Years of Poems and Spirits

为什么政客们亲那么多Baby不会得病，我亲一个就病得摇摇欲坠?!

When one is physically ill what does that do to one’s mind? I had many hours of sleep but dreaded the dreams. It was the day time stress and anxiety repeated over and again. I was making arguments that at once seemed to make perfect sense and no sense at all. Just like my paper… Early in the morning, I didn’t want to go back to sleep just because I didn’t want to go back to the dreams. But when I was at 39c, it wasn’t always up to me.

While sick, I had time to watch some TV and to read from New Yorker:
1. Watched the Indy Race in St. Petersburg on TV, I think the cry “it is green flag racing!” is very sexy!

2. Watched Carman the opera: I always enjoyed listening to Carman. After all, the Toréador Song was what got me into classical music to begin with. And I watched the opera couple of times before. But this time it was different. Something clicked. Micaëla’s solo in the Gypse’s camp is the most moving: not only the music beautiful, but perfectly encapsulates the obsession of Jose and the power of Carmen. Although Don Jose’s possessiveness is pathological, Carman’s free-will almost justifies one’s total admiration: she is woman worth dying for.

3. Watched One Flew over Cuckcoo’s Nest: It is more Owellian but definitely not Foucaultian. The antagnistic nurse Ratched is NOT how mass society works today. Rather it is the elaborate weddings and ceremonies that David Brooks talked about in the Bobos in Paradise. However, the movie is superb at portraying the tension between the subjected and the privileged once the sensation of being free is discovered and the pursuit of liberation is on.

4. Read Eric Alterman’s “Out of Print” on NYKr. I am certainly in Lippmann’s camp. For a while, I thought that is what Alterman’s argument too. But that is just not progressive enough, uh? This article deserves another entry. But in summary, I do think politics and governance are becoming too complicated, too nuanced to be decided by the general public.

I remember a skit from SNL where a weekend party is going on in a loft apartment somewhere. That was right after 9.11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. Suddenly a guy rushes in and says, “the Northern Aliance just took Jalalabad!” and everybody raises their glasses and cheers.

The moral of the joke is that the world is just too complicated. Alterman seems to be finding hope in the newly burgening phenomenon of “participating” journalism, or a mixture of opinions and leaks and rumors. He is well aware of the ptifalls of such a development: the degradation of journalistic integrity. And more importantly, the polarization of public opinions. But strangely, he seems to say this is actually good for democracy: the reason that more Europeans voted than Americans is because they have so many tabloids.

Of course, his musing stops right there. No further reasoning offered why these two are even corelated! That is rather ridiculous for a serious article (or posting, should I say). But he has several good points, for example, that the “veneer of neutrality” is becoming increasingly unsustainable. And the very effort to stay “above the fray” may render print journalism cold and distant.

5. By the way, just saw my old boss Dan Hesse on TV in a Sprint commercial. I was such a fan of his while at Terabeam. I still think he is a heck of communicator and salesman.

I feel mentally twisted. I think I am on to something, but can’t say it or describe it as a body of knowledge. I think I am talking to Foucault and Nietzsche, but can’t understand what they are saying. I am just not good enough. I am not worthy.

Ever since I realized, after taking Migdal’s class, the knowledge (or truth) is related to power/dominance (of course, a narrow sense of K/T, mostly social/political or unquantifiable ones), I have been bothered by the relationship. I am fascinated by it, can’t figure it all out and–the worst–can’t just let it go. Very annoying addiction-like.

It all started yesterday after reading the article in the NYKr: “True Crime” The story is about a young Polish guy, who’s fascinated by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, wrote a book as a way to manifest his brand of “truth/knowledge/illusion/perception”. The book described crimes committed by a seemingly reputable guy. Prior to the book, there was a murder–a perfect crime–that had some similarities with what’s in the book. Later an equally dogged police detective convinced a court that the author of the book was the murderer in real life.

The story is very engaging, but very dark. Some quotes:
Bala often referred to Wittgenstein as “my master.” He also seized on Friedrich Nietzsche’s notorious contention that “there are no facts, only interpretations” and that “truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions.”

Bala wrote a thesis about Richard Rorty, the American philosopher, who famously declared, “The guise of convincing your peers is the very face of truth itself.”

When a former girlfriend testified that Bala once went out on her balcony drunk and acted as if he were on the verge of committing suicide, he asked her if her words might have multiple interpretations. “Could we just say that this is a matter of semantics-a misuse of the word ’suicide’?” he said.
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Apparently, he is talented (e.g. “graduated with highest possible marks from school”). Yet he’s not good enough to be a philosopher to his own standard so he’s not really interested in an academic life just for the sake of having a job. He went into business instead.

It seems that his appreciation of the menacing nature of K/T, contrasted with his inability to translate such an appreciation into any secular advantage, really drew the worst out of him: he became sadistic and easily paranoid. He wrote his book partly to act out his fascination, partly, I think, to vent his frustration.

After reading his book and getting to know him better, the detective decided publishing a book wasn’t enough to satisfy either of his feelings. He had to live through the experience. With that conviction, he pursued him like Javert going after Jean Valjean, and succeeded.

Now Bala, the author/convicted murderer, is behind bars for 25 years and writing his next book.

Tonight’s SNL started with a skit that poked fun at media’s adoration of Obama. It was really fun.

The media’s adoration for Obama is almost naked. Yet everyone in the business carries on as if nothing is wrong. There has been so much talk about media giving the Bush administration a pass prior to the Iraqi War. But by my count, that wasn’t as bad as what I see today. This behavior not only tarnishes the profession, but also does disservice to the candidates and the public.

Therefore, it is great to watch the skit where the media was made fun of. This skit also reminded me of an article I read in New Yorker many years ago, “Standup Guys“.

Before, I thought political comedy as an inherently liberal expression. But that article really changed my mind. Political humor is not about liberalism versus conservatism. It is about the powerless versus the powerful. In other words, political humor lives to expose the poseur of the powerful, particularly the elaborate symbols and rituals created by those in power. To put it simply, it is the little boy that is destined to cry “but the Emporer has no cloth!”

In a liberal society as the U.S., the powerful doesn’t have to be the authorities. It could be the masses (a la de Tocqueville). Unfortunately, even as the message conveyed in a joke is actually true, it is only effective when packaged in humor.

Is this a case of tyranny of lie or impotence of truth?