Futility – Looking for a Glorious Failure

Obviously, I’m still working through this whole blog thing. Where I think this is going:

– Huge ideas, chopped up and packaged into little largely incoherent chunks.  Just got through reading a John C Wright post. Mr Wright has a better grasp on the problems than I do – he acknowledges up front that all he’s giving is an outline. It’s good stuff. I, on the other hand, have struggled mightily to say very similar things, using a less formal, more slap-upside-the-head style (self inflicted, of course – you know, you get it and say ‘of course!’ That’s it!’ and smack yourself lightly. I’m not into slapping anyone.) But of course, this stands a lottery ticket’s chance of success. You all have better things to do, I suppose.

– I’ve avoided family stuff so far. It’s fun, and amusing, but also invasive. Not sure I can face my kids asking them if I can blog about our personal lives. But it would be fun.

– And then there’s politics. I find this week’s batch of scandals and politicians pretty boring most weeks. The ‘let’s forget history, math, science, our own founding documents, tradition, human happiness and all that other bathtub ring of a dead, patriarchal scum, and just do the right thing’ attitude more than a little disturbing and stupid. And funny! Well, once in a while. So that’s more what I’m writing about, rather than front page news, except by way of illustration.

So, on to the next shiny object passing before my eyes….

Not Your Kids, or Mine, of Course…

Because, as either an FNGs, a woman married to an FNG, guys who wishes he were FNGs, or a woman who wishes or plans to be married to an FNG , we are both a lot more loving and a lot less tolerant and enabling of self-centered behavior in our kids. So they of course are going to be the good citizens of tomorrow and stave off the utter collapse of civilization for one more generation, God help them.

Just to be clear.

Shocking News: Kids these days are kinda narcissistic

Nice couple paragraphs and link to a NYT article about kids these days, over at First Things…

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/06/04/we-are-the-narcissists-weve-been-waiting-for/

My comment, posted there, copied here:

3 thoughts:

Perhaps the humanitarian who loves humanity but hates people is reflected in the title: community organizer.  Because helping real people is hard and often thankless, while organizing a community (whatever that may mean) provides a useful distance from what the actual individual people may want.

Also, I have a good deal of interaction with kids through my kids’ school: these kids, if they ever could be brought to reflect critically on themselves would recognize narcissism as simple reality – what else is there? Stories I could tell…

Finally, I think the genesis of Generation Narcissus is the almost inevitable outcome of the 60s: the hippies of the 60s were the Greed is Good crowd of the 80s, the first generation to consistently treat children as Certificates of Achievement (limit 2 to a customer, please!), to be worked in around career and personal fulfillment, and certainly not a limit on your right to walk out on your spouse, if you feel so inclined. Those kids grew up to raise the current brood – no ties bind you, enduring the weeping of the little children and the elderly as they are handed off to the care professionals so that Mom and this week’s Dad can follow their dreams unencumbered is just a price you (not the actual criers – that’s THEIR issue, not yours) must buck up and pay. it’s just the way it is.

sigh.

Further thought: the French Revolutionaries behind the Reign of Terror were high-minded humanitarians – and their high-minded humanitarianism lead them to, you know, guillotine a large number of  men and women (famously, a convent of cloistered Carmelites)  for the crime of getting in the way of the Revolution’s  unabashed love of ‘Humanity’.

Not that that could happen here. U-uh, no, never. Other than the sordid history of the past 250 years, during which many tens of millions died because they were getting in the way of their betters’ efforts to create this week’s Earthly Paradise, what would ever make you think something so crazy?

Schools. Culture. Science.

Speaking of stating the obvious: we rely more and more on schools and science the more our culture dies. This is a mistake, as explained below.

What’s slightly less obvious: the success of schools and science (however that success is defined) is a result of a successful culture. What obscures this truth is the sometimes silent, sometimes shouted from the rooftops claim that, somehow, successful schooling *results* in good culture and good science.

To quote Shrek: Yea, likes that’s gonna happen.

If you find the above assertions incoherent or even blasphemous, recall that there’s a huge array of interests and individuals who’s livelihood depends on schools holding a sacred spot in our society – these people have pretty much pushed the rational opponents of schooling (e.g., Orestes Brownson) off the public stage entirely. and we can’t entirely discount the presence of a Stockholm Syndrome – having been prisoners of schools for well over a decade, we cut deals to save our psyches.  The upshot: posing the perfectly reasonable question of what, exactly, school is good for is far more emotional for most people than can be explained by the question itself.

Let’s say you start with culture instead. For an extreme Catholic example, look at St. John Bosco – he worked with abandoned and orphaned boys. The very first thing he did was create a culture – he knew that there was no point in trying to start a school until the boys belonged to something, felt affection and obligation to something. So, he and his brother teachers first and foremost treated the boys with respect – no bullying, no making them receive the Sacraments for their own good, no harsh discipline. Next, Bosco and Co provided a vivid, constant example of what a meaningful adult life was like – they were happy, hard-working, intimately involved in the lives of others, caring for the weak.  It is within this context that ‘schooling’ took place. The primary material  goal of Bosco’s  education was to get the boys a job – again, a job is just one important way we have a meaningful roll in our culture. Only as a secondary goal were academics pursued.

To recap: Bosco, a great lover of children and famous for his ability to connect with them,  knew that the major lack in the lives of these boys was family – the smallest unit of culture – and that that lacuna must first be filled before any other progress can be made. Because the boys lacked families, they also lacked any means for joining adult culture – namely, they couldn’t get a job, which meant they couldn’t get married and raise a family (couldn’t, as it were, attain FNG status! See, it’s all connected!).  So Bosco worked to reconnect the circle that was broken for these boys – by becoming family for them, by helping them get a job, he enabled them to join that great interlocking chain of family circles we call a culture.

Science, in the context of culture, is just another useful craft. The mythology tries to convince us that great scientists are some sort of James Dean style outcasts, operating on the fringes of culture and fighting off culture’s ignorance in order to lead us, kicking and screaming, into the future. This is historically utter nonsense, but hey, who learns history any more?

QED: School and Science succeed because of culture.

Formerly Normal Guys – 1st Pass

Here’s the game: once upon a time, guys tended to get married, stay married, raise a bunch of kids with their loving wife, and work in order to support their familial Jones. That’s just what Normal Guys did.

Now, a preponderance of guys seem to be trying to get rich, get girls, practice serial polygamy, opt out of the whole ‘Dad’ gig and otherwise defy everything that used to define a Normal Guy.

So, as a guy who would have tidily fit into the old Normal Guy category, I’m going to take it upon myself to identify and wax rhapsodic about any men I come across who would have formerly been considered pretty normal – Formerly Normal Guys, in other TLA-friendly words.

Things that are right out:

– Lots of wives;

– Obvious trophy wife;

– No kids, or one or two ‘perfect’ kids. FNGs actually liked kids – loved them, even – and instead of viewing them as little human Certificates of Achievement, instead viewed them as actual human beings Normal Guys were blessed to have a chance to live with. Exceptions can be made to this rule for either circumstances beyond control (think GKC) and for voluntary celibacy, such as Catholic priests (JPII seemed like a FNG, but it seems a little sacrilegious to call him a FNG. Issues remain to be ironed out, here);

– Wedded to career – willing to sacrifice human relationships to get ahead, whatever that means.

What else?

For Example…

Rahm Emanuel, in the true Machiavellian* tradition, noted that aspiring princes cannot let a good crisis go unexploited – or words to that effect. So, what’s up with this BP mess? How would a savvy politician have handled it? How about:

Press conference immediately upon discovering the true magnitude of the disaster, certainly within the first week;

A speech hitting the following points:

– This is a disaster of epic proportions (on the theory that, once in a while, it’s good to acknowledge the obvious – helps maintain the impression you live in the same universe as everybody else);

– Mitigating this disaster is our top priority;

– Only BP has the expertise to cap the well – we will provide whatever assistance we can, but, for better or worse, the US government is not the expert in capping deep sea oil wells;

– A high-level cabinet member (Sec of Interior?) will be on-site for the duration, making sure BP does everything in its power to resolve this disaster, and giving me daily progress reports;

– I’m authorizing the Coast Guard and Navy to work with local agencies and experts to do whatever can be done to mitigate the damage to the coast;

– Once we’ve addressed the immediate problems, we’ll launch a full-scale investigation. Heads will roll;

– Oh, yea – I’m canceling my fund raising and golfing junkets to deal with this problem.

Then, you get your media people to spin the living heck out of this, painting you as a hero. Look concerned at daily photo ops and say sympathetic and angry things. Hang out with some shrimp fishermen. Kiss some babies in New Orleans. Because a lot of people suspect you are an out-of-touch hubris-ridden narcissist who road affirmative action, white liberal guilt and the ability to read a teleprompter to a cush job in the White House – here’s your chance to prove them wrong.

Somehow, this didn’t happen. Anyone think Rove would have performed this badly?

*though Machiavelli really loved Italy. I’m not sure if anyone knows what Rahm loves.

Seal, Olusegun Division

Seal is somebody whose music I’m a little shocked I like. The only way to explain it: The musicianship is outstanding. Anyway, wondering: can we grant him honorary FNG status, because he’s married, has kids whom he takes along with his wife every year for a family celebration of his and his wife’s  anniversary? Or do we need more than that?  Or does he have Tiger problems we don’t know about?

Wrestling out loud here with the definition of FNG – it should be generous, in the warm guy way that you see at neighborhood  picnics and Knights of Columbus barbecues, willing to overlook lots of little foibles, but not meaningless. In Seal’s case, ‘little foibles’ might include: “Married a supermodel” and “owns beach property in Mexico”.

OK, so Seal’s a stretch.