Ruminations on Walking in New York City during the Christmas Season

I must assume Christmas is not the best time to visit this remarkable metropolis.  To do otherwise would be unfair, I think.

I will say, though, that I am glad to have escaped it before New Year's Eve (no comparison with Snake Plissken or his New York is intended).  I am no stranger to big cities, and the holiday crowds which can infest them, and am enormously fond of the city of my birth, Chicago, which I will say with Norman Mailer is a great American city--indeed, I will go so far as to say Chicago is the great American city.  But unless you are fond of being part of a vast, slow moving, confused, and often unresponsive herd (there is no better word) of people, you would be well advised to avoid certain parts of Manhattan during the festive holiday season.

Well advised to do so if it is your desire to walk, that is, from one location to another.  The mere presence of crowds was not surprising.  What I found surprising was the fact that so many in the crowds seemed to have no intention of going somewhere.

For all I know, the herds roaming the streets and sidewalks of the wonderful town between the Bronx and the Battery this time of year are made up primarily, if not entirely, of tourists.  So, they may be taken up with gaping at the sites, or photographing the many signs in Times Square.  Real New Yorkers may find them appalling, and avoid parts of the city during this season like the plague.  One has to make exception, though, for the many vendors and hawkers who block passage so effectively.  They, presumably, are not mere tourists.

There is something perverse, I think, in simply being on a sidewalk, stationary, preferably in the middle of it, generally encumbered with a large backpack, or perhaps holding onto a stroller encasing an infant catatonic with fear or confusion, while those who want actually to walk try to do so by bouncing off you and others like so many pinballs.  Perhaps worse yet are those who seek to walk but do so in a horizontal file which often extends the entire width of all available space.

This is something I haven't experienced before.  For example, even on Michigan Avenue at its most crowded the majority of people using the sidewalk walk north and south with genuine regularity, and according to a discernable pattern--those going north use one portion of the sidewalk, those going south use another.  During the Christmas season in New York, though, they seem to move, or stand, without purpose or intent; if they move, they do so sporadically, and then in various directions which cannot be anticipated, causing collisions.

I was reminded horribly of an episode of the original Star Trek series, about a planet so over-populated that they created a mock-up of the Enterprise (who knows why) and sent Kirk there where he encountered the usual beautiful female alien who was placed with him in the hope and expectation that he would pass along to her some kind of disease which would kill some of them off.  Every once in a while he would get a glimpse of the people of the planet, pressed up against one another, slowly trying to move but being nearly prevented from doing so.  That's what I was reminded of, tripping over people, if not the lights fantastic, on the sidewalks of New York.

The World is Too Much with Us?

I've always wondered about these words of Wordsworth.  How is the world "too much" with us?  Is it too much with us?  Or, too much with us?  And, "too much" implies the existence of some sort of standard by which "with us" or "with us" can be measured.  What is it?

Reading the poem, of course, gives one the impression that he is very simply and plainly complaining about us--we humans.  We get and spend, and lay waste our powers, whatever that may mean.  We see little in nature, or little in nature which is ours (nature is ours?  Or, there is little we see that is ours, in nature?)  And what's that about the sea baring her bosom to the moon?  Was it simply needed to rhyme, so sublimely, with "boon"?

That aside, he seems to be complaining about what we do to, or with, the world.  Imagine what he would write now, poor fellow.

I think there has always been in us a tendency to consider nature as something apart from humans.  Sometimes, the tendency is to romaticize nature, as something better than humans, or at least better without humans.  Sometimes, the tendency results in philosophers concluding that we cannot really know if there is an external world, or, if there is one, whether we can ever really know what it is like.  Sometimes, it results in the view that nature or the world, as something distinct from us, is something we can do with as we please.  In each case, I think, this tendency deludes us.

I tend to think, as I believe Dewey did, that we are not separate, at least not in any significant sense.  We're all there, with everything else; we're part and parcel, as it were, of "ordinary day to day life", interacting with other humans and creatures and things.  Nature, or the world, or the universe, includes humans.

One would think it a rather elementary inference from this that it is in our interest to act accordingly. i.e. to ascertain and anticipate how we interact with everything else, determine the results of that interaction, and analyze the benefits and costs of certain kinds of interaction, ultimately selecting those which result in benefits.  I don't think we can do so, intelligently, when viewing nature as an idyllic paradise we soil, or something distinct from us we cannot really know, or something which is ours to do with as we please.

The Dangers of Rereading

I suppose it's not unusual to find that authors you once were fond of, particularly during your adolescence, are not what you thought they were on a second reading.  I remember reading a good deal of Nietzsche, once.  Now, I'm not sure why I took the time to do so.  I suppose he can be said to have proclaimed quite a few things, some of them interesting, but it seems he did not think it significant to explain his many assertions in any reasonable manner.  As I grow older, I tend to think explaining is important; it's a good indication that one has actually thought about what one is contending.  There was a time I read Ayn Rand with something approaching pleasure, delighting in some perverse sense in her solemn and relentless sermonizing.  Now, I find it hard to read her without giggling.

I was surprised, though, to find myself disappointed when reading Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad.  I recalled Twain as being an insightful and thoughful critic of human affairs, and as a great American comic writer.  It was depressing to read his little sketches about this trip to Europe by what appeared to be a number of stock American comic characters, some of whom were characterized as mere buffoons, all of whom were uninteresting.  They seemed to lack all credibility.  Was Twain playing up to some readers back home, who actually found such stuff amusing?  Even his description of the sights of the Azores, Gibraltar and Tangiers, for example, were uninspired.  The foreigners are dirty and smelly, and so for that matter are their cities.

Now, I must confess that I simply stopped reading.  I found myself dreading to read any more, after a time.  It's quite possible that he eventually gave up his hackneyed descriptions of the antics of his fellow voyagers, and that he came to make interesting observations on the people and places he visited.  If so, I didn't have the patience to read on.  This work, and his other works, are apparently the subject of intense study by academics and creative writers.  Perhaps I'm at fault.

But it seemed shoddy stuff, and even if the quality of his writing is attibutable to the fact that he was writing on a deadline, as a journalist, I think he comes off looking rather shabby.  Mencken would have done far better with such subject matter.  Some creative writers can be outstanding journalists as well, e.g. Stephen Crane.  Did they have more respect for the intelligence of their readers, and their own intelligence, than old Sam?  I wonder if he came to be a tiresome parody of himself in time--the folksy humorist.  For that matter, Thurber would have done a better job making the characters amusing.

Speculations on the Cause of Stupidity

The plight of the Great Golfer, Tiger Woods, leads me to wonder whether sexual desire is the primary, if not the only, cause of stupidity--at least among males.  One can't avoid the onslaught of "news" regarding what are apparently his many mistresses and affairs.  In the face of this relentless assault, I've decided not to succumb to mere amusement or boredom (which strive for dominance of my attitude when faced with such circumstances), but to ponder its implications for the study of our idiocy.

One notes that this sort of thing happens fairly often to famous or infamous males, that it is normally found out, and found out in most cases because the man involved has been in some sense spectacularly stupid.  I suspect it happens quite often to less than famous men as well, and that stupidity plays its part in their discomforture.

I'm not going to cite examples (and there are many), but submit for your consideration that this urge has at one time or the other turned all men into gibbering, drooling idiots, and likely will continue to do so.  Further, I submit that all men know this, and many are horrified to find that this knowledge counts for nothing at all.  We must be stupid in this case, and then, having been stupid, and knowing the consequences, we are stupid in our efforts to hide or mitigate our stupidity.  There is something truly pathetic, indeed tragic, about this incapacity.

I wonder if women are subject to the same kind of volunteered imbecility. One hears of women being stupid when it comes to sex, of course, but it doesn't seem one hears of them going to the extemes men are capable of, except, perhaps, in the case of that astronaut who made herself ridiculuous.

Now, because the human capacity to be stupid is immense, it makes no sense to postulate a single cause of stupidy.  We are capable of being profoundly stupid for various reasons, and in circumstances where sex is not involved.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that sex causes us to be stupid in particular ways, e.g. clownishly stupid, or too often, cruelly stupid.

Would we be better off without it?  Chemical castration, anyone?

Regarding Assumptions and Afghanistan

Assume, arguendo, that the armed forces of the U.S. should be in Afghanistan. Use of the word "should" implies the existence of a good reason, so let's further assume there is one, e.g., their presence prevents the Taliban from dominating that nation, or their presence prevents the use of that nation as a staging ground for terrorist attacks.

Rather significant assumptions, some might say.

If they are made, though, the addition of 30,000 soldiers to that presence may make very good sense, if that addition is necessary to the continued success of the desired good outcome. Let's assume that's the case as well.

Adding 30,000 soldiers while telling the world that you will be withdrawing soldiers as of 2011 doesn't seem to make sense, even given the assumptions made, unless one makes further assumptions.  Those assumptions would be, I think, along the lines of (1) the danger of a Taliban resurgence or of the use of that nation as a haven for terrorists intent on wrecking havoc will diminish as of 2011, or (2) there will be a decreasing need for an American military presence to assure the desired good outcome commencing in 2011.

There would seem, though, to be little reason to believe either is likely to occur.  It would appear probable that the Taliban won't be leaving Afghanistan as of 2011, or that, if they should do so, they will return.  It would also seem probable that a steady decrease in the American military presence will not make the nation less a haven for terrorists.  It becomes more and more difficult to make assumptions on top of assumptions.

What then is the likely purpose of proclaiming that the U.S. will add 30,000 soldiers to its military presence and will begin withdrawing troops as of 2011?  It's difficult to think of any legitimate purpose.  As a result, it is natural to wonder if the purpose is not legitimate, or is an indication that those in power have no idea what to do, and are therefore willing to tread water, as it were, while they try to come up with a course of action.  Treading water in these circumstances, though, would seem to preclude adding soldiers; instead one would simply maintain the status quo.  So, does it make sense to infer that the 30,000 are being sent in an effort (vain, one would think) to placate political opposition?