re: Ron Paul

Some people I know (both Americans and Arabs) are attracted to Ron Paul because of his pull-the-U.S.-out-of-everywhere foreign policy. OK. But then you have to remember things like this, posted by a Facebook friend:

“Ron Paul argues that the landmark federal legislation that dismantled Jim Crow segregation in the 1960s was a moral evil and a violation of white people’s liberty.”

If ever there were a weak point to libertarianism, the civil rights struggle of the 1960’s exposed it, and this is it.

Sorry, but if you own a public restaurant or other facility, there is no such thing as a “right” to exclude black people from it. That issue has been settled.

There’s still a bit of this attitude lurking beneath the surface in the Republican Party, and in the context of American history and its specific weaknesses and tragedies, it’s one reason why Obama’s family background *is* a good reason to support him. And frankly, I do think it’s helped the national climate. Americans of all races and ethnicities are now potential leaders; it’s no longer an issue. The ridiculous birth certificate “controversy” over Obama was simply a last-ditch effort at political racism clothed in constitutional legalese.

how to contact prominent people

It sometimes happens that you want to contact prominent people in your field– the sort of people you might feel a bit shy about approaching. As a graduate student I did this a couple of times that I can recall, sending letters at the time to both Richard Rorty and Bruno Latour. Rorty sent a wonderfully warm and respectful response for which I will always be grateful, while the letter to Latour led to a long friendship and productive collaboration.

From these interactions, here are some things I learned about dealing with people who are more prominent and perhaps more busy at a given stage than oneself.

1. They are usually extremely nice as long as you are nice to them. Such people have too many big fish to fry to make other people feel inferior or ignorant, which is something that happens more and more frequently as you deal with other sorts of people.

2. They are extremely busy, so keep the messages to them as brief as possible, and don’t expect an extended correspondence unless you are dealing with issues of central importance to them.

3. Don’t send unsolicited manuscripts. They have hundreds of things to read already and are probably behind schedule. The only exception, of course, is if you wrote something dealing directly with them, because then of course they’ll want to know what people are writing about them.

4. Don’t tell them that they’re wrong or that you disagree. Published work is where disagreements are best hashed out. But it’s rather presumptuous just to fire off a letter to someone telling them that their theories are all wrong, especially if they’ve been working on those theories for decades and you’ve just jumped into the pool. You might not get all the complexities of the issues yet, so it’s best to be a bit cautious about disagreements at first.

Also, don’t take it personally if they never respond. They might not be good emailers, the email might have been lost, or they might have meant to respond and then neglected to do so. The Latours and the Zizeks receive hundreds of emails per week, and you can’t behave like a normal correspondent when you receive that volume of mail.

Intensive Thinking on DeLanda

Jon has some interesting thoughts on DeLanda, HERE. I was happy to have the chance to meet him briefly at Goldsmiths last week.

“the pathetic fallacy”

Thanks to the many people who sent in very useful suggestions for my colleague’s literature class on suffering. The backstory is that she dropped by the office yesterday wanting to know of at least one good piece of fiction that depicted inanimate suffering. Many readers of this blog sent in excellent suggestions.

What I found truly bizarre, while attempting to help her with various searches, is how often they led to the phrase “the pathetic fallacy.”

Consider, for example, these lines by Shelley: “The stars will awaken / Though the moon sleep a full hour later.” This is supposedly an example of the pathetic fallacy, since it supposedly projects human thoughts onto non-human things. There are a number of things to say in response to this.

1. First and foremost, it is idiotic to treat Shelley’s line as though it were a propositional claim, as if Shelley were saying: “Just like humans, the moon and stars fall asleep and then wake up.” He would have to be a psychotic to think this in any straightforward sense. So, where is the “fallacy” in Shelley’s metaphors?

2. Working in the opposite direction, if you’re going to call something a “fallacy,” you’d better have a pretty good idea of what the truth is. In everyday life, it certainly does seem like people can think and sleep and dream and inanimate objects cannot. But that’s hardly sufficient grounds for establishing a basic ontological dualism between thought and non-thought. There’s also a very basic difference between vertebrate and invertebrate animals, but no one thinks of designing an ontology that divides between the two as a basic distinction in the cosmos.

Finally, even if you think that the human/non-human distinction is ontologically absolute and irrefutable, what’s wrong with literature about inanimate suffering? This reflects a rather impoverished view of literature– as if its goal were to echo the scientifically established truths of any age.

“The army and the people are not one hand.”

Good opinion piece by Khaled Fahmy, Chair of our Department of History. HERE.

“Wandering Bell”

Before posting the call on this blog for literature about inanimate suffering, I did the usual Googling around for inanimate literature options to try to help my colleague.

The weirdest one I came across was a work by Goethe I didn’t know, called “Wandering Bell.” A boy doesn’t go to church, so the church bell comes down to persecute him in the fields. It’s a pretty disturbing image. And worse yet, it was even set to music by Schumann.

tomorrow, in the trial of the ex-Interior Minister

Habib al-Adly will blame hobbits and unicorns for the killing of protestors.

I’ve never been at an institution where a mass murderer was trying to frame that institution for mass murder. Remarkable. [ADDENDUM: Sorry, my earlier post seems not to have gone through. Today, al-Adly’s lawyer blamed our university security staff for gunning down the protestors in Tahrir!]

Having dealt with our incredibly mild-mannered (and unarmed) university security guards for 12 years, the idea of their even shooting a mad dog seems difficult to conceive.

I also want to say that these guys risked their lives down there last November on brutally long shifts, trying to protect our Tahrir Campus during the Battle of Mohamed Mahmoud Street. There were, literally, rampaging thugs in the area, and much property was stolen during armed break-ins at the campus. These security guards deserve a pat on the back and a bonus (they did receive both), not a finger being pointed at them by a guy who, if the death penalty has any place at all in the modern world (I doubt it does), would be among the small group of those most deserving of it.

Luckily, al-Adly’s credibility with the Egyptian public is zero, and this will just be the latest lie to blow up in his face.

literature about inanimate objects

A colleague is teaching a class on suffering, and wants to include literature on the suffering of inanimate objects. The pickings seem to be surprisingly slim so far. If anyone out there can think of anything promising, please send the reference to me at gharman followed by the at symbol, then aucegypt.edu.

Egyptian press freedom

THIS REPORT says that Egypt has dropped on the list for freedom of the press since last year’s Revolution.

I’d like to see the factors they used to reach this decision, because it seems counter-intuitive to me.

If this is what is primarily meant, then one can only agree:”RSF added that journalists in Egypt suffered three periods of exceptional violence in February, November and December.”

Yes, there have been periods of exceptional violence against journalists. But February can’t really count as an assessment of the present situation, since that was still under the Mubarak regime.

But if you look at freedom of the press simply as the ability of newspapers to say whatever they feel like saying, it feels to me like things are much better than a year ago. When I read any Egyptian newspaper now, I feel like I have a pretty good chance of reading a scathing denunciation of the military regime. That wasn’t normally the case under Mubarak.

Don’t get me wrong, I think plenty of things have been extremely disappointing since Mubarak stepped down. My mood is generally one of severe disappointment. But I do think there have been some positive gains, and increased freedom of speech and of the press are among them. People pretty much mouth off about the government whenever they feel like it now, without much if any self-censorship, and it really wasn’t quite like that under Mubarak. Over time, that new spirit of mouthing off may work to erode the prestige of SCAF– though to repeat, I’ve been in a pessimistic mood since the October Coptic massacre and the November battle of Mohamed Mahmoud Street.

Summer School in Bonn

Are you interested in “The Ontological Turn in Contemporary Philosophy”? If so, you may be interested in attending the Third International Summer School in Bonn, headed by Markus Gabriel.

Confirmed faculty for the event are:

Prof. Ray Brassier (American University, Beirut
Prof. Iain Hamilton Grant (Bristol)
Prof. Martin Hägglund (Harvard/London Graduate School)
Prof. Graham Harman (American University, Cairo)
Prof. Slavoj Zizek (Ljubljana, NYU, Birkbeck, European Graduate School)

Some stipends are available for foreign graduate students, and there is an April 1 deadline for applying.

Not all of the speakers will be able to remain for the whole 12 days, but I have already committed to being there the whole time.

Details for this interesting event are HERE.