Anniversaries and their Curses

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Don

Christmas and the New Year have come and gone again. And each reminded us of certain things: when our father was still with us; the laughs that Christmas day when the turkey caught fire; the New Year’s eve when you got really drunk and made grossly embarrassing remarks; the bitter annual argument between John and Peter.

Such moments may not entail that many days and nights each year but certain anniversaries hit us all, as individuals, families, nations and even as global citizens. They resurrect memories, happy, sad, bitter, full of love, regret, anger, fury or bitter-sweet nostalgia. And we can’t avoid them, even if we attempt to remove ourselves. They are portable, they follow you anywhere. Accordingly, whether we plan to or not, we re-live moments of our past lives and even, simultaneously, re-commit ourselves to moments of our future lives.

All for good or bad. And on some of these occasions only a few of us will know and tell and re-kindle complex matters – our gentle mother, for example, will once again be canonised and her stories will be repeated once more. On other occasions whole nations may stop and wonder and share a certain togetherness despite their many differences. And other parts of the world will ricochet off these sentiments and sympathise or curse or shudder.

Foolish people think life is one long straight line of development to the very end. As if every day were a new start. Wiser people know that despite all the novelties along the way, time and again we are pulled back to things of our past, which we may or may not remember; and we repeat certain symbolic gestures which may or may not harm ourselves and others. We have no chance to shape those moments; we are in fact shaped by them.

Life is splattered with such repetitions. We are the old as well as the new.
Think of 9/11. Will it ever end?

Don Miller
25-1-2012

Spies Doubt Deception

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Don

Spies Doubt Deception

I suspect many people at the moment are dusting down their old copies of John le Carre’s masterful novels of Cold War espionage. With Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy about to be released on the big screen (and memories of the fascinating TV series with Alec Guinness in our minds) it’s time to revisit the likes of Small Town in Germany and The Spy who Came in from the Cold, and feel, as I do, the warmth and pangs of nostalgia – the joys of experiencing tension, stress, fear, ambiguity, confusion, deception and counter-deception, paranoia, uncertainty, reality as it slips into illusion and delusion and treachery and then back again – it is all there for us to live vicariously, without the danger of getting shot or of being unacknowledged. And perhaps as the novels’ characters anxiously puzzle who is friend and who is enemy, we may emphasise with them and ask ourselves, perhaps for the first time, profound questions of trust and distrust, naivety and doubt – and understanding.

What is life, and reality and how best we live it, nay, survive it – all the fundamental questions are there for us to wallow in and even learn a little about ourselves and our relations with ‘others’.

In an early book called The Postcard the French philosopher Jacques Derrida discussed the many ways a message may not get through – it may end up in the wrong hands, it may be misunderstood, it may be lost among other messages, it may be subverted. No form of language, including the philosophic, is immune from such inherent aberrations. Communication is basic to mankind – yet nothing is guaranteed, despite our implicit assumptions. Espionage, in a way, propagates this so-human question of communication and its vicissitudes.

In yesterday’s Age (17-01-2012) two related items appear thanks to, one senses, the imminent appearance of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Neil Ascherson, the (British) Observer newspaper correspondent, tells of his time in Eastern Europe in the sixties and his frequent brushes with spies.

Having enjoyed his quixotic memoir, I turned the page to discover, much to my surprise, an obituary of Gevork Andreyevich Vartanyan who (I quote) “worked for Soviet intelligence for more than half a century and played an important role in thwarting a Nazi plot to assassinate Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt, at the Tehran Conference in 1943” where they were discussing the strategy of opening up a second front, in Western Europe (an uncommon Melbourne obituary I’m sure you’ll agree).

With complex spy-work, parts of which are mentioned in the obituary, the plot was foiled.

Among a few quotations from Vartanyan the rest of the obituary was written by—who knows. No name is provided, simply Telegraph (London) as service source. I quote one paragraph by the unknown author.

“The fact that the two (sic) nations were allies did not, of course, preclude espionage. During the Tehran Conference, Stalin observed Roosevelt passing a handwritten note to Churchill, and instructed his head of intelligence in Persia, Ivan Agayants, to get hold of a copy. Agayants succeeded. It read ‘Sir, your fly is open’.”

I laughed, and then began to speculate – being now in cynical spy-mode. Obviously this is not a Vartanyan story. Likely a British one. A true one? Possibly, yes. But also possibly no. I can see at least two feasible scenarios. Let’s say the British (and American?) agents discovered Stalin’s concern and instruction (how?); the British could have then decided to have fun at Stalin’s expense, and so concocted a ‘fly’ story, then ‘allowed’ it to be ‘obtained’ by one of Agayant’s boys. Moves like that were/are run of the mill in spy quarters.

But, on the other hand, if the handwritten message actually contained potentially embarrassing material like, for example, “For Christ sake Winston stop being so rude to fucking Stalin; after all he’s been proposing a western front for two years now. Of course he mistrusts us. We’ll have to do something. It’s a pity I know: the two bastards could have destroyed each other if the eastern front continued just one more year. And do look a bit less arrogant, if you can.”

Faced with a possible public embarrassment, and knowing a Soviet attempt to obtain a copy would not weaken over time (Roosevelt had noticed Stalin’s impassive – yet revealing? – look as the note was being passed), MI6 had the tricky task of satisfying both Stalin’s curiosity to see the note, as well as his confidence that he had in fact read the genuine message. Any note fabricated around strategic scenarios for example would lead to further questioning why it was sent secretly from Roosevelt to Churchill. The ‘final’ note clearly had to appear both innocuous in content, and plausible as a private missile in the middle of a meeting. The solution was a clever one. It may have succeeded.

However the possibility should not be ignored that the entire story was a spontaneous figment over drinks at the bar one evening by several of the chaps. And by the third subsequent re-telling it had morphed into a ‘true account’ of one ‘delicate’ moment at the Tehran Conference. How would we know whether we know the ‘truth’ or not? And that, even before we concede that a forgery also has its ‘truth’. In a way that’s the secret life of espionage and what keeps it alive – forever. There is never completion; never a time for self-congratulations and end of doubt; never the moment to finally relax.

It is also, in a way, an allegory of life. And all that may also be the ‘truth’ of Derrida’s book.

Why do so many people revel in spy fiction? Are we, perhaps, obsessed with it? And possessed by it? I have a suspicion I could be.

Don Miller
18-01-2012

Google’s Glass Ball

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Don

Google’s Glass Ball

“Can we live without it?” “Can we live with it?” Two pervasive questions dividing Google users these days. However “is it for real” is the question that intrigues me, initially raised implicitly and unintentionally by Amit Singhall, Google’s nominated ‘Visionary’, on talking about the Future.

The future is beyond information and into ‘knowledge’. The new ‘thinking’ computers will ‘synthesise’, for example, a PhD thesis of three hundred pages ‘into an easily understood but objective precis’. And this in a nano-second, because for Google everthing valuable needs its speed component. As Singhal says, appropriately economically, “Knowledge to me is how much you can learn in the least possible time.” Actually an efficiency of speed is perhaps the only virtue of pre-Google modern life that Google respects and retains.

We are then hence into the world of knowledge. Presumably (it is not raised) Shakespeare, Proust, Plato and Einstein and a modicum of other thinkers will also be efficiently synthesised for immediate ingestion by the millions.

And then ultimately this knowledge inexorably leads to the final stage, ‘Wisdom’, where there will no longer be wars, hunger, or poverty. Our knowledge will eliminate all such ‘wickedness’.

When such a thinking computer has been assembled and is operating, I would like to ask it two questions: ‘As what stage of Google thinking on the future can or ought we determine that its worthwhile imagination has turned psychotic and has become entirely divorced from reality?’ and secondly, ‘In the light of Google’s clipped slogan ‘Do no evil’ is it conceivable that unwittingly it may be seeding a disposition to do such that?’

Note: a longer article, titled ‘Google World – an Interim Report’ appears in Melbourne Centre for Ideas Enewsletter, No 63, December 2011.

Don Miller
12-01-2012

Music as ice-cream

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Don

“If you give people the chance they will rise to whatever level is required of them but if you wont give them the chance, they wont.” (David Walsh, the remarkable founder and director of the most unusual art gallery possibly in the world, MONA, Museum of Old and New Art, in Hobart after its first very successful year).

It might be possible that people given the chance will come to accept modern art in all its various wild forms conceived over the last century. It might, I don’t really know.

But there is abundant evidence that the same people have not responded to modern music with comparable enthusiasm. Far from it. But let me clarify: I am referring to so-called classical music only; popular music from jazz to rock and all their variations are not under consideration here.

The latest evidence is the results of the recent ABC survey/opinion poll on “your favourite twentieth century music”. Bit by bit the results were revealed and played starting with the top hundredth and ending with the first. Schoenbergs of the last century eat your heart out. You have never been forgiven.

Of the top five chosen, four were Anglo-Saxon. Enough said. England has never been significant f music since Elizabethan times. But here today we honour in order
Edward Elgar (cello concerto), Gustav Holst (The Planets), George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue) and Ralf Vaughan Williams (Lark Ascending).

Squeezing into ninth and tenth places are the first substantial representative composers of ‘modern music’ (as distinct from modern remnants of nineteenth century Romantic music): Igor Stravinsky (Rite of Spring) and Sergei Prokofiev
(Romeo and Juliet Suite).

Why could this be so? Perhaps people have not, in the words of David Walsh, been given a chance; both live performances and radio productions tread warily in the choice of music offered because they know, correctly, they will be offending their potential audience and losing money were they to perform unfamiliar music too often. For safe diet it is best to repeat the Beethovens, Brahms, Schuberts, Schumanns.

Frequency of repetitions is necessary to acquire a habit, a ‘fixed idea’ of something correct, proper, right, satisfying – as I have often stressed in discussing habits of thinking, reinforcing its practice and making difficult the possibility of entertaining let alone thinking new ideas. And so with music. Occasional playing of a Bartok, Poulenc or Berg will hardly change established habits of listening. They remain, when occasionally heard, unpleasant, challenging, strange, discordant, distasteful.

Music is understood as light entertainment, as something to be enjoyed and readily digested on first hearing. It is something to be taken with instant pleasure, a flavour to be relished and looked forward to. It is a sweet, a dessert. Music – an adult ice-cream.

Don Miller
8-1-2012

The secret life of secrets

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Don

It could be said that lives are a litany of secrets. To begin there are the secrets we each keep from others. Some secrets we share with just a few or a special one; others we store and shore up in the privacy of our minds. We have some reason, conscious or unconscious, for doing so. It is a self-protective measure. Because of it, others think of us more kindly. If leaked, some other people may be hurt; and so would we, in some measure or other.

There are other secrets we keep from ourselves. These probably are the more hurtful to us if we were to discover them. And that is why they are secrets: unwittingly we go to all measures to keep them from ourselves. If challenged we deny them furiously; we can become quite angry when others accuse us of harbouring such secrets. We just cannot see them; we refuse to see them.

So, in certain ways we are in the best situation to know ourselves; in other ways we are in the worst situation. Either way it is not entirely unfair to suggest we are, unconditionally Homo Mendacitus.
We should not be surprised that governments revel in secrets. We cant eradicate the habit; but we can do our best to learn them – some of them at least. But more of that.

Hard Science versus Soft Science

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Don

Those practising the ‘hard’ sciences of physics, geology, chemistry, astronomy et.al. know (or believe) they are being rigorous, rational, thorough and patient in their pursuit of the truth. A goal coming only now and then to scientists – it is hard won, but practitioners are not deterred. They know science calls for such dedication; they are proud of themselves. By and large the public holds a similar picture of scientists, and it respects them. They are the experts after all. Only they represent Science and its dedicated search for knowledge.

On the other hand, those engaged in human and social studies, such as history, anthropology, psychology, literature, philosophy are seen and labelled differently. Essentially this separation is based on the view that they are not sciences, as we know the word. Practitioners do not appear rigorous, testing, patient, objective researchers of the truth. Rather they are seen as amateurs, speculative, imaginative. To be enjoyed – surely at times; to be taken seriously as purveyors of knowledge and truth – infrequently. At best they are artists. Charitably they may be deemed to represent the ‘soft sciences’.

An alternative vision is possible. ‘Scientists’ by their own admission follow strict procedures. This may be their strength – it provides a clear guide-line for newer scientists, to begin with. Because of this it can also be a weakness. A formula, a standard, a rule restricts, inhibits, controls – all features limiting new, unconsidered possibilities. Imagination, speculation, sudden inspiration is absent, disallowed. It is research under restraint.

Now and then hard science defenders insist that their craft calls for imagination as much as any artist, – but you can’t have it both ways: its formula is the scientific principle; its (occasional) imaginative behaviour is not.

This unproblematic process seems straight-forward from the beginning to its end. Success and failure are also straight-forward. You have solved the problem – allowing you to now proceed to another problem – or you have failed.

But consider the humanities: provided one does not try to ape the stereotype of the hard scientist, you are wracked with problems all the time. Beginning with language itself with all its ambiguities, allusions, hidden implications. None of which can be solved or resolved before you proceed. They haunt you.

These studies are, in one way or other, all about the human condition; whether the subject matter is history and its wars, cities and their rise and fall, the quest for political power, women’s repression, and economic cycles. Human beings are always, no matter how implicitly, the subject matter. They change yet remain the same; they are knowable yet remain a mystery. In all, they are full of contradictions, denials, deceptions – to others and especially to themselves.

How on earth do we ‘know’ them? Can we ever ‘know the truth’ of love, hate, fear, joy? Surely these studies are the ‘hard sciences’. And there will never be the ‘last word’ on any element of the work. In comparison the exciting subjects of physics, astronomy and hydraulics pale into ‘softness’.

About nothing in particular

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Don

In a way, humans are materialists. I’m not talking about the conventional criticism that humans, especially in a capitalist society, think only about consumption, about the endless quest to amass more and more goods. That’s spot on but not relevant here.

I am concerned about the way western cultures (I know too little about other belief systems to include them in this speculation) ‘naturally’ seem to think much more easily about the tangible world than the ‘hidden’ world. We easily think about things in front of our eyes but not the unobservable; about what people do but not what they don’t do; about the now/present but not about the past or the future; about the body but not about the mind and the feelings, about our successes but not about our failures; about what we win but not about what we lose – and the list could go on an on.

Let’s look closer at one little thing. In fact, let’s look at ‘doing’. We assess or judge ourselves and others by what they have done or are doing – more often than not in terms of its consequences, good or bad or mixed. Then we leave it there. We rarely do further and consider what we or they did ‘not’ do. If they did not do something then, we unwisely assume, they did ‘nothing’. End of discussion.

But that is looking only at half the picture. We don’t think – and our language usage makes it more difficult to think – that ‘doing nothing is actually doing something’ – it has consequences just as much if we had done something quite tangible. It is obviously so when you think of examples. If you always say ‘goodnight’ to your partner before going to sleep, but not say it on one occasion, that absence can produce significant results. If you don’t reply to a legal correspondence that can produce serious consequences.

If a mining company fails to take certain structural precautions, it can pollute an area destroying the livelihood of the indigenous people. If a government does nothing over a period of time pertaining to mental health, the consequences for the community can be dangerous. If a state does nothing or little to fully evaluate a situation, it may go to war which is needlessly destructive of another country, which cannot be won, which disables the government spending more on critical domestic issues because of (military) expenses elsewhere, which distracts the state’s attention from another global issue of far greater importance, and we could continue.

Doing nothing is certainty doing something and it can at times be lethal.
So it could be a good idea to keep an eye, a new eye, on yourself and on others, from this new perspective.

Uncertainty

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Don

If deniers are not accusing the Reds or Greens of attempting to topple capitalism, or pointing the finger at the U.N. for planning to surreptitiously bring about ‘world government’, they are reminding us that even scientists admit there is some ‘uncertainty’ in their findings that the earth is in fact warming and that human behaviour is significantly responsible for this process. Therefore, they conclude, we must not get sucked into extravagant, needless and dangerous schemes to reduce such ‘warming’.

The first two accusations are so fanciful we should treat them with ridicule. The third, the apparently rational attack, is a different matter. In a way it is true – there is uncertainty. In a more rigorous way, it is untrue because the users of this argument don’t appreciate what they are saying when they are wording such an accusation; they do not understand the nature of science. All science exists permanently with uncertainty.

I suspect ninety percent of the world doesn’t realize this because education fails to explain to each generation the nature of natural and social reality, and the notion of knowledge with its inevitable limitations. They also ignore, albeit unwittingly, how all human beings live every moment of their lives with uncertainty, and that every time they make decisions, small or large, they act on gross uncertainty, and even were people aware of that restriction, they can do nothing about it.

Certain scientists unfortunately do themselves a disservice by misrepresenting what science in practice is. A pity. Scientific practice is not entirely radically different from non-scientific practice.

The sooner we eradicate the dominant influence of two thousand old myths about what reality, life and knowledge are, with all their limitations and imperfections and changeability necessarily entailed, the sooner we can understand and help curb the more foolish and dangerous statements and policies individuals, corporations and governments regularly propose.

As far as I can see, the only certainty is uncertainty. It is structural and pervasive; it is not simply the occasional product of deceit or incompetence. The deniers’ use of the argument has no serious value; it can however mislead many sincere people who are consciously ‘uncertain’ about this critical issue.

News and Views

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Don

News and Views Note: When News and Views was published in the August issue of MCI enewsletter, the first 24 lines were missing for some unknown reason. I am reposting it here for those who would like to read it in full.

We like to think that if people only knew the ‘truth’ (or a more accurate depiction) of something, then things would be different, better. Unfortunately it is an innocent idea, a wish not a prediction. If people don’t want to know other than what they already believe, they can easily avoid learning the ‘truth’, denying its veracity, or simply being unfazed when confronted with ‘awkward’ facts. Test that: provide your own examples – such as beliefs about global warming, Israeli assaults on Gaza, appropriate treatment of drug addiction, the moral superiority of the West. None of us budge easily.

Not that we can afford to allow one view to dominate public opinion. Making a new knowledge or viewpoint available to others is a valuable step in itself, whether people pay attention to it or not.

So the current news about al Jazeera is good news: as of August 22 their news program is available in Australia: five weekly half-hour news on SBS 1 mid-afternoon, and a one-hour Sunday afternoon special. This is significant given its history.

Al Jazeera began about twelve years ago, conceived and lavishly sponsored and financed by the Qatar royal family. Its comprehensive, critical approach to Middle East affairs, identifying with and speaking to and for the masses made it immediately unique and notable – unpopular in ruling circles, welcome in the street and initially fulsomely praised by the American government.

However, when it began reporting civilian deaths after the American invasion of Afghanistan it immediately became the enemy. Its office in Kabul was accidentally destroyed by American bombing. Its office in Baghdad, one room in a multi-storey hotel, was accidentally hit by an American rocket killing the journalist staff inside in the first week of the invasion of Iraq. It was described and dismissed regularly by Donald Rumsfeld et.al. as the “mouthpiece of Al Queda”.

Several years ago, when it established a global English-language television news service, its official reception in America was sufficiently antagonistic that few networks were willing to touch it. Up until last month the service was available only in the corner of four small states and in Washington. A few weeks ago it was made

available in New York City. And two weeks ago throughout Australia on SBS. (I am not detailing its global presence)

It is commonly recognised that its comprehensive presence throughout the Middle East was a significant factor in preparing and promoting the current Arab Spring. America suddenly broke with its tradition. President Obama acknowledged its value at the time of the end of fighting in Egypt – an intriguing change of tune.

A logic can be traced here: during the critical 10 days or so in Egypt, the American Administration’s stance on the issue changed daily, as the political situation on the ground changed. Vice-President Biden kicked off by declaring President Mubarak “a great friend of America”, but the immediate and negative response made America realise it could no longer intervene to shape the outcome; at best it could identify itself with the eventual ‘winners’ of the confrontation – whoever that may be. As each day the situation changed, the official word from Washington changed appropriately, with language carefully phrased to leave all options open as much as possible – provided it wasn’t militant Islamic.

A few weeks ago, Hilary Clinton addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced the new official ‘realism’ when she admitted that Al Jazeera and other Middle Eastern news services were ‘winning the information war’ against the American news sources because they are presenting ‘real news’ which is changing the minds and attitudes of people – whether ‘you like it or hate it – you may not agree with it’. It is said that Obama now has Al Jazeera in the Oval Office. The most accurate and up-to-date news is now seen as critical to America in the changing global scene.

Al Jazeera is consolidating its role and its increasing presence. It is certainly a highly professional and comprehensive service. And it gives a detailed, unprecedented picture of the Middle Eastern masses.

For those interested it will provide a new setting and voice, in and of which neither London or Washington is the sole heart and mind. The sun now rises and sets in multiple quarters of the world. A monopoly mind-set is beginning to become history.

“Heroes, Villains, and Fools”

Posted on August 24, 2011 by admin

Bruce Wolpe, an American Democrat, writes in today’s Age (24-8-2011) about similarities between current American and Australian politics. At one stage he quotes Peggy Noonan, one of Ronald Reagan’s speech writers and now a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. It is worth quoting in full.

“The secret of Mr Obama is that he isn’t really very good at politics, and he isn’t very good at politics because he doesn’t really get people. —–He was good at summoning hope, but he’s not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire. —- He is not a devil, an alien, a Socialist. He is a loser. And this in America, where nobody love a loser.”

Noonan is simply joining the army of American assessments, from all political persuasions, attempting to explain what went wrong with the Obama Administration. It’s not even particularly relevant here to remember she writes in yet another Murdoch paper. I am interested solely in her final comment “He is a loser. And this in America, where nobody loves a loser.”

This to me has been an increasingly fatal flaw for any American politician let alone a President because it taps into one of the most pervasive and pernicious middle class mores in that country. I learned this first over fifty years ago when I read, with increasing distaste, a book “Heroes,Villains and Fools” by Orrin Klapp. It said so much about three sets of internalised moral judgments of Americans about their fellow Americans. Each evoking powerful, deep emotions. Unfortunately I no longer have a copy of the book so I can only hint at what the author argues about the pervasive and dominating presence of these three classifications of people.

A hero can be found in so many ways and moods and actions: and in its diversity, each has one basis quality: being a winner, a success. And no further qualification is allowed. A hero can have no fault, no blemish. Hero-worship is the critical public quality.

The villain again comes in a wide range of dress and, again, seen unqualified beyond a strong sense of repulsion.

It was the classification of fool which was the book’s greatest surprise. I wonder now as I did then, is this stereotype particular to America? I sense it could well be. The fool is the loser; the person shallowly seen as ‘good’ or ‘decent’ but who in fact is a failure. Once again the judgment is powerfully driven; the villain is to be condemned, despised and dismissed as a complete nobody, a fool deluding himself and others by some superficial quality. A veneer which may have fooled for a moment, but which is now seen through, and the judgment is made even stronger for the momentary delusion.
No longer worth concern; nor his downfall to be pitied.

Just as the poor, the wretched, the weak disappears from all public view, so will an emperor without clothes be brushed aside.

The dominant American culture is a nasty one in this regard. It is fundamentalist in its judgments. There are no grades, attenuating circumstances. You are a hero, sitting in glory about the gods, and never to be seen wanting. Or you are a villain, deserving nothing less than destruction. Or you are a fool to be ignored, cast into the sea of the unseen.

Obama, momentarily before his presidency became political was a hero. If he had succeeded in any one of his big challenges he would have become, to many, a villain, and possibly to be assassinated. He was never strong enough to win any of the critical battles and to many who either hated him or loved him turned slowly but surely re-classing him a fool, a loser who, for the length of his presidency will be but a shadow to be dismissed.