1 week ago - 
7
7
The past is past. To see real heroes, look around you.
Mao Zedong - Qinyuanchun - Snow(沁园春•雪) (1936)
Unlike most sensible people, I’ve always had a certain fondness for Mao. Perhaps we are not supposed to sympathize with monsters, but in this case I can’t help it. In the countryside, where the people still wear blue work tunics with matching caps and trousers, they still love him. He was one of theirs and, for good or ill, he changed the world and began to restore China’s place among the great powers.
Rereading Grapes of Wrath last weekend in Berkeley I remembered that John Steinbeck is still my favorite writer and a hero, always. I recommend this.
Otters Can Sleep Anywhere
Which explains why we saw one climbing into the rip rap on North Beach in Discovery Park.
The Gutting of the New York Public Library
It seems to me that, if we, as a society, continue to let this go on libraries and universities will be reduced to the one thing the truly wealthy value them for: Glitzy philanthropic showcases. How poor is a society that only values its charitable contributions in terms of money itself? Impoverished indeed.
1 week ago - 1
1 Man is perishable. That may be. But let us perish resisting; and if nothingness is what awaits us, let us not act in such a way that it is a just fate.
Etienne Pivert de Senancour, quoted in James March, A Primer on Decision Making
3 weeks ago - 1
1
A Primer On Decision Making
There are at least two important insights to be drawn from this wonderful tome.
- Humans, no matter how powerful and successful, are not particularly good at making decisions. They can’t be, for two reasons: It is impossible for an individual to process all of the relevant information, and it is impossible for an individual “decision maker” to know that they are using the right analytical framework to make their decisions. Everyone has limits.
- Despite the futility of “correct” decision making, decisions still have to be made so have fun with it. For the most part, March advocates deliberative decision making, with a touch of whimsy, a technology of foolishness.
I recently made a very important decision, where to go to graduate school. I tried to build a framework that made sense to me, that took all of the relevant variables into account: Location, faculty, colleagues, financial aid package, interviews with recent alumni, reputation, etc. I’m sure they all factored in, but what it came down to is a sense of relief. Riding the train from Princeton Junction to Penn Station, I felt a sort of elation and relief that there was a place where like I felt like myself in the midst of academia rather than either desperate or a piece of a larger brand identity. It has been hard to explain this realization to others, even to myself. Perhaps it was my technology of foolishness. As March says:
“…. suspend temporarily the operation of reasoned consistency.” And suspend “imperatives towards consistency.”
“Knowing which of several foolish things might be done is not enough. There is still the problem of actually doing it. The most natural answer is that decision makers escape consistency through playfulness. Play allows action that is unintelligent…”
Which he sees as a good thing. If you can’t manage the impossible, do the playful.
3 weeks ago - 1
1 dei sub numine viget
If you wonder why this blog has gotten all toney all of a sudden; I’m going to Princeton.
Off Shishole on Journey.
