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2014 100 Book Challenge

Today is January 7th, and this is not usually a good day. 20 years ago, a big thing happened. I feel an emotional impact all day on 1/7 that I can't rightly describe using any of the words you people have come up with, so I've decided to channel this feeling, this year, into something interesting and hopefully productive.

I try to read 100 books a year. Last year I fell short, often I make it, sometimes I exceed it. This year, I'm on my third book on the seventh day, so that seems pretty good, and I thought that I would invite other people to join me on this endeavor. If you're interested, we could find some way to track our progress as a group. Or you could set some other goal: 50, or 75. You could track pages. Whatever.

Rules? I read a lot of graphic novels, but/and many of them contain adult literary material that's unmatched by some of the straight prose I read. I also read a lot of fiction and YA books. I typically intersperse this with history, sociology and current events nonfiction, crime stuff, music history, books about art, biographies, and anything else that takes my fancy. Page counts of what I read tend to range as an average from 100 to 600. My basic rules for counting are these: I don't count children's books (which I still read occasionally, and sometimes even to my kids) I don't count anything devoid of literary merit (I didn't count the Twilight books the month I read them, for example) in my ex post facto assessment thereof, and I don't count anything without a proper readable spine. No comics and magazines, articles, studies, tracts or pamphlets. I read those, I just don't put them in the count. If you read on a digital reader or listen to books on whatever, I'd say count it if would have had a spine. You are free, obviously, to count however you'd like.

Mostly, I feel like this would be a good way for smart people I know to be encouraged to read more, and might make better synergistic (yep) use of our independent Goodreads lists, blogs, and assorted reading activity measurements. Also, I hope to collect some straight up recommendations and discussions out of this, like a virtual book club. Mostly, though, it's about reading goals and challenges.

Anybody with me on this?

Ideas, Beliefs, Principles, & Living

Kevin Smith touched on it in Dogma when he had the 13th Apostle Rufus talk about the superiority of ideas over beliefs.

An idea is simply something that exists inside your head; you have an idea that God exists, or that people are made of purple cheese, squirrels are all evil (totally), that ZOG or Freemasons secretly run everything, or that doing good things for others will have good consequences. Idea spawns belief when a person decides (consciously or not) that it is has become one, or that they need one for some reason, or when they feel as though they must defend it (no one does - more on that later) or finally, when they attempt to be "right" by collecting information to back up their idea. These last two are the most contentious by definition, as they're the ones that involve other people. More people = More problems, and thank you, Bobby Louis.

There are a lot of reasons people need beliefs. Maybe there's something lacking in their lives, creating a hole, and they can fill that hole with belief in something. Maybe it's a fear of pain or death or loss or loneliness - the classic reasons beliefs are born. Often, for whatever reason, ideas provide no emotional assistance or satisfaction, and beliefs come along to fill the void. In this way, beliefs are good things; an internal construction that helps a person function. Because beliefs are such helpmates in times of need, we become attached to them and feel the need sometimes to share or defend them, and this is when, often, things become problematic. Once the belief is outside of your head, it is vulnerable to the slings and arrows of others, and often, deprived of its raison d'etre and time/space context, a belief becomes not only unbelievable, but laughable - like looking at skinny ties or bell bottoms; hey, made sense at the time, right?

Herein lies the reason why beliefs should likely not be defended, at all, ever - they are eroded in the act of protection. Simply the process of trying to explain this ineffable thing that happened in your head will dilute it, much less parsing it out and guarding it against attacks and questions. In order to understand properly, we literally "had to be there," and no one but you was in your head when this belief happened. Hopefully. The only incontestable reason for belief is feeling, since no one can argue that. It may seem like a belief is strengthened in the sharing, but in truth, no two people will believe a thing exactly the same way, and if they do, they have engaged in groupthink, which is more like viral meme-transmission of an idea involving a conscious decision to think like someone else (or your approximation thereof) and less like actually organically agreeing in totality. 

The groupthink phase is typically when people try to be "right" or more often, "correct" about their beliefs. They will want to prove the thing out, if not to you, then to themselves, at least. Therein lies the major problem with most beliefs. Science is based upon observation + idea, where we see a thing and then theorize what might be making that occur, then collecting data to see if we can prove that out. Good science will bail on the idea if the data doesn't back it up. Beliefs, on the other hand, tend to be these pre-constructed mind fortresses surrounding the idea, impregnable to fact, holding up whether there's anything outside the head they were born in to back them up or not. They kind of have to be like this to do their job, and their job is ill-suited for shared reality.

Castles & forts are pointless without people in them, and the people are more important than the buildings - we'd typically tear down a historic edifice to save but one life of a person trapped inside. In the same way, a belief is simply a hollow structure with an idea more important than it is at the core. Principles are much the same. Principles have increasingly become something that people who have them hide behind or inside of, instead of what they probably ought to be; a firm foundation upon which we stand, exposed, when making decisions. Having principles is ultimately a good thing; like tools in a toolbox or arrows in a quiver - one is prepared for what might happen and has some ideas about right action for dealing therewith. One hopes, however, not to have anything break badly enough that one needs a toolbox, and no one would prefer to use arrows to solve a problem. Principles are best kept to oneself and should never be allowed to interfere with even and decent dealings with actual people. If you find yourself not helping a person who needs it "on principle" it might be time to rethink your life.

So, if you ought not share your beliefs and principles can't govern actions, what do we do? How do we do what's right and fix stuff? I would contend that perhaps "we" needn't do anything. Individually, it's on us to engage with what we know needs fixing, and if we can't bring anyone along on that train, maybe we're not supposed to. Leading by example should be all the convincing that is required, because no convincing is required; one simply sees, responds positively, and chooses to emulate. In this way, we cut out the chaff and red tape of things that don't appeal to us, harvesting only the best in forward progress.

Or, you know, such is the dream. Obviously, I'm not trying to convince you of anything.

Duck Disappointment

Over the course of this recently passed holiday season, I espoused the point of view - more than once - that if you were hanging out with your friends and family and discussing Phil Robertson's relatively recent remarks, then you had already lost, succumbed to the trap the Robertson family (and maybe A&E) wanted you in from the very beginning - talking about the stars of Duck Dynasty during the off-season, just after the Christmas special had run, and in the break before the show comes back on the air with new episodes mid-January. Think that's paranoid? Do you imagine it far-fetched that this is a plan? These people are hunters and trappers by primary vocation, and they run a media empire that breaks records AND you had never even heard of them two years ago. Not even two: the show started in March of 2012. So you got spanked by a bunch of rednecks if you spent the holidays posting and arguing and spouting off about Phil. You're prey, a mark. Congratulations: you got suckered.

Probably not as badly as I did, though. I watch this show. Pretty regularly. I wrote a paper comparing it favorably with "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." I read the books that came out last year (took me about four hours in total to read all three), and I had 40 of the episodes built up on my DVR for decompression time after I graduated. Granted, they were there with the specific intent of killing brain cells: the re-runs have a relaxing kind of rhythm to them. I like the show and think Uncle Si and Jase are funny. I think Willie's probably a business genius. I don't have the "killing animals and eating them" objection that a lot of my friends have, and there's been nothing on the show I haven't been more or less comfortable letting my kids watch. There are far fewer adult words and ideas than on the sit-coms and dramas we sometimes watch together. The show also doesn't follow the format of other reality shows with the endlessly repeated scenes, long cuts, sensationalism and degradation, and it evokes, emotionally, people I grew up around as a Southerner. That includes jackass people like Phil Robertson.

Every left-of-center person I know who watches Duck Dynasty has put forth, in some form or another, the idea that the more we watch, the less we like Phil. You cannot watch the show for any length of time and not get a pretty good bead on the fact that he's an old-fashioned, intolerant titan of arrogance. From his casual sexism to his assertion that an effeminate photographer has "mommy issues," Phil's an unabashed dick, but he's only one person on the show. Herein lies my second point (the first being that this kerfuffle is just twerking naked for rednecks) - PHIL'S NOT THE ONLY PERSON ON THE SHOW. Fine, he's the patriarch, he's the "Duck Commander," whatever - but what do YOU do when someone in your family's a fuckwit? How many chances do you give your Uncle Douchebag, racist grandpop, or old dog cousin? And before you answer, I'd invite you to measure your excised number of family members against mine. Most people in families don't just kick people out - I'd also invite you to remember that. There's a bunch of other Robertsons, and $$$ aside, it's none of our fucking business how they proceed from here unless they make it so. Some would argue that they have - I'm not as sure.

Next: There is the "what did you expect from a pig from a grunt" argument. Phil's old, white Church of Christ and not terribly bright - he has made his success from working hard, often a Southern or broke people's substitute for being smart. His unenlightened views on homosexuality are widely shared here in the American southeast, disgusting and wrongheaded as they are. Sounds like an opportunity to talk about that, yes? His remarks on black people are so profoundly stupid and blinkered, they sound like where White Guilt intersects with White Privilege, so it's kind of easy to see where that comes from, too. None of this excuses the dumb shit that he said, and continues to say, and likely believes, but one has to wonder where the outrage and surprise comes from. It rings hollow. (If he weren't rich, he'd be another dumb motherfucker I ignore at a truck stop, failing a teachable moment.) Really, Media America? You didn't see this coming? As a group, the Robertsons know who their audience is - they just put their name on a line of guns, and made nice with 'Murica everywhere from Baba Wawa to Fox News. The fucking Christmas show pointedly opens actually inside a Wal-Mart. 

So, "Free" Speech: Phil has oodles of free speech. Anyone who says different is desperately trying to latch onto the controversy for their own gain, SARAH FUCKING PALIN. Or they're mixed up about the concept. Phil's employer disciplined him (barely) for some shit that he may even have been contractually obligated to shut the fuck up about - and we don't know anything about that. Find me a contract if you'd like to fight about that. What we do know is that his comments were printed in a magazine, and are still available on the Internet with "the 25 greatest breasts in movie history" right next to them. Free speech, people. Free speech is not saying whatever you want without repercussion - there are limits and laws restricting it, as well there should be. The private entities involved in this further complicate what is, in this case, a nonexistent issue.

Maybe reacting to this at all was pretty stupid of us as a group, yeah? Maybe a nice, measured action after the fact would be something to do? Unfortunately, this is where I find myself now. I made the mistake of saving the Xmas special until yesterday - I didn't want to watch it during the flap - and now I find that the thrill is gone. I knew the car guzzled gas, but now I know it takes jobs overseas, too? That might just be too much. I'm pissed and disappointed with Phil Robertson's hypocritical ass and wish that he could have kept his fool mouth shut and not ruined his family's show for me, even though I kind of already knew he was an intolerant gasbag, but I think now that if I watched it, I would not want my kids in the room, would not be able to face my gay friends or anyone else, and might find it inconsistent with what I think is good in the world.

Which is a shame. But we'll always have this.