliness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Polish-born Wierzbicka, English, lacking the two forms of ‘you’ common in other languages, fails to provide its speakers with a ready device to mark developing levels of intimacy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">I cannot do justice now to the details and complexities of Wierzbicka’s analysis, but let us think, for a moment, about the contrast between the values of intimacy and autonomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With the stress on autonomy comes a notion of private space, something which can be violated, something we all want and have a right to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wierzbicka illustrates this difference via a contrast between styles of leave taking:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>a lengthy process with the effusive insistence that the guest stay, versus a more abrupt and factual departure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Respecting someone’s autonomy, we accept their desire to leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A culture which values intimacy creates lengthy partings with the formulaic, ‘Do you have to go?’, or the insistent ‘Stay longer!’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Wierzbicka’s account raises many questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In virtue of sharing a language, speakers share certain ways of negotiation in social space, pre-packaged chunks of behavior—how to begin or end conversations, how to come and go from a visit, and countless other ways of behaving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yet we acquire these routines at an early age, in an unquestioning way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We might never become aware of them, or we may only become aware of them when we have moved to another country, or when speakers of another language come to visit us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This challenges our status as free people and self-knowers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>An important part of how we relate to other people is acquired thoughtlessly, and without prior evaluation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">As an adult, once one becomes aware of a difference, one can think about it and evaluate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wierzbicka reports that at one point she consciously decided that she would not give up all of her Polish ways in favor of Anglo ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In particular she could not join in the custom of small talk or the custom of asking<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“How are you?” without expecting a real answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, according to the picture of freedom as choosing between options, in making that decision she became freer—even if she chose to continue what she had previously done without awareness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Apart from introducing the idea of freedom, one might ask:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>was she better for having learned that English-speakers differ from Poles?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If one is going to stick with the customs of childhood anyway, what is the point of recognizing that other people have different habits?<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Is it a kind of achievement to recognize that others—others, who, I suppose, one respects and may even have affection for--have had a different childhood, and thus have come to structure their worlds differently?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, is this something positive when one continues to behave in the same way?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Can the mere difference in one’s thinking itself be a sort of achievement?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps, it undermines a certain naïve certainty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps it means a kind of tolerance.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">But what of people who have not reached Wierzbicka’s level of awareness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Are their choices less free?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>People today move around the world all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We are faced with cultural difference both because we move and because others have moved to our homelands.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">A generalized sympathy alone is not going to overcome the potential conflicts Wierzbicka is highlighting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the contrary, other emotions come into play when two people with different routines of conversation or parting meet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The characteristic expression of a discovery here is the phrase ‘How rude!’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, from this point of view, emotions are not the basic level where we find human universals—unless we speak of a universal reaction of hostility or discomfort in the face of a different culture.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">I may, on the whole, sympathize with a friend, but fail to see that in a particular case, we differ because I value privacy where he or she values intimacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In my relations to the friend there will be a mixture of incomprehension and good will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How far can the good will carry us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The case of different styles of leave-taking involves habits which are largely not conscious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What of our conscious thoughts and judgments?<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">I must not know what another person is thinking in order to sympathize with them—though that can be a source of sympathy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, it seems wrong to suppose that another person thinks a thought, a proposition with a determinate content, and that I grasp exactly the same proposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For an example, let the thought contain a demonstrative:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>‘That was unfair’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I may know an action was unfair, and the immediacy with which I grasp its unfairness naturally leads us to say that I <i>saw</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal"> that it was unfair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps I see that the person who has experienced the unfairness equally well recognizes its unfairness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So there is a common point of reference for us:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the unfairness of that act. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Sometimes our ability to feel sympathy is possible because we share a context and a judgment about what happened in it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>we both saw the act and saw that it was unjust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Both of us being sufficiently sensitive to what was going on, there were no questions about whether we were responding to an indication of injustice which might, in another context, have been overridden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is a kind of variability of the connections here which is a necessary feature of the very abstractness and undefinability of moral notions. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">This variability might equally be spoken of in terms of infinity or creativity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Normally, I prefer to be kind, but, perhaps, with some friends or some students, if I am kind, then they will not understand the importance of some issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, on that occasion I must adopt a different posture, perhaps I must be stern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And my sternness will not be anger, though some might think it to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My sternness might well be, with that particular person, on that particular occasion, just what is needed to do my duty by the person, and so to act fairly or justly.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">And what happens if two thinkers fail to be present at the same time, in the same situation, and so fail to share a context?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I must represent to you, my audience, sufficient details to allow you to come to see what I saw when I was in the context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That does not require that you come to the injustice of what was done through exactly the same path as I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My words do not reproduce a second event of the same sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They focus your mind upon salient features of the original event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">But is there mutual or common or universal salience?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The features we care most about are abstract, hence can be reached from countless paths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Can I actually communicate to you what happened in the fullest sense so that you agree with me, so that your agreeing is substantial?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You do not merely nod your head in order to move the conversation forward or because you are my friend, but because my account seems reasonable to you: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>you find it plausible that A did this to B, and you honestly believe that A’s doing this was a bad thing.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Here is a sort of doubt:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>not everything that I am in the habit of finding salient need be salient for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We can perfectly well say as a matter of theory:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>two virtuous individuals will both recognize that something is bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, this ignores questions of variety and diversity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I make an assumption that some might challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I assume an important part of moral evaluation involves our emotions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In deciding what to do, I try to imagine how my actions will impact upon other people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t wish to cause a friend needless embarrassment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t wish to offend someone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But there is a question of emotional indeterminacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One and the same event can be classified differently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are psychologists who claim that neither facial expressions nor physiological reactions correspond in a one-to-one fashion with emotion terms of ordinary English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This places them at odds with psychologists and the philosophers influenced by them who suppose that universality is to be found in physiology or facial expressions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It also raises the question, as the psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett has stressed, of why we are so sure that our emotion terms fit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(“Solving the Emotion Paradox”, <i>Personality and Social Psychology Review</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">, 206, Vol. 10, pp. 20-46.) Barrett herself introduces language to explain how we do it, but that solution itself will imply a degree of indeterminacy or miscommunication when people of different language backgrounds meet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">In the UK and the USA people appeal to the categories of privacy, private space, invasion of privacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They can use these categories to explain what people do:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>‘She moved away from the man on the park bench because he was too close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was invading her privacy.’<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">If the linguists Aneta Pavlenko<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>( ‘Emotions and the body in Russian and English’, <i>Pragmatics and Cognition</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Vol. 10 (2002) , pp. 207-241) and Anna Wierzbicka are to be believed, Poles and Russians don’t appeal to privacy in explaining or justifying behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They place a higher value upon other sorts of relationships between people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Where Anglo-America culture places a stress upon the value of autonomy and independence, where Polish culture prefers intimacy and cordiality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps the clearest expression of this difference is in the Anglo-American ideal of emotional neutrality, something which Pavlenko and Wierzbicka agree is lacking in Russian culture, which likes unrestrained public expressions of emotion.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">If we grant that this difference is real, are we thereby committed to skepticism about the objectivity of morality?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Do these views assume or imply moral relativism?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The short answer is that the recognition of cultural differences is not identical with moral relativism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No one is saying that the Russians do what is ‘right for them’, and that Americans do what is ‘right for them’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, our linguists do claim that there are differences in what is valued, differences in the role of emotion, differences in the importance given to the open display of emotions.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">It might help to consider an example inspired by the research of Aneta Pavlenko.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Here are two different reasons:<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">(A) I want to be left alone with my emotions.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">(B) I want to be left alone because I have a right to privacy.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">With (A) goes a further thought:<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1"></span>(A1) People need sometimes to give in to their emotions.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">With (B) goes a further thought:<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">(B1)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Everyone has a right to privacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are some things we need to do away from the public eye.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">Now, here is a question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What difference does it make if we are avoiding the public eye or simply giving in to our emotions?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is not simply one situation or one particular explanation that is different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The difference is a broad one influencing a host of thoughts and a host of individual actions and every relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The difference is a fundamental one.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Even more troublesome from the standpoint of universality, if our linguists are right, then one culture can lack a concept that another has.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Poles and Russians and many others don’t have the Anglo concept of privacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We lack a Russian concept which Pavlenko attempts to capture with the phrase ‘soul space’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(However, we shouldn’t think, that ‘soul space’ is identical with ‘privacy’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They just happen to play a similar role as a reason in the example above.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">A quick response is to say that all such complex concepts can be de-composed into simple units, and that such units are universal, and so comprehensible to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The problem however is Humpty Dumpty’s:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put the concept back together again once we‘ve taken it apart.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">The Anglo perception is not of a world with a special place for exemption from the public view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is the default setting in our Anglo conceptual scheme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To add it on as an extra is a distortion.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">What is at issue here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is it a question of privileging one’s own way of viewing things?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As if I must be right when I say I feel <i>this</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal"> way?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That is not the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I am not claiming that particular individuals have error-free access to their own emotions and thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nor am I claiming that if a given language contains certain categories that those categories must correspond to a deep, metaphysical reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the contrary, it seems clear from history that people can have false categories—e.g., ‘witch’ or ‘phlogiston’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">The point is that speakers of different languages can differ about what is important—and that the difference might be invisible. Had Wierzbicka never moved to Australia and started to ask questions about why people reacted to her as they did, she would never have recognized her habits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Wierzbicka claims that Polish speakers value a certain intimacy, whereas English speakers value non-interference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is a real difference, and if we attempt to parse Polish behavior by saying it is just like what we Anglo-Americans do/feel, only more so, we distort both what Polish speakers think and feel, and we miss a chance to notice that they really do live different lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Culture makes a difference to how people live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">There is as well a sort of compromise position:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With respect to these matters, you always win something and lose something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or, there are always opportunity costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe that is illusory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just maybe, when we do the right thing, there really was no other possibility—and no real possibility was missed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That is, in fact, I think a consequence of taking seriously the idea that there are moral facts and that there is moral knowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At a less grandiose and abstract level, maybe the Poles and Russians have noticed something that English-speakers tend to miss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe they’ve developed a way of relating that is better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How would one know?<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Perhaps there is a sort of subconscious argument here:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If doing the right thing means not missing a possibility, and if I’ve never thought of a world without privacy, then I’ve missed a possibility, and maybe, just maybe I’ve been in someway wrong?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, surely I couldn’t be wrong about <i>that</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">The question of simple ideas is a question of understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Can I understand the other culture?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wanted to insist that simple paraphrases fail to capture the original thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If the Japanese have a special way of relating to intimates and have given it a name, we cannot understand it simply by saying that it is like our friendship only more so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why do I insist of keeping things together?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I hinted at my reason above:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>it runs the risk of a sort of emotional imperialism or condescension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>‘Oh it’s just like our desire for intimacy, but more intense.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, No, it’s not as if there were some switch that was moved forms setting “8” to setting “12”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That is a misrepresentation of the difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps an analogy can serve:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>contemporary dance is not simply classical ballet with looser rules about where the arms, shoulders, and torso can be located; it is a different style of dance, with different expressive possibilities.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Earlier we saw that Keith Oatley claimed emotions<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>such as sympathy are central to morality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Oatley, a psychologist and novelist, has been inspired by the novelist George Eliot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now, I would like to shift gears and consider just a bit of what George Eliot has to say about the emotions.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">George Eliot wrote of the importance of living a life<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>‘… vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(<i>The Mill on the Floss, </i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">Oxford UP:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Oxford and New York; 1860/1996, p. 498)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This does not seem to be the Anglo view that our linguists find among Americans and English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Eliot is saying that if we have had an intense and vivid emotional life we become capable of expanded sympathy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In fact, one of the central tragedies of </span><i>The Mill on the Floss</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal"> is Tom’s incapacity to share the feelings of his sister, Maggie.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">And now we are near a quite pretty suggestion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Earlier I seemed to be skeptical about the universality of emotion because I accepted the claim that different cultures might place different values on emotions or value different emotions, and that this difference might be reflected in language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yet, now we see that a difference in language is not needed to produce an emotional and moral gap, a failure of human understanding.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Tom lacks the emotional capacities needed to understand his sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And, to make the point more dramatic, we might say:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>it’s not just the psychopath who fails to feel what one would need to in order to act rightly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tom is a character who satisfies certain social standards of respectability and is praised by his community, but he is often cruel to his sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moreover, it is Maggie’s moral and emotional depth which makes her a target of community criticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Like Tom, Maggie’s community is, for the most part, simply incapable of accepting the complexity of her character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Toward the novel’s end, after hearing Maggie’s story, Dr. Kenn advises her,<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">The people who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours, are precisely those who are likely to shrink from you; because they will not believe in your struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(<i>The Mill on the </i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">Floss, p. 496)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Here in her narrator’s voice, Eliot describes how Maggie responds to Tom’s words:<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">There was a terrible cutting truth in Tom’s words--that hard rind of truth which is discerned by unimaginative, unsympathetic minds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(p. 393)<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">And here on the same page are Maggie’s thoughts about Tom:<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">… she said inwardly that he was narrow and unjust, that he was below feeling those mental needs which, were often the source of the wrong-doing or absurdity that made her life a planless riddle to him. <o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">If we return to my earlier example, where two people can agree that something is unfair, the very schematic account I proposed there seems hollow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maggie and her brother Tom might well agree that many things were wrong or bad, yet the grounds of their judgments would be different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Tom there is the powerful force of public reputation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Maggie there is always something like a primary ground of emotional sympathy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maggie and Tom’s father goes bankrupt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Tom this brings shame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Maggie, there are fewer thoughts about how this will influence her life than there is sympathy for her father.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">So too, if we recall Wierzbicka’s account of the Anglo mind, we can see Tom as the sort of person who will care about privacy in a formal way, while Maggie will be in need of a space where she can experience her emotions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That suggestion turns things around once more; even two people who share the same language and have shared childhood can be emotionally separated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maggie’s emotional life looks more Russian than Anglo-American.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her misfortune is that her brother is closer to Wierzbicka’s portrait of an Anglo.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Can we draw any conclusions?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No language or culture, and, indeed, one might add (though we have not discussed this point) not even the most creative and competent of teachers or mentors can give us some form of automatic and privileged insight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Your language may require you to notice some things and not others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But making a life for one’s self that is just and happy is so complicated a process that no matter what one’s initial endowment, there will be dangerous decision-points where the initial advantages come to seem quite trivial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">In Maggie’s case, she was condemned by people who, like her brother Tom, lacked imagination and sympathy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To see Maggie’s tragedy as solely or primarily due to some excess in her character is to ignore the role played by the community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Eliot knew well the power of community judgment:<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(<i>Middlemarch.</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal"> Oxford: Oxford UP,1871/1996) p. 9)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">We have touched on the ways in which language and culture can create difficulties or complications which hinder understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have also suggested that people who share a culture and early childhood experiences may yet differ in the emotions they feel in ways that matter for moral judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maggie is closer to moral reality than Tom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her greater sensitivity brings with it a perception of what is important which Tom lacks.<o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Perhaps, too, we can derive another moral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If emotions matter to morality, it is not merely because they are universal and serve as a kind of foundation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is as well a question of the depth or quality of emotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>George Eliot thought that art must enlarge one’s capacity for sympathy, or it would be worthless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in" class="MsoNormal">Mother Nature may have endowed us with the emotions which make morality possible, but their final destiny lies in cultural institutions which can develop those energetic creatures in diverse directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That insight can already be found in Plato.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What is new in the contemporary thinkers I have mentioned is an appreciation for the surprising granularity of the social or cultural.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Society influences the individual not merely at the level of macro-institutions such as schools and political systems, but equally at the micro level of parting rituals and small talk. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><!--EndFragment-->formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-1020133831642074882010-10-18T18:44:00.008-07:002010-10-18T22:56:02.877-07:00update<span style="color:#ff6600;"><strong>If you are looking for the first chapter of the book (or the missing half chapter) please keep looking. They are here; <em>you only need to scroll down</em>....</strong></span><br /><span style="color:#ff6600;"></span><br /><strong><span style="color:#ff6600;"><em>This note is only of interest to anyone who might happen to be wondering about disappeared links.....</em></span><br /><span style="color:#ff6600;"><em></em></span><br /></strong><span style="color:#ff6600;">I have removed some non-functioning links. All were leading to the Journal of Mundane Behavior. I don't know if it's gone completely out of existence, or if it is to be found within the gated communities of for-pay journals that only universities can afford to pay for.....</span><br /><span style="color:#ff6600;">If it ever comes back for free, I'll restore the links.</span><br /><span style="color:#ff6600;">I wonder how much writing of quality is actually available for free on the web, and how much of it is only available if you pay outrageous prices......but the actual percentage doesn't matter, there's just too much good stuff that is not free.......Jeez Loueeez, it's not as if the web were created with public money, right? I mean the falsely named but publicly funded DOD (accurately D of War) built the damn internet, didn't they? </span><br /><span style="color:#ff6600;"></span><br />PS<br />Talking about absurdities, an article I wrote a few years back (22 July 2009 is the online publication date) that appeared in"Think" is being sold online for $45!!! I'm sure not getting the money!<br /><a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/display/Abstract?fromPage&online&aid=5969360">http://journals.cambridge.org/action/display/Abstract?fromPage&online&aid=5969360</a>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-32787575576571449582010-10-13T16:45:00.004-07:002010-10-18T18:41:20.670-07:00in passing....<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333ff;">apparently it passed by so quickly that I forgot it....<br /></span>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-4118627543721047222010-09-07T01:59:00.006-07:002010-09-07T02:08:15.101-07:00dead links<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">If you are looking for an excerpt from the book, please keep looking. This is a message about dead links.</span></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div>I apologize for the dead links. They correspond to four things I had written which appeared in the "Journal of Mundane Behavior",</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Mundane_Behavior">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Mundane_Behavio</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Mundane_Behavior">r</a></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> which is now defunct.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I had hoped JMB might come back on line, or that I might find the advertised writings. Thus far, unfortunately, neither has JMB returned nor have I found the missing essays. I do have a copy of "American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism" in PDF form as part of the entire JMB issue. But I don't know how to make that available here.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div></div></div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-30557028271838707832010-08-30T02:26:00.004-07:002010-08-30T02:33:35.740-07:00the Moloch of the market and publishing<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">On self-publishing my novel:</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Recently I found myself adding a comment at “On Fiction” about some unpleasant experiences I had while trying to find a publisher for ‘A Neurotic in an Exotic Land.”</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">I was very disappointed when Keith Oatley seemed to write it all off as a case of forgivable human frailties. I have the greatest respect for Oatley and especially his book “Best Laid Plans”, but in this case I was very disappointed.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">It is true that I was unable to supply the full details of my experience, but I couldn’t help but wishing I could employ the Slovak verb “</span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">bagatelizovat</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> meaning to trivialize. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-size:medium;">I think of this now because I recently came across a piece of writing by the Sociologist Loïc Wacquant which exactly made the point I should have liked to make at “On Fiction'</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-size:medium;"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">I quote from an interview with Wacquant titled “Critical Thought as Solvent of </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Doxa</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a href="http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/">http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/</a></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">(itself worth reading)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(255, 102, 0); font-size:medium;">Context: Waquant is describing how critical thought must oppose</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">“</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">…the crushing of everything by the Moloch of the market, starting with the crushing of thought and all forms of cultural expression now threatened with violent death by the profit imperative and the unbridled pursuit of marketing success: consider that Mrs. Hillary Clinton received a seven-million dollar advance and the CEO of General Electric Jack Welsh got nine million for two execrable books that will be written by ghost writers in which the one will recount her life as First Lady and the other his experiences as a high-flying corporate tycoon, and that Amazon.com will sell barges of them before they are even printed, while talented writers, poets, and young researchers are unable to find houses willing to publish them for the sole reason that all editors must now raise their annual profit rates in line with those of the television and movie industries within which they have been integrated by the large cultural conglomerates.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-29701347426359647272010-08-07T20:26:00.026-07:002010-11-09T17:21:27.504-07:00A Small Correction: Part One of Two<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"> <div><span style="COLOR: rgb(102,51,255)" class="Apple-style-span">This note has little to do with the novel, but I want to make this point public somewhere.</span></div><div><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,0,0)" class="Apple-style-span">If you just want to see an excerpt from the book, please keep looking elsewhere at this site.</span></div><div><span style="COLOR: rgb(102,51,255)" class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></div>When I was living in Slovakia I published an article ("American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism") in the "Journal of Mundane Behavior" (Volume 2, No.3, October 2001). That used to be a free on-line journal. It seems to have gone off line.</span> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A while back, I discovered that I had been mis-cited--both my name and my citizenship had been changed, and (more disturbing) the content of what I had written was trivialized.<br /><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Here (in green) is a quotation from an article which appeared in the "International Business and Economics Research Journal" in February 2008 (link below):</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div><div><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre" class="Apple-tab-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Mark Locus, an Eastern European, writes in 2001 to warn against </span></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre; COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-tab-span"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">viewing Slavic people, “according to stereotype – as fatalists.” Locus defines fatalism </span></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre; COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-tab-span"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">as the view that a choice can not affect an outcome. He distinguishes those choices an </span></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre; COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-tab-span"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">eastern European might make that do change outcomes from those that cannot change</span></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre; COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-tab-span"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">outcomes. We would observe that since the end of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europeans </span></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre; COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-tab-span"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">increasingly find their choices do affect outcomes and that Slavic fatalism has faded, </span></span><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre; COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-tab-span"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">evolving to a growing optimism.</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Mark "Locus"! Who is Mark Locus? I am not Mark "Locus" but Mark Lovas. So, why do I say they are referring to an article I wrote? If you check their bibliography, you will find no one in the bibliography named "Locus", but my name appears, and they cite my article in JMB.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">In addition to getting my name wrong, they jumped to the conclusion that I am "Eastern European". But, I am neither European nor Eastern European. I am American--a citizen of the United States. At the time I wrote the article, I was employed by an American university located in Bratislava, but I am American not Eastern European, and several Americans were working there at the time. You do not have to be an Eastern European to be employed by an Eastern European university.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 11px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"></p></div><div><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Here is a link to the article:</span><a href="http://www.cluteinstitute-onlinejournals.com/PDFs/672.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> http://www.cluteinstitute-onlinejournals.com/PDFs/672.pdf</span></a></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The article had three authors, none of whom apparently could be bothered to pay attention to insignificant details like the name of an author they were citing, but who were able to imagine that said author was "an Eastern European"--yes, that's right an Eastern European born in Rahway, New Jersey, USA... (Frankly "Locus" is just plain Latin, and "Lovas" is plainly not--it is Hungarian or Slovak in origin; but perhaps the authors didn't know that; so the mistake might indicate a broader lack of knowledge.) Even more seriously, they did not do a good job of summarizing what I had said.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They not only attributed to me a totally trivial view--the sort of triviality one would hardly think requires a scholarly reference: the wholly anodyne remark that one shouldn't stereotype people because they are "Slavic"! (That's the sort of generality one expects to hear from a nursery school teacher, not from someone engaged into a serious cultural inquiry) -- they also managed to distort and mangle what I did say. I distinguished three sorts of fatalism: fatalism simpliciter, and (borrowing a distinction from Dan Dennett) two variants--global and local fatalism. (I did not put it exactly that way in the article, but it is clear to anyone who reads the article that this is what I was doing.)</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">You can be fatalistic about some things and not others. I suggested that Slovaks might be fatalistic about politics--and rightly so--while not being fatalistic about taking care of their gardens. The "definition" (sic) which the authors attribute to me threatens to make fatalism always and everywhere bad, to be avoided--precisely opposite to the point I was making.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Here is the explanation of "fatalism" which I gave in the article:</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="WHITE-SPACE: pre" class="Apple-tab-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family:';"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Anyway, what exactly is Fatalism?....Among professional philosophers fatalism is a position that (for the most part—I mention an exception below) nobody seriously defends or advocates. For most philosophers since Aristotle, it has been a sort of limiting position in discussions of free will and human agency: if you get to that conclusion, you’ve made a mistake and need to start over again. </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">In brief, it is the view that human choices, decisions, deliberation, have </span></b></span><i><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" class="Apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">no point—</span></b></span></i></span><span style="font-family:';"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" class="Apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">they don’t affect the outcome one way or another.</span></b></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia,serif;"><span style="font-family:';"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" class="Apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">(added emphasis)<br /></span></b></span></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">And here is </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">their</span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> summary of what I was saying: (Again I assume by "Locus" they actually mean "Lovas"--i.e. the author of these words because there is no "Locus" in their bibliography.)</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px arial"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">"Locus defines fatalism as the view that</span></span><b style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></b><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">a </span></b></span><b style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">choice can not affect an </span></b></span><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">outcome</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">. [added emphasis]"</span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="COLOR: rgb(255,102,0)" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They do an excellent job of defining "fatalism" in an ambiguous way--thus destroying the distinction I was after. Notice the ambiguity: </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> choice cannot affect an outcome. VERSUS </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">No choice</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> can affect an outcome.</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> "A</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> choice cannot affect an outcome" invites the question: WHICH CHOICE?</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Fatalism, a view not very popular with philosophers, is the view that </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">all choices</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> are inefficacious.</span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">If I bend over backwards to be charitable, I could interpret what they have written as follows: when they said "</span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">a choice"</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> they meant "</span><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">any</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> choice." After all, there are sentences in English where "a+noun" involves the universal quantifier: "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". (So, here "a" means "any" or "all".) Nonetheless, in expressing a view or position, it is part of the real work involved to choose words that escape ambiguity insofar as that is possible--and this is precisely what our trio have not done. It appears they are trying to pack the distinction I drew into the definition, and they they try to correct the ambiguity with their next line, which states a truism: some choices by Eastern Europeans are efficacious, some not. (Did they need me to tell them that?)<br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 10px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They write in a vague way that blurs over the very distinction I was making-- and that is reminiscent of the sort of error one might find in an undergraduate philosophy paper. The idea that a specific choice cannot affect an out come--"a choice"--is LOCAL fatalism. It is exactly NOT what I defined fatalism as. (Look above.) So, it would appear that what they've tried to do is to blur the distinction I was drawing. But, since I thought the distinction was worth drawing in the first place, I can hardly appreciate their attempt to undo the work I had done.</span><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0px; FONT: 9px 'Times New Roman'"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255);font-size:180%;" ><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Does this matter? Why does it matter? SEE PART TWO</span></span><br /></span></p></div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-58305788444007724742010-08-07T20:24:00.013-07:002010-08-18T20:51:52.464-07:00A Small Correction: Part Two<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Why, you may well ask, does the distinction even matter?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My original point was that when Americans label Slavic people as "fatalists" they (the Americans) were confused. They were failing to distinguish local and global fatalism.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Maybe global fatalism is unreasonable; but local fatalisms are part of the essence of rationality.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dennett's example to illustrate the distinction involved someone who slipped on the ice and was about to fall--for that brief period before s/he hit the ground, no choice could change their downward path.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And, let's be clear about a further issue. The three authors rather blandly assume that with the coming of capitalism to "Eastern" Europe, people have more efficacious choices.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">On my analysis, people in Eastern Europe were always rational agents who knew where to spend their energies. The confused ones were the visiting Americans who regarded them as fatalists (fatalists simpliciter); and I even suggested that optimistic Americans might suffer from their own sort of cultural blindness when it came to evaluating their own culture....<br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">To summarize the errors:</span></b></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">1. My name was either misspelled or changed--depending on your interpretation.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">2. A hypothetical (but erroneous) ethnic identity was attributed to me.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">3. What I said was mis-represented in two ways: a. A distinction I drew was blurred.,</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">b. My actual view was dumbed down in a way that trivializes it. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Of course there is a difference (objectively speaking) between choices that make a difference and those that don't make a difference. (That hardly needs a scholarly citation.) The more interesting point which I made was that Slovaks and Czechs know the difference. (And even that isn't terribly interesting when I make it out of context.--But it is quite different than what the authors attribute to me.)</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: bold 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">References:</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Arsen M. Djatej, Robert H. S. Sarikas, David L. Senteney, "An Investigation of the Comparative Accuracy and Bias of Equity Securities Analysts East and West European Firms Earnings Forecasts", </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">International Business and Economics Research Journal</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, February 2008, Volume 7, Number 2, accessed 8 August 2010. </span><a href="http://cluteinstitue-onlinejournals.com/PDFs/672.pdf"><span class="f"><cite><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">www.cluteinstitute-onlinejournals.com/PDFs/672.pdf</span></cite></span></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Daniel C. Dennett, Elbow Room; </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, MIT 1984<br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Mark Lovas, "American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism", </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Journal of Mundane Behavior</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, Volume 2, Issue 3, (2001), pp. 355-377.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Anyway....</span></b></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now that capitalism is in global crisis, all of us who don't belong to the capitalist class seem to have fewer and fewer choices.</span></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">EASTERN EUROPE???</span></b></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Oh yes, the above-mentioned authors might like to know that the word "Eastern" has a negative connotation for some audiences. And, as the Czechs like to say, to travel from Prague to Vienna, you have to go </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">east</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">....</span></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And Another Thing...</span></span></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">About their actual article: It is amazing (to say the least) that they follow the practice (which they describe as standard practice) of referring to "Eastern Europeans" as "Russians"!!</span></span></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is as if the Berlin Wall never fell, and culturally the Czech, Slovaks, and Hungarians (among others) continued to be in the sphere of Russia.</span></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But the real topic of their essay is risk and over-confidence (which they describe as "optimism"). The Eastern Europeans who interest them--equity security firm analysts--make overly optimistic predictions--overly optimistic as compared to their colleagues in the west of Europe.</span></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There is something laughable about this--the authors' confidence that the former members of the Warsaw Pact will now have truly efficacious decision-making powers-- presumably because capitalism has come to their lands--as if workplace democracy were not essentially antagonistic to capitalism and essential to true freedom, and as if choosing from fifteen different shampoos were the height of human freedom!<br /></span></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yet,the whole business is ludicrous in light of the current economic depression, and the fact a group of economists in the UK recently wrote a letter to the Queen of England where they blamed the whole thing on </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">a failure to accurately assess risk!!! I.e., a failure on the part of Westerners....Who is over-confident now?</span></b></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><i><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/26/monarchy-credit-crunch"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/26/monarchy-credit-crunch</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; font: 9px 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The capitalist emperor really has no clothes...</span></p></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-4487441364409657892010-07-22T13:16:00.005-07:002010-07-22T13:23:37.612-07:00health care and paperwork....While living in Slovakia, I was seriously ill and required hospitalization.<br /><br />At the time, as far as I recall, I did not fill out very many forms. I did, however, have a small plastic card which indicated that I was part of the state system of health care.<br /><br />Recently, I have been living in the USA with my eighty-something parents. They frequently visit doctors, and, on every visit without exception, are asked to fill out forms, and are provided legalistic documents for their signature.<br /><br />That demand upon their time stands in sharp contrast to the paperwork free spending which<br />went on in Iraq at the beginning of the occupation. (I do not mean to suggest that anything has changed today; but the link below is to an article written five years ago.)<br /><br />I am attaching a link to provide the details:<br /><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n13/ed-harriman/where-has-all-the-money-gone">http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n13/ed-harriman/where-has-all-the-money-gone</a>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-44009074169854898492010-07-21T11:08:00.011-07:002010-08-01T00:13:01.585-07:00Bolshevism<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Among my many adventures in the Slovak Republic was my year-long battle with the managers of a certain Slovak international school, during which my fondness</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">for the term "fascism" provoked intense criticism.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">What I learned was that "fascism" had a very specific meaning for my audience.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">But I think it's something of a reductio if such a general term is limited in scope</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">to only one period of time. You don't want simply to refer to some event</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">as a bare particular, but surely the interest in the thing is what properties it has</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">what laws of nature are involved and such!--and especially the goodness and badness involved!</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">To be sure, it's also absurd when every bad person is described as a "Hitler".</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Along these lines, I am now re-discovering that "Bolshevism" is a term</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">more prominent for UK speakers of English than for me.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I say that because I just read Andrew Cockburn remarking that the UK had to let up its ban on food imports to Germany after World War One--"for fear of promoting Bolshevism"</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">(LRB 22 July 2010 Andrew Cockburn, "Worth It")</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n14/andrew-cockburn/worth-it"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n14/andrew-cockburn/worth-it"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n14/andrew-cockburn/worth-it</span></a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I was once accused of being a Bolshevik by someone at the "Guardian" newspaper.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">After my "Letter from Bratislava" had been published (you can find the letter in the archives of this blog), I complained at the delay before I received my check.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My correspondent at the Guardian described me as a "Bolshevik" when I complained.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Absurd really. There should be a precise term for this sort of falsification.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">When someone says something true, conjure up visions of a vivid sort of violent</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">injustice, and destruction of all social order.... hmmmm...... something like</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">capitalism and capitalists.....</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">So, according to this lose use, capitalists too are... bosheviks?</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">("Bolshevik" doesn't belong to my active vocabulary, and I am not a participant in UK culture, and since email is such a dry medium, I might be missing the possibility that my correspondent was joking. But look! See here! All my life I have been paying in advance for certain services (like using the Internet now), but I have only been paid after I had made my contribution....So, to me, that suggests something rotten. I have to pay first for what I get. but I am paid later, and sometimes late for what I give. THAT IS NOT FUNNY!</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">An Afterthought:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Surely, someone is thinking: What about credit!? You could borrow money! But borrowing money is altogether different. An employer gets to benefit from my effort and my schooling without paying me up front, and retains power over me in the form of various forms of control. I have no similar power over a bank that loans me money.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">But even if I could borrow without interest, I don't like the idea of adding the banker</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">as a middleman.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">More generally, credit, in the real world, puts power in the hands of those who least deserve it. I know very well there is a fairy tale about how banks spread money around like manure, but it's just not reality. A more detailed and scholarly objection to credit as an institution (because it is an institution which increases undeserved privilege and power) can be found in the economist Robin Hahnel's book, "The ABC's of Political Economy". (Pluto Press 2002) In brief, credit markets allow individuals to increase personal wealth out of proportion to effort or sacrifice.</span></span></div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5654182798042539550.post-19528193194997295732010-07-18T00:03:00.003-07:002010-07-24T12:02:16.054-07:00Dead Links<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">I have just noticed that there are some dead links here--all to the </span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Journal of Mundane Behavior.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">This happened once before, but the JMB eventually came back.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">If it doesn't re-appear, I should be able to find the advertised articles</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">and post them at this cite.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">So, check back in either case if you are interested.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /></span></div>formerly a wage slavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16064562730082906589noreply@blogger.com0