Country Sketches [Part 1]

Every road trip ideally includes a stretch through the country. For this reason, the drive to Myrtle Beach can be more relaxing for me than after we actually arrive. Our drive to Pensacola consists of two long stretches through the country: one at the very beginning, on S.C. Hwy. 5, which cuts across York County, and the other at the very end, after we exit I-65 and cut across southern Alabama and part of the Florida Panhandle.

One of my favorite things about country driving is imagining what led (or keeps) people in these small communities. (Communities is how they are appropriately identified because they are too small to be towns, and besides they contain no "downtown," zoning, commercialization, etc. They are merely small clusters of houses, barns, and fields.) Many, I imagine, were born in these little places and have probably never ventured far beyond them because they do not need to or have to. As I told Heather, I don't think one accidentally ends up in Beulah Creek, Alabama. People probably live there because that's where their parents and their grandparents lived, and they will die there because their kids will live there and never leave for the same reasons. Yet, it is interesting to imagine what stories these folks might have to tell.

For me, the idea of country living is appealing even as I admit the realities are far less so. On the idealized side, I long for the wide-open spaces, large plots of land situated under long blue skies, filled with crisp-green vegetation and ripe with the smell of life, and even the idea of making a living that somehow connects me in some integral way to the dirt and land. Essentially, I long for the natural. I also like the idea of growing the fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, and spices my family eats and uses to cook, and I hope Heather and I can someday have a small garden, if for no other reason because our generation is so removed from the land and I want Abigail to see how nature works beyond stodgy science books and lectures. For this reason, I really enjoy Wendell Berry's writings, and his themes of sustenance farming and (re)connecting with the land. When we plant that garden, I will be learning alongside Abigail.

Completely hypothetical, this is something I wonder about: If the global economy crashed -- completely busted -- and all semblance of international and national trade ceased, oil supplies stopped coming so our trains, planes, and automobiles were useless, power plants ceased to provide the power necessary to refrigerate and sell food in grocery stores, etc., I wonder how many from my generation would be able to pick up a shovel and a hoe and work the land in their backyard well enough to sustain themselves and their families. I, for one, would probably starve without a handy copy of The Farmer's Almanac, a botany book, and a knowledgeable peer from the soil science department. Our grandparents' understood very well many secrets in nature: When to plant this, how to time that crop, when and how to rotate which crops to maximize certain minerals in the soil, how to predict the potential effectiveness of a crop by "reading" the soil, seasons, water levels. The point of the hypothetical is not to be apocalyptic but to challenge myself and others to consider just how much we don't know about basic survival. Many of us know more about economic theories than about cultivating the land to feed ourselves.

On the other hand, I can imagine the realities of just such a life, especially when that life is rooted in and dependent upon agriculture. I can only imagine how extremely difficult it must be, how fraught with uncertainties. Besides the long, grueling days that go hand-in-hand with working the land, there are no "paid holidays," no fancy "healthcare plans" except what the land yields, no retirement plans. It is a life far removed from what I and most of us could imagine.

Negative side effects from "progress" have led postmodern theorists to question what is "Real." Real here is often closely related, although not necessarily directly correlated with, the idea of "Truth." However, the Real can also be equated with what is genuine, or what is not fake, manufactured, unnatural. As Baudrillard put it in the title of his book, what is not Simulacra and Simulation. I will not go too deeply into this conversation in this post, but will say that in the context of country life, the Real is dirt under your fingernails and the supper you grew and cooked and that will sustain you and your family, which now sits on the table in front of you and passed through no other hands on the way to that spot than your family's. It's the culmination of working your own land, with your own hands, and having the result in front of you. The Real is the natural cycle of life so apparent before our eyes once we get outside the facade of manmade culture. The opposition of nature/ culture arose as a prominent theme in British Romantic literature amid the first industrial revolution in Europe, and I think the questions raised 200 years ago still hold much relevance for us today.

And so I enjoyed driving through the groves of perfectly lined pecan trees, the oaks with bright-red holly berries dotting the gray Spanish moss tangled in and hanging from their crowns, and the creeping hills with their many secrets tucked just on the other side of the bend, the break, the crest, the dip. It does my soul good to see the freshly plowed fields stretching almost as far as the eye can see, unhindered by architectural clutter. Such open spaces serve as a type of visual nourishment I need after living day after day entrenched in manmade culture, much of it visually assaulting, violent to the eye that longs for naturalness and serenity, longs for some connection to what is Real, what is genuine, what soothes rather than sells.

Out there in the country, I can breathe fresh air, I can see just how blue the sky really is without the tint of pollution, and I can smell the rain coming from miles away. I can walk in fields that grow naturally, and while I walk I can hear myself think.

It is inevitable that country life to city dwellers is ideal in some ways and in some cases vice versa. This is partly because each is ignorant of the challenges and downsides the other faces, and because we crave the new and the different. However, I strongly suspect that had I been born in Beulah Creek, Alabama, I would never leave either -- for all the right reasons.

A Place in the Sun

Call me romance
Call me Pensacola...
-- Jolene

Tomorrow, we are traveling down to visit Heather's mother in Pensacola. I'm looking forward to the drive perhaps more than I should in light of how challenging every long trip with Abigail has been. It's going to be a long day -- probably between 12 and 14 hours altogether -- but could we be bound for a better place? The gulf coast as a destination after the past two gloomy winter months is unbelievably fortunate. Thinking about driving that long and far to someplace in Iowa makes me want to insert bamboo shoots under my fingernails and hang myself from a balcony.

So I am bound for palm trees, white sand, cool blue water, and (hopefully) plenty of warm sunshine. Although it will be too cool to float around in the gulf, I hope to sit, think, and watch the water for hours. What is it about watching water that is so relaxing? Watching the ocean reminds me of listening to a classical composition for the first time. You sense the deep internal patterns and rhythms, yet can know the surface notes only afterwards. You can never be quite certain where the music will take you, which is a great joy of all new music, but particularly of classical music for me. The joy of watching water is not dissimilar. You sense a pattern in and rhythm to the tide and currents but can know how the water will ultimately go only afterwards. Waves are metronomes for the mind: They keep the rhythm while you pluck the proverbial keys, trying this thought on and that one out, follow this one here for a while, then jump over here. Schopenhauer wrote that life and dreams are leaves of the same book: reading them in order is living; skimming through them is dreaming. On the beach, I become more acutely aware of just how intertwined the conscious and subconscious are: thoughts, ideas, insights, reflections, daydreams, and dreams form the diagonal, criss-crossing strands of an intricate piece of woven fabric -- in this moment I am on this strand, now I am tracing along that strand. As steady as the waves, my mind extends, now draws back within itself, it overflows with abundance, now I am dying of thirst, it generously gives, now it takes.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.
-Wallace Stevens (from The Idea of Order at Key West)

The road trip also gives me occasion to sort through music as I prepare a mix tape. Music carries the indelible stamp of time ago -- musical photographs. Music can encompass whole events in our lives in the span of a couplet, a refrain, a series of measures, because it is there with us as we go about living. To read a book, we must temporarily stop all life aside from the act of reading -- Go Away! Can't You See I Am Living In This Book Right Now -- and perhaps allows some peripheral joy like ripe fruit and warm coffee. But books are greedy. They require all of our time, all of our attention, all of our life in the moments we are reading. Books constitute a whole universe we peer inside as we read, but that universe is not our own. Music is more generous. Music is in the background when we share Belgian Ales with friends, and there as we drive to our wedding, there while we hold our baby for the first time, and when we reach the mountain peak just in time to see the deer eating blackberries disappear in a brown blur into the green thistle. Music supplements the life we are already living and provides a type of framing context. It complements our time and memories rather than constitutes them.

Today, just from shifting through my CD collection (massively downsized before the last move, by about 300 records I would guess), I have already recalled in vivid detail the crazy beach trip in May 1997, which began with 30 minutes' notice and ended with the worst hangover of my life and second-degree sunburn. I've recalled the five Our Lady Peace concerts (on the Clumsy tour) in seven days Hollie and I attended in the middle of spring 1999 semester, darting from the University of Georgia, to Clemson, to Tremont Music Hall, to Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill, and finally to Roanoke, Va., in her little black Laser while listening to Radiohead down long stretches of interstate between somewhere and nowhere.

I remember the many nights spring 1998 I drifted to sleep listening to Portishead or Pink Floyd with the gigantic windows in my fifth-floor dorm room open to the smell of rain and grass and pine, dirt and leaves mixing under quick feet, and the faintest hint of cinnamon incense drifting from the room below into the cool-metal air, the halo of uptown Charlotte hovering on the deep purple horizon. After hours of reading Thomas Hardy and crunching fresh apples to the core while perched on the window shelf, I'd write bad poetry in a small spiral notebook. Delacroix wrote that if you're a writer at 20, you're a poet. If you're a poet at 40, you're a poet.

Feels like all the days are gone
Just catch the breeze
You know it had to fall
Rain, washes, ways down
And I, I want the world to pass
And I, I watch the wind to fly
You can believe in everything
You can believe it all
Hey, are you feeling something new
Just watch the rain, it helps in all you do
The breeze, it blows, it blows everything
And I, I want the world to pass
And I, I want the sun to shine
You can believe in everything
You can believe it all
--Slowdive (Catch the Breeze)

May 2002 will always be a month I remember vividly although, ironically, I can’t remember many specifics. For the most part, it blended seamlessly into one carefree procession of beautiful days. Abigail was on the way, Heather and I were content, I had been accepted into graduate school, and I knew I was leaving The Herald. I was as satisfied as a blind squirrel who had found an acorn. There was uncertainty, but the scrambled emotions from March had subsided, and we found temporary peace of mind. We did not yet know what August and everything after held for us.

The place on Ebenezer Avenue in Rock Hill was our home, and we both loved it. It had originally been designed as Winthrop University student housing in the fifties or sixties, with many eccentricities common to older places. Hardwood floors and wood paneling on all the walls were complemented by the eclectic decorations Heather had collected from her years living and traveling around Europe. All of this contributed to, as Bachelard says, the poetics of space. I even miss that fur ball she had, although I had to change the litter box several times a week (that, my friends, was love). If it was bigger and we didn’t have to relocate for graduate school, we would have stayed there. We often speak of missing the warmness of that little place.

On evenings I had off, I enjoyed reading in the sunset pouring through the two large windows in the front, sunbeams scattered about by the labyrinth of twisted oak limbs out front. I recall fragmented moments from the simple dates we shared at the Atlantic Brewing Company in uptown Charlotte, or at Time Out listening to the Avett Bros. play bluegrass, or dinners of curry duck at the Thai House. I’d often listen to former Whiskeytown front man Ryan Adams’ solo album Gold, and my favorite tune, although not particularly relevant to my situation at the time, was La Cienega Just Smiled. The music has a quality of escapism to my ear, and although I wanted to do anything but escape my life then, a quality of escapism is something I think we all cherish in at least some of our music. I miss those days...

This is a litany of lost things,
a canon of possessions dispossessed,
a photograph, an old address, a key.
It is a list of words to memorize
or to forget -- of amo, amas, amat,
the conjugations of a dead tongue
in which the final sentence has been spoken.
Dana Gioia (from The Litany)

And then there are the albums that remind you of the old flings, make you thank god for heartbreaks and indecisive ex-girlfriends, for how else would any man retain happiness after years of marriage if not for the thought of some gorgeous, wonderfully perfect, sweet-as-candy and yet utterly dim-witted nincompoop he dated in his past? She is in the back of his mind along with the thought he could have married that one instead, and so he is happy with both what he found in his wife and what he lost in the other, and so he comes to believe there is a God in heaven and order to the universe. And all his days he wakes and kisses his beautiful wife and thanks her for being intelligent, and wonderful, and generous with her patience, and charitable with her forgiveness, and mostly, for being all the things the others were not.

And thank god for the beautiful girls you only watched from a distance, afraid that if you spoke she would have burped or farted or sneezed snot on her sleeve -- something that would have made her human, less ideal, somehow like the rest of them (and us) and therefore completely unworthy of the special place she holds in your memory. You never even knew her name, but because you never got close enough to witness her humanness, you can accept that all is not lost, all is not hopeless, there is and can be some semblance of ideal beauty without the interference of unpleasant bodily functions. And thank god there was always at least one in every math or science lecture, lectures that made your brain devolve back to the state it was a millenium or so ago. I left those lectures feeling like the Butthead Distinguished Chair of Statistics, but at least I could blame her for underperforming -- how can I be expected to watch the teacher wade neck deep through a 20-minute confidence interval on the board while I'm sitting several rows behind her? (I guess a responsible person would say that inscribing "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" across the top of my statistics exams and then proceeding to work every problem differently didn't help my case.) But at least there was someone pretty to look at the whole time.

And so, yes, I'm ready for the drive down, and the cello adagios I'll listen to as we zip past cow pastures in four states over 13 hours, and the wonderful wife who will talk to me about literature and politics and religion all the way down, and the daughter who will time dirty diapers for 30 minutes on the far side of the rest area, and who will make me listen to what sounds like lithium cowboys singing the Noah's Ark version of Old MacDonald Had A Farm (two of EVERYTHING), and the mother-in-law who will have something sweet to eat and a nice glass of wine when I finally arrive, and the wonderful books I'll read after I arrive while sitting on the white sand, in the warm sunshine, listening to and watching the deep blue ocean thinking about everything, and anything, and nothing, all at once.

Wonder is a pause of reason.
-Dr. Samuel Johnson

And days go by

A long post, comprised of short takes on a hodgepodge of topics, composed over the last week. Yes, a post with some sustained discussion is in the works.

1. Good news

My best friend – essentially a brother – has returned safely from Iraq after serving 12 consecutive months. He was stationed at Baghdad Airport most of his time there. His wonderful fiancée, Runs with Carrots, passed on the news to me Monday (they give you next to no specifics on troop movements). Dan isn’t your typical soldier, holding a B.A. in art and having an offer to publish his work before he left for the service. Although I haven’t heard from him yet, I’m sure he’s in good hands now that he’s home.

Welcome back, brother.

2. The Hearth and the Salamander

I refer here to Part I of Ray Bradbury’s classic novella Fahrenheit 451. I do not remember enjoying Bradbury’s style this much, but he makes my list of Master American Prose Stylists.

More on Bradbury’s style and subject matter later, after I finish the book.

3. College education irrelevant?

This article, which comes from the Los Angeles Times, contains the most amazing quote on education I’ve heard in a year:

The advantages of a college degree “are being erased,” said Marcus Courtenay, president of a branch of the Communications Workers of America that represents technology employees in the Seattle area. “The same thing that happened to non-college-educated employees during the last recession is now happening to college-educated employees.”

Well, that’s wonderful PR for university business and technology departments across the country, as well as for all those cheerleaders who want American education to focus more stringently on science and technology. It looks like Humanities majors are not the only ones facing an uphill battle to make their degree “relevant” anymore. Outsourcing and task automation are essentially eating jobs from the bottom up (manufacturing, administrative, processing) and from the top of the middle down (programmers, accountants, etc.).

Although this article is targeted at the technology and financial services industries, this should set off alarms for us younger American workers. We face a whole career of this type of uncertainty, caused by corporate gluttony and economic Darwinism, at the expense of our professional livelihoods. Do not doubt this type of mentality will spread into other sectors. It has already crept into journalism, as I noted several weeks ago in an e-mail (prior to this blog’s existence) to my many friends (and wife) working in journalism. Paxton Media Group bought the family-owned Durham Herald-Sun and then proceeded to gut the staff.

Even as a free-market economist, who understands the rationale of how businesses work, I have to ask: Progress, perhaps, but at what cost and for who?

4. Sharpen the blades…

Bernard Ebbers, former CEO of WorldCom, was found guilty in court Tuesday on all nine counts of $11 billion fraud and conspiracy, which led to WorldCom’s collapse. He claimed ignorance to the whole debacle in earlier testimony. Ken Lay, former Enron CEO, appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday essentially claiming the same thing in a bumbling interview notable for his unbelievably shifty eyes. I wouldn’t trust the troll as far as I could throw him.

In light of number three, CEOs shouldn’t think for one minute any jury in this nation will absolve them of their ultimate responsibility. In fact, most Americans agree with Ebbers’ sentence. I do not believe in class warfare, but I do believe in personal responsibility and accountability.

Now, where did we leave those guillotines after we finished with the politicians…?

5. Kasparov bows out

The iconic Garry Kasparov, undisputed No. 1 ranked chess player in the world for the past 21 years, retired as a professional to pursue interests in politics. For 30 years, Kasparov did to opponents in chess what a team of Michael Jordans (in his early 90's form) would have done to the local YMCA 12-and-under basketball all-stars. Many opponents never made it past move 20 with him; some didn't last 10. No credible commentator disputes his reputation as the greatest and perhaps most creative chess player in history. Many will remember his superhuman efforts in beating several IBM supercomputers, as well as his loss (by half a point) to the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in 1998. I think I remember reading somewhere that Deep Blue, in determining the best response to an opponent's move, could calculate millions of scenarios in roughly a second. Kasparov eventually lost the world championship to Vladimir Kramnik several years ago, but remained No. 1 in world rankings and still has the highest ELO (a chess player's quantitative ranking) in history. The news of his retirement is disappointing. A world class champion all the way around.

6. Memphis blues

I'm glad I’m not that kid for Memphis who had to make two of three free-throws in front of a home crowd with 0.00 seconds remaining to upset No. 6 Louisville for the C-USA championship and to secure a bid for my team in the NCAA Tournament. He missed two of three, and Memphis did not make the big dance. Madness. March Madness.

7. Where there’s a Will, there’s a logical argumentLast week, Smitty posted on a Myrtle Beach Sun News editorial on Sen. Lindsey Graham’s criticism of the GOP’s mishandling of the political moment to fix Social Security. I agree; the editorial is worth reading.Sunday, George Will wrote a column on the same topic. I would also recommend it. Here’s Will on Raising Social Security limit.

8. Education colleges failing test

Does this study, Educating School Leaders, actually surprise anyone?

The accompanying news story summarizes the report’s author, Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College at Columbia University, by saying “Most graduate education programs that train school administrators are deeply flawed, suffering from irrelevant curriculum, low standards, weak faculty and little clinical instruction.”

Only a college of education would take four years to come to this conclusion. Someone should make them read Fahrenheit 451.9. Clifford the Big Red… Pothead?It occurred to me Saturday morning at 6:45, while I was cooking Abigail breakfast, that the theme song for PBS’s Clifford the Big Red Dog could be the melody to an old Sublime song -- minus the references to controlled substances, of course.10. Job post of the week…

From a job ad for news editor at the Virgin Island Daily News, winner of a Pulitzer and about half a dozen more prestigious journalism awards:

The beaches, the islands and the weather here are beautiful, but if you’re looking for a job in a laid-back, low-key Jimmy Buffett fantasy, this is not for you.

Apply here.

Cuban cuisine at Carlos Cafe

Forgive the alliterative overkill, there.

Several years ago, while Heather and I were still engaged, I took her to eat Cuban cuisine at a restaurant in Charlotte (Pineville, to be exact) called Siboney’s. At the time, I was doubtful about the idea of Cuban cuisine, although I know Cuba has a rich potpourri of agrarian delights. Sugarcane, rice, citrus, tobacco, beans, and potatoes, among other things, are all grown there. That dinner turned out to be the most memorable of our “courting” years. Unfortunately, Siboney’s went out of business not long after we ate there (bad location in a city of bankers... go figure).

Luckily, we found a local joint called Carlos Café and decided to eat dinner there tonight, since Abigail spent the afternoon/ evening with “Nana.” Wow! What a place. (If you’re local and want directions, e-mail me.) We walked in to speakers serenading us in traditional Cuban music, consisting of guitars, tambourines, conga drums, and maracas. On the walls were autographed album covers of popular Cuban bands from times bygone, many of the bands from the 1970s with their long sideburns and flair pants. The wall of fame, shall we say, reminded me of a Cuban version of the décor at Mert’s Heart and Soul in downtown Charlotte. Although the restaurant is located in a strip mall (except for banks and business parks, what around here isn’t?), from the time we walked in I felt transported to a little dig that could have been a block off the Cuban coast.

Although I had the option of a glass of watermelon or natural pineapple juice, I opted for a can or Ironbeer, a nonalcoholic Root-Beerish type soda with a pleasant touch of citrus. The can explained:

“On a summers [sic] afternoon in 1917, a mule-drawn, wooden wagon arrived at a popular cafeteria in Havana, Cuba. It delivered the first four cases of a new soft drink that would soon be called ‘The National Beverage’. Now more than 80 years later, Ironbeer is still enjoyed for its refreshing flavor with just a hint of island spices. A lot can change over the years - but not the original flavor of Ironbeer!”

Should I live there one day (How old is Castro now?), it is a drink I could enjoy for breakfast on occasion, and definitely for lunch and dinner (and I’m not a big soda person).

Because we were under time pressure due to Abigail’s impending return home, we regrettably skipped appetizers and a bottle of one of their Vintage wines, but we shall return in the near future when we have more time. For dinner, Heather had a “Cuban Sandwich,” which the waiter patiently explained could be distinguished from the “Special Cuban Sandwich” only in size. The sandwich had ham, pork, mustard, and pickles on Cuban bread that was then pressed firmly between two grills, which deceivingly compacted the sandwich. Heather could not finish the second half of the regular “Cuban Sandwich.” Heather now regrets not forgoing the sandwich for a regular entrée.

I had fried pork chunks topped with sweet onions along with rice, black beans, fried plantains, and bread. In all, there were three pork chunks (really, the name chunks has unfortunate connotations), and they were filling and delicious. The plantains complemented the spices used to cook the pork, and all of it was complemented with intermittent sips of Ironbeer. Unfortunately, I could not finish the black beans because the helping was generous, and I wanted to save room for dessert.

For dessert, Heather and I each had a Cuban espresso coffee with sugar, and I had the traditional Cuban treat called natilla (Heather refrained for lent). Natilla, or Rum Custard Cream, is similar in substance to flan. Natilla is a sweet custard with a few dashes of cinnamon on top, and this particular kind had liquid caramel at the bottom. I kept promising Heather my facial expressions were not to tease her, but I truly could not be helped. On the seventh day, God rested and treated himself to natilla.

When you come to visit, we shall surely go back to eat, drink, and be merry, for after all, some tomorrow sooner than later we shall surely die, and you wouldn’t want to miss trying Cuban cuisine (or having Cuban cuisine again, as the case may be). We have been pleasantly surprised both times.

So that was our little adventure for the week. I am counting the days until Castro kicks the ole bucket…

Capitalism and secularism: an exploratory essay

In this month’s Smithsonian Magazine , there are two articles about two countries experiencing burgeoning economies, social transformations, and cultural revolutions in very different parts of the world. The countries are Iran and Ireland. I am an expert on neither, but I noticed in reading the articles some broad parallels between these two countries in particular, and in general, countries who have (have had) capitalist “emerging economies.”

As casual observers, it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint which comes first – burgeoning economy or cultural revolution – in this increasingly common international narrative, although Iran and Ireland do, surprisingly, have several notable correlations. For instance, both have substantially youthful populations. In Iran, writer Afshin Molavi tells us, 70 percent of the population is under 30. Joseph A. Harriss tells us that 45 percent of the Irish population is under 25. To say youth is the wellspring of revolution is as redundant as observing water is wet.

Still, these two countries share other striking characteristics. A casual student of history and news can’t help but notice that following any society’s embrace of capitalism there are several “cultural” martyrs in the wake. Two of these cultural casualties often include tradition and religion. Tradition seems the obvious of the two: Progress and tradition – however they are conceptualized – at first blush to a revolutionary are fundamentally oxymoronic.

So, for instance, we learn in Molavi’s article that, in Iran, the demise of tradition translates into youths’ departure from the vehement anti-American propaganda machine in place most of their lives (i.e. tradition in their sense of remembered time). It also means off with burqas and on with the blue jeans. In Ireland, Harriss tells us, the demise has resulted in a growing oblivion regarding traditionally significant archaeological sites (in threat of being razed and/ or paved over) and, most troubling to some Irish women of the wiser generation, the loss of the traditional art of Irish knitting.

Straightforward enough, but it seems a bit more complex as to why capitalism seems to routinely encompass secularization (at least outside of America; I’ll come back to this a minute). Why should this be? In the case of these two countries, another striking similarity is a past where religion and politics are flip sides of the same coin. In Iran, the situation can be illustrated with a simple equation: all things held constant, Ayatollah Khomenei = anti-American. In Ireland, we have the centuries-old battle between British Anglicans and Irish Catholics (a redundant term Harriss reminds us) inherently tied to political strife (not to mention perennially strained relations between protestant Northern Ireland and Catholic Ireland).

However – and I speak here acknowledging I am not an expert political theorist or historian – I’m not certain this can be completely understood or rationalized away from the viewpoint of church and state marriage as some may be tempted to think. Even in European countries long observing the separation of church and state, there remains the fact of prevalent secularization after relaxing market barriers to investment and trade. In fact, a cursory consideration of the current Western geopolitical environment reveals that America stands as a (perhaps not the only) paradox to this seeming pattern in modern history. Despite our (American’s) strong allegiances to separation of church and state as well as capitalism, the majority holds fast to personal and social religions. The context of our founding seems to offer a logical, at least partial, explanation.

So what of all the other countries who seem to fall rank and file into this pattern of capitalism and secularization? I speak broadly – and perhaps stereotypically – here of European countries. To my eye there seems at least three possible explanations as to why this is. (And, again, I am not a professional economist, historian, or political scientist, so if some scholar has made these points before – and I wouldn’t doubt that someone has – I am unaware of it.)

1) Generally speaking, it seems capitalism requires a movement away from predominantly agrarian economies to predominantly manufacturing-based economies. In modern times, this movement’s natural evolution continues into high-tech economies.

Perhaps the shift away from working with and on the land – a shift that so many lament for many, many reasons – frees people from the constant reminder that you are one flood, one drought, or one pest infestation from financial devastation. In agrarian economies, nature dictates economic (and physical) survival. Since God – in whatever conception – is so commonly associated with nature, even equated with nature, and viewed by many religions as working through nature, perhaps this economic shift away from agrarianism in turn allows people to more easily sidestep the idea that livelihood depends on the grace of climate or the whim of a god.

2) Capitalism’s most fundamental premise is that anyone – anyone at all – with a good idea and/ or a good work ethic can, theoretically at least, succeed (broadly defined).

This fundamental principle naturally removes the necessity for any perceived reliance on a mythical or supernatural force and places responsibility and prosperity squarely on an individual’s shoulders. Of course, it is not uncommon for people, especially Americans, to still attribute success (or ruin) back to God (i.e. blessings of ingenuity, intellectual prowess, personality traits, etc.), but ultimately, capitalism only requires your individual talent and work ethic to “succeed.” Divine blessing and/ or curse is irrelevant to capitalism, in theory. Because so many religions associate nature with God, it is perhaps more difficult to differentiate the two in agrarian economies.

There are a million other ways people can (and do) find ways to directly or indirectly implicate God in their success or failure in capitalist markets, and again, to my mind – contrasting mainly with Europe here – this seems distinctly American (thinking very broadly and stereotypically).

3) There are fewer motivators more powerful than hunger, to paraphrase Hemingway. Therefore, people of all kinds and from all places with unbelievably varied religious worldviews flock to capitalist countries, where the best opportunities are perceived to be, namely because of number two.

In (largely) culturally homogenous societies – such as Ancient Greece, or Ireland up to 30 years ago (as the article mentioned), or contemporary Vermont – it is easier to locate what Greek philosophers called “self-evident truths.” (If I hear Howard Dean talk about his accomplishments in race relations in Vermont one more time… You’d have to be Hitler or George Wallace not to accomplish this in Vermont, Dr. Dean.)

However, when you start diversifying the ole cultural pot, then all viewpoints – specifically religious – become less “self-evident.” When not everyone is White Episcopalian Vermonters, or white Irish Catholics, or believers in Zeus, things can appear more relative or at least more uncertain. Consider the myriad parallels and similarities (on the “self-evident” level) between Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism for a minute, and then attempt to make a definitive, logical argument for why one is “superior” or “more right” than another. Of course, if you could, you’d perhaps win the Nobel Peace Prize. We also perceive fundamental differences in the details of each of these (e.g. denominations in Christianity, etc.). So how does a society reconcile fundamentally different worldviews each person holds as “self-evident” to her/himself, despite their “self-evident” differences?

Inevitably, capitalist markets will eventually diversify in the religious worldviews of its members. For anyone human, this raises a specter of uncertainty regarding “correct” or “more accurate” worldviews. Tolerance (and I don’t at all mean to sound like I’m writing from the DNC’s “talking points” here) becomes necessary, and from there it can be convenient for a substantial portion of a society to embrace secularism.

It is not my intent to go further with this here, although we could write book upon book on this subject and draw from what seems infinite examples to support or undercut these claims. All of these points are, of course, tentative and very general. This subject just happened to be on my mind after reading those articles, so I thought I’d share.

Cannibals, property rights, identity theft

In response to my post “Desert-island readings,” V wrote:

these subjects [desert islands] are what is possible, not what is, and often their powerlessness or vulnerability is a means to think about concepts such as human rights and property (coming into their own in the 18th century, especially through colonialism) from the ground up. if we can imagine property through the position of penniless crusoe, or human rights through the cannibals he encounters, we can certainly begin imagining them for those back home in england.

Here’s an interesting idea: What about “property rights” through the eyes of a cannibal? So whose body is it, anyway? And how is what they (cannibals) are eating any different from, say, a rabbit or an apricot? You might contend (conveniently, for the purpose of this post…), “But a person, unlike a rabbit or an apricot, is a human... which is to say an individual... which is to say that each individual has an 'identity,' a 'self,' which makes them unique.” Or, in our PC lingo, "special" or "diverse." (Ever notice how, after Duke creams someone into oblivion, Coach K mentions the "special" effort the "special" opponent put forth in the "special" loss?)

(For the purposes of this post, allow me to steer away from a philosophical dualist theory to pose an interesting question from a philosophical materialist point of view.)

Consider this: The fifth century (B.C.) Greek poet Epicharmus theorized that “things are simply composed of the matter that makes them up. But that matter is in a constant state of flux; hence nothing remains the same from one instant to the next.” Therefore, Epicharmus could argue that there is no such thing as identity because as soon as “you” establish an identity, the next instant “you” have changed. This argument has obvious debts to Heraclitus. Conversely, as an exercise in dialectic, you might make a compelling counter-argument with Zeno’s (pre-Socratic Zeno, not the stoic Zeno of Citium) paradox of motion.

However, how could we conceive of “property rights” from the more credible view of Epicharmus? Is it “your” body being eaten? Oh, really? And who are “you”? Define “you.” Are “you” certain? etc. ad infinitum. Theoretically, by the time you could conceptualize, define, and express “your identity” in any given moment, at the most fundamental levels, “you” are already someone else – another “you.” So who really owns "your" body? And if there is no stable "you" to claim ownership of (or to) "your" body, then why shouldn't cannibals be able to enjoy it the same as an apricot they may stumble across walking "among the apricots," shall we say?

If matter is composed of atoms, and atoms are always and constantly moving randomly and unpredictably, then at what point can “you” claim a “stable” identity or even claim what "you" will be? For how long are “you,” “you”?

Also, a topic I will return to later… what of the notion of “identity theft”? What does this mean, to “steal someone’s identity”? This seems as mystifying as “stealing someone’s idea” (i.e. plagiarism). What does that mean? What is an "identity," and how is an idea "yours"?

Oh, I suspect you know where I’m heading. Yes, friends, it’s the “C” word, as in, our friend Adam Smith...

Already, this is getting very interesting…

On 'assays'

“If my design had been to seek the favour of the world I would have decked myself out better and presented myself in studied gait. Here I want to be seen in my simple, natural, everyday fashion, without striving or artiface: for it is my own self I am painting...
And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivilous and so vain.
Therefore, farewell:
--Montaigne, the first of March, One thousand, five hundred and eighty."

In 1572, a French legal official named Michel Eyquem retired from public service to his estate – Montaigne – in southwest France and began exploring the world through rigorous reading and by writing “assays” of his reflections, ideas, and insights. Montaigne’s experiment resulted in the birth of the essay genre, which was originally characterized by Montaigne's informal, almost conversational exploration of ideas, thoughts, texts, and objects in the world through subjective observation and reporting. Montaigne’s subjects ranged from some of the great philosophical problems faced by mankind – conscience, cruelty, and virtue – to things as common as sleep, smells, and thumbs.

Montaigne’s essays are unique in what they say, but equally so in how they say it. Montaigne's casual style stands in stark contrast to modern connotations of the essay – especially the schoolroom academic composition – in its rigid formalization. Of course, there are still writers composing what has come to be a sub-category of the genre – the personal or reflective essay. Montaigne’s essays are considered both in that his tone is reflective while his voice is subjective. The reflective essay’s form can be traced as far back as Ancient China and classical antiquity.

Montaigne’s essays are consciously subjective, but that does not mean they are reductive or simple-minded. They do not, however, depend on a “thesis” or a clearly outlined, doggedly pursued argument. This is partly due to Montaigne’s indebtedness to a group of thinkers known in classical antiquity as the skeptics (also known as sceptics, academics, pyrrhonists). Briefly, skeptics hold that: 1) nothing can be known with certainty (that idea is Socratic in origin, and the purpose underlying the great Cartesian experiment resulting in his Method); and 2) Arcesilaus’ observation that "it cannot be known that nothing is known." Therefore, all judgement should be suspended (Greek = epoche). Often, Montaigne’s essays merely ramble forward, loosely organized around long digressions and eclectic quotes dropped in, which are then considered and replied to from various angles. Often, an essay's structure seemingly parallels Montaigne’s simultaneously unfolding thoughts, as if a "free-write." His essays are deceiving in this way because Montaigne was a sensitive self-editor, releasing three versions (in editions) of his essays, which in modern compilations total more than 1250 pages (in about a 10-point font) in a standard paperback size. Comparing versions, his edits often include the subtlest changes in diction and syntax, which open doors to whole new webs of associations and connotations. Such is the care Montaigne showed in thinking and rethinking through his ideas.

By the end of any given essay, we often feel Montaigne’s opinion on the subject is as much tentative as before he started, yet his graceful, highly exploratory style provides myriad insights, leaving our minds desirous to explode outward in pursuit of a million, half-developed notions all at once. This feeling of incompleteness again reveals the skeptic influence on Montaigne. However, it would be unjust to the scope of his education and the breadth of his thought to think so categorically. There are also intellectual traces from Platonic, Aristotlean, and Augustinean thought, and, ironically, of Seneca, who as a stoic philosophically stands in direct contrast to the skeptic worldview.

I do not think I can achieve the grace, clarity, urbanity, and compassion Montaigne achieved in his lucid prose. Montaigne wrote in the late 16^th Century in Latin (not French), yet one of the most common contemporary evaluations of his essays include how “modern” they read. Montaigne’s writing, although centered in so many ways around himself and on his observations, was ultimately for immediate posterity. His writing, in turn, has come to represent one of the great acts of literary and philosophical charity in history.

This space will be used for my own humble “assays,” in Montaigne's sense of the genre.

Desert-island reading

Miranda: O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in 't.

Prospero: 'Tis new to thee.

--Shakespeare, The Tempest [5.1]

In last month's New Criterion , there was an essay titled "Desert-island reading" by British medical doctor Theodore Dalrymple, who regularly contributes humorous and often insightful essays about literature and culture. This essay reflects upon and discusses two works of children's literature Dalrymple read when he was younger -- J.M. Barrie's (author of Peter Pan) obscure play The Admirable Crichton and William Golding's classic novel Lord of the Flies -- with the latter portion of the essay drawing parallels between Lord of the Flies and Nazi Germany in their representation of any given society's capacity for evil (this is obviously not the humorous part). Now maybe it's the fact that I loved Lord of the Flies when I was younger and haven't thought about it in over a decade, and maybe it's also because of the season, but generally speaking, desert-island literature seems an appealing theme for consideration this time of year. It also provides potential insights into the current geopolitical environment, as I'll touch on here and perhaps return to in-depth in the future.

So while considering Dalrymple's essay, Lord of the Flies, and the desirable climate of desert islands, I recalled all the stories with desert-island themes I read and enjoyed when I was younger, three of which Dalrymple touches on briefly in his essay: Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, and, perhaps unfortunately, Swiss Family Robinson. In my teens, I enjoyed E. A. Poe's novella The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and about six years ago I read Melville's short story Benito Cereno, both of which center around violent revolts aboard slave ships at sea (near desert islands, we presume). And most recently -- this weekend, in fact -- I read for the first time Shakespeare's The Tempest, which again, has the desert-island theme. Until I read Dalrymple's essay, I had never considered grouping works of literature under this theme.

Interestingly enough, it occurred to me soon after reading Dalrymple's essay that, for the past decade, my favorite Pink Floyd song has been Marooned (on The Division Bell). This has never seemed strange to me for any particular reason; like many Floyd songs, it is strictly instrumental. However, in light of my recent ponderings on desert-island themes, I found it interesting I had a natural affinity for this song, especially since there are no words, except the title, to specifically tie it to this theme. Let me briefly offer my amateur interpretation. (You can listen to an excerpt by following the Division Bell link above.)

My impression has always been that the song is a subjective musical representation of slowly gaining consciousness on a desert island to find, as the title suggests, this person has been marooned. The song begins with soft, slow, almost random notes on a keyboard along with an underlying, restrained "white noise" -- a hushed "feedback" -- from a guitar. We also hear seagulls and the lull of ankle-high waves in the background. To my imagination, the random keyboard notes could signify eyes blinking as one wakes from unconsciousness. As the general tempo and volume build in power and resonance, and as the guitar(s) becomes decidedly more pronounced and chaotic (an artful kind of chaos), I think it could represent what would certainly be a growing confusion, panic, an almost nightmarish realization for this marooned person. I imagine her/ him lying unconscious in the sand at the beginning, just waking with blurry vision and fuzzy awareness of the surroundings, and by the end sprinting on the beach or through the woods in gathering fear and horror. (I think of the scene in Platoon where Elias stumbles through the field as he is shot by Viet-Cong, with his arms raised toward the helicopters lifting off, leaving him to die.) Essentially, a song Poe would have composed had he been a musician.

And so I've realized in the past few weeks upon reflection that I'm morbidly curious, and have been since childhood, with the desert-island theme. I'm not alone. Consider other representations of this theme in pop culture: the recent TV series Lost (which I haven't seen), Survivor (which I've never watched regularly), the movie Castaway (which I haven't seen), and Gilligan's Island. Consider island themes in literature: More's Utopia, Laputa in Gulliver's Travels (Chap. 3), Canto Two of Byron's Don Juan, Umberto Eco's The Island of the Day Before, et. al. That is just what pops into my mind, not at all an exhaustive list.

Golding's Lord of the Flies, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Melville's Benito Cereno, Poe's Pym, Shakespeare's Tempest, and even Barrie's third-rate Crichton are all attempts by an author in a specific historical and cultural moment to examine, critique, and explore the possibilities (good and evil, inspiring and frightening) underlying human "nature" and the human "condition." For instance, Shakespeare's Tempest has been read by a few as a critique of British empire (although this interpretation, in my opinion, is questionable in the context of his intended audience and historical moment: British "empire" really hadn't established itself yet; more on The Tempest related to current politics in another post, perhaps). Melville can be read as an allegory containing grave warnings about the destructive effects of slavery on master and slave alike.

This broad theme of traumatic/ tragic circumstance followed by people's attempts -- alone or collectively -- to then survive without the safety, comfort, and convenience of established laws, institutions, authority, technology, etc., it seems to me, is an especially effective plot to examine the multifarious ethical, moral, social, psychological, religious fabric of our collective being (if we can talk so broadly and assert such uniformity). Is there any truth to the myth of the noble savage, as Rousseau proposed (and, to a degree, as Shakespeare before Rousseau hints at through Caliban, and Montaigne before Shakespeare in his essays)? Is (wo)man naturally good or naturally evil? Regarding what type of governing system humans require, was Hobbes's proposal (totalitarian, in Leviathan) or Locke's proposal (libertarian, in Treatise on Government) more accurate? Or was Swift (Gulliver's Travels) most accurate about the good, bad, and ugly defects, humorous mishaps, and absurd paradoxes inherent to human "nature" and the human "condition"?

Instead of dancing around it, I should also add that this theme has relevant parallels -- on a very large scale -- to the current geopolitical circumstance in Iraq. Perhaps I'll return to this topic in another post.

Although I have many questions and angles I'll be wandering (and wondering) back to over the coming months, perhaps the most resonant, recurring question I had as I reflected on this theme stems not merely from literary representations but from pop culture representations (as listed above). Soon after the September 11 attacks, philosopher Slavoj Zizek wrote a controversial book titled Welcome to the Desert of the Real. One of the book's most infamous claims, as you can read in the synopsis, is "It proposes that global capitalism is fundamentalist and that America was complicit in the rise of Muslim fundamentalism. It points to our dreaming about the catastrophe in numerous disaster movies before it happened..."

I have no desire to answer that charge in this post, but I would like to pose the same question in relation to desert-island themes. Sure, it is a useful plot for philosophizing, satirizing, idealizing, and vilifying collective human nature and condition. But are we drawn to it equally, or even more so, because we enjoy fantasizing about this and other equally morbid themes? If so, why the desert-island theme, why by so many artists (in the broadest sense of the term) over so many centuries, and why so prevalent at this cultural moment (or is this moment no different from others previously)? What might this suggest about us generally (as collective individuals), and specifically about the forms of entertainment we choose? (...even as I write this in my new blog...)

(I have to admit: I'm drawn to this question partly because I am slowly wading through the first third of David Foster Wallace's book Infinite Jest. I wanted to allude to it but decline to comment myself -- yet. I know others have finished it and may be able to contribute some thoughts.)

And, fittingly, the epigraph probably rings bells about another work addressing our idle "entertainments": Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," the title of which came from that line.

I'll leave the first post there, comfortably open-ended, and see where (if anywhere) it leads.

So, welcome to my blog. You can expect more of the same types of posts in the future: a hodgepodge of philosophy, literature, politics, economics, "culture," etymology, etc. -- essentially, all the varied things that interest me. Rarely will I use this space to tell you what I ate for breakfast, how "Bush is an idiot," or how bad my childhood was (it wasn't, in fact; although I regret not being marooned for the character-building experience of outrunning cannibals, wrestling wild boars, and building fires without Matchlight). I do, however, hope to find plenty of time and space for satire, irony, wit, etc., and so if you're into that kind of thing, excellent. I'll try to make reading these long, rambling posts worthwhile.

Questions, corrections, comments, clarifications, observations, insights, critiques, counter-arguments, polemics, complaints, etc. welcome (especially counter-arguments and polemics, as I delve deeper into more controversial aspects of this topic and others; and I always want corrections if I misquote, misreference, misunderstand a concept, etc.). I will also gladly follow links back to your blog to read your responses and would love to have sustained conversations.

So welcome. Make yourself at home and stay awhile.

Cheers!

bdw (initially)