New Year's Wishes, And My Resolution

I had an offhand thought this morning. For a long time, I've simply assumed that "the flu season" exists primarily because flu viruses peak at a certain time of year, much the same way that pollen peaks at certain times of year. I can't say why I thought so; I just sort of took it for granted.

This morning, however, it occurred to me that one reason people get the flu in the wintertime is because we tend to spend more time cooped-up indoors. This leaves us essentially locked up with people who carry the viruses. Of course you're more likely to fall ill if you're quarantined in the same airtight box as someone already infected with the virus!

Curious, I spent a few moments with an internet search engine before discovering an article that more or less confirmed my suspicions:

Here are the most popular theories about why the flu strikes in winter: 

1) During the winter, people spend more time indoors with the windows sealed, so they are more likely to breathe the same air as someone who has the flu and thus contract the virus.

The article didn't stop there, however. Most of the latter half of the article actually confirms my prior belief, that the flu simply thrives in wintertime. The author of the article discusses research that confirms exactly that; the flu is more communicable in cold, dry weather.

This might be a matter of the-chicken-and-the-egg. After all, if the flu season is generally caused by people staying indoors, then we might expect flu viruses to evolve such that cold-and-dry-preferring viruses are naturally selected, while flu viruses that favor warmer and more humid weather would tend to die out, at least in regions that are further away from the equator.

*        *        *

I was thinking about flu viruses in the first place because I fell ill last week. I don't know if what I had was a flu or a cold, but it laid me out most of Christmas Day and the day after. I felt generally miserable for two days on either side of Christmas, too, and am only now starting to feel more like my old self again.

Colds and flus are very hard on diabetics. We have weaker immune systems to begin with, and then on top of that our blood glucose levels tend to skyrocket whenever we get sick, making our immune systems even weaker, and thus rendering it even more difficult to kick the bug. What for most people would be a three-day bug ends up being at least a week-long bug for diabetics. Sometimes non-diabetics have colds or flus that are so vicious that they last a week or two. Imagine how long it takes us diabetics to get over that kind of illness.

The sheer length of time we spend fighting off these illnesses, combined with the increase in blood glucose, tends to make us -- or at least tends to make me -- shed pounds like crazy. I'm about 155-160 pounds, depending on the day. I easily drop five to ten pounds whenever I get sick, and that's five to ten pounds of body mass, not five to ten pounds of unwanted fat. The flu doesn't care about what weight you want to keep or lose. It all goes.

What keeps my blood sugar down? What keeps my body healthy and able to easily fight off infections? Exercise. What keeps my body full of lean muscle mass and with minimal amounts of excess body fat? Exercise. What's the last thing anyone can or wants to do when they're laid up in bed with a bad cold or flu? Exercise.

Put it all together, and it adds up to this: When I get sick, I lose a lot of my physical fitness. It's a race to fight off the infection before my body wastes away to a 145-pound skeleton with no muscle to speak of.

*        *        *

Thus, in the middle of wintertime -- generally around New Year's Day -- and despite my best efforts, I am generally at the point where I feel weak and unfit, ready to get back into shape, put muscle back on my frame, take on a new challenge. For most people, "New year, new you" is the order of the day. Not for me, though. I just want the old me back, the fit guy who can run 15 miles without think about it and who can do a bunch of push-ups and pull-ups.

Nor am I getting any younger. I'll finish up my fortieth year on earth this year. Don't get me wrong, I look and feel great for my age. Still, I remember seeing the photos of my old classmates at the ten-year high school reunion. Even at age 28, many of them looked middle aged for failing to take care of their bodies. They were visibly carrying extra weight, both physically around their waists, and mentally. Take it from a goddamn diabetic, it feels just awful to be unhealthy. You can see it in a person's eyes.

That was twelve years ago. Ten years of unhealthy living had already caught up to people who should have been physiologically peaking. (The last estimates I've seen for average physiological peak were ~28 years for men and ~32 years for women.) And, I hasten to add, this is among a cohort of people who by and large eschew alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Twelve additional years of unhealthy living has surely caught up to these folks even further. Meanwhile, I can generally pass for someone who is at least ten years younger than I really am.

So, I firmly believe that when it comes to being in shape and looking younger, it's use it or lose it. Be steadfast. Stop exercising even for a moment, and you may be leaving years on the table, withering like a bouquet of gas station roses.

That's the urgency I feel after having been ill: My body just lost a ton of muscle mass and I have to cut my weekly running mileage down in order to build back up again. I've lost some conditioning; I need to get it back. Use it, or lose it. I can rest when I'm dead. That's the idea.

And it always happens around New Year's Day. It always tends to be that I'm at my lowest point around the start of the new year, having been ransacked by some virus.

This year, however, I did a little extra. With all that P90X-ing I did, I managed to build a little more muscle mass, make my muscles a little more flexible, bring myself up to even greater levels of physical conditioning. I have still preserved a great deal of that, and I'm going into the new year with a new exercise regimen and a good, solid VO2 max in the upper fifties.

In 2019, by my fortieth birthday, I might well be as fit as ever.

*        *        *

Wisely (for once), I didn't spend my sick time idly staring at a computer or television screen. I didn't spend my time in bed, trying to sleep away my feelings. I spent my time reading.

I'm already three books deep in the Wheel of Time series, as readers know, and wrapping up the fourth book in the next two days or so. Consider the scope of that, though: each one of these books is over seven hundred pages long. The one I'm reading now is over a thousand. That's well over a thousand pages of reading per week, since I started on my vacation earlier this month. Prior to that, I was barely reading at all. I had the impression that I had no time to read at all, but I found time to read by stealing it from time wasted on social media. That's a good trade-off.

I remember the last time I read as much as I'm currently reading. That was the year I got rid of my television. But that was 2008, ten and a half years ago, when social media was a strong presence, but not nearly as strong as it is now. I spent lots of time online back then, and used to joke that I had "read the entire internet. All of it." Back then, though, reading the internet was time not completely wasted. A person could read all kinds of ideologically neutral information about almost anything in 2008. Nowadays, advertising has undermined a person's ability to get unbiased and useful information from the internet. Gotta monetize, amirite?

So, the internet has become what television was ten years ago: A complete waste of time. Almost a complete waste, anyway. One can still study and learn with the internet, but one has to be deliberate about it now; just as with television.

And, anyway, books are cheap. Because everything is online now, or in "Kindle format," the relative price of an actual, physical book (or an actual, physical CD, or etc.) is so low that anyone with a thirst for knowledge or of entertainment that doesn't constantly scream advertisements at you all the time can get it on any budget. Best of all, it can be had used, i.e. for even cheaper.

Market forces, sociological forces, personal preferences, and finally a bad cold all conspired to drive me back into the world of books, the beautiful world of books, and I am reading again. And writing again.

There will be much more of this, too, in 2019.

*        *        *

A strange calm came over this past year. No, calm isn't quite the right word. Enlightenment is closer, but too grandiose…

It could have been as simple as leaving my former workplace, a vicious, ugly place full of vicious, ugly people; racists, back-stabbers, social climbers, sycophants… and a few really nice people that I truly enjoyed knowing. It's easy for such an environment to bring a person down into a bad headspace. I'm the kind of person who desperately wants to be friends with people, albeit in my quixotic and uncompromising way. Consequently, it's easy for such an environment to riddle me with self-doubt, even shame.

But it wasn't really as simple as getting out of a bad work environment. As I've grown my hair out, I've started to become a long-haired kind of a guy. It's difficult to explain why exactly, but I feel more like my own true self with longer hair, even if I'm not quite sure I look better. People certainly treat me more like myself. I even play the guitar differently, more self-assuredly, more expressively.

The world becomes a much clearer place when you feel self-confident. 

That's another slightly inaccurate phrase, "self-confident." It's the right phrase, although I've never before understood what it really means. For years, I think I've believed self-confidence to be a feeling or an emotional state. I felt self-confident when I dressed in a nice suit. I felt self-confident when I stepped up to the starting line of a road race. I felt self-confident when solved a tough problem at work.

That is no longer how I experience "self-confidence." Now, to me, self-confidence is a plain acknowledgement of the reality of one's own being. (Hmm, I might have to add that definition to the lexicon.) Self-confidence means knowing that when I try to solve a statistical problem, I'll likely succeed. Self-confidence means that I'm a guitar-playing guy with long hair who likes to wear dress slacks and ties, not because I think people "should" dress that way, but because I like it for me. I like the way I look. My daughter likes the way I look. And my wife.

My gorgeous wife! I still get butterflies. People in the office see photographs of her and they're rightly impressed. They pat me on the back for being able to land myself a beautiful woman like that, and that's well before they learn about her career success and her brain. She has stop-the-world caliber beauty, truly, with rich, dark hair and eyes like liquid obsidian; her skin is like smooth, soft caramel and her voice like velvet. And on top of a beauty like that, she has the ability to do seemingly anything. She speaks three languages fluently, holds advanced degrees, she completed both Hyperfitness and P90X with relative ease. She once learned professional-level cake decorating just to prove a point. And in her career, she is seemingly unstoppable. (I could go on and on, here; I seldom do, on the blog anyway, because for some reason people get turned off when a guy spends too much time singing his own wife's praises. But it's worth elaborating a bit here, because it is directly relevant to my point.)

No fool could ever take a woman like that for granted, but at the same time, I have to admit that it fills me with self-confidence to know that she is mine. The plain acknowledgement of who she is is likewise a comment about me: That a woman like that took my last name means something about me, too. I am grateful for what I have. I am also deserving of it.

I am. I don't want to be arrogant, but my life is what it is. It's a good life, and I'm surrounded by good people, not the least of whom includes my beautiful wife and a daughter who is, I'm half-convinced, literally magic. My choices brought me to where I am today. Self-confidence means simply acknowledging and being comfortable with that fact.

I'm comfortable with all of it. The shirtless running in the rain. The P90X. The guitar-playing, the prog rock. The nerdy books. The libertarianism. The fact that I mostly want to be left alone on the weekend and not see anyone except my wife and my daughter. The coffee consumption, the love of beer. The electric bike. The large words that few understand, and the peculiar sense of humor that nobody understands. The oatmeal, by god! My favorite food is oatmeal!

I am what I am, and being what I am has resulted in a fine life indeed. I'm happy about that. I'm self-confident in it. I never expected to feel this way, and I never really did anything to try to cultivate that feeling. But in 2018, I somehow managed to achieve it. In 2019, I might just be able to channel it somehow.

*        *        *

Working out, reading, playing music, being self-confident. I guess 2019 will end up being a lot like 2018, but just marginally better. That's what I'm aiming for. That's my New Year's resolution, to live one more year of the good life, but to live it better than I did last year. And so I shall.

I wish the same for all of my readers, even if the only ones still "reading" are Russian spam-bots. May you be the best damn Russian spam-bots you can be; may you be better spam-bots than you were the previous year. May you find ever more comfort and self-actualization in your life as Russian spam-bots.

But seriously, to any and all still reading after all these years -- and those of you who just accidentally stumbled upon this post while you were searching Google to figure out how to sync up Google Fit with Strava -- may you have a healthy, happy, and deeply satisfying 2019. Happy New Year.

Emotionally Intelligent Men

I have a rather large idea in my head, but I haven't been able to straighten it out in such a way that it makes comprehensive sense. Sometimes, when we encounter a thorough and intractable knot, it is better to unravel one small piece at a time than it is to attempt to straighten the whole thing out at once.

I want to tackle the matter in pieces, to see whether that straightens things. I'm not fully confident in where I'm going with this line of inquiry, so take this blog post in that spirit. Don't nail me to my every claim here. Let's see if we can improve the state of the knot, even if only slightly. These are the front lines of my ideation.

Let me begin with something that should hopefully be the least controversial aspect of the whole matter.

The stereotype says that men and boys are less emotional than women and girls. The stereotype says that boys are pushed into a kind of machismo that hamstrings their emotional sensitivity, rendering them incapable of communicating their emotions in a healthy way, i.e. in the same way that women do it. This culturally enforced strangulation of emotional connectivity, so the argument goes, causes all kinds of mental problems for the men, and can cause them to lash out at women in all manner of problematic ways. According to this argument, the solution is to foster emotional sensitivity in young boys while they are children, so that they can grow into the kind of emotionally sensitive men we want them to be.

I think this argument is partially correct. I think boys are discouraged from being outwardly over-emotional. I think they are discouraged from crying and from talking a lot about their feelings. I also think spending more time guiding young boys through their emotions would make them better off as men. These aspects of the argument ring true to me.

By the same token, I think it's unreasonable to use female emotional sensitivity as a template for how boys and men should behave. I also think that there are a whole slew of female-concentrated emotional problems that males mostly avoid, because their behaviors are less inclined to cultivate those problems. It is also not clear to me that so-called "toxic masculinity" stems directly from matters of emotional sensitivity.

So, first this: Boys are encouraged to be masculine, and I think that is mostly appropriate. If a boy is just dead-set on rejecting anything that looks like traditional masculinity, I don't think his life ought to be made miserable. To the extent that boys want to self-actualize as men, though, I think they ought to be encouraged in that endeavor. To the extent that boys endeavor to be courageous, strong-willed, physically dominant, confident, and self-determined, I think they should be encouraged. To the extent that they sometimes waver in their endeavor, I think they ought to be pushed, lead, guided, and cheered-on. We should help boys who want to become men, become men.

Second, this: Emotional awareness, emotional intelligence, emotional sensitivity, and the possession of a language with which to discuss emotions are all vital for good mental health. This is as true for men and boys as it is for women and girls. We do boys a disservice if we do anything to discourage them from obtaining and using knowledge of their own emotions. It's not as if boys don't have emotions. Even the most macho of men experience the full spectrum of human emotion. And because emotion is a bellwether of psychological activity, boys and men need to recognize what's going on with their emotions so the matters can be dealt with in a healthy and appropriate way.

Third, this: Emotion is one of the areas of human psychology in which males really and truly differ from females. Although men and women both experience the same set of emotions, those experiences are different for the sexes. This matters because boys want to be men, not women. They will tend to reject any solution that is geared toward girls. They don't want to be girls. There is no use wringing hands over it. People want to be the gender with which they identify. (Leave aside discussions of non-binary sexuality as exceptional cases for the time being.)

Fourth and finally, this: Given the above, female emotional health cannot serve as a template for male emotional health. Rather than trying to teach boys to handle emotions more like girls do, we ought to be clarifying how an emotionally intelligent but masculine man handles his emotions. Rather than encouraging boys to talk about their feelings the way girls do, we should make an effort to discover and understand the language of human emotion that is unique to men, and teach that language to boys, so that they can grow up to be well-adjusted men, not emotionally intelligent men who discuss emotions like their mothers.

In the unraveling of this great knot I have been thinking about, the first point I think needs to be made is that men and women experience emotions differently, and that an emotionally intelligent man will behave differently than an emotionally intelligent woman. While it is true that boys are often discouraged from becoming emotionally intelligent as they journey toward manhood, it is not true that their emotional needs will be satisfied by a template of mental health first established by women. Boys don't need to be more like girls, they need to be more like emotionally successful people; especially where those people are men.

Thus, we ought to endeavor to teach boys how to be emotionally intelligent men.

Stan Lee And The Set Of All Possible Comic Books

Like so many people, I too am saddened to hear that Stan Lee has passed away. While the Marvel Comics characters and artwork have long captivated my imagination, I was never as big a fan of comic books as others. Since I’m not really a part of that world, I’ll leave the more important eulogizing to those from whom it would be more genuine.

There is one aspect of Stan Lee’s professional work, however, that resonates with me more than all the others, and it’s something that I haven’t seen others really discuss in depth; at least not from a conceptual standpoint. I’m talking about Lee’s greatest innovation, the concept of a “Marvel Universe,” in which all characters existed and played roughly by the same set of rules. This development enabled characters to interact with each other as the storylines demanded, without the writers’ having to create elaborate sub-plots to introduce, say, Spiderman into the Swamp Thing storyboard. This created “one big Marvel Comics story,” and any particular comic book you may have read was a part of that over-arching story. It’s something that has been copied throughout the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Both Star Wars and Star Trek have pulled off something similar, enabling them to merchandise books, video games, and other off-shoot media that contain wholly original stories that nonetheless hold equal appeal to the fanbase as “canonical” stories. From a business standpoint, it’s a shrewd move that means selling more stuff to more hungry fans. From an artistic standpoint, though, it’s nothing short of incredible.

Why? Because writing one great story is an amazing thing that most of us never accomplish; but creating a world in which every imaginable story can exist simultaneously is a stroke of genius. That’s what Stan Lee accomplished.

Lee wasn’t of course, the first one to do this. I first became aware of this notion years ago, while reading the Wikipedia page for Conan the Barbarian. It’s a fascinating entry in its own right, if you’re into that sort of thing. But this in particular struck a chord with me:

In February 1932, Howard vacationed at a border town on the lower Rio Grande. During this trip, he further conceived the character of Conan and also wrote the poem "Cimmeria", much of which echoes specific passages in Plutarch's Lives.[3][4] According to some scholars, Howard's conception of Conan and the Hyborian Age may have originated in Thomas Bulfinch's The Outline of Mythology (1913) which inspired Howard to "coalesce into a coherent whole his literary aspirations and the strong physical, autobiographical elements underlying the creation of Conan".

And later:

"The Phoenix on the Sword" appeared in Weird Tales cover-dated December 1932. Editor Farnsworth Wright subsequently prompted Howard to write an 8,000-word essay for personal use detailing "the Hyborian Age", the fictional setting for Conan. Using this essay as his guideline, Howard began plotting "The Tower of the Elephant", a new Conan story that was the first to truly integrate his new conception of the Hyborian world.

Conan the Barbarian has endured across generations for going on 100 years, from the pulp fiction age, to the comic book age, to the movie age, and beyond. To some, he seems a silly character, but the reason a character like that would prove so enduring is thanks to the comprehensive conceptual effort that was put into creating him. Robert E. Howard didn’t just write some good stories, he “coalesced into a coherent whole his literary aspirations,” and established a fictional setting that would form the basis for all Conan stories ever written and published. Howard invented a history, a geography, a religious mythology, and so on, all in service of his Conan character.

To be as clear about this as possible: First, Howard conceived of a world, then he wrote just one story inhabiting that world, then he established an entire universe for his future work, then he created a body of literary world that has endured for generations. It’s not just that Howard wrote some good stories or created a good character, it’s that he put in the effort in advance to create a literary universe that formed the conceptual basis of all his stories, and stories that additional authors would write in the future, as well. That’s the innovation.

Nor was Howard the first to ever do such a thing. One of his contemporaries, a favorite of mine named Edgar Rice Burroughs, did something similar many times over with his Mars series, his Venus series, his Pellucidar series, and his Tarzan series. J.R.R. Tolkien did it. C.S. Lewis did it. And so on.

I think one of the reasons the death of Stan Lee is going to hit our culture so hard is because there are so few artists today who are interested in creating a conceptual world for their work to inhabit. Lee was ninety-five years old. He was one of the last artists of our time to have built such a world. The only modern author I can think of who has even come close to this is J.K. Rowling, who is also not coincidentally lauded for her complex storytelling. There are few others.

Certainly, this sort of thing has long since fallen out of vogue in the music world. A great pop artist, it is said, will evolve with the times. The notion that a composer of music gets to invent his or her own rules, and compose a musical universe according to those rules, went out of fashion with the modern composers of the mid-Twentieth Century. Many painters have a style in which they work, but how many of them have a consistent set of conceptual rules that unifies their entire body of work? Not since, again, the mid-Twentieth Century have we seen anything like that.

Conceptually complex art is a thing of the past, and Stan Lee was a part of that tradition. There was once a time when creative artists would aspire to that complexity, would infuse future works with elements from their past works in the name of conceptual continuity. These efforts elevated the artist’s work from being a one-off pretty picture or nice story to serving an over-arching universe that the consumer could enter and exit as they saw fit. Maybe you only really liked Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, and not his London Symphony Orchestra. But those with a greater hunger for what Zappa did can explore both albums and more. That’s why they call it “Zappa’s Universe.”

So the death of Stan Lee takes us one step further away from a world in which artists create the set of all possible things, rather than just one single thing. Our artistic consumption will flatten out a little bit. The range of our artistic consumption will get a little shallower. We’ll miss him, but we won’t realize it until a few more Marvel movies come out without his input and introduce things to the Marvel Universe that don’t seem quite right. We’ll wonder why they don’t fit. We’ll grow bored and move on.

The Artistic Experience

For me, the mark of a truly great artist is the way his or her work seems to outline its own internally consistent world. Frank Zappa called this "Project/Object, and he is the only artist I am aware of who has ever attempted to put a name to this phenomenon.

Project/Object is a term I have used to describe the overall concept of my work in various mediums. Each project (in whatever realm), or interview connected to it, is part of a larger object, for which there is no 'technical name.' 

Think of the connecting material in the Project/Object this way: A novelist invents a character. If the character is a good one, he takes on a life of his own. Why should he get to go to only one party? He could pop up anytime in a future novel. 

Or: Rembrandt got his 'look' by mixing just a little brown into every other color -- he didn't do 'red' unless it had brown in it. The brown itself wasn't especially fascinating, but the result of its obsessive inclusion was that 'look.' 

In the case of the Project/Object, you may find a little poodle over here, a little blow job over there, etc., etc. I am not obsessed by poodles or blow jobs, however; these words (and others of equal insignificance), along with pictorial images and melodic themes, recur throughout the albums, interviews, films, videos (and this book) for no other reason than to unify the 'collection.'

Over the course of his career, Frank Zappa recorded and performed music with a variety of different lead singers and instrument players. Despite that fact, it is relatively easy to recognize a piece of Frank Zappa music within a few seconds of hearing it. His music exists almost as its own distinct universe.

Nor is Frank Zappa the only artist to have ever achieved this. I'm still reeling from the recent passing of another musical and personal hero of mine, Prince. Prince's music also has a distinct signature, and despite the recent appearance of online articles that highlight hit songs we supposedly "didn't know" he wrote, every Prince-penned song has a certain signature. It's a combination of the rhythm and the harmonic structure, and it's always there. His choice of dominant 7th chords to highlight emotional discord, his distinct way of alternating vocal melodies and keyboard melodies, his sparse and rhythmic bass lines, and so on. Every component of a Prince song is a testament to his distinct approach to composition.

Beyond the music, of course, there is the lyrical content and the aesthetic. Prince got a lot of grief over the years for his sexually charged aesthetic, but people far too often miss the other essential, absolutely vital aspects of his lyrics and aesthetic that made all the sex make logical sense: his spirituality, individuality, and monogamy. Prince wasn't just singing about sex, he was singing about achieving a higher plane of existence through the parallel pursuits of religion and authenticity. What so many people missed about all of this - what so many people fail to see about life in general, unfortunately - is that sex is one of the only media that connect spirituality and authenticity.

Another is music, or art more generally.

The idea that a person's art might reflect their creed isn't controversial, it's just that these days that kind of art is so rare and so hard to come by that we squirm a little bit when we see it. Not only that, we tend to deride the artists capable of producing it. Now that he's dead, we all love Prince, but three weeks ago it was only the music nerds who dared to admit that we loved Prince as much as we do. The same is true for Frank Zappa, who was panned and criticized over his whole career. The same is true for Ayn Rand, for Rush, for Dream Theater, for Freddie Mercury, and so on.

Art - great art - tends to make us embarrassed and uncomfortable. By presenting an authentic, artistic ideal, it exposes the shortcomings in our every-day commitments to morality, and love, and sex. We balk or we giggle, but our souls are laid bare by the purity of the art.

And this is true, I hasten to add, even of art that you don't personally care for. I'm not much of a Miles Davis fan, but his art works the same way. I don't like Andy Warhol, but again, when you see his work, you can't deny the presence of his aesthetic, his creed laid out for all to see.

Part of growing up is getting over our embarrassment and learning to appreciate the purity of an artistic aesthetic. Perhaps that's why artists like Prince and Zappa never really achieve the correct level of recognition until they're gone. Only then are their audiences prepared to admit that we recognize a piece of ourselves in their work.

And if you don't see yourself and your own life in this....

...then you haven't really lived at all.

Jerk Superman

When I was growing up, the story of Superman's childhood was told in a very specific way. Clark Kent was cast as an outsider, an otherwise typical teenager who discovers a set of innate abilities that make him quite different from his peers. These abilities frighten other people when they encounter him, so Clark hides his powers, hoping to fit in, hoping to belong, but never really feeling as though he's part of the crowd. As he grows up, he eventually discovers his own origins, makes peace with his individuality, and embraces the now-famous line "With great power comes great responsibility." He finds his place among mankind by becoming its protector. He might never truly be "one of us," but by putting himself in service of the human race, he becomes a valued member of our community. 

I'd like to call this version of Superman's story "the classic Superman." It's not a story that is particularly unique to Superman. Many classic comic book heroes share a similar story arc. Wikipedia even notes the similarities between the Superman storyline and that of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic A Princess of Mars. In all of these stories, a heroic outsider finds a place in society by serving it.

More recently, however, the classic Superman story has evolved into something much worse and, unfortunately, much more pervasive. I call this "Jerk Superman."

Jerk Superman

In the Jerk Superman story, a young rebel from somewhere in the Iowa cornfields lashes out angrily at the society that refuses to give him proper recognition. His super powers are much weaker and easier to ignore than those of the classic Superman - he's a gifted pilot or soemthing. He has a brilliant, sharp mind and an excellent physique, but the former is impeded by a small-town society that doesn't "understand" him, while the latter is occupied by things like barroom brawls and unlawful activity (which serve to reiterate the point that the small-town society has it out for him). Despite society's disapproval of the person he really thinks he is - but never actually proves he is - he is often depicted as a womanizer, an attractive rebel who can have his way with any beautiful young girl in town.

It's usually while being caught in the act of a sexual escapade, or a barroom brawl, or a schoolyard fight, that Jerk Superman is confronted by his flannel-shirt wearing father figure, a wise but simple man who recognizes Jerk Superman's potential to be who he really is, if he would just learn to control his temper. Sometimes this is shown with a dose of, "You, alright!? I learned it by watching you!" This father figure is the only person in the whole Iowa cornfield who recognizes the "superman" attributes of Jerk Superman, where everyone else sees only the jerk. 

Jerk Superman's mother typically dies early; her only role in the story of Jerk Superman is to make him more misunderstood, man.

Jerk Superman's life is next turned upside-down by some sort of cataclysm. Sometimes it's an alien invasion, sometimes it's the literal end of the world, sometimes it's the sudden, unexpected death of the father figure (his flannel shirt left smoldering in the ashes)... And sometimes it's not a terrible act of destruction, but a happy accident, like the discovery of an amazing device, the meeting of a mysterious stranger, or the winning of an important contest.

Whatever the cataclysm, Jerk Superman finds himself suddenly thrust among a secret society of Ubermensch, a rich, ingenious, and powerful group with seemingly infinite resources. Usually, no mere plebe knows they exist, but occasionally they are just ivory-tower military personnel on a faraway space station that never has to sully itself by intermingling with the kind of small-town normals that were too stupid to recognize how great Jerk Superman really is. They're the best of the best, and they've come with an invitation for none other than Jerk Superman.

They recognize Jerk Superman's true greatness for what it is. Not only that, they need him, they need his special powers to save the world, or fight a powerful foe, or et cetera. For centuries, sometimes eons, these Ubermensch have been hard at work on an important project whose final hour of completion has finally arrived. Despite their efforts, however, they are just one brick shy of a load. They need the special, hidden powers of Jerk Superman to finish the job. They've plucked him out of the cornfield especially for this moment.

They are not without their reservations. Like the small-towners, they worry that Jerk Superman's temper is too hot, or that he has not yet learned to harness his powers. They - and especially their sultry young daughter, who can already do everything that Jerk Superman can do, but in form-fitting spandex - disapprove of his womanizing. But an important new father figure among the Ubermensch has personally vouched for Jerk Superman in some way, which is enough for the rest of them to entrust the future of the entire universe to a rookie.

Then comes the rest of the story. Jerk Superman out-wits and infuriates his principle rival among the Ubermensch, which causes the spandex-clad Uberfrau to fall madly in love with him. (Later, he will save the day by somehow letting the rival do some trivial thing, which will win over the rival's lasting friendship.) He pushes everyone to the brink. Despite all logic and reason pointing in a particular direction, Jerk Superman bets the whole farm - and the lives of anyone who happen to be aboard his spaceship or whatever - on a "feeling" he has. He crazily does something seemingly stupid, and right before the whole universe explodes, he threads some sort of needle, and the universe lives happily ever after.

For his efforts, he is finally recognized as the true Jerk Superman his is. He is decorated with special Ubermensch awards, he consummates his relationship with the spandex chick, and - crucially - he returns to his small town, where the ones who refused to recognize his greatness must now grudgingly admit that, god, he's good.

This is a pretty icky fantasy.

Many stories have followed this particular arc. Let me name a few from memory:

• Interstellar
• Star Trek (2009)
• Looper (here, it's more of a minor, parallel storyline)
• The Fifth Element
• Total Recall (2012)

There are, of course, many more stories like this. How many can you name?

Some Things You Might Have Missed About Jerk Superman

I've touched on a few important themes in the Jerk Superman story that make it a lot worse than the classic Superman tale. Now I'd like to highlight the differences between the two.

While both stories are about outsiders, the classic Superman wants to belong; Jerk Superman doesn't really care about that, he just wants people to recognize his greatness - whether he's actually demonstrated it or not. 

The classic story follows an outsider as he finds a way to put his own unique talents to the service of humanity; once having done so, society embraces him. Jerk Superman would still be rotting in his small town if he had not been individually selected by the Ubermensch and begged for help.

In the classic story, society struggles on, doing the best they can. Then one day Superman comes along and finds a way to make our lives better. Through this process, classic Superman rises above his modest small-town roots to discover and define a new sense of self. He finds validation in himself by becoming the hero that the world needs. In Jerk Superman's story, society is just doomed, its denizens are stupid, bitter, angry, hopeless. Jerk Superman is more than happy to leave them all behind when he discovers the Ubermensch. The aristocracy provides external validation of his identity by choosing him and placing their faith in him. All Jerk Superman wants from this process is external validation. He wants everyone to recognize the greatness he's always had. "Finally!"

Classic Superman has a one, true love who he must win over. Jerk Superman simply plows through a never-ending series of conquests until he finally womanizes the sexiest young thing the Ubermensch have to offer. Even worse, she hates him. But, god, he's just so good, and besides, she kinda likes a bad boys.

Classic Superman lives by a creed, Jerk Superman breaks all the rules.

In the old story, classic Superman's dead parents nonetheless manage to instill in him a strong moral compass, a set of principles to which Superman dedicates himself for the rest of his life, even if that means sometimes standing athwart of others. He knows, deep-down, that his parents always loved him and he does their memory justice by living by what they taught him. Jerk Superman is a disobedient trouble-maker whose birth parents died before they could validate him, and whose step-parents die before he can demonstrate his true greatness to them. Thus, he must obtain moral validation from his new adopted society by being better than they are, and maybe an old codger at the end of the film buys him a drink and tells him that his father would have been proud. Morally, though, Jerk Superman learns nothing.

Coda

You could argue that Jerk Superman is the better story, because the character is flawed. An imperfect hero, the argument goes, is much more approachable than an ideal type. None of us is perfect, so we can't place ourselves in the shoes of a morally perfect god. We can't relate to classic Superman's super-strength or his heat-ray vision, and we can't relate to what it feels like to always stand for truth, justice, and freedom. But everyone knows what it's like to fall short of moral perfection, so if Jerk Superman can overcome his moral shortcomings, maybe we can overcome our own.

But why has this particular tale of pointless self-aggrandizement become so pervasive in American media? I don't mind that Jerk Superman is a flawed hero, but why does he have to be a narcissist on an endless quest to score the ultimate chick and prove that he did good, dad?

Why is this the kind of hero for whom we have an appetite nowadays? Why is it difficult for people to identify with a superhero with an internal sense of personal identity who is motivated by a strong sense of right and wrong? 

It's Not A Perfect System, But It's The Only One You've Got

The old trick to gaming a roulette table is to place your bet on red or black, the odds of which are 50/50. Then, if you lose, double your bet in the same direction. If you lose that one, double that bet in the same direction. And so forth...

At 50/50 odds, you are bound to keep winning if this is your strategy, because your bet will turn out to be correct half the time. So, because you're doubling your bet every time, you'll always (eventually) win back what you lost, plus double if you just keep betting.

What this strategy requires is a bank account deep enough to carry the losses, no matter how big they are, and most gamblers don't have that kind of money. Also, casino owners aren't stupid; they're trained to spot this particular strategy, and when they catch you, they'll throw you out of the casino and bar you from playing ever again.

The casino always wins in the long run, and that's what I'm writing about today: house rules.

Know When To Hold 'Em

Politics in every country is like a casino: The only one with pockets deep enough to carry any loss and double down in the same direction is the house; the house always wins; and if you figure out a winning strategy, you can be security is on its way down and they're packing heat. In this Las Vegas analogy, there are two groups left unaccounted for: hookers and drug addicts. The hookers are the dancing girls the casino has tossed aside after getting what they wanted out of them for a few years; the drug addicts are what happens to us when we've been kicked out of every casino for playing a winning hand.

I'm not trying to be cynical, but at the same time, one has to recognize the nature of the world we live in. Each one of us is a tiny gnat in the annuls of the universe - a microscopic blob of ectoplasm with a lifespan so short that the gods don't even take time to laugh at us. Each one of our lives is utterly inconsequential, and yet so significant to us. That explains a lot of what happens in politics.

On some level, we must know how insignificant our lives are, because if we didn't, none of us would fight very hard to achieve anything. That sounds backwards, but it's not. Knowing that we are insignificant, we fight to have one small bit of legacy, something to live beyond our own tiny lifespans, and most of us never really achieve it. So, when one of us happens to come into a pretty decent situation, like an elected office or a directorship in some bureaucracy somewhere, most of us are willing to fight for it, on the off-chance that, somehow, we'll have some plaque hung on the wall somewhere - something that will out-live us a little while, at least until they refurbish the building.

So now we have means: the political system. And, we have motive: legacy. Now all we need is opportunity.

Know When To Fold 'Em

The opportunities usually come in small and petty ways. 

We've all seen the people working the counter at the DMV. Their souls have been ground down to the nub, they have no control over their own lives. All they have is a computer screen, a little web cam, and the authority to withhold your license for anything their direct supervisors can verify with a form in triplicate. If they don't fancy anything other than the keeping of their jobs then a slight delay in your paperwork is the only way these sad sacks have to tell the universe, "I mattered!" If they're ambitious, though, they'll search the minutiae in your file for something that requires a more obscure form. A few dozen of these per week, and they'll be fast-tracked to supervisor. So if you have to keep going back to the DMV every day for a week or two just because one of these rock stars is trying to make manager, that's a small price for them to pay for their legacy. Get it? They care about you, but they also want existential significance, and one can hardly blame them.

Don't get smug here. You're not any different than they are, and neither am I. The only difference is that we don't work at the DMV, and they do. And there are lots of DMVs all over this nation of ours, plus the ones in every other country out there. That's a lot of legacy to be dealt with, and it's just the tip of the iceberg. Every little counter where you have to show your government-issued ID or work your way through a canned series of statements before you can proceed on to the next counter in your life is another inflection point for mankind's competing legacies. 

And, ultimately, we all work at a counter.

There are two ways you can proceed here: You can keep stabbing back at your own insignificance, setting your fellow humans back fifteen minutes to fifteen years (depending on the counter), silently screaming at the universe, "I mattered!" and silently knowing it isn't true... Or, you can step away from the counter and let people continue on in pursuit of their tiny scrap of potential legacy. You can fight for your right to matter, or you can just get out of the way and let other people explore theirs.

Know When To Walk Away

No, you can't really walk away, because first of all you have to eat and earning money is how you accomplish that; but second of all, the entirety of human society is organized in such a way that you will be punished and ostracized if you openly admit that you're not really into shouting your existential vanity into the ears of anyone who will listen. (NB: I am writing this on a public blog.)

So most of us have to play the game, to some extent or another. That doesn't mean, though, that you can't walk away in a manner of speaking. If other people use their position "at the counter" to achieve some kind of legacy, you can use your position for nobler purposes. We can make the world a better place by being better people. So if you make life a little easier for the people who come to your counter, you can do your small part to enable them to achieve their legacies. You might be an insignificant piece of the universe, damn it, but you did what you could to prevent other people from being worse off having known you!

This is how we walk away. This is how we look at the human system into which we have been born and decide that it's a bad machine, but we can make it better. This is how we stop playing the petty and futile existential game played by others and we simply... walk away, leaving the world slightly better for it.

Know When To Run

I know what you're thinking: "What about my legacy?" Well, that's the tricky part, the final step in the process of giving yourself real happiness and real freedom.

The answer to your question is: You don't get a legacy. You get to be a better person, you get to make other people happy, you get to live life by a worthwhile creed, you get to look at yourself in the mirror every morning. But you don't get a legacy. 

We are mosquitoes, fruit flies, bacteria... we are tiny little piles of animated flesh. We live, we love, we produce offspring, we fight from the moment we're born, and then we die. If the world remembers you for longer than one or two news cycles after you die, god bless you, you lucked out. Beyond that, no one will care. It's not because they're bad or apathetic people, it's just that they have their own lives to live and there have been many billions of us who have lived throughout the ages. I'm sorry - you don't count much.

But this is a beautiful thing. You don't have to count. You don't have to be remembered. You don't have to have a legacy. If you live a good life, if you love your loved ones truly and madly, if you leave others' lives no worse than when you found them, then you will have pushed this tiny, insignificant species a few inches toward a better future. And that's the best you can do.

That's the best we can all do. So, let's do it.

We Can Make The World A Better Place By Being Better People

The clouds are either coming in or dispersing. Which way do you see it?

Not long ago I added a motto to a few of my social network profiles: We can make the world a better place by being better people. It's not a very eloquent way to put it, but it's the best way I could think to articulate what I see as the core purpose of human life. It's my creed.

I've now put it in the banner of the blog.

In the end, it's all up to us, win, lose, or draw. In any situation, you have a choice: do something that improves the circumstances, or do something that does not improve the circumstances. My challenge to myself - and, if I'm lucky, my readers - is to start living life that way. We really can make the world a better place by being better people.

What do I mean when I say "better?" The first question any pessimist chimes in with is "Oh yeah? Better by whose standards? Who gets to say what's better and worse?" From there, the typical outcome is a slow descent into the maelstrom of moral nihilism. It's not that those asking the question are themselves moral nihilists, it's just that their whole point in asking the question is to defeat any attempt at becoming a better person.

It's a psychological defense mechanism, and it's totally transparent. Rather than taking the time to personally assess their own potential for growth and improvement - real growth and real improvement - they quickly defeat the whole notion of improvement using that tired old canard: "It's all subjective!" Okay, then improve yourself subjectively - but improve yourself.

Please, I beg you, rather than wringing your hands over the impossibility of arriving at a unanimous standard for being a better person, use your common sense. 

If you see someone who needs help, be it someone stranded on the roadside with a flat tire or someone with their arms full trying to open the front door, you already know that you can either be helpful or not. By any reasonable standard of "being a better person," which course of action do you think makes you a better person - the helpful option, or the unhelpful option? When someone asks a favor of you, you already know that you can either grant them that favor or turn them down. Which do you think makes you a better person? When someone says or does something to you that you find offensive, you already know that you can move on with things, hold your head high, and be the kind of person who doesn't get invited into anger, or you can be the kind of person who - always and everywhere - gives as good as she gets. Which do you think makes you a better person?

You can take it easy at work and slide by, or you can accomplish something. You can get some exercise in today, or you can slack off. You can eat a healthy meal, or you can subsist on french fries. You can find something to donate to charity, or you can just forget about it. You can pay someone a kind word, or you can keep it to yourself. You can call your mother or you can play Candy Crush Saga. You can stash the empty shopping cart next to the adjacent car, or you can take the thirty seconds required to push it into the holding area. You can play an extra game of peek-a-boo with your daughter, or you can brush her aside and tell her to play by herself. 

What will you do?

You know? This doesn't take a stroke of genius. Everyone knows what it means to be a better person. Everyone knows it's easier to just not bother.

But maybe you've noticed that the world isn't getting any more pleasant these days. You don't have any control over what other people do, and you have hardly any control at all over the world's political climate and systems. What you can control is your own actions, your own ability and propensity to be a better person. 

I'd like you to join me in taking up the challenge. Will you do it? 

We can make the world a better place by being better people.

This Is How I Know Whether You Are A Good Person

Ethics is a fundamentally human question. At some point in the evolution of our species, it became important to us to temper our behavior with principles. It was an existential question: we could indeed survive on our own, but we're better satisfied by the kind of survival that includes treating our fellows decently. A mere chemical impulse? An innate instinct to adhere to a social order, as all social animals do? Perhaps. But only humankind thought settle these questions with theories and ideas, paradigms by which to maximize the well-being of everyone "like us." Some of us even dare to extend these paradigms to other species. And to our knowledge, we're the only ones who do this. To behave ethically is, quite simply, to be human.

Once we acknowledge that fact, many of the interesting questions involve where people draw the boundaries of their own ethics. Why white lies rather than no lies at all? Why alcohol, but not marijuana? Why heterosexual marriage, but not gay marriage? Why abortion, but not euthanasia? Why nationalism and not internationalism? Why is drawing a fence around a patch of land theft if you don't get a stamp from a notary public, but not if you do? Why do we think poorly of prostitutes? Why do we think poorly of foreigners? Why is getting tattoos a violation of religions that originated in areas that were unaware of the practice? Why do mormons consume ginseng, but not caffeine? Why is taxation a moral issue? 

If your response to any of these questions involves frustration about the fact that the questions were asked in the first place, then I don't actually believe that you have a code of ethics. Otherwise, I think you do. And this is the point: You're an ethical person if you don't mind attempting to answer these questions

If you can tirelessly discuss and respond to these ethical questions without growing exasperated, throwing up your hands, and declaring that there is no point to asking why, then I think you're an ethical person.

If you can hear someone else's response to the same questions, understand that the person disagrees with your ethical position, and discuss the matter in as much detail as possible, without growing angry or indignant, then I think you're an ethical person.

If you can accept that some ethical questions simply don't have answers, but that they are still worth asking, then I think you're an ethical person.

If you can come to understand - especially if told by someone else - that you yourself have violated a valid moral code, and ultimately realize that the ethical violation pains you more than the fact that someone called you unethical, then I think you are an ethical person. That is, if the possibility of being morally wrong matters more to you than the possibility of being thought of as being morally wrong, then yes, you're an ethical person.

If you can hear someone articulate a moral opinion without feeling that he or she is criticizing you as a person - if you can separate who you are from a discussion of ethics - then I think you are an ethical person.

If you can recognize that ethical problems are human problems, that learning to be a good person is hard work that we must spend a part of every single day tackling, then I think you are an ethical person.

Being an ethical person is being human; being an ethical person is being a good person. The good is the human, and the human is ethical. That is simply the nature of ethics. If you don't care, don't want to think about it, find it offensive or unpleasant that someone would want to talk to you about it, or feel that it's more important to smooth things over than to be morally inquisitive, then I know you are the other kind of person.

Good Personal Conduct Is Utility-Maximizing

I.

How many times has this happened to you?

You're driving down a busy highway, when suddenly another motorist does something frustrating. Maybe he cuts in front of you too closely. Perhaps he's driving too slowly in front of you and holding up traffic, or perhaps he unintentionally-but-obliviously boxes you in, preventing you from changing lanes when you need to. It could be that you tried to merge, and he prevented you, or it could be that he held you up in order to let in a long line of other vehicles from another lane.

You lose your temper. You honk at the offending motorist, and/or you flash your high beams at him, and/or you yell out the window, and/or you give him an obscene gesture, and/or you drive in such a way that you are able to somehow exact your "revenge."

Once it's all out of your system, you continue your drive, only to discover that the offending motorist is driving to the same destination. Either you're driving home, and you discover that you've been yelling profanities at your neighbor, or you're driving to work and you realize you've been honking at your coworker, or you arrive at your destination to find that you're parking near the other motorist and must awkwardly make eye contact in the parking lot.

At that moment, you feel like an idiot.

II.

I once overheard a colleague discussing an interpersonal conflict with her manager. She relayed the story of an email incident with another employee. It seemed that a particular email exchange had gone sour and the two of them had exchanged terse words (via email). As the story progressed, the employee's emotions ran higher and higher, until the "climax" of the story, in which her interlocutor had written something particularly unreasonable in one of the most recent emails.

When she was finished recounting the incident, her manager replied: "Okay, so what's the issue?"

The employee launched into a passionate description of how unreasonable the other employee had been. She started to describe how she felt the other employee should have responded, but her manager interrupted her.

"I mean, what do you want me to do about it?" The employee stammered a bit. She was caught off-guard and couldn't really form a sentence. So the manager continued. "I'm trying to run a department here. If there's an issue that you need me to address, then I'll talk to [the other employee] about it, but I can't really get involved in all of this when I have work to do."

The manager ended the conversation by telling the employee to let him know if the offenses continue, and then gave her a few ideas for how she could respond the next time something similar happened. It was evident that the employee felt that he wasn't doing enough, but she was forced to accept his decision and move on. 

Even if her interlocutor had been guilty of all charges, my colleague hadn't done herself any favors by taking a personal conflict to her manager. The truth is, they both ended up looking bad to the manager, because neither one of them could find a way to get over their minor differences and have a productive working relationship with each other. 

The employee felt that by tattling, she would be able to come out on top; instead, she made herself look like an ass.

III.

It's easy for one to get so caught-up in a situation that your short-run objectives that one loses sight of one's own long-run interests. Automobile traffic can be frustrating, but one shouldn't get so emotionally invested in it that one's conduct puts one's own best interests at risk. Similarly, letting one's passions get the best of one at work will only make one look bad when things go awry.

It's easy to be susceptible to this problem because, in the heat of the moment, our short-run interests are in the forefront of our minds. If something bad happens to us, well, that's bad. Our minds and our passions will insistently remind us of the fact that something bad is happening. When we're upset about it, it can be difficult to convince ourselves to just chill out, take things slowly, don't act rashly, and above all take the moral high ground.

True, I spend a lot of time on Stationary Waves arguing for ethics for their own sake. But being an ethical person has a huge upshot from the perspective of pure, hedonistic self-interest. That upshot is: if you always conduct yourself ethically, then you never have to worry about making yourself look like an ass.

I'm not really trying to be funny here. It's tempting to cut corners, tell half-truths, sneak around behind people's backs, In some rare cases, it might even pay off. But if you're interested in maximizing long-run utility, then you shouldn't act on your emotions under the assumption that it might pay off. Insteady, you should act on logic subject to the most likely scenario.

So break it down: 

• In rare cases, you can lie without getting caught, throw colleagues under the bus, honk like a madman at any passing car, etc., without ever having to worry about repercussions. This costs you very little, but only comes with a very unlikely payoff. The expected value is low.
• On the other hand, you could always choose to take the moral high ground. You'll definitely never get the unlikely payoff of lying, cheating, stealing, and being mean. But you'll also definitely never look like an ass. In fact, you'll always come out with a good reputation whether your win or lose.

IV.

Being a good person is the right thing to do, but good personal conduct is also in every person's best interests in the long-run. To see this, you have to be willing to look at more than just the facts that are staring you in the face. You have to form predictions based on the most likely outcome and run a quick cost-benefit analysis on it.

I realize that when you want to complain about someone or yell at traffic, you don't really want to do the cost-benefit analysis. But that's okay - that's why I wrote this blog post, so that you can see that if you had done it, you'd have come to the conclusion that good behavior pays the highest rewards in the long-run.

If, after all these years, I've yet to convince you to be ethical for its own sake, try being ethical for reasons of pure hedonism.

On Being Convincing

Spend enough time trying to convince people of your point of view, and you'll eventually reach a point of diminishing marginal personal satisfaction with these sorts of conversations. It's easy to just give up, disengage, and go back to playing Simcity or something.

Anecdotally, however, I can attest to the fact that I have been able to bring people over to my point of view from time to time. Having thought carefully about these situations, I can discern no predictable pattern from how it worked.

In some cases, I managed to be persuasive while being rude and highly flippant. From this, we could possibly reason that the embarrassment of another person's holding a wrong opinion was too much to bear, and they were made to reconsider their case. But in other instances - some involving the same people who were convinced on other issues - the tactic failed miserably. Those cases, taken in isolation, would be reason to convince us to remain as open and charitable - as "kind" - as possible. The contraction doesn't end there, of course. I've managed to convince people by being as kind as possible, and I've also failed accordingly.

Sometimes it pays to appeal to reason, empirical evidence, and logic. Other times, that is a distraction from what the audience deems to be a moral issue. Yet, attempt to speak to them of morals, and they will cite their own countervailing empirical evidence and logic. Once again, the tactic and its opposite both appear to work and to fail, sometimes for the same person or audience, with no discernible pattern emerging.

Zoom way out, though, and there is one thing that does not change over the course of the entire analysis: Consistency.

That is, it seems that the best way to bring others around to your point of view is to remain honest, consistent, and genuine about your personal beliefs. If you're on the right side of the issue, remain unwaveringly true to it, and have confidence that people will come around eventually.

At least, that's my conclusion. What's yours?

Heroism

Google News makes me aware of this story, coming out of New York.

Tyler woke up six of his relatives, and they all made it outside. The boy then ran back to the room where his 57-year-old grandfather, Lewis Beach, was sleeping. Beach used a wheelchair and crutches after having a leg amputated because of health problems, the fire chief said. 

Firefighters found Tyler's body a few feet from Beach's, Ebmeyer said. The body of the boy's 54-year-old uncle, Steven Smith, was found in another part of the trailer, which didn't appear to have a working smoke detector, he said.

We never really know in advance how we will approach being in the thick of things. We all solemnly declare that if someone we love were ever in danger, we would nobly come to the rescue. Few of us ever have to face the horror of putting our declarations to the test. Of those who do, a sadly small number of us actually do wind up being heroes.

But when a six-year-old boy proves he has the grit, shows he has what it takes to lay down his life to save his family, I can't help but be awed by the human condition and the inherent strength lurking below the surface of ordinary people, waiting for a chance to come out and do its good.

Philip Zimbardo argues that we should raise our children to be prepared to be heroes, so that if they are ever put to the test, they will rise to the occasion, even when the crowd is working against them. He and Tyler Doohan give me hope for humanity.

Doohan, as far as I'm concerned, died a man, not a boy.

Regrets, I Have A Few

One of the reasons I like to read Jonathan Finegold Catalan's blog is because he approaches economics with an admirable level of humility. This gives at least the appearance of better objectivity, in that he never seems so romanced by his own perspective that he is unable to find problems with his own thinking; he's never so sold on his own perspective that he can't acknowledge his mistakes. If this isn't absolutely true of Finegold Catalan - and I don't know him personally, so I cannot really say - it is at least the impression one gets from reading his blog, and it is to his credit.

In a recent post, for example, he explored his line of thinking from the days when he was more of a Rothbardian-ish anarcho-capitalist, compared to what he believes now. He has done this many times over the life of his blog. He's forthcoming with his mistakes. It's a good thing.

Over time, I believe I have placed myself in a similar situation, albeit a worse one. I have peppered the internet with all kinds of ridiculousness, much of which I regret. I don't lose sleep over it - I mean, after all, it is "just" the internet - but I do occasionally stumble upon an old comment of mine while searching a favorite blog out there. Some of those comments are winners, while others are terribly embarrassing. On more than a few occasions, I've read through the comments sections of old blogs and happened upon a particular stinker in the comments section, thinking to myself, "Good lord, who is this joker?" Imagine my dismay when the joker and the reader turn out to be one and the same.

That's not to say that I've done a great deal of flip-flopping. I think most of what I've written at Stationary Waves and elsewhere has been consistent. But I haven't always phrased things the way I'd like; I haven't always been as respectful as I would prefer to be; I haven't always been as humble as I ought; I have frequently put too much stock in my own opinion.

What shook me straight - or, at least, straighter - was having the opportunity to interact more regularly with people whose knowledge and intelligence greatly exceed my own. When required to justify my positions with a greater level of rigor and honesty, and a lesser level of braggadocio, I quickly discovered a need for greater humility and respect. And, like anyone else, I still don't always deliver that to the extent I would like to, but at least I recognize the faults.

I hope, and perhaps naively believe, that this has translated into higher quality blog posts, argumentative reasoning, and comments out there. I can't say for sure, because I'm in no position to judge. But that's where my efforts lie, at least.

Contradiction

Part One:

 COL LANDA
          Now according to these papers, all
          the Jewish families in this area have
          been accounted for - except, The Dreyfusis.
          Somewhere in the last year it would appear
          they have vanished.
          Which leads me to the conclusion that
          they've ether made good their escape,
          or someone is very successfully hiding
          them.

          (looking up from his papers, across the table at The FARMER)

          What have you heard about The Dreyfusis
          Monsieur LaPadite?

          PERRIER
          Only rumors -

          COL LANDA
          - I love rumors! Facts can be so
          misleading, where rumors, true or false
          are often reveling. So Monsieur LaPadite,
          what rumors have you heard regarding
          The Dreyfusis?

          (The Farmerlooks at Landa.)

          COL LANDA
          Speak freely Monsieur LaPadite, I want
          to hear what the rumors are, not who told
          them to you.
          The Farmer puffs thoughtfully on his pipe.

          PERRIER
          Again, this is just a rumor - but we
          heard the Dreyfusis had made there way
          into Spain.

          COL LANDA
          So the rumors you've heard have been of
          escape?

          PERRIER
          Yes.

          COL LANDA
          Were the LaPadites and the Dreyfusis
          friendly?

          (As the Farmer answers this question, the CAMERA LOWERS behind
          his chair, to the floor, past the floor, to a small area underneath the
          floorboards revealing;)

          FIVE HUMAN BEINGS
          (lying vertically underneath the farmers floorboards. These human
          beings are The DREYFUSIS, who have lived lying down underneath the
          dairy farmers house for the past year. But one couldn't call what The
          Dreyfusis have done for the last year living. This family has done the
          only thing they could, hidden from a occupying army that wishes to
          exterminate them.)

          PERRIER
          We were families in the same community,
          in the same bussiness. I wouldn't say
          we were friends, but members of the same
          community, we had common interest.

          (The S.S. Colonel takes in this answer, seems to except it, then moves
          to the next question.)

- From the opening scene of Inglorious Basterds

Part Two:

If you’re an anarchist, then it would be illogical for you to argue that the US government should sell off federal land in order to divest itself of property. Instead, the logical argument should be that the federal government should vacate the land it has taken possession of and not interfere with its original owners’ resettlement.

For, if you argue that the government should sell the land it holds, then you are implicitly admitting that the government is a) a legitimate entity and that b) it possesses property rights. If the government were an illegitimate entity, then whatever ownership claims it would make would subsequently be illegitimate as well. Thus, it would have to forfeit all claims to the proceeds of the sales, since those claims are derivative from the initial illegitimate ownership claim.

- Simon Grey, A Brief Thought Exercise

Although I cannot locate a citation for it, somewhere in the far reaches of YouTube, there exists footage of an interview with Frank Zappa in which he discusses his problems with the Libertarian Party, circa 1985 or so. Zappa makes the point that he agreed with the LP on a lot of issues, but on other issues, he found their thinking to be problematic.

In the interview, he cites eminent domain as one example. At the time, the LP platform included a point about returning land to Native Americans. However, the platform also included a point about eminent domain's being unconstitutional, or otherwise wrong. Zappa's point was: How will we return land to Native Americans without practicing eminent domain? Grey's concern is identical to Zappa's; true to the adage, great minds think alike.

Part Three:
You hypocrite, I wrote, how can you contradict yourself? But it's inevitable, I wrote.

It takes courage to discover a sense of conviction. It is a lifelong journey to develop a code of ethics that works for you. Along the way, you are bound to contradict yourself. 

This is the nature of morality. This is what it means to be human. We will never live up to all of our own expectations for ourselves. Our expectations will even change over time. The fact that someone once read and enjoyed Atlas Shrugged or The Communist Manifesto or any other controversial set of moral ideas should never, ever be used as a Scarlet Letter against anyone.

Of course, it's easy for me to dismiss contradiction when levied at me, while simultaneously crying foul when I detect it in the position of others. Easy it may be, but fair it is not. Although I am not an anarchist and I don't wish to defend their beliefs, in the context in which it was written, Grey's point can be thought of as an allusion to open-borders immigration. To wit, if citizenship is a relevant concept - indeed, if nation states are a relevant concept - then how can one simultaneously believe in citizenship and open borders?

Part Four:
Can a Christian Frenchman living through the Holocaust lie to Colonel Landa in order to save a family of innocent Jews from certain death? That is, can one whose values stand against "bearing false witness" nonetheless bear false witness if the cause is noble? Does the value of human life outweigh offer sufficient justification for failing to consistently practice what you preach?

More to the point, under what conditions might we "get away with" a philosophical inconsistency in the name of a just cause?

There are no right answers here. In the movie, Perrier ultimately betrays the Jewish family to protect his own. Human life outweighs his belief in honesty; the lives of his immediate family outweigh those of his neighbors. The Libertarian Party, circa mid-1980s, valued Native American property rights more highly than their stance against eminent domain. Simon Grey values communal homogeneity over strict adherence to free market capitalism.

As is the case with so many different aspects of life, the world is complex to the point that total consistency is probably impossible. In that regard, complaints that religions are self-contradictory are specious, too. Everyone is some level of hypocrite, because there are far too many complications in life to be fully accounted for by any ideology.

What matters is not that a contradiction exists, but that no contradiction remains unexplained. Consequentialist ethics easily account for a "noble lie." In the name of pragmatism, we might prefer some level of legal authority if it enables us to shrink the State's property holdings. Logic dictates that immigration restrictions are easier to eliminate than claims to citizenship.

That good decisions are sometimes contradictory is no strike against good decisions. The problem only arises when one deploys arguments of economic freedom against immigration; when one deploys religious arguments against saving lives; when one uses creed to justify creed-violation.

Ideally, a good-faith dialogue helps clarify the trade-offs. I do see the value of borders in the modern world, in light of practical considerations. I realize that open borders compromise border security - and I am comfortable with that trade-off. Freedom of migration and economic growth are both worth more to me than border security.

I also realize that in-group homogeneity loses out when pit against the arrival of a heterogeneous out-group. This is a good trade, in my opinion, because I do not value in-groups at all, and homogeneous ones - with their many Colonel Landas, large and small - have been all the more pernicious, in my experience.