object-oriented bossa nova

BOGOST IS ON THE CASE.

another hilarious Bogost tweet

ibogost “The liberal arts have sung their own praise long enough; they should now raise their voice in praise of the mechanical arts.” (Diderot)

(Except that… much has changed since Diderot’s time, and the pendulum may have swung the other direction by now. But it’s still funny.)

two notes

First, for those of you who have seen today’s update of the CRESC conference in Manchester, it still has me listed as speaking on the night of September 1. That is incorrect. Since I only arrive in Manchester on the afternoon of the 1st, that seemed too risky, and I am told that I will actually be speaking on the morning of September 2.

Second, I just received the proofs for a forthcoming chapter I wrote combining Paul Virilio with a famous 1989 U.S. Marine Corps article on the future of warfare. That one will apparently be available in electronic format, though presumably not free of charge. Details will be posted as soon as I have them.

One of the weird things about writing a lot of articles and chapters is that, given the vastly different publication speeds of various projects, many things are published simultaneously that were by no means written simultaneously. It’s like being surrounded by a landscape wracked with explosions or lightning-bolts heard from different distances.

on cars

One of my minor goals in life is never to own a car. So far, so good. I’ve been fortunate to spend most of my adult life in Chicago and Cairo, two cities where it is possible to have a normal fulfilling life without owning a car. Chicago has a good bus/L-train package, and Cairo has extremely cheap taxis as well as a Metro that is pretty good but happens not to go along the routes I normally need to use.

What’s wrong with cars? Nothing, especially. I just can’t imagine spending money on fuel, maintenance, and insurance that could go instead toward plane tickets to Sofia, Istanbul, or Mumbai.

America dumped its trains and trolleys and replaced them with a massive car infrastructure. On the surface this might seem like a gain in individual choice and freedom. But what it really meant, I think, is an increase in personal lockdowns in long-term car commitments and decaying local commerce, as car-centered shopping areas sprung up in suburban wastelands.

I’m the opposite of a luddite, and also the opposite of someone nostalgic for yesteryear. But what brings me closest to that nostalgia are flashes of the train culture of the American past. (Europeans don’t need to feel this, of course, because they are still able to get on trains and go places whenever they wish to do so.)

I have only the faintest memory of a passenger train station in my hometown of 3,000 people. It was first abandoned and then torn down at some point during the 1970’s. My high school German teacher often spoke of taking the train to Chicago on a regular basis; that would have been just under 5 hours. He was also able to use that train route for the purpose of buying things– for instance, he would often order books from Chicago, and the bookstores there would have a courier put them on the train passing through tiny Mt. Vernon, Iowa. He could phone in the book order early in the morning and have the book from Chicago by evening.

My grandfather also used to speak of commuting from Mt. Vernon to his job in Cedar Rapids (about 20 miles away) by electric trolley. But absolutely none of that was left by the time I was born. What a waste. Was it really a civilizational advance to tie everyone down into car loans instead? Local culture decayed as a result, with the number of restaurants and the size of cinemas in town reduced even during the brief course of my childhood. People could always drive to Cedar Rapids, after all.

I get the same feeling when looking at old photos of Chicago and seeing trolleys running down now-minor streets such as Racine. I never experienced those times, but miss them anyway.

sentences that are ominous when taken out of context

Ian Bogost on Twitter:

“I, for one, welcome our new jellyfish overlords.”

I’d provide the context too, but it would ruin the effect of the sentence taken in isolation.

Herzberg on the psychology of philosophers

Last year I accidentally found Alexander Herzberg’s The Psychology of Philosophers (1926, English trans. 1929) in the library stacks while looking for something else, and have enjoyed reading in it from time to time. Much of what is in the book would now be deemed quaint and dated, and the theory itself may need some work, but Herzberg has a fine sense for the subtleties of biography, and never tilts the evidence in favor of his theory.

What is that theory? Herzberg is on board with the traditional idea that philosophers are often failures in practical life. He opposes the theory that this is due to their “lack of interest” in practical affairs, and points to a number of cases of strong ambitions in practical areas that simply fell flat due to the ineptitude of the philosophers.

So, the theory he ends up with is that philosophers, like creative artists, require a combination of unusually strong impulses plus unusually strong inhibitions. The difference between these two categories, he thinks, is that philosophers (like scientists) have a streak resembling paranoia, with the need to systematize and classify. By contrast, creative artists have what he calls a strong power of projection, taking their own psychological processes for features of the world itself, which I guess would be a different sort of psychosis.

One of the things I like about the book, which would admittedly never pass muster in today’s intellectual climate for a number of reasons, is that he carefully and honestly assesses his group of 30 philosophers in a number of practical areas. “Did any of them have a good business sense?” Well, Hume did. “Were any of them friendly with others in an uncomplicated way?” Yes, 7 of them were, in one case we don’t know, but 22 of them had severe problems maintaining normal friendships. “Which ones had success in politics?” Hume, and to a lesser extent Bacon, Locke, and Mill, the others were failures, including Leibniz. “How religious was the group?” More than you might think, though Augustine was the only genuine religious genius of the bunch.

I was also pleased to see that Herzberg had Plato, Bruno, and Nietzsche all on his list of the most literarily talented philosophers, since that would also be my top three, though he also adds Augustine and Schopenhauer to the mix, which is perfectly fair. (And Schopenhauer is simply a very fine essayist, lacking the poet’s streak that you find in the other four).

Another nice moment is when he relates the very believable rumor, previously unknown to me, that Bruno used “highly vivid language” in conversation. Put him on your list of “10 Past Figures I Would Love to Have at Dinner,” even if he would be likely to offend some of your other guests.

Bruno would probably have to be high on the list of “Most Interesting People in the History of Philosophy.” There’s a story about a man sitting at a dinner and getting up and asking the host “Who is this stupid old bore sitting next to me?” and the response is “that stupid old bore is the philosopher Hegel.” No one would have made such a remark about Bruno, surely not about Rousseau, and I wonder who else would be most guaranteed not to bore anyone at dinner. Socrates, for sure. But that’s a topic for another time.

Make of Herzberg’s theory what you will, but it’s great fun to read about. There is a long passage on Rousseau’s mental problems, of which the following is an indicative sample:

“Rousseau, a man whose sex-life was coloured by masochistic and exhibitionistic tendencies, who showed ethical deficiencies and was inclined to vagabondage –who was, in a word, a definite psychopath– was seized at 24 by a neurosis of neurasthenic and hypochondriacal type. He became enervated and dejected, wept over the most trivial things and believed himself on the verge of death… His delusions became more and more absurd; at one moment he believed himself involved in an attack on the life of Louis XIV, and at another he accused his enemies of giving him colourless ink so as to make it impossible for him to write his Confessions.”

Incidentally, there was a real-life version of that “colourless ink” trick, when Soviet authorities supposedly had Tarkovsky shoot “Stalker” on an experimental film that turned out to be undevelopable. The director had something like a nervous breakdown over this. The version of “Stalker” we know is the second shooting. I read somewhere on the web that in the first version, the Stalker character was more of an action hero, as opposed to the emotionally disturbed spiritualist we see in the current film. I’m actually glad the film had to be redone. Can’t imagine Stalker as an action hero.

Which reminds me… Why on earth have I not watched my Stalker DVD in six years? Probably because I watched it a dozen or so times immediately after receiving it as a gift, but that’s still no excuse. I’ll be pulling it out soon for another viewing.