To the nascent naturalist
On craggy coast and yeasty shore
Philosophers have walked the lonely walk before
The deadliest view of the living sound
Primeval slush to the horizon unbound.
Two decades old, no need for a stroller
No need to grow two decades older
The ice plant sucks salt from the rock
The surf, the gulls — a ticking clock.
To the nascent naturalist
She speaks in tongues
With a breath of mystery
She fills his lungs
He coughs up questions and answers.
Salty absurdity as his hammer
To the rock he pins a foundation of lectures
Till he’s built around him four broad walls
A sturdy home of queries, conjectures
With a weary sigh he surveys his tribute
Relishing proudly its perfected angles
Four broad walls and not a window to breathe through
The vine whose roots the branches strangle.
In convoluted sentential tangles
He digs and prays for profound detection
But mystery remains at sea:
“Goodbye, perverted reflection.”
Atheist Advocacy
I’m becoming ever more interested in advocating the cause of atheism in America. Especially when I read quotes like this one from Katherine Harris:
We have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.
and when I see polls that report 53% of Americans say they would not vote for an atheist (10% more than the group that wouldn’t vote for a homosexual!). Maybe Obama knew about these figures when he joined Trinity United Church.
I acknowledge that being atheist is only like being a racial minority to the degree that intelligence is heritable. Regardless, I am starting to feel oppressed to the point that I think we need stronger atheist advocacy groups in this country. And with end times theology increasingly shaping American foreign policy, our safety may depend on it.
The End of the Return of History
…and the Death of the Throwback to Positivism.
Robert Kagan has been all over the media promoting his new book, The Return of History and the End of Dreams (dun dun dun…!). Based only on hearing him speak, I think I agree with the central thesis of his book, which is totally contra his earlier thought and pronounces a shocking death sentence to neoconservatism. Turns out democracy is NOT the inevitable manifestation of the perfect movement of history. (!) What a hilarious revelation, ironically reached five years after the inevitable movement of history accidentally moved the American military into Iraq! Mr. Kagan has finally realized, after founding the Project for the New American Century with William Kristol and laying various other groundwork for the divine global democratic nirvana that he envisioned after the Cold War, that we’re not living in 1880s Europe and history is not driven by teleological forces. “The End of Dreams” is apt — indeed, history has ended his.
Congratulations to Mr. Kagan for catching up with 1960s social theory. What he thinks of as “The Return of History” is, to me, the end of the return of history. Namely, it is the end of that return to the positivism of the Modern period — called neoconservatism — in which history was considered a science and liberal democracy as a force akin to gravity in the holy evolution of society. While the rest of the neocons continue on in their solipsistic worlds, at least Kagan is a realist enough to see the failure of his experiment in the science of history and accomodate his worldview accordingly.
City of Opportunity Declares Bankruptcy
Apparently, this is old news, but I don’t often follow local stories, so I just heard about it on the BBC world service…
I simply want to congratulate the City of Vallejo. In declaring chapter 9 bankruptcy, it has officially made the road sign that greets Highway 37 motorists as they enter (and mostly pass through) this forlorn municipality one of the world’s most ironic. It reads:
“Welcome to Vallejo: City of Opportunity”
I’ll get a picture next time I’m passing through, unless they’ve taken it down, which they probably should.
brewed five months
after the seminal urge that caused the first entry here, i was basically clueless vis-á-vis what to do with this thing. i am uncomfortable with the idea of chronicling my personal life here for fear that i’d inevitably try to embellish the events of my social résumé. therefore, i pledge never to write anything like this:
“I went to this fabulous gallery opening last night…”
i’m not going to write about who was there and i’m not going to recount the hilarious story about how my attractive friends and i were selected to model for a photoshoot where we drank free booze and sniffed cocaine off a lacquered bar in the gallery mezzanine. however, if during said episode i had an insight about the hidden regularities that characterize the preposterous ways we interact with one another, that might appear here.
so this blog will be a chronicle of ideas before that of events. and a chronicle indeed — ideas are no less rooted in time than the events that are their soil.
i’ll write about what i know and in this way make a record of what i’m learning. i’ll limit myself to things i think, with the harshest self-criticism, i know something about. i will avoid reiterations of the ubiquitous — saying what can be read anywhere. i’ll post photos and videos; if they’ve been seen before, i’ll try to say something new about them. this whole thing might just turn into notes on whatever book i’m reading.
in late October, 2007, Kevin Drew said from the stage at the Fillmore:
“Don’t get addicted to beginnings.”
idiotropic is my web log
for the purpose of indulging those immodest urges to publicize some of the writings that otherwise lay sequestered between the black covers of a moleskine. also, to remind me who i am.
whatever.
idiotropic - adj. - of or characterized by preoccupation with inner life [ORIGIN from Greek idios 'own, distinct' and tropos 'to turn']
