A argument states that any sort of theism, at least Christianity, is irrational because of the lack of evidence of a God outside of "the Bible says so." Fair enough.
It is fair to debate the form of God. whether He is a he or a she. Whether He of the nature to be refered to using capitalized pronouns. His form, size, power, limitations, and quintessential nature. Because of his apparent absence from human affairs, it is fair to debate whether he is Jehovah, Allah, Christ, Zeus, or someone else. This is up to debate like the particular color of the skin of certain dinosaurs.
To assume God's form, let alone existence, is irrational. Just as irrational, however, is atheism that assumes God's nonexistence. Or, at least the nonexistence of a force that fills the shoes of God.
*Tangential note: we can assume this force to have a conciousness because we, people, have individual consciousnesses. God needn't set out to produce specific creatures*
Dr. Albert Ellis, I believe, explained his atheism by saying the existence of a God is so improbable as not to be worth anyone's attention. Even if I am quoting him out of context, let's analyze this argument anyway. To assume the probability of the existence of an object requires knowledge of that object. Eg. The probability of a pipe leaking, the probability of a car running out of gas after a certain amount of driving. Now, we can observe the form of a pipe or gas tank. The existence of God presents a different problem. If He exists, we, in general, fail to notice him in any meaningful way.
He cannot be observed as does a pipe or gas tank. In order to consider the probability of His existence, we must narrow down something of His 'Godness.'
To compare, consider the bottle of Mountain Dew I am drinking. Whether the bottle contains urine can probably be proven. Scientists have analyzed the components of urine. If urine was introduced into the Dew during production (say, an unruly employee pees in the mixture of the drink, and the urine gets so deluted that it cannot discolor or make the drink smell or taste bad) we could find it out. Provided, however, I cannot note the urine with my naked senses, I will choose to leave the matter at faith, and continue to drink the drink. The probability is so improbable, I believe, that that it is hardly worth my attention.
Not so with God. For as long as I am uncertain about the nature of God, I should stay away from passionate declarations about the probability of His existence.
A good place to start in considering his existence would be science and related topics. Biology, Physics, Geology, Chemistry, Astronomy, other subjects, and how these subjects interact. Especially how they interact. Learning more about the world can show us its origins. Perhaps the more interesting discovery ever will be discovering the nature of consciousness. How it works, how and when and why it arrives at birth, how and when and why and where it ends at death. What changes during certain situations. How consciousness differs between individuals, and between species.
Perhaps a better understanding of consciousness will lead to a better understand of God. Without this understanding, then any belief or nonbelief in God remains faith-based.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Redbelt
Director and screenwriter David Mamet brings us the action film Redbelt, to be released May, 2008. It stars the British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teacher who "is pressed to enter the ring for pride and profit." It sounds like the plot for about half the martial arts films since Enter the Dragon, but Mamet wrote the intense play Edmond, and Ejiofor was confident, manly, and brilliant in Four Brothers. This movie should be at least half-decent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbelt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbelt
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Corrupt Law Enforcement
The fact that an individual is a cop or guard means nothing in regard to their personality as human beings. The promise to serve and protect and whatever are only peripheral. What matters is who the law enforcement person is as a person.
Juvenile offenders at New York State The Louis Gossett Jr. Residential Center get hurt. A lot. According to a January, 2006 article for the Ithica Journal, some guards at the facility use unwarranted force on an inmate.
For instance, when a guard is escorting an inmate down the hall, the guard might create a situation where force can be considered legal. The guard slows, so the distance increased between the kid and him. At a distance greater than arms length, he has the legal right to restrain the kid because such a distance can make it seem like the kid/inmate is attempting to escape, and allows the guard to use force. The law allows it, so he can do it, and get away with it though the act is morally wrong and was unprovoked as far as the law is concerned.
Now this doesn't make all law enforcement bad. In fact, some of the people making the aligations were guards themself.
And a cop killing his girlfriend over a broken relationship fails to make all cops abusers. And a group of cops beating the snot out of a guy, even though the guy is incapacited, fails to prove that all cops would do such a thing.
When a cop or group of cops commit an immoral (or moral) act, it just means that those people have committed those acts. The acts of Cop A, considered alone, fail to shine light on the acts of Cop B.
People say they dislike cops because cops "are corrupt" or something like that. What they really mean is: "We hate cops because cops can commit immoral acts and get away unpunished with the immoral act by calling the act of means of doing their job."
When a person works for a law enforcement or military agency, they promise to follow the legislation of the agency. Though they may fail to internalize the promise. Once a situation arrives that highlights this failure, the cop does something that may be considered immoral, especially if he can hide his offending act. Furthermore, depending on his understanding of the regulations that govern him in regard to his behavior, he might work within the context of these regulations to commit immoral acts, have his act discovered by those with direct power over him, and go unpunished because his act was unrecognized as being illegal or otherwise wrong. He breaks the law without breaking the law.
Law enforcement live up to the idea designated by legislature, but have the potential to warp that idea to suit their ends.
Juvenile offenders at New York State The Louis Gossett Jr. Residential Center get hurt. A lot. According to a January, 2006 article for the Ithica Journal, some guards at the facility use unwarranted force on an inmate.
For instance, when a guard is escorting an inmate down the hall, the guard might create a situation where force can be considered legal. The guard slows, so the distance increased between the kid and him. At a distance greater than arms length, he has the legal right to restrain the kid because such a distance can make it seem like the kid/inmate is attempting to escape, and allows the guard to use force. The law allows it, so he can do it, and get away with it though the act is morally wrong and was unprovoked as far as the law is concerned.
Now this doesn't make all law enforcement bad. In fact, some of the people making the aligations were guards themself.
And a cop killing his girlfriend over a broken relationship fails to make all cops abusers. And a group of cops beating the snot out of a guy, even though the guy is incapacited, fails to prove that all cops would do such a thing.
When a cop or group of cops commit an immoral (or moral) act, it just means that those people have committed those acts. The acts of Cop A, considered alone, fail to shine light on the acts of Cop B.
People say they dislike cops because cops "are corrupt" or something like that. What they really mean is: "We hate cops because cops can commit immoral acts and get away unpunished with the immoral act by calling the act of means of doing their job."
When a person works for a law enforcement or military agency, they promise to follow the legislation of the agency. Though they may fail to internalize the promise. Once a situation arrives that highlights this failure, the cop does something that may be considered immoral, especially if he can hide his offending act. Furthermore, depending on his understanding of the regulations that govern him in regard to his behavior, he might work within the context of these regulations to commit immoral acts, have his act discovered by those with direct power over him, and go unpunished because his act was unrecognized as being illegal or otherwise wrong. He breaks the law without breaking the law.
Law enforcement live up to the idea designated by legislature, but have the potential to warp that idea to suit their ends.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Faith in God
I.
The existence of God remains in doubt. Either he exists or he doesn’t. Or he exists in some of kind of semi-existence, or as a creature birthed by human imagination, like the deities in Neil Gaiman’s novel, American Gods. Or something completely different.
The problem with the human experience of God is God’s immeasurability. Regardless of his status, it seems unlikely with our current level of technology that we can measure him/she/it. We cannot ask Him to stand with his back to the wall so we can measure His height. We cannot place Him on a scale to find His weight. We have failed to trap Him inside a room. We cannot do interact with him in these ways, by virtue of his apparent absence from our ability to sense the world.
The beautiful thing about the idea of God is that it is both apparently improvable and definitely undeniable. Yes, He could present himself to us, provided he is omnipotent and able to appear and disappear at will. Otherwise, we are left with the hearsay of the religious and their religious texts. The religious texts declare that God’s apparent absence is trivial. They would say that he exists, nonetheless, like an extrasolar planet yet to be discovered, or the ruins of Atlantis. People hundreds of years ago may have unappreciated the existence of extrasolar planets, but those planets did exist when our telescopes could only reach as far as Jupiter (or maybe God is playing a trick on us).
God is unlike the color of the sky. People can agree about the color of the sky because it is there. Outside of whether two people share the same mental concept of ‘blue,’ they will agree that the sky is blue.
Not so with God. His absence insures we cannot disprove his existence. The existence of God in an atheistic world is an example of the ultimate assumption because there would be no God at all to assume God’s existence. In an atheistic world, we made Him up. Even here, however, the assumption dies hard. The nonexistent cannot be disproven. We can disprove erroneous theories of gravity. We can disprove erroneous theories of how water interacts with fire. We fail to disprove imaginary objects and beings, however.
Besides, if he existed, he can evade our methods of detection. An eternity can pass, and humanity’s technological sources can rise exponentially, but an omnipotent God, in an Abrahamic context, has more power in His pinky than we ever could as a collective whole. If God has a pinky, anyway. Some say he does. Some say he doesn't. Some say it is sacriledge to suggest he has a physical form. For any one to state this claims, they must choose to believe in something that cannot be proven, or is yet to be proven. Even atheists need to take a leap of faith in order to say that God is nonexistant. But He could very well exist despite His absense.
II.
With or without God, we are limited creatures. Despite advances in technology, we still struggle with abstract concepts, like duty, love, and peace. Without an agreement on the physical embodiment of such concepts, we continue to live half-lives, kill ourselves, kill each other, eat ourselves to obesity, and waste time on illogical acts like Unrequited Love, and video games.
The trick of this "disagreement" goes further than broad socialculturaleconomicreligioushistorical definitions and buries itself in the consciousness of each individual. This explains why a man in a relgious society will murder his children, commit adultery at the risk of death, and why people contradict themselves, why they become hypocrites, saying one thing and doing something that contradicts the spoken word. Big talk of "Christianity, the military-industrial complex, and Hate" fail to pin down why individuals are so different from one another, and subject to behavior that works outside the bounds of accepted ethics. Individuals, rather than societies, must pin down the idea of God. And this is always the case for individuals make up societies, not the other way around. People find God and value systems for themselves.
Though generations have passed, and the dead leave behind books and books and books of information, the information remains useless as long as the young have yet to discover the information. The experiences of a past generation influence the environment of succeeding generations; but the interpretation of that experience and the interpretation of the environment are up to the succeeding generations. The succeeding generations choose a vaue system--let's say, capitalism or communism--and live their version of the value system. Great Britiain's socialist programs are different from Cuba's socialist programs. To look at this from another angle: even though a son takes after his father, the son's life will be unique from the father's. So even though the son may consider himself to have the same value system as the father, his unique experiences will insure that he interprets his value system in a manner different from how the father interprets his value system.
For example: even though different groups of Christians share the same holy book, their worshop of God differs from one another. Catholics practice in a way different from the practice of Baptists. These different groups interpret the Bible in their own way (and don't get me started about the beliefs of individual members...).
More chaos exists for economic systems, because economic systems are based wholly on theory and must be implemented before it can be accepted or critiqued with authority. Therefore, countries tend to revamp the economy and bank system only after serious economic depression. The regulating bodies of the economy were simply ignorant to the fact that a depression would happen. Experience can teach us what certain events bring about, and experience can lead us to have different interpretations of the same event. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center will produce a more emotional effect on a war veteran than a 5-year-old from Kansas. Even among veterans, the opinions will vary. Our experiences, the value systems we grew up with, and the value systems we choose to follow, are our Gods.
And this is a chaotic system, because the value systems are unfixed. They change from person-to-person, moment-to-moment. Even among war veterans, the emotional response to the 9/11 attacks will vary. In a sense, because of this chaos of thought, people live without God. At the very least, God refrains from programming us to operate under uniform and specific values...so it would seem; I could be wrong; God could be causing me to type these letters without my knowledge and/or your knoweldge. I cannot prove that God is doing this, and I cannot disprove that he is. When you get down to it, the absence of God leads to this delicious paradox.
We are left, for all intents and purposes, to fend for ourselves. And because nothing is certain, everything relating the value systems is an act of faith. When we point at the point, and say, "This side is America; this side is Mexico," we are a chain in a link of faith that began with the creation of the world, continued when the nomads from Asia settled in what is now the southern United States, continued when they themselves broke into different groups, continued when the European settlers fought with the "Natives" and kicked the Natives out to form "The United States of America, though the land is only the United States of America to anyone who believes what maps say. The only reason the border is where it is is because of an agreement between the US and Mexican governments. Nothing metaphsical, just arbitrary.
Even the effect of war can be artbitary. Though bullets often play the role of the fearsome LORD, but the truth found in bullets must still be interpreted and misinterpretation begins with an interpretation. So if metaphyiscal truth can be found in a bullet, the truth can confuse the truthseeker despite the clear effect of a bullet fired from a gun.
III.
And so when we look for that truth, we are stuck with our assumptions. Not because we want to, but because we have to. Every act is an act of faith. Our first lesson in faith arrives when we are
babies, and assume our parents continue to exist when they hide behind a blanket.
"Peekaboo! You can't see me!" "Mom? Where are you?" We paused, and looked. "Mom? Mom!
Ahhh!"
And then she lowered the blanket and revealed herself.
"Oh, Mom, there you are."
And then she again covered herself with the blanket.
"Ahhhh!"
Sooner or later, we came to assume Mom's existence, even though she was absent from the room. Our relationship with God is similar, and even more one-sided because while we can find our mother if she is physically present, an omnipotent God can choose to remain hidden despite our best efforts to discover Him. Yes, He plays the most fabulous game of Peekaboo.
Yet, we some of us assume God, even without hard evidence of His existence. We assume this as we assume that other people share our mental concept of the color blue. I wrote the first draft of this essay in a subway train in New York City. Your only evidence of this claim, unless you happened to see me, is this very sentence. I may be lying or otherwise incorrect. I am telling the truth. I can't prove it to you, and therefore, your acceptance or declining of these claims is an act of faith. And faith is an act of resignation to reality due to lack of certainty about that reality. We simply believe. Or don't
The existence of God remains in doubt. Either he exists or he doesn’t. Or he exists in some of kind of semi-existence, or as a creature birthed by human imagination, like the deities in Neil Gaiman’s novel, American Gods. Or something completely different.
The problem with the human experience of God is God’s immeasurability. Regardless of his status, it seems unlikely with our current level of technology that we can measure him/she/it. We cannot ask Him to stand with his back to the wall so we can measure His height. We cannot place Him on a scale to find His weight. We have failed to trap Him inside a room. We cannot do interact with him in these ways, by virtue of his apparent absence from our ability to sense the world.
The beautiful thing about the idea of God is that it is both apparently improvable and definitely undeniable. Yes, He could present himself to us, provided he is omnipotent and able to appear and disappear at will. Otherwise, we are left with the hearsay of the religious and their religious texts. The religious texts declare that God’s apparent absence is trivial. They would say that he exists, nonetheless, like an extrasolar planet yet to be discovered, or the ruins of Atlantis. People hundreds of years ago may have unappreciated the existence of extrasolar planets, but those planets did exist when our telescopes could only reach as far as Jupiter (or maybe God is playing a trick on us).
God is unlike the color of the sky. People can agree about the color of the sky because it is there. Outside of whether two people share the same mental concept of ‘blue,’ they will agree that the sky is blue.
Not so with God. His absence insures we cannot disprove his existence. The existence of God in an atheistic world is an example of the ultimate assumption because there would be no God at all to assume God’s existence. In an atheistic world, we made Him up. Even here, however, the assumption dies hard. The nonexistent cannot be disproven. We can disprove erroneous theories of gravity. We can disprove erroneous theories of how water interacts with fire. We fail to disprove imaginary objects and beings, however.
Besides, if he existed, he can evade our methods of detection. An eternity can pass, and humanity’s technological sources can rise exponentially, but an omnipotent God, in an Abrahamic context, has more power in His pinky than we ever could as a collective whole. If God has a pinky, anyway. Some say he does. Some say he doesn't. Some say it is sacriledge to suggest he has a physical form. For any one to state this claims, they must choose to believe in something that cannot be proven, or is yet to be proven. Even atheists need to take a leap of faith in order to say that God is nonexistant. But He could very well exist despite His absense.
II.
With or without God, we are limited creatures. Despite advances in technology, we still struggle with abstract concepts, like duty, love, and peace. Without an agreement on the physical embodiment of such concepts, we continue to live half-lives, kill ourselves, kill each other, eat ourselves to obesity, and waste time on illogical acts like Unrequited Love, and video games.
The trick of this "disagreement" goes further than broad socialculturaleconomicreligioushistorical definitions and buries itself in the consciousness of each individual. This explains why a man in a relgious society will murder his children, commit adultery at the risk of death, and why people contradict themselves, why they become hypocrites, saying one thing and doing something that contradicts the spoken word. Big talk of "Christianity, the military-industrial complex, and Hate" fail to pin down why individuals are so different from one another, and subject to behavior that works outside the bounds of accepted ethics. Individuals, rather than societies, must pin down the idea of God. And this is always the case for individuals make up societies, not the other way around. People find God and value systems for themselves.
Though generations have passed, and the dead leave behind books and books and books of information, the information remains useless as long as the young have yet to discover the information. The experiences of a past generation influence the environment of succeeding generations; but the interpretation of that experience and the interpretation of the environment are up to the succeeding generations. The succeeding generations choose a vaue system--let's say, capitalism or communism--and live their version of the value system. Great Britiain's socialist programs are different from Cuba's socialist programs. To look at this from another angle: even though a son takes after his father, the son's life will be unique from the father's. So even though the son may consider himself to have the same value system as the father, his unique experiences will insure that he interprets his value system in a manner different from how the father interprets his value system.
For example: even though different groups of Christians share the same holy book, their worshop of God differs from one another. Catholics practice in a way different from the practice of Baptists. These different groups interpret the Bible in their own way (and don't get me started about the beliefs of individual members...).
More chaos exists for economic systems, because economic systems are based wholly on theory and must be implemented before it can be accepted or critiqued with authority. Therefore, countries tend to revamp the economy and bank system only after serious economic depression. The regulating bodies of the economy were simply ignorant to the fact that a depression would happen. Experience can teach us what certain events bring about, and experience can lead us to have different interpretations of the same event. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center will produce a more emotional effect on a war veteran than a 5-year-old from Kansas. Even among veterans, the opinions will vary. Our experiences, the value systems we grew up with, and the value systems we choose to follow, are our Gods.
And this is a chaotic system, because the value systems are unfixed. They change from person-to-person, moment-to-moment. Even among war veterans, the emotional response to the 9/11 attacks will vary. In a sense, because of this chaos of thought, people live without God. At the very least, God refrains from programming us to operate under uniform and specific values...so it would seem; I could be wrong; God could be causing me to type these letters without my knowledge and/or your knoweldge. I cannot prove that God is doing this, and I cannot disprove that he is. When you get down to it, the absence of God leads to this delicious paradox.
We are left, for all intents and purposes, to fend for ourselves. And because nothing is certain, everything relating the value systems is an act of faith. When we point at the point, and say, "This side is America; this side is Mexico," we are a chain in a link of faith that began with the creation of the world, continued when the nomads from Asia settled in what is now the southern United States, continued when they themselves broke into different groups, continued when the European settlers fought with the "Natives" and kicked the Natives out to form "The United States of America, though the land is only the United States of America to anyone who believes what maps say. The only reason the border is where it is is because of an agreement between the US and Mexican governments. Nothing metaphsical, just arbitrary.
Even the effect of war can be artbitary. Though bullets often play the role of the fearsome LORD, but the truth found in bullets must still be interpreted and misinterpretation begins with an interpretation. So if metaphyiscal truth can be found in a bullet, the truth can confuse the truthseeker despite the clear effect of a bullet fired from a gun.
III.
And so when we look for that truth, we are stuck with our assumptions. Not because we want to, but because we have to. Every act is an act of faith. Our first lesson in faith arrives when we are
babies, and assume our parents continue to exist when they hide behind a blanket.
"Peekaboo! You can't see me!" "Mom? Where are you?" We paused, and looked. "Mom? Mom!
Ahhh!"
And then she lowered the blanket and revealed herself.
"Oh, Mom, there you are."
And then she again covered herself with the blanket.
"Ahhhh!"
Sooner or later, we came to assume Mom's existence, even though she was absent from the room. Our relationship with God is similar, and even more one-sided because while we can find our mother if she is physically present, an omnipotent God can choose to remain hidden despite our best efforts to discover Him. Yes, He plays the most fabulous game of Peekaboo.
Yet, we some of us assume God, even without hard evidence of His existence. We assume this as we assume that other people share our mental concept of the color blue. I wrote the first draft of this essay in a subway train in New York City. Your only evidence of this claim, unless you happened to see me, is this very sentence. I may be lying or otherwise incorrect. I am telling the truth. I can't prove it to you, and therefore, your acceptance or declining of these claims is an act of faith. And faith is an act of resignation to reality due to lack of certainty about that reality. We simply believe. Or don't
Friday, March 14, 2008
Pity
A man on the 1 train asked the people in the car for money. He wore a yellow coat, and jeans and was white and skinny. He spoke in a monotone, almost computer-like voice, and paced the car abd with a script that came out so easily, so quickly, it must have been practiced. He must have been doing this all day.
"I'm going to be upfront with you," he said, and told us, the other people in the car and myself, that he had just gotten out of jail, and his family wouldn't let him live in their house. He has been staying at a shelter, which he gave the address to, where others had beat him up. He didn't want to return, and needed money for a better place to stay, which cost $15 a night (he gave the address to this too). Monday, he will get his old job back. He gave a lot of detail for a panhandler telling a story (he said he wasn't a panhandler, drug dealing, etc). Two white people across the aisle from me, dug into their pockets in the middle of his speech, and gave him wads of cash. Others on my left, and I am sure others throughout the train, gave him money too. I refrained from staring or making a show of staring.
Most panhandlers I have seen in NYC are black, and I wonder if the apparent, relative success of this guy was due either to the fact it is the beginning of the spring break tourist season, when people have more spare change, or his skin color, or both, or both other elements. The skin color element would have to be tested, and also the financial situation of the donators must be considered. A single mother working as a nurse would probably give less than a real estate salesman on vacation since the salesman will probably have more money. The nurse had herself and her children to think of if she feels inclined to give money to panhandlers and buskers. When people give money, they lose money, and the choice to give or take must be considered under this light.
Should a white panhandler get more money than a black panhandler on any given attempt for money, other elements besides skin color could play a factor. The delivery of the pandhandlers' requests for money could play a factor, if the white guy gave a better delivery than the black guy. His method of dress, the believability of his story. The white man I saw today had a slightly more detailed story than most panhandlers I've come across from. His included his work status, specific dates, cash amount he needed, and why he was homeless. Other panhandlers give a brief overview of their lives, but detail always help get people to understand where the storyteller is coming from. Many simply say that they have a terminal illness, that they have kids they need to feed. But leave it at that. They don't even say how
many kids they have. The man in the yellow jacket spoke the best script of them all.
A woman panhandler who frequents the Flushing, Queens area sits Indian-style and holds a sign saying she has children, and needs help feeding them. She is white (Flushing is an Asian neighborhood) and always slumps down, looking at the ground, and I've never heard her speak or seen her lips move whenever I pass her. My first impression of her and my plain idea of her is that she is a victim. By victim, I mean she is dependant on others fo survival when she very well could take care of herself but for some reason like laziness or mental barriers, she has trouble making ends meet. This is a one-way street in regard to give and take of resources. Of course, her life is bigger than days sitting on a sidewalk, holding a sign. I am ignorant of her childhood, the pain she might have gone through,, her strengths, and what she is working to get autonomy over her life, so she can better provide for her children.
She may be unemployed, or employed. She may take more from her kids than she gives. I am unsure. I only know that I am inclined to see her as weak. That is how her posture and script are designed. The same goes for the man in the yellow jacket. They both bring to mind images of those who need to be protected. They bring to mind the desire to support children and help the needy.
Across time and cultures, protecting the week had been an action looked upon a duty. What I wonder, though, is if the desire to help is based on actually caring for others, or the tinge of pity, or other self-serving motives, like using a donation to a charity as a tax write-off. I consider actual caring to be different from pity because pity is only a motivator to help others. Without pity, a person may keep their money in the prescence of a panhandler. Pity does not exist when the needy are not present. So as long as the needy are elsewhere, donators will fail to give to them because they (the donators) don't feel like they do.
Say we come across a starving child. Malnurished, suffering from Kwashiorkor, a condition where the child has too little protein in the system and has a swollen abdomen, though suffering from starvation. We will probably buy a Happy Meal for the kid, and call the police so that authorities can place the child with those who can provide for it. If we had the money, we may even offer to adopt it ourselves. Now, this is hypothetical.
We do all this because the child is present. Now, the starving children miles away--we know of their existance, but care little because they are not present. We need to be reminded by commercials on TV asking for 95 cents a daily. Upon viewing these commercials, we are struck by pity. And pity hurts. Without pity, a person will keep their money. Givers only give because their themselves hurt, and not so the needy give comfort. If we truly cared about starving African children, instead of spending money on going to the movies, we would use that money on the kids. Instead of overeating, we would give the extra food to the poor. Instead, people need to be stung by pity before they give money and food, so that the pity will go away, not our of any sincere care for the impoverished.
Now, a person who feels pity may be sincere in caring. It is just that for a strong feeling of empathy to occur, a person must consider how bad the other person feels. Without a consideration of the feelings of others, the action of giving is only done for the giver's sake--to reduce pity--though the panhandler reaps the physical benefits of giving.
"I'm going to be upfront with you," he said, and told us, the other people in the car and myself, that he had just gotten out of jail, and his family wouldn't let him live in their house. He has been staying at a shelter, which he gave the address to, where others had beat him up. He didn't want to return, and needed money for a better place to stay, which cost $15 a night (he gave the address to this too). Monday, he will get his old job back. He gave a lot of detail for a panhandler telling a story (he said he wasn't a panhandler, drug dealing, etc). Two white people across the aisle from me, dug into their pockets in the middle of his speech, and gave him wads of cash. Others on my left, and I am sure others throughout the train, gave him money too. I refrained from staring or making a show of staring.
Most panhandlers I have seen in NYC are black, and I wonder if the apparent, relative success of this guy was due either to the fact it is the beginning of the spring break tourist season, when people have more spare change, or his skin color, or both, or both other elements. The skin color element would have to be tested, and also the financial situation of the donators must be considered. A single mother working as a nurse would probably give less than a real estate salesman on vacation since the salesman will probably have more money. The nurse had herself and her children to think of if she feels inclined to give money to panhandlers and buskers. When people give money, they lose money, and the choice to give or take must be considered under this light.
Should a white panhandler get more money than a black panhandler on any given attempt for money, other elements besides skin color could play a factor. The delivery of the pandhandlers' requests for money could play a factor, if the white guy gave a better delivery than the black guy. His method of dress, the believability of his story. The white man I saw today had a slightly more detailed story than most panhandlers I've come across from. His included his work status, specific dates, cash amount he needed, and why he was homeless. Other panhandlers give a brief overview of their lives, but detail always help get people to understand where the storyteller is coming from. Many simply say that they have a terminal illness, that they have kids they need to feed. But leave it at that. They don't even say how
many kids they have. The man in the yellow jacket spoke the best script of them all.
A woman panhandler who frequents the Flushing, Queens area sits Indian-style and holds a sign saying she has children, and needs help feeding them. She is white (Flushing is an Asian neighborhood) and always slumps down, looking at the ground, and I've never heard her speak or seen her lips move whenever I pass her. My first impression of her and my plain idea of her is that she is a victim. By victim, I mean she is dependant on others fo survival when she very well could take care of herself but for some reason like laziness or mental barriers, she has trouble making ends meet. This is a one-way street in regard to give and take of resources. Of course, her life is bigger than days sitting on a sidewalk, holding a sign. I am ignorant of her childhood, the pain she might have gone through,, her strengths, and what she is working to get autonomy over her life, so she can better provide for her children.
She may be unemployed, or employed. She may take more from her kids than she gives. I am unsure. I only know that I am inclined to see her as weak. That is how her posture and script are designed. The same goes for the man in the yellow jacket. They both bring to mind images of those who need to be protected. They bring to mind the desire to support children and help the needy.
Across time and cultures, protecting the week had been an action looked upon a duty. What I wonder, though, is if the desire to help is based on actually caring for others, or the tinge of pity, or other self-serving motives, like using a donation to a charity as a tax write-off. I consider actual caring to be different from pity because pity is only a motivator to help others. Without pity, a person may keep their money in the prescence of a panhandler. Pity does not exist when the needy are not present. So as long as the needy are elsewhere, donators will fail to give to them because they (the donators) don't feel like they do.
Say we come across a starving child. Malnurished, suffering from Kwashiorkor, a condition where the child has too little protein in the system and has a swollen abdomen, though suffering from starvation. We will probably buy a Happy Meal for the kid, and call the police so that authorities can place the child with those who can provide for it. If we had the money, we may even offer to adopt it ourselves. Now, this is hypothetical.
We do all this because the child is present. Now, the starving children miles away--we know of their existance, but care little because they are not present. We need to be reminded by commercials on TV asking for 95 cents a daily. Upon viewing these commercials, we are struck by pity. And pity hurts. Without pity, a person will keep their money. Givers only give because their themselves hurt, and not so the needy give comfort. If we truly cared about starving African children, instead of spending money on going to the movies, we would use that money on the kids. Instead of overeating, we would give the extra food to the poor. Instead, people need to be stung by pity before they give money and food, so that the pity will go away, not our of any sincere care for the impoverished.
Now, a person who feels pity may be sincere in caring. It is just that for a strong feeling of empathy to occur, a person must consider how bad the other person feels. Without a consideration of the feelings of others, the action of giving is only done for the giver's sake--to reduce pity--though the panhandler reaps the physical benefits of giving.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Lots of questions.
In any case, even if the universe had a beginning (from a big bang, or a creator God), there is still the question of what happened before creation. And the question of what will happen in the future--as in, what is the end of time? What is the nature of infinity?
Even if the universe, aa Hindis put it, repeats itself, there is still the question of how and when that repetition began, or at least the nature of infinity.
All matter in the universe could become nonexistant. And light and energy would dissapate 100%. But what would be left? Nothing. But what is nothing? It is the absense of matter and energy and anything else of substance. But am I assuming that substance and things of being have to be subject to observation in order to truly exist?
Time could go on. Forever. But what's at the end of eternity? How can time stretch out backwards and forwards? We can comprehend the nature of a regular rubber band, or a regular line, with beginning and end. But what about a line that stretches out forever in both directions? Is this even really possible? Is our experience or capatity to comprehend this too limited to answer this question?
And Physicists out there who can help with this?
God? You out there?
:(
I think it's time to increase my reading load in physics.
Even if the universe, aa Hindis put it, repeats itself, there is still the question of how and when that repetition began, or at least the nature of infinity.
All matter in the universe could become nonexistant. And light and energy would dissapate 100%. But what would be left? Nothing. But what is nothing? It is the absense of matter and energy and anything else of substance. But am I assuming that substance and things of being have to be subject to observation in order to truly exist?
Time could go on. Forever. But what's at the end of eternity? How can time stretch out backwards and forwards? We can comprehend the nature of a regular rubber band, or a regular line, with beginning and end. But what about a line that stretches out forever in both directions? Is this even really possible? Is our experience or capatity to comprehend this too limited to answer this question?
And Physicists out there who can help with this?
God? You out there?
:(
I think it's time to increase my reading load in physics.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
On Spitzer (aka Client 9)
People are fueled by passion and guided by logic. And sometimes a match ignites the fuel and obliterates the logic.
Governor Spitzer put his marriage and career in danger. For sex. Apparently, he's purchased the company of ladies several times. It makes little since that he would do this, since he has been a top figure in NYS politics for about a decade, but, well, he did. So why?
He might be a sex freak. Now, it seems that this is a weak argument. It makes little sense for a man in his position, no matter how horny he is, to risk things on illicit sex.
There is no logic involved. An experienced politician who graduated from Harvard Law-- my dream school <3 --with a reputation from cracking down on corruption. Seems to be a man guided by logic and wisdom.
However, the most important experience a person can have is in dealing with their passions. Gov. Spitzer seems to be a very smart man, but possibly has little experience in dealing with his secret passions, or at least having to deal with his in such a way that he has to deny himself certain activities. He allowed his passion guide his logic. That was his choice, I must clarify. No "heat of the passion" argument. He decided to dwell on those passions and chose to put gratification ahead of duty--that's my speculative argument. And that's how people work, and Gov. Spitzer is a human being. Quite simply human, and he had to learn a human lesson at the worst possible time.
So, oh well. He's screwed. Time to move on. Even if he wants to still be Gov, he should resign, because he will be dealing with too much drama to do his job as well as he could. Let's see how Paterson does.
PS. By the way, his short speech in response to every is full of BS. It was cute, and written in with an eye toward his duty as public servant, but his actions say that his duty is not always going to be the first thing on his mind.
Governor Spitzer put his marriage and career in danger. For sex. Apparently, he's purchased the company of ladies several times. It makes little since that he would do this, since he has been a top figure in NYS politics for about a decade, but, well, he did. So why?
He might be a sex freak. Now, it seems that this is a weak argument. It makes little sense for a man in his position, no matter how horny he is, to risk things on illicit sex.
There is no logic involved. An experienced politician who graduated from Harvard Law-- my dream school <3 --with a reputation from cracking down on corruption. Seems to be a man guided by logic and wisdom.
However, the most important experience a person can have is in dealing with their passions. Gov. Spitzer seems to be a very smart man, but possibly has little experience in dealing with his secret passions, or at least having to deal with his in such a way that he has to deny himself certain activities. He allowed his passion guide his logic. That was his choice, I must clarify. No "heat of the passion" argument. He decided to dwell on those passions and chose to put gratification ahead of duty--that's my speculative argument. And that's how people work, and Gov. Spitzer is a human being. Quite simply human, and he had to learn a human lesson at the worst possible time.
So, oh well. He's screwed. Time to move on. Even if he wants to still be Gov, he should resign, because he will be dealing with too much drama to do his job as well as he could. Let's see how Paterson does.
PS. By the way, his short speech in response to every is full of BS. It was cute, and written in with an eye toward his duty as public servant, but his actions say that his duty is not always going to be the first thing on his mind.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Resolved: The Health Effects of Smoking are Outweighed by How Cool They Make You Look
Written September 2007
Smoking doesn’t make you look cool. It makes you look like a wimp.
I remember in high school, when I was walking home from the bus, I’d pass the Chick Fil’A, and the K Mart, and see the employees on their breaks, They were smoking. They huddled together, bent over, and, by the way they pursed their lips, they resembled little mice nibbling on lunch.
Little fucking mice.
Smoking is equivalent to thumb-sucking. It’s nibbling on a paper, ashy stick. When a person smokes, he lets everybody know how nervous and agitated he is. You never see any body smoke when they were already comfortable, only when they need some sort of comfort.
Now, some of you may bring up famous smokers.
Such as journalist Oriana Fallaci, prime-minister Winston Churchill, actress Audrey Hepburn, writer Oscar Wilde, and everybody’s favorite body-builder-turned-actor-turned-governor: Arnold Swartzennegger. These are very, cool, talented people who have been seem smoking many times. It seems, from those instances of them smoking, that the act can be considered cool.
But it isn’t smoking that made those people cool. Those people were already cool. They already made great accomplishments.
Cool people—truly awesome people—do what they have to do when they have to do it. They make eye contact. They have goals, and attempt to fulfill those goals despite opposition. When faced with opposition, cool people grab their balls, and say, "bring it, fuckers."
So when cool people are seen smoking, observers begin to see smoking as cool. And that was where the association began, the situation that created the myth.
Smoking doesn’t make you look cool. It makes you look like a wimp.
I remember in high school, when I was walking home from the bus, I’d pass the Chick Fil’A, and the K Mart, and see the employees on their breaks, They were smoking. They huddled together, bent over, and, by the way they pursed their lips, they resembled little mice nibbling on lunch.
Little fucking mice.
Smoking is equivalent to thumb-sucking. It’s nibbling on a paper, ashy stick. When a person smokes, he lets everybody know how nervous and agitated he is. You never see any body smoke when they were already comfortable, only when they need some sort of comfort.
Now, some of you may bring up famous smokers.
Such as journalist Oriana Fallaci, prime-minister Winston Churchill, actress Audrey Hepburn, writer Oscar Wilde, and everybody’s favorite body-builder-turned-actor-turned-governor: Arnold Swartzennegger. These are very, cool, talented people who have been seem smoking many times. It seems, from those instances of them smoking, that the act can be considered cool.
But it isn’t smoking that made those people cool. Those people were already cool. They already made great accomplishments.
Cool people—truly awesome people—do what they have to do when they have to do it. They make eye contact. They have goals, and attempt to fulfill those goals despite opposition. When faced with opposition, cool people grab their balls, and say, "bring it, fuckers."
So when cool people are seen smoking, observers begin to see smoking as cool. And that was where the association began, the situation that created the myth.
An obsequious address
Written September 2007
Moderator! What is up!
Did you all watch the news yesterday? Listen—this guy beat up a gorilla at the Bronx Zoo.
See, these little kids fell into a gorilla pit, and the gorilla ran at them because they invaded his space. He bared his fangs, and beat his chest. About to smear those little kids.
And then the moderator dove in, and stood between the children, and the gorilla’s punches. The gorilla punched the moderator in the jaw, the shoulder, the gut, and the ribs. Of course, the punches didn’t affect the moderator, except for the punch to the gut, which tickled him.
The moderator carried the children out of the pit. They ran to their mother, and started crying tears of joy, and said, "the moderator saved us, mommy."
Everyone thought the incident had finished, except for the gorilla. He climbed out the pit, and grabbed the moderator’s shoulder, and spoke. The gorilla spoke. He said, "I’m not finished with you."
Then the moderator punched the gorilla in the mouth, and back into the pit. He clobbered that gorilla a thousand times over until the gorilla fell back onto a boulder.
Then the moderator took a banana, unpeeled it, and began to eat it. He waved it in front of the gorilla. He said, "I bet you want to eat this, huh, you stupid monkey. C’mon, you stupid monkey, grab the banana." And the gorilla tried to grab the banana, but the moderator pulled the banana away.
After finishing the banana, the moderator threw the banana peel on the ground. And then gorilla gathered enough strength to stand and run at the moderator once more, but he slipped on the banana peel.
Thank you, moderator. Thank you for showing monkeys everywhere they are inferior to humans.
May I approach yon podilecturn?
Moderator! What is up!
Did you all watch the news yesterday? Listen—this guy beat up a gorilla at the Bronx Zoo.
See, these little kids fell into a gorilla pit, and the gorilla ran at them because they invaded his space. He bared his fangs, and beat his chest. About to smear those little kids.
And then the moderator dove in, and stood between the children, and the gorilla’s punches. The gorilla punched the moderator in the jaw, the shoulder, the gut, and the ribs. Of course, the punches didn’t affect the moderator, except for the punch to the gut, which tickled him.
The moderator carried the children out of the pit. They ran to their mother, and started crying tears of joy, and said, "the moderator saved us, mommy."
Everyone thought the incident had finished, except for the gorilla. He climbed out the pit, and grabbed the moderator’s shoulder, and spoke. The gorilla spoke. He said, "I’m not finished with you."
Then the moderator punched the gorilla in the mouth, and back into the pit. He clobbered that gorilla a thousand times over until the gorilla fell back onto a boulder.
Then the moderator took a banana, unpeeled it, and began to eat it. He waved it in front of the gorilla. He said, "I bet you want to eat this, huh, you stupid monkey. C’mon, you stupid monkey, grab the banana." And the gorilla tried to grab the banana, but the moderator pulled the banana away.
After finishing the banana, the moderator threw the banana peel on the ground. And then gorilla gathered enough strength to stand and run at the moderator once more, but he slipped on the banana peel.
Thank you, moderator. Thank you for showing monkeys everywhere they are inferior to humans.
May I approach yon podilecturn?
Resolved: Suffering makes you legitimate
Writing November 2007
I’ll start this by reading a passage from the Aeschylus play, Agamemnon--
"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."
Real anguish isn’t BS like your parents not buying you a car. Real anguish fucks with a person’s belief in the goodness of life. People who suffered have the potential to better understand human nature. Through pain, they’ve been exposed to their own breaking points and limitations. That’s what pain brings—unbiased self-knowledge, where your façade has been torn away, and you must stare at your real self.
Look at the people of Liberia, they just suffered two civil wars in about 10 years. There, it is said that every family had a son that was part of a militia, and a daughter that had been raped by a militiaman. This was suffering at its most extreme. Child soldiers, cannibalism, 200,000 dead. When these people suffered, they acted in horrific ways, which highlighted their most basic desires and instincts.
If you have not suffered, you have not had the chance to mature. The suffering know how vulnerable their lives are, and what they themselves are capable of. They understand the world to be a potential sham. Therefore, rather than living in spiritual muck, some of them attempt to find a meaning to life. Those who succeed in this have the potential to affect the world more than any one else could because they have a full understanding of the world.
Look at people like current Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former political prisoner who is now attempting to reform the country.
Abraham Lincoln, who dealt with depression his entire life, and yet saved the USA.
Malcolm X, the son of a minister killed by white supremacists,
Malcolm X who spent a considerable amount of the early portion of his life in detention centers and prison, and later became one of the last, great American heroes.
Finally, look at Cervantes,
who fought in a war,
crippled his left hand,
lived as a slave in Algiers,
then later, once freed from slavery,
became bankrupt,
went to prison because of money problems,
and had much trouble in living as a writer
until he wrote the legendary first novel, Don Quixote.
And in the prologue of this work, he acknowledged that his life of suffering shaped the story itself. This novel would go on to shape all of literature, and certainly influenced the style of our tongue-in-cheek literary group, the Philolexian Society.
Thank you all for listening.
I’ll start this by reading a passage from the Aeschylus play, Agamemnon--
"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."
Real anguish isn’t BS like your parents not buying you a car. Real anguish fucks with a person’s belief in the goodness of life. People who suffered have the potential to better understand human nature. Through pain, they’ve been exposed to their own breaking points and limitations. That’s what pain brings—unbiased self-knowledge, where your façade has been torn away, and you must stare at your real self.
Look at the people of Liberia, they just suffered two civil wars in about 10 years. There, it is said that every family had a son that was part of a militia, and a daughter that had been raped by a militiaman. This was suffering at its most extreme. Child soldiers, cannibalism, 200,000 dead. When these people suffered, they acted in horrific ways, which highlighted their most basic desires and instincts.
If you have not suffered, you have not had the chance to mature. The suffering know how vulnerable their lives are, and what they themselves are capable of. They understand the world to be a potential sham. Therefore, rather than living in spiritual muck, some of them attempt to find a meaning to life. Those who succeed in this have the potential to affect the world more than any one else could because they have a full understanding of the world.
Look at people like current Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former political prisoner who is now attempting to reform the country.
Abraham Lincoln, who dealt with depression his entire life, and yet saved the USA.
Malcolm X, the son of a minister killed by white supremacists,
Malcolm X who spent a considerable amount of the early portion of his life in detention centers and prison, and later became one of the last, great American heroes.
Finally, look at Cervantes,
who fought in a war,
crippled his left hand,
lived as a slave in Algiers,
then later, once freed from slavery,
became bankrupt,
went to prison because of money problems,
and had much trouble in living as a writer
until he wrote the legendary first novel, Don Quixote.
And in the prologue of this work, he acknowledged that his life of suffering shaped the story itself. This novel would go on to shape all of literature, and certainly influenced the style of our tongue-in-cheek literary group, the Philolexian Society.
Thank you all for listening.
An obsequious address, for the Moderator of the Philolexian Society
Oh, Moderator,
Oh, breaker of horses and small children
Oh, Master of the 37th chamber of shaolin kung fu,
Oh, Semitic saint,
Oh, man who makes me go "OH!"
May I approach yon podilecturn?
Oh, breaker of horses and small children
Oh, Master of the 37th chamber of shaolin kung fu,
Oh, Semitic saint,
Oh, man who makes me go "OH!"
May I approach yon podilecturn?
Resolved: Hentai is sad
Written October 2007
If we wanted other people only for sex, we’d all just masturbate. Forget the effort of meeting people at nightclubs, forget spending evenings out, forget snuggling with them, or getting hung up on them. We’d all just masturbate, because interaction with human beings carries greater emotional and physical risk than masturbation does.
But, obviously, people get into friendships with each other. They pay to have sex with one another. And so forth. There must be another reason why people interact with one another, despite the risks. This reason must be inherent in human interaction.
I mention this because in the case of hentai, the masturbator is utterly removed from people.
There’s no such thing as human interaction, so obviously, this person is missing something other people get.
So, we must ask: what does human interaction get us?
I will begin to answer that question by saying that when I hang out with people I like, I feel a nice little glow. We see a movie, we get some coffee, we sit on Low steps to chat. I enjoy hanging out with them for the sake of hanging out with them. And when we leave each other, I feel that hanging out was good use of my time.
Sex, Adam Sandler once implied, lasts around 8 minutes. Friendships and other relationships last a little longer that. They are more substantial than that. But sex, at least, involves human interaction. If you have sex with someone you like, you’re bound to enjoy yourself as much as you can. The type of lover doesn’t matter--it doesn’t matter if the person is a fuck buddy, or an exclusive lover. What matters is that you’re comfortable with this person—if you’re comfortable.
Therefore, emotional interaction outweighs sexual feeling, even though sexual feeling is pret-ty fucking awesome.
Therefore, hentai is sad because people who love hentai miss out on the warmth of human interaction.
If we wanted other people only for sex, we’d all just masturbate. Forget the effort of meeting people at nightclubs, forget spending evenings out, forget snuggling with them, or getting hung up on them. We’d all just masturbate, because interaction with human beings carries greater emotional and physical risk than masturbation does.
But, obviously, people get into friendships with each other. They pay to have sex with one another. And so forth. There must be another reason why people interact with one another, despite the risks. This reason must be inherent in human interaction.
I mention this because in the case of hentai, the masturbator is utterly removed from people.
There’s no such thing as human interaction, so obviously, this person is missing something other people get.
So, we must ask: what does human interaction get us?
I will begin to answer that question by saying that when I hang out with people I like, I feel a nice little glow. We see a movie, we get some coffee, we sit on Low steps to chat. I enjoy hanging out with them for the sake of hanging out with them. And when we leave each other, I feel that hanging out was good use of my time.
Sex, Adam Sandler once implied, lasts around 8 minutes. Friendships and other relationships last a little longer that. They are more substantial than that. But sex, at least, involves human interaction. If you have sex with someone you like, you’re bound to enjoy yourself as much as you can. The type of lover doesn’t matter--it doesn’t matter if the person is a fuck buddy, or an exclusive lover. What matters is that you’re comfortable with this person—if you’re comfortable.
Therefore, emotional interaction outweighs sexual feeling, even though sexual feeling is pret-ty fucking awesome.
Therefore, hentai is sad because people who love hentai miss out on the warmth of human interaction.
Resolved: As the total population of human beings grow, the value of an individual life falls.
Written October, 2007; Never ever read aloud to an audience
I’m speaking against this resolution, and I’ll attack it from different philosophical aspects.
First, the religious aspect. Many world religions reject the idea of the murder or death of any creature. The Roman Catholic Church itself prohibits the use of contraceptives for this reason. Even semen is considered sacred.
Now, in regard to population, the Bible says something about this. Cain slew Abel at a time when there were very few people on planet earth. This illustrates that one human may see another as being unworthy of life, regardless of the low population of their group. Of course, God disagrees with Cain, and punishes him. Therefore, we must acknowledge that in figuring this resolution out, we must take an objective, not subjective route. This is because a subjective POV is subject to opinion rather than fact.
So, what if the world is inherently meaningless? What if we merely exist in a world without God? Consider that, even if you disagree. In this case, there is no God to set the value of human life. So, now, I set out to define to value of a human life in an atheistic context.
Imagine that I’m 5 years old. Yeah high, big dimples, curly hair. And I’m playing with a bouncy ball on the sidewalk. And I fumble the bouncy ball, and the ball bounces onto the street, and I run after it. And a truck hits me. (Mime this, fall)
So, I’m dead. Or I died long ago. In any case, I wouldn’t matter to you people because you never met me.
But despite this, my life would still have value. It would still affect yours; or, at least, its lack of affect would affect you. Ladies and gentlemen, every resolution in this stump speech hat was written by me. When you go up here tonight, every word you say has been influenced by me. If I were dead, you wouldn’t be doing this stump speech night. My life has had an affect on the world, and it has had an affect on you.
If I were dead, obviously, somebody else would be speaking here tonight. Maybe (name people in the audience) Mr. K---, Ms. D----, Ms. C-----, Mr. Ed. You’d be doing something differently right now if it weren’t for me. Likewise, if our roles were reversed, I’d be doing something differently if it weren’t for you.
And even if we believe that our actions we have no meaning, they do have meaning. Our lives have meaning by virtue of our existence.
(turn to Dr. F-------) Dr. F-------, didn’t you and Ms. S---- used to date? And wouldn’t you say that both of you enriched each other’s lives for the better?
(Wait for reply. Kiss Dr. F------- on the forehead.)
Doctor, your life has meaning, as a cab driver’s live has meaning, as a politician’s live has meaning, as a baby’s life has meaning. And I thank you for existing, and I thank you for affect, influence my life, and I thank you all.
Thank you.
I’m speaking against this resolution, and I’ll attack it from different philosophical aspects.
First, the religious aspect. Many world religions reject the idea of the murder or death of any creature. The Roman Catholic Church itself prohibits the use of contraceptives for this reason. Even semen is considered sacred.
Now, in regard to population, the Bible says something about this. Cain slew Abel at a time when there were very few people on planet earth. This illustrates that one human may see another as being unworthy of life, regardless of the low population of their group. Of course, God disagrees with Cain, and punishes him. Therefore, we must acknowledge that in figuring this resolution out, we must take an objective, not subjective route. This is because a subjective POV is subject to opinion rather than fact.
So, what if the world is inherently meaningless? What if we merely exist in a world without God? Consider that, even if you disagree. In this case, there is no God to set the value of human life. So, now, I set out to define to value of a human life in an atheistic context.
Imagine that I’m 5 years old. Yeah high, big dimples, curly hair. And I’m playing with a bouncy ball on the sidewalk. And I fumble the bouncy ball, and the ball bounces onto the street, and I run after it. And a truck hits me. (Mime this, fall)
So, I’m dead. Or I died long ago. In any case, I wouldn’t matter to you people because you never met me.
But despite this, my life would still have value. It would still affect yours; or, at least, its lack of affect would affect you. Ladies and gentlemen, every resolution in this stump speech hat was written by me. When you go up here tonight, every word you say has been influenced by me. If I were dead, you wouldn’t be doing this stump speech night. My life has had an affect on the world, and it has had an affect on you.
If I were dead, obviously, somebody else would be speaking here tonight. Maybe (name people in the audience) Mr. K---, Ms. D----, Ms. C-----, Mr. Ed. You’d be doing something differently right now if it weren’t for me. Likewise, if our roles were reversed, I’d be doing something differently if it weren’t for you.
And even if we believe that our actions we have no meaning, they do have meaning. Our lives have meaning by virtue of our existence.
(turn to Dr. F-------) Dr. F-------, didn’t you and Ms. S---- used to date? And wouldn’t you say that both of you enriched each other’s lives for the better?
(Wait for reply. Kiss Dr. F------- on the forehead.)
Doctor, your life has meaning, as a cab driver’s live has meaning, as a politician’s live has meaning, as a baby’s life has meaning. And I thank you for existing, and I thank you for affect, influence my life, and I thank you all.
Thank you.
Resolved: Dr. Seuss captures the human condition better than Charles Schulz
Written May 2007
Notes to self italicized and parenthenses.
Indeed, Dr. Seuss handles themes relevant to any society or time. He handles the concepts of love and forgiveness with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", he handles individuality in corrupt societies with "Horton Hatches the Egg", and he handles discrimination with "The Sneetches."
So, yes, he does cover some ground, quite a few aspects of human nature. But he's too political, too symbolic, too general. His stories are more about the issues, not the characters. If you want to observe the human condition at its core, then get specific, and delve into the psychology of a character. Look at Charles Schulz’s most noteworthy creation, Charlie Brown.
Charlie Brown is the quintessential human being in that he embodies all of humanity’s limitations. Only so many people become popular, or successful. Yet even those people have fears, hang ups, regrets. Even they have faced tremendous self-doubt at least once in their lives; Abraham Lincoln, Buzz Aldrin, Ernest Hemingway. Indeed, many people have confronted the feeling of mediocrity. Even you.
It feels like nothing works out for you. There are so many small failures on your part. So many times when you could've done a little better, and if you'd done a little better, your life would be much happier.
(note to self: transition, emphasize his name)
Charlie Brown is the same.
He doesn't have anything special going on.
He just exists.
And there are these moments when you're by yourself, in a Charlie Brown moment, and you wonder, "Why am I here? What makes me special?" And you can't find that reason, so you don't know why you're…alive.
But you try to find that reason for living.
You think, "One of these days I'm going to be somebody."
You go to school, you join clubs, try to make friends, try to be special.
And you keep trying and trying but nothing happens.
(transition)
It's all the same old thing,
you're always in that state mediocrity, of merely existing.
You've never followed up on your fantasies of success.
You've gone this long without being special, so why should things change now?
(start to choke, as if on your way to crying)
Yeah, you always choke at the worst moment. During the Lit Hum exam, during…this speech… and right when you have the chance to talk to that girl.
(act like the girl popped into your head, ‘but of course she would’) Yeah, that girl who makes your stomach feel butterflies when she walks by. You dream, and wonder, "I'll talk to her one of these days, and then maybe we'll go on a date, and maybe she'll be my girlfriend. Yeah, you keep thinking, because you'll never talk to her, you'll never find the guts. .
(more energy, start with the final push)
She'll be standing right next to you in the elevator, and you'll stay quiet the whole time because you know you'd fail if you tried. You're a loser, you're no good, so why should she love you?
(now, belt it out)
She'd never love you because you're a nobody and you'll always be a nobody.
AAAAAUUUUUGH!!!
(run screaming out of the room; body lang is important)
- Alberto Luperon
Notes to self italicized and parenthenses.
Indeed, Dr. Seuss handles themes relevant to any society or time. He handles the concepts of love and forgiveness with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", he handles individuality in corrupt societies with "Horton Hatches the Egg", and he handles discrimination with "The Sneetches."
So, yes, he does cover some ground, quite a few aspects of human nature. But he's too political, too symbolic, too general. His stories are more about the issues, not the characters. If you want to observe the human condition at its core, then get specific, and delve into the psychology of a character. Look at Charles Schulz’s most noteworthy creation, Charlie Brown.
Charlie Brown is the quintessential human being in that he embodies all of humanity’s limitations. Only so many people become popular, or successful. Yet even those people have fears, hang ups, regrets. Even they have faced tremendous self-doubt at least once in their lives; Abraham Lincoln, Buzz Aldrin, Ernest Hemingway. Indeed, many people have confronted the feeling of mediocrity. Even you.
It feels like nothing works out for you. There are so many small failures on your part. So many times when you could've done a little better, and if you'd done a little better, your life would be much happier.
(note to self: transition, emphasize his name)
Charlie Brown is the same.
He doesn't have anything special going on.
He just exists.
And there are these moments when you're by yourself, in a Charlie Brown moment, and you wonder, "Why am I here? What makes me special?" And you can't find that reason, so you don't know why you're…alive.
But you try to find that reason for living.
You think, "One of these days I'm going to be somebody."
You go to school, you join clubs, try to make friends, try to be special.
And you keep trying and trying but nothing happens.
(transition)
It's all the same old thing,
you're always in that state mediocrity, of merely existing.
You've never followed up on your fantasies of success.
You've gone this long without being special, so why should things change now?
(start to choke, as if on your way to crying)
Yeah, you always choke at the worst moment. During the Lit Hum exam, during…this speech… and right when you have the chance to talk to that girl.
(act like the girl popped into your head, ‘but of course she would’) Yeah, that girl who makes your stomach feel butterflies when she walks by. You dream, and wonder, "I'll talk to her one of these days, and then maybe we'll go on a date, and maybe she'll be my girlfriend. Yeah, you keep thinking, because you'll never talk to her, you'll never find the guts. .
(more energy, start with the final push)
She'll be standing right next to you in the elevator, and you'll stay quiet the whole time because you know you'd fail if you tried. You're a loser, you're no good, so why should she love you?
(now, belt it out)
She'd never love you because you're a nobody and you'll always be a nobody.
AAAAAUUUUUGH!!!
(run screaming out of the room; body lang is important)
- Alberto Luperon
Resolved: The 21st Century Will Be Characterized by Unendurable Boredom
Written September 2007
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Philolexian Society.
Imagine that Santa Claus has crash-landed in the middle of Morningside Park. Blixem cracked two ribs, Rudolph’s broken his nose, Donner’s dead, and Prancer has forever lost the use of his rear legs. Santa’s in trouble, and he needs your help to save Christmas.
Faced with this scenario, you should do one of two things—either help them, or steal Santa’s bag of presents. The latter action should teach him about landing in Morningside Park.
In either case, congratulate yourself—you have fought against boredom. To fight boredom, you must adhere to the spirit of adventure, and the spirit of adventure calls on you to act. It calls on you to stand up, and do whatever it is you prefer to do with your life.
Those in favor of tonight’s resolution may think that past centuries were better than this one. You know, all the major discoveries have been made, and the major challenges have already been completed. The New World, penicillin, Civil Liberties; we landed on the moon. After all this being done, it seems that there is nothing else to discover, no more adventures to be had. It may seem to some that in order to function in any state near contentment, they have got to spend copious amounts of time doing drugs, drinking alcohol, watching TV. Copious, absurd amounts of time spent on distracting on them from their boring lives.
But you know why theirs live are boring? Because they’re not doing anything fun. Because they’ve not having adventures. Therefore, Tonight, I’ve chosen to dedicate my life to having adventures.
The 21st century will be characterized by a surplus of awesome because I live in it.
And you know what?—I have no idea what I’ll be doing after Philo, or tomorrow morning, for that matter. I may just sit in a chair, and read, but I will still emanate fun like an atomic bomb emanates radiation. Millions will die from exposure.
So, if you ever see me holding a big, red, magic bag, and passing out presents to people, you will know what this century has been all about.
Thank you.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Philolexian Society.
Imagine that Santa Claus has crash-landed in the middle of Morningside Park. Blixem cracked two ribs, Rudolph’s broken his nose, Donner’s dead, and Prancer has forever lost the use of his rear legs. Santa’s in trouble, and he needs your help to save Christmas.
Faced with this scenario, you should do one of two things—either help them, or steal Santa’s bag of presents. The latter action should teach him about landing in Morningside Park.
In either case, congratulate yourself—you have fought against boredom. To fight boredom, you must adhere to the spirit of adventure, and the spirit of adventure calls on you to act. It calls on you to stand up, and do whatever it is you prefer to do with your life.
Those in favor of tonight’s resolution may think that past centuries were better than this one. You know, all the major discoveries have been made, and the major challenges have already been completed. The New World, penicillin, Civil Liberties; we landed on the moon. After all this being done, it seems that there is nothing else to discover, no more adventures to be had. It may seem to some that in order to function in any state near contentment, they have got to spend copious amounts of time doing drugs, drinking alcohol, watching TV. Copious, absurd amounts of time spent on distracting on them from their boring lives.
But you know why theirs live are boring? Because they’re not doing anything fun. Because they’ve not having adventures. Therefore, Tonight, I’ve chosen to dedicate my life to having adventures.
The 21st century will be characterized by a surplus of awesome because I live in it.
And you know what?—I have no idea what I’ll be doing after Philo, or tomorrow morning, for that matter. I may just sit in a chair, and read, but I will still emanate fun like an atomic bomb emanates radiation. Millions will die from exposure.
So, if you ever see me holding a big, red, magic bag, and passing out presents to people, you will know what this century has been all about.
Thank you.
Resolved: Seize the day, for tomorrow, we may die
Written April 2007
Fear. It's really fear that keeps alot of people. You ever notice in a seminar how someone will put their hand
It isn't my failures that bother it. It is the things I remember not doing that bothers me. The squandered opportunities.
9th grade of high school, I ran for the track and field team. The 1-mile and 2-mile races. Mid-season, for several weeks, I had a case tendonitis in my knees. At first, not debilitating. I always went to practice, and I went to a meet. But during this meet, it got worse. First, I ran the one-mile, and I did it okay, but the knees felt more stressed than ever before. A little while later, I got in line for the 2-mile race. The only other guy on my team running the race was a guy who did the long jump. He had no delusion as to succeeding or doing well. Coach just put him in there to have another guy from our school run the race. So it was him and me running. And the race started, and right there, the moment I began to run, my knees just screamed. Absolutely painful. After the first curve of the track, I was in the rear of the pack, and my teammate said,
"Are you okay?"
It was as bad as the tendonitis got. Because of the pain, I considered dropping out of the race; now, see, the 2-mile race is 8 laps long if you're running on a 400meter track. For most high schoolers, that race will go over ten minutes. For me, that race would go over ten minute. But, still, I didn't want look bad. I didn't want to look back at that moment and figure, "I pussed out." So I decided to run as hard as I could, for a long as I could, until, physically, I gave out. Until I couldn't possibly run anymore. I decided that if I was going to lose, I was going to lose as a man.
So I sprinted. And after the next curve of the track, I found myself. And, if you have ever been first place in a race, you know how mentally liberating it is. Being behind somebody creates this sense of being boxed in. But when you're in front of everyone, you feel like you have the entire track to yourself. In a race, there is nothing more amazing than the feeling that you receive from being in first place. And, oh my god, now, I cannot possibly give up. It would be very bad to drop from first to last in a race. So, I thought now I've got to finish this well.
And me and three guys from another school, we competed for the top three positions that whole race. One of them ran out far ahead of us all, so it basically and the other two fighting for 2nd and 3rd. So they passed me. And I passed them. And they passed me. And I passed them. The entire race, we practically leap frogged each other.
And my didn't knees even hurt anymore. I don't remember any pain at that point. I finished that race in 3rd place, and it was a personal record.
The way I ran that race is the way I would like to everything in my live. Certainly, considering an amount of moderation, but setting out to do what I need to set to do, and as doing as well I can. Even if I fail, I would like to go out in a blaze of glory. A blaze of glory is much, much better than sitting at home, promising myself I will be adventurous tomorrow.
Fear. It's really fear that keeps alot of people. You ever notice in a seminar how someone will put their hand
It isn't my failures that bother it. It is the things I remember not doing that bothers me. The squandered opportunities.
9th grade of high school, I ran for the track and field team. The 1-mile and 2-mile races. Mid-season, for several weeks, I had a case tendonitis in my knees. At first, not debilitating. I always went to practice, and I went to a meet. But during this meet, it got worse. First, I ran the one-mile, and I did it okay, but the knees felt more stressed than ever before. A little while later, I got in line for the 2-mile race. The only other guy on my team running the race was a guy who did the long jump. He had no delusion as to succeeding or doing well. Coach just put him in there to have another guy from our school run the race. So it was him and me running. And the race started, and right there, the moment I began to run, my knees just screamed. Absolutely painful. After the first curve of the track, I was in the rear of the pack, and my teammate said,
"Are you okay?"
It was as bad as the tendonitis got. Because of the pain, I considered dropping out of the race; now, see, the 2-mile race is 8 laps long if you're running on a 400meter track. For most high schoolers, that race will go over ten minutes. For me, that race would go over ten minute. But, still, I didn't want look bad. I didn't want to look back at that moment and figure, "I pussed out." So I decided to run as hard as I could, for a long as I could, until, physically, I gave out. Until I couldn't possibly run anymore. I decided that if I was going to lose, I was going to lose as a man.
So I sprinted. And after the next curve of the track, I found myself. And, if you have ever been first place in a race, you know how mentally liberating it is. Being behind somebody creates this sense of being boxed in. But when you're in front of everyone, you feel like you have the entire track to yourself. In a race, there is nothing more amazing than the feeling that you receive from being in first place. And, oh my god, now, I cannot possibly give up. It would be very bad to drop from first to last in a race. So, I thought now I've got to finish this well.
And me and three guys from another school, we competed for the top three positions that whole race. One of them ran out far ahead of us all, so it basically and the other two fighting for 2nd and 3rd. So they passed me. And I passed them. And they passed me. And I passed them. The entire race, we practically leap frogged each other.
And my didn't knees even hurt anymore. I don't remember any pain at that point. I finished that race in 3rd place, and it was a personal record.
The way I ran that race is the way I would like to everything in my live. Certainly, considering an amount of moderation, but setting out to do what I need to set to do, and as doing as well I can. Even if I fail, I would like to go out in a blaze of glory. A blaze of glory is much, much better than sitting at home, promising myself I will be adventurous tomorrow.
Resolved: Parents have no business raising their children
Written February 2007
So, I’ll be talking out of my ass. I’ve never fathered a child.
Raising kids requires a bit of self-knowledge. You have to be able to impart some sort of wisdom to the kid. Even if they don’t surpass you financially, they can surpass you as human beings. They can be more disciplined than you are. Just a little improvement, in one area, the body of knowledge of the family collecting over time, by generation. If only that, then your parenting was a success. Then they can set it up so their kids are better than they are.
Please don’t have a baby just to have a baby. This isn’t doll time. You’re not pretending to feed a plastic baby. You’re not going to you have to be there, at least dreadfully conscious of long nights of the baby waking you up.
And every family requires respect amongst the members. The conscious and unconscious knowledge that person before you is someone with emotions, desires, and a brain. The knowledge that regardless of what you feel, or want, you have to understand that you’re not to undermine the other person. You can be angry at them all, ground your kids for a year, not have sex with your spouse, but in no way will you belittle their consciousnesses. That is love: respect. And it must be mutual. Forget wanting to fuck somebody, forget wanting to cuddle with your two year old just to cuddle with them. You have to be prepared and willing to stand with someone through second mortgages, bills, bills, bills, disagreements—whatever, as long as their behavior isn’t the self-destructive bullshit that will take you down too, which means that the respect isn’t mutual because they are not looking out for you. If there is not mutual respect, no love, then there is no family. It is easier said than done, but so be it, it’s really the only general way I can think of. So even if you don’t like your spouse, you had better respect them, and they you, if you’re both to raise the same kids. Then that respect will transfer to your kids.
So, I’ll be talking out of my ass. I’ve never fathered a child.
Raising kids requires a bit of self-knowledge. You have to be able to impart some sort of wisdom to the kid. Even if they don’t surpass you financially, they can surpass you as human beings. They can be more disciplined than you are. Just a little improvement, in one area, the body of knowledge of the family collecting over time, by generation. If only that, then your parenting was a success. Then they can set it up so their kids are better than they are.
Please don’t have a baby just to have a baby. This isn’t doll time. You’re not pretending to feed a plastic baby. You’re not going to you have to be there, at least dreadfully conscious of long nights of the baby waking you up.
And every family requires respect amongst the members. The conscious and unconscious knowledge that person before you is someone with emotions, desires, and a brain. The knowledge that regardless of what you feel, or want, you have to understand that you’re not to undermine the other person. You can be angry at them all, ground your kids for a year, not have sex with your spouse, but in no way will you belittle their consciousnesses. That is love: respect. And it must be mutual. Forget wanting to fuck somebody, forget wanting to cuddle with your two year old just to cuddle with them. You have to be prepared and willing to stand with someone through second mortgages, bills, bills, bills, disagreements—whatever, as long as their behavior isn’t the self-destructive bullshit that will take you down too, which means that the respect isn’t mutual because they are not looking out for you. If there is not mutual respect, no love, then there is no family. It is easier said than done, but so be it, it’s really the only general way I can think of. So even if you don’t like your spouse, you had better respect them, and they you, if you’re both to raise the same kids. Then that respect will transfer to your kids.
Resolved: Saying something loud makes it true
Written April 2007
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Philolexian Society.
When I was eight, I had a fever, and when I had this fever I dreamed that a large concrete block landed on my face. Believing this dream to be real, I woke up, and ran screaming throughout the house, yelling at everyone, "I’m dead, I’m dead."
So, if it is true that saying something loud makes it true, then I am the sexiest corpse you have ever seen.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Philolexian Society.
When I was eight, I had a fever, and when I had this fever I dreamed that a large concrete block landed on my face. Believing this dream to be real, I woke up, and ran screaming throughout the house, yelling at everyone, "I’m dead, I’m dead."
So, if it is true that saying something loud makes it true, then I am the sexiest corpse you have ever seen.
Resolved: Organized Sports are More Dangerous Than Organized Religion
Written December 2006
Is there really any need for comparison? Really? Isn’t the main point we must consider is that people are crazy?
On the part of religion you’ve got
people blowing themselves up,
killing pretty much every person in Jerusalem during the crusades,
murdering no less 6 million in Europe,
and much death.
On the part of religion, you’ve got Fred Phelps and his congregation protesting the funerals of soldiers because the United States government doesn’t take a tougher stance on homosexuality.
Yes, yes, religion is more dangerous than sports on a sociological standpoint because God has been used for justification of mass slaughter. Not so with sports--at least not so often.
But look at organized sports. I once met a guy who played for the NFL who said that basically everybody there was a rapist.
You’ve got Mike Tyson—I don’t know if all the stories are true, but you’ve guy a million peoples saying that punches old women in the mouth, has bipolar disorder, threatened to murder his first wife.
And he’s a convicted rapist.
You’ve got Don King, who still, in the most sympathetic portrayal of him, comes off as really shady.
You’ve soccer riots, drunken fights. During the 1960s, in a boxing match, Bernardo Paret got tangled in the ropes, and his opponent, during the next 3 to 4 seconds, hit him 18 times before the referee pull him off. Paret died before he hit the canvas.
Beer, beer, beer, beer,
And traffic jams after a game, people just take your fucking time, if you take your time, then no one is going to crach, why don’t you understand that trying to squeeze through a small opening with cause problems
The only good thing that sports has done for us is that during a tampa bay buccaneers home game, two men got into a fight, and the security arrived, pulled out a tazer, and everyone in the surrounding seats crying
"TAZER"
"TAZER""TAZER"
Look, everyone, before you say sports are the downfall of civilization,
or religion is the cause of all of societies problems, just consider humanity by itself. People will kill you just to watch the blood pour out.
People rob from each other. They are untrustworthy, fake, selfish, domineering, abusive. If you give them the chance, they will rob you. If you give them the chance, and it serves their interests, they will do whatever they want to you. Even if it’s just for fun.
So let me review.
You’ve got Neo-Nazis in Europe hanging out at soccer matches and maliciously booing the non-white players.
You’ve got Ultraconversative Jews getting into fights with the participants in a gay-pride parade.
You’ve got The Tampa Bay Devils Rays, and they haven’t had a winning season in history.
And you’ve priests, from the Roman Catholic Church, my church, diddling little boys.
Obviously when they were weighing eternal damnation with their immediate urges, they decided "To Hell with Jesus."
Is there really any need for comparison? Really? Isn’t the main point we must consider is that people are crazy?
On the part of religion you’ve got
people blowing themselves up,
killing pretty much every person in Jerusalem during the crusades,
murdering no less 6 million in Europe,
and much death.
On the part of religion, you’ve got Fred Phelps and his congregation protesting the funerals of soldiers because the United States government doesn’t take a tougher stance on homosexuality.
Yes, yes, religion is more dangerous than sports on a sociological standpoint because God has been used for justification of mass slaughter. Not so with sports--at least not so often.
But look at organized sports. I once met a guy who played for the NFL who said that basically everybody there was a rapist.
You’ve got Mike Tyson—I don’t know if all the stories are true, but you’ve guy a million peoples saying that punches old women in the mouth, has bipolar disorder, threatened to murder his first wife.
And he’s a convicted rapist.
You’ve got Don King, who still, in the most sympathetic portrayal of him, comes off as really shady.
You’ve soccer riots, drunken fights. During the 1960s, in a boxing match, Bernardo Paret got tangled in the ropes, and his opponent, during the next 3 to 4 seconds, hit him 18 times before the referee pull him off. Paret died before he hit the canvas.
Beer, beer, beer, beer,
And traffic jams after a game, people just take your fucking time, if you take your time, then no one is going to crach, why don’t you understand that trying to squeeze through a small opening with cause problems
The only good thing that sports has done for us is that during a tampa bay buccaneers home game, two men got into a fight, and the security arrived, pulled out a tazer, and everyone in the surrounding seats crying
"TAZER"
"TAZER""TAZER"
Look, everyone, before you say sports are the downfall of civilization,
or religion is the cause of all of societies problems, just consider humanity by itself. People will kill you just to watch the blood pour out.
People rob from each other. They are untrustworthy, fake, selfish, domineering, abusive. If you give them the chance, they will rob you. If you give them the chance, and it serves their interests, they will do whatever they want to you. Even if it’s just for fun.
So let me review.
You’ve got Neo-Nazis in Europe hanging out at soccer matches and maliciously booing the non-white players.
You’ve got Ultraconversative Jews getting into fights with the participants in a gay-pride parade.
You’ve got The Tampa Bay Devils Rays, and they haven’t had a winning season in history.
And you’ve priests, from the Roman Catholic Church, my church, diddling little boys.
Obviously when they were weighing eternal damnation with their immediate urges, they decided "To Hell with Jesus."
Resolved: Everyone is an asshole once you get to know them
Written April, 2007
Ladies and gentlemen of the Philolexian society, arguing against this resolution feels futile, but I’m doing it anyway. And I will ask you to be patient because at first it’s going to sound like I am arguing in the affirmative.
In a stand-up performance of his called Bigger and Blacker, Chris Rock said that when you get into a relationship with somebody, you’re not really meeting the person; you’re meeting a quote-unquote, "representative." You’re meeting a preconceived image of that person, which he or she shows the world. That image is how the person would like to be seen. And that, at lot of times, is true. When we meet a person and we get a first impression, but that first impression is always in a precarious position. This is because the image tends to be an act, and, there will be moments when the act shuts down.
If you want to know a person—for real—observe them in a war zone. See how they handle abject poverty. Have them make Sophie’s choice. Or, better yet, see them in an opportunity to gain personally from hurting other people. And that’s what being an asshole is about—personal benefit at the expense of others. So if you want to see if someone is an asshole or not, you give them an opportunity to hurt others when something can be gained. And many people, you put them the opportunity and they’ll show you textbook definition of asshole.
I’ve heard of people killing each other simply out of anger, out of petty pride. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, he made reference to two prisoners at a concentration camp—A father and son. And the son stole the father’s food rations. No remorse. It was every man for himself. And in my life I have seen that sort of thing in many places. Not the same situation or arrangement, but events that included one person betraying another. Even between family members. Consider the case of Susan Smith, who, in 1994, drowned her two sons, and tried to cover it up by saying that a black guy had kidnapped them. According the lawyers who prosecuted her, she got rid of her children in other to seem more attractive an ex-lover. The fact she had already had kids was a reason for him breaking up with her.
And that’s the kind of thing that can happen. A family will live together for years, eat together, go on vacations together—knowing each other for decades—and then one day, something happens the whole relationship is changed. One person does something absolutely disgusting, absolutely vitriolic and unforgivable. And no one would have been able to predict it. But, from them on, the relationship between those family members becomes all about the single moment that reveals the truth. So I concede that a large number of people are assholes.
It’s really safe to say that if the balance of power in history were reversed, we’d still have the same kinds of things happening. If it were convenient for Jews to massacre Christians, they’d have done it. If it were convenient for Africans to enslave Europeans, they’d have done it. The way these incidences played out in reality were all about convenience.
But is there is still something I can’t let go of, and that is the evidence of sincere goodness. To return to examples of families, there are people who stick together during terrible circumstances. They are young fathers who stick by the mothers during an unexpected pregnancy. I met a mother, 50 years old, who, in order to support her sons, worked two jobs. Monday through Friday, she went to sleep from 1 to 2am, and woke up at 6am. And she cleaned the house. The only thing she expected from her kids were good grades. She had no regrets.
And remember the Subway Superman? Wesley Autrey. The most amazing thing is that he did it for a stranger. And the money he received from rich people because of his good deed, he deserved it, he’s got kids to feed. The President mentioned him during a State of the Union address. Hey, huess what, assholes of the world, learn to be good people, and maybe you, too, will get a shout-out during the State of the Union address. Fucking A.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Philolexian society, arguing against this resolution feels futile, but I’m doing it anyway. And I will ask you to be patient because at first it’s going to sound like I am arguing in the affirmative.
In a stand-up performance of his called Bigger and Blacker, Chris Rock said that when you get into a relationship with somebody, you’re not really meeting the person; you’re meeting a quote-unquote, "representative." You’re meeting a preconceived image of that person, which he or she shows the world. That image is how the person would like to be seen. And that, at lot of times, is true. When we meet a person and we get a first impression, but that first impression is always in a precarious position. This is because the image tends to be an act, and, there will be moments when the act shuts down.
If you want to know a person—for real—observe them in a war zone. See how they handle abject poverty. Have them make Sophie’s choice. Or, better yet, see them in an opportunity to gain personally from hurting other people. And that’s what being an asshole is about—personal benefit at the expense of others. So if you want to see if someone is an asshole or not, you give them an opportunity to hurt others when something can be gained. And many people, you put them the opportunity and they’ll show you textbook definition of asshole.
I’ve heard of people killing each other simply out of anger, out of petty pride. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, he made reference to two prisoners at a concentration camp—A father and son. And the son stole the father’s food rations. No remorse. It was every man for himself. And in my life I have seen that sort of thing in many places. Not the same situation or arrangement, but events that included one person betraying another. Even between family members. Consider the case of Susan Smith, who, in 1994, drowned her two sons, and tried to cover it up by saying that a black guy had kidnapped them. According the lawyers who prosecuted her, she got rid of her children in other to seem more attractive an ex-lover. The fact she had already had kids was a reason for him breaking up with her.
And that’s the kind of thing that can happen. A family will live together for years, eat together, go on vacations together—knowing each other for decades—and then one day, something happens the whole relationship is changed. One person does something absolutely disgusting, absolutely vitriolic and unforgivable. And no one would have been able to predict it. But, from them on, the relationship between those family members becomes all about the single moment that reveals the truth. So I concede that a large number of people are assholes.
It’s really safe to say that if the balance of power in history were reversed, we’d still have the same kinds of things happening. If it were convenient for Jews to massacre Christians, they’d have done it. If it were convenient for Africans to enslave Europeans, they’d have done it. The way these incidences played out in reality were all about convenience.
But is there is still something I can’t let go of, and that is the evidence of sincere goodness. To return to examples of families, there are people who stick together during terrible circumstances. They are young fathers who stick by the mothers during an unexpected pregnancy. I met a mother, 50 years old, who, in order to support her sons, worked two jobs. Monday through Friday, she went to sleep from 1 to 2am, and woke up at 6am. And she cleaned the house. The only thing she expected from her kids were good grades. She had no regrets.
And remember the Subway Superman? Wesley Autrey. The most amazing thing is that he did it for a stranger. And the money he received from rich people because of his good deed, he deserved it, he’s got kids to feed. The President mentioned him during a State of the Union address. Hey, huess what, assholes of the world, learn to be good people, and maybe you, too, will get a shout-out during the State of the Union address. Fucking A.
Stories
The following is an e-mail I sent last November to the people in my “Acting Improvisation” class. It’s taught by an actress named Rita Pietropinto. (Most of her experience is from plays, but she was Aunt Amy on Daria, and appeared in the seventh episode of the first season of Chappelle’s Show. It's always funny to see a real teacher ask questions about “Jedi Boy-Touching.”)
****
Hello classmates and teacher,I feel like writing something. And since it’s relevant to you all, I figured you should have the chance to read it. (I was able to get your e-mails because I happened to still have the ‘Class Cancelled Wednesday’ e-mail Rita sent a while ago.) After the end of today’s class, during Rita’s recount of her unfortunate encounter with the “Waterbottle Man,” I blurted out, “Was he Asian?”
Rita’s story had reminded me of another subway story - - a high school teacher of mine, and some classmates made the literary magazine at our school, and they won an award from Columbia University for their efforts. They went to New York to receive the prize, and they happened to get on the subway car with this one man. This man was Asian, and wore a business suit. He rode the subway standing up. After a couple of stops, he unzipped his pants, pulled out his “water bottle,” and held onto the rail with his thing hanging out.
My own personal subway/bus story is not full of as much action, though it made an impression on me. In high school, I lived in Tampa, Florida, and due to volunteering at the library, I had to take the city bus home. It was an hour-long ride, and one evening, a man stepped onto the bus. He was the man on whom I based my “crazy” character in the beginning of the semester. He was the physical embodiment of potential violence.He wore a sleeveless black shirt, and black jeans, and black socks. He was over 6ft, and long limbed, and had flaring nostrils. One of his middle fingers was wrapped in a band-aid, and wore headphones. He was muscular, but not as a bodybuilder is.
He wasn’t sculpted with intent to produce form--he was sculpted for function. He was wiry, and it seemed as if he got his from pushing boulders up a hill.In my performance, I attempted to recapture exactly how he moved. From when he strode down the aisle, and fell back into the seat almost in front of me, and flicked the wall of the bus with his fingertip, he twitched at this schizophrenic rhythm. I could not tell if he was real, or faking it, because he was so extreme. So, of course, I stared at him.
As you all know, NYC is different from the rest of the world. Here, if you notice something weird/threatening, you play dumb, and give them the threat wide berth. But, in smaller/quieter places, there is a tendency to want to say, “Hey, that’s interesting.” *poke poke*
So I stared. And there was this part of me that wondered, “If I could beat this guy in a fight, that’d be so cool.” It was not sadism, or sociopathy. This urge was more in the Hemingway-ish vein. This was more like a daredevil before a jump, or a man before he proposes to his Love. He thinks, “Oh man, I could seriously screw things up, but if I succeed, it would be so cool.” Here was a man who seemed like he could destroy me easily, and so there was this part of me that wanted to prove itself.Well, of course, he caught me staring. He winked at me. And I stopped looking at him for the rest of the ride, though I had to fight the urge to look at him again. Out of sheer curiosity. *poke poke*
He exited the bus two stops before mine.
More than anything else, by the time I have grandkids, I would like to have lots of stories to tell. Just endless endless amounts. Like the high school teacher I had who taught English to the Eskimos, met his future-wife when he was a scuba instructor, and had a rather vicious run-in with the Mexican police (he wrote a novel based on the years he lived in Mexico). Yes, this teacher would break into a story about once a day while we did our in-class work.
I am writer, and I like writing, and my urge to have a lot of experiences may very well be influenced by my hobby/life’s-work.I’ve gathered a nice little collection of stories myself. For instance:My little brother and I worked at a sandwich shop last summer. A man once called 911 on us because the bread of his sandwich was harder than he liked it.
I will not elaborate much further, for time runs short, and writing takes time. But I knew he was a potential problem when he leaned over to ask his daughter what sandwich she wanted, and she wouldn’t look him in the eye. She flinched at every word he said.
Now, I will say that you women must have great stories. All the weirdoes approaching you on the street. Sometimes when I’m talking to a woman, and she brings up how some guy was bothering her, I realize, “Oh, yes, I forget. People tend to bother other people with forward requests or inappropriate actions. Well, they approach anyone but me.”
You see, people have thought I was scary since at least 10th grade. Seriously - - once, I was in the hallway of my school, and this one woman asked me, serious, “Oh my God. Are you going to kill somebody?” Even when I was in an okay mood, I always looked angry. And then, one day after school, I was looking in the locker room for my little brother because he was not picking up his cell phone. I asked this one guy, some stoner-looking soccer player, if he had seen a dude with a large afro (my little brother used to sport the world’s greatest afro-hair).
The stoner-looking dude said, “Are you going to fight him?” He thought, by the way I had asked the question, that I was very very angry, when, really, I was only mildly frustrated. Only people who know me, people who don't care, and people who are stoned approach me freely (listen about the time, during my first serious acting experience, when I was backstage and one of the other actors pretended to almost whip out his penis at my mouth. Never before had 10-days of out-of-school suspension been worth punching somebody in the face).
Yes, ladies, it must be annoying to have all those dudes try to do things with you. It must get tiring to have strangers say to you,
“Oh, you’re pretty. Let’s go out and eat some dinner sometime.”
Or“Can I put my finger in your butt?”
But at least you’re exposed to so many different people. You meet the cute charming guy in the Yankees pinstripe shirt, and you meet the pervert guy in the business suit. You meet the construction worker, the convenience store cashier, the lawyer, the doctor, the pimp, the drug dealer, the psychotic genius, the sweet mentally challenged guy, the psychotic mentally challenged guy, the polite genius.
By all means, men are as involved in people as much as you all are. But you have the luxury of being able to do nothing, and someone to bother you. Life approaches you in a faster pace this way. I mean, when I sit on a park bench, the only people who bother me is the guy asking for change, and the really lonely dude walking his Toto-type dog. When YOU are on a park bench, the whole dynamic of the situation changes. I won’t care to elaborate, because I’ve never been a woman, and I’ll probably be talking out-of-my-ass on some/most points. And, yes, though you may disagree with my positive tone regarding weirdoes approaching you, I do believe that you should agree with this following idea: no one can get enough practice in dealing with conflict. In dealing with conflicts among friends, family, and strangers. Through conflict, we can better learn fearlessness, tact, morality, and discipline and humility and humor.
By all means, avoid all conflict, but when conflict hunts you down (and it hunts us all), take stock of what’s happening so that the event turns you into a stronger person. Darwin said that the most successful mammals thrive by adapting. So adapt fast. Because one day could be sitting backstage during a play, and one of the other actors could walk toward you, and while walking, unzip his pants.
Life is beautiful and wonderful and awkward.Life is like unrequited love.
Life is like the world’s best one night stand. Life is like the serial killer living in your neighborhood, unbeknownst to you.
Life is like a bag of chips (not chocolates) because it stains your fingers and is hard to wash off.
Life is like the moon before we landed on it. For all we know, it’s made of cheese.
Happy Thanksgiving,
****
Hello classmates and teacher,I feel like writing something. And since it’s relevant to you all, I figured you should have the chance to read it. (I was able to get your e-mails because I happened to still have the ‘Class Cancelled Wednesday’ e-mail Rita sent a while ago.) After the end of today’s class, during Rita’s recount of her unfortunate encounter with the “Waterbottle Man,” I blurted out, “Was he Asian?”
Rita’s story had reminded me of another subway story - - a high school teacher of mine, and some classmates made the literary magazine at our school, and they won an award from Columbia University for their efforts. They went to New York to receive the prize, and they happened to get on the subway car with this one man. This man was Asian, and wore a business suit. He rode the subway standing up. After a couple of stops, he unzipped his pants, pulled out his “water bottle,” and held onto the rail with his thing hanging out.
My own personal subway/bus story is not full of as much action, though it made an impression on me. In high school, I lived in Tampa, Florida, and due to volunteering at the library, I had to take the city bus home. It was an hour-long ride, and one evening, a man stepped onto the bus. He was the man on whom I based my “crazy” character in the beginning of the semester. He was the physical embodiment of potential violence.He wore a sleeveless black shirt, and black jeans, and black socks. He was over 6ft, and long limbed, and had flaring nostrils. One of his middle fingers was wrapped in a band-aid, and wore headphones. He was muscular, but not as a bodybuilder is.
He wasn’t sculpted with intent to produce form--he was sculpted for function. He was wiry, and it seemed as if he got his from pushing boulders up a hill.In my performance, I attempted to recapture exactly how he moved. From when he strode down the aisle, and fell back into the seat almost in front of me, and flicked the wall of the bus with his fingertip, he twitched at this schizophrenic rhythm. I could not tell if he was real, or faking it, because he was so extreme. So, of course, I stared at him.
As you all know, NYC is different from the rest of the world. Here, if you notice something weird/threatening, you play dumb, and give them the threat wide berth. But, in smaller/quieter places, there is a tendency to want to say, “Hey, that’s interesting.” *poke poke*
So I stared. And there was this part of me that wondered, “If I could beat this guy in a fight, that’d be so cool.” It was not sadism, or sociopathy. This urge was more in the Hemingway-ish vein. This was more like a daredevil before a jump, or a man before he proposes to his Love. He thinks, “Oh man, I could seriously screw things up, but if I succeed, it would be so cool.” Here was a man who seemed like he could destroy me easily, and so there was this part of me that wanted to prove itself.Well, of course, he caught me staring. He winked at me. And I stopped looking at him for the rest of the ride, though I had to fight the urge to look at him again. Out of sheer curiosity. *poke poke*
He exited the bus two stops before mine.
More than anything else, by the time I have grandkids, I would like to have lots of stories to tell. Just endless endless amounts. Like the high school teacher I had who taught English to the Eskimos, met his future-wife when he was a scuba instructor, and had a rather vicious run-in with the Mexican police (he wrote a novel based on the years he lived in Mexico). Yes, this teacher would break into a story about once a day while we did our in-class work.
I am writer, and I like writing, and my urge to have a lot of experiences may very well be influenced by my hobby/life’s-work.I’ve gathered a nice little collection of stories myself. For instance:My little brother and I worked at a sandwich shop last summer. A man once called 911 on us because the bread of his sandwich was harder than he liked it.
I will not elaborate much further, for time runs short, and writing takes time. But I knew he was a potential problem when he leaned over to ask his daughter what sandwich she wanted, and she wouldn’t look him in the eye. She flinched at every word he said.
Now, I will say that you women must have great stories. All the weirdoes approaching you on the street. Sometimes when I’m talking to a woman, and she brings up how some guy was bothering her, I realize, “Oh, yes, I forget. People tend to bother other people with forward requests or inappropriate actions. Well, they approach anyone but me.”
You see, people have thought I was scary since at least 10th grade. Seriously - - once, I was in the hallway of my school, and this one woman asked me, serious, “Oh my God. Are you going to kill somebody?” Even when I was in an okay mood, I always looked angry. And then, one day after school, I was looking in the locker room for my little brother because he was not picking up his cell phone. I asked this one guy, some stoner-looking soccer player, if he had seen a dude with a large afro (my little brother used to sport the world’s greatest afro-hair).
The stoner-looking dude said, “Are you going to fight him?” He thought, by the way I had asked the question, that I was very very angry, when, really, I was only mildly frustrated. Only people who know me, people who don't care, and people who are stoned approach me freely (listen about the time, during my first serious acting experience, when I was backstage and one of the other actors pretended to almost whip out his penis at my mouth. Never before had 10-days of out-of-school suspension been worth punching somebody in the face).
Yes, ladies, it must be annoying to have all those dudes try to do things with you. It must get tiring to have strangers say to you,
“Oh, you’re pretty. Let’s go out and eat some dinner sometime.”
Or“Can I put my finger in your butt?”
But at least you’re exposed to so many different people. You meet the cute charming guy in the Yankees pinstripe shirt, and you meet the pervert guy in the business suit. You meet the construction worker, the convenience store cashier, the lawyer, the doctor, the pimp, the drug dealer, the psychotic genius, the sweet mentally challenged guy, the psychotic mentally challenged guy, the polite genius.
By all means, men are as involved in people as much as you all are. But you have the luxury of being able to do nothing, and someone to bother you. Life approaches you in a faster pace this way. I mean, when I sit on a park bench, the only people who bother me is the guy asking for change, and the really lonely dude walking his Toto-type dog. When YOU are on a park bench, the whole dynamic of the situation changes. I won’t care to elaborate, because I’ve never been a woman, and I’ll probably be talking out-of-my-ass on some/most points. And, yes, though you may disagree with my positive tone regarding weirdoes approaching you, I do believe that you should agree with this following idea: no one can get enough practice in dealing with conflict. In dealing with conflicts among friends, family, and strangers. Through conflict, we can better learn fearlessness, tact, morality, and discipline and humility and humor.
By all means, avoid all conflict, but when conflict hunts you down (and it hunts us all), take stock of what’s happening so that the event turns you into a stronger person. Darwin said that the most successful mammals thrive by adapting. So adapt fast. Because one day could be sitting backstage during a play, and one of the other actors could walk toward you, and while walking, unzip his pants.
Life is beautiful and wonderful and awkward.Life is like unrequited love.
Life is like the world’s best one night stand. Life is like the serial killer living in your neighborhood, unbeknownst to you.
Life is like a bag of chips (not chocolates) because it stains your fingers and is hard to wash off.
Life is like the moon before we landed on it. For all we know, it’s made of cheese.
Happy Thanksgiving,
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