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With respect to the so-called "paralysis of analysis," in the words of Hedley Lamarr:My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.I haven't lost interest in offering my interpretation of current events, but I've been temporarily exhausted by the effort. From the peanut gallery where I've watched the world turn for more than 5.5 decades, current events are simply unprecedented. Therefore, they are inexplicable from my conventional perspective and analytical framework. Part of my problem, and maybe yours, too, if you have one, is that there are too many sensational data points to comprehend. Analysis --- the process of understanding a large, complex whole by breaking it into smaller, comprehensible parts --- fails us as our daily experience becomes an atomistic horrorshow of disturbing factoids lashed around by Big Lies that are driving half of us to insanity and the other half to impotence. And those factoids, of course, are served up fresh every day by Big Media, and they inflame even those of us who keep our distance from mass media.
During my relative silence here I've been trying to synthesize a big picture or long view that might begin to account for the actual or imminent failure of every major institution this country has evolved over 2.5 centuries. Without abandoning any well considered opinions I've offered here, I've become certain that the die for this epoch was cast 30 years ago and we're now well under way toward Destination: Inevitable, wherever and whenever that may be located. I've been trying to elevate my inquiries to many levels above Mr. President Jelly Bean because I don't believe that America ever was or ever will be all about Him, his homespun values, or his worship of The Corporation as the ultimate organizing principle of society. History will view him as the vulgar homewrecker of U.S. constitutional democracy. I can't see myself disowning those opinions outside of a torture chamber, yet our modern history is no more sacred than the history of the Roman Empire, or Egyptian antiquity, or the rise and fall of Native American civilization. All of us are vessels (or flotsam, take your pick) in a tide of global history, and the tide happens to be rushing out toward the unimaginable ends of the Flat Earth. But it will well up again, after 50 years, or 100, or 200 --- maybe 400 if Western history is any indicator.
Synthesis is where I'm headed; I'm asking myself what this chaos might add up to if we try using a longer view of history to rise above the hurricane of scary-looking events. My first stop is 14th century Europe. Without reading some medieval European history, you'd have no idea how modern the 1300s look to us... or how medieval we look compared with, for example, The Enlightenment. That's where I'm headed for the moment.
Oh well said. I've been saying the same but with much less clarity. For years I've been wishing I could read the history books 100 years from now, and maybe more importantly, wishing the major bad guys could see how history is going to treat them. (So, I guess I do expect that things will eventually return to "normal.")
ReplyDeleteAnyway, how can one even hope to make progress when the whole damn country still thinks St. Ronald of Borax KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING!!! How can they not attribute at least half of this horror to his misguided, scripted presidency and his nearly criminal dismantling of the middle class? Where are the grownups? Where is the critical reasoning? The thoughtful media? WTF, in spades and doubled. How stupid are we? ( "I know! Let's do the same thing we've been doing for 40 years, even though it doesn't work and is actually doing harm. We must do it because of Ronald Fucking Reagan.")
Someone, somewhere is rubbing their hands with glee, looking at our pitiful collection of pundits, reporters and politicians, smiling, nodding and raking in the cash. Feeding the lies to their puppets, the puppets eating it up with relish (and mustard perhaps) and spitting it out into the insatiable media machine.
So, yes indeed, too many sensational data points to comprehend. I am ready to give up. Fiddle while Rome burns and what not. I am both insane AND impotent and don't see a way out. And as you say, we might still be (at least) 50 years away from the restoration of reason. Pass the wine.
data points? How does one discern a data point from noise or dust? How does a person (or society) navigate by stars when they're under banks of floodlights.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be interesting is if this is something noticed by people in other countries/cultures now. Maybe some of your Chinese, Indonesian, or Indian readers can fill us in.
If we are to finger point, we have to look at how The Gipper got into power in the first place. He got in because the guy before him killed an economy and had 18% interest rates. And the guy before him was a crook who got run out of town on a rail.
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget that there is plenty of blame to go around. A long time ago generations far far away, we settled for the lessor of two evils and it has caught up to us bigtime.
I'll never see it in my lifetime, but I wonder what it must have been like to have voted for my neighbor and sent him to Washington, knowing he'd be back in time for the harvest?
Somewhere along the lines our system got corrupted, and spread some God awful virus like a plague that has gone terribly out of control. There is no turning back.
"...Thank you Sir, can I have another??..."
Thoughts for possible improved comprehension (or not):
ReplyDelete1. wrt floodlights, turn off the Big Media screaming in your ears -- allows for actual, um, thought
2. look behind the throne, which Goldman Sachs related aide is involved (or other profit motivated interests before or after La Gip and Dixon's favorite son)
3. "Ill Fares The Land" Tony Judt (perhaps -- haven't read yet)
4. look for cause/effect with more than 6 months between....ie beyond the typical US attention span (quid pro quo deals, phased implementations, etc.)
5. listen/search for the "silence" (ie what's not being said or emphasized -- where the real dastardly deeds are being perpetrated out of the sunlight -- backward correlation could clarify typical m.o.)
6. always assume lies or half-truths and adjust from there
7. if you achieve Hari Seldon* like predicability LET ME KNOW (first preferably) (*Asimov ref)
8. realize that ALL politics is is attempts to favorably influence the allocation of scarce resources...hither and yon...for this or that good purpose or special interest...
9. realize that a latent fear of mass uprising or lesser backlashes often colors presentation and somewhat controls policy excesses (ie retain access to the addictive drug: P - O - W - E - R !)
10. collect screw ups/miscalculations/mistakes (and responses) as instuctive -- what is the current "Play Book"; what is the universal "Play Book"?
11. cross country comparisons (not skis or running)
12. age might equate to pessimism...even if true, adjust outlook? Any way to improve objectivity?
13. assuming your serious, be on look out for useful "buttons/levers" on the mechanistic mass psychological beast (useful for the bully pulpit "outside game" vs Beltway in-fighting)
14. reductionism alone might be inadequate....clouds vs clocks
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"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." and
"An onion can make people cry but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh."
Will Rogers
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Signed,
The Sardonic Bok Choy
O mister crutch, let's see your florid pen (keyboard) correct that youthful, inflation-phobic soft sentence above in a 'win/win' kind of way. Or with a burning rant-- its all good.
ReplyDeleteThese comments are confusing me...
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I just now, tonight, watched "Across the Universe" and it solved a lot of problems. Watch it and you will laugh, cry, sing, and think. There is also much wonder.
Sadly, I think there is much auto-tune.
don't worry. rubbercrutch will come on here soon and clear all of this up. After he sees what dickish things happen on this special day.
ReplyDeleteerrata (addition):
ReplyDelete15. historical continuity suggests special attention to La Pope and the H.R.Empire. Sans Divisions, however, like a combined parasite and communal symbiosis the influence has been ongoing since easily 800AD (Charlemagne of the Franks) to date. With THAT much history and practice the traces of influence may be fleeting and imperceptible (think indirect - though influence nonetheless). The only thing that might catch them out, temporarily, is slow adaptation to too rapid change.
S.B.Choy
Hey everybody: whereas my original post was at least a little off-kilter, communicationwise, I was really gratified and surprised that so many people reacted to it thoughtfully. You've given me about a month's worth of posting fodder, and all of it will help me develop my own thoughts. Here I'll make some quick replies to comments that won't be short-changed by my brevity:
ReplyDeleteBO: the data are hellishly noisy, which is why I'm looking for a valid framework for processing it that does not involve detailed analysis. However, it would be an amusing long-term project for some geeks to try building a simulation model (I'd suggest cellular automata, as made famous by Champaign hero and reputed dickhead Stephen Wolfram) that accounts for the 14 items referenced by Mr. Wet Bulb Thermodynamics, PhD. I'm looking for an asymmetric approach that operates at somewhat lower resolution and, therefore (hopefully), filters out the worst of the disinformation polluting the noisy data.
59er: your comment provokes lots of thought on my part, and I'll be writing about it at the top level as time permits.
Mr. Wet Bulb Thermodynamics, PhD: lots of good ideas, most of which I have incorporated to some degree. My point, which I didn't make well or support clearly, was that I don't find analytical approaches to be helpful due to the limitations of my mind and my time to study everything deeply. Therefore, I'm looking for a valid framework to attack the problem asymmetrically. Not seeking any firm predictive power, just sufficient understanding and perspective to avoid metastatic pessimism, and also to consider how history's survivors have survived ages of ignorance and disorder.
Gurlitzer: it is sometimes my duty, but always my pleasure, to provide value-added commentary on the words of Le Roi de Cat-ions, Charlemallow. He is suggesting a number of analytical principles that are often useful in disambiguating emergent complexity. I'll take a crack at extending his comments soon.