Thar He Blows: Moby Attended Our Debate Last Night

Or so says Gawker.

Here’s hoping our debate on history and futurism next month brings out David Bowie, my choice for the one guy to put in the space capsule if Earth is finally doomed (he’d get along with the alien civilization that eventually rescued him, for one thing).

The Zero-Child Policy

I should say a bit more about the zero-child policy — the desire not to have kids — alluded to in my prior post, to the ongoing bafflement, apparently, of most of the human race and to a few of my past girlfriends, all of them warned at an early stage about my desire to avoid kids. (It has caused a few break-ups, perhaps meaning it’s the sort of deal-breaker that will be discussed at Lolita Bar this Wednesday in the Rev. Jen vs. Katherine Taylor clash.)

First of all, let me say that there are over six billion unique sets of human preferences on this planet, yet rare indeed, it seems, are people capable of understanding that their own preferences are not necessarily shared by those around them — which is one important reason there are so few libertarians (most people don’t even see forcing others to pay for, say, a solid-gold monument to the state’s first governor as force since everyone [meaning, in fact, the person speaking and a few others who think much like the person speaking] wants a solid-gold monument to the state’s first governor).

And even on the rare occasions when people are able to understand that preferences vary, it’s usually because they’ve been hammered by the general culture into feeling severe shame if they don’t acknowledge diversity in one specific variable — say, sexual orientation — but not because they have in any way generalized the idea of diversity to arrive at the realization that a great many sorts of preferences might vary. So, particularly in New York City, you’re quite likely to hear people who in one breath will say they cannot imagine anyone being so narrow-minded as to fail to understand gays (good, good, that’s a start, almost there) and in the next breath say they cannot imagine someone not wanting kids or liking football or, say, loving Crosby, Stills, and Nash — alas, the imagination apparently has its limits, and in most brains they really aren’t very far away.

To help you imagine how someone who doesn’t want kids might look at them, first recognize that much of what seems universally-desired seems so because of instinct and cultural habituation — but that these things can sometimes be overcome, ignored, or for whatever quirky hormonal/environmental reasons simply absent in some people. Some people can’t look at skis without feeling, as if by ancient and nigh-universal instinct, a compulsion to get on them and go hurtling into the future — while others, like my manga-selling friend Ali Kokmen, react to skis by saying, “I sort of feel like just by walking I’m going fast enough already.” Some people look at kids — and by people I mainly mean women, since I have successfully refuted feminism in an earlier blog entry and am thus allowed to speak in gendered terms, though preferences of course vary — and feel a deep, visceral need to go grab them, marvel at their cuteness, squeeze their cheeks, ask how old they are, and dream up ways to get one just like that inside their wombs as quickly as possible.

I look at kids, especially the young ones, and think, roughly: “I have an IQ of about 150. I am horrorstruck anew with almost every day that I walk through this tragic world at how stupid, vicious, ignorant, parasitic, irrational, and lacking in emotional self-discipline even the adults are. Indeed, every time I walk around New York City, I find myself wondering, metaphorically speaking, Where are the adults? since almost every overheard conversation seems like the inane, gossipy, cruel, vapid, amoral, shallow natterings of mental defectives and emotionally-stunted pseudo-children. Thank goodness I do not have to deal with people who are still worse, such as people who drool on themselves, expect me to feed them because they can’t figure out how to do so themselves, or emit ear-splitting shrieks like alarmed monkeys when they are distressed. And yet — and yet! — there are people among us who indeed do drool and shriek, who demand toys, know next to nothing of this world that might provide conversation fodder fit to relieve the general tedium, drain precious time and energy like vampires from those around them, and continually drag those around them down to something resembling their paltry and rudimentary intellectual level, so that even the geniuses in their presence, like defeated and enslaved beings, must now spend most of their waking hours talking about poop, blocks, why not everything with fur is a cat, and how if you be good and stop the ear-splitting shrieking for just a few minutes maybe we’ll go look at the horsey (or what have you). What an unmitigated disaster. What a nightmare. I would sooner be tortured to death by terrorists or some Latin American death squad, since at least then the pain would end soon enough, than endure this mentally-stunted worst-case scenario for years on end, as if having voluntarily lobotomized myself — and at great expense, while so many of the projects of far greater interest on my to-do list remain tragically unfulfilled. It’s hard enough to find adults worthy of the label, why intentionally interact with people who — admittedly through no fault of their own — are years away from embodying the qualities of mind I most admire and want to be around, such as being articulate, well-informed, rational, and self-sufficient? Children are, in short, a catastrophe.”

And yet I can understand and sympathize with those who think they’re interesting and cute enough to endure — more power to you, parents of America! I would not try to stop you from doing your jobs as parents — the most important jobs in the world, really, and if I wanted to do it, believe me, I’d want to do it well. There can be no greater moral responsibility in everyday life than raising a child well — which is all the more reason I choose not to do it. I mean, I don’t wake up in the morning and think, “You know, today might be a good day — but it’d be better if I were shackled to a midget who was completely dependent on me for all his needs and indeed his very life! That’d make things more pleasant and special!” Few seek out such situations (though again, if you’re one of those people, by all means, go for it!).

In fact, fewer people reproduce in large numbers as societies become more modern, so there’s a sense in which people’s preferences are subtly “coming around to my way of thinking” — as people find more things to do, women have more options (there’s something useful about feminism — I didn’t say it had no useful facets at all), and the necessity of youthful farm labor retreats into history, they tend to have fewer kids, such that the eco-doomsday warnings of a population explosion so common a mere generation ago have now turned (like ice age warnings into global warming warnings) into dour analyses of the “birth dearth” — with places like Italy and Japan already falling below replacement level (slightly fewer than two kids per two parents, statistically speaking) so that if current trends hold (though they never do), Italy and Japan will cease to exist in the not too distant future.

And while I don’t expect the human race to cease to exist, I am not morally alarmed by the idea of it shrinking considerably (that would mean fewer jerks walking around), something that is in any case still generations off, if it ever comes to pass (at which point environmentalists, if they have not simply forgotten or consciously obscured their population-shrinking intellectual lineage by that point, will have reason to celebrate). In any case, in the long run, I expect much of the population will be either immortal or replaced by robots, or both, but I’ll discuss that topic more in two weeks (as preparation for our July Debate at Lolita Bar, on history and the future).

So to sum up: you may like kids, but please understand that some of us have a long list of other things to do and just don’t see the big appeal in jettisoning lots of those things in order to spend an inordinate amount of time hanging around with needy dwarfs. As I once said, in a joke that found its way into Kyle Smith’s novel Love Monkey and that may (come to think of it) have been the inspiration for an Alien-themed baby shower I went to, we are accustomed to seeing people have kids, but if you somehow reached adulthood without hearing about it and then saw the process for the first time with unbiased eyes, you might think it was like something out of a horror movie, this creature bursting out of the woman with blood and screams, taking over the lives of those around it. No thanks. What part of “Gah, gah, bah, guggle, SHRIEEEEEK SHRIEEEEEK WAAAAAAAAHHH!! SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!! SHRIEEEEEEEEEEK!!” don’t you understand?

That Personal Ad and the 6/20 Break-Ups Debate

With less than a week to go before our big Debate at Lolita Bar on the question “Is It More Painful to Get Dumped or to Do the Dumping?” (between Rev. Jen and Rules for Saying Goodbye author Katherine Taylor), it might be worth unveiling my girlfriend Koli’s reaction (written without any urging from me) to our differences and to my own mammoth, undiplomatic personal ad:

Hi. I’m Todd’s new girlfriend. Luckily I met him in “real life,” where he is a sweet, considerate guy who respects a thoughtful argument even if its conclusion is completely opposed to everything he believes in. If he wasn’t, I doubt we’d be together.

I am a left-leaning liberal and a feminist. I think of labor protective laws not as “unfair” burdens on business, but as legitimate ways to secure a public benefit. I believe the environment is in serious trouble — to a large degree caused by human activity. Todd is concerned that science funded by government or non-profit organizations is compromised by the scientists’ incentives to falsify or slant the research, but for some reason doesn’t suspect the same when it comes to research funded by industries that could make or lose money based on their findings [Editor's note: False, obviously -- learn more at HealthFactsAndFears.com, which I edit]. Needless to say (since I framed it in that almost inflammatory way), I disagree with him.

I don’t think the “free market” would solve all our problems if governments only went way. While I do believe government should be limited and mostly decentralized, I think that there should be strong public regulatory mechanisms to monitor economic activities, mechanisms based on something other than self-interest. The other historical name for self-interest is “greed.” I think unmitigated greed has not historically proven itself to yield great public good and free societies. It has always been the liberty to pursue your greed (as one aspect of broad personal freedoms) within a democratic structure (i.e., non-economic collective decision-making) that has led to free societies.

Given my beliefs, it is very fortunate that I met Todd in “real life.” Had I encountered him on his blog without knowing him, you can understand why I wouldn’t have had high hopes for our compatibility. You can, right?

Also, politics aside, I would never have answered his personal ad, except to congratulate him for being truly funny and maybe to offer some friendly advice on how to make himself sound like an actual human being with any human characteristics worth warming up to (as opposed to a self-important jackass).

I suspect he isn’t completely unaware of this, because he asked me rather earnestly not to read any of this before I got to know him a little better.

He was even more urgent in requesting that I not read his antifeminist post until I got to know him a little better. This gave me pause. The discovery that he actually has an “antifeminist post” made me think twice about agreeing to get to know him at all. But he seemed to be a good guy and a thoughtful guy, so I said to myself: what the hell?

He’s fun to talk to, remembers (and likes) R.E.M., smiles indulgently when I spontaneously burst into songs in an East Indian language he doesn’t understand, and shares my annoyance at the widespread misuse (and consequent loss of meaning) of the once useful technical phrase “to beg the question.”

Do I wish he was a feminist or at least a non-antifeminist? Sure, but, what are you gonna do? I’ll humor him and not read the rant yet. OK, I shouldn’t assume it’s a “rant” but it probably is [Editor's note: After writing this, she read the antifeminist entry and responded to it in another entry -- hey, cool, Donovan's "Season of the Witch" is playing as I type this, and owning that makes me a hippie, right?]

Interestingly, I think I plainly fail to meet a number of his criteria as outlined in his ad, and he knew about them before he decided he liked me (I’m anything but reticent about expressing my views).

Examples:

I have indeed found myself saying, “Why does everything have to be rational all the time?” Todd knew this about me within an hour of knowing me. Formerly a self-proclaimed “hardcore rationalist,” I no longer think rationality is the only cognitive tool at our disposal. It is an epistemic device and a very good one for many, many things. But there is no basis for assuming it’s the only one.

I am open to the idea of a spiritual dimension to understanding ourselves and our world. That’s not the same as saying “creationism” or other elaborate religious theories of the world are just as valid as science in explaining the world or that they need to be given equal weight. All I’m saying is that to dismiss the possibility of any valid spiritual (or other non-rational) epistemology is to impoverish the whole process of knowing. It’s the kind of mindset that gives rise to dogma (and yes, even science has fallen prey to dogma throughout history).

I do think “just because something is logical doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right.” An argument can be constructed perfectly “logically” but still be untrue because it starts from the wrong premise or it fails to incorporate certain relevant variables. Of course, it can be argued that this kind of failure is a “logical” failure (making the original point “illogical”). But that isn’t necessarily the case. Sometimes the disagreement about a premise or the “relevant variables” is a function of values, not “logic.” I am not saying values are somehow supra-rational (at least not invariably). I am saying that no matter how axiomatic they are to you, they may still be debatable; or worse, an entirely different value may seem axiomatic to me. In fact, see Todd’s rule #8.

I also believe that it is perfectly acceptable to defer judgment when you see the “logic” in someone’s argument but have not been persuaded at the instinctive or “gut” level because you have a “hunch” that something is missing. It’s perfectly OK to admit that and take time for reflection/research. To pretend you are persuaded when you aren’t is just as intellectually dishonest as arguing in bad faith.

I hear voices in my head, courtesy of my iPod. Some of them are truly divine.

I’ve had times that could be characterized as “really confusing emotionally.” In fact, I suspect anyone who hasn’t experienced (or even felt overwhelmed by) emotional confusion has probably lacked emotional richness in his/her life. Life is messy — stripping away the mess eviscerates it, in my opinion.

Yet, Todd seems to like me despite all of this. That’s pretty cool. And he’s a really, really great guy. Have I said that already?

Oh, and I want kids. I love them. So, this thing with Todd (as wonderful as he is) will probably not last. Sad. But true.

Well, there you have it. Is it any wonder I love her? As for the tragic tendency of women to want kids, despite their ignorance and ear-splitting shrieks — I will address that problem in another entry in the next few days and explain my hope that the robots will eventually overcome it. And remember, we can also discuss all this relationship stuff at Lolita Bar at 8pm on June 20.

Pigs, Politicians, Punks

You’ll be relieved to hear that I finally saw Babe: Pig in the City, which — as Daniel Radosh and some of his friends promised me years ago — may be the darkest kids’ movie I’ve ever seen (as one might expect from the director who brought us not just Babe but Mad Max, the Road Warrior). As The Empire Strikes Back did for the original Star Wars movie, this gives us a grimmer turn to our heroes’ story — a turn so grim that my friend Laura Braunstein, a Dartmouth librarian, says she’s seen an academic paper likening Babe: Pig in the City to Dante’s Inferno. By the time you reach the moment where the grim, Gandalf-like narrator is explaining that Babe’s “brief life” is flashing before his eyes as he faces (in slow motion) the apparent “moment of his annihilation” at the jaws of a pit bull, you’ll be laughing out loud at how perverse the whole thing is, and if you have children, they’ll be in tears.

Indeed, one of Radosh’s pals said he actually called Universal, in his capacity as a teacher, to ask what they were thinking in releasing such a dark children’s film, to which someone at the studio, he claims, confessed that since the whole movie was shot in New Zealand and Australia, it was pretty much a done deal before the execs back in the U.S. had much of a chance to reconsider releasing it or ask for substantial rewrites.

(I suppose the dark humor about a good-hearted rural character in the frightening big city also bears some resemblance to the sorts of Holly Golightly-type narratives I mentioned last week when I reviewed Rules for Saying Goodbye, so you might consider watching the movie as a supplement to your attendance at the June 20 Debate at Lolita Bar featuring that book’s author — and speaking of that, I have one more thing to say about the culture of the Upper East Side: this area’s sometimes considered the Republican-friendly part of Manhattan, yet here, last Tuesday, the Republican candidate in a special election for the state legislature — a fortysomething former prosecutor who was pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-gun, pseudo-environmentalist enough to oppose a garbage facility in the neighborhood, and endorsed by the left-leaning New York Times — still lost, to the Democratic candidate, an openly bisexual twenty-eight year-old with cerebral palsy who vows to be an advocate for the disabled — and who got 64% of the vote. Yeah, it’s like rural Alabama here on the Upper East Side. Watch out! We kill hippies!)

—

And speaking of an unexpected darkness from New Zealand, rumor reportedly has it that Elijah “Frodo Baggins” Wood’s next role will be…Iggy Pop, in a biographical film about that wild, shirtless, drug-abusing, self-mutilating proto-punk (who says he once decided to check himself into rehab after waking up amid garbage bags on the Bowery, having allowed himself to be beaten by his former bandmates from the Stooges, dressed as Nazis, as part of a drug-addled piece of performance art he did at CBGB’s that literally ended with him being thrown out with the trash — on the bright side, you can sink pretty low, then, without sinking as low as Iggy Pop, and he’s still considered a success). The only similarity I can think of between mild Frodo and wild Iggy is height, since Iggy is, as he sings, “Five Foot One.”

(On another punk note, I recently stumbled across a piece of visually-weak but aurally-OK footage of what has to be one of the gothiest moments in history: Peter Murphy, formerly of Bauhaus [best known for the song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" from the opening scene of the vampire movie The Hunger], singing guest vocals for Nine Inch Nails as they cover the Joy Division song “Dead Souls,” which NIN previously covered on the soundtrack of The Crow — any gothier and this clip would be dead. On a more beautiful note, though, here’s Peter Murphy solo — and looking pretty vampiric himself — doing his best song, and arguably the best song of the 1980s, “Cuts You Up.”)

—

P.S. To get back to cute-animal movies, though, I just want to note that regardless of what the people from the pound say (and they never know for sure with the mutts in their possession), I still say my parents’ late, great dog, Uber, seems to have had some Tibetan terrier in her, and by way of further evidence, here’s footage of two Tibetan terriers frolicking, and I think anyone out there who met Uber will see the resemblance (mainly the grayish one):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nwMvYnMbhOo

P.P.S. Word reaches me that relativist philosopher Richard Rorty is dead. I guess whether that’s a good or a bad thing is a matter of linguistic convention, though. (UPDATE: My friend Jacob Levy, more capable than I of summoning enthusiasm for a philosophical foe’s sheer academic and performance skills, has written a somewhat more detailed farewell to Rorty — scroll way down past the postmodernly blank white space.)

DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: "Is It More Painful to Get Dumped or to Do the Dumping?"

VS.
NOT this Wednesday (as would normally be the case) but rather on Wednesday, June 20 (8pm):

Downtown performance artist, art star, and nerd “Rev. Jen” Miller throws down with (formerly) Upper East Side author, sometime bartender, and libertarian Katherine Taylor (whose new novel is Rules for Saying Goodbye) on the gut-wrenching topic of romantic break-ups.

At: Lolita Bar, 266 Broome St., at the corner of Allen St. on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, one block south and three west of the Delancey St. F, J, M, Z subway stop. Free admission, cash bar, and an air conditioner.

Luckily for me, Rev. Jen, who likes Budweiser, was drinking not too long after being dumped when I asked her to participate in this debate, while her opponent, Katherine, has just released a memoir/novel that climaxes with her then-fiance wracked by nightmares, sweat, and rashes at the growing realization he can’t go through with the ceremony.

If this debate doesn’t end in tears, I’m not doing my job as host right, or Michel Evanchik is moderating improperly. Come watch the trainwreck, man — this is going to be epic (and since it’s later in the month than usual, this once I’ll promise to give you a brief reminder).

P.S. Speaking of “tainted love,” these three versions of the song by that name leave me unable to decide which decade has been the most depraved…

…the 80s (as represented by Soft Cell)?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oEh5pWjcWCg&mode=related&search=

…the 90s, though this was actually released in ’01 (care of Republican rocker Marilyn Manson)?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nzE6yhrLfwk&mode=related&search=

…or the 00s (in the form of…Pussycat Dolls)?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=w37thYX6aYM&mode=related&search=

In this, as with so many other questions, I think I’m gonna have to say: the 80s, with things trending toward wholesomeness since then, at least by this admittedly unscientific measure. But what else would you expect from the decade that gave us “Hot for Teacher”?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hSdCPUoMAmQ

P.P.S. The 80s in turn reminds me of Reagan and the fumbling search for an inspiring president. Let me just say, if you aren’t rooting for Ron Paul in the presidential race, you’re part of the problem. What do you mean, which problem? All of them.

Book Selection of the Month: "Rules for Saying Goodbye" by Katherine Taylor (Plus: New-Zipcode Bombshell)

ToddSeavey.com Book Selection of the Month (June 2007):

Rules for Saying Goodbye by Katherine Taylor

I will help future literary historians (not to mention present-day reviewers facing imminent deadlines) by revealing one of the most important things about the just-released novel Rules for Saying Goodbye: Every word of it is true.

Well, OK, not every single word — in real life, the analogue of the protagonist’s best friend Clarissa may merely have had a psychosomatic illness, for example (now she’s more interested in the welfare of her child, and blogging quite wittily about it) — but the book’s at least as close to autobiography as, say, Purple Rain was.

Indeed, I can’t help wondering how the author, a friend of mine for years, decided to use her real name and her mother’s (for the protagonist and the protagonist’s mother), while changing her brothers’ names, but that’s a trivial detail — and something you can ask her yourself if you attend the June 20 session of the Debates at Lolita Bar I host, since Katherine will be one of the two debaters, the other being downtown performance-humorist-nerd “Rev. Jen” Miller, on the question “Is It More Painful to Get Dumped or to Do the Dumping?”

Judging by the book, it’s a question to which Katherine has already given a great deal of thought, since each of the book’s four sections focuses on a break-up of one sort or another: moving away from home to boarding school, breaking up with British boyfriend #1, breaking up with the Italian boyfriend, and breaking up with British boyfriend #2. In between (and during) those incidents, a lot of alcohol is consumed, much of it just a few blocks south of me on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The fact that Katherine will be arguing on June 20 that it’s more painful to do the dumping is impressive, considering that, as she recounts in the book, she was once so distraught about being dumped herself that she immediately vomited, right there on the spot.

Saying Things Just to Hear What They Sound Like

I don’t know if such vignettes form what someone as stodgy as Aristotle or Tolkien would call a plot, but as with Prince, the important thing here is poetic language more than either verisimilitude or narrative drive. And Katherine probably uses language more effectively than anyone else I know: gently assembling delicate, empirical bits of information in the form of carefully-placed, efficient little phrases, sort of like a more girly, tentative, and ironic version of Hemingway. Comparing one’s own prose to Katherine’s is bound to make one feel like a slob, even if one is ostensibly a professional writer (all those people who don’t know that quotes within quotes take single quote marks [perhaps thinking that single quote marks are simply for any short phrases], who use a single open quote at the beginning of ’07 when they should use an apostrophe [some of them, alas, in charge of writing auto-correction software for Microsoft], who think “begs the question” means “forces us to ask the question” instead of “assumes what is ostensibly to be proven,” who leave commas out of song titles so that they look like “Back Off Man,” or who continue using Buffy-inspired “Slayer slang” such as the phrase “um, not so much” long after it has outlived any imaginable comedic purpose, should probably not even be allowed to read Katherine’s work). Here’s just one paragraph, from the chapter that lists for us the actual Rules for Saying Goodbye (that is, rules for managing a breakup with a boyfriend), explaining to women Rule #5:

Flirt with his mother. If his mother is not available, his sister or aunt will do. Flirt mercilessly until she adores you. If you do not smoke, take it up in order to share furtive cigarettes with her in the guest bathroom. Always carry very nice cigarettes, but not overly nice — Nat Sherman, for example, but not Cartier gold-tipped. If you have not already done it by the time you decide to leave, knit a scarf that matches her eyes. When she admires it, take it off your neck and give it to her. It will be easier for her to wear later if she doesn’t think you knitted it specifically for her, and throughout the winter and next fall, the scarf itself will remind him how gracious you were.

That’s funny and quite sad at the same time — though I am obliged to tell you, in keeping with my day job, that you should not in fact take up smoking. Katherine, a libertarian who worked as a bartender in Manhattan, was none too happy about the initial crimp in business caused by the smoking ban here — a development referred to in the novel — and was somewhat displeased that I wasn’t as outraged by the new regulation as I am by all the other regulations, though I was still against it — I’m an anarchist, after all. She has also never been too pleased with my philosophical opposition to some of the views of her friend Dr. Jeffrey Schaler and his mentor, Dr. Thomas Szasz, who more or less contend that there is no such thing as mental illness. As the novel makes clear, though, Katherine has enough eccentric or neurotic acquaintances — and is conscious enough of her own neuroses — to have a legitimate fear that a lot of people in her social circle would be at risk of involuntary confinement if standards of sanity were to get too high.

Pretending They’re All Dead

Many of those acquaintances show up, thinly disguised, for amusing cameos, most of them being dissipated idle-rich sorts but one, “Albert,” being the combative communist writer-publisher through whom, oddly enough, I first met the founders of the Debates at Lolita Bar (and who has complained in an interview about libertarians not being revolutionaries so much as thinly disguised Upper East Side Republicans). And I must say, even though I of all people should be philosophically inclined to root for the protagonist and her rich-kid pals and against Albert, and even though I know how these vignettes actually end, seeing all the self-indulgent behavior of this vampiric overclass is almost enough to make me root at times for Albert to strangle them all or at least threaten to put them all up against the wall when the revolution comes. Rules for Saying Goodbye is not, in short, good propaganda for convincing people that New York is a city full of responsible, hard-working, dynamic young adults building a brighter future. More like a city full of cocaine, sex in bathrooms, very unwise career decisions, complete assholes who know celebrities, assholes who actually are celebrities (David Byrne’s bad tipping at bars is noted even while his musical genius is acknowledged), and lots of expensive restaurants.

But whether you’re seeing that with your own eyes or reading about it in this novel, the perverse, seductive thing is, it’s hard to decide whether it’s altogether bad. And ambivalence is a lot like depression, a point made — deliberately or not — over and over again in Rules for Saying Goodbye, and a point that ought to seem familiar to a lot of New Yorkers. If you’re miserable, hard-working, and poor now but have a 15% chance of fantastic wealth in four years, are you in some sense leading the good life? What if you have no mate but have been to sixteen parties full of the most beautiful people on the planet in just the past month? Are you happy? Wretched? If you pick “wretched,” are you a whiner amidst plenty, in the grand historical scheme of things? If you don’t pick wretched, are you a shallow jerk?

There’s a bit of the girl-from-mundane-origins thrust headlong-into-excess-urban-glamour motif in the novel, a dash of Holly Golightly that reminds me of the all too typical first new friend (or seeming-friend) I made when I moved to this city right after college and miraculously — despite four years at Brown — still possessed fairly simple, smalltown assumptions about how people behaved, which was basically: nicely if you’re nice to them, meanly if you’re mean to them, unless they’re criminals, Soviet agents, or axe-murderers. This first new New York acquaintance wasn’t quite that straightforward. She’d been author-to-be Katie Roiphe’s friend at Harvard, and whereas Roiphe kept a portrait of herself from her years as a teenage anorexic at her bedside to remind herself not to become emaciated again, my initially fat and rural-Kentucky-spawned quasi-friend had deliberately slimmed down, smoked, and drunk as much as possible, in a deliberate campaign, as she explained it in Manhattan a few years after she graduated, to become socially intimidating so that she could lie and manipulate the people around her — and when she said this was still her ambition as an adult, I mistakenly assumed she was joking or had some sort of Oscar Wilde-influenced cynical philosophy I wasn’t quite understanding. I mean, people just don’t get that bad, unless they’re Soviet agents or axe-murderers, right? Who wants to be bad, I thought?

This non-friend cut off contact with me once it became clear I wasn’t able to add sufficiently to the amoral glamour of her nightlife (really, she told me so quite frankly), but I did leave her one message years later encouraging her to see a revival of the Golightly-esque play As Bees in Honey Drown, about a rural woman turned big-city sophisticate who enjoys sadistically manipulating a nice-guy writer she meets, in part to prove she’s become more powerful than she was as a bumpkin. Stories like that happen here a lot, I think.

I, by contrast, arrived here such a good-hearted naif that I recall in late 1991 still considering “schmoozing” an immoral activity — and being horrified when I realized that one of my co-workers at St. Martin’s Press was inviting an editor to a party not because he was a friend — or even likable — but because he was “important.” Doing that doesn’t sound like a big deal now, after a decade and a half of occasionally glimpsing wheeler-dealers, but I was aghast at the time, and surely I’ve lost a little something in the interim.

The Best of Places, the Worst of Places: 10021 No More

For the protagonist of Rules for Saying Goodbye — who remains a decent person throughout, making only the rarest and most half-hearted attempts to misbehave — much of the allure of the big city and its decadent inhabitants comes from a specific desire to escape Fresno, CA, culturally and psychologically. Whether or not she ends up in a better place psychologically is debatable, but we get to follow her on a tour of some pretty glamorous geography in the process, including Brussels, Rome, London, and Manhattan’s richest zip code, 10021, where Katherine lived for ten years and where I have now lived for ten years but no longer will — not because I’m moving, mind you, but because they’re breaking it up into three separate zipcodes, with the richest chunk (where Katherine lived) remaining 10021 (average income $85,000 according to the New York Times; home to conservative icons William F. Buckley and Bill Cosby), the second-richest chunk becoming 10065 (average income $82,000; home to David Rockefeller and Spike Lee), and bums like me relegated as of the end of the month (NOTE IT IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOKS) to 10075 (average income, which I am below, $74,000; home to the governor, the mayor, and one of my biggest influences — not that it necessarily shows — Tom Wolfe).

Katherine, who may in some ways be a victim of the view (parodied so ably by Kyle Smith in a December ToddSeavey.com Book Selection) that fashion and glamour actually matter (but then, how else can the existence of some of the people in this book be justified?) skewers pretensions and social-climbing obsessions wittily, though without making it clear whether she’s really capable of leaving all those petty concerns behind once and for all, crucial though that would seem (from reading the book) to her future happiness and stability.

In the meantime, though, she’s got the glamorous thing down pat, (1) being praised by Time Out New York (kudos to her brother Russel on his photos of her, by the way, which certainly don’t hurt the cause), (2) having her amusing literary feud with Bejamin Kunkel (founder of the New-York-yuppie-leftist lit journal n+1) egged on by Gawker.com (he suggested her work shouldn’t be taken seriously, as retaliation for her brief description of one of his novels as “simple” when New York Observer interviewed her), and perhaps best of all (3) having MediaBistro.com include her on their list of memoirists they consider sexier than Ayaan Hirsi-Ali (much as I hate to see even Katherine upstage a heroic opponent of Islamic fundamentalism who was driven out of Europe).

Two final thoughts:

(1) Thanks to brother Russel’s photographic skills (and nature), the Observer spent a surprising chunk of their profile marveling at Katherine’s chest — a reminder that the buttocks of one of our previous Lolita Bar debaters, Dawn Eden, were also praised in the pages of that paper, perhaps part of a pattern.

(2) Contra Kunkel, I wouldn’t call Katherine’s style unserious so much as witty-but-fragile — but, hey, I’ve forgotten most of what I learned as an English major (while retaining a lot of what I learned as a philosophy major), so what do I know?

P.S. I am also, thanks in part to the influence not only of my parents but people like my farmer grandfather and his recently-deceased brother, Milt Geer, something of a simple rural guy at heart myself, and perhaps saner and less wracked by status-anxiety because of it than some of the unhappy souls chronicled in Rules for Saying Goodbye. On the other hand, much as I love trees and animals, next month’s Book Selections will be all about cyborgs and the like, so please keep reading — and in the interim, join Katherine, Rev. Jen, moderator Michel Evanchik, and me at Lolita Bar on June 20 (8pm), and read Rules for Saying Goodbye so you can see the highlife and the horror for yourself.

Banana Splits vs. Bob Marley

Koli and I are going to a wedding in Jamaica next month (Maria Gray and Allan Cohen’s), but a conversation we had yesterday reveals that one of us may not be easily assimilated into the island’s culture (and suggests a great idea for a mash-up, for someone more musically and technically competent than myself — are you reading this, DJ Lunchboy?):

TODD: Were you just humming the Banana Splits themesong?

KOLI: Banana Splits?!

TODD: Weren’t you just going “la la-la, la la-la la, la la la-la”?

KOLI: Yeah, that’s “Buffalo Soldier” by Bob Marley: “Woy yoy-yoy, woy yoy-yoy yoy, woy yoy yoy yoy, yoy yoy-yoy yoy!”

In related news, a band I mentioned in the previous blog entry, My Favorite, startled me yesterday by having, I noticed, a track called “Le Monster vs. Chuck Blake.” “I don’t even remember My Favorite meeting Chuck, much less seeing him battle a monster,” I thought, “though I could see Chuck doing that” — but the title refers (via the recently-fashionable use of the “vs.” conjunction to denote a guest singer or in this case producer) to the music producer who remixed that version of their “Le Monster,” not to the man by the same name who I’ve known since high school and who criticized climate-change theories at our February debate.

Music can be confusing — like the time I met the lead singer of the Arrows, who sang the original “I Love Rock n’ Roll” and let slip the fact that I thought Slade had done the original (the source of my confusion: Slade did the original “Cum on Feel the Noize,” which isn’t quite the same thing). But I can tell the difference between the Fixx and Frozen Ghost, which is the important thing.

Men, Women, Again

A very special guest-blogger (with whom I’ll be at Niagara Falls over the weekend, so debate politely in our absence) weighs in on the comments of Peter the “seduction community” member who commented so intriguingly in the long thread resulting from my earlier post on feminism (I should say that while I stand by pretty much everything I said in that entry, I acknowledge that this is a vast terrain of never-ending debate, and I emphasized the select areas I felt were being overlooked, often annoyingly so — but, hey, my account of things is arguably far more nuanced than, say, MenAreBetterThanWomen.com):

Peter,

First, the thing about earnestness being less effective in sexual/romantic success than deception: it’s insane to me that you think it’s just WOMEN who respond to deception. Much to the chagrin of earnest feminists like me, there are tons of workshops and self-help books telling women to stop being so damn earnest and essentially training them to manipulate unsuspecting men into relationships and marriages. Apparently, these “systems” are enormously successful, too. Just to be extra clear, I’m not here to celebrate the deception just because it goes both ways. I find the “how to make him fall in love with you” crap just as depressing as your “seduction community.” I wish there was more honest, good-faith communication between the sexes. Maybe Todd is right, most people are just stupid. But I am not ready to give up hope….

Second, I think what’s interesting about your complaint that women expect you to “cut them more slack” than men is that women say exactly that about men. Like many straight women, I have often felt that men expect to be accommodated and to get their way all the time, at my expense. But just because I “felt” it, I don’t assume I am correct. I don’t think you’re correct about women either. And I don’t think that means one or both of us is irrational. I just think it’s a perception gap.

I suspect gender differences play into this, to a considerable degree. That means we respond to some things differently from you. It doesn’t mean we’re asking for “more slack” — at least no more slack than YOU ask of us (unwittingly, I’m sure). Take for example, Todd’s assertion that women cry as an “emotional manipulation” strategy. Similarly, a lot of women think men become withdrawn and unresponsive in the middle of a conversation (“it’s like hitting my head against a brick wall”) as a bullying tactic. I am sure there are examples where both of these things are intentionally employed as tactics. But for the most part, women aren’t trying to manipulate you when they cry and men aren’t trying to bully us when they shut down. We just respond to frustration differently.

But I don’t think it’s JUST the gender differences. I’ve had lots of male friends and lots of mixed-gender friend circles, so I can tell you that men and women who are platonic friends don’t generally have the same complaints about each other that they do about people they date. I wonder if certain complex needs, emotions, conflicts, etc. aren’t simply inherent in sexual/romantic relationships, regardless of gender. Just ask any gay couple — they seem to have many of the same problems. People have to accommodate mates in ways they don’t need to accommodate friends. These relationships have a different quality of intimacy and trust that seems to require more understanding (“slack” if you will). My friends are extremely important to me and when necessary, I am perfectly willing to cut them a lot of slack, but they generally don’t need it as much (or as regularly) as any of my boyfriends have needed. And the boyfriends could probably say something equivalent about me. (The exception, so far, is my current boyfriend, Todd Seavey — yes, I’m Todd’s liberal, feminist girlfriend — because we seem to share an almost identical joy of hashing out all our differences earnestly. But, if and when the need arises, I’ll be more than happy to cut him some slack, because I trust his good intentions).

Like I said, there seems to be a perception gap between the sexes, which is exacerbated by the existence of assholes (on both sides) and by people’s tendencies to lash out and think the worst others. Those of us who end up being able to relate to the opposite sex without condescending to them, despite having been seriously exasperated by them, do so as a result of some self awareness, a genuine openness to the other’s point of view and a little patience.

If someone — a woman-was really patient with you and open to hearing you out, I think you would feel differently about women and be able to discern the neurotic assholes from the rest of us. But, it’s hard to be open to you when you’ve decided that we’re all irrational and not worth engaging in good faith. Just like women who accuse all men of being misogynists and potential rapists can’t reasonably expect men to sympathize with their position. I understand that your venom comes from bad experiences with women. Believe me, most of male bashing also grows out of the bashers’ personal wounds, dealt (or perceived to have been dealt) by men. These are not good reasons to advocate cutting off the conversation, although I am in no way callous about the scars that you (and the male bashers) have obviously sustained. I hope you will all find ways to heal from them. I’m a romantic, so I also hope all of you will fall in love with someone wonderful any day now!

As far as the “seduction community,” I’m glad to hear that their methods are at least getting you laid, although they have failed to help you with the full relationship you had obviously hoped to find. But I wonder, if this is really working, even just for sex, then why do you have to be grateful for prostitution and porn?

In any case, I’ll take you at your word that your “porking” success rate has improved since you got seduction training. In the same spirit, I trust you will take my word that I have a large circle of women friends who easily are 9s and 10s, are constantly hit on by men, and none of them accept the advances of guys who treat them with disrespect, already have girlfriends, or are full of themselves (confidence and arrogance are not the same thing). And no, my friends aren’t lying to me. I KNOW their dates, boyfriends and husbands. They are the kindest, most decent men you’ll ever meet.

I won’t try to put a number on my own hotness, but I must be passably attractive, since I usually don’t want for male attention (at least when I feel confident and good about myself) and yet — and now I’m asking you to take MY word for it — I have always chosen to be with guys who are good human beings. Certainly, I like a guy who is also “confident and feels good about himself” and is — preferably — some combination of good looking, smart, interesting and funny, AS WELL AS a nice guy. (why do people say “nice guys” when they really mean unattractive, insecure, boring guys who have nothing to recommend them except their alleged “niceness”?) I don’t see how any of my criteria are “irrational” just because they don’t begin and end with “nice.” And no, I’m not just “steering” my sexuality consciously. I’m telling you about my visceral reactions to different kinds of men. An attractive (even a moderately attractive) guy, who is really smart, and genuinely kind and seems to sincerely like and admire me, is a HUGE turn on for me. Arrogant, self-centered men simply turn me off even if they are hunky, smart etc. A whiney, insecure guy doesn’t turn me off quite the same way, but he will never turn me on just by being “nice”. Being nice is a threshold requirement of decent human interaction, not some amazing virtue deserving of special rewards. Most women don’t expect to be rewarded with tons of romantic attention just for being “nice” people.

Yes, there are women out there who are cock-whipped by arrogant, self-centered males, but there are also plenty of guys who are pussy-whipped by arrogant, self-centered females -so this doesn’t really say anything meaningful about the “mating drives” of either sex. (On a related note: Peter claims that women “won’t come to grips” with their mating drives, as opposed to men, who know what they are looking for, which is simply “looks and loyalty.” Really? Care to check out Todd’s “Personal Ad”? Also, if “looks and loyalty” are all Peter is looking for, then, what’s his problem? Why does it matter to him if women are “rational”?)

Of course, there is also the type of woman who just won’t care what kind of person you are or if you are already in a relationship; she’ll want you just because you turn her on sexually. Well, given that MEN behave this way much more regularly — and even brag about it — than women, I find it puzzling that you see this as an example of FEMALE irrationality.

If I may offer a suggestion to Peter and other men who feel the same way, consider this: when you bemoan the fact that “women” are irrational, unresponsive to kindness, and whatever other complaint you have, are you really sampling from the general population of women in your acquaintance? Or do you start with the 9s and 10s (scored that way based on characteristics completely unrelated to the things you are complaining about)? In other words what do you screen for FIRST? If you start by pre-selecting the hottest women around and then lament the low occurrence among them of all those other qualities you seek -well, that’s not really the most “rational” way to go about things, is it? I’m not saying beautiful women can’t be smart, sane, kind and earnest. I’m just saying if your selection criteria are prioritized to place the highest value on X, then your results will be skewed toward more X, and the co-incidence of Y, Z and W will be much more random.

By the way, I checked out (briefly) the two seduction sites that Peter linked to. Of course, the focus of these are ultimately manipulative and therefore distasteful to me, and we (at least the women) have no way of verifying their claims — they have a product to sell to desperate people (just like fad diets that “work”). Still, even assuming the veracity of their claims about results, when you see the type of specific advice that apparently has actually succeeded, it does not seem to support Peter’s conclusion that they work because women are “inherently irrational”.

I have four general areas of observation:

1. One bottom line principle behind these seduction techniques is that you have to (comfortably) exude some sexuality (i.e. flirt) in order for women to respond to you sexually. Well, no shit! Where is the “irrationality” in this? How is someone supposed to find you sexual if you don’t exhibit any sign of it? Interestingly, I found this principle set forth in an entry about the old “nice guy v. jerks” debate. Ladies, you will be relieved to hear that even these seductionist cads admit, very clearly, that women don’t pick “jerk” qualities (rudeness, arrogance, boorishness etc.) over “nice guy” qualities, but rather, that this misunderstanding comes from the fact that the self-proclaimed nice –guys are confusing “niceness” with androgyny and asexuality. My own 2 cents: if you can’t be sexual without being rude, arrogant or boorish, then maybe you’re not such a “nice” guy.

But I’m really not suggesting that all guys with the “nice guy” complaint are latent boors. Some just lack other things women want. And others have honestly come to believe that all sexual behavior they initiate will be somehow offensive to women. I have to lay some of the responsibility for this on certain of my fellow feminists, who have promoted this idea of associating any expression of male sexuality with “violence” and “aggression” and led some good men (like Peter, perhaps) to internalize the notion that flirting is “disrespectful”. I (and a lot of other feminists) summarily reject this notion, but many feminists do endorse it — and I think they are rightly criticized for it.

Incidentally, there’s a pretty widespread belief among a sizable minority of women — usually not feminists — who bemoan the scarcity of “good men”: that men don’t appreciate a good, loyal woman; that it’s those narcissistic, selfish, bitchy women that get all the guys; that to get a man to be loyal and treat you well, you have to be cruel and treat him like crap and keep him insecure about your relationship. In other words “nice girls finish last.” I think these perceptions, just like the “nice guy” problem have less to do with reality than with resentful interpretations of reality.

2. Another key insight shared on the seduction sites is that women find confidence attractive. What’s “irrational” about that? Unless you are confusing confidence with arrogance, rudeness, or boorishness?

By the way, men respond to confidence in women too. Men and women are socialized (or perhaps biologically wired) to convey it differently, but it’s important for both to have it. Notice the way Peter describes the behavior of the “10″ — that’s some serious alpha-female shit! And frankly, in these discussions, when men say “women” they completely leave out of the equation all those mousy, insecure, “nice” women who are sitting in a corner (or at home), pining away for some Mr. Nice Guy to come rescue them. The women these men are “gaming” are the ones that are out there, confident in their sexuality, laughing, dancing, flirting, acting like they own the world. Yes, men are visual, and one of the most important visual cues they respond to is confident body language. The hot girl who also knows she’s hot will get the most guys. Of course confidence doesn’t quite make up for being ugly, but NOT having confidence will doom a mousy girl to be overlooked forever, even if she is technically “pretty.” A girl who is less pretty will be noticed and actually will be considered “hotter” if she cultivates a sense of self or at least a certain look, posture and stride.

I’ve gone through periods of insecurity in my own life -for reasons unrelated to men or sex-but during those periods, suddenly it seemed nobody was attracted to me. As soon as I snapped out of it, stopped caring what anyone thought and went about being myself and rediscovering my joie de vivre, the men came back out of the woodwork trying to get me to notice them. Even though I looked exactly the same. (disclaimer: I belong to a special subspecies of humans, called “nerds” –our mating rituals may be a little different from the rest. Still, I think we can draw parallels).

3. Another general approach of seduction seems to be that instead of complimenting a woman, you make fun of her a little. The claim is that women respond to being demeaned and having their confidence eroded. But lets look at how the specific tactics worked, at least in the video examples I saw. One guy went up and started insulting women. No woman responded well to him. They couldn’t get away from him fast enough. Another guy went up to a really hot girl and said her teeth were cute, like “bugs bunny”. She found him endearing. But note that he was smiling, his body language was friendly and just a little suggestive without being threatening. His comment charmed because it was unexpected (and funny) and seemed unrehearsed. Part of the reason it’s funny is precisely that it seems like an utterly ridiculous pick up strategy. Like George Costanza telling women he’s unemployed and lives with his mother. It has a novelty. And women like guys who are willing to expose themselves that way. Of course, the unemployed-lives-with-mother line will only work if it’s obviously a joke! And I think “bugs bunny” knew she was being joshed with and not insulted for real. To think a gorgeous woman with no dearth of male attention will have her sexual confidence “eroded” based on a stupid comment from a stranger is laughable. Maybe a guy who needs seduction training to find a date has a self image flimsy enough to be swayed this way, but the 9 or 10 he’s “gaming” is probably more secure than that.

4. Some of the other suggestions on the seduction sites are simply manipulation and deception tactics. They have nothing to do with women’s “mating drives.” If you misrepresent who you are and I buy it, that just means I am trusting or gullible. It doesn’t mean I enjoy being deceived or that the fact of being deceived is what I am responding to.

For example, one piece of advice was to lull a woman into a false sense of bonding with you by pretending to be a platonic friend while you get her to talk about her sexual fantasies. Apparently this works.

One reason that a woman may respond to this (and for argument’s sake lets grant that some women do) is that she notices how comfortable she is with you. In other words, she is being turned on by a nice-guy quality. To her, you’re a nice, “easy to talk to” guy who is not asexual and the talk is sexually charged. The fact that this turns her on should make you reject (or at least question) the notion that she is looking for a jerk to demean her. If you choose to think that it’s the fact that you’re actually a deceiver pretending to be a friend that’s the real turn on (as opposed to the sexy talk and the comfortable rapport with you) then it’s your interpretation that’s irrational. Not the chick.

Another reasonable interpretation is that she is turned on by her own sexual thoughts, but the object of her fantasy isn’t available, so she’ll act out her lust on you, as you happen to be around. I don’t see why this should be derision-worthy. If anything, men should identify with this kind of behavior. After all, it’s fairly common for men to admit that when they are horny, they will have sex with any available female, regardless of who they are actually fantasizing about.

One last note about seduction: women have always very successfully used “feminine wiles” and insincere seduction tricks on men too, does that mean men are “inherently irrational”?

–Koli

And Todd here again, with a concluding note: another issue of dating symmetry and asymmetry will be hashed out in the next of our Debates at Lolita Bar (266 Broome St. at Allen St. on Manhattan’s Lower East Side) at 8pm on Wednesday, June 20, when “Rev. Jen” Miller and Rules for Saying Goodbye author Katherine Taylor (who’s also a libertarian — maybe she’s voting for Ron Paul in the primaries, too!) ask “Is It More Painful to Get Dumped or to Do the Dumping?” I’ll host (and Michel Evanchik will moderate), so by all means come by and debate all these interrelated topics if you like.

Conspiracies and Ron Paul

It is ironic that just when I find myself looking with pity at conspiracy theorists, my favorite presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), is in danger of becoming “the conspiracy theory candidate” in some people’s minds. But first, I should explain why conspiracy theories have been on my mind lately.

Conspiracy Theorists — They’re All Around Me!

In a single week earlier this month:

–I met a Phillips Foundation Fellow who’ll be writing (in a skeptical fashion, rest assured) about 9/11 conspiracy theorists — which probably made most of the other Phillips Fellows, a conservative bunch, think “It’s about time someone took a hard look at some of those oddballs” but made me wonder whether I should put that Fellow in touch with my friend Sander Hicks, who, when he’s not promoting Marxism, publishing books, seeking the Green Party nomination for Senate, or running the Vox Pop cafe/bookstore in Brooklyn, is also the author of a book called The Big Wedding, which argues not only that 9/11 was an inside job but that the scapegoat organization in the attacks, al Qaeda, doesn’t really exist and is basically a facade created by Swiss neo-Nazis. I know what you’re probably thinking: “What?! He runs a cafe?” It’s incredible but true.

–I met a libertarian who thinks fluoride in the water is making us sick (I don’t pretend to be a fluoride expert, but that scare does bare a strong resemblance to a lot of the exaggerated scares analyzed on the site I edit by day, HealthFactsAndFears.com — interestingly, it’s a scare that began on the right, as so beautifully parodied in Dr. Strangelove, but has become more popular with leftists and environmentalists).

–I saw my co-workers at the American Council on Science and Health dismayed by the realization that even the American Cancer Society is now passively repeating, without good evidence, the assumption that “chemicals in the environment” are giving us cancer.

–I learned (from a good friend who would probably rather not be mentioned in this context) that the Washington Post Magazine ran an astoundingly sympathetic article earlier this year about people who think they’ve been targeted by government mind-control rays — despite Dennis Kucinich making an effort to outlaw any such devices (making him the only candidate to address the issue so far, though I think Ron Paul would be with him in principle, and we’ll get to that below). It’s amazing that the Post was unfazed during the editing process by paragraphs such as the one that non-judgmentally describes how one member of the “Targeted Individual” community, once a successful author, now feels she is being followed and harassed by mysterious Jewish-looking individuals (and for goodness’ sake, if you are a member of the “TI community,” please, I beg you, do not even consider writing to me or posting on this blog, as I am not equipped to deal with your very special needs and will immediately delete your posts).

–I learned I am myself indirectly connected to a man who worries about government mind control rays (please don’t ask).

–All that inspired me to think of a great way one could rise to prominence within the “9/11 Truth” community (the movement that believes 9/11 was an inside job): by writing a book arguing that the World Trade Center is still standing. If the lies run as deep as the Truth folk say, don’t think the government couldn’t pull off this ultimate con job. The shocking book about it might start out something like this: Why do you think they don’t let anyone walk right up to the “footprints” of the two buildings? The Pentagon can create holograms as easy as pie — that’s common knowledge and requires nothing more than existing technology — but they couldn’t prevent people bumping into the buildings physically if they walked around down there willy-nilly. QED. The real question, then, is: What sinister activities are going on inside those buildings now that they are officially “disappeared”? Think Area 52, if you will…

(Two asides:

1. After years of not being able to get a good look at the pit at Ground Zero, I only recently realized, returning from a visit to my girlfriend Koli, that if you take the PATH train from Jersey on the “World Trade Center” route, the train actually does a big loop around the inside walls of the pit, like a big, creepy Disney: The Ground Zero Experience ride. Worth checking out if you find yourself coming back from Jersey City or Hoboken for some reason [the 33rd St. train doesn't make the same stop], morbid as it may sound.

2. Speaking of, or rather alluding to, Area 51 [soon to be the subject of a movie written by my favorite comic book writer, Grant Morrison, fresh off his stint, coincidentally or not, on the comic series 52], much as I dislike paranormal claims in non-fiction material, I’m pretty pleased to hear that the rumored plot of the fourth Indiana Jones movie, due out next year, pits an aging Indy against 1950s Soviet agents out to steal “ancient astronaut” artifacts [possibly including a crystal skull] with ties to Area 51. If this kind of nonsense is rattling around in the popular culture anyway, I can think of few better uses to put it to than a new Indiana Jones movie. When I believed in that sort of stuff, as a child, I planned to make a crystal skull central to my own comic book scripts someday, so once more the culture dances to my tune — I’ll have to share the rest of the envisioned comic plots with you someday.)

Ominous Connections — to Celebrities!

In the highly unlikely event I ever do write a conspiracy theory book about 9/11 and thus join the Truth community, it might give me a chance to meet the new most-prominent spokesperson of that movement, departing View hostess Rosie O’Donnell (I once met Rachel Simon, whose mentally retarded sister O’Donnell played in the TV-movie Riding the Bus with My Sister, and I’ll bet her sister doesn’t go around claiming, for instance, that fire can’t bend steel, as O’Donnell has, so the sister’s got at least one advantage). One of my former Stossel co-workers, producer Kristi Kendall, who sort of comes across like a blonde, twelve-year-old Girl Scout despite now being about thirty, says that her grandmother once wrote to The View to suggest that Kristi should be its new co-hostess, and though I laughed about it at the time, if ABC had listened to Kristi’s grandmother, we could have prevented the whole Rosie thing. (Note: a recent poll shows about 1/3 of Democrats now believe that Bush had advance knowledge of the attacks, but as my Manhattan Project co-hostess Karol Sheinin says, South Park has argued that 1/4 of Americans are retarded.) [UPDATE: Ah! Rosie's finally being countered instead by argumentative comments from her conservative, shoe-designing, Rhode Island-raised, Survivor-featured co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck -- that's what I'd call giving America a clear choice.]

The closest thing I’ve done to meeting O’Donnell this month, though, was probably attending a lecture about global warming skepticism by Julian Morris of the International Policy Network, but I say this not because I lump global warming skeptics in with 9/11 conspiracy theorists (or Holocaust deniers, or anti-Darwinists) — on the contrary, my skeptical statistician friend Chuck Blake and others have helped convince me that the danger from warming, to the extent we can even make any reliable predictions about it, is wildly overblown and probably best left to the quiet study of climatologists rather than policy-makers for at least another decade or two.

No, the reason I say that night’s IPN lecture was a bit like meeting O’Donnell is that without IPN knowing it in advance, Whoopi Goldberg was having a book release party downstairs from the IPN speech for her new children’s book. I was surprised how little security a Whoopi appearance entails, though I’m sure they’re used to this sort of thing in L.A. (perhaps L.A. people are surprised how little security there is at author appearances when they visit New York). The aforementioned Mr. Blake, also in attendance at the IPN speech, commented, though, that he wasn’t terribly excited about Whoopi himself and thought of her mainly as “the person who screwed up Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

Like Bad Sci-Fi — No, Wait, It Is Bad Sci-Fi

My one regret comes from the thought that had I known about my proximity to Whoopi’s appearance in advance, I could have brought with me — and asked her to autograph — the DVD my friend Meredith Kapushion gave me of the movie Whoopi says she wishes she’d never made: Theodore Rex, in which she plays a tough cop in the future who gets partnered — much to her chagrin! — with a fast-talking, uncouth, human-sized tyrannosaurus rex created through genetic engineering. His tail often slaps people in the buttocks at inappropriate moments, and the guy who created him wants to blow up the world with an ice missile. Whoopi wears a lot of really tight black spandex. I also wish she hadn’t made Theodore Rex and can’t really laugh about it anymore. At the end, Whoopi and the dinosaur learn to overcome their differences and work together. I need to watch this for a moment to compensate. OK, all better.

(On another sci-fi note, I read that next season sees a TV series called The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which takes place between Terminator 2 and Terminator 3 — which strikes me as beating a dead horse, since there are only so many times time-traveling cyborgs can plausibly attack one person without finishing the job or having the whole thing turn into an overlong Saturday Night Live sketch [Note: Microsoft Office spellcheck does not contain the word "cyborg" -- there's something wrong about that {Oh my gosh! It also doesn't contain the word "spellcheck"!}]. I am more optimistic about the live-action Star Wars TV series scheduled for 2009, which takes place between Revenge of the Sith and the original film, since Lucas says it will feature the bounty hunters seen in The Empire Strikes Back, such as Boba Fett and Bossk. I could see them, unlike Sarah Connor, sustaining at least two seasons. Boba Fett, for instance, has a cool helmet, while Bossk is a lizard guy. That’s two episodes right there.)

Meanwhile, on Earth: Ron Paul

It’s strange that roughly half the country is antiwar enough to see opposition to continuing the Iraq War as Democrats’ chief virtue, yet Ron Paul is treated like a crazy person for suggesting (in the recent South Carolina debate between the ten announced Republican candidates), in a fashion that doesn’t even strike me as logically incompatible with a hawkish attitude, that groups like al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq may hate us because of past U.S. interventions in the Middle East. (His views about this are sometimes mentioned in conjunction with his aversion to the U.S.’s close relationship with Israel.)

Now, it’s true that Paul comes from the most crankily anti-interventionist wing of the libertarian movement (Note: Someone please pay me to explain all this in more detail), the Old Right-sympathizing “paleolibertarians,” kindred spirits in some regards to Pat Buchanan’s anti-interventionist “paleoconservative” faction (but with a bit more of that California-hippie-anarchist flavor, which, like some of the folks mentioned above, often has that tiny, zesty hint of schizophrenia about it). Some in that faction don’t even think that the U.S. should have gotten involved in World War II. But what strikes me as odd, I guess, about Paul getting labeled nutty for his anti-interventionist position is that this may be the most mainstream thing Ron Paul believes — yet oddly enough, is nonetheless my area of greatest disagreement with him (though I don’t dismiss that position as completely or as huffily as did Rudy Giuliani, who, in a further irony, I may well end up voting for in the general election, after casting a symbolic vote for Paul in the primary, if Paul lasts that long). Here’s a video debate just today between National Review’s Jonah Goldberg and the Brooking Institution’s Peter Beinart over whether Paul’s a nut (this video clip is from the same series of Goldberg-Beinart conversations that included this one, a nice summary of where the GOP, and its various factions, stand after the 2006 election defeat).

In contrast to his views on the military, I’m completely onboard with Paul in his desire to:

–abolish the Federal Reserve

–end Federal involvement in drug enforcement

–abolish the income tax

–dismantle the entire welfare state

–get the U.S. out of the U.N.

–restore the gold standard and/or allow private currency production

–end all subsidies

–eliminate virtually all Cabinet-level agencies

And so on. Who would have thought, in other words, that being antiwar is the thing that would get him “in trouble”? I only wish I could take this to mean we’re all now in agreement on all those other items.

I also wish, whatever differences I may have with Paul, that those unscientific online polls that his fans are so good at “winning” for him were accurate and reflected a groundswell of support that would carry him to victory in ’08, if not on this Earth, at least on some superior alternate world, somewhere amid the fifty-two universes of the multiverse. I am reminded of a heavily Michael Moorcock-influenced old idea I had for a sci-fi novel in which a man is forced to work across multiple universes with his own doppelgangers, each with a seemingly divergent political philosophy but all compatible with the core idea of liberty in the end. I’ve put up with enough crap from politicians in my lifetime that I ought quite easily to be able to hold my nose and vote for Ron Paul — indeed, for once, I may not even notice a stench. How can I pass up a quite likely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like that?

P.S. Ah, well, at least Michelle Malkin has acknowledged that Paul is not a member of the 9/11 Truth conspiracy theory movement noted above, and if the whole issue gets too depressing, we have this video clip presenting the lighter side of 9/11, pointed out to me by Dan Raspler.

UPDATE 5/23/07: Speaking of conspiracies, my friend Jessica Seigel of the New York Times is scheduled to be on O’Reilly on Fox News Channel tonight at 8 Eastern (and 11) reacting to a new Pew poll showing most American Muslims don’t believe Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks.  [And now, here's the video.]

Death Notice: Raymonde Evanchik

The mother of this site’s webmaster has passed away, and he sends the following obituary:

Raymonde Evanchik

Wife, Mother, and Grandmother.

Daughter of Joseph “Albert” Billaux and Germaine Thalgott Billaux. Wife of Nicholas. Mother of Michel and Francoise. Grandmother of Jack and Freya.

Born July 8, 1940, Redon, France. Died May 16, 2007, Calvary Hospital, Bronx, NY.

A fiercely proud French citizen all her life and a Parisienne, she grew up in the 18ieme arr.

Her maternal grandfather, an Alsatian, joined the French Foreign Legion to fight against the Germans in WWI. Paternal grandfather was a survivor of the Battle of Verdun, and a member of the French underground in WWII. Father was seriously wounded fighting in WWII. She was born in Brittany, at her grandfather’s, to escape the potential bombing of Paris.

She moved to America in 1964, where she lived in Rego Park and Flushing until her marriage in 1970. They honeymooned on the cruise ship La France. She bore her children in Sweden, where she lived for 5 years, where her husband worked at Gevalia Coffee.

She returned to the USA in 1976, where she moved to 119 Alder Drive in Briarcliff Manor, NY, where she was to live for the rest of her life.

She was a devoted and tireless homemaker, frugal and thrifty with
herself, generous with her family and friends.

She travelled extensively in the US, Canada, Mexico, Africa, Eastern and Western Europe. She loved to go off the beaten path. She summered annually in Paris.

She was an avid reader. She needed her morning coffee before she could start her day. She ran the household so her husband could devote himself to his career. She oversaw her children’s education and upbringing so that they would grow up to be good, strong, and kind. She was a gracious and loyal friend to those she loved.

Viewings of the body will be 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. on Friday, May 18, at Waterbury and Kelly Funeral Home, 1300 Pleasantville Rd., Briarcliff, NY. A funeral mass will be held 10 a.m. Saturday, May 19 at St. Theresa Church, 1394 Pleasantville Rd.

We will all miss her greatly.

Atheism, Book II

Ah, you academics, with all of your words and your ideas. It’s ironic that Christine, who was one of my defenders in the “Aborting Feminism…” post’s response thread — where I was also faulted for lumping diverse forms of the criticized philosophy together — is now my harshest critic in the first “Atheism…” thread, on the charge of lumping diverse forms of religion together.

What it comes down to is this: I am saying it is irrational to assert the existence of something for which you have no evidence. I acknowledge the possibility of a religion that avoids doing this, but in practice virtually all do make such assertions, and that is my primary philosophical objection to them. I really don’t think this very fundamental criticism hinges on detailed knowledge of (to take one item to which Christine referred) the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. Indeed, since Christine wrote comedy professionally even before attending divinity school and becoming a history professor, I’m sure she can see why I might find it a bit amusing that someone would imply that the details of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 were in any way decisive in determining the rationality of professing belief in the unseen and unproven — though I expect I’m laughing with her, not at her. I had also forgotten that there’s an apostrophe in the anglicized spelling of Ba’al, I must confess, but I think that even without knowing a detail like that I can say that most religions — like most belief systems in general — discourage desertion from the fold (and whether they do so through “dicta” or “dictums” is also secondary, not that I am obliged to defend everything Sam Harris or Clara say).

And while Christine expresses frustration with having to tell me over and over again why she’s not professing belief in a bearded father figure in the sky, imagine my even greater frustration with having to say over and over again, as I have, that I know theists do not (or no longer, if ever) tend to believe in some literal bearded father figure in the sky but that I in any case think that belief in, say, a thinking yet non-corporeal creator-force is irrational (absent good evidence). Water down theism all you like, and it’s still the irrational profession of belief in something without evidence.

And the burden of evidence for something’s existence or non-existence surely lies with the person making the profession of its existence, so to treat theists and atheists as if they are making “equal” unproven claims is completely absurd — very much analogous to the view that if someone says, without evidence, that “Jones has committed a murder,” the burden of proof is now equally on Jones (who presumably says “I have not committed a murder”) — assuming, again, that there is no evidence at all against Jones.

The only reason the assertion of a God sounds remotely plausible — or more plausible than random, paranoid assertions that one’s neighbors are secretly murderers or that an invisible UFO is currently hovering, undetected, over the neighborhood — is that at this late date the assertion lacks novelty and so doesn’t strike us as terribly, terribly strange. If, by contrast, one were sitting with a group of people in a restaurant and one suddenly said, for no apparent reason, “The minds of the dead endure after death and form a phalanx of warriors locked in an eternal battle to invade a planet at the center of the Andromeda Galaxy,” no one would say, “Well, even in the absence of the slightest scrap of evidence for this extraordinary claim, we must treat this as a plausible assertion until we can mount an expedition to check.” The assertion could happen to be true, of course — and there could be a God (atheism does not mean the assertion with absolute certainty that there is none, only the absence of belief that there is one) — but there’s no obvious reason to treat either claim as an important probability or a matter worthy of serious thought, in the absence of some sort of evidence. Shirley MacLaine says without evidence that she is reincarnated from ancient Atlantis. Christians say God exists (or in some formulations simply “hope” God exists). Why treat either assertion with respect, beyond the basic civility due even the mentally ill?

There is a great deal we know about human psychology and why people might believe in something like the God-claim without it being true. Wouldn’t it almost be overdeterminism to suggest, given that the God idea so often comes packaged with moral harangues, childhood indoctrination, and promises of eternal life, that we must further posit that for so many people to find the idea appealing, it must be true? That’s a bit like saying “I can’t imagine any reason that people would be tempted to buy this product that’s advertised as a wrinkle-eliminating, age-reversing, brain-enhancing, cancer-curing elixir — unless all the claims about it are true.” Surely, the advertising alone would be reason to expect at least some people to be intrigued — and indeed potions that make subtle enough claims that they are hard to test in any one customer’s personal experience do sell well even without any good empirical evidence of their efficacy (true claims would obviously be in an even stronger position to win and keep loyalty, but truth is not the only way to win people over).

So the fact that people believe cannot be treated as evidence in itself that their beliefs are warranted — people believe all sorts of manifestly false things, some far more fervently than the average mainstream religious believer believes the claims of religion (witness the willingness of a handful of sad souls to die for the Hale-Bopp Comet cult, believing they would be resurrected and taken to an alien mothership and then to a better world).

I’m not sure what other lesson I’m supposed to draw from the admittedly diverse and complex history of religion — which Christine obviously knows far, far better than I do — than that religion varies radically but is almost always grounded in the unproven belief that some sort of non-corporeal entity exists, which remains the very fundamental thing to which I’m objecting. The occasional really nasty manifestations of that belief, such as suicide bombers, are secondary, though I think you can see why one might reasonably hope that humans who were taught not to believe in things for which they do not have evidence — such as a Paradise awaiting those who martyr themselves for Allah — would be at least somewhat less likely to become such monsters.

If we go around telling people it’s all right to believe in things without evidence, they will occasionally come up with some very strange and dangerous ideas — but their beliefs would still be irrational even if they did not manifest themselves in dangerous, socially destructive ways, and I don’t mean to imply for a moment that rationality and social utility are synonymous.

And if my objection to faith is that fundamental, it’s not clear to me why (beyond my general personal enrichment) I need to know or discuss the details of Christian history (I have other things to do, you know). My objection is not to Christianity in particular (though dwelling in the U.S., I think it’s fair for me to use it as the example closest to hand) but rather to all faith, whether in Jesus, fate, lucky rabbit’s feet, the eventual return of a manifestly-dead long-missing relative, psychic powers, “some greater purpose that must exist for this misfortune,” the eventual triumph of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or the “inevitable” rise to fame of a talentless and long-struggling actor. Belief without evidence is irrational (even if once in a rare while the faith-fueled belief turns out to be true or helpful, essentially by dumb luck that does not probabilistically constitute a model for future rational thought).

Certain atheistic strains of Buddhism and other exceptions notwithstanding, then, I think I’m making a fair — though inevitably imperfect — generalization when I say: I object to “religion,” and I leave the details of religion’s varied forms and its rich history to professors like Christine to sort out if they so choose (if I’ve overlooked, for instance, numerous strains of Christianity that don’t involve the positing of a God, I’m delighted to hear about them, but I think it’s safe to say they’re exceptions and furthermore that their practical purpose is a bit unclear — though I’m willing to exclude such atheistic forms of religion, if any, from my sweeping condemnations of “religion”). What more should I say? Despite the leveling against me of charges of evangelism (a practice that, for the record, I’ve never objected to — I object only to spreading false beliefs), what more, or less, can I say without simply trying to curry favor? Religion’s starting premise is false (or at least there is no reason to think otherwise). It would probably behoove humans to try to tell the truth for a change.

Atheism on ABC's “20/20” This Week (Video link added)

Tomorrow night (Friday, May 11, 2007, at 9pm Eastern) ABC News airs a two-hour special on Seeing and Believing: The Power of Faith — but the good news is that there will be one segment on atheism, reported by my old boss, John Stossel, who is usually the conduit through which sanity is injected into ABC News broadcasts.

Last time I checked, Stossel was more agnostic than atheist (a good reporter strives to suspend judgment, I suppose), but he should provide a sympathetic ear to Richard Dawkins, one of his interview subjects (and author of The God Delusion).

I was only recently reminded (by my comrade-in-skepticism Chuck Blake) that I’ve been arguing not only with the faithful but even with full-fledged creationists since high school, when a handful of our fellow honors students at Norwich Free Academy high school somehow fell for the whole no-convincing-fossil-record, carbon-dating-my-ass pre-“intelligent design” version of anti-Darwinian thinking.

Indeed, I think the first political column I ever wrote was a high school piece warning about the influence of the fundamentalists on the religious right — but I was more wary of the moral relativism and apologies for communism on the left and for about the next twenty years took the Reaganite view that these religious issues are sort of secondary things best left to the general culture to sort out, while politics is mainly the realm of tax and regulatory debates. Since the post-Reagan coalition on the right hasn’t substantially deregulated or shrunk the government, though — and more importantly, since religious fundamentalists killed thousands of people downtown a few years ago and would surely love to do so again — my patience with treating faith as a useful or at least tolerable cultural partner is at an end.

(Sadly, I don’t really trust the organized Skeptics movement that much anymore, either, since their premier magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, has opened a DC headquarters and unskeptically jumped in a big way on the global-warming-doom bandwagon, something I need to dispatch a terse letter about the moment I finish writing this blog entry.)

But in any case, the truth does not hinge on political necessity, and if one casts aside all of the social-utility and psychological-utility arguments (which often aren’t all that convincing to begin with) for religion, one is not left with anything I think we’d normally call evidence or a remotely plausible rational argument — just stuff that in one way or another boils down to “but thinking it was true helped me overcome alcoholism/write an opera/avoid a life of crime/convince fellow neocons we had a duty to invade Iraq/etc.,” all of which is swell but not exactly a good basis for claims about the basic structure of the universe. And in any case, perhaps we can avoid alcoholism and so forth even more effectively without filling people’s heads with fairytales, which means we may be retarding long-term cultural development for short-term gains, like parents who tell their kids not to go in the woods because the boogeyman will get them instead of teaching the kids about real predators, wilderness survival, knot-tying, and so forth.

I remember telling a co-worker back when I was working for Stossel, in fact, that I thought the dangerous thing about faith is that since it does not check its conclusions against empirical reality, it may “tell” people to love and tolerate their neighbors today but tomorrow, blown by different cultural winds, tell people to commit mass murder. Oh, that doesn’t happen, my co-worker basically assured me, amused at what she saw as my relentless negativity in this area (as she is to this day). That was before 9/11, of course.

It’s bad enough that billions of people on this planet continue to treat faith with respect as a means of discerning truth despite the obvious fact that it leads some people to believe in Jesus and, with just as much plausibility, leads other people — who seem clearly to be operating on the same level of well-meaning eagerness to believe in what’s right and good — to believe in Vishnu. But to continue praising faith as a reliable guide even while our civilization is under assault by the likes of al Qaeda strikes me as evidence that most people are stubborn and close-minded right up to and beyond the point of self-destruction (and still they wonder how suicide bombers happen).

Given the spats between church and monarchy that shaped centuries of European history and the clashes between religion-fueled political groups and liberal-or-socialist pro-government groups in our own era, I suspect a lot of human history will (eventually) be looked back upon as effectively a stalemate between two false choices: let the imaginary king in the sky control your life or let the all too real authoritarians on Earth control your life. If you say, “Hey, maybe we can do without either,” you’re labeled a radical nutcase. Ah, well, at least there’s the Stossel broadcast tomorrow.

P.S. I beg you not to respond with citations of religious authorities as supposed “reason” to take faith seriously. Believe me, I’ve now heard decades worth of apologetics for religion, and it’s all complete crap, as I think even the truest of true believers know, dimly, on some level. But the most useless form of the stuff is the offering up of banal Bible passages as if they have some persuasive power greater than bad poetry, so, as the “owner” of this site, I’m telling you not to trespass with nonsense like “But, Todd, you have forgotten Zebadoodah 3:24:05, which clearly teaches us that ‘He who maketh not his resting place beneath the Lord’s bower finds himself lost like unto a man who thought there was a river nearby but now is parched and cranky, while he who taketh comfort in said bower is flowed o’er full ten fathom deep with river water, but in a good way that doth de-parchify his soul, making all who know him glad and strong, for God has this way of revealing things unto those who stop asking certain obvious questions and play along like the sorts of upbeat people who end up onstage, no doubt enjoying themselves more than thee, at one of those onstage-hypnosis acts, like unto the ones seen by Ezekiel when he was in Galilee.” I can delete comments, you know.

UPDATE 5/14/07: The Stossel segment can be seen here.