Cormac versus Drunvalo: thoughts on the future

            It is always interesting to start a book that you have preconceived notions about.  Interesting to see how it conforms to your prejudices.  More interestingly still to see how it diverges, becomes its own work: it winds down its narrative path and carves into concrete, mapping over your pre-impressions.

            As in fiction, in life.  Besides having a sweet name, Drunvalo Melchizedek also has a wild take on the world, albeit one that I am only glancingly familiar with.  He has been interviewed for many an alt podcast and has his own Q & A series.  His take on things draws from historical antecedents and can be loosely (maybe comprehensively) characterized as New Age. 

            In the episode of his Q & A show hyperlinked above Drunvalo discusses his views of a forthcoming, um, well, change in the world.  Yes, it is related to the Mayan calendar.  Listening to his conception of change put me in mind of another recent view of the end of the world, namely that provided by one Cormac McCarthy.

            Although books are generally better than the movie, the recent re-creation of Cormac’s The Road does nearly complete justice to the text.  The story and feel are the same in both but would still urge someone to read the novel over seeing the film: McCarthy’s prose is unparalleled.  Poetic.  Evocative of (his hero) Melville and of the Bible.  Read Blood Meridian.  Read Suttree.  The Road approaches these previous works in quality and provides a grim background in front of which he presents his bleak tale.

            For the sake of comparison, let’s even the playing field.  What if Drunvalo’s ideas where fictional.  What if Cormac’s The Road willingly being prophetic?  What types of tales are they?  Which is more enjoyable?  In which real or fictional incarnation? 

            An end of light (Drunvalo) versus an end in nuclear winter-dark (The Road)?  This is not quite a fair comparison – not all will go unscathed in Drunvalo’s vision.  Indeed, significant numbers may meet their end.  Have to say it is a little discomfiting to hear this laid out by Drunvalo (I think it is as fun to type his name as it is to say it).  A sort of new age-elect will be the ones to make it through.

            The Road delivers equal opportunity destruction.  I suppose I am making this assumption, but believe it right – this future is a godless realm, no faith to protect anyone.  Compared to the fiction of Stephen King’s The Stand, The Road has no metaphysical elements except for contemplation of the timeless (unanswerable) question as to how it is man is capable of such acts.  So far it hasn’t happened – environmental degradation notwithstanding.  (Long-term environmental problems have a chronic character that unfortunately slips by unseen in front of man’s acute-problem-only-seeing eyes.  In my opinion.)

            In the end, The Road is fiction – it does not seek to claim prescience, only tell a story.  Drunvalo, though, does grant his listeners a mapped future.  There will be much travail, he is sorry to report, but there will also be unimaginable transcendence.  Comparing the two, the fiction is grim and the revealed-to-Drunvalo truth is beautiful.  Does my reality have to make me happy and does my fiction have to make me sad?  In order to fact check: guess we have to wait till the future to see which is right.

The flesh you so fancifully fry - a note on food

            Recently changed up the way I eat – another experiment testament to these protean times: using food perhaps as a way to find a mooring?  Seems like folks today try diets like trying on clothes, new fads that people try then discard.  We can already date a photo by what people are wearing in it – so too with food?  (Just speaking of clothes, I swear people in the eighties look as though they are from a far different time than even people you see in pictures or films from the fifties or sixties or even seventies. Could this happen today?  If it did it wouldn’t be the same.)

            Food is undoubtedly important.  What interests about the range of diets available is that there is presumably a best way to eat.  That is what all the lifestyle diets out there are trying to achieve.  A way to eat to achieve optimal health for the duration of your life and also to perform and work at exceptional levels.  I feel like my recent dietary shuffle is because of these aims.  Fear of death?  Is that something lurking in the background when we make such decisions?  On the surface I say/think that my choice is for the former reasons.

            To disclaim though: everyone is different so there are probably multiple smart ways to eat.  I mean some people constitutionally can’t eat some things.  Others choose not eat certain things based on ethical decisions.  Any time you enter the realm of morality, though, you encounter uneven terrain and concealing fogs.  Re: meat: saying you shouldn’t eat animal flesh because it is wrong is one thing while saying you shouldn’t eat it because it is unhealthy is a beast of another pelt.  I think these two ideas get a little conflated.  On the moral side: good, I respect that choice/have experimented with it myself.  If you don’t partake of meat because you think it is murder (bless this man! (eighties, again . . .)) then you have thought about it, placed yourself in the hooves or what have you of others.  Regardless of religious non-affiliation or whatever compassion is virtuous.

            The other side of this meat topic is where the murkiness lies.  That you shouldn’t eat it because it is unhealthy runs firstly into the problem, previously stated, that we are all physiologically different.  If it is true that different people respond differently to different food then there can’t be one ultimate diet.  This is Platonism at its finest and it attempts to steamroll uniqueness.  Destroying uniqueness in the name of a higher order is usually the job of institutionalized faith.  Saying one diet is the best appeals to capital-T Truth.  Unfortunately this truth lies well within the murky domain of morality, with its obfuscatory mists and mirage-like substance.

            So that is the grain of salt (literally, and Himalayan at that) I take as I explore gastronomic alternatives.  Despite critiquing what Plato thought I still think an unexamined life is not worth living.  I also think it is easy to go through life without examining what we eat.  Oh no, what if I try different ways of eating but don’t find the way that  is best for me?  Worth it to try.

Ancient mid-afternoons (2)

            Fun to think about but, as my last post discussed, we are the latest of a long line of people, the ever-rolling tide of humanity, encroaching and retreating, swirling in eddies, cresting and cresting and cresting. . .  Certain books, guess they are usually sci-fi, take on the ideas of what it was like.  And some look to the future, A Scientific Romance being a terrific example.  Riddley Walker, Fiskadoro are other (really good) forward-looking books.  It is a trip to think of the world 10 years from now and such a thought experiment is relatively easy compared to thinking about the world (with us still in it) a hundred years down the road.  Raise the stakes and think about 1,000 years in the future. 

            Looking forward and back – behind us: do we live with links to the past?  Older generations have their mores and particular zeitgeist and these are slowly changed by the up-and-coming generation’s own way of doing things.  Then the oldest generation dies off and the next younger one becomes the wise old folk.  It is hard to imagine life in the 1950s and soon it will only be guesswork cuz the people that actually did live then won’t be around.  And that is just fifty year ago.  What about 100 years ago?  These are historical times that we have records of so we dreamers at least have a blueprint to work with.  The future is different.

            A hundred years hence.  We can extrapolate from what we have today.  We can look at trends that we are part of today and try and project these into the future.  But we do not have a blueprint such as history provides us for reflections past.  In the future lays uncharted waters.  A hundred years could see us living as we do today.  Or the world – how people relate, how people live, where we live – could be radically different.  I was going to say unimaginably different but I think whatever the future holds it will be an iteration similar to something in the past.  (I guess this is a judgment against transhumanism.)

            Think of the future as an entity or a presence, something looming.  It is real.  Should I say it will be real?  For some reason it feels right to say simply that it is real.  It’s gonna happen.  Inexorable.  The far out thought is thinking of a million years in the future.  Tough to make that a concern today but what will things be like then?

Ancient mid-afternoons

It is interesting to think of the land that we traverse – drive, walk, run, bike, fly across – as an ancient land.  I do this once in a while but try and do it more – like make myself – because of the perspective it lends.  (Caveat: this is not necessarily an impetus for moral reflection.)  Most iterations of this thought experiment wonder about, I’ll go ahead and say it, what the terrain and the world would have been like when natives lived here, like before Europeans.  It’s fun.  Maybe edifying.  (And may help put things in perspective re: current issues re: environment, etc., but not going to talk about that here.)  Living out west seems to afford many opportunities for this but it can be done anywhere.  Think of back east: now as then more lush, more habitation: much to imagine.  But out here the fantasies become sparer: natives did live more in stereotypical ways – seasonal nomadism?  A harsher place out here than in a southeast forest/temperate setting.

And to compare local past-conditions to other, more distant, past conditions – a big part of my game.  Think of living here compared to living elsewhere 15 centuries ago.  A native living in a semi-permanent locale along the Snake River, say compared to a city dweller in Meso-America.  Take it a step further, of course, and compare these existences with that of a European.  Compare commoners – here or there – with royalty – here or there. 

Similarities may be teased out in letting thoughts wander down these paths.  People are people and this is as true today as it was a millennia and a half ago – our lots in life are cast, the decision between two people to bring forth another life made: here we are experiencing the world that we are thrown into.  Is it fun to think about other ways of life because this life ain’t so bad?  I think that has something to do with it.

Take a walk down an ancient trail – in the west just walk near water: rivers and lakes are places that have drawn people, whether ancient or new.  And think about what they experienced, what they thought.  On the very same ground, at the very same spot.  I make myself mute the ideas that natives long ago were more concerned with finding sustenance.  To hopefully not too radically extrapolate: those in the past had complex motivations for things.  They paid attention to bigger pictures whether tribal alliances or personal alliances.  There were metropolitan areas and backwaters then, sure.  But regardless whether city or plain there were Caesars and Joe Schmoes.  Different proclivities, different talents. 

            Considering people in the past to be as many dimensioned as we are makes the world a more exciting place to be.  I’m seeking a connection here and I think I am justified in doing so.  Behind great historical trends are people with personal needs and desires.  Considered from the other way: personal needs ultimately fuel/allow great trends.  No matter whether then or now, whether here or there.

This allotment of time

            We only have so much time on this earth – cherish every moment – live every moment to its fullest.  You’ve all heard these maxims, words of wisdom or admonishments: it seems like riding high on a crest we agree in acknowledgement of these pearls.  In a trough we are chastised by these words and realize that in not seeing life as a gift we are great squanderers. 

            Recently listened to a revealing interview with Graham Hancock conducted by Andrew Gough for New Dawn magazine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8flurTqFJgY) in which the topic of living life rightly arose.  I greatly admire Graham’s work and am impressed with his independence of thought and also the breadth of his work.  The interview was quite personal, especially compared to recent Q&As and just served to make Mr. Hancock a more interesting character.  This on the heels of his somewhat recently published novel and the groundbreaking work of synthesis that is his book Supernatural.

            Anyway, in the interview Graham said that lessons learned via his ongoing pilgrim’s path have taught him to (and I’m paraphrasing) appreciate life but also to understand that our actions now may have effects years down the road.  Many years down the road.  What better way to emphasize the importance of our handful of moments in this life than to link them to times past and future.  I like this idea as it speaks of interconnectedness and oneness but also of responsibility.  Graham’s insight was spurred by interaction with what is perhaps another realm that was achieved by his personal seeking and also by herbal means from an indigenous South American peoples’ tradition.  The seven generation rule is native wisdom to the north as well.  These teachings maybe are all we really need to know.

            As I while away time playing smart phone games I can at least take pause and think about right living.  Perhaps pause the game of sling-shotting fowl and then set the game down and stop playing.  Thanks Graham for doing what you do!

Growth and its discontents

Perhaps riding the wave of growth is what allows me to write this blog.  I use a computer and post the blog online, things made possible by innovation and work.  Niches are filled and entrepreneurs meet market demands.  Evermore consumers are born needing goods for maintaining life and status demands.  It seems that if growth stopped then the way of life I have grown accustomed to would also stop.

And I’m not the only one: a subdivision of economics looks at economic contraction.  Some call for purposefully instituted contraction.  Some writers, such as Chris Hedges, blame growth for the state of the world: worth the short read - http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/growth_is_the_problem_20120910/.

Hedges’ article explores the idea that continued growth is required to continue living the way we do now.  The idea that continual growth is good  must come with an asterisk: we would need to find another planet to continue growing.  Part of this asterisk, corollary to the new planet idea, is that new technologies will grant us the energy resources to clean up our mess and continue living happily and green/sustainably (just one planet though!).

Some might say that there is no problem – the various factors that led to the late twenty-aughts economic woes was due to an uncomfortable hunk of gristle caught in our civilization’s gullet.  It will pass and growth will continue to buoy us materially and spiritually.  Honestly, taking renewable energy options out of the picture (just relying on what we got, like known reserves) we have 30-plus years easily.

If you don’t think we have any problems right now (just need to complete the swallow on this hunk of gristle) then great!  Living in the now is called accepting the status quo and it has been/is currently proving to be a successful way of negotiating the world.  We wouldn’t even be worried about the future if it wasn’t for science and learning.  Also at fault for this future-mindedness is morality which gains insight from science and learning.  Get rid of morality and a concern for future generations and its all good, right?

Quite facetious.  But just thinking that our way of life is awesome does not address the future and the way that we live should have the future in mind.  It is an aesthetic; it is up to one’s predilections.  But it beats living blindly.  It beats the de facto worship of the status quo – that is easy because it is something you do without having to consciously do anything.

This blog post title could be “Food for thought” though I’m embarrassed to even have thought about titling it that

           Recently watched Man vs. Food Boise-edition.  It had been awhile – actually watched a few episodes when it came out drawn mostly by host Adam Richman’s shtick: engaging, funny.  But got sick of it, just as Adam occasionally does by consuming prodigious amounts of rich food.  This last time (the Boise episode but may as well be any episode for what it matters) I was amazed by the casual attitude the people in the show had towards over-eating.  Richman exploits this, being instantly buddy-buddy with any restaurant-goer simply by overtly condoning their behavior.  He’s not the only one, there being many shows like this.  Plus any all-you-can-eat commercial implicitly or explicitly pats over-eaters on their expansive backs as well.  Really any commercial for whatever hamburger that approaches 1000 calories is condoning gluttony

            It was this word – gluttony – that I was put in mind of.  A Christian idea.  Also in many situations in the past, in the Christian epoch, food intake was characterized by (relative, for sure) scarcity.  So take the term gluttony with simply a single grain of salt – I’m not motivated by Christian concern.  It is just gross.  What does it say about a people that they take part in a behavior that is so unnecessary and then revel in it?             

            I wanted to write about how a world formerly dominated by concern for the seven deadly sins (at least since the fourth century from what Wikipedia tells me) has made a shift to the gluttonous world of today.  However, I want to say that if a country in the past reached our level of affluence they, per capita, would have been as chubby as we, regardless of religious proscriptions.  Is that right?  This makes it seem like delving into food history is necessary which suddenly is as unappetizing as watching someone cram mounds of starch and fat into their mouth.

            Our relation to food does say things about Americans.  It doesn’t matter if it signals a dislocation from past mores.  A people with such abundance at their disposal.  We have developed a sick relationship with food and the attitude is that we are expressing ourselves.  Fair enough.  The libertarian creed of one person’s freedom ending where his fist meets the nose of another is not particularly compromised by others’ over-consumption.  That is how they want to spend their money.  But, what if – considering the big picture – people’s food consumption had some relation to environmental degradation that affected us all?  If it does then the libertarian creed ethic might be violated.  I’ve hears such a link being argued successfully.  Won’t say anymore here.  How about: would a violation of one’s aesthetic sense be the same as being punched in the nose – insofar as libertarian ethics is concerned?  No.  Will have to continue suffering such shows and the ubiquitous commercials.

The plastic hardener in all of us!

            The discussion currently is whether or not to ban it – annual revenue for the chemical industry from BPA is $6 billion (http://www.newsreview.com/chico/feds-nix-bpa-ban/content?oid=5699966).  Think of the jobs.  Just cause it makes money . . .    actually the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that their own research into the possible hazards of the chemical are incomplete (http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/09/3544209/what-now-for-bisphenol-a.html).  The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, says that the FDA must be able to say that it is safe before okaying the chemical’s use.  That sounds good to me – and since the FDA is still researching the matter and there are links to adverse health effects a ban sounds legitimate.  But a $6 billion dollar a year industry put on hold just like that?  How was it okayed to start with?

            Just a basic, non-scientific, observation on my own part: no matter how much of a bad thing, it is still bad.  Does it just fool our bodies, coming in small doses?  Does it sort of slip by unnoticed.  I don’t know the biology of it but just the concept, a tiny amount of a bad substance has to be bad and I don’t want it in my body.  And not to lump all of industry together but there are previous cases where what is deemed acceptable initially turns out to be bad.  Think of fen-phen.  You just need one example of this failure to be enough to raise a flag of caution.

            I don’t know how long long-range studies last.  But that seems to be another failure, where chemicals analyzed seem okay initially but after long-term interaction with the human body negative impacts become apparent.  Fen-phen is an example in that regard.  In general this has been the case, even outside the realm of food safety.  Just thinking down the road a bit.

            Thinking of the long-term is where BPA can become metaphor.  How else?  A cabal of producers make sure debate isn’t even started when controversy could impact their business.  Not that public debate has to be compiled with scientific data to see if a substance should be okayed for public consumption.  But just the fact that a controversy is raised is a good sign that debate is needed.  Just to clear the air.  If you don’t have anything to hide then you have nothing to worry about – how I hate that concept when it comes to loyalty oaths and police searches.  No individual should have to explain their decisions if they do not impact others.

            But BPA could impact others.  They should be transparent.  Obvious sci-fi analogue: What is in Soylent Green?  “Taking conspiracy too far” comment: The chemicals in BPA impair our capability of making informed decision.  That last one could be from the chemical and from the public relations of the companies producing it.

What is reality? Ancient Aliens edition.

           

            Watched something recently that blew my mind. I don’t always use that phrase but it was really the first thing I thought. The first thing I though after putting my mind back together, of course. You can get that feeling too – but hold on, I don’t want to give it away. Let me build it up for you: Imagine giving two people general guidelines for the creation of a fantasy world. Then have them fill in the blanks for each of their worlds, make up histories, trends, etc. In the end the major details of the two people’s fantasies will be the same. The minor details, however – the ones that they made up – will be different. Now tell the two people in the experiment to convince the other that their details are the correct ones.

            Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzqDVOjtNhg. Now I’m just wondering to what degree my thought experiment is actually being conducted in this video. If you don’t watch it (but I suggest you do) here is what is going on: two sets of UFO researches are arguing for their particular views on what UFOs are and to what extent the government is involved. It is truly far out stuff. Have to say I’ve watched a few videos of fringe provenance lately. In order to garner ideas for sci-fi stories I might potentially write. That is what I tell myself, anyway.

            I feel like I’ve got to a point in my life when I have divested myself of illusion, where my world view has been whittled down as well as enlarged, finding the right balance of skepticism and belief. Something I think everyone would manage to claim about themselves. We all think that we know what is going on. What the score is. What our relationship is to the world. How, for example, we relate to society, to the power structure in society. “Yeah, this is who I am. And I am who am because that is who I want to be.”

            This is possibly the beginning of a path to conspiracy theories. People desire to know what is going on. They want to know how they for sure fit into society. No, people don’t want to know how they fit in society, they actually (purport to) know how they fit in society.

(For the sake of argument?) First, let’s consider that the debaters in the video to be radically out of touch with reality: let’s consider them to be daft (radge). Unable to succeed in the real world they have found a niche that gives them control over reality. It is a made-up reality, however, and the only reason they can continue down this path is because their delusion is shared by a certain amount of people in a community of like-deluded people. Is that your response to the video interview?

            What got me was the specificity of their arguments. Contrary to considering them mad, consider them to be informed. Let’s say that they know what they are talking about. The doctor has talked to informants. There is some energy source that could alleviate the world’s energy needs. On the other side of the table, perhaps the doctor is acting some kind of agenda, mixing truth with delusion. His interlocutors have good reason to be suspicious of his motives. Their concern is in service to all of humankind. It turns out not to be arguing all about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

            So, what is it? My first reaction holds strong – reticence to believe in what they talk about, the specificity of their arguments nails in the coffins of their madness. My imagination asks, “What if?” What if they are not operating out of selfish agendas. A drive for mastery over the world so much that a separate world has been created. What is reality? What little worlds of fantasy to we all create? Worlds of fantasy writ small. I’ll give an alien researcher himself the last paraphrased word. Giorgio A. Tsoukalos has said the only way we will really know if aliens did or did not play a part in humanity’s past is to ask them once they arrive/return.

Thoughts on population and beauty

Robed and bearded transcendental figures.  Arms raised in blessing.  Can I walk outside and bless my neighborhood?  Instead I have a feeling like “Oh, you silly ragamuffins who happened to find homes – what a rag-tag bunch.  How about those semi-random events that have seen us living side by side in this terrific neighborhood”.  There they go in their car.  There they go in their car.  There they go in their car.

Thinking along these terms I start to wonder about population.  So many people in the world.  So many people living around me – and I live in a smaller-sized city.  Wouldn’t a decline in population mean a better standard of living for those that, um, those that . . .  having trouble finishing this sentence.  Those that remain?  The remnant population?  Those left after some cataclysm?  The changed population level is just a hypothetical so I guess I refer to a hypothetical smaller population.  (Everyone will be hypothetically really smart if not straight-up enlightened, too.)

The arguments go that the hypothetical smaller population would live in a less polluted environment.  They would have stronger community relations.  They would make conscious decisions instead of going around being cajoled by trends and advertisers.  But overall, and this is where my thoughts on population initially went, the hypothetical smaller population would live in a world of beauty.

            A side note on community.  Does community, having a strong community (def.?) equal beauty?  More community, more beauty?  Years ago I was fired up about community – if only people would talk more – surprising that I would get involved in such a manner given my innate introvertism.  Lo, I went forth and actually did a thing at a local movie house, sponsoring a viewing of a film and a subsequent discussion.  Let’s all get together and talk about it. 

            So my thesis this morning was that with less people we could have more beauty in the world.  This impulse, for full, immediate, disclosure, was wrought by my dislike of cars and the inhealth that is pervasive in this country.  A big topic while running in town and encountering others (generally, in their cars).  The other facet of my argument was a concession to the fact that currently, as the population stands, people are, quite simply, living.  The billions are supported, albeit in widely differing levels of comfort.  There is some talk that a reallocation of resources could see everyone living at a wholesome level –upper-end outliers (the American way of life (AWOL)) of course being reduced.

            That caveat countenanced, how can I move on?  A world with less people.  Perhaps something to get riled up about: the perfect thing to get riled up about in that the force at play is so large.  Picking such a topic has its own inherent appeals.  It goes hand in hand with politics: it is politics.  Insoluble problems that get settled in favor of either those in power or get settled in favor of lightly-steered semi-impersonal trends.  How often do our thoughts tend in this direction?  Is a seed planted by insecurity?

            Rumination on the world and my place in the world.  From someone not necessarily living in the lap of luxury but at least having enough time to think about things. 

Towards a national dialogue: Soviet reflections

Daydreaming today.  Thinking of what it would have been like to live in the Soviet Union.  Thinking of what it would have been like to live there and have it be successful – would human nature have to be different?  That led me to think about life in the US today.  The US won out, beating the Soviets.

            Always going in the background there is the idea that we live in an imperfect place.  This is an attitude that may manifest in countries – think about realpolitik – but has a root in our everyday life experience.  Actions happen in the world, countries deal with each other, interact.  And it is not always consensus.  Immoveable objects and unstoppable forces and time ticking away.  The strong may see things swayed in their way – and then write the history of it.  This is on the world-scale but on the personal we encounter dilemmas and have to play the cards we are dealt. 

            Why not consensus?  I link the personal and the world at large because I think they are linked, each affecting the other.  Think how difficult it is even in families for concord to be reached.  Hopefully parents provide guidance because they take on – should take on – the de facto power position.  And so too in the workplace, most jobs, I think it is fair to say, being boss-run operations.  Could it be another way?

            Going back to my Soviet-US daydreams I think of Khrushchev Nixon’s Kitchen Debate.  And an anecdote about (Khrushchev?) being flown over the (Los Angeles?) and seeing all the swimming pools in single household houses and saying that the USSR was finished.  Can’t find a reference for that so maybe it was someone’s metaphor.  Anyway, it was a time of competitive ideologies.  Now who are we?  Are we defining ourselves in relation to a common enemy or common competitor?  Terrorists?  A lot of negative comparisons to European socialism lately, come to think about it. 

            This all leads me to think that it was good to have a mega-competitor, like the USSR, insofar as it made us at least reflect on national identity and goals.  It seems today that we are operating with an idea that we are all Americans: but what does that mean?  Ron Paul people point to our union with respect to the Constitution.  While I like their arguments it still seems to me that they are missing the point.  Well, not missing the point: the whole idea during election time is to not only bring forth one’s policies, but also what informs those policies.  We live in a country founded on the Constitution but . . .   This is where Ron Paul people miss the point – and where my yeah-but’s are founded.  The world has changed, the game has changed.

            So what is the real state of things?  What is behind the matrix?  First I would say we like living the way we do.  Whether this is inertia or thoughtlessness or lassitude or something else I’m not sure.  Even though (I emphatically believe) it kind of sucks to work all the time we do it and want politicians to bring about full employment.  Consumerism must be mentioned somewhere in this equation.  In a sense we all like to be numbed all the time by diversions.  Is that fair to say?  “I just want to work and create a better life for my family,” people say.  Got to pay for that important car/house/cable subscription.

            When was the national conversation were we at least got a majority to pick a national path?  It almost seems that we are living in set patterns, just going along thinking that this is just the way that it is and that things will never change.  Implicit acceptance of the status quo.  I suppose that elections are a form of such a national conversation.  That is really their purpose, I guess.  So I shouldn’t complain?  Or question? 

            Living in the USSR would have been different.  Undesirable to myself, I infer.  That is why in my thoughts I wondered at living in an idealized Soviet realm.  People happily supporting one another.  The USSR or some 19^th century Christian commune.  Utopias – no wheres.  Brinksmanship and realpolitik – if we don’t get those resources another country will and they will be more powerful: that defines our lives.

Election season fun (and semiotics!)!

            I’m excited that the election will be this year.  A feeling like the future hangs in the balance.  Who will get to steer the American ship?  Which guy will be more badass in an apocalyptic scenario?  Yeah, that last thought, that is really how I think of things.  God, in a prior post about Romney I referenced Martin Sheen’s The Dead Zone president.  Just picture Romney’s frozen rictus/smile as he explains why we are in WWIII. 

            But what of the figure of the President?  A President does hold a position of power.  But the first thing that comes to mind is how people ascribe too much power to the position.  When people get mad at the President it is like they are getting mad at god (God).  Have you heard someone do this?  Mad at god. Mad at a being invested with unimaginable power.  Similar to those that are mad at the world.  Impersonal forces run their lives.  Arggh!  What are you going to do?

I’m going to have to resort to semiotics here. Why talk about this position?  How do we talk about it?  When thinking of things on the big stage, the President seems to be someone who gets results, whose policies can change the world.  It is definitely an important position.  But, as a professor of mine once said, let’s unpack this idea.  What’s behind it?  Who do we refer to when we speak of the President?

First of all, when faced with a problem, it is nice to know what problem one is facing.  Know thy enemy.  Even better if the problem can be given a single word.  The more meaning you can cram into a word the better.  When people resort to vocabulary they want ultimate descriptors.  The connotation of the denotation “The American President” has diffuse meanings.  It is as though you went to Subway and told them one name that they understood to mean your sandwich and all the specific veggies and sauces you want on it.  One quick word and they know what you mean.  A sandwich in a sound-bite.  One word loaded with meaning.  It becomes code – aren’t codes rather handy?

And it is a known word.  The President is the boss of the country, the position of which we all learn about in school.  Better yet we learn about the word by hearing parents and friends say it, in good and bad ways.  In the sense that it has currency it is easy to say it.  It is a capitalized word.  It is well known – a verbal arrow that you know will fly true and hit the recognition part of any listener’s brain

And this gets back to its code.  When someone says “The President” they are invoking a person that has agency and that represents a certain way of using this agency.  People are serious about what the President means.  He can be their ally or foe.  If only the president thought as they did then things would be better.  If he would do this or do that, invade there or withdraw from there.  When someone is happy with the president’s policies he becomes one’s friend.  When he draws one’s ire he becomes an impossibly wrongheaded agent of doom.

My interest lies in the gap between what the President represents – in people’s heads – and what he actually is.  It must be difficult to sort this out since common epistemological ground is hard to find.  Nevertheless, I think there are some limitations that the President’s agency faces.  Also I think people go overboard in finding words to overload with meaning.  There are more forces at play that affect one’s life than just the President’s policies.  This makes the hoopla surrounding the upcoming election perplexing, too.  It is easy to get caught up in it and it is fun.  However, there are more forces at play that should be part of anyone’s understanding of the world.

The Obama Conspiracy

            For the sake of entertaining my paranoia – do people have some information about Obama, a source of blackmail that allows him to be manipulated?  Or does he feel the need to maintain power, no matter the cost? 

            Let me start by saying these possibilities are actually metaphors.  Why has Obama not been totally awesome?  Why not brush aside the economic woes with some amazing policy?  So I retreat to metaphor: what could cause him to so blatantly ignore the wishes of those that elected him?

            The latter idea first.  He is willing to burn bridges, destroy trust, just so he may stay in power.  Bernanke and Summers and the attack on medicinal plants maintaining continuity between Obama’s and Bush’s terms.  And of course our country went down a path unforeseen at the time of his election.  And Republicans play hardball.  Still, just the fact the big Larry Summers is still an operator in government.  Does Obama know he has to appease certain groups to continue to get their support?  The banks support him.

            So there is the realpolitik version.  What of, and remember this is allegorical, what of the possibility that someone or some group has something on him?  That they’ve recently told him his birth certificate could have vanished if they had been displeased anymore?  Or some photos of some indiscretion are only an email away from a tabloid’s front page?  Well, just entertaining this, this tangent, the President doesn’t seem like he has anything to hide.  Which is what makes the grasping for power theory seem untenable as well.  And wouldn’t any decisive dirt have already been dug up and presented before he was elected? 

            In the real world, not the world of metaphor, now: I think a set of circumstances conspired against Obama if anything.  Since Summers et al. had experience (getting us into this mess) perhaps it makes sense they may know how help us (out of the mess they helped create).  Who knows?  Who knows how much worse things could be?  Just to wrap my head around some things I must resort to metaphor.

The Qnexa qcontradiction of personal freedom

I’m against the regulation of certain drugs, especially diet pills.  It’s not that I’m against regulation though.  It is because I question why the government accepts the premise.  Diet?  Yeah, for sure.  Doesn’t this contradict having a food pyramid?  Why does the First Lady condone exercise for kids?  Why not just say never mind and have a diet drug solve the problem later in people’s lives?

            Okay, the government should regulate things effect health – this is their reason the FDA exists.  Make sure ibuprofen and Tylenol pills have the right dosage – some runs or bike rides mandate this.  But what gets approved can go by a case-by-case basis.  Does regulating something like diet pills condone them?  It is a free country, right?  In this sense the government should allow any drug to be sold regardless if it has been tested or not.  This is a bad idea, I guess.  There is personal responsibility but then there is having enough information to ask responsible questions.  Really, true personal responsibility should contain this within itself – one should be responsible enough to ask questions that are important in one’s life.

            This can go the other way, too.  Should one associate with dubious entities?  Deal with companies that operate with dubious moral standing?  It comes down to people’s own definitions of things.  People’s own understanding of what is bad and what is okay.  But when private drug companies ask the government to say whether or not one of their products is fit for consumption, who decides what the government’s moral stance is?

            Can you lose weight with diet drugs?  Yes.  But you can lose weight by eating healthy and getting the right amount of exercise also.  Not just also, but – and this is my personal view – good diet and exercise should be the only way someone loses weight.  All drug companies are doing is trying to get a share of the billion-dollar-a-year diet industry, an industry that is driven by fads and shams.  I guess you can get some low-level speed in some of the products sold within this cultural tradition.  Might be some better quality speed in Qnexa, if that is the culprit of the drug’s increased risks of "cardiovascular events” (http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-qnexa-20120221,0,6936550.story). 

            Would this be the government telling us what to do?  They are giving the drug another chance, letting the manufacturer clear up some issues.  The government is not against the idea of diet drugs.  What would the perception be of government opposition to this idea?  Should the White House Press Secretary come out and say that diets are fakes?  Um, here – for better or worse – is a food pyramid.  Cut down on the television.  Such a statement would go against the culture, the zeitgeist.  Unanalyzed, unsaid.  Something to question.