Catharsis

16 Jul 2003 | § 0 Mike

A Farewell Post

One cloudy, uncharacteristically cool spring day, as I was sitting in a bar with a friend, we discussed my participation in this newfangled Blog business. He offered an observation, that I seemed to get something out of doing this despite my near constant frustration with it and unending battles with one of the other members that drove me dangerously close to fits of apoplexy. I thought about what that was, what benefits I perceived from yet another net technology that allowed people to broadcast thoughts, opinions, and beliefs over this medium. I responded that the Blog allowed me to keep my writing and debating skills sharp.

But more and more, I returned to my early suspicions of the Internet, first experienced through listservs, usenet, and other such strange things that have been with humans for such a short period of time. It seems like only yesterday that our primitive ancestors wielded a bone for the first time to kill another of our own kind, a la the opening sequence of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now we are increasing our technology a hundredfold with every revolution around the sun. Somehow, our primitive, atavistic impulse to smash the skull of another human with a blunt object, however, remains, despite our advances. Civilization, as the adolescent tome Lord of the Flies teaches, is a thin veneer that is rented asunder with but the slightest tug.

That impulse, I think, has been channeled into the primary function of Internet communications. With every online discussion group or listserv, I gave up in frustration as someone either misinterpreted what I had written or simply attacked me outright. The bone is still there. It's a keyboard now. The urge to kill is right outside my window, in all its glory of primitive, naked rage. It's in me, and every other human as well. We are by nature angry, savage killers who will smash the brains from the head of another human to possess his food, shelter, or his woman.

But the sort of thing that goes on the net is a different manifestation. It's an opportunity for people who haven't the guts to wield a bone in deadly combat, to square off with another shaggy, hunch-shouldered, human ape, when the prize is their own survival, and perhaps the meager possessions of the vanquished. The Internet allows people to mouth off at others with anonymous impunity, take all their frustration out on someone they cannot perceive with their senses over the vast gulf of cyberspace, hurling insults and vitriol across that same unseen chasm, physically as imperceptible as the air we breathe. Some people aren't even taking out their frustrations on the faceless other, on the opposite side of the cable. They're just mean, and they don't have the balls to be mean to other people to their face, lest those they verbally attack take up the bone in lieu of the keyboard.

I return to the original question, why did I Blog? I came to understand that allowing me to polish my writing and argumentative skills was in fact but a penultimate objective. The Blog, in truth, allowed me to rediscover who I really am, what I think, and what I might believe.

In the last four years, I have been accused several times of being a sexist, racist, conservative, and lastly, a right-wing extremist. At an Irish studies conference years ago, I tried to make small talk with a conference participant. This is always a mistake. Conference participants are typically keyboard wielders as opposed to bone-wielders, if you follow my conversational drift. But I digress. The other conference participant and I got to talking about political perspective. When I offered that I had in my early adolescence fancied myself a Communist, but that age, experience, and increased knowledge had brought me to a perspective akin to that of Social Democracy, or a Social Democrat, the other participant rolled his eyes and rocked back on his heels, ensconced in expensive, glistening, leather shoes.

"Oh," he drawled, the attempt at condescension left uncamouflaged, "so you've moved way to the right," extending his arms widely to indicate that I had fallen far and fast, a distance traversing an entire ocean. I gave up trying to talk to this person, and most other people at the conference.

Since enlisting at a certain Jesuit university that shall remain nameless, I have been accused, in so many words and directly, of also being sexist, racist, ethnocentric, what have you, in addition to a right-wing extremist. I have puzzled repeatedly over how this could be true. Since I do not believe that all men are evil and should be castrated, by some people's standards apparently, I am sexist. Since I am white, I am automatically a racist. The extent to which I am white could have been a subject, perhaps, of a discussion here, specifically whether or not near easterners and people of near eastern descent are truly afforded white status now. But the sun is setting with alacrity, and if that subject be discussed, I will be unable to weigh in.

Back to the matter at hand. My pale skin, a genetic takeover by Irish ancestry when in the past I had a robust olive complexion indicative of my coexisting near eastern descent, does not alone make me a racist. What has made me a racist in the recent past are the abominable thoughts that have entered my mind over the last four years as I have watched members of another ethnic group firing weapons at each other and indiscriminately, screaming at the top of their lungs in the middle of the night, threatening to kill me, attempting to kill me, trying to kill other people, trying to hurt other people, taking up the bone, leering with a maniacal grin at the prospect of a satisfying smash of bone against bone.

But just as I am not racist because I have pale skin, rather for other reasons, the people I have described do not engage in violent actions because their skin is dark, rather for other reasons. They do it because they are desperate, angry, poor, hungry, left out of the American dream. They also scream in the middle of the night because they have no consideration for other people. Not all members of their ethnic group stand on the intersection near my building screaming and shooting. Or perhaps, as my Dad once told me long ago, "There are only two ethnic groups. Assholes, and people who aren't. Skin color and geographic origin has nothing to do with it."

As I have written, for this Blog, however, I have noticed myself eschewing racist interpretations and statements. It was not conscious, so much as innate, a natural inclination. The disgusting racist, or at least prejudicial, thoughts creeping into my head as of late, were unnatural, and not really me.

My political orientation, like my impulse contrary to racism or prejudice has similarly been confirmed. It appears that accusations leveled at me by the keyboard-wielding members of the asshole ethnic group populating the Ivory Tower are patently false. I'm a union man. A son of the working class. Each according to her or his need, and I demand that need be met. I call for an end to foreign war, and an initiation of global peace. I call for justice for workers, and jobs for the unemployed. I call for an end to all forms of discrimination and injustice. I demand that the narrow wealthy oligarchy that dominates this country make themselves accountable, and pitch in what is their due. I call for the downtrodden to raise themselves up from their knees and spit in the faces of those who held them there in chains. I am, unflinchingly, a leftist, and I proudly puke bright red. I never thought I really believed in anything, but having done this Blog, there are ideals in which I have made a leap of faith. To shift gears slightly, as a leftist, I look forward to one of my part-time jobs because it's akin to manual labor. It's honest work.

I also look forward to my other part-time job as a teacher because society has left the underclass with little to advance themselves. Education is one of the keys that have fallen onto America's dirty floor, forgotten by those who would keep the door locked tight. I also look forward to it as an ideological great grand-child of the Enlightenment. Reason above all else, and the dissemination of reason and knowledge. Liberte, Egalite, Franternite, et vive les droits des Hommes et Femmes.

I wish to wield no keyboard to vent my inconsequential frustrations against faceless others rather than having the balls to face them. As much as I often desire to wield the bone, with a flame so blindingly crimson as all of perdition burning behind my wounded eye, I choose not to do so. I will wield the education key, and help others through the door that I have entered, been ejected from, entered again, and ejected from once more.

Steve, I cast aside the bone that I briefly shook at you with increasing rage as my face sight-unseen twisted in murderous anger and hatred. We are enemies now, you and I. I invite détente, and in that interest, I will not throw more accusations at you or complain further, but I will never discuss matters political with you again. Like a job that I recently had briefly for two days, I simply don't have the right personality for it. I do not want to wield the bone unnecessarily, or if I can help it, ever again. For that, and because I do not wish to wield the keyboard in a cowardly, undignified fashion, to become what I dislike, a simpering, insult-hurling denizen of this damnable Internet, whining about small matters on a luxury item while others much less fortunate starve and face suffering, war, and death, I withdraw from the discussion.

John, thank you for the opportunity, the forum, your patience, and the gentle kindness which I find so characteristic of you. But this I cannot do.

Adieu.

-Mike

Posted by Mike

on Wed 16 Jul 2003 | § 0

Anger Rising, critical mass achieved

15 Jul 2003 | § 0 Mike

We both have engaged in a significant amount of moral finger pointing. This person is bad, this person is evil, this person is more diabolical than this other person, naughty, naughty. If you want to level such accusations, feel free. I'm just unwilling to continue it myself.

As to the leftist protestors, I see a consistent amount of vitriol directed at leftist protestors, in so many words liberals who do this, liberals who do that, liberal stupidity, idiot socialists, in actual words "Commie Tommie Daschle" (as if), leftist "ass-hatted fuckwits," and so forth. Extremely negative comments are consistently directed at people whose ideas and statements fall to the left of the political spectrum, and it gets personal. Just because there are occasional caveats, fine shades of meaning, and distinctions, when someone in so many words or in plain language denigrates and insults a group of people to which I belong I am in turn and by extension denigrated and insulted. I don't recall offering myself specifically as a punching bag. Nor do I recall making blanket statements about the stupidity or ass-hatted fuckwittery of conservatives, or people right of center, what have you, of any stripe.

I have made specific criticisms of Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, and much further outside the realm of credibility herself, Anne Coulter, but when have I extended those criticisms to any group of right-winged people? I have criticized Fox News, not for being on the right, but for reporting inaccurately, and for such instances as when they have a guest who believes that EYE-rack is "full of Buddhists," without correcting that guest, or offering a retraction or correction. The New York Times, many of whose staff members appear to hold leftish beliefs, has also dropped the ball on accurate reporting. Have I defended the NYT and attacked Fox News solely on the basis of political orientation? If you can find evidence that I have done these things I claim to be innocent of, I'll make a public blog apology.

I have after all, in times past, said, in so many words, "Okay, fine, fair enough, alright." When have points ever been conceded to me? Are you still holding a belief that Nazis fell on the left of the political spectrum? Was there smoldering in silence without concession?

Back to the leftist protestors, personal liberties in America were not created in America, but rather maintained in America by people with leftist ideas and through protest. The American Civil Liberties Union is largely left in character, for want of a better term, and has defended personal liberty to the point of arguing that Neo-Nazis should be permitted to march in Skokie, Illinois. Leftish reporters who refuse to reveal their source protect freedom of the press. Anti-war protestors who seized control of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago defended their right to freedom of assembly while simultaneously protesting the war.

And where do those ideas about personal liberty really come from? America? Don't make me laugh. Ideas about freedom of the press, assembly, and speech, as well as societal egalitarianism and responsible government with separate branches came collectively from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was Swiss, Voltaire, who was French, John Locke, who was English, and various other European thinkers, most of whom were your arch-nemeses as Frenchmen and women. And correct me if I'm wrong, but ardent supporters of those rights in the political field, such as Georges Danton, sat on the LEFT side of French assembly houses, hence the term. And let's see, Alexander Hamilton, a rightist of his time and place, OPPOSED the Bill of Rights! Hmm, gee I wonder, who, oh who must have pushed for that Bill of Rights? Well, if Hamilton the rightist opposed it, then maybe it was the left of that particular time and place? You think? Thus, both the creation in Europe and the maintenance in America of individual liberties come from the leftists of the past, the recent past, and even the current time, as I've argued, are thanks to filthy, puking leftists.

As foot-notes:

1) Morocco did not oppose, and technically invited, the American military presence in 1942. The World War II analogies don't work. That was there and then, this is here and now. History is not the present, it is the past.

2) The pronunciation of Iraq is not the same as Paris. Paris in English is Paris. Roma in English is Rome. Deutschland in English is Germany, Espana is Spain, (please forgive the lack of an appropriate diacritical mark), Eire is Ireland, Italia is Italy. Those things are all fine. EYE-rack is not the English word for Iraq. Saying EYE-rack is roughly the same as saying, "last night I had EYE-talian food at the Olive Garden." Which has more than a grain of truth.

3) Hussein has been removed from power. Fine. But there was nothing altruistic about the U.S. government and military initiating his removal. When a consigliare wants a Capo whacked, he gets whacked. It had nothing to do with the fact that the Capo was selling drugs to children in his own mother's neighborhood. All I've asked is that the administration, for once, tell the truth about why it went to war. Improving the lives of Iraqis no longer under Hussein wasn't it. They could give a damn about the lives of Iraqis. That was an unintended consequence. I doubt, for that matter, the Iraqis killed by American bombs and various other American weapons of mass destruction feel all that liberated. Whether or not Iraq was truly liberated has yet to be seen. It depends on what follows. An American puppet state won't protect the liberties of Iraqi's, seeing as Hussein didn't back when he was still taking orders from Washington. There's good in this, and there's also bad. How much bad remains to be determined. Bad in that the administration has lied to the American people and the world. Bad in that civilians were killed. Bad in that American military personnel lost their lives, and their families will never see them again.

4) I do not believe the UN is a cesspool. I think it's a good step toward a single world government. The kinks have yet to be worked out, but these things take time.

5) World opinion is not irrelevant. Americans, though many of them seem to think so lately, are not on this planet alone. We live with other nations. I think we should work with them rather than against them.

6) Dictators are problematic. Perhaps working with the international community might alleviate that.

7) As to salving the fragile egos of the Middle East, it's got nothing to do with that. I'm just tired of people who reveal and indeed revel in their ignorance with gratuitous mispronunciation.

Posted by Mike

on Tue 15 Jul 2003 | § 0

Angry Retort

15 Jul 2003 | § 0 Mike

Buckethead wrote that, "The UN is a cesspool, and world opinion is irelevant when it is being generated by cynical european governments, third world dictators and pathetic leftist protestors." Really, do tell? You know, a lot of those freedoms you're fond of might not exist had it not been for leftist protest at various points in recent history. Admittedly, there are people these days masquerading as leftists who want to restrict various freedoms and make us wear helmets, but as I'm reiterating, those people constitute le gauche faux.

Buckethead also wrote that, "We were attacked, and we are taking steps to assure that it does not happen again." Indeed? When did Iraq attack the United States?

For that matter, the U.S. appeared unable to offer any solid, hard evidence that Afghanistan in fact had a hand in attacking the United States. Most of those hijackers were Saudis. What the attackers of 11 September 2001 did was extremely wrong, but I will not belabor this point as I've tired of this moral finger-pointing that tends to go on with this blog. But I'll point my finger one last time and say that what the U.S. did was wrong, too. There was no verifiable evidence that the nations the United States has attacked had anything to do with the attack on the U.S. itself.

Posted by Mike

on Tue 15 Jul 2003 | § 0

Iraq

15 Jul 2003 | § 0 Mike

The justifications that the administration offered for going to war with Iraq were smoke. Here's an organized crime analogy. Think of the United States as a crime family. Hussein was a Capo working for the family who got out of line and refused to do things the way the boss, IE the first Boss Bush, dictated. Therefore, more eager underbosses, street bosses, and the consilgiare, not so much loyal to the boss as they were to a previous boss (IE Reagan) wanted Hussein whacked. When the first Boss Bush attacked Hussein's crew, Boss Bush 1 employed some restraint and just cut down his crew. But Bush left Hussein alive, and even letting him earn at subsistence level provided he kicked more upstairs.

When leadership passed to Bush's son, the underbosses and consilgiare remained in power. Pressured by attacks from rival families, the underbosses, etc. who wanted Hussein whacked before saw an opportunity to clean their own house and try to whack Hussein for good. Instead, they stepped on their dick, the other heads of the five families lined up against them, and they succeeded only in purging more of Hussein's crew. But Hussein went on the lam when the U.S. decided to go to the mattresses, and they can't find Hussein to whack him. Not to mention they can't even find the head of the rival family who started all this shit in the fist place, and he remains unwhacked as well. It's a good thing the U.S. isn't really an organized crime family, or they'd be out of business quickly.

While I'm on the subject, something else that's been annoying me lately deals with the pronounciation of Iraq. Many people, including the current boss of the U.S., pronounce it "EYE-rack." It is in fact "Ear-ACK," dumbasses.

Posted by Mike

on Tue 15 Jul 2003 | § 0

Things that have annoyed me lately

10 Jul 2003 | § 0 Mike

The fact that no person or news agency other than PBS' Frontline has been honest about the very simple reasons for going to war with Iraq, and that removing a dictator with things that go boom wasn't one of them. There are reasons, and then there are excuses.

Being told that it's a-okay to have me teaching part-time, but that I might be overqualified to work as a full-time instructor during the course of the interview for said full-time position. The fact that I won't get the full-time position because they'll probably give it to a jug-head who has no business being in a class-room as a student, much less a prof.

Realizing that other, similar colleges might consider me overqualified while knowing that the next step up will most likely consider me underqualified.

Referring to Hispanics (a term that the U.S. government invented) as though they were a single ethnic group. If that's the case, then the whole of the European continent, Britain, Ireland, the near east, and north Africa are all peopled by members of the same ethnic group.

Speaking of Africa as though it were a country and not a continent.

The scratch in my eye that keeps reopening to leave me in blinding pain every morning, including the one I had the aforementioned interview.

Not to sound like a populist demagogue, but banks have my goat at the moment.

The sad lack of free alcoholic beverages distributed by the government to people who work part-time and have difficulty acquiring full-time employment, or unemployed people with no employment, in a poor economy with a national unemployment rate over 6%.

Just the unemployment rate by itself, and that people are having difficulty paying rent and buying food, much less a luxury like booze.

Dealing directly and extensively with people I dislike, especially pain in the ass co-workers.

Women who turn their noses up at men who make less than $100,000 a year. That's roughly 98% of them in this town. The other 2% are already married to guys who make less than $100,000 a year, leaving me pretty much out in the cold.

That the odds of being shot, stabbed, or bounced repeatedly off the front windshield of a speeding taxi attempting to swerve through traffic with its passenger side wheels on the sidewalk are better than experiencing even moderately good fortune.

That by next year, the only good show on HBO will be Six Feet Under. An excellent series, but my life has so little. How 'bout just one more season of The Sopranos after this next one, Gandolfini? What do you say?

Finally, the very last thing that's annoyed me lately, television commercials where one character pretends to accept the meaning of a word or phrase spoken by another character except the second character deals in reality and the first character has his own language and lives in his own little world. Like the one where that rich asshole who made his money the old-fashioned way he inherited it and never worked a goddam day in his privileged life in the pickup with his gold-digging wife and whiny children with a sense of entitlement, hauling a fucking boat, the total monetary value of both vehicles being more than most people will see in their entire lives represents himself as a trucker to an actual trucker and the rich jag-off thinks he's a trucker because he has a fucking pick-up!

I almost feel better. Except something else will piss me off tomorrow, and I'll be back where I started.

Posted by Mike

on Thu 10 Jul 2003 | § 0

Irish Americans and Whiteness

24 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

Well, I had an extended post on the subject and I lost it. I'll be brief. First, I'll reiterate my intense hatred for Noel Ignatiev and his so-called book that is really a big pile of crap. Second, whiteness studies, including Noel Ignoramus', argue that the Irish were racially distinct in Anglo-Saxon America and then tried to become white. Really? All the Irish Americans in all of America all got together at a meeting and voted unanimously to become white? In order to do so, they also voted to hate African Americans and be mean, evil, racist, awful terribly people. Where are the minutes of that meeting? There was no meeting. Irish Americans, like every other ethnic group, have simply wanted better for their children than they had. That's it. End of story. I've touched on this in previous posts so I won't belabor it here. I'll just say this. Sure. Members of the Irish-American ethnic group have, and some still do, prejudged others. But other ethnic groups are exempt from this? Hardly. In a previous post I wrote that my mother used to tell me that there's good and bad in all kinds, and that most American ethnic historians weren't paying attention if their mother told them the same thing.

Thus, whiteness studies are another way for the IT to browbeat Irish Americans. They decided to become white by hating African Americans. They are evil horrible people.

Oh, go sit on your Ivory Tower and spin.

Posted by Mike

on Tue 24 Jun 2003 | § 0

Fun with Postmodernism

20 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

Here is a bilingual post in Postmodernist Newspeak and English.

Newspeak: Clearly, the subjectivism inherent within the phallocentric blanc homme heteropatriarchy permits agency only to the center of power, in which the oppressive repression of the other is carried out philogically, but the physical realm exists only imaginatarially through agency-oriented cultural constructivism.

English: White guys suck. They are mean to people who are not also white guys.

Newspeak: Denying objective reality is imperative. Only through the lens of the subjective cultural construction do we see the nature of othering. In the mind of the beholder, that which is unreal to the cultural outsider exists. Should the other appear as phantasmagorically unnontransparent humanitas, they are what they appear in the mind of those who other them. But the other other condemns their action as criminal to oppress the other who is othering the other.

English: It's okay to kill other if you think it's okay to kill other people. This is a sneaky way for Postmodernists to cloak their true selves. They're actually Nazi sympathizers finding a justification for the actions of their ideological forbears. We call this moral relativism. It is more colloquially known as bullshit. The term bullshit may also be applied to most assertions in Newspeak.

Newspeak The hibernophallopoliticocentric realm of Chicago others all others supercallifragilisticexpialodiciously in hibernophalloterrorstic logocentric NotreDame-esquely brusqueintadorial combat against peace-centered maternaturuallineally impetuous matro-divine/anti-hibernophillac militaristic industarial complexity.

English ?????????????

I believe that most postmodernists stuck a monkey in a room with a PC and published whatever the chimp banged onto the keyboard.

Posted by Mike

on Fri 20 Jun 2003 | § 0

A Discourse with a Commenter

20 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

First, thanks to Mr. Bad Thoughts for continued readership and commentary. I would like to expand a debate he and I have engaged regarding American generations. I will post a recent comment here in full.

From: I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts:

"I would not challenge your delineation out of hand. However, I would point out that when conservatives use the term 'boomers' they are referring to a group of people who have certain experiences from the 60s that involves the questioning of 'traditional America.' Many of the people who are part of the 'boomers' you described are too young to have had meaningful experiences of the 60s; they were a more conservative (or at least much less liberal) generation. Gen Xers, on the other hand, seem to be better characterized by disillusionment with both 60s liberalism (which they largely got from their parents) and Reaganism (the quick wealth scheme having dried up by 1988.)"

To respond to the second sentence, what conservatives do is their problem. On that score the conservatives to whom you refer are quite incorrect. I, however, made it abundantly clear that the Baby Boomer generation is split between what Nixon referred to as a "small vocal minority," a handful of people who were involved in counter-cultural activities, and the great majority of them who were not. What I refer to as counter-cultural activities is what you, I assume, refer to as "the questioning of 'traditional America'?" That is fine.

In the above quoted comment, you seem to argue that the Baby Boomers who were not involved in counter-cultural activities were too young to do so? Then, everyone who was between the age of 16 and 26 between the years 1965 and 1972 were all involved in counter-cultural activity/the questioning of traditional America? I disagree very strongly. Many people, or Straights, if you will, were of contemporary age with counter-culturalists/questioners, or Freaks if you will. To explain further, plenty of 21 year old Freaks protesting the war in 1969 were spit on by an even greater number of 21 year old Straights. I will certainly concede that members of the Baby Boom generation who were pre-teens or early adolescents between 1965 and 1972 missed out, and I'm sure many of them adopted more conservative viewpoints than late-teen/early adult Freaks during the same years. But understand that most people in their late-teen/early adult years between 1965 and 1972 also adopted conservative viewpoints. The bottom line here, and listen carefully, is that a very, very small minority of Americans in their late-teen/early adult years between 1965 and 1972 were involved in counter-cultural activities. The majority of them, like most Americans, were in the middle of the road, or to the right of center. Even when American society polarized in 1968, very few young people were counter-culturalists. Most polarized in the opposite direction.

Thus, I doubt that most Gen Xers received "60s liberalism" from their parents. First off, most people alive in the 1960s really weren't left of center and engaging in counter-culture; that was a small number of people. Second, it doesn't make sense chronologically for Baby Boomers to have all of their children in Generation X. I can't offer hard quantitative evidence in the form of census data, but I'm not convinced that the majority of Generation X members are the product of Baby Boomer parents. Some, certainly. But in my own case, I'm the product of two pre-boomers, and I was born toward the end of my Generation X 1960-1977 chronolongical definition. I was then raised by one of the aforementioned pre-boomers and a very, very early Boomer. A small sample, but nonetheless one example contrary to your argument that Generation X is, correct me if I'm wrong, overwhelmingly a product of Boomer parentage. Is that your assertion?

Let's review. A typical white middle-class person born in the first third of the post-war Baby Boom, between 1946 and 1950/1, would be entering their socially acceptable child-bearing age between the years 1971 and 1976. That places their first round of children in Generation X, true. But their second round of children, roughly three years after the first, would fall between 1974 and 1979. Stay with me here. Thus, the second round of children for even the first third of typical white middle class early Boomers, should they fall in the years 1978 and 1979, enters the realm of Generation Y, or echo Boomers. The second third of the typical white middle class Baby Boomer, born between 1951 and 1955, enter their socially acceptable child-bearing age between the years 1976 and 1980. It is thus possible for the second third to have Generation X children in 1976 or 1977, but more likely to have them in 1978, 1979, and 1980, all within the Generation Y period. Their second round of children, if typical, falls squarely within Generation Y between 1979 and 1983. For the final third of the typical white middle class Baby Boomer, 1956 to 1959/60, the first round of children are likely born between 1981 and 1986, well into Generation Y territory, to say nothing of the second round.

Of course, not every Baby Boomer is typical, white, or middle-class having children when it's socially acceptable and common. Biology often runs counter to those things, and there are always exceptions. But typically, most Baby Boomers, with the above chronological number crunching in mind, are having Generation Y offspring.

Here endeth the lesson.

Posted by Mike

on Fri 20 Jun 2003 | § 0

Brief Absence

20 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

I was unable to post yesterday due to an eye injury that left me in white-hot agony and temporarily blind. I have recovered quickly thanks to medical attention, and am back in the blogging business. Thank you for your support.

Posted by Mike

on Fri 20 Jun 2003 | § 0

Generational Definitions

18 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

Since there have been quite a few comments on the Generations discussion, I thought it might help to expand the discussion in another post. First, some definitions. People disagree as to the exact lines between generations, and pinning down exact years is difficult. It is also quite possible that in such a format as this, people will argue ad infinitum about when a generation begins and ends, who their children are, etc., etc. Generations, after all, are not defined only chronologically but also by the events and times through which they lived.

So I'll offer this scale of American generations. The World War II generation constitutes people born between about 1910 and 1926; those who were old enough to serve, for men. For women, those birth dates put them about at the right age to work in a munitions plant, doing difficult industrial labor.

Boomers are typically the children of the World War II generation. The term baby boomer, after all, refers to the population explosion that occurred during the post-war period and was at least in part the result of G.I.s returning home from service. They were born, about, between the years of 1946, and I would argue, until about 1959 or even 1960. Members of this generation were not necessarily, "hippies," a media invention that constitutes a less than apt term. People describing themselves as "hippies" were probably not actually the kind of person many think of when the think of the Sixties generation, or Sixties people, or Sixties this, that, or the other. The Baby Boomer generation was divided, to put it as simply as possible, between Freaks and Straights.

Baby boomers who actively participated in counter-cultural activities, such as drug use or political activism, were Freaks. They were, as Nixon put it, "a small vocal minority." Their numbers were extremely small. The vast majority of boomers were not these so-called hippies, again, a media invention term, but wore their hair short, abstained from drug use (until marijuana became largely acceptable in the early Seventies), heckeled, and spit on anti-war protesters. They were Straights. They, as the vast majority of baby boomers, did not burn their draft cards, but either served or received college deferments. But most Boomers did not publicly oppose or protest the war. In sum, perhaps 1 out of 100 members of the Boomer generation actually participated in 1960s counter-culture.

The members of Gen X, mostly, fell between the Boomers and their children, about between the years of 1960/1 and 1977. The children of Boomers, particularly those who are white and middle class, as Gen Y, or Echo Boomers or whatever you want to call them, followed in the years after 1977. Thus, a person born in 1955, say a white middle-class Boomer, would be having children between about 1977 and up to 1990. Therefore, Gen Y can most certainly be the children of Boomers. Like to go further back? A person born at the start of the Boom in 1947, also white and middle-class, could, and many did, have children in the second half of the 1960s. Now this would place those children in Gen X. But think about it. A person born in 1947 could also be having children until 1982, if not later, placing those children within Gen Y.

It's not a perfect delineation, and I never said it was. There are exceptions. There is overlap. Generations do not act as a single unit. They are not monolithic. Quite the contrary. Perhaps more posts will follow on this subject, but I'll throw these definitions open to debate for now.

Posted by Mike

on Wed 18 Jun 2003 | § 0

A bit more flapping about generations

17 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

So, as my generational delineations (not perfect with overlap) have not yet been challenged in the comments field, I'll continue.

Let's give the benefit of the doubt to those who use the term, "hippie," and what they mean by that. Let's say they are applying the term to that small segment of the Boomer generation who were Freaks, actively involved in counter-culture activities. People who were actively involved in counter-culture might have been less likely to inculcate their children with a sense of entitlement, so the notion that Freaks gave their children a sense of entitlement is incorrect.

Without going into details about the chaotic and somewhat unorthodox (by traditional definition) circumstances in which I was brought into the world and raised, I was ultimately raised by an early Boomer very much involved in counter-culture and political activism during the late 1960s, and a pre-boomer who was of course, not. The early Boomer to which I refer made his position clear. When I came home with a story of some injustice perpetrated against me by the evil teachers, fellow students, and/or school administration, ending with the phrase, "and that's not fair," the response was, "Who the hell ever told you life was fair? Your mother? She's wrong. Get used to it." [There's some poetic license here, but the gist should come across.]

Now I realize this is anecdotal, and a small sampling group to say the least, clearly, this was one Boomer who did not choose to inculcate the child he raised with a sense of entitlement. I think those who were involved in counter-culture actually walked away jaded, disappointed, and ultimately, pessimistic. The vast majority of Boomers who didn't have the guts to take a stand, or took one against those who did, are the ones who I think came away with more of a sense of entitlement.

As I wrote before, Gen Y has demonstrated a sense of entitlement, and I think one reason is that in a lot of cases, their parents have inculcated them with it. But that's not the be-all-end-all. So did children's television programming, and the other things I discussed (please see previous post). Nothing is monocausal. Hell, being Americans has inculcated a lot of these kids with a sense of entitlement. As to whether or not Boomers are still raising kids, if Gen Y has been in college for a period measured in years, they're not really being raised now, are they?

Finally, unlike Scarborough, who wavers between making me laugh and raising my blood pressure exponentially, I have no hatred for people previously involved in 1960s counter-culture. Quite the opposite. I grew up idolizing one of them, and still do to this day to a great extent. They tried to change the world. They didn't succeed, but the deck was significantly stacked against them. But I think they fought one helluva good fight, and my hat's off. Matter of opinion, of course, and that's mine. I'll smile and nodd at others.

Power to the People.

Posted by Mike

on Tue 17 Jun 2003 | § 0

Brookhiser

14 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

I'd rather go this route than the comments field. Brookhiser is clearly discussing secondary education, but there is an even greater problem in the universities. Many U.S. courses in the IT have also abandoned politics whole-hog. Having taught U.S. history for the first time this past spring, I did find that a social and economic focus with a dash of culture was more suited to the subject, because it's meatier. American political history can get pretty boring. I would have to disagree with Brookhiser specifically as it relates to U.S. history, that students prefer a political focus. My most popular lectures are those that deal with popular culture and the social implications of the industrial revolution. It says so in my evaluations.

But Brookhiser has some points, and this deals with the entire abandonment of political history I've witnessed. To ignore political issues entirely ignores one of the most important aspects of American history. Here I will toot my own horn. My students know who George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Marshall, and Abraham Lincoln were, to name just a few, and what they did. It's absurd to cut the politics out entirely. They're critical.

This is even more true of a European survey course, having taught those as well. In my American survey course, a history of one nation over a maximum of about 250 years, I emphasize social and economic aspects, little culture, while still giving appropriate weight to political aspects. My European survey courses, as a history of 50+ nations or dynastic states or empires or regions or whatever, over a maximum of 5,000years, pursue a political focus while still granting appropriate weight to social, cultural, and economic aspects. Best thing to do is to balance out all the interests, and don't ignore important stuff. Nonetheless, the social and cultural effects of the industrial revolution make a big bang there too, especially the time I brought my fiddle and played tunes to give a hands-on demonstration of agrarian rural Irish culture. They loved that bit.

Ergo, politics, economy, society, and culture make history. They are intertwined. It is possible to deal with all of them, even in a survey course, and particularly in the one nation 250 years format.

Posted by Mike

on Sat 14 Jun 2003 | § 0

Generations

14 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

Boomers have exhibited some sense of entitlement, as Steve correctly argues. I would say, though, that Gen Y has the biggest sense of entitlement I've ever seen. As we three are members of Gen X, I don't think we ever really expected easy and rich lives. Prophetic in my case, to say the least. We were born amidst the Vietnam war, the subsequent economic collapse, including an energy crisis, and a general spirit of malaise. We were the first generation raised by single mothers. We were the first latchkey kids. We lived with the constant threat of a nuclear holocaust that could potentially have wiped out all life on earth. We were told by media, teachers, and our parents, "You're screwed," in so many words. What media, teachers, and our parents specifically told us was, "You will be the first American generation to do worse than your parents."

So why is Gen X an aggregate ranging from ennui to nihlism while Gen Y thinks the world owes them a living? Like any historical explanation, it's multi-faceted. Gen Y knows little of hard economic times. They know nothing of the Cold War and the threat of human extinction. If you say the words, "the wall came down," they think you're referring to, "that old band? What were they called? Purple Frood?"

But for the issue at hand, Gen Y are the children of boomers. Gen X are the children of pre-boomers, those born not after World War II, but perhaps during. Or, we are the children of people born during the Great Depression. The message from our parents was, "Life isn't fair. Suck it up." Boomer parents have communicated to their children, "The world is your oyster. You are special. You can be anything you want to be."

As a result, while teaching Gen Yers at a certain Jesuit institution, I was confronted with rage and tears whenever students received Bs or even B+s in lieu of As. One student called me an asshole, in front of the class, because I gave her a B on a paper despite carefully explaining what was required for an A, and that what she did merited a B. But according to the Gen Y folk, when I did grant As (grant hell, sometimes I hand them out like lollipops; I'm a grade inflater), I still failed to recognize their special contribution to the human race.

Some of my current students, however, at a city college, have criticized me through course evaluations for being too easy on them. They don't have the sense of entitlement. Why? They're at a city college. Life has not been so kind to them. I see my role as a corrective to that, but not to toot my own horn. Most of my current students aren't Gen Y either, but a little older. The bottom line is that Boomers have inculcated their children with the notion that they are perfect, special, and oh so precious. A former mantra of our generation was, "Life's a bitch. Then you die."

Posted by Mike

on Sat 14 Jun 2003 | § 0

Boomers

14 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

Buckethead writes:

Mike and I may differ on what services should be provided to the poor, but I think he'll agree that we should not be giving handouts to people who own their homes, have investment portfolios, and a pension.

Damn straight.

Posted by Mike

on Sat 14 Jun 2003 | § 0

Economy

13 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

Alright. We'll start with this electronic philosophy journal article. I found it to be highly politicized, though politics and economy are strongly related to one another. So let's look at a few statements from the article:

The thinking seems to be that the profits of business should either be given directly to workers through pay raises or be taken by the government to be given to workers indirectly.

Wow! What a great idea! I'm all for it. Oh wait there's more:

Producing greater profits is thought of as useless and immoral.

Right again! What a great article! Oh, hang on:

However, if Say's Law is correct, life improves through greater production, not through higher nominal wages. Greater production requires greater capitalization -- money invested in machinery and training -- and the capital for that must come out of profits.

Well, you lost me there. Okay, so to simplify, fuck the poor. Yeah. I've seen this movie. I'll quote myself from at least two lectures last spring, "Profits for the wealthy come with the exploitation of labor."

Perhaps I shouldn't quote myself. I could go blind. Back to the subject at hand, so to speak (*ahem*), supply side economics, or free market capitalism, benefit ownership and management over labor. This will not change so long as the system is maintained. Tax cuts, especially capital gains, invariably benefit those with the most money. They do not benefit wage-workers (or adjunct profs) who have no investments, no savings, and literally hang by their fingernails in a free market capitalist system.

Steve will undoubtedly launch a thousand counter-arguments, if history is any guide. I will only deal with ones that I make up, here and now. Counter: tax cuts make a good economy. A good economy means more workers are hired.

Then exploited. The aforementioned article states that profits have to be reinvested, and not in the workers. To stay afloat, businesses have to maintain a healthy bottom line in the free market system. To do that, they pay their workers as little as possible. If they make lots of money, they keep it, or invest it, then get tax breaks on their investments.

I previously asked for quantitative analysis on this subject. That was a trick question. Economic issues are difficult if not impossible to quantify. Why? It's a matter of faith. People believe that when they hand over green pieces of paper or shiny metal round things, they receive goods and services in exchange. If a majority of people changed their beliefs, and decided that the green paper is for the wiping of asses and the shiny round things are fun to eat, the whole deal collapses. Faith cannot be quantified. It cannot be quantitatively proven that God exists; it cannot be quantitatively proven that free market capitalism, or any of the economic systems attempted thus far, work.

Free market capitalism creates a permanent underclass. The individual members of the underclass might ascend, but ultimately, there is always an underclass. Capitalism requires a large number of people to work for wages beneath a level of comfort. I'll anticipate another counter: the poor in America do better than the poor in other countries. They have material possessions.

Do they? There are still people in this country who are homeless and hungry. There are people who have not been apportioned according to their need. This is not me. I'm discussing people with families below the poverty level, who try as they might, cannot get their heads above water. As to material possessions, can many people actually afford them, or do they go into debt to acquire them, invariably sinking into bankruptcy? Poverty has not been eliminated anywhere in the world. Free market capitalism will not eliminate poverty, nor have centrally planned economies, because they do not produce a sufficient number of consumer goods or provide decent standards of living. Nothing seems to work perfectly.

Counter: perfection is unattainable. To quote Matt Groening, from School is Hell, "you'll never get anywhere with that defeatist attitude."

The solution? I've said it before. I don't have the answers. I have ideas.

Posted by Mike

on Fri 13 Jun 2003 | § 0

A perspective on tax cuts

11 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

Thomas Friedman of the NYT (yeah, I know, I know) has an interesting perspective on the tax cuts here. Here's a little textbite:

"That is, when the president says he wants yet another round of reckless 'tax cuts,' which will shift huge burdens to our children, Democrats should simply refer to them as 'service cuts,' because that is the only way these tax cuts will be paid for - by cuts in services. Indeed, the Democrats' bumper sticker in 2004 should be: 'Read my lips,
no new services. Thank you, President Bush.'"

There are scare quotes within that particular quotation. Deal with it.

As to the NYT having a reporter who made things up, and a lot of the made up information was of course inaccurate, I saw some goofball on MSNBC last night complaining that Iraq is full of Buddhists and no one complains, but everybody complains about America being full of Christians.

Yah-huh. See? This is why we should have well-paid educators. America might be full of Christians, but my complaint is that America is full of stupid people, some of whom make things up and report inaccurately in various media formats. Well paid, competent, dedicated educators mean less stupidity, resulting in less making stuff up and inaccurate reporting. It also means less people will believe the made-up inaccuracies.

As to Friedman's editorial, well, it's a matter of opinion.

Posted by Mike

on Wed 11 Jun 2003 | § 0

Equality of Outcome

4 Jun 2003 | § 3 Mike

Equality of outcome does not mean that everyone gets the same deal. A cornerstone of Socialist thought is each according to his need. Steve the technical writer has a family to provide for, Mike the adjunct prof, though he would like one very much, does not. Regardless, Mike the adjunct prof, without a family, does not need as much as Steve.

Granted, Mike the adjunct prof could have chosen a more lucrative career path, but the world would be a better place if people were able to apply their best talents and skills in a way that helps society. It's not the way things are, but it's a goal that can be achieved. Educating people helps society. No one wants a society full of ignorant people. All I ask is a living wage.

Posted by Mike

on Wed 4 Jun 2003 | § 3

Gun Ownership

4 Jun 2003 | § 3 Mike

I'm opposed to gun ownership in general. Two years ago, my city had the highest homicide rate in the United States, and the vast majority of those homicides were committed with firearms. Last Saturday at 4:30 in the afternoon, there was a shooting right in front of my building. Literally half a foot from the front door of my building. I hear shots fired in my neighborhood at least once a week, sometimes more. I'm getting a little tired of diving onto the floor, and that doesn't help me if the first shot fired is the one that comes through my window.

The counter-argument might be that homicides won't disappear if guns are removed, and will still be accessible if they are banned. I say give it a try. Everything else hasn't worked. I'm getting tired of living on my floor, and I'm getting tired of turning on the local broadcast news to see that another little girl was shot with an automatic weapon while playing in front of her home.

Of course, banning firearms would still be a band-aid. People here in the inner city don't have equality of opportunity even. Many of them are stuck without an education and without jobs, certainly decent jobs that they can make enough to live on. Hence they turn to crime and gangs. Even with banned firearms, people will still engage in criminal behavior unless society adjusts and makes an effort to accomodate them with work and education. One of the things I like about my city college is that any number of my students are getting higher education where they might otherwise not, and a chance to make a better way for themselves. The problem is that only the tip of the iceberg even makes it into a city college classroom.

Posted by Mike

on Wed 4 Jun 2003 | § 3

Signing off

3 Jun 2003 | § 0 Mike

Apologies to Judson. You're okay.

No posts for awhile.

Posted by Mike

on Tue 3 Jun 2003 | § 0

Firearm Ownership

3 Jun 2003 | § 1 Mike

People in my neighborhood are armed. To the teeth. That's why shootings happen so often, including in front of the door to my building. Relaxing gun restrictions will increase the number of armed gangbangers. There are already a lot of them. People are shooting each other every day in this and other cities.

So the solution is to arm everybody? That's rich. American society is already one of the most violent in the world. This is easily one of the worst neighborhoods on the planet. The goal should be to make society less violent, not more. I'm not convinced, regardless of any studies or books published (frankly, as an academic, I can say from experience that books and studies are often, though not always, full of shit), that arming everyone is the solution. When people have guns, they use them.

As you allude, I am familiar with violence. I have been both its victim and its perpetrator. When I was two years old someone held a shotgun in my face and might have killed me had I not been rescued. Thus, it is because I am familiar with violence that I dislike it. In my post-adolescent years, I have considered it an absolute last resort. Would I defend myself again if necessary and able? Absolutely. But 4 or 5 attackers is more than most mortals can handle, or 3, and even 2, unless you get off a good suckerpunch on the first one. I don't want to live in a world where I have the option to blow people's heads off if I feel threatened. Quite honestly, I think if someone is really serious about hurting another human being, might as well embrace the atavistic, savage, merciless, vicious beast that the human animal really is beneath the surface. If a person really wants to kill someone else and isn't bad enough to kill someone bare-handed, they're not bad. They're a punk. People who use guns to shoot other people are small men trying to make themselves feel big.

I never wait for the police, or even bother to call 911 when I hear shots. The police don't do anything. The current situation is that every day I live in this crime infested sewer of a neighborhood, I'm rolling the dice. That's life. I won't arm myself with a gun to make myself feel safe, or big. Quite frankly, I don't think that people are safe even with guns. That just leads to exchanging shots in an attempt to kill the opponent before they kill you. In a lot of cases around here, I think people who fire, instead of anticipating that the othe person has a gun and avoiding them, just try to get off the first shot. There was a guy here who was walking down the street with a friend of his. In passing two other people on the sidewalk, he bumped shoulders with the other guy, who turned and shot the first guy to death. If the first guy had a gun on him, he still would have been shot. If the first guy had a gun and fired after bumping shoulders with the other, he would have been guilty, just that their positions were reversed. But what happened is that someone was shot to death by a total stranger for no reason. If the victims of John Lee Malvo and John Muhammad had been armed, would they have been able to defend themselves? They never saw it coming. I am shocked and saddened by the amount of random violence in this world. More guns means more violence, not less.

I don't pretend to have the answers. I have ideas. I think that reducing poverty and unemployment will also reduce crime significantly. I also think that putting guns in people's hands gives them the means to kill people that they wouldn't otherwise have. I don't have the power to take your gun. I am not actively doing anything to take your gun. But I think if I ever made you mad enough to do me physical harm, you'd do me the courtesy of a straight fight where the odds are even instead of shooting me. The assholes in my neighborhood probably won't, but I'll just have to take my chances.

Everybody has to die of something. If I get shot, which is a fairly strong possibility given the large numbers of people who get shot in this city, then, so be it. I'll have to either live in agony, bleeding on the sidewalk, or die with that decision. As you pointed out, I have no family. No one relies on me. The world will not be significantly different without me in it. That's my choice. It's a short life in a hard world, where life turns on a dime, and having a gun won't change that.

Posted by Mike

on Tue 3 Jun 2003 | § 1