SynapsesJacques Rousseau teaches critical thinking and ethics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and is the founder and director of the Free Society Institute, a non-profit organisation promoting secular humanism and scientific reasoning.
After many decades of guilt and denial, it appears that Christians have finally discovered a way to integrate porn into god’s plan. This is achieved through “Loving Wife Spanking in a Christian Marriage“.
Now that the teaching part of the semester is over, and the marking part nearly so, I can reflect on my effectiveness in getting students to think rationally, using the ever-reliable indicator of whether I’ve managed to convert any of them to godlessness. The evidence is mixed. On the one hand, I’ve received a typical amount of hate mail. But on the other, for the first time I managed to convert an actual believer, rather than a mere skeptic – perhaps Bob was strong with me one day, and I managed to find just the right words, in the right order. This particular believer, a sincerely devout 19-year-old male, was quite perturbed by my choices of examples when teaching about logical fallacies (given that I often use religious discourse to source said examples) at the start of the semester, and had a number of earnest conversations early on, in which he asked me if I’d ever considered what a pickle I would be in if I was wrong about god.
by Raymond Carver
So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.
Seeing as Resistentialists have been known to enjoy a glass or two, here’s some useful tips from our friends Tom Cruise and John Travolta on how to make a person sober, according to the Scientology Handbook:
There is an interesting use of Locational Processing as a way to make a person sober. It can make a drunk person sober in a very few minutes. As society currently has no technology for handling the drunk, who is an embarrassment to his family, his friends and often to himself, this process has social value and may serve as a line of cooperation and assistance to the police.
Procedure
Use the command:
“Look at that_________ (room object).”
A drunk is usually considered somewhat unconfrontable and he himself certainly cannot confront. One thing he cannot confront is an empty glass. He always refills it if it is empty.
Repeat the command, each time pointing out a room object, as often as required to bring the person to sobriety. Do not get distracted into answering the frequent comment, “What object?” Just get the command carried out, acknowledge and give the next command.
Run until the person is no longer drunk.
Do not ever get angry with or strike a drunk, whatever the provocation.
This process is not intended to handle the condition of alcoholism. There are more advanced Scientology procedures that can be done to handle the conditions that caused a person to be alcoholic. But one can do a lot of good for the person and those around him by using this assist to bring him back to sobriety.
We are not particularly in the business of handling the drunk. But we are in the field of helping our fellow men. In a society where the only alternative is a night in jail and a fine, which is not desired by either the police or the intoxicated person, we can assist both and handle the situation in a matter of minutes.
Life must be so simple, if you’re that stupid…
Those of you who have read any Vonnegut will no doubt have been saddened to hear of his death, yesterday…
INTERVIEWER
What is a twerp in the strictest sense, in the original sense?
VONNEGUT
It’s a person who inserts a set of false teeth between the cheeks of his ass.
INTERVIEWER
I see.
VONNEGUT
I beg your pardon; between the cheeks of his or her ass. I’m always offending feminists that way.
INTERVIEWER
I don’t quite understand why someone would do that with false teeth.
VONNEGUT
In order to bite the buttons off the back seats of taxicabs. That’s the only reason twerps do it. It’s all that turns them on.
If you haven’t read any, I’d recommend Sirens of Titan or Breakfast of Champions.
To an old friend, courtesy of Philip Larkin:
Continuing to Live
Continuing to live — that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries —
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
It varies.This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise —
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
But it’s chess.And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
To exist.And what’s the profit? Only that, in time,
We half-identify the blind impress
All our behavings bear, may trace it home.
But to confess,On that green evening when our death begins,
Just what it was, is hardly satisfying,
Since it applied only to one man once,
And that one dying.
I’m borrowing Dylan’s title, but this post has nothing to do with LSD, Vietnam or the American Civil Rights movement. I’m thinking more about selves, and the idea of finding one’s self buried under yourself, so to speak. There are two immediate problems here – the intrinsic one, which revolves around knowing which self is authentic, if one of them is (rather than a 3rd self, constructed from the available elements), and the extrinsic one, which is realised in the difficulties one has with how others relate to you, in that they are legitimately confused as to who they are talking to.
What do you consider to be essential character traits in a friend? If you had asked me this question last year, I would have answered it by reference to those people who had shaped many of my experiences over the past decade, and listed at least 2 attributes: honesty, and the synchronicity of interest that allows for good and easy conversation. But there are things missing from that short list of 2 – particularly the attribute of empathy. In other words – or by my definition – the ability to, and interest in, seeing things from the reactive stance (see Strawson for more on this). Instead, I typically treated myself and others as objective logical puzzles, to mull over and manage when necessary. But there is very little room for spontaneity and pleasure in the objective stance, as useful as it can be in terms of troubleshooting.
The simple point is that one can extol and present the virtues of logic and consistency without them being all that your interactions are about. We don’t make ourselves less consistent and coherent in being silly, or in being able to let our critical standards rest for a few hours. Instead, we can reinforce the importance of those standards, in that people can then see that they aren’t simply habits, but rather positions that make sense, in their proper context. For myself, perhaps it could be that my lack of empathy encouraged those I thought were my friends to be dishonest with me, but I can’t believe that it excuses that. I do think that one can rank these attributes, in that without honesty, there is little chance for empathy and enjoyment of company to flourish. And as simple, and formulaic, as it sounds, taking care to keep these fundamentals intact now seems crucial to keeping yourself intact – or to developing an intact self.
Be careful out there.
Because it’s more difficult to know whether the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or nth glass of wine will be the one to prevent us from finishing that item of work that’s due tomorrow, we look for what Ainslie calls “bright lines” to regulate our behaviour – we stop drinking, or we stop smoking or gambling, because by choosing absolute principles, and narrativising them as evidence of strength of will, we can regulate our behaviour while at the same time validate our characters in doing so.
From Lambchop’s “Paperback Bible” – a reminder to me, tonight, of simple folly, and of the cowardice that leads people to lose themselves, and run the risk of causing others to lose themselves along the way.
Then there’s a Reba designs
Size eight, prom pageant dress
It’s icy blue
With sequins worn just once
There are others that are strapless
But this one’s slit above the knee
If you’re looking for
Something perfect for that student