matching tracksuits

Pascal, Kreeft, and the Will

Monday 07 February 2005

Most everyone knows Pascal’s Wager, drawn from a single paragraph in Pensces: belief in God is, in short, the safest bet. ("Read more on the Wager.) It’s interesting that people still apply it in earnest.

Most recently, I’ve heard Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft use it in his 1995 Texas A&M Veritas Forum lecture.

One of the objections is the supposed inability to chose one’s beliefs. Pascal foresaw such an argument:

You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc... But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks.

Action precedes faith. Praying, meditating, going to Mass, all lead to faith. Crazy as that might sound, Pascal might indeed have a point. Polish writer Czesław Miłosz made the same point in The Captive Mind:

The Catholic Church wisely recognized that faith is more a matter of collective suggestion than of individual conviction. Collective religious ceremonies induce a state of belief. Folding one’s hands in prayer, kneeling, singing hymnsÂ precede faith, for faith is a psycho-physical and not simply a psychological phenomenon.

Every Mass Catholics cite the Apostles’ Creed in one voice:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth:

I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended into hell; on the third day He arose from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and life everlasting. Amen.

“I believe; I hear my neighbor beside me state that he believes; I am aware that my neighbor in front of me believes – we all believe. We all support each other in these beliefs.” That’s what I hear behind the words.

In that believing environment, which must be at least similar to Pascal’s environment, willing yourself to believe seems not only possible, but almost inescapable. Even as a “staunch” non-believer, I feel sometimes that tug toward belief, that desire not simply to fit in for the sake of fitting in, but to have what the parishioners around me seem to have.

There are two kinds of views on religion, wrote William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience:

Seek truth
Avoid error

For those who seek truth, the choice is obvious – bet on God. I’ve always been more the type to avoid error.

Book of Questions :: An Invitation to All Visitors

Saturday 05 February 2005

One of the most popular websites — judging by the number of comments — is Michele. It doesn't take long to figure out why: her blog is not about herself exclusively, but also asks engaging questions, like a good host.

Gregory Stock beat her to it, though. I first discovered his Book of Questions (Amazon) when I was in high school. As one Amazon reviewer’s son said, “This book doesn't have any answers, but it sure does make you think.”

The Book of Questions is just that: a book of engaging, sometimes provocative questions. From the introduction:

This is not a book of trivia questions, so don’t bother to look here for the name of either Tonto’s horse or the shortstop for the 1923 Yankees. These are questions of a different sort -- questions about you. They are about your values, your beliefs, and your life; love, money, sex, integrity, generosity, pride, and death are all here. Some of the questions are indeed “heavy,” and some of them are almost jocular, but they are all mentally stimulating.

Rediscovering it on my bookshelf a few days ago, I realized that this is a blogger’s idea book written before the advent of the Internet, let alone blogging. It includes questions that, when honestly answered, could improve any blog, especially one like MTS that is growing staler by the day.

What I propose, then, is this: simul-blogging (the term, from my perspective, started at Ocean) to answer selected questions from Stock’s book. This would be different than merely commenting, as participants would not be initially influenced by others’ thoughts. Instead, we all write about the same question at roughly the same time, with a given date for publishing it -- something along the lines of Marginal and Fallible do, but on larger scale.

Any takers? To begin with, perhaps something on the lighter side, banal even:

Question 120: Would you accept $10,000 to shave your head and continue your normal activities sans hat or wig without explaining the reason for your haircut?

My own answer will be posted on Friday 11 February. If you join in, paste the question at the top of your post, then leave a comment for Monday’s entry with a link to your answer.

“Spit flyin’ everywhere,” Take Two

Friday 04 February 2005

A wise woman once wrote,

I, too, am saddened by so much of what I read in blogs, and comment threads are even worse. It’s as if writers are grabbing the mike and running to the stage without having once practiced the song they are about to force onto the audience. At first it seems funny and then it just seems sad, desperate, irresponsible.

Raging, inarticulate personal attacks in comments and posts are becoming all too common.

There are blogs that are devoted just to criticizing other blogs. And it's not just attacks because of political views, but attacks based on, well, anything that doesn't suit the "reviewer."

There are also bloggers who go around biting ankles in comments.

Regrettably I’ve done both. This post is what’s left after all the spittle has been wiped away and people began talking civilly.

"It’s easy to tear down than to build up," said my mother (though I suspect not just mine), and the truth of that is becoming more and more evident in blogs and comments. A few examples show the childish creativity we employ (and I’ve included my own comments in this list):

don't feel bad because you're dumb
as obviously immature as you are
It's called symbolism--does that elude you? I know the topic of my post did.
lots of passion here and lots of anger but not much reason
the world may not miss you
These people are cowards
So as to be clear -- we wish there to be no misundertandings -- you are an in idiot. While I'm sure you have plenty of self esteem and the trophies to prove it, you remain an idiot.
Have fun in Poland, hope you aren’t Jewish.
a mean spirited, self-centered liar, spreading small-minded insults
I cannot believe there are people like you out there, but then again, you are from [location deleted]
Damn! In the above post, some idiot forgot to edit before he sent [...]
She is articulate; you are not. She is thoughtful; you are not.
When you grow up and enter the real world you'll realize that common sense and rational judgement [sic] will take you a lot farther than anger, bitterness and sarcasm

There is a full range of personal attacks and libel here. There are subtle jibes:

“Does that elude you? I know the topic of my post did.” naturally implies, “You’re a dolt because you didn’t understand my post.”
“When you grow up and enter the real world” implies, “You’re childish now.”

There are not so subtle jabs:

a mean spirited, self-centered liar, spreading small-minded insults
I cannot believe there are people like you out there, but then again, you are from [location deleted]

There are nuclear strikes:

don't feel bad because you're dumb
as obviously immature as you are

And at least one hinted at something much bigger than a personal attack: “Have fun in Poland, hope you aren’t Jewish.”

Some of these comments were catalysts for others in the list, so it’s easy to see how things can spin out of control.

We attack; we get attacked; we retaliate more viciously than we were attacked; one of our friends sees the tangle and jumps in to help -- soon it’s a playground brawl.

The problem is that the blogosphere is messy. It’s part of the aptly called “the web,” so it’s inherently difficult to track everything down and find out who indeed did start. By jumping in, as I have foolishly done, we may end up attacking the attacked when we should have turned our backs on the whole mess and gone to hang out at the swings.

“If you can’t say anything nice…”

Another problem is that the internet is essentially anonymous, and thus emotionally free:

People have no hesitation at being ugly over the internet simply because there is no cost to them. There is no personal investment to online discourse. The lack of personal interaction allows people to be as ugly as they want to be…which is often pretty ugly (Robert Fenton)

It’s like the crank calls my friends and I used to make back in the eighties when there was no caller ID and we were simply voices on the other end of the line. We can create whole personas on the internet, complete with false pictures, names, stats – everything. And in that liberated, new “us,” some of us show the darker, more immature sides of ourselves more often than we do in person. We’re all split personalities, as role theory points out, but the online personality can have a bit uglier voice than the others.

“I always think it is a shame when people stoop to personal attacks on other people, no matter what the medium” (Renee). My crank calls were never not so vitriolic as some of the things I’ve seen in comments.

In the end, it’s obviously better to sit back and watch the cat fights than to get involved. Sound advice for myself, a bit too late.

NT Church

Thursday 03 February 2005

“Spit flyin’ everywhere”

Wednesday 02 February 2005

A wise woman once wrote,

I, too, am saddened by so much of what I read in blogs, and comment threads are even worse. It’s as if writers are grabbing the mike and running to the stage without having once practiced the song they are about to force onto the audience. At first it seems funny and then it just seems sad, desperate, irresponsible.

Raging, inarticulate personal attacks in comments and posts are becoming all too common.

There are blogs that are devoted just to criticizing other blogs. And it’s not just attacks because of political views, but attacks based on, well, anything that doesn’t suit the “reviewer.”

There are also bloggers who go around biting ankles in comments.

Regrettably I’ve done both. This post is what’s left after all the spittle has been wiped away and people began talking civilly.

“It’s easy to tear down than to build up,” said my mother (though I suspect not just mine), and the truth of that is becoming more and more evident in blogs and comments. A few examples show the childish creativity we employ (and I’ve included my own comments in this list):

don’t feel bad because you’re dumb
as obviously immature as you are
It’s called symbolism — does that elude you? I know the topic of my post did.
lots of passion here and lots of anger but not much reason
the world may not miss you
These people are cowards
So as to be clear — we wish there to be no misundertandings — you are an in idiot. While I’m sure you have plenty of self esteem and the trophies to prove it, you remain an idiot.
Have fun in Poland, hope you aren’t Jewish.
a mean spirited, self-centered liar, spreading small-minded insults
I cannot believe there are people like you out there, but then again, you are from [location deleted]
Damn! In the above post, some idiot forgot to edit before he sent […]
She is articulate; you are not. She is thoughtful; you are not.
When you grow up and enter the real world you’ll realize that common sense and rational judgement [sic] will take you a lot farther than anger, bitterness and sarcasm

There is a full range of personal attacks and libel here. There are subtle jibes:

“Does that elude you? I know the topic of my post did.” — naturally implies, “You’re a dolt because you didn’t understand my post.”
“When you grow up and enter the real world” implies, “You’re childish now.”

There are not so subtle jabs:

a mean spirited, self-centered liar, spreading small-minded insults
I cannot believe there are people like you out there, but then again, you are from [location deleted]

There are nuclear strikes:

don’t feel bad because you’re dumb
as obviously immature as you are

And at least one hinted at something much bigger than a personal attack: “Have fun in Poland, hope you aren’t Jewish.”

Some of these comments were catalysts for others in the list, so it’s easy to see how things can spin out of control.

We attack; we get attacked; we retaliate more viciously than we were attacked; one of our friends sees the tangle and jumps in to help — soon it’s a playground brawl.

“If you can’t say anything nice…”

Another problem is that the internet is essentially anonymous, and thus emotionally free:

People have no hesitation at being ugly over the internet simply because there is no cost to them. There is no personal investment to online discourse. The lack of personal interaction allows people to be as ugly as they want to be” which is often pretty ugly (Robert Fenton)

It’s like the crank calls my friends and I used to make back in the eighties when there was no caller ID and we were simply voices on the other end of the line. We can create whole personas on the internet, complete with false pictures, names, stats everything. And in that liberated, new “us,” some of us show the darker, more immature sides of ourselves more often than we do in person. We’re all split personalities, as role theory points out, but the online personality can have a bit uglier voice than the others.

In the end, it’s obviously better to sit back and watch the cat fights than to get involved. Sound advice for myself, a bit too late.

Numa Numa

Monday 31 January 2005

Last week we had a small party. It was typical in most every way — lots of chatting, laughing, eating, a bit of drinking, some dancing. Nothing crazy.

It was actually an unplanned birthday party for Johnny. We decided to have as a theme a multicultural culinary war: Johnny fixed kwaśnica; I cooked chili -- the guests refused to pick a winner. It was confirmed once again, however, that due to the mildness of Polish cuisine, things which are not even remotely spicy for someone like me simply set the average Pole's mouth ablaze.

Naturally there was a cake -- Kinga's contribution. Damn, can that woman bake!

The surprising hit of the party was a little Flash video that a friend in Warsaw showed me. It was an amateur video for a pop song that was a sensation this summer throughout Europe: “Dragostea Din Tei" (meaning "Love Among the Linden Trees” in Romanian).

Read the Wikipedia article about the song.

The song is by O-zone, a group of three Romanians who'd grown up in the Republic of Moldova, and it is perhaps the worst song I've ever heard. Plastic, false, and simplistic, it's everything I hate in contemporary European pop music.

It was bad enough that this summer you could hear it everywhere. Perhaps the worst thing about it is how devilishly catchy the melody is. I've even caught myself humming the damn thing in the shower.

But the video -- devastatingly funny.

Elections

Sunday 30 January 2005

Relatively high voter turn-out; deaths held to double digits; dancing Iraqis.

Do they read this blog?

I stand humbly corrected.

All W’s Horses

Saturday 29 January 2005

So the Iraqi people are going to be voting in their first election. Many have pointed out the absurdity of the elections in which:

no one knows the candidates;
no one knows what the parties stand for;
insurgent violence will keep many away;
voter safety is an issue, and cannot be assured;
a significant portion of eligible voters has already declared, “We won't vote”;
many Iraqis are arguing shouldn't even take place.

Bush is ramming this election down their throats in an attempt to legitimate his decision to invade Iraq.

No one in Baghdad is calling the shots in Iraq's surreal experiment with electoral politics.

The marching orders are coming from Washington. And after all the tragedies that Iraq has so far experienced, this continued direction from a distance promises even more tragedy and farce in the days to come (The Capital Times)

The elections don't seem to differ that much from Saddam's elections. Then, Iraqis went to the polling station to avoid retaliation from Saddam; now, Iraqis avoid the polling stations to avoid execution by the insurgents. Sunday's election will be only slightly more legitimate than those during Saddam's reign only in so far as the candidates don't all represent the same agenda. In theory. But since no one really knows who the candidates are or what the parties represent (except there's probably not any who express the _slightest_ amount of anti-US sentiment), for all the Iraqis know, they could all be voting for the same agenda, no matter whom they vote for.

Well, those that do get out and vote.

Was Bush really so blinded by his own idiocy? Did none of his advisers say, "Hey, maybe it's not such a straightforward thing as going into the country and receiving the warm thanks of the newly-liberated Iraqis." Did he really expect the Iraqis to start jumping up and down, clapping their hands like little girls, all saying in a unified voice, "We want elections!! We want elections!!"?

If Iraq were a chess game (and oh, that it were), Bush would play in the following method:

Make an attack plan (He'd probably try the old worn out Scholar's Mate), without giving thought to the opponent's defense.
Execute the attack plan.
Ignore what the opponent is doing throughout the game and go ahead with the attack plan.
When clear mistakes are made, continue with the attack plan.

The Bush administration seems to be incapable of such analytical thinking required by chess, much less required by war. Unfortunately, the pieces Bush is shuffling around live and breathe, as in Vonnegut's short story "All the King's Horses."

Bush doesn't seem to know he's gotten the US in a no-win situation:

Postpone the election = cries of plans for on-going occupation
Let the elections continue = the mess we currently see

And the post-election reality doesn't seem so bright either:

Withdraw troops = civil war in a matter of -weeks- days
Postpone the election = cries of plans for on-going occupation and increased "resistance"

Of course, it's not as if people weren't foreseeing this before the invasion. But Bush already had his mind up about

finding and destroying weapons of mass distruction;
bringing freedom and liberty to the oppressed Iraqi people;
shutting down Saddam's terrorist support infastructure;
avenging the assination attempt on Daddy;
getting business for his buddies at Halliburton

and so no amount of reason could talk him out of it.

But you can't reason with someone who has the mental ability of a turnip.

Winter Walk

Friday 28 January 2005

U Adama

Thursday 27 January 2005

Nagging, er, Encouraging Kinga to Blog

Wednesday 26 January 2005

The original motivation behind this whole blog was the joke domain name, "matchingtracksuits.com." The "matching" part implies not one author, but two.

That was the idea.

But my wife has been reticent to join me on this blogging adventure, and instead reads what I write behind my back.

The original motivation behind this post was to get readers to direct some encouraging words Kinga's way. That was the idea.

I've been encouraging her to write a bit, if only to practice her written English. She seems hesitant to put her thoughts out for all to see (as if the Vast Hordes visit MTS).

Perhaps there's a blogging gene and she's missing it?

I have to admit -- I do like this whole blogging thing. It's a natural extension of my journal, which I've been keeping for years and years now. It just includes the added element of "audience."

Yet, while I like it, it is getting a bit tiresome. The initial thrill must be wearing off. Unlike with various other addictions, I don't foresee this resulting in heavier doses.

Perhaps some help would, well, help.

Perhaps that's the real motivation behind nagging my wife about this. But maybe, perhaps, conceivably ... there are those out there curious about the other tracksuit.

Classification

Tuesday 25 January 2005

At the end of each semester, all teachers meet in order to "discuss" the students' results. Grades, in other words. After opening business, each homeroom teacher reads a summary of his/her students' results.

All students names are read last name first. I get the feeling I'm in the military.

A model, using English names, would look something like this:

Number of students: 24. Number of students classified: 22. Two students, Jones Samuel and Nab Susan were not classified in mathematics due to [somewhat in-depth explanation]. Three students have been excused from participation in P.E., for medical reasons.

There were twenty students with no failing marks. There were three students with one failing mark. There was one student failing two subjets, and no students with three or more failing marks.

The students with the best results were Baker Joshua, with an average of 4.87; Anderson Tabitha, with an average of 4.68; Jackson Samuel, with an average of 4.66; Cole Brenda and Jones David, both with 4.45.

Grades in Polish are from 5 points, not 4.

Students with failing marks and/or the lowest average: Woolsey Katherine, 2.21, failing Polish and mathematics; Smith John, 2.33, failing mathematics; Kline Gregory, 2.35, failing mathematics; and Williams Derek, 2.44, failing German.

The class average with all obligatory courses is 3.24, and without the optional courses, 3.31.

Behavior grades are as follows: Three students received a grade of "model beahvior": Baker Joshua, Anderson Tabitha, and Cole Brenda. There are five students with behavior graded "very good." Fifteen students received a grade of "good." One student received a mark of "correct," Williams Derek.

And there you have it. For each of the thirteen classes, all this information was rattled off. Of the thirteen classes, I teach seven of them, but I was required to sit and listen about the six that I don't teach. Nonsense.

Most amazing is the behavior grade. Each student gets a mark between "model" and "rebuked" (literal translation). All the other possibilities are mentioned above, with the exception of the next-to-worst grade, "inappropriate." This behavior grade is put on students transcripts, to what ends, who knows?

Johnny

Sunday 23 January 2005

Johnny is only his latest alias. When I met him, he went by Abdul. For a while, our mutual friend insisted on calling him Albert. But Johnny is Janusz's choice now.

My best friend in Poland, Johnny's fate represents to me all that's wrong with Poland today. Armed with a Master's Degree in political science from Poland's oldest and most respected university, he should have no problem getting a job in Poland's EU-transitional reality.

He's currently a concrete finisher in Liverpool. "The pay's better than anything here," he says with a smile, "And I sleep well at night." With the opening of job market in Ireland and England (among a handful of other EU countries), Poles have been virtually stampeding out of the country. Ireland is an especially attrative country for Poles today, as an employment source and a model for how to integerate successfully into the EU. Literally whole families are picking up and moving to Ireland, running from 19+% unemployment and a political system so filled with corruption that it ranks first among EU countries in that regard.

Johnny's returning to England in a few weeks. His plans are uncertain, other than squirreling a bit a way and working on his English.

It's a shame, though, for Poland needs smart and honest young people now. During the small party after my and Kinga's civil wedding, Kinga's aunt was talking to Johnny and by the end of the evening was convinced that Johnny had to stay in Poland, get active in politics, and save the country.

Still, despite it all, Johnny's optimistic about his country's future. He recently bet a mutual friend a one-liter bottle of Jack Daniel's that in four years, everything would have normalized noticeably. "Normalized" was not really defined, but who cares -- as I told Johnny, "If I happen to be in Poland then, I'll be drinking with somebody!"