All posts by anomalogue

Crediting James

ANT, Pragmatism

Graham Harman, from Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics:

We are now amused to think that there used to be two kinds of physics, one for the earth and one for the sky. But it is equally absurd that we still recognize two different kinds of reality: one for hard scientific fact and another for arbitrary social power. What exists is only actants: cars, subways, canoe-varnish, quarreling spouses, celestial bodies, and scientists, all on the same metaphysical footing.

I’ll say it again: as far as I can tell Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is nothing more than the most radical form of Pragmatism, which has advanced from its humble clean, abstract, conceptual infancy to a truly radical maturity, which for Pragmatism means a dirty, concrete mess of real life observations and real life applications of the understandings so derived. The most radical form of Pragmatism is practical Pragmatism.

The concept of “actant” is an ontology of Jamesian “cash value”, with all (other?) metaphysics (as such) bracketed — not negatively, but positively as something with force of some kind. When Latour uses accounting language — “I am perfectly happy with the resonance of the word [accounting] not only with Garfinkel’s accountability but also with ‘accounting books’, since the weak but essential link of accounting with economics has been one of the most productive, and unlikely, domains of science studies.” — it seems to me that it is precisely this pragmatic cash value inhabits the cells of the ANT spreadsheet. And really, money is a very human thing, and is embedded in the etymology of some of our most exalted words. It seems that extreme love or hatred of wealth seems symptomatic of of an individual’s rejection of being human.

 

Some advice from the past

Ethics

Worth some reflection:

A [crazy person’s] feelings are nearly always essentially right, but her
interpretations of her feelings are nearly always substantially wrong.
She knows what she feels, but not why she feels.

The single worst thing a [sane person] can do is to dismiss an intelligent
[crazy person’s] feelings because her theories on her feelings are ludicrous.
When an intelligent [crazy person] seems stupid or crazy, desperation is the
cause — the magnitude of the need to do something about her feelings is
overwhelming her intellectual integrity.

The more fantastic the explanation, the more serious the situation.

This means that a [sane person] ought to respect a [crazy person’s] feelings as
legitimate, and as something for which he is responsible — but he must
reserve the right to reject the [crazy person’s] explanation of her feelings.
(To openly reject her explanations, however, is rarely a good idea. It
is best to quietly take them with a grain of salt.)

Correlatively, the [crazy person] is far better off not demanding that the [sane person]
accept her explanations of herself. Rather, she should veto his
interpretations — with punishments proportionate to his apparent
wrongness.

If the [crazy person] does continue to demand acceptance of her explanations
and suffers painful consequences for doing so, the [sane person] should expect
even crueler punishments for not putting a stop to her demands. And if
the [sane person] believes her explanations… it’s over.

I’m laughing, but I am not joking.

Right all along

Ideas

People tend to think that if you admit you were wrong about something it means you were 1) wrong about everything, and 2) that if you disagreed with them on what you admit you were wrong about, this means that they were right all along.

This though made me recall a passage I read years ago:

If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a noble self-control, to praise only where one does not agree… To be able to allow oneself this veritable luxury of taste and morality, one must not live among intellectual imbeciles, but rather among men whose misunderstandings and mistakes amuse by their refinement — or one will have to pay dearly for it! — “He praises me, therefore he acknowledges me to be right” — this asinine method of inference spoils half of the life of us recluses, for it brings the asses into our neighborhood and friendship.

*

We can — and invariably do — use our own errors as leverage against other errors.

To recognize that we were erroneous only means we need to discover new fulcra if we are to continue our work.

 

Theory-choice

Fructivism, Ideas

Kuhn’s criteria for theory-choice:

Accurate – empirically adequate with experimentation and observation.

Consistent – internally consistent, but also externally consistent with other theories.

Broad Scope – a theory’s consequences should extend beyond that which it was initially designed to explain.

Simple – the simplest explanation, principally similar to Occam’s Razor.

Fruitful – a theory should disclose new phenomena or new relationships among phenomena.

But as Mitch Hedberg said, “There’s more to it than that!” Here are some additions, and I believe there are even more:

Meaningful – the theory’s compatibility with the theorist’s grounding orientation to life.

Contiguous – the theory’s capacity to integrate with an existing body of theory.

Intelligible – the theory situates the theorist in a world whose relevant features are intelligible.

Congenial – a theory should employ the theorist’s cognitive natural/acquired intellectual strengths.

Social – a theory’s reinforcing affirmation by a community with whom the theorist identifies, or, antithetically, it’s reinforcing rejection by a community against whom the theorist has defined himself.

Applicable – the existence of opportunities to use the theory practically and to develop the tacit intellectual practices (know-how) inherent in all practical application of theory

Concrete – the number of concrete examples available to 1) explicit demonstrate how the theory is practically applied and 2) to demonstrate its applicability

Spontaneous – a theory’s ability to shed conscious interpretation and to disappear into the phenomena themselves.

Do you consider yourself ‘broken’?

Biography, Ethics

From the Asphodel blog:

Question: “Do you consider yourself ‘broken’? What does broken mean to you?”

Response:

Until March of this year, I did. I was.

Until May, in fact, I was still in deep torpor of pain from it, but, looking back I can see where the cries became something more like “this hurts so much” than “I just want to die fuck me fuck you fuck life kill it all drown it in the boiling shit it loves so much”……

My will was broken – I was ready to accept antidepressants and keeping my head down as a new way of life – I wanted nothing more than to disappear into bed and sigh away the rest of my life thinking about how unfair and wretched people are, what liars they are, what a waste human flesh is. My capacity to love was broken, had been for a year or so.

I can’t really be certain what changed, precisely, but I healed. I’m scarred. It’s stronger and my emotions, though still extreme and dynamic, are smarter for it.

In my lexicon, a broken person is traumatized past the point of being productive (pleasing and useful to one’s self; CF below) and has given up on being pleased by living. Failure does it – the failure of love, personal failure, professional / artistic failure of the essential mode of existence that gives purpose to human existence can break us. Some recover, some do not.

Someone who has not ventured a great attempt is not broken, though.

Strength is a bizarre thing; it can’t be assessed from a distant vantage. Human strength, spiritual / emotional / personal strength, is subtly different from ‘fortitude’ (endurance of suffering or loss) and ‘power’ (the ability to effect change) yet it incorporates those qualities – and strength can certainly come from having been broken. In any case, no one can be certain of their strength until the threat of being broken has been faced. It’s far worse than anything I’ve experienced otherwise. My back broke in 2005; that causes me sometimes excruciating pain and it certainly takes a great deal of my strength to cope with it every day, but I do, and the awareness that I can makes me aware of what I’m capable of, and shows me why I was successful at this&that endeavor as a younger person: it wasn’t just drive, or charisma, or natural ability that made things happen; it was centrally and most importantly the willingness to risk being broken that made good things occur in my life.

Far worse than my back breaking was the surprise divorce sprung on me by a woman I trusted, cherished, and adored. It would be an even longer response to go into much detail there, but I was so devastated that I – a moody and occasionally very dark person to begin with – reached a new low of personal strength. My spine breaking was truly nothing compared to the horror and pain that gave me.

That, too, scarred me deeply. The scars are stronger than the unbroken heart was, and there’s no question that I lost something bright and vital then – but maybe it’s something I needed to lose. My heart is smarter now. My core is not nearly as likely to be threatened, and so my usefulness and my ability to please others (thus myself) is not as weak, not as ephemeral as it was before.

So much I want to relate. I’ll have to think about it. For days, most likely.

I thank you deeply for the question, because answering it makes me consciously aware of it and more comfortable with it. I feel more able to take on the rest of the risks I’m facing, now, in the understanding that if I become broken again I won’t be as likely to just crumble and moan over it, wasting precious life on misery spent obsessed with ugliness and loss. I’ll remind myself to keep aware of this response and to live up to it.

Two case fables

Fables, myths & parables

Case fable 1: Qualico

Qualico studied one unique customer and came to understand that customer very deeply and thoroughly, to the point that they knew precisely how that customer perceives, interprets and responds to every detail of his life. From these insights Qualico knew exactly what kind of product would win that customer’s permanent brand loyalty. Based on the study the company rolled out a product, and sold exactly one unit of that product — to that one customer they studied, who, by the way, was ecstatic. Encouraged by this success the company repeated the study with 3 more customers and in three product roll-outs sold three more units and won three more brand fanatics.

Case fable 2: Quantico

Quantico developed a technique for observing, measuring and recording every behavior of every one of their customers. There was no gap in this data. The database could report the exact frequency of any given behavior performed by customers of any given demographic over the course of any given span of time. Unfortunately, nobody in the company could objectively explain what motivated the behavior; they could only report the fact that certain behaviors happened. The company developed what they called the ITMRSM (Infinite Typing Monkeys Rapid Prototyping Methodology), where permutations of the product were systematically generated and tested on customers, whose behavioral responses were measured and tabulated. The products that elicited the highest frequency of desired behaviors were put into production. Eventually the company became able to sell a modest number of units of the product to a modest number of modestly dissatisfied customers.

Lennon-McCartney reimagined

Fables, myths & parables, Ideas

In an alternate universe John Lennon came to Paul McCartney with the start of “She Said She Said” and Paul said “That’s a great start. Let me know when it’s finished, then let’s record it.”

*

In an alternate universe John Lennon and Paul McCartney met once every few months and shared musical ideas with one another. They’d critique one another’s melodies, hum out accompaniments, talk about the possibilities of rock and roll. Then each would take the new exciting ideas back to their session bands and try them out.

*

In an alternate universe the Beatles signed a contract that obligated them to produce a new album each month for 19 years. This required them to spend every waking hour in the studio recording. There was no time to sit around idly thinking up melodies, much less to engage in non-musical activities. They wrote their songs in the process of recording their albums and discharging their contractual obligation. The band got really, really good at music.

Stop courageously at the surface

Ideas

From the Gay Science:

In the end, lest what is most important remain unsaid: from such abysses, from such severe sickness, also from the sickness of severe suspicion, one returns newborn, having shed one’s skin, more ticklish and malicious, with a more delicate taste for joy, with a tenderer tongue for all good things, with merrier senses, with a second dangerous innocence in joy, more childlike and yet a hundred times subtler than one has ever been before. Oh how repulsive pleasure is now, that crude, musty, brown pleasure as it is understood by those who like pleasure, our “educated” people, our rich people, and our rulers! How maliciously we listen now to the big country-fair boom-boom with which the “educated” person and city dweller today permits art, books, and music to rape him and provide “spiritual pleasures” — with the aid of spirituous liquors! How the theatrical scream of passion now hurts our ears, how strange to our taste the whole romantic uproar and tumult of the senses have become, which the educated mob loves, and all its aspirations after the elevated, inflated, and exaggerated! No, if we convalescents still need art, it is a different art–a mocking, light, fleeting, divinely untroubled, divinely artificial art that, like a pure flame, licks into unclouded skies! Above all: an art for artists, for artists only! We know better afterward what above all is needed for this: cheerfulness, any cheerfulness, my friends!–also as artists–: let me prove it. There are a few things we now know too well, we knowing ones: oh, how we now learn to forget well, and to be good at not knowing, as artists! And as for our future, one will hardly find us again on the paths of those Egyptian youths who endanger temples by night, embrace statues, and want by all means to unveil, uncover, and put into a bright light whatever is kept concealed for good reasons. No, this bad taste, this will to truth, to “truth at any price,” this youthful madness in the love of truth, have lost their charm for us: for that we are too experienced, too serious, too merry, too burned, too profound … We no longer believe that truth remains truth when the veils are withdrawn; we have lived too much to believe this. Today we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked, or to be present at everything, or to understand and “know” everything. “Is it true that God is present everywhere?” a little girl asked her mother; “I think that’s indecent” — a hint for philosophers! One should have more respect for the bashfulness with which nature has hidden behind riddles and iridescent uncertainties. Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for not letting us see her reasons? Perhaps her name is–to speak Greek–Baubo?  … Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance! Those Greeks were superficial–out of profundity! And is not this precisely what we are coming back to, we daredevils of the spirit who have climbed the highest and most dangerous peak of present thought and looked around from up there–we who have looked down from there? Are we not, precisely in this respect–Greeks? Adorers of forms, of tones, of words? And therefore–artists?

Intuitions and insights

Etymology, Ideas

Intuit: from the Latin verb intueri, from in- ‘upon’ + tueri ‘to look.’

“In-” = upon? Does that mean intuition is a synoptic sense? A superficial grok of a whole?

A question: What is the precise relationship between an intuition and an insight? Are either of these words precise enough for such a comparison?

*

Jung primed me for this question: he distinguished between an introverted intuition and an extraverted intuition.

 

“Novelty” and “originality”

Ideas

The words “novelty” and “originality” are often used interchangeably. They are different, however.

Novelty means a newness, in an objective sense. An unprecedented concept has been conceived (or unprecedented artifact has been produced).

Originality means an “originator” has synthesized a concept (or produced an artifact) by his own effort, as opposed to having consciously learned it elsewhere. This does not mean the concept/artifact is unprecedented in the world, only that it is unprecedented in the experience of the conceiver. An original idea will appear as novel to the originator.

This is where the exaltation of originality is dangerous. A thinker, having unconsciously absorbed [extremely un-novel and un-original] cultural values will prefer to believe his ideas are novel and neglect the harder task of finding others who are thinking along the same lines. Such thinkers self-divide into semi-private languages and deny themselves all political force, which does not come from having truth on one’s side, but allies.

 

Muir – “The Grave of Prometheus”

Fables, myths & parables, Ideas

“The Grave of Prometheus”

No one comes here now, neither god nor man.
For long the animals have kept away,
Scared by immortal cries and the scream of vultures;
Now by this silence. The heavenly thief who stole
Heaven’s dangerous treasure turned to common earth
When that great company forsook Olympus.
The fire was out, and he became his barrow.
Ten yards long there he lay outstretched, and grass
Grew over him: all else in a breath forgotten.
Yet there you still may see a tongue of stone,
Shaped like a calloused hand where no hand should be,
Extended from the sward as if for alms,
Its palm all licked and blackened as with fire.
A mineral change made cool his fiery bed,
And made his burning body a quiet mound,
And his great face a vacant ring of daisies.

– Edwin Muir

Value

Ideas

Contingent value is always rooted in instrinsic value. If contingent value closes in a self-referential circle, or if it terminates nowhere, the value is empty.

*

The chain of “in-order-to” must eventually terminate at a point where the answer to “why?” is unanswerable.

*

If you’re compelled to ask “why?” in order to determine the value of something, the value of what you are questioning is contingent.

But if you ask “why?” of something you already experience as valuable, whether on principle or by habit, that borders on blasphemy.

*

Sometimes we dig deeper for shallow reasons.

*

A typically deceptively simple maxim from Heraclitus: “Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find truth, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain.”

When reading philosophy, having your expectations fulfilled means philosophy failed to occur.

 

Habitation and re-habitation

Ideas

More Latour:

In religious talk, there is indeed a leap of faith, but this is not an acrobatic salto mortale in order to do even better than reference with more daring and risky means, it is a somersault yes, but one which aims at jumping, dancing toward the present and the close, to redirect attention away from indifference and habituation, to prepare oneself to be seized again by this presence that breaks the usual, habituated passage of time. As to [scientific] knowledge, it is not a direct grasp of the plain and the visible against all beliefs in authority, but an extraordinarily daring, complex, and intricate confidence in chains of nested transformations of documents that, through many different types of proofs, lead toward new types of visions that force us to break away from the intuitions and prejudices of common sense. Belief is simply immaterial for any religious speech-act; knowledge is not an accurate way to characterize scientific activity. We might move forward a bit, if we were calling “faith” the movement that brings us to the close and to the present, and retaining the word “belief” for this necessary mixture of confidence and diffidence with which we need to assess all the things we cannot see directly. Then the difference between science and religion would not be found in the different mental competencies brought to bear on two different realms — “belief” applied to vague spiritual matters, “knowledge” to directly observable things — but in the same broad set of competences applied to two chains of mediators going in two different directions. The first chain leads toward what is invisible because it is simply too far and too counterintuitive to be directly grasped — namely, science; the second chain, the religious one, also leads to the invisible but what it reaches is not invisible because it would be hidden, encrypted, and far, but simply because it is difficult to renew.

What I mean is that in the cases of both science and religion, freeze-framing, isolating a mediator out of its chains, out of its series, instantly forbids the meaning to be carried in truth. Truth is not to be found in correspondence — either between the word and the world in the case of science, or between the original and the copy in the case of religion — but in taking up again the task of continuing the flow, of elongating the cascade of mediations one step further. My argument is that, in our present economy of images, we might have made a slight misunderstanding of Moses’s Second Commandment and thus lacked respect for mediators. God did not ask us not to make images — what else do we have to produce objectivity, to generate piety? — but he told us not to freeze-frame, not to isolate an image out of the flows that only provide them with their real (their constantly re-realized, re-represented) meaning.

I have most probably failed in extending the flows, the cascade of mediators to you. If so, then I have lied, I have not been talking religiously; I have not been able to preach, but I have simply talked about religion, as if there was a domain of specific beliefs one could relate to by some sort of referential grasp. This then would have been a mistake just as great as that of the lover who, when asked “do you love me?” answered, “I have already told you so many years ago, why do you ask again?” Why? Because it is no use having told me so in the past, if you cannot tell me again, now, and make me alive to you again, close and present anew. Why would anyone claim to speak religion, if it is not in order to save me, to convert me, on the spot?

The real intellectual challenge is rarely comprehension of concepts, but accomplishing habitation and perpetual re-habitation of one’s best understandings — and this is accomplished through much more than beliefy faiths. It requires more than spirit. Ethics is about inhabiting and caring for an ethos, which is a collection of many kinds of being, spanning why, how, what — and most of all, who.

 

Change of cast

Ideas

It’s always a little odd to have something you invented yourself or helped develop presented back to you as orthodoxy.

Beginners don’t have fluency in the “why” and “how” of methods. They harden the fluidity into hard, fast “what” concretions: action turns into steps; purposes turn into rules, communication turns into deliverables, inquiry turns into techniques, evaluation turns into comparison with standards.

*

To have fluency means to move through a kind of understanding as one’s element. Fluency is participation in a form of life. There is a sort of mastery in fluency, but it is largely tacit and practical, and it is far from reducible to objective mastery.

One can be fluent in a language and be entirely unable to articulate the grammatical rules they follow when speaking. And of course, someone can know the vocubulary and grammar of a language and speak it very badly.

One can know the steps of a dance by heart, but be unable to dance beautifully. (Maybe it would be more accurate to say the steps are known “by brain”.) And someone else can see a dance and do it without ever memorizing steps.

*

My daughters both started speaking and imitating my wife’s mannerisms at the same time. I know that at least some boys feel a need to master the words and syntax before imitating expression.

*

Exercising my trademark questionable judgment, and taken this line of thought to facebook. I tried to mitigate it a bit by applying it to punk:

Watching “Beautiful Losers” last night, it (re)occurred to me how different things are at inception than when they calcify into orthodoxy. There’s a formal continuity, of course, but at the total expense of spiritual continuity. In the mid- to late-70s (and in god-forsaken backwaters, all the way into the 80s) punk was salvation. Now it is a genre to mine for best-practices in “edgy”.

and this:

To an alienated, undignified little shit existing in a punkless world, the discovery of punk/postpunk meant the whole world, literally. It was not a genre: it was pure hope, permission to live. See “End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones” to see what I’m talking about.

*

“Change of cast. — As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples.”