first lecture in Copenhagen

HERE. I was asked to expand a bit on some of my transmediale remarks, and so I will.

March 1.

speaking of language viruses

1. One of the stupidest phrases of 1990’s America (it may have started in the late 1980’s) was “happy campers.” You couldn’t just tell a group of people that they looked happy, you had to tell them they looked like “happy campers.” Not sure if that was triggered by a line in a film, or was just borrowed from summer camp culture more generally. Whatever the cause, it was among the most idiotic language viruses to hit American English in my adult life. Thank God it didn’t stick.

2. Whenever someone is in a jam and has nothing to say, they can always fall back on the “have been, is, and shall remain” trope. Example… Question: “Do you think that philosophers need to be knowledgable at the cutting edge of science?” Answer: “There have been such philosophers, and continue to be, and surely in the future there will be such philosophers.” We learn nothing from such statements, and it works only in the context of deliberate scathing humor, such as when James Carville responded to a false report about him from Fox News by saying: “Fox has been, is, and shall remain an ignorant and asinine network.” That’s funny. But otherwise, it’s a dumb construction.

Those are two of my least favorite things. Now, enter former Vice President Dan Quayle, in his farewell address to the people of American Samoa following a brief visit:

“You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.”

“fan base”

Here’s the latest literary virus spread by my former profession, sportswriting:

“Jeremy Lin’s 25.8 ppg, and the Knicks’ 5-1 record at home since he’s been a starter, have breathed life back into their fan base.”

The old way to say this would have been simply “breathed life back into their fans.” But then this “fan base” thing started at some point in the 1990’s. It originally made sense. It was used to refer to the total size of a fan pool in a given city, in order to pose questions such as: “Does Kansas City have a large enough fan base to support another chance at an NBA team?” But gradually it crept into general use, as a replacement for “fans.” Which is funny, because it’s longer and more complicated. But I suppose it sounds more sophisticated, more critical-analytical.

Another sportswriting-related virus that is only now just starting to fade after 10 or more years: excessive use of the indefinite article. Example… Question: “Who’s the best point guard in the NBA right now?”; Answer: “I think you’d have to look at a Derrick Rose, or a Chris Paul, or a Deron Williams.” It would be best to answer this question with no articles at all, of course, but for awhile it was nearly mandatory to use the indefinite in that way… Actually, come to think of it, it isn’t really sportswriters who do this so much. It’s more an oral phenomenon, promulgated in speech by broadcasters.

Again, I despise language “purists” who nitpick on questions of usage, but what I dislike even more are stupid language viruses. In America we’ve never really recovered from the Valley Girl Era of the early 1980’s. Like like like like like like like like like. The other night I was stuck on the bus right in front of a remote male product of that era, who spent the whole hour trying to impress the girl sitting next to him (and she did seem impressed, amazingly). His speech consisted entirely of phrases such as this: “I was like, ‘no way.'”

Worst I ever heard, though, was from a young waitress in State College, Pennsylvania. After she brought the food, I told her there was no fork. Her response: “And you’re like, ‘oh my God.'” Well, not quite.

Gary Gutting on the analytic/continental divide

In The Stone in the NY Times, HERE.

As a newspaper article, it’s a useful overview of the analytic/continental divide. And it tries to be fairly balanced, until the concluding sentence appears:

“The continental-analytic gap will begin to be bridged only when seminal thinkers of the Continent begin to write more clearly.”

So, it’s all the continentals’ fault.

I would counter with “The continental-analytic gap will begin to be bridged only when seminal thinkers of Anglo-American philosophy begin to write more vividly.” Or “only when seminal thinkers of Anglo-American philosophy begin to write things that people outside their narrow professional clan are interested in reading.”

But that would be counter-productive, because I don’t see why everyone is so eager to bridge the gap in the first place.

It’s unlikely that the gap will ever be bridged (it is more likely to be surmounted by something completely distinct from both, not “bridged”). A few books on Heidegger by analytically trained thinkers and a few references to Davidson and Putnam here and there by continentally trained authors may increase some channels of communication. But the two cultures are completely different, and this is not merely a “sociological” fact, as Gutting quotes Leiter as saying.

Leiter’s view that there is no such thing as an analytic/continental divide should not be taken seriously, since the statement is merely self-serving on his part. He has established a niche as ranker and gatekeeper in one portion of the philosophical universe, another portion of that universe views him with scorn, and his reaction is simply to say that the best continental philosophy is being done in the departments he favors and that those who loathe his agenda are simply of low quality, not representatives of a different tradition.

The true difference between the analytic and continental traditions was foreshadowed by Brentano in the 1890’s in his lecture on the four phases of philosophy, and I believe his distinction remains accurate today. You can either view philosophy as a science, in which definite forward micro-progress is made over the decades through piecemeal collective labor. Or, you can view the history of philosophy in the manner of the history of art, in which progress is not incremental, but occurs in alternating periods of ripeness and decadence. Completely different group sociologies arise from the two differing presuppositions, as do two completely different models of writing (hence Gutting’s typical analytic assumption that “clear” writing is the important thing, as though unclarity were the main problem with writing rather than banality, flatness, and tedium).

Nor does Brentano provide a solution for this discrepancy, even though his analytic admirers are a bit quick to sweep the “art history” statement under the rug and claim Brentano as a full-fledged champion of “scientific” philosophy (though admittedly there are some passages in his works that invite this interpretation).

In any case, that’s the root of the difference, and it’s no use pretending it doesn’t exist. Either you think that it’s possible to read the latest professional journals and make progress in philosophy by adding nuances to recent arguments made by living peers. Or, you can take a more skeptical approach to the value of specialized argument and view philosophy as a matter of paradigm shifts rather than the collective incremental build-up of insights.

If the latter is the case as in the continental scenario), then there will be an upside and a downside just as with every choice in life. The upside is that you’re likely to take a longer historical perspective and not become bewitched by the transient, chiselling fashions of Leiter-ranked university departments, nor will you be so chipper and facile about hunting for “bad arguments” in authors such as Plato and Leibniz. The downside is that you’ll tend to view great works of philosophy as existing on a plane far above that of normal human Ph.D.’s, and as a result you may become depressed about your own ability to make a real contribution to the field, and thus you may begin to do purely historical work (which certainly has its place, but continental philosophy has often lost all sight of the distinction between historical and systematic work).

To put it in more familiar terms, you can view philosophy as a science or as an art.

If anyone wants to “bridge the gap” between the two traditions, that’s the problem with which they must grapple. And it’s a deeply philosophical problem, not a “sociological” one. Until it’s addressed as a philosophical problem, we’ll be running in circles, hearing the same things about the divide over and over again– either lamentations about the divide, or denials that it exists. The truth is: it does exist, but we should be happy for now that it does. Why? Because to solve the divide now would be premature. The true fault line separating the two camps has not been addressed on a philosophical level, but only on the level of mutual distaste.

That said, I think Gutting’s piece was basically a good pedagogical newspaper piece for the generally educated readership of the NY Times, though he displays as many biases in one direction as my friends and I would in the opposite direction.

Omar Mohsen memorialized in Cairo mural

flock of planes

This photo is floating around Facebook today, and the photographer is identified as Ho-Yeol Ryu.

It’s a time-exposure done in Hannover.

Omar Aly Mohsen’s awards

Here, Omar’s father accepts the two awards his son received at commencement yesterday: the Parents Association Cup (for balancing academics with extracurricular activities) and, appropriately enough, the first-ever Omar Mohsen Cup for athletic achievement.

Omar lost his life in the February 1 football match massacre at Port Said.

And what were the thugs doing last night, two weeks after murdering our student and more than 70 others? I wonder about that sometimes. Where are they storing their weapons? How are they earning their meals these days?

In fact, many people say that the real death toll was 179, and I don’t doubt it.

President Anderson is in the light blue. To the right of her with the glasses is Dean Ezzat Fahmy (Sciences and Engineering.) To the right of him is Dean Nabil Fahmy (Global Affairs and Public Policy), better known as the former Egyptian Ambassador to the USA. To the right of Omar’s father, half-concealed, is Dean Sherif Kamel (Business).

ESPN discipline against employees in the matter of Lin innuendoes

“At ESPN we are aware of three offensive and inappropriate comments made on ESPN outlets during our coverage of Jeremy Lin.

Saturday we apologized for two references. We have since learned of a similar reference Friday on ESPN Radio New York. The incidents were separate and different. We have engaged in a thorough review of all three and have taken the following action:

• The ESPN employee responsible for our Mobile headline has been dismissed.

• The ESPNEWS anchor has been suspended for 30 days.

• The radio commentator is not an ESPN employee.

We again apologize, especially to Mr. Lin. His accomplishments are a source of great pride to the Asian-American community, including the Asian-American employees at ESPN. Through self-examination, improved editorial practices and controls, and response to constructive criticism, we will be better in the future.”

The offensive remarks were apparently “chink in the armor” puns, and judging from ESPN’s reaction, I would assume they were deliberate. You simply can’t make those kinds of jokes in 2012, and everyone knows it.

Luckily, Lin seems to be a classy guy who doesn’t pay much attention to the verbal abuse. (Many cases have been far worse than this.)

In football/soccer it’s been African players who have taken most of the recent abuse, of course.

“Iran Executions – Fatemeh Eftekhari”

“Saeed Malekpour has spent the last two years in an Iranian jail. And now, it appears his execution is imminent. Saeed Malekpour is a permanent resident of Canada. He went back to Iran in the fall of 2008, to visit his father who was terminally ill. He was arrested on charges involving internet pornography.

For months, he has languished in prison. And now, amidst a significant increase in the number of executions in Iran, news reports suggest he is about to be executed.
Fatemeh Eftekhari is Saeed Malekpour’s wife. She was in our Toronto studio.

We requested a response from the Prime Minister’s office in this case. We received a statement that reads in part:

Canada is outraged by Iran’s continued disdain for the rights of Iranian and dual-national citizens, and by the recent wave of executions in Iran. We are particularly concerned about Saeed Malekpour, a permanent resident of Canada, who was condemned to death when the Iranian regime deemed software he created to be offensive. Iran has repeatedly refused Canada’s requests to allow us to visit Mr. Malekpour and provide assistance to him on humanitarian grounds. We have made this request to both the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran. Mr. Malekpour, along with many other Iranians, faces a disproportionately harsh punishment for dubious offences, after a highly questionable legal process.”

As I understand it, Mr. Malekpour simply designed software allowing photo uploads to the internet, and had nothing to do with posting the pornographic photos himself.

Nice government they have in Iran.

vivid sports metaphor of the day

Brian Phillips at Grantland, on the current status of Kobe Bryant:

“Kobe’s relentlessness has always been his most celebrated quality, but this season, he’s starting to remind me of one of those space probes that somehow keep feeding back data even after they’ve gone out twice as far as the zone where they were supposed to break down.”

Wonderfully written column. Not only can Bill Simmons write, he can also choose colleagues who can write.

And by the way, that’s a perfect metaphor for what Kobe has become.

Only problem: Phillips continues it for about another ten sentences, as if falling into the same trap as Kobe himself.

And that’s a good general piece of writing advice– don’t keep a metaphor going for too long. See how Phillips damages his own good work here:

“Kobe’s relentlessness has always been his most celebrated quality, but this season, he’s starting to remind me of one of those space probes that somehow keep feeding back data even after they’ve gone out twice as far as the zone where they were supposed to break down. You know these stories — no one at NASA can believe it, every day they come into work expecting the line to be dead, but somehow, the beeps and blorps keep coming through. Maybe half the transmissions get lost these days, or break up around the moons of Jupiter, but somehow, this piece of isolated metal keeps functioning on a cold fringe of the solar system that no human eyes have seen. That’s Kobe, right? While the rest of the Lakers look increasingly anxious and time-bound, he just keeps gliding farther out, like some kind of experiment to see whether never having a single feeling can make you immortal. He’s barely preserving radio contact with anyone else at this point, but basketball scientists who’ve seen fragments of his diagnostic readouts report that the numbers are heartening. It’s bizarre. He’s simultaneously the main character in the Lakers’ drama and someone who seems to have nothing to do with the narrative logic of the post-Phil team. Whatever the Mike Brown era is, he’s got no point of contact with it. Even Gasol and Bynum, his best supporting players, essentially just concentrate on not interfering with his flight path. Everyone stays out of his way, which is easy, because ‘his way’ is a couple of billion miles from the rest of the Lakers.”

If I were his editor, I’d applaud the first sentence, and maybe keep the second as well. After that, a big red X through the rest.