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Walker Percy Wednesday 120
“Hear this, Tom. I’ll make it short and sweet. We’re not talking about some bush-league medical project—fluoridating water to cure tooth decay. We’re not even talking about curing AIDS. We’re not even talking medicine, Tom. We’re talking about the decay of the social fabric. The American social fabric. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know—all the way from the destruction of the cities, crime in the streets, demoralization of the underclass, to the collapse of the family.”
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“There is still grace, style, beauty, manners, civility left in the world. It’s not all gone with the wind. You know who’s coming up for the reception? Pete Fountain and his Half Fast Band. And Al Hirt. Both are personal friends of mine. I wish you could join me.”
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“Here’s a switch. Here’s Vergil, the scientist, skeptic, the new logical positivist, and here’s the uncle, defender of old legends, ghost ships, specters.”
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She is one of those women who have no other qualification than pleasantness and reliability.
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“You’re talking about violating the law of the land, gentlemen,” he says quietly. “Doe v. Dade, the landmark case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court which decreed, with solid scientific evidence, that the human infant does not achieve personhood until eighteen months.”
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There’s Hawkeye and Trapper John back in Korea. I never did like those guys. They fancied themselves super-decent and supertolerant, but actually had no use for anyone who was not exactly like them. What they were was super-pleased with themselves. In truth, they were the real bigots, and phony at that. I always preferred Frank Burns, the stuffy, unpopular doc, a sincere bigot.
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The Canadians are as affable but standoffish—though not as shy as the English.
But both, Canadians and Ohioans, are amiable, gregarious, helpful—and at something of a loss.
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The Ohioans looked zapped but keep busy.
The Canadians looked zapped but also wistful.
Every time I talk to a Canadian, either he will get around to asking me what I think of Canada or I will know that he wants to.
I realize that I do not have many thoughts about Canada. Reading Stedmann, who mentions the heroic role the Canadians played in World War I, I realize a curious fact about Canadians: When you hear the word Canada or Canadians, nothing much comes to mind—unlike hearing the words Frenchman or Englishman or Chinese or Spaniard—or Yankee. I realize this is an advantage. The Canadian is still free, has not yet been ossified by his word. (Why am I beginning to think like Father Smith?)
Gene-Modified Ants Shed Light on How Societies Are Organized
This from the New York Times (H/T Shannon Selin)
“Our ultimate goal is to have a fundamental understanding of how a complex biological system works,” Dr. Kronauer said. “I use ants as a model to do this.” As he sees it, ants in a colony are like cells in a multicellular organism, or like neurons in the brain: their fates joined, their labor synchronized, the whole an emergent force to be reckoned with.
Dreaming the future
We all want a better world, and we seemingly make progress, with more technology and less prejudice. Yet ideals and utopias are strangely difficult to imagine, let alone achieve. Is it that we just lack imagination or are leaders inherently corrupt? Or is there something impossible in the very idea?
Academic Hacks
The pun of the headline was unintended. Anyway, here is a short interview with Susan in Psychology Today — BTW, I highly recommend her Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. The quote below captures the bind that befalls many humanities academics and is therefore a major driver of their hackery — ostrich-ism:
So, in the crudest career terms, yes, I suppose it would be more prudent to conform to the accepted academic pieties and hypocrisies or to avoid touchy topics altogether. And many professors seem to manage that quite well and even to thrive in the atmosphere of “lying and self-laudatory hallucination” that pervades universities today. But I simply couldn’t conduct my intellectual life that way, and to conduct my professional life like that would be just horrible.
In short, I’d much rather face the professional risks than sacrifice my independence. That’s why, when I was putting together Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate and a friend asked me: “Don’t you have enough enemies already?” I gave the answer you find in the introduction to the book: “Better ostracism than ostrich-ism.”
Islam and the Future of Tolerance: The Movie
If you are one of those anti-liberal sheep-like incoherent intersectional fuckwits who participated in- or uncritically supported- a mass march co-organized by a pro-Hamas Sharia law enthusiast, then this project won’t be for you. On the other hand if you are genuinely committed to liberalism (and women’s rights) please consider supporting this film.
Pete Overend Watts
God knows why we influenced all these people. Sometimes I can’t see what all the fuss is about. Maybe it’s that bit of magic. Maybe Mott The Hoople had that, I don’t know if it did or not. If people say they love Mott, I just can’t see it, I don’t know why. But it’s nice to think people really liked what we did. It’s also funny to think that people are probably as mad on Mott The Hoople as I am on The Monks and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Poor devils!
R.I.P. Overend Watts Of Mott The Hoople 1947-2017
Kool Aid
My favourite song from my favourite band — highly recommend you seek them out if you are NOLA-based or just visiting.
Bernard Williams on living long and living well
Microaggression and “I smell the blood of les tricoteuses”
Check out this symposium on microaggression featuring Scott Lilienfeld, Jonathan Haidt, Derald Wing Sue, and others in Perspectives on Psychological Science (all the papers are open access). While on a psychology note, the funniest and sadly, the most insightful tweet on this day in my feed, is from the Gadfather — shades of Trigglypuff Mk2? Aside from Gad, other notable voices of sanity that caught my eye:
I’ll make you a deal, like any other candidate
We’ll pretend we’re walking home ’cause your future’s at stake
My set is amazing, it even smells like a street
There’s a bar at the end where I can meet you and your friend
Someone scrawled on the wall “I smell the blood of les tricoteuses”
Who wrote up scandals in other barsI’m having so much fun with the poisonous people
Spreading rumours and lies and stories they made up. . .
With you by my side, it should be fine
We’ll buy some drugs and watch a band
Then jump in the river holding hands
manwithoutqualities 