Which Ferdinand?

(x-posted)
Harvard's Intro to Political/Moral Philosophy course is now on Youtube. I listened to a couple of lectures while cleaning. One problem with political philosophy is that there's more excitement about the implications of the ideas than about the ideas themselves, and that ruins things a bit, but still, it's kinda entertaining. [1]

While I'm on the subject, is this new technology, Youtube, going to replace university lecturers? I say no. The profession weathered the invention of the printing press. Compared to that, Youtube is nothing.


[1] Sample Sandel story:

When I was in Oxford back in the late 1970s, they still had separate colleges for men and women and the women's colleges had rules against overnight male guests. These rules were rarely enforced and easily violated. Or so I was told. Pressure was growing to relax these rules, which became a subject of debate at St. Anne's, which was then an all women's college. Some of the older women on the faculty were traditionalists. They opposed allowing male guests. They believed in protecting the moral virtue, as they saw it, of their young women students. But times had changed and the traditionalists were embarrassed to give the real reasons for their objection, so they translated their moral argument into an economic one. "If men stay overnight", they argued, "the costs to the college will increase". How, you might wonder? "Well", they said, "they'll want to take baths, and that will use hot water". "Furthermore", they argued, "we'll have to replace the mattresses more often". The reformers met these arguments by adopting the following compromise: each woman could have a maximum of three overnight guests each week provided each guest paid 50 pence a night to defray the costs to the college. The next day, the headline in The Guardian read: 'St. Anne's girls 50 pence a night'. So there you have a lesson in the perils of reducing moral considerations to economic ones.

but I'm coming around on the issue of the music, on the basis of this cover, which is full of loveliness

J. K. Galbraith:

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

It only remains to be added that

• Nobody said the search would be futile, just unseemly. (And nobody said it would be successful)
  
• As I'm explaining over at John C. Wright's, the search for a superior moral justification for meanness is likewise popular.
  

UPDATE: Oh fine, it is futile. Cruelty: bad.

I can't get the singing to work, but here's the new Let's Away with Study. The only virtue of this translation is that I can sing it, but, like I said, not well.

Go forth into the world!
Leave your musty books inside!
Go to where the ale is poured,
Where the gates are open wide!

Having spent the whole night drinking,
Go and fall under her spell...
Let them oldsters have their thinking,
Neat, straight, narrow road to Hell!

(Chorus:)
Life shall wither like a dream;
Death is drawing nearer...
And the happy days of spring
Aren't coming back here!

I spy many pretty girls --
Snowdrops growing from the slush.
On each and every one of those
I already have a crush

The girls are prancing, dancing, singing
Laughing, giggling with glee...
And I watch them till their glances steal
Myself away from me

(x-posted)
"Lovely. Wasn't it lovely, a little thing by Chopin? How long did it take old Chopin to think that up, do you suppose? Two seconds? Three seconds of white-hot inspiration? I'm sixty-four years old and I haven't had one second of genius in my entire life." -- Prof. Craig Wright during lecture

But could as well be (a character written by) Peter Shaffer, or Chuck Palahniuk, or even, heaven forfend, Douglas Coupland. Now that has to be depressing.

While you're in the mood, get a load of this: "Currently between homes (my earthly belongings reside in a 10-by-10-foot windowless U-Haul storage unit whilst I alternately house-sit, pool-sit, and cat-sit), I furtively park at the curb of my former home for an extra few minutes after dropping my kids off and, with my laptop, I steal wireless."

These are mostly crap, but one stands out:

Q: Why doesn't Obama pray?

A: It's impossible to read the teleprompter with your eyes closed.

Good one!

Obama is actually okay at impromptu speaking, of course. (Start watching at 7:00 to see Obama's trying (and failing) to apply modus tollens -- it's kinda funny; or start watching at the beginning to see him bulshitting re: gay marriage, but that's not as funny)

It's meh, and I can't come up with more verses, but I translated one verse and the refrain from Ivaschenko's Goliardic verse song. The music starts here at 55:37

I like the punch of "neat straight primrose road to hell," but I guess "primrose" doesn't actually make sense. Also, apparently, "Go forth into the world" is sort of taken as an opening line of a song.

Also also, the reaction I got to my English Ivaschenko covers is that they seem "very Russian."

Go forth into the world!
Leave your musty books inside (bum-bum-bum-bum-bum)
Go to where the ale is poured,
Where the gates are open wide!

Go and spend the whole night drinking
And then fall under her spell...
Let the oldsters have their thinking,
Neat, straight, (primrose?) road to hell!

(Refrain:)
Life shall wither like a dream
You won't fool the Reaper, (uh)
And the happy days of Spriiiiing
Aaaaren't coming back here

The English translation of the verse is here

Old major writer Don DeLillo: "There's jazz in Underworld, too, and that would be the third element in my personal trinity -- of abstract expressionism, foreign films, and jazz. These things were probably stronger influences on my sensibility than anything I read."

That old major writers fall into the same traps as young pretentious authors of personal ads makes me very happy.

* Don't assume first-year undergrads know what a middle initial is, because they don't. Good job it was only a 2-point question on the test.

* Overheard a 5-y.o. future music critic saying to parents at the opera: "Nice screaming." Which was an accurate and complete summary of the proceedings.

* If the experience of an opera buffa is significantly enhanced by dressing up in nice clothes and watching opera singers (who are not especially good actors on accounta they're singers) clowning around, what does that say about the music itself? [1]

* That said, yep, the best way to make 80 tired students laugh on a Friday afternoon is to start speaking in a high-pitched voice.





[1] That I don't understand it, obviously. Shut up.

Watching The Wire for insights about society (the lack of the definite article is already annoying, right?) is like reading Playboy for the articles*. Or possibly the pictures, I'm not clear on that.

What's like reading Playboy for the articles, then?
*going to see "Watchmen" for the music
*listening to Frank Zappa for the music
*GOING to La Rural for the people
*playing [some computer games] for the story
*going to a whorehouse for the food
*Eating here and not ordering the all-you-can-eat sushi
*sifting Plato for arguments
*Reading NY Times for their business/economics opinion
*Eating apple dumplings for their fruit content
*listening to Peaches for the music
*not playing GTA for the violence
*going to hooters to eat wings
*watching the MTV Movie Awards to see who actually won

I put it to you that in every case, the simile would be improved by saying "like reading playboy for the pictures" instead.







*Not an original observation: the only reason to read Playboy really is for the articles. Further distinctions need to be made about paper/e-copies**

**Not the distinction you think. I mean having the physical copy is probably more conductive to imagining you [enjoy] mixing up cocktails and an hors d’oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.

The older you are, the slower you are growing older: at some point being a year older stops making a difference.

((x-posted))



via John B.

Over at avva's, they're dissecting all the false claims that Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky [1] makes here about political correctness (Russian, but I'll translate the relevant bits). And there's a lot to discuss there.

(Aside: of course political correctness [3], emanating as it is mostly from the administration of small universities and the management of large corporations [2], is complete bullshit, more or less. Which isn't to say that you shouldn't treat people with respect.)

Bukovsky makes one easily refutable claim:

Это привело к такой цензуре, что в наши дни Шекспир бы жить не мог. Да половину его пьес уже и не ставят: "Венецианский купец" – антисемитизм, "Отелло" – расизм, "Укрощение строптивой" – сексизм…

This has led to a level of censorship that would make it impossible for Shakespeare to live in our times. Look, they don't even produce half his plays anymore: The Merchant of Venice is antisemitic, Othello is racist, The Taming of the Shrew is sexist...

Now anybody who knows anything about the theatre knows that they produce Othello all the freaking time and that it's not particularly racist, and nobody thinks that it is. And that everybody thinks Merchant and Shrew are respectively anti-semitic and sexist, and they produce them anyway.

So Bukovsky doesn't like theatre too much, fine. But this takes the cake:

Я шел в свою лабораторию (Буковский – нейрофизиолог, - Regions.ru), а навстречу по лестнице спускались две девушки. Я придержал для них дверь. Они поглядели на меня с презрением и сказали: "Мужская шовинистическая свинья"

I was walking to my lab, and saw two young girls walking toward me. I held the door for them. They looked at me with contempt and said: "Male chauvinist pig."

Now I'm not saying this couldn't happen. People say all sorts of stuff. But I'm saying: nobody who regularly holds doors for people would think this is anywhere close to a typical reaction. And anybody who betrays a belief that this sort of thing happens more than once in a blue moon (and there's a number of these people) is an asshole who never holds doors for people.





[1] Let the record reflect that Bukovsky is a hero and I'm not.

[2] I'm aware those are not the only sources of PC, but those are the ones that are relevant (I use the term loosely) to the lives of 99.9% of the population.

[3] A distinction is in order between PC and good old peer pressure.

(the title is a riff on "nice guys finish last." Here's a treatise on nice guys, one of many)

And a long list it is, mostly but not exclusively dudes. I'm not quite sure I understand the howls of disappointment in comments: you like these people for their extraordinary ability to perform creepiness [1], but you think the creepiness is just a put on? And if you connect with the creepiness, don't you think it's a valid way to be in some sense?

(I suppose you can go with an analogue of Rorty's reading of Lolita [2] and claim that the creepiness should be under control when you're asked to sign petitions and such, but the entire point of Lolita-according-to-Rorty is that controlling Nabokov-like self-regard isn't easy, so you shouldn't be too disappointed)

So yeah, give the nice guys a glance. I'm pretty sure they won't sign the petition.


[1] Particularly I'm talking about Allen, Lynch, Gilliam to some extent, Aronfoski, and Wenders. But really almost any kind of director LJ commenters would be infatuated with would more likely than not be the performing creepiness kind.

[2] Briefly, Nabokov is sort of like Humbert, and the point is to express the fear of becoming more like Humbert [3].

[3] In the sense of being self-regarding, you pervs

(x-posted)

So, for the record, this is snark for snark's sake, and show's in previews. Also, the Quizno's near the theatre did not meet my approval either.

I was saving this line for an occasion where it actually fits, but whatever. Rock 'n' Roll is such a great play that even listening to its being read out in a dull monotonous voice is an evening well-spent. You don't have to take my word for it, you can go to CanStage's production.

Well, actually, no you can't, because all the actors act like they're on speed [1]. Which is all the more surprising when you take into account that what the characters are smoking is actually pot.

And what's with the audible reaction from the audience to the expression "rancid c***"? Grow up, people, you're like 50 already.

And also, I'm not saying I know anything about anything, but here's how to make the wisecracking in Stoppard (or Shakespeare, for that matter, this stuff isn't new) not come out of left field.

Think Inigo Montoya. He's always had the entire speech ("...offer me anything I ask for... I want my father back, you son of a bitch") prepared. He keeps repeating "Hello, my name Inigo Montoya" until he can make the punch line fit in, to make the moment perfect. That's how Stoppard is, and that's how most of his characters are (that, or they're ad-libbing, and then are terribly pleased with themselves). I put it to you that that's how you make the jokes work, and that's how you make the pause after the punch line seem natural,

Anyway, I'll now go fit my eyes back into their sockets.

[1] Disclaimer: I don't know how people act when they're on speed

Вопрос на миллион долларов: Б = НБ?

(x-posted)

(This blog is sort of straying off the original concept, I feel; regular programming will resume shortly with a new review of a new production of Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll)

(Pun very much intended, of course)

Let's start off with an unoriginal observation: it's of course better to be admired for [1] the more non-superficial things about you, the goodness of your character, if you will. At the same time, it's worse to be rejected for the non-superficial things about you than to be rejected for, say, being too short or ugly or what have you.

So if you're concerned about other people rather that your own precious self, since you're mostly rejecting people (obviously; at any one time, the admired/rejected ratio is about one to three billion. Or six, as the case may be), better select the objects of your admiration as superficially as possible.

Still, you have to reject people. And that's where the invidious indifference curves come in. Imagine the person who just makes the cut of admirability. Now imagine they're a little worse-looking. There's an amount of smartness that would presumably compensate for that, right? Right.

Now how's that for dehumanizing. And not even primarily for the objects of your non-affection.

I suppose the way out of this bind is to deliberately randomize the process a bit. (Told you I was being unoriginal.)


(While we're on the subject, dear male hipsters and wannabes: stop describing your SOs as "talented." For one thing, they're not, and for another, how is "talented" any better than "hot?" They're both inborn, you know. Nobody's fooled, is my point.)


[1] As long as we're being unoriginal, "loved for" is silly. Hence the trope "I don't like X, but I love him."

Conservatives had warned against using the annual pro-Palestinian march, known as Quds Day, as an excuse for renewed protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad, whose disputed re-election in June plunged Iran into its worst internal crisis in three decades.

But the protesters turned out anyway, wearing green, the color of opposition, and often walking alongside larger groups of state-sanctioned marchers bearing huge banners denouncing Israel. The protesters even flouted Iran’s support for pro-Palestinian militants, chanting “No to Gaza and Lebanon, my life is for Iran.” And when officials shouted “death to Israel” through loudspeakers, protesters derisively chanted “death to Russia” in response. [...]

The opposition leaders Mir Hussein Moussavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami joined the crowds, drawing appreciative cheers and chants of support. Later, Basij militia members tried to attack Mr. Khatami and Mr. Karroubi, but defenders fought them back, opposition Web sites reported.

Hmmmm long time no post. This one is kinda crappy, though.

Over at John C Wright's, I'm alternately making pertinent and telling points and evidently not understanding final causation. Which, who knows, maybe I am [1].

(I sort of got angry at the bad behaviour in the second thread and left (not that I'm above using the interlocutor's bad behaviour for rhetorical advantage, but I did get genuinely irritated by the end) so I didn't get to give a detailed account of how anal sex is just like a symphony.) (No, I never sat through a symphony)

So, an exercise for the reader. In the second thread, I'm basically saying it's impossible to say what's the final cause of what, so whatever. Which is basically right, I think. (That is, sometimes it's not right at all, but it's true I think that a restrictive reading will forbid symphony-composing and so on and a liberal reading won't exclude almost anything). But isn't this the same kind of argument as the one employed here by Albert Jensen?


[1] As I was saying elsewhere, trying to imply your opponent fell victim to Dunning-Kruger is a weak weak weak rhetorical move, since the obvious retort is that maybe it's you who is under the D-K spell. That's what's known as the Kruger-Dunning counterploy.

what is life but one long not particularly successful date?