Sometimes we buy things not for the thing itself, but for what it represents to us.  Actually, most purchases are like this.

I’ve noticed that I’m conditioned to think this way.  It’s almost automatic for me now, and I’m trying to unlearn this habit.  A recent example would be starting this blog.  My first instinct was to buy a proper domain name, and pay for hosting.  But I paused.  Why do I need to do this?  Don’t I just want to write?  Why do I need to own a domain name just to write?

I tend to merge the activity with the material object.  Even though a domain name is not a thing, in the way a table is a thing, it is in the act of the purchase that I am making it into a thing.  I am trading material goods — or their symbolic representative, cash — for a more secure, fenced off, personally owned space on the internet.

I need to separate the doing with the having.  When all I want to do is write, I don’t need to mark off any territory to do so.  I just need to write.

I can think of many more examples.  How many times have I felt a slump in my yoga practice, and gone shopping for more yoga clothes to try to give myself a boost?  I know by now that a) the boost won’t come this way, and b) it is a lazy way to go about something when I don’t want to make the effort.  Shopping is easy; doing is initially hard, but far more rewarding in the long run.

I have been conditioned to think of shopping as a replacement for doing.  It is an empty gesture.

Recently our old bedsheets developed a new, huge hole, and I caught myself ordering a $400 organic cotton sheet set.  I felt like I needed to watch the chemicals in my purchases, especially those that I have my nose right up against for 8 hours a day.  But what about the extra sheets we have in storage?  Is there really a need to buy something new — am I just trying to prove a point to myself with this purchase?  I came to my senses and cancelled the order.  I really can’t afford $400 sheets — what was I thinking?

So here I begin this site, with old, free bedsheets to park my head on at night, and a free web space to park my thoughts in while the sun is up.

Black Friday is coming.  It is only a little over two days away (less for those who choose to get in line early enough for the best deals).  If you are wondering, Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving.  It is the official kick-off for the heavy Christmas shopping season.  Why the name “Black Friday”?  Well, it’s the day that stores traditionally have begun to make money for the year.  From Black Friday on, stores are “in the black”, or making a profit.

The day has really become a holiday in and of itself.  I know many who year-after-year go out in the early morning hours in hopes of grabbing a bargain that is too good to be true while others go just to experience the excitement in the air.  I went out for the first time three years ago.  It was the last time for me.  The stores were packed at 7am.  The lines at Best Buy ran the entire perimeter of the store.  No deal was good enough for me to wait that long.

But Black Friday is more than just a special shopping day.  It is a day that seems to truly reflect our attitudes towards the Christmas holiday.  The day that Christians are to remember the birth of their Savior, in reality is nothing more than a material world in blatant self-indulgence.  How did it come to this?  How did our appetite for more become so bad that we now even have a shopping holiday?  How do you spend your Black Fridays?

An interesting take on the prosperity gospel.

For many years now, I’ve been a huge fan of Franklin Graham’s Operation Christmas Child project.   To see the look of ecstasy on the faces of the children in the promotional videos is to really know the joy that comes with giving even something small.

To critique the program would be unthinkable.   It would be like criticizing motherhood or apple pie or little kittens.   But I have some concerns about this that I haven’t seen heretofore in print or online.   So I thought I’d wade out deep into dangerous waters:

1. A lot of people fill their shoeboxes with trinkets from the dollar store.   When these items break — which they will — how will third world children deal with the disappointment that Western kids are accustomed to?   Especially if they don’t own much else.
2. Which begs the question, how are such items disposed of — sooner or later — in countries that don’t have an active recycling program?   What happens to all those boxes?   As barren and arid as some of those places are,  dotting the landscape with red and green boxes seems a bit irresponsible.   Maybe they can use the boxes for something.
3. What’s the mileage on some of the trinkets and toys?    Check out the country of origin, factor in the purchase point in the U.S. as an example, and then plot the destination point.   We’re talking major carbon footprints.   And not the Margaret Fishback Powers kind of footprints.
4. What about the inequities of what the kids receive?   One kid gets a cuddly Gund-type plush animal, while another gets socks.   I would be the kid getting the toothpaste and cheap sunglasses, while my friend would get some kind of awesome musical instrument toy.   Socks don’t make noise.  I would learn jealousy and covetousness all in a single day.
   
5. Which begs the question, is there ever theft?   World wars have started over lesser things.    Do kids in faraway places take the inequities into their own hands?    Do they revere the licensed pencil case more than the one with geometric shapes and colors?   Is there trading?   If so, who sets the rules?
   
6. Maybe not.   Maybe they share better than kids in the West do.   But somewhere along the line, it’s got to create a situation of personal private property.    I live on a street with ten houses where everybody owns a lawnmower.   We all could probably get by with one or two.   What I really need is access to a lawnmower.   But human nature being what it is, it rarely works that way unless you’re Shane Claiborne, or you live on an Operation Mobilization ship, or you’re one of the aging hippies living in the Jesus People project in inner-city Chicago.   (Apologies to Glenn Kaiser.)
   
7. What about expectations?   If my kids don’t get what they’re hoping for there is always a great disappointment, and trust me, this year they aren’t getting what they’re hoping for.   Reminds of me that old song, “Is That All There Is?”   Some people get downright depressed after Christmas.   BTW, anyone remember who the artist was on that song?
   
8. What’s the follow-up for the giver?   None.   Unlike sponsored children — which is another discussion entirely — the gift is really a shot in the dark, unless in next year’s video you happen to see a kid opening a box containing a rather unique action figure and a pair of furry dice which you know could only have come from your attic storage the year before.   (But furry dice?  What were you thinking?   The kid’s expression is going to be somewhat quizzical…)
   

Okay, so maybe the good outweighs any potential downside.   But it’s philosophy that I majored in, so somebody’s got to view things from outside the box — the shoebox in this case — once in awhile.    That’s why I call it thinking out loud.

Friends of ours took their family to a resort over the Thanksgiving holidays and let everyone know how much fun they intended to have (and have been having since arriving) by emailing and posting photos of every part of the trip. I find there is nothing like a play-by-play account of the wanton spending of money to inspire envy in even the most enlightened individual, and so it was that I fell from the pious pinnacle of my stupa and became just human enough to adhere pejoratives such as “wanton” and “wasteful” to people whose integrity and good-heartedness I have heretofore had no reason to doubt.

I have never been to a resort over a holiday, you see; nor to Disneyworld or Disneyland or on a cruise or to a foreign country other than to adopt a child that we would then spend over $350,000 to raise, according to U.S. government statistics, while our friends all have the requisite 1.86 perfect children, none of whom came from countries that lack adequate resort facilities, much less require any sort of remedial help, orthodontia, or medical or psychological interventions.

My Facebook status that day stated that being jealous reminded me that I was human, and friends joked about how I needed to be reminded of my humanity. What I meant, though, was that I’m not much given to jealousy or covetousness, for I myself am regularly the object of other people’s projections of failure or success (as the case may be) and know that the reality of what it took to get here and what it takes to live here every day is not enviable or, on the other hand, regrettable because it’s my life: My life that I have chosen a million times and have built for myself over countless moments and which could not have been lived by anyone else.

What this means, of course, is that I chose to live this life. I’m not a victim of my own life, meaning that nobody put a gun to my head or isolated me in a cell or stretched me out for torture until I succumbed and agreed to marry my righteous but pig-headed husband, or have umpteen children, most of whom had already received life’s cruelest psychological, spiritual, and emotional wound in the first hours, weeks, months or years of life, or compelled me to do or be any of the things I regularly regret doing or being because the lives my neighbors live look so much more inviting for their novelty, ease, and ability to inspire envy in me.

It means, too, on a deeper level that when I say I am human, I mean that I’ve caught myself being human: fallen, falling short, less than godly, less than a goddess. I joked in my next Facebook status update that I am usually a goddess, but I wasn’t really joking, for, as St. Paul said, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from ourselves.” People tend to focus on the surpassing power of God part without noticing that Paul wrote that we have this treasure, we have this treasure of the very power of God, the godhead, within us–the same resurrection power that created the universe with a word, impregnated a virgin, and brought Christ out of the grave after three days and three nights. That very power: in me.

Having God ride shotgun in my life means that I was disappointed about the envy I felt, for I’m used to not feeling envious due to a typical lack of attachment to things that had me telling the cleaning ladies a few weeks back not to worry if they broke anything, for it was all destined to perish anyway, and there was nothing in my house that breathes or inspires life into its inhabitants except for the inhabitants themselves, at which they looked at me agape. I had, you see, forgotten that attachment to people is an attachment, too, and projecting my “wish I could’s” onto my friends or children is no less a crime than being attached to the objects in one’s house, for people are not possessions and it is not the job of anyone else to carry my unlived life.

What my jealousy meant, in part, was that I wished I could go to a resort but I couldn’t, because I have Too Many Children and Not Enough Money. But under cross-examination, the witness admits that she could probably afford to go to a resort, go to Paris, buy her 16-year-old a brand new car, or do any manner of things other people do with their money if that were her value or desire. The problem, she further admits, is that she chooses not to value trips to resorts as much as she values the life she has chosen for herself.

The other problem is, of course, that I need someone or something onto whom or which I can project my unlived life so that I’ll continue to have a handy excuse for not living it. Alternatively, I need something to focus on that will keep me from progressing in my career as a goddess who is more attached to the things of the spiritual world than those of this temporal one.

The day I was overcome with jealously, I read this in Jung’s Psychology and the East, and it made me smile with a smile that felt like a death mask because I could see my bias toward the temporal over the eternal:

The externalization of culture may do away with a great many evils whose removal seems most desirable and beneficial, yet this step forward, as experience shows, is all too clearly paid for with a loss of spiritual culture. It is undeniably much more comfortable to live in a well-planned and hygienically equipped house, but this still does not answer the question of who is the dweller in this house and whether his soul rejoices in the same order and cleanliness as the house which ministers to his outer life. The man whose interests are all outside is never satisfied with what is necessary, but is perpetually hankering after something more and better which, true to his bias, he always seeks outside himself. He forgets completely that, for all his outward successes, he himself remains the same inwardly, and he therefore laments his poverty if he possesses only one automobile when the majority have two. Obviously the outward lives of men could do with a lot more bettering and beautifying, but these things lose their meaning when the inner man does not keep pace with them. To be satiated with “necessities” is no doubt an inestimable source of happiness, yet the inner man continues to raise his claim, and this can be satisfied by no outward possessions. And the less this voice is heard in the chase after the brilliant things of this world, the more the inner man becomes the source of inexplicable misfortune and uncomprehended unhappiness in the midst of living conditions whose outcome was expected to be entirely different. The externalization of life turns to incurable suffering, because no one can understand why he should suffer from himself. No one wonders at his insatiability, but regards it as his lawful right, never thinking that the one-sidedness of this psychic diet leads in the end to the gravest disturbances of equilibrium. That is the sickness of Western man, and he will not rest until he has infected the whole world with his own greedy restlessness (para. 962).

As Proverbs 27:20 says, “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied; nor are the eyes of man ever satisfied.” We’re made with the quality of Never Satisfied because Never Satisfied is in our deepest beings as a sign and emblem of the depths of symbolic spiritual experience to which we can go if we will only dare. Most don’t dare, but remain stuck on a sensual, temporal level that belies a commensurately cavernous spiritual emptiness, the likes of which I recognized in myself with surprise, dread, and awe the day I envied my neighbor’s good fortune.

References

Jung, C. G. (1978). Psychology and the East. (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.), from The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vols. 10, 11, 13, and 18. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

I really like the concept of a loyalty card, you know, you get something for going back to a certain shop again and again. Where I work we have one where every eight purchases you get something for free, and don’t people just love to grin smugly while they throw that card down on the counter.

But there’s a dark side to loyalty cards, the hidden perversity that no one ever sees. I see people come through who can’t even find the right loyalty card in the wallet because it’s packed with other business’ loyalty cards. And I say to myself, not out loud but in my head, in the normal way that I talk to myself when other people are around: are these people really being loyal?

After all, it’s really only a face-value loyalty to have so many different cards, even if the businesses cater to different needs, I feel it’s an abuse of the loyalty card system. People who do this kind of thing should be branded with the disloyalty symbol, and exiled into the desert where you can’t choose which juice bar you go to, and you have to buy the bottled juice that doesn’t come from 100% Australian grown fruit, and what’s more you have to buy it from suspicious looking vultures who can charge you whatever they want to, because you either pay it or go juiceless and they’ll pick the dry, dry meat from your juice-parched bones.

It’s the same thing as if you’re in a relationship and you say to your girlfriend/boyfriend, yes, I will be loyal to you sexually so that I can get the free one every 6 or 7 times, but you’re not such a good cook. For that, I have this other girl/boy, who caters to my needs much better than you can, and I get a free meal every 4 stamps, so everyone’s a winner. But when it comes to laundry I really use the girl next door for that because she uses this fabric softener, and to mow the lawn I have the girl next door on the other side, and so on and so on. You can see how it gets out of control, when really, the sexual partner could probably cook and do the laundry and mow the lawn, and she wouldn’t do as good a job, but it would fill up the loyalty card really quick and you wouldn’t have to leave the house to get things done.

But in all seriousness, the loyalty card is like an exclusive relationship, you’re entering into a social contract with the owner of the card that you will be loyal to them, and being loyal to someone means that you can’t be loyal to everyone.

If you want to check whether your partner is or will be loyal to you, have a look in their wallet or purse. If they have loads and loads of half-completed loyalty cards, get out now. It probably means they never finish things either.

Tune in next week for Part II of How to Judge a Person by the Contents of their Wallet.

I read a story on Yahoo! the other day that set me to thinking, reminiscing.  Apparently, the box, the stick, and the ball are in the toy hall of fame – as well they should be.  As a kid, I spent more hours enjoying those three toys (you can add rock to the list as well) than all the others put together.  I played, moreover, with my brother and sisters, with friends from the neighborhood – not alone in my room.

This story got me thinking about my childhood, and the impact it had on the person I am today.  Am I considerate because I grew up with other kids? Would I be more materialistic if I hadn’t had the most intense fun of my life doing things that cost nothing? Would I be as creative as I am had I not been forced to fill countless empty hours of every day? Would I still think for myself had I not grown up reading, watching and playing the exact same things as everyone else?

I began to reflect on a few sad developments in the world around me: The disappearance of kids playing outside in all but the poorest neighborhoods, the unfortunate conviction of many of my classmates and many of the adults I know that one must have lots of things to be happy, and the utter lack of creativity and balls and heart and generosity and manners in some of my university classmates.

My neighborhood had serious problems when I was growing up. We were poor, there was a good deal of crime, there was a drug problem – but at least we all went outside, played and had a good time. We may not have had the best toys, but we had more fun with sticks and rocks and snakes and fire than I’ve seen anyone have with a video game.

It’s funny that people talk about poor kids as having their childhood taken from them. On the one hand, I know what they mean. Poor kids have to think about things a kid shouldn’t have to. I remember wanting to ask for a piece of candy when we went to a store, but holding back because I knew we couldn’t afford these kinds of extras – this when I was five, six years old.

I remember going without food some days, collecting cans and bottles to buy bread, insisting I wasn’t cold (in Iowa, in January) because I knew we couldn’t afford a new coat for me, not telling my mom when my socks or underwear got holes in them. I had to understand, as a small child, why other kids had all the cool new toys advertised on TV and I didn’t.

So, maybe I was more practical than other kids my age. Maybe I matured faster in terms of an awareness of the world around me, maybe I lost the naiveté that people expect from children a little too early, but I had a far richer childhood than many of the kids do today.

Kids with no free time, these are the ones being robbed of their childhood.  Kids that never had time to be bored are the ones being developmentally stunted.  Kids that never learned to handle the real world without their parents hovering in the background are the ones missing out.

These poor bastards have been forced from the womb to experience the world through someone else’s eyes – adult eyes. They have known the world only as a regimented place. They are afraid to question rules, the status quo – and when they do, they feel like they are in total rebellion and exercise no moderation. I’ve heard of suburban kids with ulcers, burnt out before they get to high school.  These kids are like middle aged men, yet people talk about poor kids missing out on childhood.

A lot of the people from my neighborhood ended up with problems when they reached adulthood, mostly because of the limited opportunities we had. Some may also have simply been too comfortable with questioning the rules. A lot of them are in jail or prison, probably around half graduated high school and, to my knowledge; I am the only one who will graduate from a four-year school.  Still, we developed a creative side,understanding, empathy and social skills that are far less evident in kids who were shuttled from one organized activity to the next, that spent all their time at home with pre-packaged adventures, figments of someone else’s imagination.

If I could choose someone to take a math test for me, to memorize something, or to read a boring 400 page book, I would choose one of my classmates here at the university,  but if I needed help with any problem that required common sense, independent reasoning, creativity or the ability to think on one’s feet, I would trek to my hometown jail and find one of the kids I grew up with.

As a teenager, my friends were not good people.  My best friends sold crack.  Everyone I knew outside my family sold some kind of drugs, stole, slept around, drank too much, smoked, smoked weed, fought too much – but they were far better friends in terms of our day-to-day interactions and in terms of loyalty than the people I now know.

If one of us needed something, the others would break our necks to provide it. If one of us was in trouble, the others would help.  The ‘every man for himself’ attitude that many of the people I’ve met at university share, that my country seems to be pursuing abroad, that voters seem to hold dear, never penetrated my neighborhood.

I’m not saying we all should grow up poor, wild and lawless, but I think parents should be careful not to over-regiment their kids. Structure is important, but some moderation is needed. Send them to school, let them pick a single sport or instrument for them to practice at any one time, let them play around online for an hour, then kick them out of the house and into the real world with a stick and a box.

In this first post on the blog (!), I’m going to indulge briefly in one of what will probably be many opportunities to voice a recurrent annoyance of mine, re: what seem to me to be too facile dismissals of Derrida’s work based on basic misunderstandings. “How surprising!” you retort sarcastically, “a Derrida fan who wants to defend his brilliance against all his detractors.” Be that as it may, here are tonight’s two cents:

Derrida is too often accused of repeating some transcendental or idealist move that we’re all supposed to be moving beyond by now, whether it be Kantian, Hegelian, even (strangely enough) Husserlian or Heideggerian – or some combination of these parts with each other or with others. Derrida himself complains from fairly early on that his positions are too often conflated with those he is analyzing, but that’s a different point than the one I want to make.  What’s on my mind now is the claim that the so-called linguistic turn of which Derrida is identified as a late representative automatically amounts, precisely because of its focus on language as an inescapable facet of human experience, to some variety of either idealism or humanism or both. My first response to this would be to point out the serious differences between the treatments of language in Derrida’s early texts and other positions that I think more properly represent what gets called the linguistic turn (e.g., Schlick, Quine, Austin, or on the other hand certain parts of Heidegger). But that’s for another time; my second response, the one that’s on my mind now, would be to emphasize that for Derrida (and of course I’m in agreement here) what is of general applicability in language is actually what exceeds confinement within the human. Thus his focus on textuality rather than language as such. Textuality is found as much in the interactions of subatomic particles or proteins or weather patterns as it is in …well, what we normally call “texts.”

So this is the point I want to stress: there is nothing inherently idealist (or even exactly “transcendental”, despite all the quasi-transcendentals) about deconstruction. While it’s more accurate to say that Derrida’s work aims at a deconstruction of the idealist/materialist dichotomy, it seems to me more closely allied with the second item of this pair (a not-uncommon deconstructive move!). Language is, after all as material as anything else. Our words occur as paper and ink, electricity and light, vibrations in the air, etc.

What has kept all this stuck in my head recently is a developing interest in object-oriented philosophy, especially that of Latour. My (limited) experience with Latour’s work so far makes me think that he and Derrida would be on the same side of many an argument, yet this certainly doesn’t seem to be a widely shared interpretation. Toward the beginning of Harman’s book on Latour, he calls an apparent agreement between Derrida and Latour re: meaning and metaphor “a normally unthinkable alliance” (24). Why should this be so? It seems to me to reflect a fairly uncharitable (though, as I said, fairly common) reading of Derrida.

It had been almost over a year since i wrote my article about Hollister, but yet i still had the job.

I did not seem to mind anymore. I continued the tradition of swallowing my pride, but no longer  did I care about my discount, my job became an important social aspect of my life.

Oh yes, this was until we got the new boss.

Everyone knows what it’s like getting a new boss. He or she will either be a pushover or a complete toolbag. For me, it always seems to be the latter.

His name was Derek. He was a large man who barely fit into the company’s clothing. This was because he spent most of his life at the gym. I think by spending so much time sculpting his guns he may have constricted a few too many blood vessels.

He seemed to have been pointing out flaws in everyone’s work and letting us go unappreciated for the hours we were putting in.Luckily for me, he hadn’t found a flaw yet.

I think this panicked him. So for my final month working, he stalked me. Hid behind plants, lurked quietly in the corner, watching, waiting for me to screw up. And then I did.

A woman old enough to George Burn’s mother walked into our store. I was not about to berate this woman with the company’s tagline “Hey, what’ up?” It would have only have confused her, and I did not feel like giving this woman a cerebral aneurysm by explaining it.

"My mother was a saint!"

So I said “Hi, how are you doing today?!”

Big fucking mistake.

According to my manager, being hip and cool out weighs friendly and polite. No more could i work for this man, so I wrote him this letter

“Dear Derek,

If you don’t know by now, I don’t enjoy my job. If you haven’t noticed, it’s because you’re completely devoid of human emotion.

I started this job with high hopes. I thought working here would be a relaxed environment; my oh my how naïve I was.

I soon was whisked into a world of mass consumerism and materialism that I couldn’t have begun to fathom before I started working here. For instance: the company’s idea of model standards.

I’m not an idiot; I can hear your conference calls. I heard Chelsea complaining about our model’s not wearing enough plaid. I heard the other managers talking about their new recruitments. “I think she’s really cute, she’d be great” or “I don’t like him, especially after he shaved his head.”

How about this, who gives a fuck?

It wasn’t until recently that I realized this, I’ve known this forever. If you didn’t know I’ve been with the company longer than you have, so for me to only notice this now would be absurd.

The last string was pulled earlier this week. According to anonymous sources at the manager meeting, the managers, you believe that we are stressed out because of the company’s instance for us to wear plaid.

^Way too stressed out

I’m tired of making witty comments and transfusing them with sarcasm, so I’m just going to be blunt. It’s not the plaid; it’s you.

By hearing this quote I realized there is no getting through to you. You have no idea of how other human beings think or act. It’s the only explanation

You’re like a robot.

But it doesn’t matter, because you don’t. I can think of a long list of things that are more important than Hollister’s and your impact in the world including Atkins, contact lenses, snuggies, antiperspirant deodorant,  Go-gurt, crystal meth, red states, socialism, Hayden Panterrie, that funny asian guy off of Knocked Up, construction paper, Bonanza, barracudas, cheap cologne, and George Clooney.

So I’m going to go back to my life of yager bombs and happiness and you can go back to yours of snorting testosterone and So Cal.

Yours truly,

Mario

PS: PULL UP YOUR FUCKING PANTS!!!!!!! “

I hope I made my point.

Internationell politisk forskning talar om att politiken alltmer handlar om retorik och mindre om ideologi. Ser man till svensk politik stämmer detta mycket bra, där vi kan se att riksdagspartierna – trots små tassande steg åt höger från Centerpartiet och Folkpartiet – samlas runt en mittenfåra. Det parti som har kommit längst i denna flykt från ideologi och grundvärderingar är Miljöpartiet – som man i och för sig kan fråga sig om det någonsin har haft någon ideologisk grund.

Nästan allt som har med Miljöpartiet ser på pappret bra ut. De framstår som moderna, tilltalar unga och leds av det mycket populära språkröret Maria Wetterstrand (se exempelvis Sanna Raymans krönika i SvD). Men vad vill de som parti egentligen? Hur ser deras framtidsvision ut? Ska människorna om 50 år åka runt i luftdrivna bilar eller ha gått tillbaka till att leva som kringresande nomader? Är det utveckling eller att vara nöjd med tillvaron som är viktigast?

Demokratier tenderar att gå mot tvåpartisystem, och i Sverige är detta faktum alldeles uppenbart då vi på bara ett riksdagsval har fått två allianser. Den avgörande skiljelinjen är den ekonomiska politiken. Öka eller minska de statliga utgifterna – höjd eller sänkt skatt? Miljöpartiet, som i många frågor är ett socialliberalt parti, har med skyhöga miljöskatter lyckats hamna på “rätt” sida av mittfåran för att bli ett skattehöjarparti som passar in med Socialdemokraterna och Vänsterpartiet.

Frågan är dock vad som är målet. Att Socialdemokraterna och Vänsterpartiet är just vänster handlar ju om att de ser ett egenvärde i likabehandling och likafördelning. Tycker Miljöpartiet också att det finns ett egenvärde i att minska inkomstskillnader, även om det blir på bekostnad av samhällets totala välstånd och utveckling? Eller menar de, precis som vi som är mer mitten/höger, att det viktigaste är att de som har det sämst ställt får det så bra som möjligt, även om det också innebär att de rikaste får högre inkomster?

Inför nästa års val har Miljöpartiet valt sida genom att vilja höja skatten. Men man har fortfarande många frågor att besvara vad gäller ideologi och vision, framförallt inför kommande val. Hur viktig är egentligen miljön? Man talar ofta om att värna om djur och natur, vilket såklart är bra, men hur viktiga är dessa? Är det viktigaste den biologiska mångfalden, och därför strikt övervakade naturreservat där djur- och växtarter av människor aktivt hindras från att utrota varandra? Eller är det någon slags vacker naturlig utveckling man vill se där ekosystemen förändras med så liten mänsklig inblandning som möjligt? Finns det ett egenvärde i att den mänskliga populationen krymper och medvetet håller sig tillbaka för att göra mindre inverkan i de naturliga ekosystemen?

Ekologiskt odlad mat sägs ju vara miljövänlig, men om över en miljard människor svälter och många dessa kan överleva och få mat för dagen genom högre produktivitet, borde inte ett icke-ekologiskt jordbruk (som ger högre avkastning) egentligen vara miljövänligt? Transporter släpper ut avgaser, men internationell handel kan samtidigt hjälpa världens fattiga och sjuka. Om man bara lyckas hjälpa tillräckligt många människor genom transporter borde ju dessa miljöfarliga transporter övergå till att vara miljövänliga? Det borde finnas en siffra på hur mycket nytta miljöskadan x gör för mänskligheten då den plötsligt anses vara miljövänlig. Eller har inte människan någon plats i det som Miljöpartiet definierar och kallar för miljö?

Det som är smått oroande är att jag tror att ganska få miljöpartister har tänk över dessa frågor. Nationalekonomins mest fundamentala koncept “scarcity” visar på att människan hela tiden ställs inför val och prioriteringar. Men trots att Miljöpartiet ofta påpekar att jordens resurser är begränsade, låter det ofta, ironiskt nog, som att alla deras politiska förslag kan genomföras utan konsekvenser. Jag är en mycket stor vän av miljön, men jag har också insett att det faktiskt finns risker i att sätta för höga värden på de variabler som rör miljöinsatser eftersom att det förr eller senare är dåligt för människan, samhällsekonomin, välfärden, eller någonting annat.

Särskilt nu när klimatfrågan har blivit så aktuell (se 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) är det hög tid att fundera över hur mycket av samhällets tid och resurser som bör läggas på att minska koldioxidutsläpp innan det faktiskt skadar mänskligheten för att andra områden bortprioriteras. En del miljöaktivister verkar tro att man kan bekämpa den globala fattigdomen med maximal effektivitet, arbeta mindre, utrota världssvälten, och samtidigt rädda alla djur och alla växter, skära ner på koldioxidutsläpp, avskaffa kärnkraft, stoppa internationella transporter och sluta bygga vattenkraftverk. Men kan det vara så att man faktiskt måste välja?

Miljöpartiet måste också reda ut och definiera deras så kallade livsstilspolitik. De talar ofta om vad som gör människor lyckliga och nöjda, och vad människor “egentligen behöver” (de vet bara inte om det själva). Men ska politiker verkligen arbeta efter något så ordinalt som lycka? Hoppet om att kunna hitta en kardinal form av lycka har till och med övergivits av nationalekonomerna, och det för länge sedan.

Det är klart att det låter fint när man säger att man som människa ska nöja sig med det man har och inte lockas av dekadent konsumism och materialism, men i praktiken innebär det ju att Miljöpartiet i egenskap av den politiska eliten vill detaljstyra hur du och jag ska leva våra liv. Det verkar som om man genom lagar och regler vill bestämma hur svenska folket bör må och känna sig, baserat på någon slags lyckokalkyl som vägs mot miljöskador, där man försöker optimera båda två samtidigt.

Miljöpartiets politik är minst sagt förvirrande, och man kan ana att partiets egna medlemmar själva är förvirrade då Maria Wetterstrand i en artikel på Newsmill i den ena meningen säger att man bör prioritera “familj framför mer konsumtion”, för att i meningen därefter säga att “människor mår minst lika bra av /…/ en latte än av en extra resa till Thailand”.

Wetterstrand sätter huvudet på spiken i den följande meningen när hon avslutar artikeln med att “[l]ivet är större än materialismen” efter att precis ha förespråkat en latte (fysisk vara) framför en extra resa till Thailand (tjänst).

Simon Hedlin Larsson

Although it was only in the first half of the twentieth century that the term personalism became known as a designation of philosophical schools and systems, personalist thought had developed throughout the nineteenth century as a reaction to perceived depersonalizing elements in Enlightenment rationalism, pantheism, Hegelian absolute idealism, individualism as well as collectivism in politics, and materialist, psychological, and evolutionary determinism.

In its various strains, personalism always underscores the centrality of the person as the primary locus of investigation for philosophical, theological, and humanistic studies. It is an approach or system of thought which regards or tends to regard the person as the ultimate explanatory, epistemological, ontological, and axiological principle of all reality, although these areas of thought are not stressed equally by all personalists and there is tension between idealist, phenomenological, existentialist, and Thomist versions of personalism.

[ . . . ]

Personalists hold personhood (or “personality”) to be the fundamental notion, as that which gives meaning to all of reality and constitutes its supreme value. Personhood carries with it an inviolable dignity that merits unconditional respect. Personalism has for the most part not been primarily a theoretical philosophy of the person. Although it does defend a unique theoretical understanding of the person, this understanding is in itself such as to support the prioritization of moral philosophy, while at the same time the moral experience of the person is such as to decisively determine the theoretical understanding. . . . Stressing the moral nature of the person, or the person as the subject and object of free activity, personalism tends to focus on practical, moral action and ethical questions. (Continue)

(Via Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Are you able to give thanks?  Why or why not?  This week Pastor Bill shares some instruction gleaned from Moses in this week’s edition of the Faith Church podcast.

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För ett tag sen kunde vi läsa en artikel i DN om hur Smittskyddsinstitutet bekämpade svininfluensan med hjälp av:

en simulering där Sveriges befolkning med hjälp av registerdata från Statistiska centralbyrån kopplats samman i ett enda stort socialt nätverk. Smittskyddsinstitutet har räknat med fyra möjliga scenarier. Antingen att vaccineringen kommer i gång snabbt eller sent – respektive om smittspridningen blir mild eller mer aggressiv. (…) Syftet med studien var dock inte att ta reda på hur många som kommer att smittas utan om vissa grupper eller regioner bör få vaccin före andra, som skolbarn eller storstadsregioner.

Man har alltså skapat ett simulerat socialt nätverk – ett sociogram – för att ta reda på inte bara hur det ser ut, men hur man kan ingripa i skeendet för att på effektivast möjliga sätt förhindra smittspridning.

Att kartlägga sociala influensor

FRA-lagen och liknande övervakningslagar väcker ofta dystopiska tankar till liv. 1984 har använts som liknelse oftare än inte. Men är det verkligen ditåt vi är på väg?

99, our 68 citerar försvarsminister Sten Tolgfors:

Signalspaningen får dessutom aldrig inriktas mot endast en viss fysisk person. Någon omfattande kartläggning av svenska medborgare genom signalspaning är alltså icke tillåten. […]

Ett sociogram utgår från en individ medan ett trafikmönster visar trafikflöden oavsett vem eller vad som kommunicerar.

Poängen här är att det inte behövs. Det finns ingen (större) anledning att oroa sig för ett nära förestående 1984, med en omfattande partiapparat som övervakar varje enskild medborgare på individnivå. Dels för att det skulle vara vansinnigt dyrt och möta stora protester, men kanske framför allt för att det inte är effektivt. Betydligt effektivare är då att göra som i fallet svininfluensa ovan – samla in information för att kunna analysera strömningar, rörelser och mänskliga kontaktnät för att se vilka typer av kombinationer som signalerar potentiella “hot” mot staten och intervenera i dessa skeenden innan något har hunnit hända. Man kan använda ordet “sociogram” eller, som Tolgfors ovan, försöka mörka med ordet trafikflöden. Resultatet blir dock detsamma.

Det börjar med en silvernål…

I en artikel på DN debatt från september förra året skriver 13 forskare om just detta:

Det stora problemet är att data måste samlas in under väldigt lång tid och vi kan inte i förväg veta vem som uppfyller kriterierna för en “avvikande” person kopplad till ett yttre hot. Därför måste FRA spara på sociogram över en stor mängd människor, med andra ord en omfattande kartläggning av helt oskyldiga människor.

Den intressanta frågan här är ju: när denna information väl finns, varför skulle den inte användas för att avvärja andra hot än enbart “yttre”, “militära” eller “terroristiska”? (dessutom väntar vi ju fortfarande på en rimlig definition av vem som är terrorist) Att oppositionen nu gått ut och sagt att de vill att fler myndigheter ska få tillgång till FRA:s spaning är knappast lugnande om det är just denna spridning vi är rädda för.

En intressant vinkling är att det här synsättet inte är traditionellt polisiärt (“fånga-in-och-straffa”), utan snarare militärt (förhindra fiendens attack, slå till först, preemtive strike). Poängen med den här typen av kontrollsystem är inte att övervaka befolkningen för att kunna straffa brottslingar, utan att förhindra att brott någonsin begås.

Övervakning och atombomber

Atombomben är en massmordsteknik som säger något om samhället; den kräver en viss, hierarkisk samhällsorganisation för att existera, där endast de mäktigaste har tillgång till The Button – och den kan skapa obegriplig förödelse om någon obehörig lyckas lägga vantarna på den.  Vi vill bli av med atombomberna för att tekniken är för stor för människan – ohanterlig.

Övervakningen är på samma sätt en teknik som kräver en stark hierarki där endast vissa har rätt att ge uppdrag och begära ut information. De kosmetiska förändringar som nu gjorts av FRA-lagen är endast en förstärkning och ett förtydligande av detta. Men till skillnad från atombomben så är det i fallet FRA inte bara möjligt att obehöriga tar sig in – det är förmodligen ofrånkomligt. Frågan är då – vilka konsekvenser kan det få? Privat kan hela liv raseras, politiskt kan hela rörelser ringas in och utraderas.

Men, som Intensifier menar, kanske är det inte rätt väg att gå att fortsätta försöka ställa våra representanter till svars. Atombombshotet fick den amerikanska militären att utveckla internet – en informationsstruktur som var designad för att överleva ett omfattande kärnvapenkrig. Nu, med nya hot, blir utmaningen att bygga nya strukturer som kan övervinna de gamla och inte hänger på att de politiskt mäktigaste 0,00004 % av Sveriges befolkning lyder de övriga. Det räcker inte med att bara rösta bort alliansen i nästa val.

Klasskamp och klamydia

I senaste numret av tidningen Arbetaren skriver sjuksköterskan Kim Hägglund om hur smittontologin kan säga oss något om hur vi ska se på facklig organisering:

För att en större samhällsomvandling ska ske krävs helt enkelt att en enskild strejk eller ett uppror på en enskild arbetsplats snabbt smittar andra flera andra arbetsplatser som i sin tur repeterar samma handling. Det intressanta ligger just i vilka repetitioner som blir till gängse vanor, något som staten och näringslivet nu fått möjlighet att utläsa och påverka på exakt samma sätt som smittskyddsorganisationerna övervakar influensapandemin. Syftet med FRA-lagen och företaget Google är precis detta: att förutse vad du vill göra imorgon.

Det handlar helt enkelt om att effektivt förutse vilka handlingar som i vilka situationer kan starta en explosiv smittspridning, snarare än att förmedla en sanning om Kapitalismen eller Organisationen och tro att detta kommer få människor att “Vakna”. En aspekt av detta är förstås att använda metoder och verktyg som är enkla att kopiera. Som Kim Hägglund skriver: “Det är liksom inga påkostade reklamkampanjer som får folk att engagera sig i facket, utan aktiv organisering människor emellan.”

Mer smitta:
Intensifier skriver en bra sammanfattning/kommentar till Hägglunds artikel

Artikeln Smitto(nto)logi från Glänta

One of the most common complaints of those who consider themselves to be spiritually superior is that stuff doesn’t matter. By stuff I’m referring to actual physical possessions that people purchase. These spiritual know-it-alls look down on people who want to own things, telling them such canned phrases like “money can’t buy happiness” and “you can’t take it with you.” But these folks overlook the spiritual value of items, of things that we own. “Materialism” is a word that has been used too liberally of late, and many have been unfairly cast under that column. Regardless, is it so bad to love your possessions?

What a lot of people do not consider is the emotional value that things have. When I moved out of a house and put most of my things into storage and moved into another couple’s home, I didn’t think about giving anything up except my privacy. I had temporarily bought into the idea that things were just things–they held no real importance. But as time started to wear on me, and my private space was growing smaller, I began to long for my sofa, my squashy arm chair, my movies, my books, my everything.

Certainly a person is not defined by the amount of the items they own, and it’s of course true that you can’t take it with you, but until that time when God calls us, stuff matters.

Finally I was able to obtain my own little corner of space and I removed everything from storage. When that rolling door slid up with that cranky clackety sound, I ran inside and hugged my couch, lovingly stroked my armoire, and couldn’t wait to lay hands on my Harry Potters (which I’ve still not done!!! But I know they’re with me in a box.)

It all boils down to identity, to privacy, autonomy. My couch doesn’t define who I am, but it’s where I sit, all alone (wonderfully) and relax. The big and comfy chair is where I can ponder my day and read a book. It’s mine and no one else’s. It’s an independence thing, an atmosphere of Courtney that I can retreat into for needed space and solitude when the days get a little crazy.

Many people miss what our items represent. We love our stuff because we love what it represents: freedom, joy, privacy. Would I save my mac computer over a person? Well…that’s a toughie. I’d certainly save a person over my PC. Because of course people matter more than things. But I like my things too.

I’ve always hated that Donald Trump appropriated “For the Love of Money” for his show, The Apprentice. Written by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Anthony Jackson, the song is a rebuke, with lyrics derived straight from the bible, against the evils of greed and materialism. Trump used it as a celebration and an affirmation of the love and worship of money. Ugh… Reminds me of how right-wingers flocked to Bruce Springsteen and his “Born in the USA” for all the wrong reasons.

I hope the right people still own that song…

If you wanna know who was the genius behind that opening bass guitar riff throughout this song, it is this guy, Anthony Jackson, now 57, based in New York City. Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about how that sound actually came about.

Jazz bassist Anthony Jackson performing bathed in blue light; it is his bass riff that sounds throughout the iconic O'Jays' song, "For the Love of Money" (Courtesy: Epifani.com)

Anthony Jackson played bass guitar on the song. One day during fall 1973 (when Jackson was 21), producer/keyboardist Leon Huff was leading the members of the MFSB rhythm section and Jackson through a rehearsal. Sigma Sound Studios owner/engineer Joe Tarsia noticed that Jackson had a wah-wah pedal attached to his Fender Precision bass. Tarsia decided to run Jackson’s bassline through a phaser, giving it a swishing sound and later mixed in echo. During the final mixing of the track, Kenny Gamble impulsively reached over to the echo button and added echo to Jackson’s opening riffs.

Even though “For The Love of Money” is over seven minutes long, it was given heavy airplay in the early Seventies, both long and short versions, on black soul as well as white stations. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B list and at No. 9 on the Billboard Singles chart in 1974. It is included in the O’Jays’ Ship Ahoy theme album, which charted No. 11 that year on the Billboard 200.

[...] The second single, “For The Love of Money,” is a protest against materialism with a groove that Rolling Stone described as “downright orgiastic”. The song was written around a bass line composed by Anthony Jackson, which in 2005 Bass Player Magazine described as “landmark.” Bass Player went on to note that the song has “become one of the most recycled singles ever, sampled continually by rappers, and appearing on over 75 compilation CDs, numerous movie soundtracks…

In other words, Anthony Jackson’s bass line for “For The Love of Money” ranks with that of Motown Funk Brother Robert White’s easily recognizable bass track for “My Girl.”

Jackson continues to perform singly and variously with other jazz musicians. He started out on the piano and worked his way to the bass guitar. He plays bass and his own invention, the six-string, or contrabass guitar. His influences are Motown mainstay James Jamerson whose performances made him pick up the bass; Oliver Messaien, the French composer, and Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane. Of Casady, Jackson said to Bass Player Magazine, “Casady, whom I’d first heard on Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow album in late 1966, had a big, rich, metallic sound with a full bottom and a curious, guitaristic way of playing that I was immediately drawn to. When I saw him perform live, I was struck by his dignity and serious mien.”

Hmmm. Those psychedelic types do have presence, I guess.

The O’Jays are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame–almost all of them: Walter Williams, Bobby Massey, William Powell and Eddie Levert. Unfortunately, their induction wasn’t all that appreciated by the surviving members of the group–I believe they were introduced by Justin Timberlake, of all people. In addition, one of the original members, Bill Isles, was not inducted at the same time, but the replacement for the deceased William Powell, Sammy Strain, was. Very strange. Very, very strange. Some people may not be getting things right.

They are a trio now: Eddie Levert, Walter Williams, and Eric Grant. They still perform live; their last album, Imagination , was produced in 2004.

Enjoy…

It is a curious thing that Thanksgiving, a day of gratitute and appreciation, is followed by a day of consumerism. Lines of desperate shoppers, waiting through the night, bundled in layers of coats and sometimes carrying portable heaters, strive to be the first to find good deals. Of course, there are many that do so simply for the experience of it. Even so, it proves that our society is truly governed by money and materialism; a month before Christmas, one day of shopping empties the shelves of our many retailers, so that choice goods are “picked over,” should anyone dare to wait until December to begin their Christmas shopping.

How many of these enthusiastic shoppers would stay up all night, standing in the cold, and offer prayers in honor of the birth of Christ? How many, after generations of cultural decay, even recognize that they are celebrating a specifically Christian holiday, commemorating a momentous event of two millenia past? It is a reflection of their shallow nature and spiritual inferiority that they take part in all the secular aspects of Christmas, while ignoring or even denying its true significance.