Islands in the Stream of Consciousness

Let me first give credit to the person who coined the phrase used as the title to this post, Jim Reich.  He was a good friend, now dead. It combines the title of Hemingway's Islands in the Stream and a literary technique well known and practiced with some frequency in the first half of the twentieth century and even now.  Knowing him as I did, I don't think he was referring to the Dolly Parton/Kenny Rodgers duet.

Stream of Consciousness is a literary device, but the phrase, or something like it, was used by the psychologist-philosopher William James in this Principles of Psychology to describe states of consciousness, or thoughts or ideas, as being a process, a flow, rather than isolated and distinct from one another.  Efforts were made by certain authors to replicate this flow in their poetry and novels.  Famous practitioners were James Joyce, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, Virginia Woolf and others.

I doubt that the literary technique is or can be anything like the process or flow conceived of by James, however.  The fact that it's employed for a purpose--that it is indeed a technique, a contrivance--renders this impossible.  What James and others (like John Dewey) point out is that typically our states of mind or consciousness are non-reflective.  In other words, we don't constantly think; we don't consider means and ends, we don't anticipate events or consequences.  In fact, we seldom do.  We think when we have to do so, or are induced to think by encountering a situation we find problematic or dissatisfying in some sense.  Then, we seek to resolve it.  For the most part, we merely feel, or react thoughtlessly, as a "habit" to use Dewey's terminology.

Stream of consciousness writing is deliberate, and requires thought.  Through thinking, the practitioners of Stream of Consciousness writing attempt to imitate that which isn't thought.

It doesn't work.  If you read examples of it you may find on the internet, I think you'll agree with me.  What you'll see, I believe, is an effort to express thoughts or feelings in an unconventional manner, sometimes disjointed, sometimes juxtaposition is unexpected, sometimes surprising but not as a stream or flow.  In fact, the thoughts, feelings, ideas presented using the Stream of Consciousness technique are staccato.

How could they not be?  It's a limitation imposed by language itself, I think.  Even shorn of such words as pronouns, the description of walking in the woods would be something like:  Walking, exercise, wood smell, sunny, feeling fit, warm, getting tired, etc.  The description is necessarily made up of separate items, independent of one another.

Words, books, poetry, fiction and non-fiction prose aren't part of James' stream of consciousness, because they're read.  A book or books might be when we merely see or encounter them, but reading and understanding them are not. 

It's true that they may serve to evoke a feeling, however.  But that feeling, having been evoked by the effort of reading and comprehending, isn't part of the stream.  Like reading itself, like thinking, like acting for a purpose, they can be thought of as islands in the stream of consciousness as my old friend put it.  They break up the stream, they divert it, for a time.  Then, we get back to simply existing.

Because writing supposed to reflect a Stream of Consciousness clearly does no such thing (or so I think) I wonder whether such writing was more a fad than anything else.  Perhaps Gertrude Stein was reading James on psychology on day and was struck by the idea, and passed it on to her acolytes, who passed it on in turn.  E.E. Cummings is said to be a poet who used the technique.  If so, his poems always strike me as disjointed, deliberately so--staccato, in fact--and perhaps that can be said to prove my point.  His poems have impact, but they can hardly be said to flow.  They don't flow, they jerk from point to point.  It seems odd to me that any writer would think that they were accurately portraying the way our consciousness works using this device.

Ultimately, perhaps, reading prompts us to decide what kind of island in the Stream of Consciousness writing we want to live on or explore, for a time.  The part of the writer is to make the island worth exploring.  What is worth exploring will vary from person to person and time to time, of course, but that's the way of real islands as well.

 

Nation Building, Nation Leaving

 

Not for nothing has Afghanistan been called "the graveyard of empires."  It's seen several come and go, and it's unclear that any of them left it changed in any significant or enduring respect.  This isn't to say that it has been unchanged since the time of Alexander the Great, when he and the army his father Phillip built wandered and conquered there.  But it is to say that what has changed in Afghanistan would very likely have changed regardless of efforts made to control and dominate it by foreign powers.

Our Glorious Union was there in force for twenty years.  Let's not debate whether our Great Republic is an empire, properly speaking.  Let's not debate the soundness of the reasons for our entry, though that's certainly something which can be debated.  Of more importance at this time (I think) are what took place after we intervened in that country's history, and the manner of our departure.

I can't think of an instance where a foreign power has conquered a nation and successfully built another, different nation in its place.  The concept of "nation building" strikes me as essentially hubristic.  It's a task so colossal, and therefore so expensive, that it's hard to believe any would attempt it.  Ancient Rome managed to conquer and have imperium of vast territory occupied by different nations for centuries, but even when "Romanizing" its provinces, it never sought to drastically alter the religion and culture of those conquered, except in the case of Judea.  Judea was a special case, though.  It revolted twice, and its distinctness, otherwise tolerated by Rome due to the fact its uniqueness was ancient, became dangerous.  Also, the emperor who presided over the second revolt of its people, Hadrian, was misguided in thinking he could change it into something it simply could not be.

It's likely that Hadrian may have thought not merely that the response to the second revolt should be brutal and thoroughly so, as it certainly was.  He may have thought, as an avid Hellenophile, that suppression of Judaism and forceful imposition of Graeco-Roman culture and religion was in the best interest of its people.

It doesn't seem to be the case that we entered Afghanistan to engage in nation building.  But the mission must have changed, somehow.  Our leaders evidently thought it was in the best interests of the people of Afghanistan that its society, culture and religion be changed, not merely that its people be controlled and rendered quiescent.  The latter was generally the strategy of Rome.  Let them be orderly, peaceful, and tax-paying, respectful of the genius of Rome and its emperors; then all will be well no matter what gods they worship or what their customs may be.  It's possible that order may have been achieved, and violence, at least against the U.S., limited if not eradicated.  But I think it's always been highly unlikely that Afghanistan would become anything like America or Europe in its customs, or in its religion or system of law, or in the freedoms and rights granted its people, though that may well be in the best interests of its people.

When that's unlikely or impossible, the wisdom of "nation building" must be questioned, and the costs especially in terms of lives lost or destroyed that result from such an ill-fated effort recognized, and it should be avoided.  Some people are very different from us and some don't even want to be like us.  They can't be made to be like us.  This should be a truth easy enough to accept.  But it seems we don't, or can't accept it.

In any case, it seems that if we're inclined to accept it, we do so far too late, and when we do we strive to extricate ourselves from the mess created precipitately.  We want to "cut our losses" as soon as we can.  The thought is to remove Americans as quickly as possible, regardless of consequences.  The result is chaos.  Such is the fate of those who purport to create a Western style democracy in Afghanistan, perhaps.  

The speed with which the Taliban was able to "take back their country" to use a phrase we've heard before was apparently surprising.  Also surprising, we hear, was the manner in which the army we tried to create to replace us, eventually, took flight from them.  Perhaps it was our intent to help those who helped us, putting their lives at risk, by evacuating them as well as ourselves.  One would hope so.  One would hope we still manage to save all the people we can.  But we won't save all who helped us or wished for a change, and their fate becomes the legacy of our twenty years there, to little purpose though the cost was great.  What did those who died in service to their country there die for?  We ask the same question regarding those who died in Vietnam. 

A helicopter perched on the top of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, a line of people trying to climb into it.  That photograph taken in 1975 during the Fall of Saigon is a famous one, and has been dug up for display alongside photos taken much more recently in Kabul.  The evacuation of Saigon was called "Operation Frequent Wind."  One wonders who came up with the name, and what was intended by it.  Better than "Breaking Wind" I suppose.  What will the evacuation of Kabul be called?  Something like "Frantic Departure" probably won't be selected.  

The United States should not be an empire.  It acts as if it is one from time to time.  In the Mexican War, in the Spanish-American War, in taking the Philippines.  There clearly are moral reasons for not being imperial.  But I also think that we're too inclined not only to enrich ourselves and our friends, but  also  to impose not merely order but what we think and believe on others, our culture and society, on others.  That may be impossible and is certainly impractical.  We're not Romans, that's to say.

Courage, Athletics and Mental Health

Another Olympics has come and gone.  Controversy of some kind seems to have become part of the experience of the games, and in the case of this one that controversy, at least here in God's Favorite Country, involves the decision of one participant to decline from participating in certain events.  But it appears that it's the reasons she gave for her decision that some find offensive rather than the decision itself.

I speculate that the self-appointed guardians of morality we hear from regarding this decision would have been silent if a physical injury or condition was involved (at least in ancient Rome, Censors were magistrates appointed not by themselves, but by others).  Perhaps I give them too much credit, but I like to think they wouldn't have gotten quite so excited if a broken leg was given as a reason.  But alas, not physical, but emotional and what are called "mental" issues were invoked, and this aroused the Censors of this age.

There's no question that successful athletes have been considered heroes or heroic for a very long time.  Those who aren't successful generally are ignored at best, mocked at worst.  That those who applaud these heroes or mock those who lose are generally themselves entirely lacking as athletes of any kind presents some interesting questions, but those questions will have to be the subjects of another post.

It strikes me that the view that athletes are to struggle on regardless of pain or injury is in some sense romantic, or a kind of expression of perceived masculine virtues--a sort of comparison along the lines of that parodied in SNL's Quien es Mas Macho.  I think this may be due, in part, to the tendency to think of sport as a sort of war.  Our British cousins are famous, or infamous, for claiming that team sports constitute outstanding preparation for war, and perhaps that has something to do with it.  There was a time when it was claimed that battles fought in war were won on the Playing Fields of Eton.  Those playing fields and others, though, were played in by the rich and aristocratic, and it's doubtful that they alone, or their schooldays, were responsible for any victory.    

There seems to be a difference between our glorification of team sports and the view of athletic heroism held in ancient times by the Greeks and Romans.  Individual achievement was glorified in the past, and as far as I'm aware, athletics were not deemed preparation for war in ancient times.  War was something fairly common then.  Training for war was a part of life for all citizens. It wasn't necessary to pretend to be at war as those of us who have not been at war enjoy doing now.

The case of Simone Biles is an interesting one.  She was, in fact, very successful before Tokyo.  There can be no question that she is lacking in ability, or that she doesn't have what it takes to be a great athlete.  One wonders how many medals are required to establish her qualifications, or to demonstrate she isn't "weak."  She had nothing left to prove and could have sat out these Olympics, I believe, without shame.

Nonetheless, her admission of doubts regarding her chances of success have been characterized as weakness; unworthiness, in fact.  Indeed, they've been claimed to be characteristic of our society.  Or, perhaps it's fairer to say that the reaction of some to her case is considered by others to indicate our nation and society are decadent or decayed.

It's apparent that some of our pundits are irritated that her admission of doubts is being praised by others, and particularly because the praise includes claims she is showing bravery and strength.  There is apparently nothing to be praised or honored in honesty in such a case, although given the negative reaction of the more reactionary among us, it may be said a certain bravery was required to make the admission.  Praising it or honoring it is said to encourage failure and lack of effort.  

The tendency of pundits and media to overstate, and especially to generalize, is clear.  It's what those paid to express outrage and emotion, to stir up interest and controversy, do--indeed, what they live for, and as such it's one of the many burdens we must carry throughout our lives given the fact that opinions are now ubiquitous regardless of their merit.  So, the praise given may well be excessive, as is the disfavor expressed.

But it's curious how inclined we are to ascribe qualities like courage, bravery, weakness, vacillation to others, especially when it comes to sports figures.  It's painfully clear that most of us are incapable of being professional athletes or those who perform at the higher levels.  Why then be critical of those of them who decide that it isn't worth their physical or mental health to continue to compete?  Why should they think it's worth their own harm to entertain us or indulge our voyeuristic or vicarious needs?

If it's appropriate to speak of the decadence or decay of our society, one would think that the fact we look to sports for examples of courage or moral strength would be a more compelling example of our degeneracy.  Is it only in athletics that we think those qualities obtain, or should be manifested?  Is their greatest expression pretending not to be concerned about mental or physical health?

 

Anti-Vax Americana

I haven't posted for some time.  What shall I address which helps describe our peculiarities (one of my favorite topics, endlessly interesting as we're endlessly peculiar)?  We continue to shoot one another; we seem to do so more and more, in fact.  But I've addressed that interesting quirk of our natures often enough.  What else do we do thoughtlessly, which may cause harm to ourselves and others?  The answer is clear.

Here in our Great Republic we have a history when it comes to vaccine avoidance.  We've struggled to avoid vaccines for many years, for the same reasons, if they may be referred to as such, we do so now (see above).

This isn't to say that we're alone in our fear of vaccinations, or at least that we were alone in that fear in the past.  Victorian England thought vaccination frightening as well.  But we may bring to this fear something unusual being, as we are, particularly fearful of the unknown, of the different.

As for myself, I'm old enough to recall the polio vaccination, distributed to youngsters like myself in school gyms, usually, where we waited in line to suck on a sugar cube.  Subsequently, we received vaccines of various kinds at school, e.g. for measles and, I think, possibly for chicken pox.  Perhaps not the latter, though; if so, I received that vaccination too late or it didn't result in protection enough, as I became sick with it.  I think there were other vaccines as well.  Being vaccinated was simply a part of my elementary school experience.  Being against vaccination is, for me, odd.

I think we have to admit that fear is the cause of the rejection of vaccinations.  It was in the past, when scientific and medical knowledge was limited, but is so now as well.  This reversion to ignorance does us very little credit.  I personally doubt that love for personal liberty or scientific/medical concerns motivate those of us who protest against it.  Fear alone can explain the scope of anti-vaccination frenzy and the dubious explanations given in its support.  Our capacity to justify what can only be called our fear of vaccination is seemingly unlimited.  There was a time when it was thought that vaccinations, especially those derived from animals, would cause us to look like animals ourselves--growing snouts and hooves and tails.  I haven't heard that justification in the case of the COVID vaccine, but there are various conspiracy theories which approach that degree of absurdity.  

Some, after all, think that the vaccine alters our DNA.  It's unclear why this is believed, but perhaps this theory of alteration suffices to include physical alteration.  Perhaps it turns us gay, or influences our gender perception.  Others think that a microchip is secretly being installed in us when we're vaccinated.  Less weird is the belief that the vaccine will kill us or make us dreadfully ill.  Sometimes, a vaccine will create serious health problems.  But it appears this happens very seldom; so seldom it is a vanishingly limited possibility.  Otherwise, rumors of death resulting from the vaccine seems to be greatly exaggerated, or premised on inference along the lines of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

If we assume that fear isn't a primary factor we're left with a concern that our bodies are our own, to do with as we wish, and that we should be allowed to determine what is or is not inserted in them.  This is the position of those concerned only with themselves.  It may be that they believe they have no duty or obligation to others, and that the risk of exposing others doesn't figure into their decision as a result.  Or it may be they believe there is no risk great enough to outweigh their self-concern.  In either case, it's an inherently selfish point of view which can only be described as crass.  Perhaps crassness is a virtue as much as selfishness is, to certain of us.  How could it not be?

As with so much else that passes for thought and judgment these days, the anti-vaccination frenzy has spread as much as the virus has, if not more, due to the ubiquity of misinformation that's available to those who seek reassurance that their fears are justified.  One need only click on a mouse or type a few words and the vast world of unintelligence is revealed.  There's room under the Great Tin Hat of the Internet for all.  We need only stick our heads into it, and the countless voices of the legions of the damned fools will speak to us.

We know already what those voices will say, but we want desperately to hear them speak nonetheless.  We're at risk, they say.  Those we love are at risk; our way of life is at risk; our country is at risk, due to the efforts of those who are unlike us, or control the government, or money, or the media.  It doesn't matter whose voices they are, as they say what is the truth as we feel it, and what we feel is the only real consideration.  That's why evidence that foreign interests or powers, or others who wish to take advantage of us, are the voices we hear, or make use of them, doesn't matter to so many.  What does matter is agreement.

 

The Fate of Satire

Reference to a dictionary will reveal that "satire" is, broadly speaking, a work using humor in such forms as irony and exaggeration to ridicule the vices and stupidity of individuals or entities.  So defined, satire has been around for thousands of years.  In the West, when ancient satirists are considered mention is normally made of Aristophanes among the Greeks, Juvenal, Petronius and Lucian among the Romans.  Martial as well, perhaps, though his satire was far more condensed being in the form of epigrams.  Seneca too, among the Romans, at least for his ridicule of the Emperor Claudius, applying for membership in the fellowship of the gods after his death. There have been many other satirists throughout history--Rabelais, Voltaire, Cervantes, Swift and Poe, for example, are some of the more famous of the lot. 

Satire is generally thought of as a kind of literature, and those named just above are of course writers.  Sometimes, though, drawings and paintings are satirical, like the print by Gillray at the top of this post, called The Plumb Pudding in Danger.  The plumb pudding is, obviously, the world and it's being carved up by William Pitt, Prime Minister of England, and Napoleon, who had by then become Emperor of France.

The quality of satires varies considerably.  So does the kind of humor or style of writing employed by the satirist.  Aristophanes' humor was somewhat farcical, as in his lampooning of Socrates and his circle The Clouds.  Lucian also targeted philosophers and philosophy, as well as other people and things, and was a mocker.  Juvenal's humor was dark and sharp; he had no light touch (I think of his satires as more in the way of rants).  Seneca's satire on Claudius struck me as more cruel than witty.  Rabelais seems to have made use of absurdity in Gargantua and Pantagruel.  Petronius' humor was deadpan, in my opinion.  His Trimalchio is unquestionably vulgar and pompous, but Petronius makes this evident merely by describing his statements and conduct, rather than commenting on them.  Irony seems to have been Swift's weapon of choice.

In these dark times, there's a concern by some that wit and humor, which would include satire, are being restricted if not entirely eliminated by the tendency of some others to condemn those who use them in referring to certain people or groups of people who are perceived as being or having been treated unjustly because of their difference from what's considered normal.  The most recent example that comes to my mind relates to the character Apu in The Simpsons and the apology made by Hank Azaria (his "voice") for his contribution in the stereotypical (though intended to be humorous) depiction of the character running a convenience store.  The apology caused John Cleese, formerly of Monty Python, to apologize for mocking white people as part of that group.

Cleese's point is fairly obvious, I think--that humor, and satire, are used in reference to all people indiscriminately, and should be.  In other words, that no one should be exempt from mockery merely by virtue of what they are.

That makes a certain sense, as does a related claim being made in these dark times--that nobody should be discriminate against, and therefore treating certain people better than others because or their race or religion, for example, is wrong.  From that, of course, it follows (or so it's claimed) that white, Christian people are being discriminated against when others are given certain advantages or benefits, or are deemed to have special claims to be satisfied.

In order for that position to accepted as appropriate, however, it's necessary to assume that we all are in the same position when it comes to treatment by each other, society and government.  If we existed on the fabled "level playing field" then a case can be made that favoring one group or person over another merely because they have a certain skin color or religion or other characteristics would be unjust.  That playing field doesn't exist, however, and never has existed.  To pretend that it does for purposes of complaining about discrimination against currently privileged people is fatuous, and indeed unworthy.  

When we insist that we should treating each other as if we all existed on a level playing field, we acknowledge that it would be desirable that we should live on that level playing field.  If we acknowledge that, though, we have to admit that we don't at this time, at least if we're honest.  So, one would think it would also be desirable that levelling steps should be taken,  But that would mean that those underprivileged or discriminated against unjustly, here and now, be benefited more than those who are not. Unfortunately, that's not something the haves are normally willing to grant the have-nots, particularly if that would mean the haves would have less than they do now.

So, I don't think this is a viable position, even when it comes to humor.  Does that mean that humor, and satire, will inevitably disappear?  

I doubt it, unless we expect that the kind of totalitarian society envisioned by the notoriously humorless Plato and put into place by such as Stalin and Mao will be our future.  The great Roman satirists lived in Imperial Rome, not exactly a free society, and managed to thrive.  I don't think shaming of the kind being practiced now will significantly restrict our tendency to mock and ridicule each other.  As well expect that wars will end.  Perhaps the more egregious kind of ridicule will be reduced, which wouldn't be a bad thing.  Satire is best when it is witty and subtle, not blunt and obvious or offensive.  It will survive all the moralists of this time as it has in the past.