Brian Reynolds Myers -- whom I was familiar with only through his brilliant polemic "A Reader's Manifesto" -- has an article at OpinionJournal explaining why the South Koreans aren't particularly happy with our efforts to "protect" them from North Korea. This lends even more support to the policy (which I support) that we should disengage from the Korean situation: withdraw all our military forces immediately, with a clear statement that we have no further commitment to giving military (or other governmental) aid to South Korea.
It is absolutely insane to have military forces to "protect" or "help" people who do not want our protection or help, whether in Korea or Iraq. Anyone who espouses such a policy is either an idiot or a liar, depending on whether or not he believes what he says. (And it is immoral to use military force for any reason other than to protect people.)
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Transgressing the Boundaries: Whoring for Peace
Baron Bodissey writes: "Now, this is the kind of transgressive antinomian empowerment that you expect from a top-of-the line state college. It makes me proud to pay my son’s Student Activities Fees when I know they go to fund such worthy causes."
and
"After all, the cross in the chapel was controversial because it offended people — well, one person, according to President Nichol — so it had to go. But a 200-pound (90 kilos, for our European readers) stripper in a G-string and pasties — why, no one could possibly be offended by that! Ask the Muslim Students Association — I’ll bet they really dig that sort of thing."
and
"It may be a pig gussied up in a transgressive silk dress with postmodern lipstick, but it’s most emphatically still a pig."
I couldn't say it better than he did.
And speaking of that second quote, about the Muslim Students Association -- on the Independent Women's Forum, Charlotte Hays says "It’s so interesting that radical feminists would rather attack the U.S. than defend women’s rights in the Middle East. I suspect that the reason is Islamofascists hate the West—just as our own homegrown radicals do deep down."
Personally, I would love to see the femocrats get into a feud with Islamofascists, and (as a staunch defender of Political Correctness) I will try to do everything I can to promote that. At the very least, I strongly advocate giving burkas to Katha Pollitt and Barbara Ehrenreich, since they sympathize with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
and
"After all, the cross in the chapel was controversial because it offended people — well, one person, according to President Nichol — so it had to go. But a 200-pound (90 kilos, for our European readers) stripper in a G-string and pasties — why, no one could possibly be offended by that! Ask the Muslim Students Association — I’ll bet they really dig that sort of thing."
and
"It may be a pig gussied up in a transgressive silk dress with postmodern lipstick, but it’s most emphatically still a pig."
I couldn't say it better than he did.
And speaking of that second quote, about the Muslim Students Association -- on the Independent Women's Forum, Charlotte Hays says "It’s so interesting that radical feminists would rather attack the U.S. than defend women’s rights in the Middle East. I suspect that the reason is Islamofascists hate the West—just as our own homegrown radicals do deep down."
Personally, I would love to see the femocrats get into a feud with Islamofascists, and (as a staunch defender of Political Correctness) I will try to do everything I can to promote that. At the very least, I strongly advocate giving burkas to Katha Pollitt and Barbara Ehrenreich, since they sympathize with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Great God Panopticism Is Dead
Thamus Pan-megas Tethnece!
(This week's readings for T.A.R.D.I.S. are Philip K. Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Michel Foucault's essay "Panopticism.")
"Panopticism is a method of organizing that places several parties under
the eye of one or more supervisors. This is apparent in the roots of
the word, with its prefix of pan, meaning all or whole and optic, meaning sight. The parties being observed are however isolated/restricted to some degree or another from each other. They are not aware of if and when the supervising party/parties is observing them. Thus, they are spurned on into self-regulation by the paranoia being caught not behaving properly or performing adequately. This phenomenon of panopticism is a result of the advent of industrialization and empirical/utilitarian thinking. It is found in the institutions arising during its era of its inception and is still with us today. It can be seen everywhere. Examples of it can be found in places ranging from prisons, to factories, to classrooms.
[...]panopticism works in theory because power and knowledge are entwined[...]
And look at the most rigid and supposedly sternest use of the panoptic: prison.
Prisons are awash with crimes being committed by people already
convicted of a crime and are now put there supposedly to stop them from
committing further crime until their debt to society is paid. Drug
distribution, sexual assault, bribery: you name it, it goes on. You
have but to watch the TV show OZ or read the book In the Belly of
the Beast to see examples of this. Now, take these individual
examples of knowledge not being power's shadow and quantify them
across entire societies and indeed the entire world. You start to get a
more accurate reflection of reality then.[...]The phenomenon of power and knowledge growing together is called economy of scale and the point at which they begin to grow apart is called diseconomy of scale."
Philip K. Dick was obsessed with several themes, including epistemology and metaphysics. Given his particular psychological disorders, he seemed to be experiencing the literary phenomenon of the unreliable narrator in his own life, his own psyche. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch deals with aspects of these themes; for example, the epistemological problem of how we can know something is true rather than a hallucination (courtesy of Chew-Z or Can-D) or a virtual experience (courtesy of Perky Pat), and the contradiction between predestination (or precognition) and free will. (Dick's story "Minority Report" discusses this as well.) Dick was also interested in religion, or rather in God; hence the obvious parallels between the eucharist -- or neolithic sacred rituals involving hallucinogenic mushrooms -- and Palmer Eldritch's Chew-Z. Finally, the phenomenon of precognition is related to Foucault's theory of panopticism. The precogs (in both book and story) can see the future, but their power to control it is quite limited, unlike the Observer in Foucault.
Panopticism is modernism par excellence, or perhaps reducto ad absurdum. For Foucault, knowledge equals power equals control equals order. What Foucault didn't realize is that there is a difference between each of these terms. Knowledge without will is powerless; power without ethics, or at least finesse, causes rebellion and disorder. In microeconomic terms, the phenomenon of power and knowledge growing together is called economy of scale and the point at which they begin to grow apart is called diseconomy of scale.
(This week's readings for T.A.R.D.I.S. are Philip K. Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Michel Foucault's essay "Panopticism.")
"Panopticism is a method of organizing that places several parties under
the eye of one or more supervisors. This is apparent in the roots of
the word, with its prefix of pan, meaning all or whole and optic, meaning sight. The parties being observed are however isolated/restricted to some degree or another from each other. They are not aware of if and when the supervising party/parties is observing them. Thus, they are spurned on into self-regulation by the paranoia being caught not behaving properly or performing adequately. This phenomenon of panopticism is a result of the advent of industrialization and empirical/utilitarian thinking. It is found in the institutions arising during its era of its inception and is still with us today. It can be seen everywhere. Examples of it can be found in places ranging from prisons, to factories, to classrooms.
[...]panopticism works in theory because power and knowledge are entwined[...]
And look at the most rigid and supposedly sternest use of the panoptic: prison.
Prisons are awash with crimes being committed by people already
convicted of a crime and are now put there supposedly to stop them from
committing further crime until their debt to society is paid. Drug
distribution, sexual assault, bribery: you name it, it goes on. You
have but to watch the TV show OZ or read the book In the Belly of
the Beast to see examples of this. Now, take these individual
examples of knowledge not being power's shadow and quantify them
across entire societies and indeed the entire world. You start to get a
more accurate reflection of reality then.[...]The phenomenon of power and knowledge growing together is called economy of scale and the point at which they begin to grow apart is called diseconomy of scale."
Philip K. Dick was obsessed with several themes, including epistemology and metaphysics. Given his particular psychological disorders, he seemed to be experiencing the literary phenomenon of the unreliable narrator in his own life, his own psyche. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch deals with aspects of these themes; for example, the epistemological problem of how we can know something is true rather than a hallucination (courtesy of Chew-Z or Can-D) or a virtual experience (courtesy of Perky Pat), and the contradiction between predestination (or precognition) and free will. (Dick's story "Minority Report" discusses this as well.) Dick was also interested in religion, or rather in God; hence the obvious parallels between the eucharist -- or neolithic sacred rituals involving hallucinogenic mushrooms -- and Palmer Eldritch's Chew-Z. Finally, the phenomenon of precognition is related to Foucault's theory of panopticism. The precogs (in both book and story) can see the future, but their power to control it is quite limited, unlike the Observer in Foucault.
Panopticism is modernism par excellence, or perhaps reducto ad absurdum. For Foucault, knowledge equals power equals control equals order. What Foucault didn't realize is that there is a difference between each of these terms. Knowledge without will is powerless; power without ethics, or at least finesse, causes rebellion and disorder. In microeconomic terms, the phenomenon of power and knowledge growing together is called economy of scale and the point at which they begin to grow apart is called diseconomy of scale.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Duke W. Nukem
Daniel W. Drezner pleads, "I'm going to Los Angeles for a UCLA conference entitled 'Nuclear Weapons in a New Century: Facing the Emerging Challenges.'
"As I have to say something about this in 48 hours, readers are strongly encouraged to proffer any bright ideas they might have about how to deal with this issue."
I'm pretty ignorant of international relations theory, but I offered my two cents' worth on his blog, along with a plug for my favorite IR proposal, from Joe Haldeman's Tool of the Trade.
Haldeman's proposal (in simplified form) is that the five "Nuclear Weapons States" which have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, and China -- should each commit reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons to a level no greater (according to both number of weapons and total megatons) than the largest stockpile of any nation which does not have such an agreement. (The details include rules for inspection and verification, reducing stockpiles by 10% per year over 10 years, and so forth.)
This would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world from about 20,000 to below 2,000 and probably below 1,000; in other words, more than 90% and probably more than 95% of nuclear weapons would be eliminated. (The percentages are even higher for reducing total megatons, rather than number of weapons!)
Over 90%, and probably over 95% -- I give this plan an A.
"As I have to say something about this in 48 hours, readers are strongly encouraged to proffer any bright ideas they might have about how to deal with this issue."
I'm pretty ignorant of international relations theory, but I offered my two cents' worth on his blog, along with a plug for my favorite IR proposal, from Joe Haldeman's Tool of the Trade.
Haldeman's proposal (in simplified form) is that the five "Nuclear Weapons States" which have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, and China -- should each commit reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons to a level no greater (according to both number of weapons and total megatons) than the largest stockpile of any nation which does not have such an agreement. (The details include rules for inspection and verification, reducing stockpiles by 10% per year over 10 years, and so forth.)
This would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world from about 20,000 to below 2,000 and probably below 1,000; in other words, more than 90% and probably more than 95% of nuclear weapons would be eliminated. (The percentages are even higher for reducing total megatons, rather than number of weapons!)
Over 90%, and probably over 95% -- I give this plan an A.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Bourdieu Saved From Drowning: Supertoys, Cyborg Theory, and Cultural Capital
This week the readings for LIT 6932 are Brian Aldiss' "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" (better known as the film A.I. -- which still makes me cry like a river whenever I see it or even think about it too much -- or as Walt Disney's Pinocchio), Walter Jon Williams' "Daddy's World," and Pierre Bourdieu's "Postscript: Towards a 'Vulgar' Critique of 'Pure Critiques,'" from Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. The title of this essay is a parody of Boudu Sauvé Des Eaux (Boudu Saved From Drowning), a classic 1932 film by Jean Renoir which was remade in 1986 as Down and Out in Beverly Hills, and again in 2005 as Boudu.
1. MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN: In "Supertoys" David asks the question "How do you tell what are real things from what aren't real things?" "Supertoys" and "Daddy's World" are all about the distinction between the mechanical and the natural, of which the latter is traditionally supposed to be more "real." That's a bogus decision, of course. As Heinlein pointed out, whatever humans do is as natural as, say, beavers building a dam. (Lewis also discussed the distinction between "natural" and "artificial" as part of his discussion of "natural" vs. "supernatural" in Miracles.)
Donna Haraway's "cyborg theory" also relates to this. The point is, everyone from Heinlein to Lewis to Haraway agrees, "mechanical" or "artificial" is not necessarily "wrong" or "bad." And there's no reason why a cyborg, mutant, alien, robot, or A.I. shouldn't have the same rights as a human being, and vice versa.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep the dividing line between human and replicant is based on empathy; but I am sure that plenty of replicants and other artificial life forms possess more empathy than many natural-born humans.I also find it ironic that David displays emotions, and is afraid of his mother because she seems so cold and distant. Even more ironically, Teddy tells David "We're both real. You're as real as I am," and both Teddy and David lie to Monica.
2. GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE: "Daddy's World" is also about living in a virtual world. Please see Nick Bostrom's "Are You Living In A Simulation?" http://www.simulation-argument.com, and Robin Hanson's "How to Live in a Simulation" http://www.transhumanist.com/volume7/simulation.html as well as his article "If Uploads Come First: The Crack of a Future Dawn" http://hanson.gmu.edu/uploads.html. (Of course, as a Christian I already believe this world is just the moral equivalent of a simulation; but that simulations are also the moral equivalent of true Reality.)
3. NOBODY KNOWS WHAT "REAL" REALLY MEANS: "Supertoys" is also about alienation from others as well as from self (for being unreal). The world is overcrowded but people suffer from loneliness, so they want robotic companions. Henry also says that people will be linked to the Ambient (i.e., the Internet). The Internet gives me the equivalent of three billion people I can speak with on the phone, i.e. have a realtime conversation with. And most of them can pass the Turing test. I'm not trying to say we don't need plenty of human contact -- I love giving and getting hugs and backrubs. (I don't list sex in there, since sex seems to be masturbation plus hugs and backrubs, and it's easy to masturbate over the Internet.) But I don't see any reason to consider email or IM inferior to letter-writing or phone calls.
4. I GOT YER VULGAR CRITIQUE RIGHT HERE: Bourdieu is the fellow who invented the ideas of cultural capital and social capital, and appropriated -- how ironic -- the idea of intellectual capital from economics. In economics, remember, capital is different from ordinary property because it is *productive* -- in other words, it can be used to produce additional quantities of ordinary property, and possibly additional capital as well. One presumes that cultural capital is what allows one to produce ordinary culture, and so forth; however, one should never expect consistency from /F/r/e/n/c/h/m/e/n/ philosophers.
"Daddy's World" shows the use of virtual reality as (primarily) intellectual and cultural capital, by educating Digit; "Supertoys" shows the use of artificial intelligences as intellectual and social capital. The humans in "Supertoys" control intellectual and social capital, as well as controlling the society and its definitions of humanity.
Bourdieu's other key idea is that "where you stand depends upon where you sit," i.e. that taste is determined by culture and more specifically by sub-culture, which includes class, gender, religion, etc. Pseudo-intellectuals scorn popular culture just because it is popular, a form of reverse-fetishization. C. S. Lewis' essay "Good and Bad Books" is about why genre fiction and alternative media should be treated the same as "real literature." One of my ongoing projects is to do this by applying critical theory to roleplaying games.
5. FANTASY GAMES UNLIMITED: Just a reminder that Walter Jon Williams was in a roleplaying group with several other sf/fantasy authors including George R. R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass; and Williams himself wrote game rulebooks as well as paperback novels for the games Privateers and Gentlemen (from Fantasy Games Unlimited) and Cyberpunk (from R. Talsorian Games). In fact, the virtual world in "Daddy's World" has many of the same characteristics as a roleplaying game-world -- interesting, colorful characters, intelligent puzzles, and striking scenery.
1. MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN: In "Supertoys" David asks the question "How do you tell what are real things from what aren't real things?" "Supertoys" and "Daddy's World" are all about the distinction between the mechanical and the natural, of which the latter is traditionally supposed to be more "real." That's a bogus decision, of course. As Heinlein pointed out, whatever humans do is as natural as, say, beavers building a dam. (Lewis also discussed the distinction between "natural" and "artificial" as part of his discussion of "natural" vs. "supernatural" in Miracles.)
Donna Haraway's "cyborg theory" also relates to this. The point is, everyone from Heinlein to Lewis to Haraway agrees, "mechanical" or "artificial" is not necessarily "wrong" or "bad." And there's no reason why a cyborg, mutant, alien, robot, or A.I. shouldn't have the same rights as a human being, and vice versa.
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep the dividing line between human and replicant is based on empathy; but I am sure that plenty of replicants and other artificial life forms possess more empathy than many natural-born humans.I also find it ironic that David displays emotions, and is afraid of his mother because she seems so cold and distant. Even more ironically, Teddy tells David "We're both real. You're as real as I am," and both Teddy and David lie to Monica.
2. GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE: "Daddy's World" is also about living in a virtual world. Please see Nick Bostrom's "Are You Living In A Simulation?" http://www.simulation-argument.com, and Robin Hanson's "How to Live in a Simulation" http://www.transhumanist.com/volume7/simulation.html as well as his article "If Uploads Come First: The Crack of a Future Dawn" http://hanson.gmu.edu/uploads.html. (Of course, as a Christian I already believe this world is just the moral equivalent of a simulation; but that simulations are also the moral equivalent of true Reality.)
3. NOBODY KNOWS WHAT "REAL" REALLY MEANS: "Supertoys" is also about alienation from others as well as from self (for being unreal). The world is overcrowded but people suffer from loneliness, so they want robotic companions. Henry also says that people will be linked to the Ambient (i.e., the Internet). The Internet gives me the equivalent of three billion people I can speak with on the phone, i.e. have a realtime conversation with. And most of them can pass the Turing test. I'm not trying to say we don't need plenty of human contact -- I love giving and getting hugs and backrubs. (I don't list sex in there, since sex seems to be masturbation plus hugs and backrubs, and it's easy to masturbate over the Internet.) But I don't see any reason to consider email or IM inferior to letter-writing or phone calls.
4. I GOT YER VULGAR CRITIQUE RIGHT HERE: Bourdieu is the fellow who invented the ideas of cultural capital and social capital, and appropriated -- how ironic -- the idea of intellectual capital from economics. In economics, remember, capital is different from ordinary property because it is *productive* -- in other words, it can be used to produce additional quantities of ordinary property, and possibly additional capital as well. One presumes that cultural capital is what allows one to produce ordinary culture, and so forth; however, one should never expect consistency from /F/r/e/n/c/h/m/e/n/ philosophers.
"Daddy's World" shows the use of virtual reality as (primarily) intellectual and cultural capital, by educating Digit; "Supertoys" shows the use of artificial intelligences as intellectual and social capital. The humans in "Supertoys" control intellectual and social capital, as well as controlling the society and its definitions of humanity.
Bourdieu's other key idea is that "where you stand depends upon where you sit," i.e. that taste is determined by culture and more specifically by sub-culture, which includes class, gender, religion, etc. Pseudo-intellectuals scorn popular culture just because it is popular, a form of reverse-fetishization. C. S. Lewis' essay "Good and Bad Books" is about why genre fiction and alternative media should be treated the same as "real literature." One of my ongoing projects is to do this by applying critical theory to roleplaying games.
5. FANTASY GAMES UNLIMITED: Just a reminder that Walter Jon Williams was in a roleplaying group with several other sf/fantasy authors including George R. R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass; and Williams himself wrote game rulebooks as well as paperback novels for the games Privateers and Gentlemen (from Fantasy Games Unlimited) and Cyberpunk (from R. Talsorian Games). In fact, the virtual world in "Daddy's World" has many of the same characteristics as a roleplaying game-world -- interesting, colorful characters, intelligent puzzles, and striking scenery.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Analyze *This*
I sadly recommend "Right Slight: Why Did the GOP Lose the Election?" at TNR:
There are two very unpleasant truths that we have to face,
in order to change them:
"While the publicly-available election data can't answer this
question definitively, everything we know about public opinion
suggests there isn't a majority constituency for economic
libertarianism. (Tax cuts, perhaps, but not the smaller government
that goes along with it.)"
"When small-government conservatives abandon their principles
and become big-government conservatives--usually because voters
demand more government (as in the case of Bush's prescription
drug entitlement) or revolt when they try to cut it (Social
Security privatization)--scandal is a predictable result. The
reason is that people ideologically predisposed to doubt the
effectiveness of government don't see much practical difference
between running programs in the public interest and running them
as vast kickback operations, in which they spread government
lucre among their favorite interest groups (e.g., the
pharmaceutical industry). If government won't work either way,
you might as well make your friends happy."
There are two very unpleasant truths that we have to face,
in order to change them:
"While the publicly-available election data can't answer this
question definitively, everything we know about public opinion
suggests there isn't a majority constituency for economic
libertarianism. (Tax cuts, perhaps, but not the smaller government
that goes along with it.)"
"When small-government conservatives abandon their principles
and become big-government conservatives--usually because voters
demand more government (as in the case of Bush's prescription
drug entitlement) or revolt when they try to cut it (Social
Security privatization)--scandal is a predictable result. The
reason is that people ideologically predisposed to doubt the
effectiveness of government don't see much practical difference
between running programs in the public interest and running them
as vast kickback operations, in which they spread government
lucre among their favorite interest groups (e.g., the
pharmaceutical industry). If government won't work either way,
you might as well make your friends happy."
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Alien/Nations
My first paper for LIT 6932 (Time, Space, and Science Fiction) is called "Alien/Nations: Cyborg Politics in Lafferty's 'Slow Tuesday Night' and Pohl's 'Day Million.'" As usual, I picked a couple of stories so obscure that there has been absolutely no scholarly research done on them since the year 2000.
On the other hand, I also picked a contemporary critical theorist, Donna Haraway, who is (in)famous for her works "A Manifesto for Cyborgs" and "The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others." I'm using Haraway's ideology, generally known as "Cyborg Theory," as a springboard for a more general discussion of transhumanism. That brings me out of the postmodern wilderness and back to more familiar territory: political ideology, especially social justice, which is my primary specialty in political science.
Here's my outline:
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Transhumanism and Cyborg Theory
1. What is Transhumanism?
2. Cyborg Theory = Transhumanism + Feminism + Socialism
B. Significance of the Cyborg Manifesto
1. Feminism (but Transhumanist)
2. Socialism (but Transhumanist)
3. Transhumanism (but Socialist)
4. Very popular, famous, critical theory (anthologized in Norton)
C. "Slow Tuesday Night" and "Day Million" as responses to the same phenomena that engaged Haraway
II. IDEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
A. Romance vs. Enlightenment (Brin)
1. Neophobia vs. Neophilia
2. Third Axis of Political Spectrum
3. Luddites vs. Transhumanists in all camps
B. Transhumanism
1. Definition and Camps
2. Significance: All Your Luddites Are Belong To Us (dustbin of history)
3. Post-Scarcity and Distribution of Goods (quote Ackerman and Friedman)
4. Identity Crisis; Property Rights Over One's Own Body (quote Friedman and Locke)
III. CYBORG THEORY AND TRANSHUMANISM
A. Transhumanism
1. Extropianism (Libertarian Transhumanism)
2. Democratic Transhumanism
3. Technoconservatism (Anti-Transhumanism)
B. Cyborg Theory as a branch of Transhumanism
1. Primary aspects
2. Relationship to Feminism
3. Relationship to Socialism
4. Relationship to Transhumanism
IV. CYBORG THEORY (AND TRANSHUMANISM) IN THE TEXTS
A. "Slow Tuesday Night"
1. Postmodernist (critique of Modernism), and Romantic (prefers good old days);
2. "playful and sarcastic" "ironic political fable" like Haraway
3. Critique of Capitalism (Postmodernist)
a. Alienation of Labor
b. Fetishism of Commodity
c. Financial insecurity (giant roulette wheel)
4. Critique of Sexism
5. Critique of Consumerism/Materialism
B. "Day Million" -- A Transhuman Future!
1. Description/Classifications
a.Modernist (Pohl is an old-fashioned Social Democrat)
b. Enlightenment (pro-future)
c. Not ironic about self (Modernist, not PoMo)
d. Humanist
e. Socialist by Interpolation (from Pohl's views)
f. Uses colloquial language, friendly attitude, dialogue with the reader
2. Cyborgs With A Human Face
a. Fits all of Haraway's definitions of Cyborgs (three transgressions), and all her other characteristics as well. These folks are literally cyborgs as well as being genetically engineered.
b. Alienation of Reproduction from Sex (Sulva) -- it's a Cyborg Sex Story!
c. Individualist Transhumanism, plus Socialism, and Feminism
IV. CONCLUSION
A. Romance vs. Enlightenment (been around since ~1800)
D. These Two Stories Showcase All This!
On the other hand, I also picked a contemporary critical theorist, Donna Haraway, who is (in)famous for her works "A Manifesto for Cyborgs" and "The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others." I'm using Haraway's ideology, generally known as "Cyborg Theory," as a springboard for a more general discussion of transhumanism. That brings me out of the postmodern wilderness and back to more familiar territory: political ideology, especially social justice, which is my primary specialty in political science.
Here's my outline:
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Transhumanism and Cyborg Theory
1. What is Transhumanism?
2. Cyborg Theory = Transhumanism + Feminism + Socialism
B. Significance of the Cyborg Manifesto
1. Feminism (but Transhumanist)
2. Socialism (but Transhumanist)
3. Transhumanism (but Socialist)
4. Very popular, famous, critical theory (anthologized in Norton)
C. "Slow Tuesday Night" and "Day Million" as responses to the same phenomena that engaged Haraway
II. IDEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
A. Romance vs. Enlightenment (Brin)
1. Neophobia vs. Neophilia
2. Third Axis of Political Spectrum
3. Luddites vs. Transhumanists in all camps
B. Transhumanism
1. Definition and Camps
2. Significance: All Your Luddites Are Belong To Us (dustbin of history)
3. Post-Scarcity and Distribution of Goods (quote Ackerman and Friedman)
4. Identity Crisis; Property Rights Over One's Own Body (quote Friedman and Locke)
III. CYBORG THEORY AND TRANSHUMANISM
A. Transhumanism
1. Extropianism (Libertarian Transhumanism)
2. Democratic Transhumanism
3. Technoconservatism (Anti-Transhumanism)
B. Cyborg Theory as a branch of Transhumanism
1. Primary aspects
2. Relationship to Feminism
3. Relationship to Socialism
4. Relationship to Transhumanism
IV. CYBORG THEORY (AND TRANSHUMANISM) IN THE TEXTS
A. "Slow Tuesday Night"
1. Postmodernist (critique of Modernism), and Romantic (prefers good old days);
2. "playful and sarcastic" "ironic political fable" like Haraway
3. Critique of Capitalism (Postmodernist)
a. Alienation of Labor
b. Fetishism of Commodity
c. Financial insecurity (giant roulette wheel)
4. Critique of Sexism
5. Critique of Consumerism/Materialism
B. "Day Million" -- A Transhuman Future!
1. Description/Classifications
a.Modernist (Pohl is an old-fashioned Social Democrat)
b. Enlightenment (pro-future)
c. Not ironic about self (Modernist, not PoMo)
d. Humanist
e. Socialist by Interpolation (from Pohl's views)
f. Uses colloquial language, friendly attitude, dialogue with the reader
2. Cyborgs With A Human Face
a. Fits all of Haraway's definitions of Cyborgs (three transgressions), and all her other characteristics as well. These folks are literally cyborgs as well as being genetically engineered.
b. Alienation of Reproduction from Sex (Sulva) -- it's a Cyborg Sex Story!
c. Individualist Transhumanism, plus Socialism, and Feminism
IV. CONCLUSION
A. Romance vs. Enlightenment (been around since ~1800)
D. These Two Stories Showcase All This!
Viscus: The Problem with Legalizing Drugs
Viscus suggests that Ilya Somin's article in favor of drug re-legalization (at the Volokh Conspiracy) misses the point when it apparently claims the main benefit would be reducing prison rapes (by reducing the number of people in prison). Instead, Viscus asks "Would it make cases like, People v. Bell, more or less common?"
I completely agree with Viscus on that -- I support drug re-legalization because I want to reduce (actually, I want to eliminate) the murders of (and other harms to) innocent bystanders.
If legalizing drugs means more people will use more drugs, quite frankly, I think it's absolutely worth it AS LONG AS IT MEANS NO INNOCENT PEOPLE GET HURT BY DRUG ADDICTS ANY MORE!
I completely agree with Viscus on that -- I support drug re-legalization because I want to reduce (actually, I want to eliminate) the murders of (and other harms to) innocent bystanders.
If legalizing drugs means more people will use more drugs, quite frankly, I think it's absolutely worth it AS LONG AS IT MEANS NO INNOCENT PEOPLE GET HURT BY DRUG ADDICTS ANY MORE!
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Iraq and a Hard Place
Obviously the most important issue in American politics is the Iraq War, just as from 1965 to 1975 the most important issue in American politics was the Vietnam War. Casualties since the 2003 invasion include over 3,000 gallant Coalition soldiers, civilians, and contractors (about 3 every day) and somewhere between twenty and two hundred times that many Iraqis, depending on which figures you believe.
My views on this issue are simple and clear:
1. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was a good act that was justified by international law for several different reasons: because of his crimes against humanity (war crimes and genocide), his violations of human rights, and the fact that he wanted to get and use more weapons of mass destruction. (Remember, Saddam had used poison gas and biological warfare, which are both WMDs, against Iranian soldiers and against Iraqi civilians. His nuclear weapons program was not active, but if he could have gotten away with building or buying a nuke he absolutely would have. I assume even the most extreme left-winger agrees with those facts.)
2. As a libertarian, I understand that there are many good actions which still should not be done by government for moral reasons, practical reasons, or both. For example, libertarians and conservatives believe it is wrong to force people to pay money to finance government welfare programs that they don't agree with; libertarians also understand (and so should conservatives) that it's just as wrong to force people to pay for government warfare programs that they don't support.
I assume almost all the liberals out there believe it should be legal, or at least moral for people to practice nonviolent civil disobedience by refusing to pay taxes to support things like the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, or the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. I agree, and would ask them, in order to avoid being hypocrites, to extend the same privilege to those who want to practice nonviolent civil disobedience concerning other government programs.
3. I also think the occupation shows that our government, like all governments, is inherently short-sighted and incompetent. I am continually amazed -- although I shouldn't be -- that conservatives who complain about the inefficiency of government bureaucracies like the post office and welfare system seem to overlook that the Pentagon is the biggest and most inefficient bureaucracy of all.
4. If our invasion of Iraq was justified on humanitarian grounds because it helped innocent Iraqi dissidents and other civilians, this means our occupation cannot be justified unless it is still helping them; and that is best measured by whether the local population wants us to stay or leave. And obviously a majority of the locals want us to leave everywhere in Iraq except Kurdistan and perhaps one or two other places.
5. To summarize everything so far: I agreed with getting rid of Saddam Hussein and making sure that Iraq had no WMD's, although I think an assassination or coup would have been better than the invasion, because there would have been fewer innocent casualties, which is always the supreme moral imperative for judging a war. After the invasion, we should have left immediately, except in those areas (such as Kurdistan) where the local population wanted us to stay for either protection or reconstruction. I wish that President Bush had made this (unfortunately imaginary) speech long before the 2004 elections; but we should do it now, better late than never.
6. In addition to withdrawing from Iraq (except for those areas where the local population actually wants us to stay), we should also offer asylum for those Iraqis who would be in danger after we leave, such as Christians, Iraqis who actively worked for human rights, and those who actually helped us. Specifically, we should allow them to immigrate to the U.S. without any limitation on numbers, as long as they have evidence (in each individual case) that they are in danger because of their pro-western, pro-Coalition, pro-human rights political or religious beliefs or actions.
My views on this issue are simple and clear:
1. Removing Saddam Hussein from power was a good act that was justified by international law for several different reasons: because of his crimes against humanity (war crimes and genocide), his violations of human rights, and the fact that he wanted to get and use more weapons of mass destruction. (Remember, Saddam had used poison gas and biological warfare, which are both WMDs, against Iranian soldiers and against Iraqi civilians. His nuclear weapons program was not active, but if he could have gotten away with building or buying a nuke he absolutely would have. I assume even the most extreme left-winger agrees with those facts.)
2. As a libertarian, I understand that there are many good actions which still should not be done by government for moral reasons, practical reasons, or both. For example, libertarians and conservatives believe it is wrong to force people to pay money to finance government welfare programs that they don't agree with; libertarians also understand (and so should conservatives) that it's just as wrong to force people to pay for government warfare programs that they don't support.
I assume almost all the liberals out there believe it should be legal, or at least moral for people to practice nonviolent civil disobedience by refusing to pay taxes to support things like the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, or the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. I agree, and would ask them, in order to avoid being hypocrites, to extend the same privilege to those who want to practice nonviolent civil disobedience concerning other government programs.
3. I also think the occupation shows that our government, like all governments, is inherently short-sighted and incompetent. I am continually amazed -- although I shouldn't be -- that conservatives who complain about the inefficiency of government bureaucracies like the post office and welfare system seem to overlook that the Pentagon is the biggest and most inefficient bureaucracy of all.
4. If our invasion of Iraq was justified on humanitarian grounds because it helped innocent Iraqi dissidents and other civilians, this means our occupation cannot be justified unless it is still helping them; and that is best measured by whether the local population wants us to stay or leave. And obviously a majority of the locals want us to leave everywhere in Iraq except Kurdistan and perhaps one or two other places.
5. To summarize everything so far: I agreed with getting rid of Saddam Hussein and making sure that Iraq had no WMD's, although I think an assassination or coup would have been better than the invasion, because there would have been fewer innocent casualties, which is always the supreme moral imperative for judging a war. After the invasion, we should have left immediately, except in those areas (such as Kurdistan) where the local population wanted us to stay for either protection or reconstruction. I wish that President Bush had made this (unfortunately imaginary) speech long before the 2004 elections; but we should do it now, better late than never.
6. In addition to withdrawing from Iraq (except for those areas where the local population actually wants us to stay), we should also offer asylum for those Iraqis who would be in danger after we leave, such as Christians, Iraqis who actively worked for human rights, and those who actually helped us. Specifically, we should allow them to immigrate to the U.S. without any limitation on numbers, as long as they have evidence (in each individual case) that they are in danger because of their pro-western, pro-Coalition, pro-human rights political or religious beliefs or actions.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Viscus: Eminent Domain, Libertarians, and Consent
Viscus: Eminent Domain, Libertarians, and Consent is disappointed that "from the libertarian perspective, just about any dignitary harm foisted on another is justified if there is consent. That is, using people and disregarding their dignity is okay if they consent. [...] It seems the primary factor driving libertarian opposition to takigns (sic) is lack of consent."
He then explains to the unenlightened that "A superior ethical view would be that one does not violate another person's dignity, regardless of whether 'consent' is forthcoming."
I look forward to seeing Viscus' support for efforts to legally prohibit such offenses against human dignity as, hmm, consensual BDSM (which obviously violates the dignity of the sub); consensual heterosexual intercourse outside of a loving, stable (presumably married, but at least committed) monogamous relationship (which violates the dignity of the woman who is used for physical pleasure and then discarded); and, well, a whole host of other behavior which social conservatives dislike because it offends their traditional religious values.
It looks to me like Sticky has to either support the right-wing fundamentalist agenda (at least in part) or else explain the difference between prohibiting things *he* thinks violate human dignity, and prohibiting things the vast majority of people (not just conservatives, but even moderates and many liberals) think violate human dignity.
Libertarians (and most liberals) don't want to use force to prohibit things just because we dislike them or find them personally offensive, or even think that they violate human dignity. "I may be disgusted by what you two do, but I will defend to the death your right to do it, as long as you don't involve anybody without their consent."
Apparently Sticky is more "enlightened" than Voltaire and Jefferson.
He then explains to the unenlightened that "A superior ethical view would be that one does not violate another person's dignity, regardless of whether 'consent' is forthcoming."
I look forward to seeing Viscus' support for efforts to legally prohibit such offenses against human dignity as, hmm, consensual BDSM (which obviously violates the dignity of the sub); consensual heterosexual intercourse outside of a loving, stable (presumably married, but at least committed) monogamous relationship (which violates the dignity of the woman who is used for physical pleasure and then discarded); and, well, a whole host of other behavior which social conservatives dislike because it offends their traditional religious values.
It looks to me like Sticky has to either support the right-wing fundamentalist agenda (at least in part) or else explain the difference between prohibiting things *he* thinks violate human dignity, and prohibiting things the vast majority of people (not just conservatives, but even moderates and many liberals) think violate human dignity.
Libertarians (and most liberals) don't want to use force to prohibit things just because we dislike them or find them personally offensive, or even think that they violate human dignity. "I may be disgusted by what you two do, but I will defend to the death your right to do it, as long as you don't involve anybody without their consent."
Apparently Sticky is more "enlightened" than Voltaire and Jefferson.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Gernsback and Forth; or, Future's So Bright We Gotta Wear Shades
This week in LIT 6932 (Time, Space, and SF) we're discussing Bruce Sterling's "The Gernsback Continuum," John Varley's "Air Raid," and R. A. Lafferty's "Slow Tuesday Night," plus Edgar Allen Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition." Herewith some comments:
1. "The Gernsback Continuum" is definitely postmodern according to the simplest definition, because it is a critique of and reaction to modernism -- specifically, the modernism of pulp sf courtesy of Gernsback and John W. Campbell (whom Isaac Asimov described, in The Early Asimov, as wanting "big men solving big problems with big ideas and big machines"), illustrated by the alternate universes of Earth-Tesla and Tom Strong; and the postwar era, like Donald Fagen's beautiful album The Nightfly, particularly the songs "New Frontier" and "I.G.Y." and
I'm a fan of modernism, because I was raised an Enlightenment liberal by Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke. I remember the good old days before the defeats in Vietnam and the War on Poverty; back in 1950-1965 when we were actually making progress on civil rights and eliminating poverty and reducing inequality; back when people worried that the government's biggest problem would be figuring out how to spend the surplus. I wouldn't have a problem with someone telling me "John, we've forgotten to take our food pills." :-D
2. "Air Raid" was made into the movie Millennium. It takes a very dystopian view of the future, and there is sort of a colonial/exploitive relationship between the time travellers and our present; on the other hand there is a similar-but-opposite relationship between the pollution and waste of our time and the problems of the future. (Another paradox concerns the film itself as a product -- one reviewer described it as "smart and moronic at the same time.")
This would be a great text to pair with "Vintage Season," and the fact that the latter story was also made into a film is just icing on the cake! (In fact, I'm not sure why we're not reading them both during the same week.)
3. "Slow Tuesday Night" gives yet another view of the future, by simply extrapolating present trends the same way Heinlein did in 1950 (and again in 1965 and 1980) in "Pandora's Box" and "Where To?" I am working a paper comparing it to two similar works by Fred Pohl -- The Age of the Pussyfoot and "Day Million" -- and Edgar Allen Poe's "Mellonta Tauta." All these works extrapolate present-day trends and try to project a future that is radically different from the present at least quantitatively. "Slow Tuesday Night" shows us a world moving at breakneck speed; "Day Million" depicts a society of genetically-engineered immortals, each of which has gigawatts of power and dozens of artificial intelligences at their casual disposal; The Age of the Pussyfoot depicts a society with somewhat less advanced A.I.'s and biomedical technology, but still significantly advanced over our own, and with the consequences of centuries of relatively "mild" inflation; and "Mellonta Tauta" simply emphasizes various aspects of strangeness and discontinuity between the future world of 2848 and the past/present world of 1848.
4. Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition" is a classic explication of narrative fiction, particularly short-story writing, just as Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder" is for the detective story (and Dr. Gideon Fell's lecture in Chapter 17 of The Three Coffins is for locked-room stories). Poe says that the story-writer must first figure out what sort of effect he wants to produce, and then bend every effort, use every trick that will fit, and calculate every phrase in the story, in order to produce the maximum of that effect upon the reader. (H. Bruce Franklin claims that Poe's stories fall into two categories: those in which the effect is an emotion, and those in which the effect is an idea.)
Well, /d/u/h/ of course! This is good practical advice. And the three pieces of fiction for this week all do that. As a formalist and structuralist, I look at the elements of style in the prose of each one; it's part of my job.
1. "The Gernsback Continuum" is definitely postmodern according to the simplest definition, because it is a critique of and reaction to modernism -- specifically, the modernism of pulp sf courtesy of Gernsback and John W. Campbell (whom Isaac Asimov described, in The Early Asimov, as wanting "big men solving big problems with big ideas and big machines"), illustrated by the alternate universes of Earth-Tesla and Tom Strong; and the postwar era, like Donald Fagen's beautiful album The Nightfly, particularly the songs "New Frontier" and "I.G.Y." and
I'm a fan of modernism, because I was raised an Enlightenment liberal by Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke. I remember the good old days before the defeats in Vietnam and the War on Poverty; back in 1950-1965 when we were actually making progress on civil rights and eliminating poverty and reducing inequality; back when people worried that the government's biggest problem would be figuring out how to spend the surplus. I wouldn't have a problem with someone telling me "John, we've forgotten to take our food pills." :-D
2. "Air Raid" was made into the movie Millennium. It takes a very dystopian view of the future, and there is sort of a colonial/exploitive relationship between the time travellers and our present; on the other hand there is a similar-but-opposite relationship between the pollution and waste of our time and the problems of the future. (Another paradox concerns the film itself as a product -- one reviewer described it as "smart and moronic at the same time.")
This would be a great text to pair with "Vintage Season," and the fact that the latter story was also made into a film is just icing on the cake! (In fact, I'm not sure why we're not reading them both during the same week.)
3. "Slow Tuesday Night" gives yet another view of the future, by simply extrapolating present trends the same way Heinlein did in 1950 (and again in 1965 and 1980) in "Pandora's Box" and "Where To?" I am working a paper comparing it to two similar works by Fred Pohl -- The Age of the Pussyfoot and "Day Million" -- and Edgar Allen Poe's "Mellonta Tauta." All these works extrapolate present-day trends and try to project a future that is radically different from the present at least quantitatively. "Slow Tuesday Night" shows us a world moving at breakneck speed; "Day Million" depicts a society of genetically-engineered immortals, each of which has gigawatts of power and dozens of artificial intelligences at their casual disposal; The Age of the Pussyfoot depicts a society with somewhat less advanced A.I.'s and biomedical technology, but still significantly advanced over our own, and with the consequences of centuries of relatively "mild" inflation; and "Mellonta Tauta" simply emphasizes various aspects of strangeness and discontinuity between the future world of 2848 and the past/present world of 1848.
4. Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition" is a classic explication of narrative fiction, particularly short-story writing, just as Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder" is for the detective story (and Dr. Gideon Fell's lecture in Chapter 17 of The Three Coffins is for locked-room stories). Poe says that the story-writer must first figure out what sort of effect he wants to produce, and then bend every effort, use every trick that will fit, and calculate every phrase in the story, in order to produce the maximum of that effect upon the reader. (H. Bruce Franklin claims that Poe's stories fall into two categories: those in which the effect is an emotion, and those in which the effect is an idea.)
Well, /d/u/h/ of course! This is good practical advice. And the three pieces of fiction for this week all do that. As a formalist and structuralist, I look at the elements of style in the prose of each one; it's part of my job.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Tech-Refuseniks
David Brin's New Year's Day post discusses (among other things) "'tech-refusniks' who - for many reasons - seem prone to reject the benefits of high technology in an onrushing scientific age":
I don't know why Brin seems to have overlooked what seem to me to be the single largest group opposed to technology: leftists who believe that increasing technology means less social/economic equality, possibly even a lower standard of living for those at the bottom. For example, they worry about workers losing their jobs because of automation, and poor children who (because they are uneducated, thanks to government schools) will be at a greater disadvantage in a higher-tech society.
There are a number of rational ways to deal with these issues, including reforming public education and reforming welfare and the rest of the "social safety net." The solutions are relatively simple (although politically difficult, of course). But my confusion is why Brin didn't mention this concern. The only possibilities I can think of are that he either considers it part of the "folks who worry deeply about the COST" or else that he is doesn't realize that some people don't share his belief that technology helps level society.
Some who despise this era relish a return to lifestyles that were less democratized or flattened by the "great equalizer" of mass access to tools. [...] At another extreme are neo-feudalists, who don't mind technology and comfort, but resent the fact that the masses are getting almost as many toys and rights and privileges as aristocrats, nowadays. How much better to have an old-fashioned pyramid of privilege, with a few on top lording it over many, below. But that won't happen if the masses are technologically empowered. Hence, much of the propaganda of fear, trying to promote refusnikism on a very broad scale.
From another angle, consider the effect of labor saving devices in the home. Today, a vast majority of Americans can avoid drudgery in ways that - formerly - only the very rich knew. Human servants used to perform the tasks now done by refrigerators and cars and microwaves and vacuum cleaners, etc. All of thistechnologically-driven equality seems to rob all our advances of their sense of wonder. This is prime territory for romantics. If everybody - the masses - has something, then it cannot be good or beautiful or worthwhile.
At the opposite extreme are folks who worry deeply about the COST of over-dependence upon technological crutches. This includes people who are concerned with the ecological damage done by wasteful-wastrel masses who seem bent on consuming simply for consumption's sake.
I don't know why Brin seems to have overlooked what seem to me to be the single largest group opposed to technology: leftists who believe that increasing technology means less social/economic equality, possibly even a lower standard of living for those at the bottom. For example, they worry about workers losing their jobs because of automation, and poor children who (because they are uneducated, thanks to government schools) will be at a greater disadvantage in a higher-tech society.
There are a number of rational ways to deal with these issues, including reforming public education and reforming welfare and the rest of the "social safety net." The solutions are relatively simple (although politically difficult, of course). But my confusion is why Brin didn't mention this concern. The only possibilities I can think of are that he either considers it part of the "folks who worry deeply about the COST" or else that he is doesn't realize that some people don't share his belief that technology helps level society.
TARDIS
Right now I'm only taking two courses for credit. One of them is LIN 6107: History of the English Language, known universally as H.O.T.E.L. The other is LIT 6932: Time, Space, and Science Fiction, which I have dubbed T.A.R.D.I.S.
The dynamics of the sf/fantasy program at FAU are rather curious. Professor McGuirk (who teaches TARDIS) specializes in science fiction and modern (post-1900) critical theory, while Professor Martin specializes in fantasy and early (pre-1900) literary theory. Anyone who knows me at all will realize that I have a vast knowledge of the texts of the entire genre (both sf and fantasy), and that my knowledge of post-1900 literary theory is very limited. (This is one reason I'm auditing Professor McGuirk's undergraduate course on literary criticism: I want to be able to hold my own at MLA conferences when people babble about "the radical indeterminacy of the text" and "post-colonial hermeneutics.")
This week our readings for TARDIS are Ted Sturgeon's "Thunder and Roses," Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds," and Jean-Paul Sartre's "What is Literature?" We're asked to do a response paper every week, so here are my thoughts:
1. "Thunder and Roses" made me cry, and it also made me think of Mordechai Roshwald's horrifying Level 7 as well as Arthur C. Clarke's "The Last Command" Then I thought of On the Beach and Earth Abides and Alas, Babylon and "Solution: Unsatisfactory."
I can't think of much else to say about the story; the death of humanity, or even a large portion of it, overwhelms me and I can't think clearly. The only way I can see out of this emotional pit is to re-commit myself to activism, specifically to my project to promote the nuclear disarmament program suggested by Joe Haldeman in Tool of the Trade.
2. "Speech Sounds" -- the depiction of Los Angeles after the breakdown of civilization reminds me of Butler's The Parable of the Sower. (Could Butler have sued herself for plagiarism?) The discussion of gender relationships reminded me of the work that's been done in /s/o/c/i/o/b/i/o/l/o/g/y/ evolutionary psychology.
3. "What is Literature" -- Whenever I hear the word "existentialism" I reach for a copy of "De Futilitate" by C. S. Lewis. I'm not a fan of continental philosophy -- my specialty is classical and analytic philosophy -- but here are Sartre's points as I understand them:
1. Why write, as opposed to do something else (like start Fight Club)? Of course, as an existentialist, Sartre points out that all meaning ("relationship") comes from human existence, and then explains that "One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world." This is a clearly existentialist statement, dealing with the drive to give meaning to our lives.
2. Sartre next deals with the subject-object dichotomy. Writing (like running a roleplaying game) involves a curious relationship with the text: "The writer cannot read what he writes, whereas the shoemaker can put on the shoes he has just made." "The operation of writing involves an implicit quasi-reading which makes real reading impossible." The writer must try to imagine the way the reader will encounter the text, but he will never encounter the text that way himself, because he always knows what comes next. "There is no art except for and by others."
3. Reading involves the reader in a relationship with the text; it must be active rather than merely passive/receptive. "Reading seems, in fact, to be the synthesis of perception and creation." (You get out of it what you put into it.) "Reading is a pact of generosity between author and reader. Each one trusts the other, each one counts on the other, demands of the other as much as he demands of himself." Therefore the reader must be free; therefore there can be no truly great art that promotes tyranny, oppression, racism, and so forth. (Obviously he's overlooking works such as Birth of a Nation.)
The dynamics of the sf/fantasy program at FAU are rather curious. Professor McGuirk (who teaches TARDIS) specializes in science fiction and modern (post-1900) critical theory, while Professor Martin specializes in fantasy and early (pre-1900) literary theory. Anyone who knows me at all will realize that I have a vast knowledge of the texts of the entire genre (both sf and fantasy), and that my knowledge of post-1900 literary theory is very limited. (This is one reason I'm auditing Professor McGuirk's undergraduate course on literary criticism: I want to be able to hold my own at MLA conferences when people babble about "the radical indeterminacy of the text" and "post-colonial hermeneutics.")
This week our readings for TARDIS are Ted Sturgeon's "Thunder and Roses," Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds," and Jean-Paul Sartre's "What is Literature?" We're asked to do a response paper every week, so here are my thoughts:
1. "Thunder and Roses" made me cry, and it also made me think of Mordechai Roshwald's horrifying Level 7 as well as Arthur C. Clarke's "The Last Command" Then I thought of On the Beach and Earth Abides and Alas, Babylon and "Solution: Unsatisfactory."
I can't think of much else to say about the story; the death of humanity, or even a large portion of it, overwhelms me and I can't think clearly. The only way I can see out of this emotional pit is to re-commit myself to activism, specifically to my project to promote the nuclear disarmament program suggested by Joe Haldeman in Tool of the Trade.
2. "Speech Sounds" -- the depiction of Los Angeles after the breakdown of civilization reminds me of Butler's The Parable of the Sower. (Could Butler have sued herself for plagiarism?) The discussion of gender relationships reminded me of the work that's been done in /s/o/c/i/o/b/i/o/l/o/g/y/ evolutionary psychology.
3. "What is Literature" -- Whenever I hear the word "existentialism" I reach for a copy of "De Futilitate" by C. S. Lewis. I'm not a fan of continental philosophy -- my specialty is classical and analytic philosophy -- but here are Sartre's points as I understand them:
1. Why write, as opposed to do something else (like start Fight Club)? Of course, as an existentialist, Sartre points out that all meaning ("relationship") comes from human existence, and then explains that "One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world." This is a clearly existentialist statement, dealing with the drive to give meaning to our lives.
2. Sartre next deals with the subject-object dichotomy. Writing (like running a roleplaying game) involves a curious relationship with the text: "The writer cannot read what he writes, whereas the shoemaker can put on the shoes he has just made." "The operation of writing involves an implicit quasi-reading which makes real reading impossible." The writer must try to imagine the way the reader will encounter the text, but he will never encounter the text that way himself, because he always knows what comes next. "There is no art except for and by others."
3. Reading involves the reader in a relationship with the text; it must be active rather than merely passive/receptive. "Reading seems, in fact, to be the synthesis of perception and creation." (You get out of it what you put into it.) "Reading is a pact of generosity between author and reader. Each one trusts the other, each one counts on the other, demands of the other as much as he demands of himself." Therefore the reader must be free; therefore there can be no truly great art that promotes tyranny, oppression, racism, and so forth. (Obviously he's overlooking works such as Birth of a Nation.)
Red Queen's Race
I just found out this week that I will need to take another graduate-level course in English, American, and/or multicultural literature for my M.A. in English. No worries, this summer I'll take ENL 6305, Professor Martin's course on Spenser.
Of course I'd like to do my research paper for that class on Spenser's influence on roleplaying games, but I don't know of anything beyond a single article in Dragon magazine, so I will probably do either his influence on later fantasy (primarily DeCamp and Pratt's Harold Shea story "The Mathematics of Magic") or else his use of political allegory.
I'm guessing this last theme is pretty much mined-out, though.
Maybe something about the various ways the word "faerie" was used in Elizabethan times, as Lewis discusses in The Discarded Image.
"[W]ithin the same island and the same century Spenser could compliment Elizabeth I by identifying her with the Faerie Queene and a woman could be burned at Edinburgh in 1576 for 'repairing with the fairies and the 'Queen of Elfame.'"(M. W. Latham, The Elizabethan Fairies (Columbia, 1940), p. 16, quoted in Lewis, The Discarded Image, p. 124.)
Or the various versions of magic according to Renaissance literature, including demonology and academic magic. "In his volume of the Oxford History of English Literature, he explains the difference between magia, high or "white" magic, such as we encounter in Merlin or Bercilek, which is associated with the world of Faerie, and goeteia, black magic, associated with witchcraft and Faustian contracts with the devil. But having made the distinction, Lewis adds that most sixteenth-century writers, including King James himself (who published his Demonology in 1597) condemned all kinds of magic as a snare, warning that even "white magic" was a danger to the soul (7-8)."
Or maybe something about David Lodge's novel Small World...
Regardless of what I do my Spenser paper on, I'm still on track to get my M.A. at the end of 2007 -- or whenever I finish my thesis, whichever comes first. And I'm also on track to teach undergraduates starting this fall.
Of course I'd like to do my research paper for that class on Spenser's influence on roleplaying games, but I don't know of anything beyond a single article in Dragon magazine, so I will probably do either his influence on later fantasy (primarily DeCamp and Pratt's Harold Shea story "The Mathematics of Magic") or else his use of political allegory.
I'm guessing this last theme is pretty much mined-out, though.
Maybe something about the various ways the word "faerie" was used in Elizabethan times, as Lewis discusses in The Discarded Image.
"[W]ithin the same island and the same century Spenser could compliment Elizabeth I by identifying her with the Faerie Queene and a woman could be burned at Edinburgh in 1576 for 'repairing with the fairies and the 'Queen of Elfame.'"(M. W. Latham, The Elizabethan Fairies (Columbia, 1940), p. 16, quoted in Lewis, The Discarded Image, p. 124.)
Or the various versions of magic according to Renaissance literature, including demonology and academic magic. "In his volume of the Oxford History of English Literature, he explains the difference between magia, high or "white" magic, such as we encounter in Merlin or Bercilek, which is associated with the world of Faerie, and goeteia, black magic, associated with witchcraft and Faustian contracts with the devil. But having made the distinction, Lewis adds that most sixteenth-century writers, including King James himself (who published his Demonology in 1597) condemned all kinds of magic as a snare, warning that even "white magic" was a danger to the soul (7-8)."
Or maybe something about David Lodge's novel Small World...
Regardless of what I do my Spenser paper on, I'm still on track to get my M.A. at the end of 2007 -- or whenever I finish my thesis, whichever comes first. And I'm also on track to teach undergraduates starting this fall.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Interesting Times
This is the "Letter of Intent" that I submitted to the Department of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University.
“You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls! What is wrong with you?” -----Jon Stewart
At first glance it seems incongruous that I want to get my Master’s degree in political science at Florida Atlantic University, since my primary interests are in political theory (especially ideology) and American politics and I take a qualitative approach, while FAU’s political science department emphasizes international relations and comparative politics, and quantitative methodology, but the incongruity is perhaps more apparent than real.
Based on my experiences so far, I believe graduate work at FAU offers me an opportunity to learn the most in those areas where I am weakest while still pursuing my primary specialties, particularly through independent study. In addition, I appreciate FAU’s balance of emphasis between research and teaching, since I enjoy doing both of these equally. (I also intend to pursue a Ph.D. in political science; my first choice is the University of Chicago.)
But my interest in political science is far more than strictly academic, if you will pardon the pun. I want to have a major positive impact on the world. With all due respect to research and teaching, my aspiration is become a “public intellectual” -- my role-models are Thomas Friedman, James Fallows, George Lakoff, Matthew Miller, Charles Murray, and Bruce Ackerman: people who write popular columns, host political discussion shows, or write books such as Moral Politics and Don’t Think of an Elephant, Losing Ground and In Our Hands, and The Stakeholder Society and Before the Next Attack. These are bold visions of radical change. Like Robert Kennedy (and George Bernard Shaw) I don’t just want to see things as they are and simply ask why; I want to see things that never were and ask “Why not?”
We live in “interesting times,“ to quote the ancient Chinese witticism. The “public intellectuals” Ph.D. program is a recognition of the fact that an article in Atlantic, Harper’s, or The New Republic will have more influence on policy than will one in a peer-reviewed academic journal; I’m not sure if it recognizes the fact that more people get their news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report than from The New York Times or any broadcast network, or the political influence of fiction such as South Park and Borat. Even the government’s own threat-assessors are “channeling Tom Clancy.”
FAU is the only university in North America which offers a graduate degree in English with a specialization in science fiction and fantasy literature, and I intend to pursue that degree as well as one in political science. But speculative fiction has been used to address political issues since long before H. G. Wells worked with the Fabians; depending on how one defines it, the tradition of political science fiction and fantasy goes back to either Thomas More’s Utopia or to Plato's philosophical fables of Atlantis and the Ring of Gyges. When truth becomes stranger than fiction, shouldn’t fiction return the favor?
References
Ackerman, Bruce A. 2006. Before The Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism. New Haven: Yale.
Ackerman, Bruce A., and Anne Alstott. 2000. The Stakeholder Society. New Haven: Yale.
Anderson, Brian C. 2005. South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias. Washington, D.C.: Regnery.
Anderson, Brian C. 2005. “South Park Republicans,” The Dallas Morning News, 17 April. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_dmn_southpark_reps.htm
CNN Crossfire. 2004. “Jon Stewart’s America.” 15 October.
Katz, Marisa. 2006. “Novel Approach: Terrorism as Pulp,” The New Republic. 06 November. <http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061106&s=katz110606>
Lakoff, George. 2004. Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate -- The Essential Handbook for Progressives. New York: Chelsea Green.
Lakoff, George. 2002. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: University Press.
Lakoff, George. 2006. Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea. New York: Farrar.
Murray, Charles. 2006. In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State. Washington, D.C.: AEI.
Murray, Charles. 1986. Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980. New York: Basic Books.
Miller, Matthew. 2003. The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America’s Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love. New York: Public Affairs.
Pinker, Steven. 2006. "Block that Metaphor!" The New Republic. 09 October. <http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061009&s=pinker100906>
Satin, Mark. 2004. Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now. Boulder: Westview.
WorldNetDaily. 2006. “No Joke: ’Daily Show’ Substantive as Network News.” 5 October.
“You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls! What is wrong with you?” -----Jon Stewart
At first glance it seems incongruous that I want to get my Master’s degree in political science at Florida Atlantic University, since my primary interests are in political theory (especially ideology) and American politics and I take a qualitative approach, while FAU’s political science department emphasizes international relations and comparative politics, and quantitative methodology, but the incongruity is perhaps more apparent than real.
Based on my experiences so far, I believe graduate work at FAU offers me an opportunity to learn the most in those areas where I am weakest while still pursuing my primary specialties, particularly through independent study. In addition, I appreciate FAU’s balance of emphasis between research and teaching, since I enjoy doing both of these equally. (I also intend to pursue a Ph.D. in political science; my first choice is the University of Chicago.)
But my interest in political science is far more than strictly academic, if you will pardon the pun. I want to have a major positive impact on the world. With all due respect to research and teaching, my aspiration is become a “public intellectual” -- my role-models are Thomas Friedman, James Fallows, George Lakoff, Matthew Miller, Charles Murray, and Bruce Ackerman: people who write popular columns, host political discussion shows, or write books such as Moral Politics and Don’t Think of an Elephant, Losing Ground and In Our Hands, and The Stakeholder Society and Before the Next Attack. These are bold visions of radical change. Like Robert Kennedy (and George Bernard Shaw) I don’t just want to see things as they are and simply ask why; I want to see things that never were and ask “Why not?”
We live in “interesting times,“ to quote the ancient Chinese witticism. The “public intellectuals” Ph.D. program is a recognition of the fact that an article in Atlantic, Harper’s, or The New Republic will have more influence on policy than will one in a peer-reviewed academic journal; I’m not sure if it recognizes the fact that more people get their news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report than from The New York Times or any broadcast network, or the political influence of fiction such as South Park and Borat. Even the government’s own threat-assessors are “channeling Tom Clancy.”
FAU is the only university in North America which offers a graduate degree in English with a specialization in science fiction and fantasy literature, and I intend to pursue that degree as well as one in political science. But speculative fiction has been used to address political issues since long before H. G. Wells worked with the Fabians; depending on how one defines it, the tradition of political science fiction and fantasy goes back to either Thomas More’s Utopia or to Plato's philosophical fables of Atlantis and the Ring of Gyges. When truth becomes stranger than fiction, shouldn’t fiction return the favor?
References
Ackerman, Bruce A. 2006. Before The Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in an Age of Terrorism. New Haven: Yale.
Ackerman, Bruce A., and Anne Alstott. 2000. The Stakeholder Society. New Haven: Yale.
Anderson, Brian C. 2005. South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias. Washington, D.C.: Regnery.
Anderson, Brian C. 2005. “South Park Republicans,” The Dallas Morning News, 17 April. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_dmn_southpark_reps.htm
CNN Crossfire. 2004. “Jon Stewart’s America.” 15 October.
Katz, Marisa. 2006. “Novel Approach: Terrorism as Pulp,” The New Republic. 06 November. <http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061106&s=katz110606>
Lakoff, George. 2004. Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate -- The Essential Handbook for Progressives. New York: Chelsea Green.
Lakoff, George. 2002. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: University Press.
Lakoff, George. 2006. Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea. New York: Farrar.
Murray, Charles. 2006. In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State. Washington, D.C.: AEI.
Murray, Charles. 1986. Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980. New York: Basic Books.
Miller, Matthew. 2003. The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America’s Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love. New York: Public Affairs.
Pinker, Steven. 2006. "Block that Metaphor!" The New Republic. 09 October. <http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061009&s=pinker100906>
Satin, Mark. 2004. Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now. Boulder: Westview.
WorldNetDaily. 2006. “No Joke: ’Daily Show’ Substantive as Network News.” 5 October.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Thesis to Pieces
I notice that a lot of other graduate students blog about their schoolwork, so I'm going to do the same. Right now I'm working on an overdue paper for ENG 5018 (Literary Criticism I, Professor Martin) analyzing roleplaying games -- real roleplaying games, not video or computer games that *call* themselves roleplaying games but really aren't -- as a form of improvisational theater. (I don't think this counts, for the opposite reason: it's roleplaying but not a game.)
I. Introduction
Literary theory and criticism is conventionally assumed to deal with the written word, i.e., with stories, novels, and poems; but it also deals with other forms of literature including theater. In fact, the earliest examples of literary criticism, Plato's _Ion_ and _Republic_ and Aristotle's _Poetics_, deal with theater, the famous "classical Greek drama." In addition, contemporary literary theory and criticism deals with other media such as films, radio, television, performance art, and now even the Internet.
Roleplaying games are a new art form and a new medium. Therefore it is appropriate to apply literary theory to roleplaying games. Conventionally, roleplaying games are generally classified as a form of fantasy literature; in essence, they are lumped in with standard stories and novels. To quote an early article from Different Worlds magazine, the assumption is that "If someone wrote down everything that happened in one of our Dungeons & Dragons games, it would make a pretty good fantasy story." A standard definition (courtesy of White Wolf Game Studio) describes roleplaying games as "collaborative storytelling."
My thesis is that, because of the interactive, multi-player nature of the games it is more useful to treat them as a form of collaborative improvisational theater. This is true for standard "tabletop" roleplaying games as well as live-action roleplaying games (LARPs). A roleplaying game can be defined, quite simply, as a form of collaborative improvisational theater in which each actor (player) plays a single character, while the gamemaster/referee/dungeonmaster plays all the other characters. (27=1 p.)
In this paper I intend to follow this theory by attempting to analyze roleplaying games as theater, using classical literary theory (Plato and Aristotle) as well as Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories" and Lewis' "On Science Fiction." If I have time, I also intend to use Michael Moorcock's book Wizardry and Wild Romance and Ursula LeGuin's The Language of the Night. Finally, I will look at some of the new critical theories that have been developed specifically to deal with roleplaying games, including the Fourfold Way and GNS Theory.
There have been other attempts to study roleplaying games using critical theory; some examples include Role Playing Games As Culture and The Roleplaying Game: A New Performing Art as well as Man, Play, and Games which deals with games in general as well as "social simulation games" in particular; but as far as I know it is the only attempt which is done using literary theory, as opposed to some other form of critical theory.
II. Roleplaying Games as Theatre
Andrew Rilstone provides a concise definition of roleplaying games: "A role-playing game is a formalized verbal interaction between a referee and a player or players, with the intention of producing a narrative."
Perhaps the best way to understand roleplaying games is to define them as improvisational theater, much like the commedia cell'arte. Each of the participants plays the part of a single major character, except for the gamemaster (also known as a “referee” or “storyteller” or occasionally other terms based on the specific game – for example, West End Games’ Tales From the Crypt calls the gamemaster the “Crypt-Keeper”) who plays all the other characters as well as describing the scenery and directing the overall plot. (Some roleplaying games vary this in trivial ways; for example, players may be allowed to portray more than one character at a time, or the gamemaster may be assisted by one or more assistants who help portray the non-protagonist characters). (The difference between a conventional "tabletop" roleplaying game and a live-action roleplaying game [LARP] is that in the former, the actions of the characters are described rather than acted-out -- like the difference between radio theater and conventional theater.)
What distinguishes roleplaying games from other forms of improvisation, and forms part of their essential definition, is that the improvisations are performed within the limits set by the rules or “game mechanics” of the particular game. These rules, like the rules of any conventional game, are used to resolve disputes. For example, if two characters are in physical combat, the rules determine which one is victorious; if a player declares that his character undertakes some non-trivial action such as jumping over a chasm, picking someone’s pocket, or disarming a bomb, the rules determine the outcome – how far he can jump, whether his crime is detected, whether the bomb is disarmed or detonates.
III. Classical Greek Theories of Drama
Aristotle defines poetry (including theater) and other arts in terms of their medium, mode, and object; Under the category of object, Aristotle lists three of the components of tragedy: plot (the representation of the actions of the characters), character (the representation of the personalities of the characters), and thought (the representation of the intellectual processes of the characters as well as the values and beliefs articulated in the play.
The medium of a role-playing game is primarily speech, varying between “in-character” (spoken directly by the characters) and “out-of-character” (narration of the character’s actions, or other exposition); but many roleplaying games also include either physical activity miming or acting out a character’s behavior, or small-scale miniature figures to depict the scene.
The mode is delivery by the individual participants; stereotypically the gamemaster describes the scene and each player describes the reaction of their character, generally in turn according to the character’s speed or “initiative” according to the rules; at the end of the turn the cycle repeats. This directly corresponds to Aristotle’s comparison of telling a story with a single voice, reciting the Iliad in several voices, and having several actors.
The object of roleplaying games can be any protagonist, but generally they are much as China Mieville described them in Perdido Street Station: "They were immediately and absolutely recognisable as adventurers[...]They were hardy and dangerous, lawless, stripped of allegiance or morality, living off their wits, stealing and killing, hiring themselves out to whoever or whatever came. They were inspired by dubious virtues.[...]They were scum who died violent deaths, hanging on to a certain cachet among the impressionable through their undeniable bravery and their occassionally impressive exploits."
The correspondences with classical theater continue; for example, the gamemaster’s portrayal of the non-protagonist characters (NPCs) in the game corresponds exactly to the role of the chorus. Other features (courtesy of Wikipedia) include:
* Deus ex machina, a crane that gave the impression of a flying actor
* Trap doors, or similar openings in the ground to lift people onto the stage
* Pinakes, pictures hung into the scene to show a scene's scenery.
* Thyromata, more complex pictures built into the second-level scene (3rd level from ground)
Each of these has a clear corresponding element in roleplaying games.
Plato said that poets are dangerous to society; and exactly the same criticisms apply to roleplaying games -- and in fact have been applied, by groups such as B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons)! According to Plato poets are disorderly and chaotic because they are inspired by the Muses (rather than being governed by conscious logic), are emotional in their performances, and thereby inspire dangerous emotions in their audience; according to B.A.D.D., some roleplayers are so obsessed or overwhelmed by the game that they commit suicide when it goes badly for them. Plato also claimed that poets encourage disrespect for authority by depicting rulers and gods as having flaws, or even as figures of fun; certainly the same occurs quite often in roleplaying games. (One example from a roleplaying game of my own is the Governor of Sensak, who is based on the vigilante Judge Roy Bean.)
Plato also said that poetry encourages bad behavior by depicting vice and/or "persons of low character" which gives the audience ideas about imitating their deeds, especially when they are depicted as heroes. Roleplaying games are filled with characters who are rogues, criminals, cowards, and tomb robbers; in fact, one of the "core" or primary character types in Dungeons & Dragons is the "rogue" or "thief" character class, and it is even possible to play a professional assassin! Of course, B.A.D.D. has claimed several different cases in which teenagers were supposedly inspired to commit crimes because they played Dungeons & Dragons and wanted to "act out" these deeds, just like children (at least according to urban legend) once jumped off rooftops with bath towels as capes, in imitation of Superman.
Finally, to Plato, poets and dramatists are merely third-hand imitators, as opposed to real craftsmen, such as those who make chariots; and fantasists are even worse -- they are liars because their stories are false, and in some cases impossible. Similarly, Ursula LeGuin has pointed out in "Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?" contemporary fantasists are also pilloried because their works are "impractical" (i.e., not about success in business) and "unrealistic" (because they deal with ideals, and a better world than our own); and the same sort of criticisms are often levied about roleplaying games and those who play them. And just as Plato wished to see poetry banned from the Republic, there was also a movement to prohibit roleplaying games.
Aristotle disagreed with Plato on all of these points, and his defense of poetry and classical Greek theater can also be applied directly to roleplaying games.
(1) D&D games (and other literature) can be socially useful because they produce catharsis, so the players and audience don't need to get those emotions from real actions/events;
(2) they can inspire virtue by depicting heroism and nobility in a positive light;
(3) they can prevent vice by depicting it and "persons of inferior character" in a negative light, either seriously showing the problems caused by such behavior or by using comedy to mock such persons so everyone will want to avoid emulating them (thus providing a stick to the carrot of point #2);
(4) they are actually closer to the Mind of God (or the Platonic forms) by acting _in imitatio Dei_ to create something superior to the fallen (real) world;
(5) they may be false in the particulars, but can demonstrate important "higher truths" of human nature or other concepts. (+130=5pp)
IV. 20th-Century Theories of Fantasy
In "On Fairy Stories," J. R. R. Tolkien discusses fantasy fiction. This essay is of course a classic, and its principles can be applied to the analysis of other media besides the written story and the oral folk tale; for example, to fantasy films, theater, and to roleplaying games.
In the essay, Professor Tolkien defines fairy stories as stories about the adventures of mortal men in -- that is, their interaction and relationship with -- the "perilous realm" of faerie, i.e. the supernatural. He also sketches the principles behind the concept of world-building -- what Tolkien calls "sub-creation" -- which certainly apply to the creation of settings for roleplaying games!
Again to quote Tolkien, "a 'fairy-story' is one which touches on or uses Faerie," a term which in turn "may perhaps be most nearly translated by Magic--but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific magician." This is in stark contrast with the practical thaumaturgy of most characters in most _Dungeons & Dragons_ games! These player-characters are generally examples of the "greed for self-centered power which is the mark of the mere Magician" rather than the enchanter (storyteller or dungeon-master).
In Tolkien's opinion, the world depicted, although it has supernatural elements -- perhaps even because of this (quote about how Magic must not be satirized) -- must be consistent and rational. This sort of logic and consistency allows "Secondary Belief" or "willing suspension of disbelief" in the Secondary World, which is absolutely necessary for enchantment.
"Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted."
This allows us to see aspects of our own world with a different perspective: "It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine."
This enchantment is the true purpose of the fantasy story: "The magic of Faerie is not an end in itself; its virtue is in its operations; among these are the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires. One of these desires is to survey the depths of space and time. Another is (as will be seen) to hold communion with other living things." "To the Elvish craft, Enchantment, Fantasy aspires, and when it is successful of all forms of human art most nearly approaches."
Tolkien also, following Aristotle, discusses the practical psychological benefits of fantasy fiction -- specifically, the creation of the psychological states of "Recovery," "Consolation," and "Escape."
V. Theories Developed Explicitly for Gaming
The two most prominent theories developed specifically to analyze roleplaying games are known as "The Fourfold Way" and "GNS Theory." There have been several other theories developed, but all are either less-prominent, less-well-developed, or simply derivative variations of one of these two primary theories.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Witness *This*
Yesterday while I was on campus at FAU (where I am a graduate student) I noticed someone preaching in the quad. He had attracted a crowd of students, many of whom were heckling him, and I noticed he was wearing a sandwich board that said (among other things) "GOD HATES SIN" in big letters.
As a fellow-Christian, I think a better approach would have been to wear something that said "GOD LOVES YOU" in big letters, as the primary message. We already have enough trouble reaching people, thanx to nuts like Fred Phelps (who will most definitely go to Hell when he dies, or at best to purgatory).
As a fellow-Christian, I think a better approach would have been to wear something that said "GOD LOVES YOU" in big letters, as the primary message. We already have enough trouble reaching people, thanx to nuts like Fred Phelps (who will most definitely go to Hell when he dies, or at best to purgatory).
Saturday, December 16, 2006
WHY I'M TRYING COSTCO AND LEAVING SAM'S CLUB, AT LEAST TEMPORARILY
I've used Sam's Club for four years now, and generally been extremely satisfied with them. In particular, I love the way I can order groceries online so they are waiting for me when I come to pick them up. It's like something out of the future as predicted in the 1970's!
Unfortunately, they are having some absolutely awful problems with their website, both the pages on the site and the registration/account system. Here is the email I sent them about why I'm reluctantly and unhappily leaving Sam's Club and trying Costco until they fix those problems:
To: mserve@samsclub.com
Subject:
WHY ARE YOU MAKING IT SO HARD FOR PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU MONEY?
I always used Sam's Club until now, but due to the severe problems (which I
reported on the phone) with your website and also with my registration, I plan
to try Costco until these problems are resolved.
I also plan to put this information -- including the details of the problems and
my decision to try Costco -- on my blog.
I hope that you can fix the problems with your website and also with my
registration.
As a reminder, these problems are:
1. Every product is listed as unavailable in Club #8140.
2. In "Shop By Category," in every category, the top three rows of
sub-categories (which are the ones that got covered by those annoying pop-up
advertisements) are not clickable, even after the pop-up advertisement finally
goes away.
3. When I got a replacement card (because my old card was lost), the website
forced me to re-register AND choose a new email address AND it no longer has
access to my click-and-pull lists.
These are the sort of problems I expect from webpages done by
high school students who have not mastered HTML.
I know that Sam's Club is not a cheap fly-by-night organization
that can't afford to hire competent people as webmasters, so
I assume there is some other reason why your webmasters are
apparently so incompetent. I'm just *really* curious what that
explanation could be.
John Fast
P.S.: When I tried to send this using the "E-mail Sam's Club" feature
on your website I got a "severe error" message, so I'm sending this by regular
email. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, they are having some absolutely awful problems with their website, both the pages on the site and the registration/account system. Here is the email I sent them about why I'm reluctantly and unhappily leaving Sam's Club and trying Costco until they fix those problems:
To: mserve@samsclub.com
Subject:
WHY ARE YOU MAKING IT SO HARD FOR PEOPLE TO GIVE YOU MONEY?
I always used Sam's Club until now, but due to the severe problems (which I
reported on the phone) with your website and also with my registration, I plan
to try Costco until these problems are resolved.
I also plan to put this information -- including the details of the problems and
my decision to try Costco -- on my blog.
I hope that you can fix the problems with your website and also with my
registration.
As a reminder, these problems are:
1. Every product is listed as unavailable in Club #8140.
2. In "Shop By Category," in every category, the top three rows of
sub-categories (which are the ones that got covered by those annoying pop-up
advertisements) are not clickable, even after the pop-up advertisement finally
goes away.
3. When I got a replacement card (because my old card was lost), the website
forced me to re-register AND choose a new email address AND it no longer has
access to my click-and-pull lists.
These are the sort of problems I expect from webpages done by
high school students who have not mastered HTML.
I know that Sam's Club is not a cheap fly-by-night organization
that can't afford to hire competent people as webmasters, so
I assume there is some other reason why your webmasters are
apparently so incompetent. I'm just *really* curious what that
explanation could be.
John Fast
P.S.: When I tried to send this using the "E-mail Sam's Club" feature
on your website I got a "severe error" message, so I'm sending this by regular
email. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it?
Thursday, November 23, 2006
From "What RPG Player (Not Character) Type Are You?"
"You scored as Storyteller.
The Storyteller is in it for the plot: the sense of mystery and the fun of participating in a narrative that has the satisfying arc of a good book or movie. He enjoys interacting with well-defined NPCs, even preferring antagonists who have genuine motivations and personality to mere monsters. To the Storyteller, the greatest reward of the game is participating in a compelling story with interesting and unpredictable plot threads, in which his actions and those of his fellow characters determine the resolution. With apologies to Robin Laws.
Storyteller 90%
Tactician 85%
Specialist 85%
Character Player 55%
Casual Gamer 50%
Power Gamer 15%
Weekend Warrior 10%"
Courtesy of CharlesRyan who created the quiz,
Rob Laws who created the system of classification,
Hank Harwell who mentioned it on the
Christian Gamers' Guild (in their Yahoogroup),
and the late Glenn Blacow, the greatest gamemaster
in the world, who first came up with the idea of
classifying games and players, may he rest in peace.
BTW, more information on player styles, using Rob's
classification, is in the Dungeon Master's Guide II
and in Dungeon Master (sic) for Dummies.
"You scored as Storyteller.
The Storyteller is in it for the plot: the sense of mystery and the fun of participating in a narrative that has the satisfying arc of a good book or movie. He enjoys interacting with well-defined NPCs, even preferring antagonists who have genuine motivations and personality to mere monsters. To the Storyteller, the greatest reward of the game is participating in a compelling story with interesting and unpredictable plot threads, in which his actions and those of his fellow characters determine the resolution. With apologies to Robin Laws.
Storyteller 90%
Tactician 85%
Specialist 85%
Character Player 55%
Casual Gamer 50%
Power Gamer 15%
Weekend Warrior 10%"
Courtesy of CharlesRyan who created the quiz,
Rob Laws who created the system of classification
Hank Harwell
Christian Gamers' Guild (in their Yahoogroup),
and the late Glenn Blacow, the greatest gamemaster
in the world, who first came up with the idea of
classifying games and players, may he rest in peace.
BTW, more information on player styles, using Rob's
classification, is in the Dungeon Master's Guide II
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Real War for Real Men
Why a real war on terrorism brings out the best in us. By Robert Wright - Slate Magazine
I've been in love with Robert Wright's brilliance ever since I read his article on sociobiology, "Why Men Are Such Beasts," in my favorite neoliberal mag, The New Republic. This series is an excellent idea for strategy for a *real* war on terrorism, not the counterproductive fiasco that the Dubya administration is trying to pass off as one. (For the record, I supported the invasion of AghanIraq, but not the occupation.)
I've been in love with Robert Wright's brilliance ever since I read his article on sociobiology, "Why Men Are Such Beasts," in my favorite neoliberal mag, The New Republic. This series is an excellent idea for strategy for a *real* war on terrorism, not the counterproductive fiasco that the Dubya administration is trying to pass off as one. (For the record, I supported the invasion of AghanIraq, but not the occupation.)
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