Let's not "go all Kumbaya" on Obama

"Let's vote for Obama, ...but let's not go all Kumbaya either," former California senator Tom Hayden said recently when asked about the upcoming national election. Kumbaya (also Kum Ba Yah), probably comes from Gullah, "a Creole dialect spoken by the former slaves living on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia." (Wikipedia). If you study the lyrics of the song, you'd clearly have to be an unempathic human being not to respond to them with compassion: "Hear me crying lord, hear me singing, hear me praying..." Many folk artists have recorded the lyrics over the years. Perhaps too many. The song has become a kind of anthem sung by progressive thinking people hopeful of change. Not bad. But, like most art, even the exalted kind, if over-used, or used in any-and-all contexts, it may fall into mere banality, or worse, become the subject of parody. Of late, "Kumbaya" has been used to describe a political naïef, an ingenuous (innocent, trusting) person operating with good will, but lame with "real world" instincts because he or she tends to think in a "childlike" way about "grownup" things.

Thus, Senator Hayden warned those who might be placing too much burden on Senator Barack Obama not to be naive (adjective), that is, one who lacks worldly wisdom, one who is unsuspecting, gullible; childish, innocent, simple, unsophisticated." (Concise Oxford Dictionary).

I, myself, will vote for Ralph Nader unless Barack Obama is in trouble in California. If there's a large turnout Obama should get it. But, and here we go, lest folks "go all kumbaya" concerning Obama and his famous by-word "change," he is at best a center-left, moderate with at least passing ties to the Chicago School of Economics, Milton Friedman, et. al., (not academic friends of working class folks), we still need to get him in. Obama is at least holding an oxygen tank for us to breathe easier, whereas Bush used his to explode over Baghdad, "shock doctrine" man that he is.

Assumptions about an economic meltdown are warranted, yet what's kept the criminal class on Wall Street and on the Beltway going is the deep wealth of the nation's resources, i.e. its people, (certainly including the current immigrant slave class), its ingenuity (we are different from other nations in this respect), and, of course. the natural resources not yet squandered. We'll come back from this latest (Iraq debacle, housing melt-down, current oil bubble), but the rank-and-file (we) will pay the bill, as always. Look at the Bear Stearns bailout, look at the cash infusions for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was Bush, et. al. who deregulated, let them and their social class pay the bill. Not likely. The "folks" are asleep. If we are to carry on in the fashion of the past half century since WW2, giving our lives over to speculative profit, imperial war mongering, sound bite politics, and greater numbers of "the distracted" playing video games, all trance-like and spell-bound, it would still take another century to bankrupt the nation IMHO. If they succeed in continuing to rob the Social Security Fund, it would push this meltdown date forward. Read "Citizens," a history of the French Revolution by Simon Schama. Citizens do take control, once-in-a-while, but you'd rather not have it like the French Revolution, which spilled blood on everyone. You'd rather have the "folks" participate in the still-existent, workable political structure. Do you see any evidence of this apart from the heady kids in Seattle and Genoa. I don't. More of the same, even if a bit less shady.

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As writing goes, so goes the ability to discern truth, as truth goes, so goes the democracy

Language Truth & Logic, and the Essay Form

If we are simply a nation which absorbs information through sound bites (see below) and have become "visual junkies" deficient in our abilities to read information in full context, how can we be literate users of information in the world-at-large? That is, how can we be good consumers in a consumer marketplace, or more importantly, truly informed voters in a democratic republic? If we cannot write or think in a literate fashion, how can we test the truth of an idea?

The argument for writing literacy (the essay and documented paper form) goes like this: If a means of verifying truth is brought by studying the propositions found in sentences, and sentences are used to build arguments in everything from commercial promotions to political speeches, then we need to teach writing as a means of thinking. In this way writing can be used by a thoughtful public to improve its own social condition. Here, we are not referring to elementary reading and writing, that is, merely decoding language in order to read a cereal box or scribble on a Post-it note, but something much more.

Have we become reduced to a society of specialists who may be "numerate" ("good at counting beans") and who increasingly turn to electronic games for diversion, or can we return to mid twentieth century form and once again value literacy (skill at using language as a tool for thinking)?

In mid last century, philosophers (logical positivists) like Alfred Jules Ayer spent their careers trying to determine, through language, how ideas can be verified. These people might have been moved by their experience of living through the attack on language (and democracy) brought by Fascism. Nevertheless, what concerned them then should concern us now. (Isn't it obvious?). We must decide if such endeavors in our schools (and out of them--grownups can continue to practice thinking!) are useful or not. Or, do we prefer the narcotized state of the world of sound bites and meaningless visual glitter currently raining down upon us? Has our ability to think become so much confetti?

Soundbite: In film and broadcasting a soundbite is a very short piece of footage taken from a longer speech or an interview in which someone with authority or the average "man on the street" says something which is considered by those who edit the speech or interview to be the most important point. As the context of what is being said is missing, the insertion of soundbites into news broadcasts or documentaries is open to manipulation and thus requires a very high degree of journalistic ethics. Politicians of the new generation are carefully coached by their spin doctors to produce on-demand sound bites which are clear and to the point.

Professor Ayer, referred to above, formulated that a sentence can only be meaningful if it has verifiable empirical import, otherwise it is either "analytical" if tautologous, or "metaphysical" (i.e. meaningless, or "literally senseless"). (Wikipedia).

Don't be daunted by all this. Get with it. Support writing as a tool for thinking. The essay form remains an unexcelled platform to teach thinking and to test it in others. How many of us "numerate bean counters" are truly literate?

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Suicide according to Jan Wenner and Montaigne

Jann Wenner on the Charlie Rose interview program commented on the late, provocative (read gonzo journalist*) Hunter S. Thompson's death by suicide. Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone magazine and producer of an oral biography of Thompson, spoke thoughtfully on the profound subject which also intrigued the 16th Century writer Michel de Montaigne.


A little back-and-forth between Wenner and Montaigne might interest us:

Wenner: He (Thompson) was a comic genius; he loved the character he made (even if) it took him over; he became a cartoon character." (Cartoonist Garry Trudeau invented the character "Duke" after Thompson). Click for "Duke" bytes for the gonzo journalist. In the end, (Thompson) was suffering from drink, drugs, and a terrible fall disabling him with a broken leg, preventing him from walking very well.

Montaigne: That Monsieur Thompson took writing seriously is a good means by which to judge him. How else but by the assay of art can we know ourselves? However, that he abused the drink proved poor, for the worst estate of man, is where he loseth the knowledge and government of himself'.

Wenner: Nevertheless, it all had a bad effect on the guy. He was a very debilitated person who struggled physically helping you to understand why he decided to commit suicide. It got to the point where life just wasn't fun anymore."

Montaigne: "Fun." I don't know the word. I will agree that if thou livest in paine and sorrow, thy base courage is the cause of it, to die there wanteth but will, and M. Thompson had much of it. To extreme sickness, extreme remedies, certainly.

(Being a skeptic and the inventor of the essay, which permits a testing of many ideas, Montaigne might add):

Montaigne: But this goeth not without some contradiction, for many are of the opinion, that without the express commandement of him, that hath placed us in this world, we may by no meanes forsake the garrison (responsibility) of it, and that it is in the hands of God only, who therein hath placed us, not for our selves alone, but for his glory, and others service, when ever it shall please him to discharge us hence, and not for us to take leave....
(pause)
You understand, it is a particular infirmitie and which is not seen in any other creature to carelessly set ourselves at naught...it is of like vanitie, that we desire to be other, than we are."
Wenner: Yes, Hunter had vanity, yet he suffered physically and emotionally at the end, and he found himself unuseful.

Montaigne: Once more, "fun" I don't know, but "useful," I think shows some purpose. Being humbled before lesser figures, this I understand. And again, to avoid a worse death, a man should take it at his own pleasure."

It is important to note that when Montaigne provides numerous examples of suicide in the history he cites, the suicides usually occur because of some political misfortune where one might have to endure torture and eventual death at the hands of an enemy who lacked virtue. Our perception of virtue differs from the ancients whom Montaigne refers to.

*Gonzo journalism is a style of storytelling that mixes factual events into a fictional tale. It uses a highly subjective style that often includes the reporter as part of the story via a first person narrative; events can be exaggerated in order to emphasize the underlying message. (Wikipedia English).

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