Saturday, February 4th, 2012
•
Politics
According to Ars Technica (last Thursday), “Yesterday, after almost no debate, the Indiana State Senate approved a bill that would allow its schools to teach the origin stories of various religions when a class touches on the origin of life. It now moves on to the state’s House, where one of its cosponsors is currently the Speaker of the House.” The Ars article goes on to quote the bill’s sponsor, Senator Dennis Kruse, who (in an interview) called evolution a “‘Johnny-come-lately’ theory.”
Which is the usual fundamentalist position, right? Except that the discussion on the Ars article ran to 23 pages of debate over the bill and over ancillary questions viz. reason vs. faith. You would expect to find a more rationalist bias on a technologist’s website (even allowing for paid political “trolling” etc.) After skimming most of the commentary (which got extremely epistemological as one would expect) I had to weigh in (insert cartoon about how “someone is wrong on the Internet!”)
The entire idea of science is so profoundly “humanistic” in the best sense—it’s humans doing what we’re best at, which is (unlike every other species) using reason to solve problems and advance ourselves. Reason is what allows us to ignore our instincts and our senses; to create and understand art and fiction; to refrain from killing; to sympathize and empathize. Reason is what forces us to give up on heliocentriic, pre-Coopernican or strict Newtonian views of the universe: it seems like the sun is moving, but it can’t be because that doesn’t make sense; it seems like time is a constant, but it’s not. This is the essence of the human spirit; the element that takes us above the animals and allows for civilization and learning and the protection of the weak and the eradication of hunger and disease and all of it.
To look at “the human soul” and insist that it’s got some kind of undetectable, immeasurable characteristic, the existence of which violates at least a century of progress by its implications, is the opposite of reason. It’s Santa Claus and the tooth fairy; it’s locking Galileo in a tower; it’s burning witches at the stake. Humanity is so close to outgrowing its most dangerous child-like characteristics; isn’t it past due for this one to go away as well? Can we at least stop killing and punishing each other over it?
UPDATE: According to a new Ars article, Indiana is “backing away” from the bill. So things aren’t as black as they seem (or can seem when you’re staring incredulously at 23 pages of “debate” over creationism in 2012).
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
•
Comics
So everyone’s up in arms and conflicted (including Jonathan Lethem) about DC Comics’ plans to release various Watchmen prequels. Alan Moore told the New York Times that the idea is “completely shameless” and pointed out that there were no sequels to Moby Dick (which I think is a bit much, but that’s the way he expresses himself). And of course he’s correct, but, at the same time, I can’t pretend I won’t avidly read the new stuff.
There’s a genuine issue here: it’s the same dilemma David Fincher faced (and talked about) when he agreed to make Alien 3.
On the one hand, the thing probably shouldn’t exist. There’s certainly no reason for it to exist…the audience wasn’t asking for it, and the original creators are indifferent at best and hostile at worst. So probably the best thing would be to just forget it, and leave the original alone.
On the other hand, once you accept that it WILL exist, and you’re actually facing the challenge of making it, suddenly things get interesting, because the near-impossible creative challenge might result in something very good. (Or, as Fincher said about Alien 3, “It could be cool. Don’t you think it could be cool?”) (Most people don’t think that Alien 3 turned out well, but I think that was because of studio meddling and Fincher—because it was his debut feature—not being given enough freedom to do it the way he wanted.)
Neil Gaiman’s “Golden Age” follow-up to Moore’s Miracleman faced the same problem. The “Miracleman” story was perfectly complete, and there was absolutely no internal or formal reason to continue. I, personally, thought that going forward with the story (after Moore’s amazing ending) was going to completely ruin the whole project. But Gaiman somehow managed to turn his “Miracleman” sequel into something incredible. It was a tour-de-force act of writing: just like Fincher, he had to go back to a well that had already run dry and somehow get water from it…and he pulled it off.
The obvious difference is that Alan Moore wanted this to happen—wanted Gaiman to continue the story—and formally handed over the reins. But this is an “external” difference, not an “internal” one. Clearly, Moore went ahead and finished “Miracleman” without the slightest attempt to leave anything left over; he wrote just as uncompromising an ending as he provided for “Watchmen.” He didn’t do anything to make it easier for Gaiman…he just “endorsed” Gaiman’s follow-up.
So that’s the situation with “Watchmen”: on the one hand, it’s over and there’s absolutely no need to add to it (and lots of reasons not to). But, once you accept the concept of it happening (as a hypothetical abstraction) it becomes a very interesting logic puzzle and a great writer’s challenge…and that’s why I’ll definitely read this stuff.
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
•
Politics
Elizabeth Drew has a new piece in the New York Review of Books about Romney and the election, which deviates pretty far into the “Greenwaldian” zone of near-existential dread that used to be the exclusive province of Noam Chomsky types.
I actually have loved Drew ever since she was in The New Yorker comparing Ed Meese to Inspector Closeau (about 30 years ago). Her writing was much more doctrinaire than it is now, which means that she’s gone in the opposite direction from most high-level political journalism. It’s not like NYRB doesn’t do this kind of thing often these days (they’ve been fearless in their anti-AIPAC coverage, and they had Frederick Crews attacking Freud before anyone else). (I think.) Anyway good piece if anyone’s listening. It’s nearly impossible to get find this particular flavor of deep structural critique (i.e. “shrill” concerns about the fundamental failure of representative democracy) anywhere that you can refer to in “polite company” these days.
