Friday, Jun 19, 2020
Homo Sapien has a lot to answer for. We seem to have mistakenly invented the idea of race. Now we must, somehow, get rid of the idea.
In our efforts to do away with racism, we first define it, and then empower it. We must not discriminate against journalists of color, for example. To insure that we are not discriminating against journalists of color, we hire
immediately a dozen of them to help us write articles and steer opinions
away from racism. But notice, we are now discriminating against whites,
by only hiring black journalists. We discriminate in order to fight
discrimination.
Maybe we have good discrimination and bad discrimination? Are we so set
in our minds that racism exists and can not be ignored that we must hire
only blacks to represent blacks? That no other-than-black journalist can
possibly write anti-racist material? Must we discriminate in order to
not discriminate?
I actually laugh at this. It just shows what messes we homo-sapiens get
ourselves into with our superior intelligence. I don't mean to imply
that I know the right answer to any of this. I don't even imply that
there is a right answer to this. I do suggest that somehow, sometime,
we have to completely stop noticing skin color in our dealings with our
fellow homo sapiens. It must be as meaningless as eye color or the
choice of drink in the espresso shop.
Back to the original problem of discrimination in order to stop
discrimination, if we limit our job offers to those we identify as
"black", then we run the risk of not hiring the best qualified for the
job. If we persist in this, eventually, I believe, we will reach the
stage where the best qualified will be "black" in exactly the same
proportion as those identified as "white". In other words, that black
and white no longer have any corresponding indication of competence, or
even of personality. Either we have "race" or we don't. If we do,
then let's recognize races and use the fact of race to our advantage as
a society. "Blacks" will do what blacks do best, and "whites" will do
whatever whites do best. If we don't have "race", then we select the
homo-sapien best for the job, period.
Unfortunately, for this to happen, the "blacks" must give up on being
black. That will take time and persuasion. The converse is also true,
of course. The "whites" will have to give up on being white. If there
is no black race, then there is no white race, nor is there any other
kind of race. The word race no longer has any meaning at all, unless
you are in one, getting all hot and sweaty running down a road wearing a
paper with a number on it on your shorts.
We can go back to the phrase, "The race of man," I suppose, once we
relieve the word of it's skin color and cultural inferences.
--Jim
Friday, June 19, 2020
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Waiting for 'Waiting For Godot"
Paula and I went to see Waiting for you-know-who last night. It was done with little ceremony at the Crystal Theatre and starred 5 fellows I've never heard of. They did it well, I think.
I went to the dress rehearsal-premier for $5 and a can of food for the food bank. Paying for the show was the last reasonable thing I engaged in. The actors performed magnificently. I have no position to take on the way they demonstrated what was to be demonstrated. Leave that for other more experienced and educated folks. I have enough trouble thinking about what they were demonstrating than how well they did it.
The play is absurdist. There really isn't much else to say for it. It was written in 1948, when Europe, at least, was really looking at life without a goal. They still remembered the War all too well, and had lost any confidence in most things, especially thoughts.
The play reminded me of Camus, of course. How could it not? And "huis clos" by Sartre. Remember him? He and Simone waited out the war in Paris and then wrote stirring calls to action and praise for the Résistance, all published safely after the war.
The play does make me think, however. As the existentialists say, there is no guiding principle in the universe. We are not here for some purpose. We did not ask to be here at all. Religion makes up a purpose to try to make us feel better about our absurd life, but Religion depends on ignorance. If you really think about things, Religion won't work, and you are left with absurdity.
Any principles of ethics are yours, personally, to decide on. If you do not decide, you have decided. You can not escape choosing what to do while waiting for Godot or anything else. You must live in the here and now and you must decide for yourself what you should be doing while you are waiting for the tomorrow that becomes today when the sun moves around the earth yet again. You can not decide to do nothing without ending your own consciousness, by suicide.
That, too, is of course, a decision and you alone are responsible for it. It isn' t necessarily a wrong decision, right and wrong can only be decided by you. Sartre calls Hell "les autres". Becket does not concern himself with Heaven and Hell, he seems to say that the here and now is the whole thing. You decide if it is Heaven or Hell or just now. You decide if it is good or bad.
You decide if you want to see this play again. I don't think I want to. Once is enough.
Paula and I went to see Waiting for you-know-who last night. It was done with little ceremony at the Crystal Theatre and starred 5 fellows I've never heard of. They did it well, I think.
I went to the dress rehearsal-premier for $5 and a can of food for the food bank. Paying for the show was the last reasonable thing I engaged in. The actors performed magnificently. I have no position to take on the way they demonstrated what was to be demonstrated. Leave that for other more experienced and educated folks. I have enough trouble thinking about what they were demonstrating than how well they did it.
The play is absurdist. There really isn't much else to say for it. It was written in 1948, when Europe, at least, was really looking at life without a goal. They still remembered the War all too well, and had lost any confidence in most things, especially thoughts.
The play reminded me of Camus, of course. How could it not? And "huis clos" by Sartre. Remember him? He and Simone waited out the war in Paris and then wrote stirring calls to action and praise for the Résistance, all published safely after the war.
The play does make me think, however. As the existentialists say, there is no guiding principle in the universe. We are not here for some purpose. We did not ask to be here at all. Religion makes up a purpose to try to make us feel better about our absurd life, but Religion depends on ignorance. If you really think about things, Religion won't work, and you are left with absurdity.
Any principles of ethics are yours, personally, to decide on. If you do not decide, you have decided. You can not escape choosing what to do while waiting for Godot or anything else. You must live in the here and now and you must decide for yourself what you should be doing while you are waiting for the tomorrow that becomes today when the sun moves around the earth yet again. You can not decide to do nothing without ending your own consciousness, by suicide.
That, too, is of course, a decision and you alone are responsible for it. It isn' t necessarily a wrong decision, right and wrong can only be decided by you. Sartre calls Hell "les autres". Becket does not concern himself with Heaven and Hell, he seems to say that the here and now is the whole thing. You decide if it is Heaven or Hell or just now. You decide if it is good or bad.
You decide if you want to see this play again. I don't think I want to. Once is enough.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
One very good way to cause fear and dread in the hearts of the Average American is to have a terrorist attack. There have been calls for the president's failure. There have been dire predictions of more and better (worse?) terrorist attacks. More attacks will allow the "out" party to accuse the "in" party of betraying the country, being soft on this and that, and causing pain and death ot Average Americans. They might get away with it. So how does one promote a terrorist attack?
One could people who might want to commit an act of terrorism. Give them the information they might possibly want to blow up a helicopter, for instance. Let them download the information from a defense contractor's computer via a peer to peer network nominally used for music exchanges.
If such acts were sufficient to produce war, the defense contractor would receive much money for helping fight the war. So helping our possible enemies is good business practice for our defense industry in general and, of course, our military.
Even if they did not produce war, they would greatly aid the "out" party to get back "in" . Strong motivation for both groups, military and political.
One could people who might want to commit an act of terrorism. Give them the information they might possibly want to blow up a helicopter, for instance. Let them download the information from a defense contractor's computer via a peer to peer network nominally used for music exchanges.
If such acts were sufficient to produce war, the defense contractor would receive much money for helping fight the war. So helping our possible enemies is good business practice for our defense industry in general and, of course, our military.
Even if they did not produce war, they would greatly aid the "out" party to get back "in" . Strong motivation for both groups, military and political.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Bang the Drum Slowly
Bang the Drum Slowly, a play put on by MCT.
Paula and I, Paul and Barb, went to see it on Saturday
night. I didn't like it.
For one thing, I couldn't hear it. There was no sound system used, and although I could hear the voices, especially the narrator, I could not make out many of the words. He was too far away to lip read.
Scene Changes:
The play went by in a long series of scene changes. Each scene lasted less than a minute, and 10 seconds was not unusual. Machinery was in motion almost constantly, objects sliding out onto the stage and a three part rotating platform which changed while the narrator continued to explain what was going on. I never got confused, but my mind never got a chance to get used to where we were (Locker room, bed room, bar, ...)
Symbolism:
Everything was done with absolute minimum of props and scenery. A bar was a bar because it had two high small tables and four tall red-vinyl chairs and a dummy bar. It had no walls, no bottles, no noise. But this did not prevent anyone from knowing instantly that they were in a bar. Very good symbols were chosen, the acting was perfect, but after a while you got the idea that you were watching an animated comic book or a real jumpy video. The effect was very well done, and I didn't like it at all.
False Locker Room Talk:
I've been around men's locker rooms and other places where uneducated, violent, immature manhood have collected. I did my 20 years in the Army. I didn't like the verbal, and sometimes physical, grab-ass and bullshit talk that goes on constantly. The profanity is constant in such places, scatological, sexual, abusive, depressing and violent talk. Had they done the scene correctly, I would have walked out of the theater. So they cleaned it up. The problem with cleaning it up is that it becomes so completely unbelievable that I can't follow the conversations at all. The man talk was like nothing I have ever heard. It might as well been in some other language.
One of the primary points the play seemed to be making was that Real Men do not show their feelings directly. Indeed they didn't in this play. They hid them so well that I, for one, never found out what any of them felt about anything, and never could tell one player from another. They seemed to be a dozen copies of the same very strange clean-talking semi-male.
Too Fast:
The play was supposed to be filled with machinations and complications, lies and subterfuges, designed to keep a secret and gradually expose it to the other actors one at a time. In each case, there was to be a reaction, and some reflection, and some acceptance, and some change in behavior.
The play went by far too fast for any of that to happen. It was the usual modern production, take a novel which takes days if not weeks to read and absorb, cram it into three hours of acting, and speed everything up to an hour and a half. If I had read the novel, discussed the novel, discussed the play, and saw the play over and over for a period of time, say a year, I would "get" what was being presented. But why should I have to do that? I really am not that interested in the topic. The play should stand alone and explain itself, and this one, like a lot of modern ones, does not do that. It becomes an inside job. Only the actors and the crew know what it all means. In any case, it went by too fast for me to understand it.
So I go away thinking I have seen a very well rehearsed, very well acted, very well constructed, very well delivered production which I wouldn't walk across the street to ever see again. I'm just not smart enough, or sophisticated enough, or well-read enough, or quick enough to appreciate what I saw. Bring back "Oklahoma". I understood Oklahoma, and have seen it all my life. I could even understand the dialog.
Paula and I, Paul and Barb, went to see it on Saturday
night. I didn't like it.
For one thing, I couldn't hear it. There was no sound system used, and although I could hear the voices, especially the narrator, I could not make out many of the words. He was too far away to lip read.
Scene Changes:
The play went by in a long series of scene changes. Each scene lasted less than a minute, and 10 seconds was not unusual. Machinery was in motion almost constantly, objects sliding out onto the stage and a three part rotating platform which changed while the narrator continued to explain what was going on. I never got confused, but my mind never got a chance to get used to where we were (Locker room, bed room, bar, ...)
Symbolism:
Everything was done with absolute minimum of props and scenery. A bar was a bar because it had two high small tables and four tall red-vinyl chairs and a dummy bar. It had no walls, no bottles, no noise. But this did not prevent anyone from knowing instantly that they were in a bar. Very good symbols were chosen, the acting was perfect, but after a while you got the idea that you were watching an animated comic book or a real jumpy video. The effect was very well done, and I didn't like it at all.
False Locker Room Talk:
I've been around men's locker rooms and other places where uneducated, violent, immature manhood have collected. I did my 20 years in the Army. I didn't like the verbal, and sometimes physical, grab-ass and bullshit talk that goes on constantly. The profanity is constant in such places, scatological, sexual, abusive, depressing and violent talk. Had they done the scene correctly, I would have walked out of the theater. So they cleaned it up. The problem with cleaning it up is that it becomes so completely unbelievable that I can't follow the conversations at all. The man talk was like nothing I have ever heard. It might as well been in some other language.
One of the primary points the play seemed to be making was that Real Men do not show their feelings directly. Indeed they didn't in this play. They hid them so well that I, for one, never found out what any of them felt about anything, and never could tell one player from another. They seemed to be a dozen copies of the same very strange clean-talking semi-male.
Too Fast:
The play was supposed to be filled with machinations and complications, lies and subterfuges, designed to keep a secret and gradually expose it to the other actors one at a time. In each case, there was to be a reaction, and some reflection, and some acceptance, and some change in behavior.
The play went by far too fast for any of that to happen. It was the usual modern production, take a novel which takes days if not weeks to read and absorb, cram it into three hours of acting, and speed everything up to an hour and a half. If I had read the novel, discussed the novel, discussed the play, and saw the play over and over for a period of time, say a year, I would "get" what was being presented. But why should I have to do that? I really am not that interested in the topic. The play should stand alone and explain itself, and this one, like a lot of modern ones, does not do that. It becomes an inside job. Only the actors and the crew know what it all means. In any case, it went by too fast for me to understand it.
So I go away thinking I have seen a very well rehearsed, very well acted, very well constructed, very well delivered production which I wouldn't walk across the street to ever see again. I'm just not smart enough, or sophisticated enough, or well-read enough, or quick enough to appreciate what I saw. Bring back "Oklahoma". I understood Oklahoma, and have seen it all my life. I could even understand the dialog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)