Recreational reading and other wastes of time

Anyone who knows me knows that I like to read. Anyone who knows me well knows I like to read a lot. And anyone who knows me really well knows that I'm rarely without my nose in a book whenever I find the time to put it there.

Most people who know me know that I'm a fairly eclectic reader. Most of those who know me better know that I'm more than casual reader. And most of those who know me even better know that there has rarely been a book printed that I would not be willing to read.

Yes, I'm one of those kind of persons who, when someone says, "Hey, you really should read this book", I reply with "Give it to me and I'll give it a shot." I won't deceive you into thinking that I've read every book I've ever had in my hands through from cover to cover. It's not necessary with some (say, have you ever tried reading a dictionary from cover to cover?), it's not possible with others (like when you're trying to decipher a text written with green letters on purple paper), but at least I'll give it a try. Who knows what might be in there? After all, someone went to a certain amount of trouble to ensure that the text got around. The least that I can do is honor the effort, even if I can't grasp what's being talked about. I am more than willing to openly admit that there are some texts that I simply don't get.

Truth be told, I wish I had more time to read, but there are only 24 hours in a day. Consequently, I always try to have more than one book going at any one time. I like to vary genres (non-fiction and fiction, poetry and spiritual texts work well together) and languages (in order to keep up my German which I so arduously learned, I like to have at least one book in German going at any given time). Another confession I need to make is that whatever I read on the internet (be it Facebook or any of the online groups with whom I'm affiliated) doesn't count as "real reading": the primary mode of internet communication is the written word, but that, to me, is a lot like a phone call. It may or not be communication in any meaningful sense of the word.

And so, the question naturally arises: what do I have to show for all of this reading. And, the answer is really rather simple: not a helluva lot. There are lots and lots and lots of interesting ideas out there floating about. No doubt about that. But what is every bit as necessary as reading all of this interesting (and, not-so-interesting) stuff is that you need time to reflect upon it. Reading is one thing. Digesting what you read is another. And I have found that quieter times, such as Lent, when, if you're into the spirit of the season, you kind of slow down just a bit, you can more easily find a fleeting moment here and there (even if it is as a change of pace to the normal monkey-brain-chatter we usually put up with before going to sleep) to think about what you've read.

What I miss sometimes, though, is someone to talk to about what I'm reading, but readers don't always read the same things at the same times. In these internet days in which we live, the neighborhood reading circle is an institution of bye-gone days. I am participating in an online reading group right now, for which I'm more than thankful, but that's a rarity, as most of you know. (The folks organizing and promoting the read are young people, however, and if their efforts are successful, I can only hope that they'll be encouraged to continue in the future.)

Still, all of those silent readers out there may one day be moved to speak. I just want you to know, I'm willing to listen.

The rules of the game?

We've been ruled by minorities for as long as we can collectively remember. You can call that minority the "aristocracy", the "elite", the "select few" ... it really doesn't matter. The reasoning changes, but the end result is the same.

There was a time perhaps when might made right, when the strongest or toughest managed to convince enough other strong or tough guys that they could simply take charge. You create a warrior society and a warrior culture and convince others -- perhaps at the point of a spear or the with the barrel of a gun -- that this is way it was meant to be. Others, who were perhaps a bit more subtle and clever, managed to convince the rest that knowing things, like when the floods would come or how to build pyramids or the like, made you special or different in some way. Knowing how fickle the masses were, especially since they were denied this essential knowledge, you get a front (wo)man and call him or her King or Empress or whatever, but you link them up to the divine and you've got yourself a good deal. You pull the strings but someone else takes the fall. Combinations of these approaches are, of course, not only possible, but, as history has shown, probable.

But, as our teachers and forebears would have us know, we "progressed", we realized that "everyone" should have a say in what happens to them. The trouble is, that was the pitch, but it certainly wasn't the process. There are any number of reasons why we should choose someone to represent us, why we shouldn't speak for ourselves: complexity, long distances, sheer numbers of people involved ... the list goes on and on. The end product, however, is the same as those justifications that had gone before. It was no longer the will of God, let us say, it was the will of the people. That's the way everyone wanted it, and if they didn't want it that way, well, it was clear that they were troublemakers, nay-sayers, undemocratic, and Lord knows what else. One thing was for sure, they needed to be shut up, and shut up they were.

There are a good number of people who actually believe that this is the natural order of things, but what do they have to base their belief on? That it's always been that way? That there are so-called alpha-animals and leaders of the herd? Yes, we've tried everything, from nature to nurture to biology to psychology (most people want to be led by others). Yes, there has been a never-ending stream of reasons why the few should have the say and the many should do what they're told. If we take a real close look at history, though, what we find is an ever-increasing difficulty to find reasonable and convincing justifications. Why? Because all the ones we have had thus far have been in the interest of those who think them up, and it is becoming harder and harder to make it clear that this is not the case.

For the longest time, it was possible to obscure, obfuscate, divert attention, cloud and confuse with ease. The widespread use of communication technologies is enabling more and more people to communicate -- often in silly and senseless ways -- with more and more people. There is simply lots and lots of information flying about our ears all the time. It is becoming harder and harder to keep things secret.

The genie is out of the bottle.

So what's stopping us?

If you've been following for a while, I think you can see a pattern forming. We need to talk. In order to talk decently and reasonably to one another we have to acknowledge the other person as an equal discussion partner. If we can do that, we need to be free enough to present a position without automatic and immediate rejection; it needs to be taken seriously. And, we can and will be different, but there is no one different that's always right. I think it makes sense, and the feedback I've received over the past couple of weeks confirm that I'm not the only one that thinks so.

So, the question immediately presents itself as to why it's not working. Oh, I don't mean between you and me. I'm talking in general. There's no real public discussion and debate. There's a lot of ignoring and ignorance being spread around. There's categorical rejection of certain ideas. We would rather label than lucidly consider who is saying what and why. There seems to be a theory-practice divide opening up. Maybe Jan van de Snepscheut was right: "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is." What is this hurdle that we can't seem to get over?

I – personally – think the answer is pretty obvious. It's exactly as Pogo once remarked, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

The consequence of the line of thought I've been laying out lately is this: everybody has to change, at least a little bit. I'm not talking about weighing mine against yours or my buddy Jake's change against your Aunt Edna's. No, we simply all have to get off of whatever center we happen to think we're on and take another shot at it all.

From what I can see, nobody's got very many answers, but we've got one helluva lot of problems – or issues, if you prefer – and we need to start thinking about which ones we want to deal with and who else might be interested in helping out. But we won't, because we can't, and we can't, because we really don't want to. Change is something that everybody else ought to do, never something that anyone can expect of us.

Well, I never expect of anyone something I'm not willing to do myself. I've made my move. When are you going to make yours?

Can you get there from here?

I've been told that up in Maine, if you ask for directions, the most likely response you'll get is "you can't get there from here" (and then they go on to explain how you do). That's got to be what a lot of you are thinking right now, and I certainly don't blame you. The demands are high, but so are the stakes. It won't be easy, but it's possible.

One of the most fortunate twists of fate I've had in my life was the opportunity to study at the University of Giessen (Germany) in the late 70s/early 80s. Most of all, I had the privilege of having a couple of the most insightful and profound thinkers of the time as my teachers and mentors (Hans-Eberhard Piepho & Lothar Bredella), neither of whom any of you have ever heard of, but that doesn't diminish the power of their thinking one iota. Piepho was pragmatic and probably the best foreign-language teacher I'd ever experienced, but his whole focus was on communicative competence. Bredella was the philosopher who had studied with Hans-Georg Gadamer and who introduced me intensely to the thinking of the contemporary German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, undoubtedly one of the profoundest thinkers of the 20th century. What all of these guys had in common, however, was an unshakeable faith in the human capability to communicate reasonably, to discourse rationally, and as a result, come to understandings that were grounded enough to actually make the world a better place. We could use more of them these days.

Although idealists in the philosophical sense of the world, they could envision what is possible. Through their practice they instilled that vision into their students. As bright, and capable, and deep as they might have been, they engaged their students as partners – equal partners – in the search for knowledge and truth. They ... I know it is hard to believe ... practiced what they preached.

We need to talk, discourse, discuss, and debate, but not to see who in the end is right and who is wrong, not to win or score points or obtain bragging rights. No, we need to communicate. We need to acknowledge our discussion partners not as adversaries to be defeated, but rather as agents of agreed-on change. We must accept the "other" as an free and equal participant in the discussion that brings benefit to all. And that's the challenge that many will have difficulty overcoming.

Propaganda

Picking up on the theme of my last post, it occurred to me today that a very important word is both losing favor -- most often simply through misuse -- and is also shifting it's meaning. This time the shift is not toward another word in the same domain, if you will, rather it is sliding into a separate domain and will be overwhelmed by the current standard term there. That word, of course, is "propaganda". We should keep it around, I think. It's a good word, and it actually communicates quite a bit. But, what is propaganda anyway?

If we stop to reflect for a minute, we see it is a form of communication. It's primary purpose is to influence its listeners (or readers or viewers, depending upon the media). The influence should be in a particular way, of course, that is, in favor of the position or assertions being made by the issuer, most commonly but now hardly ever known as the propagandist. The influencing is accomplished by presenting facts selectively. That doesn't mean it's an outright lie, rather, the selection allows the stater to simply leave things out in order to encourage the listener to draw particular conclusions. What is more, propaganda is generally presented emotionally. Emotion, not reason, should be directing the decision-making processes of the listener. That's how we generally understand the term these days.

Granted, this was a political term for the longest of times, but I don't hear it so much in that domain of discourse any more. I do see exactly that happening on a daily basis, and that is my cause for concern. We are all confronted with it day in and day out ... Americans and Brits more than, say, Germans or the French, but no one these days is immune to it. We know it as advertising.

Now before our marketing friends get all weird on me, stop and think about it for a minute. Advertising is a form of communication. It's primary purpose is to influence its listeners (or readers or viewers, depending upon the media). The influence should be in a particular way, of course, that is, in favor of the position or assertions being made by the advertiser. The influencing is accomplished by presenting facts seletively, also in order to encourage the listener to draw particular conclusions. And I doubt that anyone would disagree that it is presented emotionally. So where, I ask you, is the real difference?

I don't see one, so I'm sticking to my guns.

Generally, things like this wouldn't bother me all that much, but I am reminded of McLuhan's aphorism on the one side: the price of eternal vigilance is indifference (we simply get worn down by it all, throw in the towel, and end up with too big a car payment or a world war or whatever). On the other side, there aren't enough people these days educated enough to (a) know what propaganda really is or (b) have been taught or allowed to think critically enough to defend themselves. We can all do something about (a), but (b), well, that's a bigger problem ... and one that's bigger than I want address at the moment.

The next time you're being schlocked or enticed, or being amused to reach into your pocket for money, I'd suggest you stop and think. Of course, what works in marketing, well, that should be right and proper for politics now, shouldn't it. Think about it.

What can I say?

It struck me recently that not only are attention spans diminishing at a frightening rate, and not only are sound-bites getting shorter, they're also becoming emptier. When is the last time you heard a clipped quip on the news that really made any sense? I'm guessing it's been a while, because I'm having trouble finding people who say anything anymore. You would think in a situation like this one, words would become all the more important, but it seems to me that they are being emptied faster than the phrases that are supposed to give them meaning.

How about "free market"? There's one that gets bandied about a lot. My question is, though, just how free is a market if a non-market player steps in and hands over almost a trillion dollars to keep it alive? I'm not sure I understand either part of that phrase in that context? Or, how about "liberal"? I like that one too. It derives from the Latin liber, meaning free, but it is used at least in America these days as an epithet for socialist dictatorship, which is about as "unfree" as you can get. How does that happen? Or, what about that other favorite epithet of my youth, the really bad tag to hang on someone, "communist"? We don't use that at all any more as a term of derision. Why is that? Oh, right, because the only remaining communists in the world, the Chinese, our preferred trade partner, have outed themselves as the biggest capitalists of all.

I think I'm onto the problem, though. We don't use many words as words anymore. We prefer labels. Label someone as something, and you don't have to talk to them, you don't have to discuss anything with them, you can simply ignore them, because who would wanted to be associated with "those types"? This has long been a ploy in politics, but it has begun to permeate every aspect of our lives. We find the technique employed in the media, in schools, most definitely in sports, but at home as well.

I'm not the first to notice this, believe me. These are what Pörksen calls "plastic words", they are "argument killers": throw these words in to a discussion or debate and it grinds to a screeching halt. There's no way to counter them: they are so embedded in our personal ideologies that no criticism will be tolerated. But that's the problem: they are the means of argumentation of intolerance. It would do us well to start thinking about words and then start using them as they were intended: as a way of communication.