I just finished my calculus midterm.
What I like most about take-home exams is that while taking the test you can listen to OCR songs and play games of chess and scrabble at the same time. Plus, if you get stuck on a problem, you can always sleep on it and try again the following day. I think that whenever I finally get a job teaching mathematics, I'm going to primarily give take-home exams. It just seems better to me.
Y'know, it's a very scary thought to think of me teaching. Not two years ago, I was what CHL called a Rand-head, though I denied it at the time. And it is only in the past week that I have started reading things like Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica. (Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry on this book is only a paragraph long... Perhaps I should try getting off my ass and actually doing something constructive for once by writing about it.) I know that perhaps it seems strange to others that I would comment on this, but it is a big deal to me. I am not well trained, and it bothers me.
Now I know that others will probably groan at this point. I know that Russ would say: "What do you want to be trained for? Training is brain-washing." Just the other day, I spoke of philosophers needing to know the now almost universally defunct Aristotle in front of Matt, and his immediate knee-jerk reaction was wonder at why anyone should study a historical philosophy that has little relevance to what is commonly believed in today. So why should I worry about my training? After all, I am at least somewhat adequate at argument, and I know enough in my own fields to be moderately aware of what is going on.
But... It's just not enough.
It seems like most everything I've done in my life has been pretty damned half-assed. I dropped out of school, opting instead for a GED. I never worked in any job for longer than a few months at the most. Every essay I've written has been decidedly subpar, and every argument I've been in has resulted in little-to-no difference in the minds of those I argued against.
It's not that I'm not intelligent; I've seen the world around me, and I realize my own proficiency when it comes to mathematics, physics, or philosophy. But... I'm just not... reliable.
This semester, I signed up for an English class that looked interesting, just as an elective course. But I've missed five classes so far, and missed reading two of the books on the syllabus for the class. Even in my most advanced math class, I recently got a note from my professor telling me that I had already missed one class, and that if I was absent again, he would have to drop me. His statement hit pretty hard, since I am, after all, his favorite student -- but he's right: I need to be responsible.
About a year ago, I wrote a primer on the MTGN forums concerning the virtue of skeptical thinking. I cited Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World and Robert Carroll's Skeptic's Dictionary as references, but... ::sigh:: I've always felt particularly crappy about the primer I wrote. As I was writing it, I kept thinking to myself over and over again: "Why am I bothering to write this? There are literally dozens of essays on exactly this same topic, the best two of which I'm citing here, but why bother writing an essay when I could just link to these better writers instead?"
Now, when I look back on it, I shudder. The essay is badly written and hard to follow. Those aren't exactly the best qualities for a primer to have. It is by no means concise, let alone elegant. I used bad word choices. I used "e.g." where I should have put "i.e.". I added no new information that Sagan, Carroll, et al had already spoken adequately on. It was a worthless, useless essay, unless it might have caused someone to see the citations given and actually follow up on them. (Yeah, right.)
But I still remember the day I wrote it. I was browsing the forums, watching my peers write the most disturbing and horribly thought out posts and actually trying to pass off the incoherence as argument. And I just happened to have come across Sagan's Demon Haunted World earlier that day by Dr. Allin, and I decided to try and get out Sagan's message to my fellow forum readers.
It seems virtuous enough when I put it like that, except I left out one thing. When I wrote the essay, I did so thinking that I was doing a service, since surely none of the others had read the book before. Only the next day, I come to find out that CHL and others had already read the book, and it hit me: I know virtually nothing that others do not know more of.
My dad recently asked me to do some more work on his website, yet I haven't even started on it. I tried writing javascript code for a banner and couldn't get it to work. For a banner. I'm talking intro-level scripting here, and I couldn't get it to work.
It's enough to make one feel rather worthless.
None of this would really be that big a deal, except these are the fields that I am actually intent upon knowing about. Just the other day, David asked me some random question on Lorentz fields, fully expecting that I would know the answer right away -- and I certainly should have! -- but I could not even remember where the name Lorentz came from. I could not place the name of a Nobel-prize winning theoretical physicist, who got his prize for correctly predicting the electron! For someone who insists that one of his fields is physics, this kind of thing should be a piece of cake, but instead I had to do a google search in order to answer David's question.
::sigh::
To accomplish nothing substantive is extremely disappointing to me. I still remember the old middle school days when Emp and I 'proved' 2=1, though we divided by zero, and when we 'proved' all triangles were isosceles, though we misused the visual geometry when we should have looked to the actual axioms instead. But these are extreme examples. I can remember when I first read Euclid's Elements, proving on my own the propositions before reading Euclid's proof. Or when I worked on raw data from particle interactions to see if I could reproduce some of the old Fermilab results. Doing stuff back then was enjoyable, even if only because it felt like I was actually doing something. I think the main cause of my depression between middle school and my college years was my lack of doing anything at all. ::sigh:: So many years wasted...
I would like to actually do something substantive. I feel like I'm on a roll after finishing this calculus midterm; I think I'm actually going to try and write a Wikipedia article on Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica. And I'm not going to do this half-assed, either. I'm going to do the research necessary to write a well thought out article, covering as many aspects as possible on the topic.
Wish me luck.
18 October, 2004
05 October, 2004
St. Joseph's Chapel (or: Reason vs. Doctrine: A Schizophrenic Debate)
What a beautiful chapel we have on campus. The marble floors and the vaulted ceilings are nothing when put up against European standards, but the flamboyant tresses and angelic figures make up an impressive facade next to the other buildings in olde towne Mobile, Alabama, much as Hamlet shines next to the crap of modern writers, despite its best speech using four opening lines with four feminine endings and including the stutter in blank verse: "WhethER 'tis noblER in the mind to suffER".
Still, seeing as how I live in the heart of darkness itself, the feeling of standing alone in the chapel late at night while everyone else is fast asleep is breathtaking. The limit of my architectural knowledge lies at the National Cathedral in D.C., and from what I understand, this is next to nothing in comparison to the town houses of Europe (not counting the cathedral in Milan -- ugh). So it is certainly understandable when I am awestruck by its (relative) magnificence; that, and then there's also the fact that my tuition went toward paying for this bloated two-dimensional pickwick-paper-like thing. One would almost expect me to be disgusted by the extravagance, but if I were disgusted by all that should disgust me, I'd never do anything with my life except exude disgusted... er, disgust.
Anyway, when it's late at night and the catholic masses lie dormant, the chapel is a good place to be. The new pipe organ (to be constructed in Germany, no less) has not yet arrived, but in the meantime a small organ resides in its place, along with a grand piano of dubious tuning. (It seems the middle 'C' on the organ differs from the grand by quite a wide margin.) Playing in front of an audience never did suit me entirely well, but when the whole of the college is nowhere near, I do not mind a little harmless ivory-tickling every now and then. And though the architectural style of the chapel is quite atrocious (even more so considering its recent restoration), the completely accidental harmonics of the inner structure is quite impressive. (At least it is for a Mobile-area native like myself; every concert I've gone to has used the historic-yet-harmonically-dissonant Saenger Theatre.)
But what impresses me even more is how easily my mood may change whenever I visit the chapel. It is as though the chapel itself acts as a conduit of sorts, allowing the progression of my mood to travel more freely in either direction. Generally, I admit, the chapel has a calming effect, reminding me that peaceful contemplation has been regarded as a virtue by many in the world, and that I should not worry so at the state of drunken stupors rampaging across campus each and every weekend. But occasionally I will be standing there, aghast at the horrors done in the name of religion, and I will feel that much more intensely adamant that the world harbors none who would understand the never-spoken-of eleventh virtue as a means between the extremes of hedonism and an overly charitable philosophy.
So it does not surprise me so much as one might think it should when, on a recent visit to St. Joseph's chapel, I paced the floors arguing incessantly with an incorporeal vision of God himself, trying to get a common consensus of what is.
Now I imagine that most who read this will pass off my odd quirks such as speaking aloud to a non-existent deity as indicative of insanity, or at least stupidity. But personally, I find that my private antics are helpful toward coming to determinations within my own mind. Not two years previous to this, I considered myself quite enamored with objectivism, and though none could adequately argue me to anything more than a standstill on the matter, I maintained a modicum of decency clothed in self-consistency. Many of my friends at the time (including Revolution1916, CoolHandLuke, Highroller, Harm'sWay, & ChildOfBabylon) considered my objectivist views to be (how should I put it?) quite questionable, yet, strangely enough, their respect for my focus on debate over dogmatism kept them at my throat without hating my guts (at least I hope they didn't hate me). And now, as a self-proclaimed liberal and practicing vegetarian, I seem to have come full circle à la Vico (too bad literature cannot yet say the same). The exegesis of this modification of base "first-cause" value system is directly delineated by one thing, and one thing only: argument. It is through argument that I have come to follow, understand, or even acknowledge any major system of thought. Without argument, I would be no more than least of my contemporaries. And so it is that my "odd quirks" are important to who I am as a person -- not by their 'quirkiness', but by their predilection toward argument.
The argument in question is one hinted at by my reading of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It is written by one Ludwig Wittgenstein, a philosopher of admitted importance, though due to relevance or ridiculousness I have not yet been able to determine. The argument flowed as follows:
I stated unequivocally in the presence of God's own residence the fact that certainty of scientific structures is completely different (i.e., a difference in kind, rather than in degree) than the absurdity of certainty in any religious belief. Of course, a counter was immediately (and forcibly) given:
"If a man is told to believe that the doubt of Thomas is wrong, his immediate thoughts and reactions are exactly the same as they would be if he were told that the light would come on once a particular switch were flipped. The minds of two different people in these two situations would be similar in kind, though perhaps not in degree, since the immediate reaction is based on emotional attachment alone. But even after a period of thought on the matter, continued belief in their respective propositions would rely upon observation, and not upon any tyrannical decree of thought. While it may be true that each side has its own oddballs who may believe Thomas is wrong to doubt even after repeated highly regarded theses that doubt is necessary for theological belief to hold true, or that the light switch should continue to work even during the wrath of a tornado downs the power station, strictly competent adherents to both sides may agree that the continued belief in any proposition should rest entirely upon constant observation."
The specific examples of the argument were given to me as I walked beside the walls of the chapel; Thomas was brought up when I saw the fourteenth station of the cross, and remembered the admonition given him for doubting the resurrection, and a light switch was brought up when I noticed the switches on the back of the altar, invisible to the parishioners who always sit in front of it.
"But," I countered after a moment, "a believer in a doctrine of God employs faith; a believer in science employs reason."
"Not so; as you yourself said, they both are 'believers', and the reason we give that name to both is because they share the property of employing belief, reason-based or otherwise."
"Fine, but a reason-based belief is clearly superior to a doctrine-based belief."
"Why?"
"Because reason is not dogmatic, but it is..."
"What? What is it?"
I stumbled here, almost tripping over myself. I was too deeply immersed in thought to be able to continue my pacing.
"What were you going to say? Were you about to say that reason is self-evident? And if so, wouldn't that mean it were also dogmatic?"
The worst part about arguing with someone who is not there is that you feel really stupid when the nonexistent being beats you in an argument. "Then must we admit that reason-based belief is no different in kind from doctrine-based belief?"
I waited for a response, as I always do. But strangely, every time I am trounced in an argument and concede to the opposing side, the speaker for the opposition disappears, unable (or at least unwilling) to return again. I have often thought that my inner psyche, torn though it must be to think of such delusions, has some kind of reason for torturing me like this. Then again, what does it say about me when I always wait for a final word from a speaker who not only was never there, but then refuses to speak to me after I am persuaded to the speaker's side? Obviously, I am mentally ill in some fashion of the phrase. Of course, the whole of this paragraph is nothing but conclusions made by applying logical rules to propositions already asserted to be true -- in other words, reasoned thought. So my very justification for believing what I do doesn't even hold against the weight of its own elucidations. Reason itself seems to be quite suicidal, reducing its own importance to that of blind belief.
I am reminded of the judicial department of the United States of America. The Constitution does not specifically allow for the judicial branch to declare laws to be unconstitutional -- this would violate the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches of government. Yet in Marbury v. Madison (1803), judicial review was established by admitting that the court had no jurisdiction over the matter in the first place. By limiting its own power to rule, the Supreme Court magnified its power tremendously. Could reason be taking a similar route to increased importance?
(I realize the way that I stated the previous sentence would imply an Aristotelian final cause of reason "doing" this for a particular purpose, but what I mean to say is grounded more on whether reason-based belief might be understood as "more important" by relegating itself to equal importance with doctrine-based belief.)
If reason is no longer a special method with regard to determination of belief, then it behooves us to notice what about reason differentiates it from other bases for belief. Clearly, when we speak of doctrinal belief, our continued belief in a doctrine comes from "jibing" what the belief says and what we feel to be true. However, when we speak of reasoned belief, our continued belief in a proposition comes from "jibing" what the belief says and what the rules of logic (which we feel to be true) says about that proposition's consistency. In both cases, belief is implemented, and neither case immediately seems superior to the other. But a difference between them does exist, and that difference is most clearly illustrated by showing that reasoned belief comes not through what we feel is true, but from what logical rules say can be true in addition to what we "feel". And since the logical rules are merely relations between "things" that determine truth or falsity, reasoned belief relies upon a relation of what is said compared to other things that are said. For truth and falsity can only be determined through comparisons to other truths and falsities, and they rely upon one another, each not making sense without the other.
Therefore, reasoned belief is uniquely determined as a comparative belief with other propositions. Whereas doctrinal belief can never be said to be ultimately true nor false, reasoned belief can -- not because what is talked about really is true or false (blind belief must still be maintained), but because what is talked about is considered true when placed in a universe containing other statements "verifying" its truthfulness. In this way, the word "truth" is relegated to merely signifying "not contradictory with other true propositions" -- yet even then, the definition of truth becomes circular, since the concept of contradictory statements depends entirely upon concepts which require the concept of "truth" to be understood. It is a hodgepodge of relationary statements that depend upon one another in order to even exist, much like Google's PageRank system of deciding which website to list first for a particular search.
So what does all of this mean? That reasoned belief is "better" than doctrinal belief, despite only by degree and not in kind? That I should stop visiting the chapel late at night when I should be studying for a test? That I write the worst LiveJournal updates logically possible whilst using the most pedantic ink-horn terminology available? Or maybe all of the above. (Except the first one. I'm not sure that I fully showed how it can be considered "better".)
::sigh:: I'm lucky that I already have a girlfriend. Because if I didn't, I have absolutely no idea as to how I would ever get one.
Still, seeing as how I live in the heart of darkness itself, the feeling of standing alone in the chapel late at night while everyone else is fast asleep is breathtaking. The limit of my architectural knowledge lies at the National Cathedral in D.C., and from what I understand, this is next to nothing in comparison to the town houses of Europe (not counting the cathedral in Milan -- ugh). So it is certainly understandable when I am awestruck by its (relative) magnificence; that, and then there's also the fact that my tuition went toward paying for this bloated two-dimensional pickwick-paper-like thing. One would almost expect me to be disgusted by the extravagance, but if I were disgusted by all that should disgust me, I'd never do anything with my life except exude disgusted... er, disgust.
Anyway, when it's late at night and the catholic masses lie dormant, the chapel is a good place to be. The new pipe organ (to be constructed in Germany, no less) has not yet arrived, but in the meantime a small organ resides in its place, along with a grand piano of dubious tuning. (It seems the middle 'C' on the organ differs from the grand by quite a wide margin.) Playing in front of an audience never did suit me entirely well, but when the whole of the college is nowhere near, I do not mind a little harmless ivory-tickling every now and then. And though the architectural style of the chapel is quite atrocious (even more so considering its recent restoration), the completely accidental harmonics of the inner structure is quite impressive. (At least it is for a Mobile-area native like myself; every concert I've gone to has used the historic-yet-harmonically-dissonant Saenger Theatre.)
But what impresses me even more is how easily my mood may change whenever I visit the chapel. It is as though the chapel itself acts as a conduit of sorts, allowing the progression of my mood to travel more freely in either direction. Generally, I admit, the chapel has a calming effect, reminding me that peaceful contemplation has been regarded as a virtue by many in the world, and that I should not worry so at the state of drunken stupors rampaging across campus each and every weekend. But occasionally I will be standing there, aghast at the horrors done in the name of religion, and I will feel that much more intensely adamant that the world harbors none who would understand the never-spoken-of eleventh virtue as a means between the extremes of hedonism and an overly charitable philosophy.
So it does not surprise me so much as one might think it should when, on a recent visit to St. Joseph's chapel, I paced the floors arguing incessantly with an incorporeal vision of God himself, trying to get a common consensus of what is.
Now I imagine that most who read this will pass off my odd quirks such as speaking aloud to a non-existent deity as indicative of insanity, or at least stupidity. But personally, I find that my private antics are helpful toward coming to determinations within my own mind. Not two years previous to this, I considered myself quite enamored with objectivism, and though none could adequately argue me to anything more than a standstill on the matter, I maintained a modicum of decency clothed in self-consistency. Many of my friends at the time (including Revolution1916, CoolHandLuke, Highroller, Harm'sWay, & ChildOfBabylon) considered my objectivist views to be (how should I put it?) quite questionable, yet, strangely enough, their respect for my focus on debate over dogmatism kept them at my throat without hating my guts (at least I hope they didn't hate me). And now, as a self-proclaimed liberal and practicing vegetarian, I seem to have come full circle à la Vico (too bad literature cannot yet say the same). The exegesis of this modification of base "first-cause" value system is directly delineated by one thing, and one thing only: argument. It is through argument that I have come to follow, understand, or even acknowledge any major system of thought. Without argument, I would be no more than least of my contemporaries. And so it is that my "odd quirks" are important to who I am as a person -- not by their 'quirkiness', but by their predilection toward argument.
The argument in question is one hinted at by my reading of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It is written by one Ludwig Wittgenstein, a philosopher of admitted importance, though due to relevance or ridiculousness I have not yet been able to determine. The argument flowed as follows:
I stated unequivocally in the presence of God's own residence the fact that certainty of scientific structures is completely different (i.e., a difference in kind, rather than in degree) than the absurdity of certainty in any religious belief. Of course, a counter was immediately (and forcibly) given:
"If a man is told to believe that the doubt of Thomas is wrong, his immediate thoughts and reactions are exactly the same as they would be if he were told that the light would come on once a particular switch were flipped. The minds of two different people in these two situations would be similar in kind, though perhaps not in degree, since the immediate reaction is based on emotional attachment alone. But even after a period of thought on the matter, continued belief in their respective propositions would rely upon observation, and not upon any tyrannical decree of thought. While it may be true that each side has its own oddballs who may believe Thomas is wrong to doubt even after repeated highly regarded theses that doubt is necessary for theological belief to hold true, or that the light switch should continue to work even during the wrath of a tornado downs the power station, strictly competent adherents to both sides may agree that the continued belief in any proposition should rest entirely upon constant observation."
The specific examples of the argument were given to me as I walked beside the walls of the chapel; Thomas was brought up when I saw the fourteenth station of the cross, and remembered the admonition given him for doubting the resurrection, and a light switch was brought up when I noticed the switches on the back of the altar, invisible to the parishioners who always sit in front of it.
"But," I countered after a moment, "a believer in a doctrine of God employs faith; a believer in science employs reason."
"Not so; as you yourself said, they both are 'believers', and the reason we give that name to both is because they share the property of employing belief, reason-based or otherwise."
"Fine, but a reason-based belief is clearly superior to a doctrine-based belief."
"Why?"
"Because reason is not dogmatic, but it is..."
"What? What is it?"
I stumbled here, almost tripping over myself. I was too deeply immersed in thought to be able to continue my pacing.
"What were you going to say? Were you about to say that reason is self-evident? And if so, wouldn't that mean it were also dogmatic?"
The worst part about arguing with someone who is not there is that you feel really stupid when the nonexistent being beats you in an argument. "Then must we admit that reason-based belief is no different in kind from doctrine-based belief?"
I waited for a response, as I always do. But strangely, every time I am trounced in an argument and concede to the opposing side, the speaker for the opposition disappears, unable (or at least unwilling) to return again. I have often thought that my inner psyche, torn though it must be to think of such delusions, has some kind of reason for torturing me like this. Then again, what does it say about me when I always wait for a final word from a speaker who not only was never there, but then refuses to speak to me after I am persuaded to the speaker's side? Obviously, I am mentally ill in some fashion of the phrase. Of course, the whole of this paragraph is nothing but conclusions made by applying logical rules to propositions already asserted to be true -- in other words, reasoned thought. So my very justification for believing what I do doesn't even hold against the weight of its own elucidations. Reason itself seems to be quite suicidal, reducing its own importance to that of blind belief.
I am reminded of the judicial department of the United States of America. The Constitution does not specifically allow for the judicial branch to declare laws to be unconstitutional -- this would violate the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches of government. Yet in Marbury v. Madison (1803), judicial review was established by admitting that the court had no jurisdiction over the matter in the first place. By limiting its own power to rule, the Supreme Court magnified its power tremendously. Could reason be taking a similar route to increased importance?
(I realize the way that I stated the previous sentence would imply an Aristotelian final cause of reason "doing" this for a particular purpose, but what I mean to say is grounded more on whether reason-based belief might be understood as "more important" by relegating itself to equal importance with doctrine-based belief.)
If reason is no longer a special method with regard to determination of belief, then it behooves us to notice what about reason differentiates it from other bases for belief. Clearly, when we speak of doctrinal belief, our continued belief in a doctrine comes from "jibing" what the belief says and what we feel to be true. However, when we speak of reasoned belief, our continued belief in a proposition comes from "jibing" what the belief says and what the rules of logic (which we feel to be true) says about that proposition's consistency. In both cases, belief is implemented, and neither case immediately seems superior to the other. But a difference between them does exist, and that difference is most clearly illustrated by showing that reasoned belief comes not through what we feel is true, but from what logical rules say can be true in addition to what we "feel". And since the logical rules are merely relations between "things" that determine truth or falsity, reasoned belief relies upon a relation of what is said compared to other things that are said. For truth and falsity can only be determined through comparisons to other truths and falsities, and they rely upon one another, each not making sense without the other.
Therefore, reasoned belief is uniquely determined as a comparative belief with other propositions. Whereas doctrinal belief can never be said to be ultimately true nor false, reasoned belief can -- not because what is talked about really is true or false (blind belief must still be maintained), but because what is talked about is considered true when placed in a universe containing other statements "verifying" its truthfulness. In this way, the word "truth" is relegated to merely signifying "not contradictory with other true propositions" -- yet even then, the definition of truth becomes circular, since the concept of contradictory statements depends entirely upon concepts which require the concept of "truth" to be understood. It is a hodgepodge of relationary statements that depend upon one another in order to even exist, much like Google's PageRank system of deciding which website to list first for a particular search.
So what does all of this mean? That reasoned belief is "better" than doctrinal belief, despite only by degree and not in kind? That I should stop visiting the chapel late at night when I should be studying for a test? That I write the worst LiveJournal updates logically possible whilst using the most pedantic ink-horn terminology available? Or maybe all of the above. (Except the first one. I'm not sure that I fully showed how it can be considered "better".)
::sigh:: I'm lucky that I already have a girlfriend. Because if I didn't, I have absolutely no idea as to how I would ever get one.
20 September, 2004
Hurricane Ivan
"It is as though we're fleeing Saigon circa 1975." --Matt (aka The Blessed Lunatic)
Such was said as we pulled out of the driveway of Spring Hill College to our salvation from the upcoming flood: Matt's house. To tell the truth, at the time it did not seem to be that big a deal. I've experienced more than a few hurricanes (once even in the eye of a hurricane), so I felt like I knew what I was talking about. "If they evacuate the college, it will be just to please the parents who've never been through a hurricane," I told Matt only hours before. "Hurricanes are bad only in that they affect large areas; it can't possibly do anything that damaging here at the college." Matt nodded agreeably in the way that he does when he totally disagrees with you yet doesn't wish to voice his disagreement. "Even if they do issue an evacuation order, it won't be that bad. Trust me on this one. I've swum in pools many a time while a hurricane raged overhead."
Fast forward ten hours.
I awake with a ringing in my ears as the door is being pounded upon. I steal a quick glance at the alarm clock only to find it pre-8 a.m. -- which might as well be considered the previous day as far as I'm concerned. After grabbing a towel, I stumble to the door and open it slightly, mumbling an incomprehensible greeting.
"Classes are cancelled, and we're shutting down the college. If you're planning on leaving, you have to be gone before 1 in the afternoon, because we're closing the gates then and we won't let anyone in or out. Now are you staying or going?"
It took a few seconds before the question fully registered, and I mumbled under my breath that I didn't know. I don't think he could have heard me, but he must have been used to dealing with this barely-awake state when he gave his spiel to the odd dozen students before me, because he immediately replied with: "Well, if you're staying, then sign your name on my door. Otherwise, be out by 1 p.m."
I quickly got dressed and went to Matt's room. I'm not sure exactly what I planned upon saying once I got there, but I went anyway. On the way over, I glanced at the hurricane evacuation sheet they gave us. It clearly said that the people who were staying would have to stay in the hallways of the basement of Murray.
Now I'm not sure if this has been made clear to others already or not, but Murray Hall is a condemned building. I knew right then and there that there was no way that I'd be staying on campus.
Somehow, minutes later, I found myself invited to Matt's house. At the time, I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Hell, even now I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I accepted nonetheless. My alternative was Russ's house, and though I would have loved to stay there, I assume it would have been crowded what with David, Russ's family, and the illegal immigrants that Russ talks about all the time. Well, that wasn't the deciding factor. The deciding factor was that Matt was vegetarian like me, so I felt better about the food issue.
But I have to admit that despite all of this, as Matt related our departure to that of helicopters speeding away from Saigon, I still did not think that it could be that bad.
Boy, was I wrong.
The eye of the hurricane hit Gulf Shores, Alabama, where my sister Anh currently resides with our mother, and the winds were so bad there that it picked up their carport and threw it on their vehicle. The roof of the shed was also torn away and flew to who knows where. Thankfully there were no trees in their yard, or else it might have been much worse than it was. Strangely, my ten-year-old sister slept through the whole thing.
My grandmother, who lives in Mobile not five kilometers away from me, lost the roof of her shed, a portion of her fence, and electricity indefinitely. My uncle Mike went to check on her just after the hurricane, found that there was no air conditioning in the house, and forced her to retreat to Gulfport, Mississippi, for a few days. But when they got back, there still wasn't any electricity there, and even as of now she is w/o power. I would worry more about her, but my cousin Amanda is dropping by there every day after school, so she should be okay.
Pensacola, Florida, was hit the worst of all, as it was the largest city closest on the eastern side of the hurricane; I know of only one friend that lives there, but thankfully she and her family is okay. The city was hit very badly, and she said that the houses around her were all torn and tattered, but her house suffered only the loss of siding and electricity.
But despite the death toll attributed to the hurricane and the seriousness of the aftereffects surrounding it, the one thing that keeps coming back into my mind are those damned lovebugs. As Matt and I drove down the interstate both ways we could not help but kill them in droves, splattering across the windshield and grill. As Matt so aptly commented: "Whole families of them are being massacred; and there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it!" We were driving a death machine, killing and maiming by the hundreds. It was horrible. Plus, the windshield was so scattered with white guts that we could barely make out the road.
And if you add to all of this the departure of Alaina from Herbie's house, an issue of a debt I haven't the possibility of immediate repayment, and the foreknowledge of three long and difficult upcoming tests one after the other starting on the morn... ::sigh::
Well, to tell the truth, I feel quite prone to agreeing with Matt's self-acknowledged mantra: Everything sucks.
Such was said as we pulled out of the driveway of Spring Hill College to our salvation from the upcoming flood: Matt's house. To tell the truth, at the time it did not seem to be that big a deal. I've experienced more than a few hurricanes (once even in the eye of a hurricane), so I felt like I knew what I was talking about. "If they evacuate the college, it will be just to please the parents who've never been through a hurricane," I told Matt only hours before. "Hurricanes are bad only in that they affect large areas; it can't possibly do anything that damaging here at the college." Matt nodded agreeably in the way that he does when he totally disagrees with you yet doesn't wish to voice his disagreement. "Even if they do issue an evacuation order, it won't be that bad. Trust me on this one. I've swum in pools many a time while a hurricane raged overhead."
Fast forward ten hours.
I awake with a ringing in my ears as the door is being pounded upon. I steal a quick glance at the alarm clock only to find it pre-8 a.m. -- which might as well be considered the previous day as far as I'm concerned. After grabbing a towel, I stumble to the door and open it slightly, mumbling an incomprehensible greeting.
"Classes are cancelled, and we're shutting down the college. If you're planning on leaving, you have to be gone before 1 in the afternoon, because we're closing the gates then and we won't let anyone in or out. Now are you staying or going?"
It took a few seconds before the question fully registered, and I mumbled under my breath that I didn't know. I don't think he could have heard me, but he must have been used to dealing with this barely-awake state when he gave his spiel to the odd dozen students before me, because he immediately replied with: "Well, if you're staying, then sign your name on my door. Otherwise, be out by 1 p.m."
I quickly got dressed and went to Matt's room. I'm not sure exactly what I planned upon saying once I got there, but I went anyway. On the way over, I glanced at the hurricane evacuation sheet they gave us. It clearly said that the people who were staying would have to stay in the hallways of the basement of Murray.
Now I'm not sure if this has been made clear to others already or not, but Murray Hall is a condemned building. I knew right then and there that there was no way that I'd be staying on campus.
Somehow, minutes later, I found myself invited to Matt's house. At the time, I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Hell, even now I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I accepted nonetheless. My alternative was Russ's house, and though I would have loved to stay there, I assume it would have been crowded what with David, Russ's family, and the illegal immigrants that Russ talks about all the time. Well, that wasn't the deciding factor. The deciding factor was that Matt was vegetarian like me, so I felt better about the food issue.
But I have to admit that despite all of this, as Matt related our departure to that of helicopters speeding away from Saigon, I still did not think that it could be that bad.
Boy, was I wrong.
The eye of the hurricane hit Gulf Shores, Alabama, where my sister Anh currently resides with our mother, and the winds were so bad there that it picked up their carport and threw it on their vehicle. The roof of the shed was also torn away and flew to who knows where. Thankfully there were no trees in their yard, or else it might have been much worse than it was. Strangely, my ten-year-old sister slept through the whole thing.
My grandmother, who lives in Mobile not five kilometers away from me, lost the roof of her shed, a portion of her fence, and electricity indefinitely. My uncle Mike went to check on her just after the hurricane, found that there was no air conditioning in the house, and forced her to retreat to Gulfport, Mississippi, for a few days. But when they got back, there still wasn't any electricity there, and even as of now she is w/o power. I would worry more about her, but my cousin Amanda is dropping by there every day after school, so she should be okay.
Pensacola, Florida, was hit the worst of all, as it was the largest city closest on the eastern side of the hurricane; I know of only one friend that lives there, but thankfully she and her family is okay. The city was hit very badly, and she said that the houses around her were all torn and tattered, but her house suffered only the loss of siding and electricity.
But despite the death toll attributed to the hurricane and the seriousness of the aftereffects surrounding it, the one thing that keeps coming back into my mind are those damned lovebugs. As Matt and I drove down the interstate both ways we could not help but kill them in droves, splattering across the windshield and grill. As Matt so aptly commented: "Whole families of them are being massacred; and there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it!" We were driving a death machine, killing and maiming by the hundreds. It was horrible. Plus, the windshield was so scattered with white guts that we could barely make out the road.
And if you add to all of this the departure of Alaina from Herbie's house, an issue of a debt I haven't the possibility of immediate repayment, and the foreknowledge of three long and difficult upcoming tests one after the other starting on the morn... ::sigh::
Well, to tell the truth, I feel quite prone to agreeing with Matt's self-acknowledged mantra: Everything sucks.
05 May, 2004
An Unfinished Lincoln & Machiavelli Entry
In my last journal entry (which I doubt any have even bothered to read at all), I ended my thoughts prematurely do to it being final exams week. But tests are now over, and I finally have the ability to explain what I meant when I spoke of Lincoln and Machiavelli.
This country was founded on September 17, 1787. On this day, the Constitution was signed by our founding fathers, and the United States of America was born into existence.
But I wonder how many of you readers actually knew that, despite having been American citizens for all of your life.
But why is it that American citizens are not taught the birthday of their own country? Why is it that if you ask any random guy on the street when the United States was founded, you will hear the date of July 4, 1776 instead? Does anyone even know what was written on that day?
On July 4, Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. An important document, to be sure, but it is rather retarded to think of it as the birth of this nation. In fact, no one thought of the Declaration as the beginning of the United States until some eighty years after the US was in existence. In 1800, if you had asked a guy off the street, he would have said September 17, 1787 was the birth of this nation. The same is true for 1850. But by 1900, the guy on the street would say July 4, 1776 instead.
Why?
The answer is horrifyingly simple. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address in Gettysburg, PA. Here, reprinted in full, is what he said there on that day:
Did you catch his references? His address was simple, yet brilliant. In giving this speech, he changed the course of history for the United States, and thus the world. How is it that such a simle address at a battlefield site could have so much power?
First, he begins his address with "fourscore and seven years ago", which refers back to 1776, and not to 1787. But it isn't a mistake on his part; it is a carefully orchestrated plan to create a new nation. I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute. Second, he
This country was founded on September 17, 1787. On this day, the Constitution was signed by our founding fathers, and the United States of America was born into existence.
But I wonder how many of you readers actually knew that, despite having been American citizens for all of your life.
But why is it that American citizens are not taught the birthday of their own country? Why is it that if you ask any random guy on the street when the United States was founded, you will hear the date of July 4, 1776 instead? Does anyone even know what was written on that day?
On July 4, Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. An important document, to be sure, but it is rather retarded to think of it as the birth of this nation. In fact, no one thought of the Declaration as the beginning of the United States until some eighty years after the US was in existence. In 1800, if you had asked a guy off the street, he would have said September 17, 1787 was the birth of this nation. The same is true for 1850. But by 1900, the guy on the street would say July 4, 1776 instead.
Why?
The answer is horrifyingly simple. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address in Gettysburg, PA. Here, reprinted in full, is what he said there on that day:
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who died here that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have hallowed it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Did you catch his references? His address was simple, yet brilliant. In giving this speech, he changed the course of history for the United States, and thus the world. How is it that such a simle address at a battlefield site could have so much power?
First, he begins his address with "fourscore and seven years ago", which refers back to 1776, and not to 1787. But it isn't a mistake on his part; it is a carefully orchestrated plan to create a new nation. I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute. Second, he
04 May, 2004
Lincoln on Civil (Dis)Obedience
The following is an assigned essay which was completed for a grade. Unfortunately, some formatting has been lost in the transition to LJ.
Eric J. Herboso
Mr. Mullek
American Political Thought
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Lincoln on Civil (Dis)Obedience
The issue of civil obedience is of paramount importance in today's society. From Switzerland's etoy.com's illegal yet nonviolent attack upon the now defunct etoys.com to the web sit-ins organized by the Zapatistas in Mexico, the idea of civil disobedience has taken root in today's world society as the only method left for effective change. But while most of those who practice civil disobedience today believe they owe the concept of civil disobedience to Gandhi, King, and Thoreau, the true origins of this way of thinking may come from where most would least expect it: the United States' Abraham Lincoln.
In Lincoln's Lyceum address, what is preached may not at first seem to be civil disobedience, seeing as how he practically says the exact oposite of this: “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others” (Lincoln 3); but in reality, the idea behind his words are equivalent to what all who practice civil disobedience believe in: change through law, and not through anarchy (Lincoln 2). It is hard to see this at first, because of the name given to civil disobedience, which emphasizes the revolutionary natue of it: breaking the law in an attempt to change the law. But the real crux of the civil disobedience idea is not that laws are broken because they are bad and should not be followed, but because by paying the penalty for an unjust law, others may see its injustice.
Once it is clear that the whole point is not to break a bad law, but rather to be seen to be punished for breaking a bad law, the connection between Lincoln's Lyceum address and King et al becomes much more clear. What at first seemed to be a diametrically opposed position can now be viewed as the same basic idea being put into action in different ways.
To show this more clearly, consider these two passages: “good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose” (Lincoln 3). In other words: revolution.
And now King: “I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth” (King 3). “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue” (King 3). It is obvious that they are agreed on the point of stability. King does not profess a need for revolution, he agrees with and even quotes from Lincoln in his rhetoric.
Lincoln was speaking to a group that was starting to turn to vigilantism: "[there is] the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice" (Lincoln 2). The United States was anything but united at that point, and people were starting to take the law into their own hands. His words, which preached obedience to the law first, were based on the idea that the alternative of chaos will always be far worse. King and other civil disobedience leaders would agree on this fulcrum point, and from there, everything changed. Instead of Marx's call to arms for a universal brotherhood, Plato's removal of adults from the Republic, or even Machiavelli's attempt to temper the tyrant, there was instead a turn toward the nonviolent method of civil disobedience.
The internet group etoy.com was approached at the height of the internet boom in late 1999 by American marketshare powerhouse etoys.com with an offer to buy out the former group's domain name, which had been registered and in use for many years by that time. When etoy.com refused to sell repeated times, the American based corporation giant pursued a legal remedy, and completely shut down access to etoy.com. Enraged by their flagrant use of money to abuse the legal system governing international suits between litigants in separate countries, etoy.com got the word out in cyberspace, and the following Christmas, thousands upon thousands of angry anti-big business net users simultaneously used programs to automatically log onto etoys.com, place large amounts of random items in the shopping carts, and then canceled their purchases right before checkout. The huge traffic volume that continued for twelve days, twenty-four hours a day nonstop during the already busy Christmas season completely clogged the etoys.com servers, and by March of next year, etoys.com filed for bankruptcy. (Note that the action taken, while illegal, was still nonviolent, and would have been perfectly legal if every participant had individually written his or her own program to clog the server.) The purpose of the action was to bring attention to the existence of a bad loophole in international law with regard to domain registry, and it succeeded (Wishart 2). This process, most similar to King's sit-ins organized in the southern United States, is flawed only in that it only has the capacity to hit one site at a time, and thus cannot have the same affect as sit-ins which occur in every segregated café on the block. Because of this, the organizers must choose particularly bad sites to hit; and the effect of hitting a particularly bad site probably only makes the other less offensive sites look that much better. In other words, this method of civil disobedience is less effective at changing policy even while it is more effective in efficiency and target viability.
In 1991, Peter Singer brought Lincoln's ideas to the forefront once again, but this time in regard to animal rights. The problem was that whereas Lincoln spoke in terms of following the law even at the expense of justice (because of the debatable opinion that without law, there can be no justice), and King elaborated merely upon the exposing of a bad law, Singer had to come up with a method of trying to get a nonexistent good law placed into effect. Singer, whose argument is based upon the premise that all living beings with the capacity to feel pain should be awarded the same basic rights regardless of species, believes that it is imperative that a law restricting the legality of humans to hurt other species should be implemented immediately, and with all due haste (Singer 3). Whatever one's opinion on the matter may be, it must be admitted that if Singer's premise is correct, then the absence of a law protecting animals from such abuse is of a far more alarming nature than any civil rights violation made since Pol Pot.
What makes these contemporary examples of civil disobedience so interesting is not only their particular nature as current events, but also as clear examples of how civil disobedience (and the civil obedience that follows from it) has evolved since Lincoln's time.
Lincoln, Abraham, au. “Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”, or the Lyceum Address, American Political Rhetoric, 4e. Peter Lawler & Robert Schaefer, ed.
Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD: 2001.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., au. “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, American Political Rhetoric, 4e. Peter Lawler & Robert Schaefer, ed.
Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD: 2001.
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation.
Avon: New York, NY: 1991.
Wishart, Adam & Regula Bochsler. Leaving Reality Behind.
Ecco: Switzerland: 2003.
Eric J. Herboso
Mr. Mullek
American Political Thought
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Lincoln on Civil (Dis)Obedience
The issue of civil obedience is of paramount importance in today's society. From Switzerland's etoy.com's illegal yet nonviolent attack upon the now defunct etoys.com to the web sit-ins organized by the Zapatistas in Mexico, the idea of civil disobedience has taken root in today's world society as the only method left for effective change. But while most of those who practice civil disobedience today believe they owe the concept of civil disobedience to Gandhi, King, and Thoreau, the true origins of this way of thinking may come from where most would least expect it: the United States' Abraham Lincoln.
In Lincoln's Lyceum address, what is preached may not at first seem to be civil disobedience, seeing as how he practically says the exact oposite of this: “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others” (Lincoln 3); but in reality, the idea behind his words are equivalent to what all who practice civil disobedience believe in: change through law, and not through anarchy (Lincoln 2). It is hard to see this at first, because of the name given to civil disobedience, which emphasizes the revolutionary natue of it: breaking the law in an attempt to change the law. But the real crux of the civil disobedience idea is not that laws are broken because they are bad and should not be followed, but because by paying the penalty for an unjust law, others may see its injustice.
Once it is clear that the whole point is not to break a bad law, but rather to be seen to be punished for breaking a bad law, the connection between Lincoln's Lyceum address and King et al becomes much more clear. What at first seemed to be a diametrically opposed position can now be viewed as the same basic idea being put into action in different ways.
To show this more clearly, consider these two passages: “good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose” (Lincoln 3). In other words: revolution.
And now King: “I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth” (King 3). “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue” (King 3). It is obvious that they are agreed on the point of stability. King does not profess a need for revolution, he agrees with and even quotes from Lincoln in his rhetoric.
Lincoln was speaking to a group that was starting to turn to vigilantism: "[there is] the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice" (Lincoln 2). The United States was anything but united at that point, and people were starting to take the law into their own hands. His words, which preached obedience to the law first, were based on the idea that the alternative of chaos will always be far worse. King and other civil disobedience leaders would agree on this fulcrum point, and from there, everything changed. Instead of Marx's call to arms for a universal brotherhood, Plato's removal of adults from the Republic, or even Machiavelli's attempt to temper the tyrant, there was instead a turn toward the nonviolent method of civil disobedience.
The internet group etoy.com was approached at the height of the internet boom in late 1999 by American marketshare powerhouse etoys.com with an offer to buy out the former group's domain name, which had been registered and in use for many years by that time. When etoy.com refused to sell repeated times, the American based corporation giant pursued a legal remedy, and completely shut down access to etoy.com. Enraged by their flagrant use of money to abuse the legal system governing international suits between litigants in separate countries, etoy.com got the word out in cyberspace, and the following Christmas, thousands upon thousands of angry anti-big business net users simultaneously used programs to automatically log onto etoys.com, place large amounts of random items in the shopping carts, and then canceled their purchases right before checkout. The huge traffic volume that continued for twelve days, twenty-four hours a day nonstop during the already busy Christmas season completely clogged the etoys.com servers, and by March of next year, etoys.com filed for bankruptcy. (Note that the action taken, while illegal, was still nonviolent, and would have been perfectly legal if every participant had individually written his or her own program to clog the server.) The purpose of the action was to bring attention to the existence of a bad loophole in international law with regard to domain registry, and it succeeded (Wishart 2). This process, most similar to King's sit-ins organized in the southern United States, is flawed only in that it only has the capacity to hit one site at a time, and thus cannot have the same affect as sit-ins which occur in every segregated café on the block. Because of this, the organizers must choose particularly bad sites to hit; and the effect of hitting a particularly bad site probably only makes the other less offensive sites look that much better. In other words, this method of civil disobedience is less effective at changing policy even while it is more effective in efficiency and target viability.
In 1991, Peter Singer brought Lincoln's ideas to the forefront once again, but this time in regard to animal rights. The problem was that whereas Lincoln spoke in terms of following the law even at the expense of justice (because of the debatable opinion that without law, there can be no justice), and King elaborated merely upon the exposing of a bad law, Singer had to come up with a method of trying to get a nonexistent good law placed into effect. Singer, whose argument is based upon the premise that all living beings with the capacity to feel pain should be awarded the same basic rights regardless of species, believes that it is imperative that a law restricting the legality of humans to hurt other species should be implemented immediately, and with all due haste (Singer 3). Whatever one's opinion on the matter may be, it must be admitted that if Singer's premise is correct, then the absence of a law protecting animals from such abuse is of a far more alarming nature than any civil rights violation made since Pol Pot.
What makes these contemporary examples of civil disobedience so interesting is not only their particular nature as current events, but also as clear examples of how civil disobedience (and the civil obedience that follows from it) has evolved since Lincoln's time.
Lincoln, Abraham, au. “Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”, or the Lyceum Address, American Political Rhetoric, 4e. Peter Lawler & Robert Schaefer, ed.
Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD: 2001.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., au. “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, American Political Rhetoric, 4e. Peter Lawler & Robert Schaefer, ed.
Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD: 2001.
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation.
Avon: New York, NY: 1991.
Wishart, Adam & Regula Bochsler. Leaving Reality Behind.
Ecco: Switzerland: 2003.
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