Rhizome

Just a highly unscientific, casual observation of the day . . .

To be happy, men need to have sex; women need to be happy already to have sex. Either side trying to sublimate this fundamental difference of biological need to meet the incompatible desire of the other side is the engine that drives much of human activity.

In the English composition class I teach, I recently unleashed an assignment which maybe can be expanded beyond the confines of the class . . . .

“What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms — in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.” —Friedrich Nietzsche

Goal(s): To become more aware of the ways we use conceptual frames and metaphors to give meaning and structure to our experience; perhaps to begin to reconceptualize how we experience the world; to create new, better metaphors to give meaning to our lives and communicate better with others.
Methodology: Be aware of and keep track of the ways "conceptual metaphors" get used in many different contexts: school, work, families, friends, the news, popular culture, churches, etc. Near the end of the quarter (3/15) construct a list of different metaphors you have collected and write a brief report on what you have learned as a result of this research. What kinds of metaphors are the most persistent? Which metaphors perhaps have pernicious effects, as a result of the dimensions of the concept the metaphor hides? Can you think of other ways of metaphorisizing a concept to capture other qualities preexisting metaphors miss? One of the examples Lakoff and Johnson discuss is “argument is war.” Has this class helped you create other metaphors by which to understand “argument” in other ways?
Further Background Discussion and Rationale: In their book Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that all kinds of metaphors are pervasive in our everyday lives, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. For example, we’re all familiar with the idea that “time is money.” This is an idea that is reflected in countless familiar phrases: You’re wasting my time; how do you spend your time these days; I’ve invested a lot of time in her; you need to budget your time; is that worth your while; he’s living on borrowed time; you don’t use your time profitably; thank you for your time. In fact, this idea is so widespread that it is considered common sense. And, after all, time in our culture is a valuable commodity. It is a limited resource that we use to accomplish our goals. Because of the way that the concept of work has developed in modern Western culture, where work is typically associated with the time it takes and time is precisely quantified, it has become customary to pay people by the hour, week, or year. These practices are relatively new in the history of the human race, and by no means do they exist in all cultures. They have arisen in modern industrialized societies and structure our basic everyday activities in a very profound way. Corresponding to the fact that we act as if time is a valuable commodity—a limited resource, even money—we conceive of time that way. Thus we understand and experience time as the kind of thing that can be spent, wasted, budgeted, invested wisely or poorly, saved, or squandered.
But the metaphor only provides us with a partial understanding of what time is. In doing this, it hides other aspects of the concept. The metaphorical structuring involved here is partial, not total. For example time isn’t really money. If you spend your time trying to do something and it doesn’t work, you can’t get your time back. There are no time banks. I can give you a lot of time, but you can’t give me back the same time, though you can give me back the same amount of time. And so on. Thus, part of a metaphorical concept does not and cannot fit.
If our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people, then it is incumbent upon us to make sure the metaphors we use capture beneficial aspects of the concepts we want to emphasize. This metaphorical construction of our concepts is a process of negotiation of meaning. To negotiate meaning with someone, you have to become aware of and respect both the differences in your backgrounds and when these differences are important. You need enough diversity of cultural and personal experience to be aware that divergent world views exist and what they might be like. Hopefully you can communicate unshared experiences with others in a way to achieve mutual understanding. Hence, new metaphors are capable of creating new understandings and, therefore, new realities.

I should mention that by “metaphor” I mean all kinds of figures of speech. So, for example, similes and metonymies could also work in this regard. Ultimately, all figures of speech, whether a metaphor strictly speaking or not, communicate indirectly rather than in a literal, direct, dictionary-definition type way. So, for example, if one hears in the news, “The White House denied allegations of corruption,” one shouldn’t think that the literal building the president lives in spoke. Rather, we’re using “White House” as a metonymy to refer to the entire presidential administration. There are many different figures of speech that pepper our everyday use of language you might pay some attention to.

A War of Words?
On the first page of the excerpt from their book I gave you, Lakoff and Johnson describe the ARGUMENT IS WAR concept. Ironically, it seems to me that the war in Iraq, or especially the public relations war about the war, is itself constructed through a series of various figures of speech or phrases so often repeated as if to mean something: a troop “surge”; “doubling down” on troop strength; “stay the course”; “cut-and-run”; “Freedom’s on the march”; “weapons of mass destruction”; “war on terror(ism)”; etc. Considering that there’s actually people dying and being scarred for life, do these various constructions serve merely to cover over what’s actually going on?

1. “Democratic” Animals?—How do deer decide what to do?
If you’ve ever watched animal documentaries, you may have noticed a variety of ways the animals are presented. For example, the Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom show from the 1960’s emphasized the competitive qualities of the animal world. (In fact, one of the researchers might just jump into the picture to wrestle an alligator.) Recently, the interconnected web of creatures is emphasized. We should remember that the way we conceptualize the animal world depends in large part in how we understand our own social existence. And, in turn, the animal kingdom can serve as a potent source of metaphors for our own social organizations.
An article in the NewScientist.com news service titled “Democracy beats despotism in the animal world” documents a study of red deer undertaken by Tim Roper with interesting conclusions drawn (Jan. 8, 2003).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3248-democracy-beats-despotism-in-the-animal-world.html
While deer are understood to have a clearly hierarchical social group with one individual dominating potential rivals, much as primates do, the dominant male does not always get his way. The study showed that the deer actually engaged in a democratic decision making process when moving from a grazing area to a drinking area. It wasn’t the case that the dominant male decided when it was time to move. Instead, when a critical mass had been reached of a majority of the group indicating it was time to move, then the group moved, whether the dominant male was ready or not. How might this apply to people?

2. Does “Race” Exist?
Martin Luther King, Jr. and others involved in the Civil Rights movement dreamed of a world that didn’t see color. Yet, I would hazard a guess that we haven’t really achieved this goal. I know that for myself at least when I see someone, I see her/him as belonging to a race, based primarily on skin pigmentation. I don’t think I have overly racist or prejudiced notions of what that person will be like based on his/her race, but the concept of race remains firmly implanted in our collective consciousness. The concept of “race” is anything but simple, though. A number of geneticists and biologists interrogate the concept of race and its genetic basis. They find that often common notions of race do not correspond to underlying genetic differences. The relationship between skin pigmentation and ancestry is quite variable. There are a number of references to mention: “Does Race Exist?” Scientific American, Nov. 10, 2003, by Michael Bamshad and Steve Olson, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00055DC8-3BAA-1FA8-BBAA83414B7F0000 and “Implications of correlations between skin color and genetic ancestry for biomedical research,” http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1440.html, by E J Parra, R A Kittles, and M D Shriver. So, in a way, what we think of as “race” may be in fact just a metaphor.

3. Neolithic Romeo and Juliet http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070208/NEWS/202080344/1004

Here's a story about an unusal burial recently uncovered from c. 6000 years ago.

A radio program I like to listen to at work through internet-casting is called Philosophy Talk, moderated by two Stanford philosophy professors who cover a wide variety of interesting topics. Back in August, they did a show on the future of philosophy, but first they took a look back at the history of philosophy. To help them in this endeavor, they enlisted the help of Ian Schoales, the 60 second philosopher. (He is a regularly recurring segment of the show.) Here's what he came up with:

There may, in fact, be a hippopotamus in this room; the arrow will never reach the target; you can't step into the same river twice; the unexamined life is not worth living; if there are no absolutes, the particulars have no meaning; you cannot conceive the many without the one; behold, human beings living in an underground den--like ourselves, they see only their own shadows or the shadows of one another which the fire throws onto the opposite wall of the cave; necessity is the mother of invention; nature does nothing uselessly; a whole is that which has a beginning, middle, and end; the universe is change; life is an opinion; love and do what you like; good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good; perfection of moral virtue does not only take away the passions, but regulates them; God is that, that which nothing greater can be thought; one should not increase beyond what is necessary the number of entities required to explain anything; life is brutish, nasty, and short; do not weep, do not wax indignant, understand ther is no hope unmingled with fear and no fear unmingled with hope; cogito ergo sum; the ghost in the machine; this is the best of all possible worlds; to be is to be perceived; the greatest good for the greatest number; if all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than if they had the power to be justified in silencing mankind; all wealth is the product of labour; nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; tabula rasa; the supposition that the future resembles the past is not founded on arguments but is derived entirely from habit; every individual neither intends to promote the public interest nor knows how much he is promoting it--he intends only his own gain and he is in this led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention; thesis, antithesis, synthesis; all our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding and ends with reason--there is nothing higher than reason; from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs; the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation; if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you; those who do no remember their past are condemned to repeat it; philosophy is possible as a rigorous science at all only through pure phenomenology; the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as to seem not worth stating and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it; how do you know there's no hippopotamus in the room; before considering the question of what we should do, we ponder this: how must we think; the banality of evil; hell is other people; we are condemned to be free; life has become the ideology of its own absence; normality is death; the immediate concept of truth is that at first it admits there is no such thing as absolute, pure truth; the new is not fashion, it is a value; if the highest things are unknowable, then the highest virtue of man cannot be theoretical wisdom; no paradigm ever solves all the problems it defines; in its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating; to pretend, I actually do the thing--I have therefore only pretended to pretend; is there a hippopotamus in the room, or are you just glad to see me?

Try to say that all at once in a compressed time frame! Whew!

Oh yeah--there's an election tomorrow. If the Democrats lose again, #@$%#&$^# !!!

This week I finished reading Chad Hansen's engaging A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. Hansen's main thesis is that there has been a radically skewed view of the classical period of Chinese philosophy for two main reasons.

1) Westerners invariably read Chinese philosophy through the lens of their own philosophical expectations and general prejudices. So, for example, the basic unit of thought/expression in Western philosophy is the sentence. This has implications of how Westerners think about logic. These are expectations Chinese philosophy will never live up to, not because it is a deficient language or way of thinking, but because the basic unit of thought/expression in Chinese is the individual word. (If time serves I might clarify Hansen's point in later postings.)

2) We read Chinese philosophy through the eyes of a neo-Confucian perspective that gained philosophical hegemony in the early Han dynasty. Hence, we are tied to a drastic misunderstanding of Mohism, Daoism, and Legalism. Daoism, for example, is not exactly the mystical superstition that the stereotype thinks of it. In Hansen's recuperative reading, in fact, the thought of Zhuangzi (not necessarily a "Daoist" in the mold of the Dao-de-jing) stands as the high water mark of the classical Chinese period.

It was a book that took me months to read, but it was worth it because of Hansen's fascinating argument and revealing insights. I liked it even though I find Hansen's analytic/pragmatic philosophy claustrophobic. I think a lot of the points Hansen makes about language use in Chinese philosophy would have really interesting interstices with much of continental philosophy, too.

The quote of the week that really stayed in my mind after reading it was from the last page of the book:
"Western objectivism is tightly bound up with the notion of reason. As I have argued, no Daoist should find that idea objectionable. They did not develop such an ideology. I suppose Daoists would welcome rationalism as another point of view. They would be most interested in the current Confucianization of reason in the United States. Some who have inherited the Platonic tradition share Xunzi's dread of relativism. Like Xunzi they advocate that we act as if our traditions were absolutely true. They treat objectivity as a political matter and recommend that we drill our students dogmatically in ancient ways. Avoid the weak, spineless surrender to students' demand to understand other cultures and ways of thinking. Let us, by all means, ban skepticism, irony, and self-doubt. The Daoist would be equally offended by the students' demand to enforce a new orthodoxy and require everyone to study their current conception of a diversified curriculum. What tragic flaw makes revolutionaries turn demands for freedom into demands for a new regime of conformity?

Yes! Hansen is trying to avoid the dangers of overly conservative views of education a la Alan Bloom and the equally problematic "new regime of conformity" of pc-driven reformers. As a literature student, I bristle at the emphasis placed on African-American Literature. Why separate these vital works off into another class? Shouldn't we integrate all great literature together? I agree that trying to throw off the yoke of dead, white males is crucial, but I don't think this can be accomplished so facilely as merely creating a new specialization within an unaltered discipline.

The next book demanding my attention is The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization by John Hobson. Hobson counters the Eurocentric myth of history of how European powers came to dominate the world through their own immanent dynamism, reason, and technological superiority. I'll try to post more on this in the future . . . .

Last night I ran across a fascinating little book: John O'Malley's Four Cultures of the West. O'Malley is a Jesuit Renaissance historian whose previous book examined the transition from Scholasticism to Humanism during the Renaissance. O'Malley's love for the entire intellectual history in Europe is obvious from a brief perusal of the book. O'Malley identifies four main tendencies or "cultures" within the West that have by and large determined both the content and style of intellectual inquiry, the curricula of educational institutions, and the worship services in churches in Europe during the past several hundred years. These include the prophetic, academic, humanistic, and artistic cultures.

1. Prophetic Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: Hebrew prophets, Paul, Pope Gregory VII, Luther, Pascal, MLK
The prophetic culture is a culture of protest and alienation from the dominant powers in society. They want to unmask the problems of the status quo in the name of justice and freedom. It's a culture of fundamentalism and martyrdom that brooks no compromise with other points of view. Its utopian vision of promising things to come is beyond reasoned argument. Hence its discursive style is one of manifesto, proclamation, and command. But on the other hand it also employs lamentation and a logic of paradox in its goal of radical social transformation and revolution.

2. Academic/Professional Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Galileo, Kant, Freud, Einstein
The academic culture employs instensive analytic questioning in its search for Truth. But this is a search that can never be fully satisfied. It looks for clear-cut definitions and employs a deductive form of reasoning, moving from principles to certain truth. Its logical and rigourous style of inquiry is fully at home in institutional settings such as the lecture-format classroom, lab, library, and research institute that the iconoclastic prophetic culture would not have tolerated. Its full flowering occured during the medieval Scholastic period. Scholastic academic institutions became the blueprint for the modern form of the university. It's a labor-intensive culture whose practitioners take years to master specialized forms of professionalized knowledge.

3. Humanistic Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: Homer, Isocrates, Cicero, Virgil, Dante, Montaigne, Erasmus, Goethe
Unlike the institutional embodiment of the academic culture in the university, this culture of belles lettres finds itself at home in the humanistic/liberal arts secondary school. It focuses on the role of good literature in education: poetry, drama, history, and rhetoric. If the prophetic culture focuses on Justice and Freedom and the academic culture searches for the Truth, the main goal of this culture is the Good. Like the prophetic culture, this culture seeks societal change, but unlike the more intolerant approach of the prophetic, the humanistic seeks common ground and compromise. It's more inward-looking: it encourages us to look inside ourselves and see our dilemmas through the lens of others' egos as communicated in literature. It aims at a broad civic responsibility that is sparked by the moral imagination. Unlike the deductive, linear logic of the academic, it employs a more emotional, circular form of reasoning. It relishes ambiguity and layers of meaning in its placid rumination of fundamental values.

4. Artistic Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: Phidias, Michelangelo, Bach, Wagner, Hollywood/Broadway musicals, Geary
Unlike the three other cultures, this culture does not employ words; rather, it uses dance, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, and spectacle to communicate itself through ritual performances, rites, and ceremonies. It primarily uses the power of the image in pursuit of its main goal--the Beautiful. As a Jesuit, O'Malley thinks this culture is most fully realized in the pageantry of the Catholic mass. The mass is a kind of play or "deep play." I wonder if O'Malley would think of film or even the visual interface of the internet as an heir to this iconic culture?

O'Malley doesn't see these cultures as mutually exclusive. In fact, many artists seem to represent more than one. Shakespeare, for example, employs the language of the humanistic in the service of the artistic culture's dramatic spectacle. Martin Luther's "Here I stand, I can do no other" is clearly in the tradition of the prophetic, but his German translation of the Bible seems to be in the humanistic tradition. Also, his many hymns contributed powerfully to the reformed version of Protestant religious service.

I think O'Malley's idealism masks the prevalent role of two other tendencies at play in Western culture (maybe they wouldn't qualify as cultures under O'Malley's definition?): the athletic and bureaucratic cultures. Also, I think there is another dimension of the religious not captured in the prophetic--the other-worldly focus of the spiritual culture. And the basis of all these other cultures is the agricultural--the one that feeds everyone else. Here are my proposed descriptions of these four other cultures and a few others for extra measure. . .

5. Athletic Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Navratilova, Comaneci
O'Malley places the agonistic spectacles that originated in the Greek Olympic Games, refined in the Roman gladiatorial spectacles, and finding modern fulfillment in the world of professional sports under the aegis of the artistic culture. But I would argue that the glorification of the human figure in sporting contests is of an entirely different order than the artistic. While it, too, relies heavily on the logic of the spectacle, unlike the artistic emphasis on the Beautiful its primary value is a glorification of Strength. In the artistic there are usually not winners and losers, but in the athletic culture so much hangs upon the ultimate result. Unlike the high-falutin' tendencies of the academic, humanistic, and artistic cultures, the athletic culture speaks much more to the man on the street. The focus of many a small town seems to be primarily the performance of its high school football team. It seems like an important translation of the figure of the Warrior into a more socially acceptable form. (More Sparta than Athens)

6. Bureaucratic Culture
Given the faceless quality of this culture there are no good paradigmatic individuals to help us understand it better, but two individuals have helped us diagnose it in its modern form: Max Weber and Kafka
If the prophetic emerges in Jerusalem and the academic, humanistic, artistic, and athletic cultures originate in Athens and Greece, then the bureaucratic hearkens back to the hierarchial organization of society in Egypt and the Persian satrapies. The primary value of this culture is Order. Hence, it seems to be in direct conflict most acutely with the prophetic culture, which seeks to overturn the established power structure. It's a culture of the established priest-caste, whether this "priest" class is religious as in ancient Egypt or secular as in today's modern nation-states or multinational corporations. Although it's not my favorite culture, it does seem a necessary one in order to administer a complex society. Its scribes and clerks are often in alliance with certain professionals that come out of the academic culture--namely attorneys.

7. Mystical/Spiritual Culture
Pardigmatic Individuals: Buddha, Hildegard of Bingen, Fox, Rumi, Blake, Emerson
The prophetic culture leaves out an important dimension of religion better captured in the figure of the mystic. If a would-be prophet directly confronts the powers-that-be in his/her search for Justice and Freedom, a mystic seems to seek a profound tranquility in the form of a divine Vision. Can you have a culture of one? Each mystic seems wholly unique and individual, so maybe it makes no sense to talk of a spiritual culture? But the ancient tradition of the shaman, divine seer, and oracle seems ill-served by O'Malley's typology. Like the artistic culture, it's often an iconic imagination, but this is so inward-looking that it seems of an entirely other order than the artistic.

8. Military Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: Caesar, Napoleon, Patton
Many of my students have been or are currently in different branches of the military, and it is amazing to me how this culture has fundamentally affected how these individuals think. Much like the academic culture, it lends itself to a very hierarchical and regimented view of the world. But if Truth is the academics’ main value, then the military culture’s would be Discipline, Camaraderie, and, ultimately, Victory. I was looking at a book the other day on the proto-Indo-Europeans, and one of the things that struck me about this anthropologist’s guesses as to what this group was like was how their society might have been structured in a fundamentally similar way as the military still is. Or at least many societies that speak an Indo-European language now seem to be organized in similar ways. Not having been in the military myself, this is often a way of thinking that feels alien to me and am not sure I can explain it well. (My personal religious affiliation tends toward the Unitarian and Quaker, so many of my values are not shared by this culture.) Heart-breaking to me are papers my students who have served in Iraq write about their experiences there.

9. Agricultural Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: Cato, On Farming; Virgil, Georgics; Ideal of the Jeffersonian citizen-farmers; George Washington Carver; Frances Moore Lappe
I'm not down-to-earth enough to discuss this culture. It's main goal is the Fruitful and Productive, all the better to feed all the rest of the cultures with. It takes a specialized form of know-how type knowledge to be successful as a farmer. Maybe a sub-set of the humanistic culture, especially with its association of figures such as Virgil or Jefferson? I don’t think this culture is best represented by written treatises, though. It takes an intuitive sense of how to make best use of domesticated plants and animals for human benefit. Some people just seem more in tune with animals. (I vaguely remember a PBS show that featured a woman who was autistic who seemed to have a special affinity in working with cattle.)

10. Commercial/Trading Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: whoever “invented” money; Bill Gates (?)
Perhaps this belongs with Agricultural and Manufacturing (see following) cultures as a larger all-encompassing Economic/Business Culture. This branch deals mostly with the trade and distribution of goods and services. I’m astounded by the number of my students who plan to go into some aspect of business. I guess that’s where there are jobs—or at least that’s the common perception. Even my niece majors in Marketing. Sometimes I find it difficult to engage in meaningful conversation with folks emerged in this culture because of our conflict in values. Their fundamental value is Profit; whereas my fundamental values lie in the restless academic search for Truth or the humanistic goal of the Good. Because of its ubiquitous role in American culture, I often begin my writing classes with a critical analysis of the logic of advertising, It’s a language anyone who has ever watched a few hours of TV fully understands, which often seeks to short-circuit our critical faculties, which makes for an interesting collision of ideals! I find it interesting that the world’s richest man is Bill Gates, not someone who was an innovator in computer technology but was instrumental in distributing these technologies in a mass way. (I wouldn’t be able to write to you in this format if it weren’t for these series of innovations. But this is a culture that also has deep roots in our society. Jesus wasn’t fond of the money-changers in the Temple, but without their current incarnation would we be able to live the life most of us have become accustomed to living?


11. Manufacturing/Industrial Culture
Paradigmatic Individuals: James Watt, Frederick Taylor, Ford
This culture is similar to the agricultural culture in that it is best represented not in written works but in an everyday, almost intuitive understanding of mechanical devices. Some people just love to take apart machines to understand how they work. It shares the value of Productivity with agriculture, but with an added emphasis placed on Efficiency. Often works well in concert with the Bureaucratic culture. I think this culture manifests itself in an industrial capacity, but I think it has its roots in the archetype of the artisan: how to transform raw materials into a product that is useful enough that it can be traded for something else to create a surplus of value.


Anyways, it was a book that sparked my imagination. Another book I wish I had the time to read more thoroughly. . . .

A couple weeks ago I ran across an intersting book while browsing in the history section of the bookstore. It's A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage. Standage investigates the immense influence certain beverages have played in human history. The six include beer, wine, coffee, distilled spirits, tea, and cola. These beverages have all played a subtle, but crucial role in our history. Imagine the Greek world without wine. Imagine the American Revolution without the Boston Tea Party (or distilled spirits for that matter--weren't soldiers paid in rum?). Or imagine the Enlightenment without the coffee house! Anyways, it seems like a fascinating take on history, and I wish I had the chance to read it.

A few months ago I came across an interesting book while browsing at the bookstore. It's called Who Am I? 16 Basic Desires that Motivate Our Actions and Define Our Personalities by Steven Reiss. Reiss's idea is that there are basic desires that motivate everyone's actions, but what makes us unique is the relative importance we place on any one of them or on a configuation of them. Here's a list as defined by Reiss:

Power is the desire to influence others
Independence is the desire for self-reliance
Curiosity is the desire for knowledge
Acceptance is the desire for inclusion
Order is the desire for organization
Saving is the desire to collect things
Honor is the desire to be loyal to one's parents and heritage
Idealism is the desire for social justice
Social Contact is the desire for social standing
Family is the desire to raise one's own children
Status is the desire for social standing
Vengeance is the desire to get even
Romance is the desire for sex and beauty
Eating is the desire to consume food
Physical Activity is the desire to exercise one's muscles
Tranquility is the desire for emotional calm

The qualities that I really crave in my life include Curiosity, Acceptance, Saving, Idealism, and Romance. It's interesting to see how these desires manifest themselves in one's daily life. What factors motivate you?

To restore any kind of respectibility or integrity to this country's government, the Democrats need to take the House back in this year's Congressional elections (read subpeana power!). They need to keep the pressure on the Republicans and keep their corruption and incompetence in people's minds, but in addition they need to devise a coherent agenda that people can connect with. So I propose a 5 point plan that I think would help contribute to a much needed change in Washington this fall.

First a note on terminology: FDR had the "New Deal," Truman had the "Fair Deal," LBJ had the "Great Society," Reagan had "Morning Again in America," and the '94 Republicans had their "Contract With America." Whatever plan they come up with, it should have some kind of gimmicky title. Americans seem to love a good gimmicky title. I'm thinking of the patent medicines that were all the rage in the late nineteenth century. My suggestion is "A Fresh Start," but my wife thought that was a bad idea. Whatever they choose I hope it has a good ring to it.

Anyway, here's the plan:

1. Fight to Win the War on Terrorist Groups
-stabilize Iraq as best as possible by training indigenous police force and army and then leave and redeploy forces elsewhere
-build international coalitions to combat this global problem
-inspect cargo at ports
-only use reasonable measures to ensure safety that don't compromise our essential civil rights
-pressure Arab allies to not support extremist medrassas that preach hatred of the U.S. and Israel
-foster connections with moderate Arab and/or Muslim groups--why not create a thinktank that brings together intellectuals from many different points of view to help initiate cross-cultural dialogue and exchanges
2. Aim Toward Balanced Budget
-roll back tax cuts on ultra-wealthy
-close corporate tax loops and end corporate welfare that merely encourages companies to outsource jobs outside the country
-vigorously prosecute war profiteers, such as Halliburton, and stop directing funds to privatize war
-pay as we go: don't enact sweeping legislation (such as "No Child Left Behind") without knowing how to adequately fund it or merely shifts costs onto states
-figure out how to help middle class without gauging essential programs, such as student aid
3. Enact Energy Policies that Contribute to a Sustainable and Renewable Environmental Future
-start "Apollo"-style program to lessen dependence on foreign oil (bio-fuels, Montana Gov. Schweizer's clean coal proposal, solar, wind, etc.) and that will jump start a whole new field of innovation and jobs
-no tax giveaways to large oil companies already flush with cash from huge profits
-invest in infrastructure of alternative fuel sources
-lower carbon emissions that conribute to greenhouse effect (allow science to help guide public policy, rather than having the policy dictate what science is allowed to find as its results)
4. Work Toward Universal Coverage in Health Care
-we can have better care for less cost by directing money that already goes into system into other alternative organizational models
-make it less complicated (unlike the Medicare Prescription plan)
5. Reform Electoral System and Political Corruption
-make sure every single eligible vote counts, period (!)
-don't have politically motivated public officials running elections
-limit lobbyist influence on legislators
-explore public funding of elections (see Arizona as an example) so politicians' main focus isn't fund raising
-experiment on local level with innovations such as instant-runoff voting or porportional representation

Don't these ideas just make sense? Notice I don't get into contentious social issues such as religion's role in public life, gay marriage, abortion, teaching children sex education, gun control, drugs, affirmative action, etc. These issues are all important and people are bound to have strong perspectives on them (I know I have definite feelings on most of them), but it seems to me there are sooo many other serious problems facing the country right now that these need to go on the back burner and we can come together to deal with the really important stuff now. We cannot allow the Bush administration's corruption and incompetence to hold this country hostage to corporate and extremist religious special interests.

My comment on Tom Delay, Congressional Republican Majority Leader: One down, 230 to go!

Under Mr. Delay's leadership this Republican-led Congress has become a festering cesspool of corruption, hypocrisy, and all-around nastiness. Good riddance!

Now we have to make sure that the 2006 election makes certain the Republicans are no longer the majority party.

God speed Nancy Pelosi and company.