A Moving Experience

Flatmates are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.

Some are sweet and delicious. Others are tangy and exciting.

And every once in a while, you hit upon a real nut.

* * *

"I'm a poet," declares Miljana.

Wow, I think, this is great.

I know people who write. People my age. Usually they modestly say that they 'try to write' or 'try to become writers'. I have not heard anybody being so confident before.

"I also paint, I do sculpture... You know, you have to do everything."

This is even better!, I think. She's a real artist! I love this place already!

So I was introduced to my new home.

And no. Miljana's not the nutjob.

* * *

"I will keel you! I will keel you!" he shouts, as he pushes me again, and again. "Go to your rrroom! Go to your rrrom!" I stumble backwards, madder and madder, and it takes all my willpower not to hit him back. Then he grabs my throat, and I think, oh no you don't, this really is a bit much; I grab his thumb and the hand comes off quite easily. We're at the end of the corridor now, he pushes me again and I hit the handle of my door; next, I find myself lying on my bed. I still don't want to hit him back, I just stick out my knee and instead of lunging at me, he hits himself in the groin. "You're mad," I say, furious and amazed. "You'rrr making me madd!" he screams, for a fraction of a second there's a pause and I wonder whether he finally got out of his affect; he stares right at me, and then can't stop himself from slapping me.

I don't offer him the other cheek. But although my blood is boiling, I don't slap him back.

Gandhi would be proud.

Then he leaves.

* * *

No, I was not scared. It is a little hard to explain, but I wasn't.

What I was was angry. Mad, furious, screamingly, volcanically, earth-shatteringly angry. (I still feel an echo now, just writing about it.) So angry that when I stood up to him, the adrenaline made me shake with fury.

I did not expect him to work himself up into such lather that he would actually attack me. He was shouting, threatening, as if spoiling for a pub fight - "What is theess? What is theess? You want to go outside?! You want to go outside?!" - and I was just standing there, my legs planted wide, my arms at my hips, not giving in an inch even when he moved his nose a centimetre away from mine while he kept shouting; and speaking really quietly, remembering the advice - thank you Mr. Holland! - that when you drop your voice in confrontational situations, people are forced to pay more attention to you.

And yet, though I did not make a move, it did not help. He literally worked himself up so much that he pushed me.

And I did not push him back. Mad as I was, ready to explode, I did not.

I was not scared. All my fear somehow got transformed into anger, and I was ready to go hit him so hard that he would not get up.

Which is precisely why I did not.

A lightning series of thoughts struck me struck me, more in images than in words, the moment I felt myself stumbling backwards and all but raising my hands to push back: suppose I do, suppose I do touch him; then it's a real fight, and I am as implicated as he is. And somebody will get hurt. I know it. Somebody will. I feel no fear for myself, I do not feel afraid of pain - I am scared that I will somehow manage to hurt him. Not on purpose - a vague memory floats to the surface of a boys' fight, in which somebody's head gets banged on the radiator - but once I start hitting back, there is no telling where it will end. I am two days ago from handing in the thesis; I see him lying there in a pool of blood, police, a trial - who cares that I would be innocent of any wrongdoing, do I really want to go through this? No.

So I do not hit him. I step forward, I stand my ground, I shake so much I could power a small electric device, I fume.

I do not hit him.

* * *

I feel very proud of myself afterwards. He screamed at me, he pushed me, grabbed my throat, slapped my face - and I did not hit him back.

And I feel humiliated. He screamed at me, he pushed me, grabbed my throat, slapped my face - and I did not hit him back.

I am not surprised at the mix of feelings. I know I will not be able to work now. I sit down, cross-legged, close my eyes, and try meditating - for the first time in my life trying to use it to make myself feel better, not to achieve any 'higher end', as I used to think about it. It works, sort of; after two hours, I am quite calm, although still not completely so. I decide to finally deal with the bag of old fruit that I haven't touched since moving, and start making jam. Yeah, I know. But I really do.

(Later, the anger comes back, in waves. Not sleeping is not new or strange, but it is really unpleasant to feel so furious. I keep imagining the situation, or rather a similar one, in which I would not hold back this time; I would break his nose, his teeth, hit his chin, his temples, get him down, beat him to a bloody pulp. Yeah, I know. But really, I did not. And it is unpleasant, I wish I could just think of something else and get rest; I get up and do some work and it does help some; but it still takes until six in the morning before I manage to sleep.)

* * *

Immediately after the incident, however:

I call the landlady. Jasia is so shocked she goes and wakes up poor Robert, asleep for the past hour after having been up all night. They both apologise to me, I say it's not their fault, and Robert promises to come the next day, when he is in London.

I call the police. On the non-emergency number. I am not quite sure what I want them to do, I don't really see much that they can do, but perhaps they have some idea. I certainly want to report what happened; no way that my warnings to him are going to be just empty threats. The voice at the other end is helpful, polite, friendly. The man asks me whether I want them to come investigate. No, I say; I don't want to involve uniforms any earlier than necessary; I have a feeling that this card should only be played when things really get out of hand, for after all, nothing really happened to me.

"You're going down, my friend," I say menacingly when I see him in the kitchen two minutes after the phone calls. "I'm not your frriend! I'm not your frriend!" he shouts, and I wonder for a second whether it's about to start all over again. "No, you're certainly not," and you could glue on wallpaper with the sarcasm in my voice, it's so thick. "You're crazy - I did not do anything to you, I did not touch you, and you started hitting me" - am I really trying to explain, am I really still trying to be reasonable? Yes, apparently I am. Can't help it, habit of a lifetime. "You were challenging me! You were challenging me!" he keeps screaming, as if he had hit upon some great clever justification of his behaviour.


(tbc)

Own little koan

What is one's own value?

A person may be intelligent. But that's not what their value resides in.

Say one has a car accident, the way Landau did, and loses most of what makes them clever.

Would they then stop being valuable?

A person may be able to sing, sort of.

But say they had throat cancer and would have to have their vocal chords removed.

Would they then stop being valuable?

We can go through these things one by one. All the various 'predicates' might make one contingently valuable, but none will make them intrinsically so.

Love Kant's dictum, "Always treat every human being as an end in themselves, rather than just a means to an end". Love it, it's great, find it beautiful and believe in it. The lowliest beggar, the most diseased human being, even the sickest mind (and therein lies a challenge! Very Christian: love thy neighbour - but will you love Hitler? A Mafia boss? The man/woman who kills your mother/rapes your sister?) - they are all values in themselves, regardless of anything else.

But lovely as it is to believe it about others, personally I cannot believe it about myself.

Why should I be an end in itself?

That is the koan.

I can only be valuable because of the things that make up 'me'. And at the same time, there's no way any of them can make 'me' valuable, however valuable they are in themselves.

Answers:

The thing that is valuable is the very thing that is really 'me'. The point of consciousness, this very spot of light in the darkness, this particular point of view located physically right here.

But why should that be so?

Yes, cogito ergo sum, hence that point of consciousness is the only thing that really is me. That is the only thing that is my personal identity.

But what is that to do with value?

Nothing. An ought cannot be derived from an is, and value cannot be derived from fact. The fact that 'I' exist does not make 'I' valuable.

Or: the point is to realise that there is no 'I', and hence the question of value does not arise.

You'll be truly liberated and happy when you finally understand that there is nothing threatening your value, because there is no 'you' that might or might not be valuable.

That is, the 'no ego' anwser, approached from very different points and with very different meanings by both Buddha and Hume

Nice as an idea, but though one can appreciate the aesthetic value of the answer, it does not satisfy the hunger, it does not quench the thirst.

When there's nothing challenging me, I can happily entertain the idea that I am egoless. The moment 'I' come in doubt, for whatever reason, the defensive walls come up around the ego that allegedly does not exist.

Perhaps it's one of those superficially banal and easy statements that can only really be understood properly - beyond reason - through a very difficult process. (Very Zen, very much the koan.) Maybe so. But then not really very much help in the here and now. (Well, Enlightenment does take years, after all.)

Another answer: paradoxically, the only thing that gives value to 'I' is 'I'. Regardless of whatever I do, regardless of whatever I can do, regardless of whatever impact my actions have on the being, thinking and feeling of others, I am valuable as long as I appreciate myself.

But that is like a mirror reflecting itself.

The mirror cannot do so, it can only reflect other things.

What is my value, when all contingent characteristics and states of affairs are stripped away?

What does a mirror reflect, when it's not reflecting anything?

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody to hear it, does it make a sound?

The same question, at bottom. Perhaps.

Years of fun ahead.

P. S. Why am I writing this? In the futile hope that by doing so, I am creating something at least a tiny little bit valuable, which makes me a tiny little bit valuable, too.
Imagine.

Left and Right, Part I.

Conservative, Liberal & Socialist?

In the 19th century, the main conflict in politics was between the Conservatives and the Liberals. This shifted in the 20th to the conflict between the Conservative-Liberal Right and the Socialist Left (with the significant exception of the US, where Socialism never really got off the ground and has remained a marginal influence on the Liberals).

In the 21st century, a shift back towards the conflict between the Conservatives and the Liberals, thus ending the "American exceptionalism", which becomes the norm? (Giddens' hypothesis).

The terms are misleading.

Ideas such as the Political Compass are groping towards a better description of the political landscape. Yet, somewhat questionable why particular axes should be selected as "the" definitions of the political orientation; many such possibilities have been offered.

We should start by clarifying what the possible poles actually are. Thus:

conservative - mobilising
liberal - restrictive
authoritarian - democratic
socialist - capitalist
religious - secularist
order - chaos
moderate - radical
closed - open
totalitarian - partialist (small-t totalitarian!)
teleological - escapist

A closer look at some of the less obvious distinctions:

small-c conservative refers to the preservation of the status quo. Thus, it expresses no particular preference for capitalism vs. socialism, authority vs. democracy, etc.
This is also the reason why the distinction is not "conservative - progressive". The opposite of preservation of the status quo is change. But there's no necessary reason why change needs to be progressive. The Nazi destruction of the Weimar Republic was a change, and Social Democracy that was opposing it was acting to preserve the status quo. Yet in no sense was Nazism progressive. Hence, the contrast is between mobilising movements and conservative positions (sic).
Why then the perception that conservatives are right-wing? a) because for the most part they act to preserve the order which itself is perceived as "right-wing" in some sense (feudalism, capitalism, authoritarian regime etc.) b) more to the point, the nominally "conservative" parties tend to actually be reactionary, or regressive, to be more neutral about it. Instead of acting to preserve the existing state of affairs, they hanker for the past (often largely mythical), perhaps as a counterpoint to the mobilising progressive tendencies - only by pushing for reactionary positions status quo can actually be preserved. Or so it may be perceived.

Turning to liberal vs. restrictive, this comes from the realisation that liberal means roughly allowing for a relatively large number of options (hence "a liberal helping", signifying a great amount). Liberalism thus may be mobilising or conservative in the above sense, depending on whether the status quo is restrictive or not.

Small-t totalitarian does not mean "dictatorially imposing conditions on all areas of social life", since dictatorship is not implied automatically. It does mean, however, viewing the social life as a totality and attempting to push for a particular viewpoint in all of its areas. The opposite is partialist, where some areas are seen as legitimate targets for changes, while others are off-limits. A fundamentalist religious movement would be totalitarian in this sense - though perhaps remaining democratic in the sense of preserving the option of democratically changing the laws that it again democratically adopted - while the secularist countermovement would be partialist, allowing for the private exercise of worship, but arguing against religiously motivated steps in the public arena.

Teleological orientation of a mobilising movement is one that favours a particular goal; on the other hand, an escapist movement is simply trying to get away from the existing state of affairs, almost regardless of what the alternative is. Thus, many people may have joined the Nazi Party in Germany initially simply out of dissatisfaction with the Weimar state, rather than any craving for a racially pure world-dominating Reich. Similarly, after 1945 in Czechoslovakia, people may have been joining the Communist Party as the clearest alternative to the pre-war order, perceived in terms of the double failure of the Great Depression and the Munich betrayal. Some escapists turn into teleogicals later on, but others do not and may well become the staunchest oppositionists of the new regimes - which certainly does apply to the Czechoslovak experience, up to 1968.

A note on the poles and the centre:
It may be difficult to see what the "central ground" may be between the authoritarian and the democratic orientation, or the religious and the secularist one. The point is that the poles represent opposing values. These are things that happen to be a priority for their adherents. However, there may well be other people for whom an issue X is not a priority - but neither is not-X. These people represent the "centre". They simply do not have an opinion and thus can go along with whatever position their current ally takes, as long as there is no conflict on issues where they do have priorities.

The End of the Affair

You fell unconscious

Of me

The Role of Blogs in Transition from Reader to Writer

Blogs are a tremendous advance in the process of making creative activity, writing in particular, available to the broad masses of people.

Previous such advances: the invention of the printing press, compulsory school attendance and the resulting mass literacy.

The amount of fantastically interesting thoughts and marvellous images that appear in the blogosphere is enormous.

Will B. used to hate blogs. According to him, the vast majority of blogging consists of pieces along the lines of "Today I fed my fish. I am going to ride my bike."

Perhaps that's true, but within the great heaps of dirt an occasional gem will be found. With such vast quantities of writing being produced, the gems can be found relatively often.

Anyway, Will has started his own blog now. Writes about computer games mostly.

I don't have a fish to feed.

But I am about to go ride my bike.

The United States of America as Rome

The Romans did not colonise the conquered territories in the modern sense; they posted their garrisons and extracted tributes. The Roman Empire was not a state, but the sphere of extension of Roman power, with the Roman citizens enjoying superior status to the local populations. Read: the network of American military bases all over the world, business opportunities for the US multinationals, superior status of Americans in any particular country.

The English are to the Americans as the Greeks were to the Romans: a race whose own empire belongs to the bygone age, looking up to the far more powerful newcomers with a mixture of awe, envy, and contempt, the last arising from the a cultural superiority complex.

What about the Soviet Union? Why, of course, it played the role of Carthage, complete with its rival but less extensive empire and its human sacrifice (both real and as embellished by its enemy's scribes). The rollback of Communism? "Carthage must be destroyed."

Given that the American president is the effective ruler of the world - foreign policy being the most extensive decision-making arena of the office - citizens of other countries should be allowed to cast votes in the US presidential election. An outrageous idea from the US citizens point of view - analogously, Rome refused to grant Roman citizenship to its Latin allies, leading to the Social War/Marsic War.

However, we are anyway at the period where the Republic is giving way to the Empire proper; this is signified by the rise of the dynastic presidential contenders (both the Bushes and the Clintons) and most especially by Bush's non-election in 2000.

Philip K. Dick was right.

The Empire never ended.

P. S. Islamic terror warriors as the barbarian invaders? (Les Invasions barbares, well of course.) China as the future Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, at once the descendant of the destroyers of Rome and an inheritor of some of its legacy?

Endless possibilities. Mind boggles.