A Plague of (and upon) Pundits

I've been wondering why it is that I (and it seems others as well) feel particularly weary of our politics these days.  No doubt this weariness is the result of the nature of our politicians, our political system, and the cynicism which they breed.  But I think also that, more and more, the ubiquity of pundits, who are displayed like totems by those who believe themselves to be journalists in these dark times (o tempora!) are to blame for our--or at least my--discontent, ennui.

I'm increasingly annoyed by the chihuahua-like yapping of Chris Matthews, the boorish, beefy locutions of Rush Limbaugh, the nasal pontifications of Bill Maher, the messianic vagaries of Glenn Beck...the list goes on, and on.  But these are only among the wealthier of those who, for reasons I find puzzling, are paid to tell us incessantly what they think about people and events.  There is always some lackey of a political candidate or party, some self-or-media appointed expert, someone, some person, regardless of qualification or party or preference who is called upon by some talking head to remark on whatever is considered news. 

Do broadcast journalists now think it impossible to function without some pundit or expert available to expound on something they speak on camera or to a microphone?  It cannot be that these people are used, or indeed are expected, to contribute to the knowledge of those who watch or listen, or provide some insight.  They generally say exactly what anyone with nominal intelligence would expect them to say based on their all-to-obvious interests or positions.  Why bother asking them to appear?  Has it become a custom of sorts?  Is there a general, implied agreement that pundits will be called upon on any topic?  Is there a kind of union of pundits which has compelled television and radio networks to employ at least one of its members whenever they are "on the air"?

Clearly, those of us who are not pundits or journalists are considered incapable of thinking for ourselves.  So, we are provided with pundits who will tell us what to think and why we should think it.  The fact that pundits increase and prosper, go forth and multiply, would seem to indicate that this is believed to be the case and, worse yet, may in fact be the case.  Or, if we are not yet incapable of thinking for ourselves--if there are still persons capable of thought among us--perhaps the plethora of pundits will inexorably assure that we will become incapable of making decisions on the issues of the day without their supposed assistance.

Unfortunately, pundits seem to impact our conduct more and more.  They tell us how to act, how to react.  That tell us who will or will not be elected.  They tell us what they will or will not do once they are elected.  They tell us what foreign countries will do, what religious people will do, what the markets will do, and what will happen (to us) when they do what they will do.

It is a kind of plague, and there is a way to avoid a plague and that is to avoid contamination.  That is, in this case, achieved rather simply despite the omnipresence of those who carry or propagate the plague.  Stop watching them; stop paying any attention to them.  Don't read them, don't listen to them.  There are only a few of them who know anything or have anything to tell you and you can, if you but try, find out what you need to make an informed decision all by yourself.  They must be quarantined.  There is no cure, they cannot be made well.  If we are fortunate, they will die off.

Save yourself, while you still can.  Think for yourself.

The Fascination of Games of Skill

There are certain of us who are fascinated by such games, and that fascination and the availability of these games given our technology fascinate me, and are the subjects of this post.  By "games" I do not mean sports, which doubtless involve skill but are not my topic today.

I should acknowledge what expertise, or lack of expertise, I have in these games.  I can only pretend to a real knowledge of one of them in particular, and that is chess.  That knowledge is somewhat beyond that of a casual or recreational player, although I'm purely a recreational player at this time.  But in the past I've been a competitive scholastic and club player, which I think earns me a different status in some respects.

I'm not sure whether chess is typical of games of skill or whether it is peculiar.  I do know, however, sometimes from personal experience and sometimes not, that very good chess players can be very peculiar indeed.  Bobby Fischer is the best modern example of this peculiarity I can think of; arguably the best chess player ever, but also at times malicious and seemingly delusional.  Paul Morphy is a good example of chess' peculiar past.  But there are very good chess players who can be described as normal, more or less, but for their concern with chess, which can be their primary concern in life.

The complexity of chess in a sense requires such concern.  If one wants to be a very good chess player, a great deal of study is required, and much over-the-board experience is needed is well, particularly in tournaments.  That is quite time consuming.  But what is it about chess, or about a person, which motivates the desire to be a very good player?

To a certain extent, I think chess' complexity is fascinating in and of itself.  We are problem solvers by nature; that is what we must do to survive and thrive.  John Dewey claimed that we only really think when we encounter a problem and I think he was right in a sense.  Complex problems challenge us, and there is a very real satisfaction we feel when we solve such problems.

That satisfaction is increased, though, when in solving such problems we do so better than others and by doing so defeat them in what is considered a contest of skill.  So, our conceit and self-love is very much involved, and our desire for status in a community.  Fischer as I recall claimed to delight in psychologically crushing his opponents.  Perhaps there is a kind of malice or ruthlessness that is needed in order to be a predominate player of such games.

Do these considerations apply to other games of skill?  Assuming poker involves skill (and I think it does), are these factors relevant to good play?  Or is the monetary component primary?  They actually televise poker, for reasons I confess I don't understand, but that may be simply because poker doesn't really interest me.  That seems to indicate it is fascinating in a certain way, but is that fascination a fascination with poker itself, or a function of the fact that certain of us enjoy being spectators to people winning or losing large sums of money?  What about contract bridge?  What about wei chi, also known as go or goh?

Our technology now allows us to experience various games of skill, some of them which may be considered exotic.  There are applications, for example, by which those who download them may be challenged not merely in chess, but in wei chi, or senet (an ancient Egyptian game) or ludus lantrunculorum, a game played in ancient Rome and Greece.  There are also "games of skill" applications which seem to involve finding things, and running silly looking figures through mazes; the applications themselves are emblazoned by garish and cartoonish logos which I avoid instinctively, so I don't know whether or not skill is actually involved.

I know of wei chi through Edward Lasker's book on it (a chess player who became interested in it) and by reputation as a game requiring great skill indeed.  An enjoyment of history makes me interested in ancient games of skill.  As I result, I've downloaded applications for those games and others, those whose logos are subdued, and am enjoying them, though I don't know whether those applications are "good" in the sense I know certain chess applications are (the rules governing the ancient games are not known for certain, so those applications are to an extent speculative).

It seems wonderful that our technology now gives so many of us access to such games, which would not have been available even a short time ago.  But will this merely feed our fascination with these games, and result in more and more of us succumbing to that fascination to the exclusion of more pressing concerns?  More Bobby Fischers would not necessarily be "optimal" as our President would say.

Homage to Matthew Arnold

Ultimately, I think he managed to transcend Romanticism, and that is much to his credit.  It was not easy, given the times in which he lived, to appeal to the rational, nor was it easy for him to do what I think he did, and that is to move poetry from its overwrought, sometimes saccharine, indulgence in the emotions and gushing celebration of nature towards the modernism of such as Elliot and Stephens; towards a coolly intellectual though melancholy appraisal of life.  Dover Beach remains, for me, one of the greatest poems, and it fascinates me that a Victorian managed to write it.

He was a fine writer of prose as well, and an astute social and literary critic.  When it comes to religion, which clearly was of great importance to him, it strikes me that in a way he is a tragic figure, doomed to appreciate the Greek and Roman thinkers, including Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics, who espoused a pre-Christian view he admired and yet bound to champion Christianity, or at least a version of it, cleansed as best as possible in that era from superstition.  It makes for a certain inconsistency in his thought.

So does his respect for tradition and his formidably aristocratic perspective of culture, what it could and should mean, with respect to his desire to improve society.  I'm reading his Culture and Anarchy now, and his musings regarding Nonconformist and Establishment religions are striking in their conservatism, as is his view of education, and he was quite well-versed regarding what passed as education then.

He is inclined to be critical of American education, though he indicates he believes that it has resulted in increased literacy, because he views it as being limited to informing people of and interesting them merely in business and politics, and not what he clearly believes to be of importance, i.e., those aspects of culture which have not much of anything to do with business and politics.  But unless he describes later in this work or otherwise in his writings how one manages to teach the classics and the nonmaterial aspects of culture to the masses, this kind of criticism appears ineffective, and even rather petulant.  Are we to avoid education because it only manages to allow people to read newspapers and does not induce them to read Plato or (shudder) Newman?

One must start somewhere, or not start at all.  I get the impression that he would rather not start at all, unless in starting we teach everything, and this was not a realistic goal then nor is it now.  Still, his sincerity is apparent.  Perhaps that was typical of the Victorians.  They were sincere in their desire to improve humanity, but their conception of what constituted improvement was limited and their conception of the means by which improvement could be made was narrow.

I think of him as a transitional figure, much like J.S. Mill was in philosophy.  Too thoughtful to be an irrational windbag like Emerson or a complete and utter elitist like Coleridge and others of the time, but still inherently conservative in thought and belief,  He reminds me somewhat of Santayana in his prejudices, but he lacks Santayana's naturalism.  A figure worthy of note and serious consideration.

The Renaissance of the Primitive

We live in a world of astounding technological and scientific development in which we are experiencing a kind of rebirth, or renewal, of the more primitive aspects of human thought and culture.  This renaissance of the primitive is most evident in religion, where fundamentalism and literalism seem to be in vogue.  The renaissance is not limited to Islam, though its propensity towards violence and intolerance is most apparent due to the efforts of Islamic radicals.  The anti-science, anti-reason wing of American religion is becoming increasingly vocal; we even have elected officials huffing regarding the satanic origins of the theory of evolution and the big bang and proclaiming the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

Of course, there has always been something outrageously primitive about certain of the varieties of American Protestantism.  Too many have been eager to do handsprings down the center aisle, to heal and be healed in dramatic fashion, to loudly be witnesses to their faith in this Great Republic, throughout its history.  But the peculiarities of the old tent shows and TV evangelism are becoming more and more pervasive.

Primitive thinking seems also to be prevalent.  It is perhaps inaccurate to describe what takes place before we emote, speak, text, as thinking at all, but whatever it may be it is simple and crude.  Perhaps this is inevitable given the unstoppable urge we apparently feel to do something and do it quickly.  We have become proponents of immediacy.  And these days, what we do may almost be said to be "written in stone" as it will be there, forever, for anyone to see or otherwise experience, on the Web, or video or audio.  All we do is in perpetuum.  Thus, our technology contributes to the propagation of the primitive.

I cannot help but think that the resurgence of the primitive in our society is caused, at least in part, by the exaltation of emotion and denigration of reason, the romanticism, the relativism, the "deconstruction" which have been the fixation, if not the obsession, of too many who have been considered intellectuals and some who have haunted the halls of the Academy for roughly a century and a half; at least those who have been critical of and indeed resentful of science.  All is narrative, we're told.  We all simply tell stories we call science, or philosophy, and their worth is judged through literary criticism only.  It is unsurprising that faced with such a onslaught against reason and reasonableness, many have reverted to simple beliefs which they are willing to defend and propound regardless of whether they are reasonable, for what good is reason?  We are absolved from exercising judgment, and are losing both the ability and the desire to judge intelligently.

Intolerance is inevitable when it is impossible to dispute beliefs.  When it is futile to question the soundess of claims, one claim being just as good as any other, claims are not subject to thought but instead are defended without thought, i.e. physically. 

While we employ reason in addressing certain problems, those related to our physical comfort and technology, because reason clearly benefits us in those respects in ways most of us find desirable, we ignore it in determining what we should do, how we should live and interact with others and the universe of which we are a part.

I think a bang is more likely than a whimper, now.