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Q. How can you tell a group of people is starved for rational arguments about a position to which they're committed?
A. When they start to pull crap like this:
A. When they start to pull crap like this:
Wandering Thoughts
kept in cages
Only I could have such a self-defeatingly acerbic disposition as to be petulantly aggravated by bubble gum when I'm the one chewing it.
The surge of traffic that speeds for my seeing and vanishes for my crossing;
The siren-mocking whine of a lone voice in the distant street;
The shirtless skinny child, dark-skinned in illuminated night, walking alone past twelve;
The fat man and his dog sharing profile and becoming each the other;
The bicycles' approach, invisible behind their silver lights,
Bursting in time with the pump of purposed legs,
Dotting wildly my eyes, like dying sparklers left over from the fourth of July;
Image of man and mechanism unconcealed slowly with the closure of distance
By pedal power that also drives a Beatles song.
I take it on my own lips, look up to sight the blue-faced clock tower, imposing on the church,
And I am borne rapidly back to my carpet bed, in slippers.
Just three minutes and half a tick of effort to the mailbox and back,
And more life in this than countless weeks pretending at work upon my desk.
The siren-mocking whine of a lone voice in the distant street;
The shirtless skinny child, dark-skinned in illuminated night, walking alone past twelve;
The fat man and his dog sharing profile and becoming each the other;
The bicycles' approach, invisible behind their silver lights,
Bursting in time with the pump of purposed legs,
Dotting wildly my eyes, like dying sparklers left over from the fourth of July;
Image of man and mechanism unconcealed slowly with the closure of distance
By pedal power that also drives a Beatles song.
I take it on my own lips, look up to sight the blue-faced clock tower, imposing on the church,
And I am borne rapidly back to my carpet bed, in slippers.
Just three minutes and half a tick of effort to the mailbox and back,
And more life in this than countless weeks pretending at work upon my desk.
I'm sick of living where forty percent of my former friends are probably still drifting past me every day. I don't want to go to the Allentown Art Festival, because I no longer relish the idea of chance encounters, which always seem to haunt things like that. I simply don't want to reconnect with the people I used to know, unless its to find out that somebody - anybody - else has failed as tremendously as I have. Is that as bad as it seems? I don't care. It doesn't seem like there's much of a difference between being a bad person in a world that only you inhabit, and being a good person in the same.
This USA Today article was brought to my attention recently, digested into this one sentence summary:
"Education matters, a new website will calculate how education influences important statistical indicators such as income, health, voting rates and even the likelihood that a person will stay out of prison."
Two things are naturally true of this brief story: it probably seems innocuous and uncontroversial, and it made me angry to read it. The problem is that the work being presented under this summary is not a series of conclusions, but rather an unsubstantiated claim being offered for uncritical acceptance. And indeed it is accepted uncritically, even in absence of a website specifically devoted to furthering the presumptuous claim. This is directly on a par with the comments from Rahm Emmanuel that I had criticized earlier, about people “earning what they learn.” He had no doubt based that conclusion upon the observation that he and his colleagues had obtained a respectable formal education and had subsequently become successful and wealthy. Now Education Matters is broadening that statistical analysis and including other indicators to make the instrumental good of obtaining institutionalized education seem more fully confirmed. But underlying all of this is what seems to me a fairly obvious problem.
You see, I would think that the people making these assertions or putting out these studies, who must thoroughly value education, would be aware of, and resistant to, common logical fallacies, such as confusing correlation with causality. I think that mistake is particularly common in part because it allows people to justify their own presuppositions. And on the basis of that mistake, you can do so in a way that seems scientific, that seems statistically significant. If you believe that college attendance increases income, and civic participation, and social morality, all you need to do is gather statistical data indicating that graduates demonstrate these characteristics, and then assert that it was their going to college that caused all of these things. This sort of misguided reasoning is applied to all sorts of things, but at least in the company I’ve kept I’ve seen it undercut much more readily only with respect to more controversial issues. Educated people often don’t buy the claim that violent video games make children more violent merely on the basis that children who demonstrate violent tendencies often play violent video games. It is recognized, in that case, that children with such tendencies may have a particular proficiency for playing such games, while non-violent children can both play them and retain psychological health. Privileging one interpretation over the other tends to be based on a preexisting ideological commitment to one conclusion.
But the summary quoted above is based on just such a prejudgment of the reasons for the statistical observations. However, that presumption is not so often called into question, perhaps because it is more convenient for people in a position to recognize and refute the error of reasoning. Go back and read that quotation again. Now, what if I were to say instead:
A new website will calculate how statistical indicators such the likelihood of a person staying out of prison, their income potential, health, and voting rates all influence the level of their education.
Does that sound implicitly worse? It’s little more that a change of syntax, but it practically reverses the conclusions suggested by the same analysis. On the surface, there is no sound reason to identify the correlation between these indicators as working in one causal direction.
And I can do the same with the content of the article, which claims that increasing rates of education would consequently have a positive influence on the other things mentioned, and which takes New Mexico as an explicit example. They say:
"[M]ove all adults in the state of New Mexico up just one level of schooling — those without high school would graduate, those with a high school degree would get some college (or an associate's degree), and those with some college would earn a four-year diploma — and the tool predicts, among other things, that life expectancy in the state would increase by nearly two years.
"New Mexico's murder rate would drop by more than half, from 8.6 murders per 100,000 people to 3.8.
"Meanwhile, median personal income in the state would rise, from, $27,927 to $35,253, and the percentage of people who vote would jump substantially, from about 55% to 65%.
"Also, the incarceration rate would drop more than 60%, from 640 people per 100,000 to 246."
But I put forth, by contrast, that if, in New Mexico, the incarceration rate were to drop about 60%, the murder rate were to be cut in half, the median income were to rise from twenty-eight to thirty-five thousand, the voting rate were substantially increased, and the life expectancy raised two years, then all adults in that state would move up one level of schooling as a consequence of the improved socio-economic circumstances.
I think the two hypotheticals rather well encapsulate my point of contention with these generally uncontended claims about the value of formal education as a means of upward social mobility. Perhaps it’s not that those who have the interest and commitment to obtain that education become better, more successful people, with more money, better healthcare, more virtuous friends, and so forth. Maybe it’s that those who are more financially comfortable early in life, and who aren’t exposed to many negative social influences, simply have a greater interest in, and more resources, such as time and money, to devote to obtaining a formal education.
But it seems to me that the authors of this new website, and Americans in general, don’t consider the distinction between these two interpretations. The presuppositions of the given article seem obvious, but the CEO of the United Way is quoted in its conclusion as saying simply "Intuitively, people know these things are connected." Well, of course they are connected. But connected in a unidirectional, causal way? I’m not convinced. And for those that are, that’s where the burden of proof lies – with them. I have yet to see anyone try to lift it.
"Education matters, a new website will calculate how education influences important statistical indicators such as income, health, voting rates and even the likelihood that a person will stay out of prison."
Two things are naturally true of this brief story: it probably seems innocuous and uncontroversial, and it made me angry to read it. The problem is that the work being presented under this summary is not a series of conclusions, but rather an unsubstantiated claim being offered for uncritical acceptance. And indeed it is accepted uncritically, even in absence of a website specifically devoted to furthering the presumptuous claim. This is directly on a par with the comments from Rahm Emmanuel that I had criticized earlier, about people “earning what they learn.” He had no doubt based that conclusion upon the observation that he and his colleagues had obtained a respectable formal education and had subsequently become successful and wealthy. Now Education Matters is broadening that statistical analysis and including other indicators to make the instrumental good of obtaining institutionalized education seem more fully confirmed. But underlying all of this is what seems to me a fairly obvious problem.
You see, I would think that the people making these assertions or putting out these studies, who must thoroughly value education, would be aware of, and resistant to, common logical fallacies, such as confusing correlation with causality. I think that mistake is particularly common in part because it allows people to justify their own presuppositions. And on the basis of that mistake, you can do so in a way that seems scientific, that seems statistically significant. If you believe that college attendance increases income, and civic participation, and social morality, all you need to do is gather statistical data indicating that graduates demonstrate these characteristics, and then assert that it was their going to college that caused all of these things. This sort of misguided reasoning is applied to all sorts of things, but at least in the company I’ve kept I’ve seen it undercut much more readily only with respect to more controversial issues. Educated people often don’t buy the claim that violent video games make children more violent merely on the basis that children who demonstrate violent tendencies often play violent video games. It is recognized, in that case, that children with such tendencies may have a particular proficiency for playing such games, while non-violent children can both play them and retain psychological health. Privileging one interpretation over the other tends to be based on a preexisting ideological commitment to one conclusion.
But the summary quoted above is based on just such a prejudgment of the reasons for the statistical observations. However, that presumption is not so often called into question, perhaps because it is more convenient for people in a position to recognize and refute the error of reasoning. Go back and read that quotation again. Now, what if I were to say instead:
A new website will calculate how statistical indicators such the likelihood of a person staying out of prison, their income potential, health, and voting rates all influence the level of their education.
Does that sound implicitly worse? It’s little more that a change of syntax, but it practically reverses the conclusions suggested by the same analysis. On the surface, there is no sound reason to identify the correlation between these indicators as working in one causal direction.
And I can do the same with the content of the article, which claims that increasing rates of education would consequently have a positive influence on the other things mentioned, and which takes New Mexico as an explicit example. They say:
"[M]ove all adults in the state of New Mexico up just one level of schooling — those without high school would graduate, those with a high school degree would get some college (or an associate's degree), and those with some college would earn a four-year diploma — and the tool predicts, among other things, that life expectancy in the state would increase by nearly two years.
"New Mexico's murder rate would drop by more than half, from 8.6 murders per 100,000 people to 3.8.
"Meanwhile, median personal income in the state would rise, from, $27,927 to $35,253, and the percentage of people who vote would jump substantially, from about 55% to 65%.
"Also, the incarceration rate would drop more than 60%, from 640 people per 100,000 to 246."
But I put forth, by contrast, that if, in New Mexico, the incarceration rate were to drop about 60%, the murder rate were to be cut in half, the median income were to rise from twenty-eight to thirty-five thousand, the voting rate were substantially increased, and the life expectancy raised two years, then all adults in that state would move up one level of schooling as a consequence of the improved socio-economic circumstances.
I think the two hypotheticals rather well encapsulate my point of contention with these generally uncontended claims about the value of formal education as a means of upward social mobility. Perhaps it’s not that those who have the interest and commitment to obtain that education become better, more successful people, with more money, better healthcare, more virtuous friends, and so forth. Maybe it’s that those who are more financially comfortable early in life, and who aren’t exposed to many negative social influences, simply have a greater interest in, and more resources, such as time and money, to devote to obtaining a formal education.
But it seems to me that the authors of this new website, and Americans in general, don’t consider the distinction between these two interpretations. The presuppositions of the given article seem obvious, but the CEO of the United Way is quoted in its conclusion as saying simply "Intuitively, people know these things are connected." Well, of course they are connected. But connected in a unidirectional, causal way? I’m not convinced. And for those that are, that’s where the burden of proof lies – with them. I have yet to see anyone try to lift it.
I should tell them I want more hours at work. I should tell them to put me on a cash register, even though I vowed when I finished college that I would never again push coins across a counter for a living. I should tell them to put me on customer service, even though I hate the people I’m supposed to serve. I should tell them to put me on the track toward management, even though I’ve told myself that if I ever came to believe that this was anything more than a temporary and casual engagement, I would probably kill myself. They hired me because I told them this was supplemental, that I needed more regular income while I pursued a writing career, which I could schedule around my hours at the store from week to week. I should let them know that this has become primary, that I gave up on the freelance work that made me money, in favor of prospects I thought would serve me better, but that constantly seem more impossible to pursue. I can’t work here, but all I’m working for is to get out of here. I should tell them that – that I’ll do anything to make money enough to buy back my solitude and independence, even if it costs me my time, my ambition, my ideas and my ideals; even if I forget along the way that there was ever anything more to want out of life. I should tell them all of that tonight, but I won’t. Through everything – through all the compromises and concessions, and all the forgetting – I’m still not interested in doing what I should. But through all else – the stubbornness, the willfulness, the dreaming – there’s still no alternative.
When I go on a binge of news-reading, I tend to focus some attention on each of the localities in which I've lived. While I can't say that I've read enough stories from Boise to make claims about general patterns, I have not found journalistic pieces like this in Buffalo or New York:
Elementary School Protest.
Why do I find this remarkable, you ask? Because it's fun to imagine the conversation the reporter had with his editors or producers.
"We hear that parents are protesting with their kids over at Owyhee Elementary School about some teacher. Get over there and see what you can find out."
[Later]
"What did you find out?"
"Absolutely nothing."
"How about the nature of the allegations?"
"Nope."
"Teacher's name?"
"Nope."
"Perfect. Write it up by four o'clock; we'll run it tonight."
And I can just see these parents holding signs and chanting: "Don't punish somebody for something!"
There was no reason to cover this. I didn't exactly like living in Boise, but Jesus, it didn't seem like there was that little news.
Elementary School Protest.
Why do I find this remarkable, you ask? Because it's fun to imagine the conversation the reporter had with his editors or producers.
"We hear that parents are protesting with their kids over at Owyhee Elementary School about some teacher. Get over there and see what you can find out."
[Later]
"What did you find out?"
"Absolutely nothing."
"How about the nature of the allegations?"
"Nope."
"Teacher's name?"
"Nope."
"Perfect. Write it up by four o'clock; we'll run it tonight."
And I can just see these parents holding signs and chanting: "Don't punish somebody for something!"
There was no reason to cover this. I didn't exactly like living in Boise, but Jesus, it didn't seem like there was that little news.
"Well, you know what, you might have to consider a career change here before you even started."
SHUT THE FUCK UP, Mom!
What the fuck do you want from me? What the fuck do you think I've been doing for TWO GOD DAMN YEARS? I'm fucking sick of hearing half the time that my problem is stubbornness, and half the time that it's a lack of focus. I've fucking poured my heart and soul into everything I felt I had a shot at and that I thought might do me an ounce of good, keep me happy enough to give a shit about writing, keep me alive for another week. That's all I want - to be ALIVE. And I can't even fucking manage that. And still I get to sit here and listen to someone telling me that the problem is that I haven't explored enough options?
FUCK YOU!
I am sick to death of this typically American culture of blaming the victim. I am sick of being called a burden, and a failure, and a disappointment, as if I need reminding. As if I could give a shit about disappointing anyone, knowing how thoroughly and irreparably I have disappointed myself. But that's okay, because as far as anyone else is concerned, there isn't a problem to be addressed. Know somebody who lost a job, and can't afford to EAT? Pah! They should have made better investments in their future, so they'd be prepared for this little setback. Your black, ex-urban neighbors lost their house, and brought down your property value? Fuck them for trying to build a better life. Your son wakes up in the back bedroom of your house hating everything about himself, goes to sleep hating every fucking inch of the world that brought this on him, wastes twenty hours a week rearranging garbage on store shelves when he just wants to wreck everything he lays his hands on and strangle anyone who asks him for his opinion on a fucking T.V.? Well, I guess he's just not trying hard enough.
I leave my room for five minutes to get a fucking cup of tea, because I think it might help me to finish writing something that's been sitting, almost done, on my computer for ages, and I walk into this bullshit. I point at the television that runs CNN for eight hours a day and ask, shouting, if she ever even pays attention to it.
"Of course I do. So lots of people are losing jobs - there's still people out there who are going to have jobs."
Honest to Christ, mom, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? No matter what the numbers are - 18.1 percent unemployment, 33 percent - I suppose in your mind everyone's still got an equal shot, and when it comes down to the individual, you can't see enough of the big picture to even fathom why anyone would have difficulties. But every effort you make to connect personal failings to financial failings leaves me to wonder - why didn't YOU do any better for yourself? Why did you raise me on the poverty line? Why were you at least ten thousand dollars in debt throughout my childhood? Why don't you get a better job? Why don't you SHOW me where all these jobs are, that you repeatedly claim are so readily available? Why don't you lead by example? And if you can't do that, why can't you fucking recognize your own hypocrisy?
I have never for a moment harbored any negative feelings about the way my mother raised me. I always got the impression that I had a better parent than did virtually all of the people who grew up around me. I was never selfish or stupid enough to think badly of her for the things she couldn't give me - she did the best she could with what she had, and she made it seem like fortunes. She gave me encouragement in my youth without being overbearing, presumably because she groomed me to be, then recognized that I was, motivated enough on my own.
However, the more that I know about myself, the more I don't understand about where I came from. I don't understand what she ever wanted from me, or for what reason she gave me her encouragement. How can it be that I care as much as I do about life's meaning, about the kind of life that I live, the things I experience and accomplish, when as near as I can tell, my mother has never considered that there might be anything to life other than making money and paying off debts. How can I have devoted the better part of my education to understanding diverse ideas, and cultures, and faiths, when the woman who raised me has such a perverted sense of empathy, and can't recognize the problems she and others share, let alone the ones that they suffer by themselves?
No matter how well she raised me, the way this woman has personally treated me in my adulthood shatters the familial bonds between us. I have never in my life wanted to be rich, or even comfortable - just debt-free and hopeful. But if wealth is all that my mother wants from me, then I hope she gets her wish, so when she's sixty-five and can't work or can't find work, and just needs help, I can toss money at her, laughing, so she knows she doesn't deserve it, and doesn't deserve to suffer less than people did under the yoke of burdens that she didn't believe were real.
I just want the fuck out of this house, out of this town, out of this life. And I don't think I want to see these people again. All I face from day to day is a cavalcade of images that I don't want to see reflected in my future self. And every day brings me closer to certainty that that is where I'm headed anyway. I am steeped in greed, and addiction, and ignorance, and idle boredom. I can't escape it, and nobody wants me to.
SHUT THE FUCK UP, Mom!
What the fuck do you want from me? What the fuck do you think I've been doing for TWO GOD DAMN YEARS? I'm fucking sick of hearing half the time that my problem is stubbornness, and half the time that it's a lack of focus. I've fucking poured my heart and soul into everything I felt I had a shot at and that I thought might do me an ounce of good, keep me happy enough to give a shit about writing, keep me alive for another week. That's all I want - to be ALIVE. And I can't even fucking manage that. And still I get to sit here and listen to someone telling me that the problem is that I haven't explored enough options?
FUCK YOU!
I am sick to death of this typically American culture of blaming the victim. I am sick of being called a burden, and a failure, and a disappointment, as if I need reminding. As if I could give a shit about disappointing anyone, knowing how thoroughly and irreparably I have disappointed myself. But that's okay, because as far as anyone else is concerned, there isn't a problem to be addressed. Know somebody who lost a job, and can't afford to EAT? Pah! They should have made better investments in their future, so they'd be prepared for this little setback. Your black, ex-urban neighbors lost their house, and brought down your property value? Fuck them for trying to build a better life. Your son wakes up in the back bedroom of your house hating everything about himself, goes to sleep hating every fucking inch of the world that brought this on him, wastes twenty hours a week rearranging garbage on store shelves when he just wants to wreck everything he lays his hands on and strangle anyone who asks him for his opinion on a fucking T.V.? Well, I guess he's just not trying hard enough.
I leave my room for five minutes to get a fucking cup of tea, because I think it might help me to finish writing something that's been sitting, almost done, on my computer for ages, and I walk into this bullshit. I point at the television that runs CNN for eight hours a day and ask, shouting, if she ever even pays attention to it.
"Of course I do. So lots of people are losing jobs - there's still people out there who are going to have jobs."
Honest to Christ, mom, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? No matter what the numbers are - 18.1 percent unemployment, 33 percent - I suppose in your mind everyone's still got an equal shot, and when it comes down to the individual, you can't see enough of the big picture to even fathom why anyone would have difficulties. But every effort you make to connect personal failings to financial failings leaves me to wonder - why didn't YOU do any better for yourself? Why did you raise me on the poverty line? Why were you at least ten thousand dollars in debt throughout my childhood? Why don't you get a better job? Why don't you SHOW me where all these jobs are, that you repeatedly claim are so readily available? Why don't you lead by example? And if you can't do that, why can't you fucking recognize your own hypocrisy?
I have never for a moment harbored any negative feelings about the way my mother raised me. I always got the impression that I had a better parent than did virtually all of the people who grew up around me. I was never selfish or stupid enough to think badly of her for the things she couldn't give me - she did the best she could with what she had, and she made it seem like fortunes. She gave me encouragement in my youth without being overbearing, presumably because she groomed me to be, then recognized that I was, motivated enough on my own.
However, the more that I know about myself, the more I don't understand about where I came from. I don't understand what she ever wanted from me, or for what reason she gave me her encouragement. How can it be that I care as much as I do about life's meaning, about the kind of life that I live, the things I experience and accomplish, when as near as I can tell, my mother has never considered that there might be anything to life other than making money and paying off debts. How can I have devoted the better part of my education to understanding diverse ideas, and cultures, and faiths, when the woman who raised me has such a perverted sense of empathy, and can't recognize the problems she and others share, let alone the ones that they suffer by themselves?
No matter how well she raised me, the way this woman has personally treated me in my adulthood shatters the familial bonds between us. I have never in my life wanted to be rich, or even comfortable - just debt-free and hopeful. But if wealth is all that my mother wants from me, then I hope she gets her wish, so when she's sixty-five and can't work or can't find work, and just needs help, I can toss money at her, laughing, so she knows she doesn't deserve it, and doesn't deserve to suffer less than people did under the yoke of burdens that she didn't believe were real.
I just want the fuck out of this house, out of this town, out of this life. And I don't think I want to see these people again. All I face from day to day is a cavalcade of images that I don't want to see reflected in my future self. And every day brings me closer to certainty that that is where I'm headed anyway. I am steeped in greed, and addiction, and ignorance, and idle boredom. I can't escape it, and nobody wants me to.
The lights drift
And, though still points and pricks
Grow nearer -
First slowly,
One-by-one.
Then the blank sky
Slips lower,
And rushing now,
Clamoring over one another,
Leaping from a single point
There in the night,
The stars are falling -
Falling on the End of the World.
And I
In old style
Coat
And hat
Matte black
Under pale yellow streetlights
Catch them,
Freezing,
On my tongue.
And, though still points and pricks
Grow nearer -
First slowly,
One-by-one.
Then the blank sky
Slips lower,
And rushing now,
Clamoring over one another,
Leaping from a single point
There in the night,
The stars are falling -
Falling on the End of the World.
And I
In old style
Coat
And hat
Matte black
Under pale yellow streetlights
Catch them,
Freezing,
On my tongue.
Rahm Emmanuel on Meet the Press yesterday, in explaining why expanding Pell Grants is part of the economic plan, described ours as "an era where you earn what you learn."
I'm fucking pissed at this still-unmoving, blind idolatry of higher education, and I don't even care to examine it anymore.
I'm fucking pissed at this still-unmoving, blind idolatry of higher education, and I don't even care to examine it anymore.
Here’s an interesting bit of copy from today’s New York Times:
The International Committee of the Red Cross reported finding what it called shocking scenes on Wednesday, including four emaciated children next to the bodies of their dead mothers. In a rare and sharply critical statement, it said that “the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.”
You know, I think that remaining markedly silent in ordinary or barely exceptional circumstances is marvelously productive of breaking points. The less you speak, the more weight your voice tends to carry when it is raised. And what’s more, the less frequently you are inclined to speak, the more confidence you can have in the significance of a subject that forces language from your lips. I think it is largely because of the strength of my belief in those sentiments that I often find I grow frustrated with myself whenever I go on speaking too long, or get mired in idle talk. I flirt with the idea of vows of silence, which would promise me time enough to reflect on would-be words, and avoid the mistake of speaking too soon and too carelessly. But then I worry. I worry because it is easy to imagine the dire tragedy of reflecting so long, then opening your mouth again to say only “I haven’t learned anything.”
Worse than never seeking one’s breaking point is building toward it, only to lose grip of the object of it, to miss the sight of its power. That, I fear, is the circumstance the Red Cross has come to, with this empty statement, and the New York Times should be ashamed of its use of such strong and beautiful adjectives in grossly mischaracterizing it. A “rare” statement perhaps it was – if the organization keeps to the habit of not speaking out for the people on behalf of whom it ostensibly works, then yes, any statement whatsoever that it makes is technically a rare one. But by no reasonably objective measure can the above words be termed “sharply critical.” To say that the Israeli military “failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law” is the geopolitical equivalent of reprimanding a subordinate in one’s workplace for not filling out the forms deemed necessary by office policy. It carries little more emotional and moral weight than does accusing someone of a traffic violation, which, while illegal and potentially dangerous, is by no means barbarous and roundly detestable.
No, a “rare and sharply critical statement” would be to say that the Israeli military is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocents; that it is guilty of murder – wholesale murder that with each stage of escalation more closely verged on the genocidal. It would be a rare, sharply critical statement to say the Israeli military has come to the endpoint of transforming itself into the monster it thought it was fighting. Statements like these are sharp criticisms. Statements like these are proper to the events that, pray God, have left the region now, and they are the sorts of statements that normally silent parties such as – I suppose – international relief organizations should make when next they feel compelled toward the point of breaking their silence.
The International Committee of the Red Cross reported finding what it called shocking scenes on Wednesday, including four emaciated children next to the bodies of their dead mothers. In a rare and sharply critical statement, it said that “the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.”
You know, I think that remaining markedly silent in ordinary or barely exceptional circumstances is marvelously productive of breaking points. The less you speak, the more weight your voice tends to carry when it is raised. And what’s more, the less frequently you are inclined to speak, the more confidence you can have in the significance of a subject that forces language from your lips. I think it is largely because of the strength of my belief in those sentiments that I often find I grow frustrated with myself whenever I go on speaking too long, or get mired in idle talk. I flirt with the idea of vows of silence, which would promise me time enough to reflect on would-be words, and avoid the mistake of speaking too soon and too carelessly. But then I worry. I worry because it is easy to imagine the dire tragedy of reflecting so long, then opening your mouth again to say only “I haven’t learned anything.”
Worse than never seeking one’s breaking point is building toward it, only to lose grip of the object of it, to miss the sight of its power. That, I fear, is the circumstance the Red Cross has come to, with this empty statement, and the New York Times should be ashamed of its use of such strong and beautiful adjectives in grossly mischaracterizing it. A “rare” statement perhaps it was – if the organization keeps to the habit of not speaking out for the people on behalf of whom it ostensibly works, then yes, any statement whatsoever that it makes is technically a rare one. But by no reasonably objective measure can the above words be termed “sharply critical.” To say that the Israeli military “failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law” is the geopolitical equivalent of reprimanding a subordinate in one’s workplace for not filling out the forms deemed necessary by office policy. It carries little more emotional and moral weight than does accusing someone of a traffic violation, which, while illegal and potentially dangerous, is by no means barbarous and roundly detestable.
No, a “rare and sharply critical statement” would be to say that the Israeli military is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocents; that it is guilty of murder – wholesale murder that with each stage of escalation more closely verged on the genocidal. It would be a rare, sharply critical statement to say the Israeli military has come to the endpoint of transforming itself into the monster it thought it was fighting. Statements like these are sharp criticisms. Statements like these are proper to the events that, pray God, have left the region now, and they are the sorts of statements that normally silent parties such as – I suppose – international relief organizations should make when next they feel compelled toward the point of breaking their silence.
Before December was over, I made a special trip downtown to ask after a job with the Buffalo News, where a security guard handed me a one-page application and told me not to return unless asked.
Not wanting to waste a trip, Tamra and I went off to waste some money on a couple cups of coffee. After sifting through many long minutes of thick, weighty silence, we struck upon any conversation, figuring it was better than the hateful noise of all the people around us.
She asked me how I defined success, and challenged my first-instinct responses. But after a few revisions, I was satisfied, and promised to write it down later. And that's remarkable, because I don't write anything down now. Success, I've decided, is a matter of regularly awaking to new mornings with good reason to believe that I have something to accomplish that day, which affects a world outside of myself and is in some way commensurate with my own potential.
Do you have your own concept of the term? Is that something you've thought about?
No point in New Year's resolutions. They're the same as the Old Year's.
Not wanting to waste a trip, Tamra and I went off to waste some money on a couple cups of coffee. After sifting through many long minutes of thick, weighty silence, we struck upon any conversation, figuring it was better than the hateful noise of all the people around us.
She asked me how I defined success, and challenged my first-instinct responses. But after a few revisions, I was satisfied, and promised to write it down later. And that's remarkable, because I don't write anything down now. Success, I've decided, is a matter of regularly awaking to new mornings with good reason to believe that I have something to accomplish that day, which affects a world outside of myself and is in some way commensurate with my own potential.
Do you have your own concept of the term? Is that something you've thought about?
No point in New Year's resolutions. They're the same as the Old Year's.
Thank God. America has demonstrated good judgment tonight. We've done a great thing.
This is just the beginning, however.
This is just the beginning, however.
I wrote something to get acquainted with a new website.
www.createdebate.com
It's there, but I figured I'd post it to my unused blog.
tothebreakingpoint.blogspot.com
It's about the economic bailout.
www.createdebate.com
It's there, but I figured I'd post it to my unused blog.
tothebreakingpoint.blogspot.com
It's about the economic bailout.
[Empty]
Farewell, and well met, if I should see you on the road.
I have to go away. It will be not long, and yet all too long. I've needed to suffer this. I've needed these last false hopes, so that I could understand their falsity, so that I could see that the things I have insisted on seeking, that I've been told I need, are only things that I have never wanted for myself. Only these failures can remove the shroud of doubt from the knowledge of who I am. So much wasted time, but after it all, I will be coming back to myself.