Notablog and Home Page: Born Again!
It gives me great pleasure to announce that Notablog, which began on 26 July
2002, has been "born again," with its own domain name: https://notablog.net.
And it gives me just as much pleasure to announce that my home page, which
debuted way back in the early 1990s, has also been born again, with its own
domain name: https://chrismatthewsciabarra.com.
The "new" Notablog is not quite a blank slate. It does include a monthly index
to the 3,058 entries that I wrote between 26 July 2002 through 26 July 2020.
That index can be found here.
The home page has not changed much, though a link to my Facebook profile is now
included. But if you check around the site --- which has not yet received any
face-lift --- you'll find much more content, especially in the Essays section, which now includes links to over 150
essays.
These moves were necessary, given that New York University, which so generously
provided me with space on its i4 server for nearly thirty years, is finally
retiring that ancient server. My thanks especially to Jodi Goldberg for all her
support and to Lec Maj and the NYU Web Team as well.
But it was time to make
that move [YouTube link… you didn't think you were going to escape
one of those music links, did you? The more things change … :) ].
I want to thank, especially, my dear friend Peter
Saint-Andre, for his work, guidance, and support, throughout this
period of transition. I couldn't have done it without him (and a few dozen calls
to Tech Support folks with regard to domain and hosting services)!
Just one reminder to folks about the name "Notablog." As I stated way back on 15
February 2005:
"Some readers have wondered why I continue to call this site 'Not a Blog,' even
though it seems to become more blog-like with each passing week. Well, it's
going to stay 'Not a Blog' --- though from now on it will appear with closed
spaces between the words: 'Notablog.' That phrase can just as easily be viewed
as an acronym for 'None Of The Above Blog' … or 'Nota Blog' … recalling the
Latin phrase 'Nota Bene,' featuring entries on topics of which one might take
particular notice."
Either way, I'm breathing a great sigh of relief that this project is finally
Ready for Prime Time. The content will grow on this new incarnation of Notablog,
even as you'll still have access to all the entries and comments from years
past.
Enjoy!
Posted by chris on August 1, 2020 08:38 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Blog
/ Personal Business
Song of the Day: The
Time is Now [YouTube link] was composed by jazz pianist David
Hazeltine, who performs it with bassist Ron
Carter and drummer Al
Foster as the title track to his 2019
album. Enjoy this trio
of ol' pros; they are so in sync with one another.
JULY 2020
Olivia de Havilland, RIP
On July 1, I noted that Olivia
de Havilland had reached 104 years of age.
Today, Olivia
has died---one of the few remaining stars from Hollywood's Golden
Age.
As I noted on the first of the month: "From her films with the great
swashbuckler Errol Flynn to her Oscar-winning turns in 'To Each His Own' and
'The Heiress,' she has provided us with quite a film legacy."
Olivia, RIP
Posted by chris at 05:06 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Film
/ TV / Theater Review | Remembrance
Happy Eighteenth Anniversary to Notablog!
Yesterday, I celebrated my 1,800th entry in "My
Favorite Songs" with the Sonny Rollins tune, "Oleo,"
part of this year's Jazz Edition of my annual Summer Music Festival.
Today, the numbers "1" and "8" show up again: I am celebrating the 18th
anniversary of the beginning of Notablog!
It was on this date in 2002 that I made my very first post, which announced the
publication of an installment in the New York Daily News series, "Big
Town Classic Characters: New Yorkers of the American Imagination,"
entitled "From The
Fountainhead: Howard Roark," which was subsequently re-published
by The
Atlas Society. Since then, I've posted 3,057 entries on subjects from
politics, culture, and social science methodology to sex, sports, film, and
music.
I'd like to express my thanks to all my readers for your continued interest in
my work. Watch this space for upcoming information on the migration of Notablog
and my home page to new domains. That's going to happen very, very soon... we're
talkin' soon ... because New York University is finally retiring its
ancient i4 server, in which my current blog and home page are stored. Much more
to come ...
Posted by chris at 11:42 AM | Permalink |
Posted to Blog
/ Personal Business
Regis Philbin, RIP
Regis Philbin---who
first made us laugh as a sidekick on "The
Joey Bishop Show" [YouTube link] and on "Live!
with Regis and Kathie Lee," and with Kelly
Ripa [YouTube link] and with the game show "Who
Wants To Be a Millionaire" [YouTube link]---has died
at the age of 88.
The man, who holds the Guinness
World Record for most hours on television, was born in Manhattan,
raised in The Bronx, and brought a classic New York sensibility to all his
comedy. From the New
York Times obituary:
"Aggravation is an art form in his hands," wrote Bill Zehme, the co-author of
two Philbin memoirs. "Annoyance stokes him, sends him forth, gives him purpose.
Ruffled, he becomes electric, full of play and possibility. There is
magnificence in his every irritation."
He'll be missed. RIP,
Regis.
Posted by chris at 05:39 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Film
/ TV / Theater Review | Remembrance
Song of the Day #1800
Song of the Day: Oleo is
a hard bop composition by tenor saxophonist Sonny
Rollins, written over the chord progressions employed by George
Gershwin in "I
Got Rhythm". Our 1,800th Song of the Day was first recorded by Miles
Davis, with Rollins,
pianist Horace
Silver, bassist Percy
Heath, and drummer Kenny
Clarke, for the 1954 album "Bags'
Groove." Check it out here [YouTube
link]. Another notable Miles recording is featured on his compilation album, "1958
Miles," with the band that made "Kind
of Blue," the best-selling jazz album of all time. This live
performance features tenor saxophonist John
Coltrane, alto saxophonist Julian
"Cannonball" Adderly, pianist Bill
Evans, bassist Paul
Chambers, and drummer Jimmy
Cobb. Check out that live version here as
well as renditions by pianists Bill
Evans, Keith
Jarrett, and Herbie
Hancock, tenor saxophonist Michael
Brecker, saxophonist
Eric Dolphy with pianist McCoy Tyner, and jazz guitarists Wes
Montgomery, Pat
Martino, George
Benson, and Joe
Pass.
Play Ball! Nats vs. Yanks as MLB 2020 Season Begins
This has been a truly ... OFF THE WALL year in so many ways. So why not start
the Major League Baseball Season on 23 July 2020! Skip spring training, knock
out 102 games, and play a 60-game season. Or so that's the plan.
Last year, I rooted for the Washington
Nationals to beat the Houston Astros in the World Series, and was happy
when they won. Tonight, it's the
Nats versus the Yanks, and, well: All bets are off!
This Yankees Fan will be root, root, rooting for the home team, which is opening
in the Nationals' home park, game starting in about a half hour. Nats #1 Fan, Dr.
Anthony Fauci, is due to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
Whoever throws the last pitch, no matter how crazy this MLB schedule is---as
teams play in stadiums with no fans, piped in sounds and what-not---I say: Play
Ball!
And Go
Yanks!
Poscript (24 July 2020):
Well, last night's game started out just fine. The Washington Nationals raised
their 2019 World Series Championship Banner. Dr. Anthony Fauci threw the
ceremonial first pitch ... waaay out of the strike zone (I think he ought to
stick to his day job!). And Nats pitcher Max Scherzer struck out 11 Yankee
batters---the first pitcher since 1893 to strike out ten or more in three
consecutive Opening Day starts, which he did in the five-and-a-half innings that
he was on the mound... before The Rains Came.
An electric show in the sky, the rain coming down, the game went into a rain
delay, but new Yankee ace Garrett Cole had allowed only three base runners,
giving up one hit (a HR) and one earned run, eventually going on to gain the win
of the shortened game, 4-1.
The ESPN announcers were hilarious. Matt Vasgersian remarked: "Major League
Baseball's Season Opener in a game delayed by rain. Heck, we waited 267 days for
baseball, what's another few hours to get this one in the books?" Alex Rodriguez
thought the rain might last 50 minutes or so, but observed that the weather went
"all 2020 on us!" Indeed, the rain reached torrential proportions. Vasgersian
saw the dugouts drowned in over two feet of water, "Oh my goodness! This looks
sinister. Looks like bad special effects. A Roger Corman movie!"
The back page of the New
York Daily News captured the Biblical proportions of it all:
Epic rain or not... the Yanks won. And the Mets Season Opener at Home---weather
permitting---is today at 4 pm.
Song of the Day #1799
Song of the Day: Waiting
to Dance [YouTube link], composed by guitarist Jim
Hall, is featured on a spectacular
guitar duet album with Hall and
guitarist Pat
Metheny. The 1999 album, "Jim
Hall & Pat Metheny," features an
intimate musical dialogue between two jazz guitar giants.
Coronavirus (28): Sweden is Not New York
Jon Miltimore's essay "Why
Sweden Succeeded in 'Flattening the Curve' and New York Failed" is,
sadly, an exercise in comparing apples and oranges.
From the article:
If flattening the curve was the primary goal of policymakers, Sweden was largely
a success. New York, on the other hand, was not, despite widespread closures and
strict enforcement of social distancing policies. The reason New York failed and
Sweden succeeded probably has relatively little to do with the fact that bars
and restaurants were open in Sweden. Or that New York's schools were closed
while Sweden's were open. As Weiss explains, the difference probably isn't
related to lockdowns at all. It probably has much more to do with the fact that
New York failed to protect the most at-risk populations: the elderly and infirm.
The article goes on to discuss the debate between the implications of different
public policy responses to the virus. But I could not let this analysis go
unanswered---without any justification one way or the other with regard to the
pubic policy decisions that were made. I stated here:
There is absolutely no comparison between the Swedish and NY cases, regardless
of the public policies adopted by either government. First, in NY, the share of
COVID-related deaths in long-term care facilities was 20%
of the total number of deaths (about 6,500 of the total of 32,000+
deaths in the state of NY). That means that the vast majority of deaths did not occur
in nursing homes. Moreover, though damage was done early on, by putting
recovering COVID patients back into nursing homes, that policy was influenced by
the huge surge in cases at a time when not even the Comfort or the Javits Center
were open to COVID patients (a policy that changed at the beginning
of April). Conditions were evolving swiftly. Moreover, unlike other
states that are experiencing a surge now, therapies based on steroids, plasma,
Remdesivir, etc. were not in widespread usage. It's largely on the pile of
bodies in NY that current medical advances have been made, sad to say.
Second, studies have shown that, at least in NYC, the
highest transmission belt for the virus was its vast subway system,
serving 5-6 million people per day prior to the city's curtailment of "business
as usual" in mid-March and most of the communities that were disproportionately
affected by the impact of the virus were minority communities, many of whose
members continued to work and crowd the subways and buses, becoming infected and
bringing that infection back to their families and neighborhoods. There is no
similar density in Sweden (the Stockholm
Metro typically serves one fifth the number of people compared to the subways in
NYC).
Of course, I got push-back from one commentator who claimed, without offering
any evidence, that in New York "COVID-19 has killed at least 11,000 to 12,000
nursing-home and assisted-living residents in New York, nearly double what the
state admits to. And as the deaths mount, so have the lies and cover-ups. States
like New York exclude from their nursing home death tallies those who die in a
hospital. Outside of New York, more than half of all deaths from COVID-19 are of
residents in long-term care facilities., even if they were originally infected
in an assisted living facility." To which I replied: "Even if I accepted your
statistic---which I don't---it does not explain the other 20,000 deaths that
occurred in this state. Or are those lies too?" To which the commentator
replied: "Covid kills nursing home patients for the rest it's the flu. that's
the data. 77% of deaths in the US are over 65. 42% are nursing home deaths. NY
at 20% lols. you're smoking some serious BS. for folks under 50 the mortality
rate is statistically zero. NY state just published a statement saying their
policies of sending infected patients back to nursing homes did not increase
deaths. you believe that LIE too. get real. 20% OF DEATHS IN NYC ARE NURSING
HOME DEATHS. TRY AGAIN. LOLS."
As I stated in my essay, "Lockdowns,
Libertarians, and Liberation", too many people have been looking at
this issue through ideological lenses that blind. So my response to the
commentator was: "Conversation over. Have fun!"
Amazingly, the commentator subsequently deleted all their comments. This is the
level of utter and complete stupidity that we witness from day to day;
people who either downplay the virus, or continue to dispute the
statistics, just puking up any numbers that come off the top of their
heads, offering no evidence.
I should state that I previously addressed this nursing home disaster in several
posts and comments, including this
comment way back on 25 May 2020:
Well, if you listen to the folks at Fox News, Cuomo, Murphy, etc. purposely sent
patients, who previously lived in nursing homes and were subsequently
hospitalized for and designated as having recovered from COVID-19, back into the
nursing homes from which they came. The Fox Folks claim that this was some
diabolical plot to kill off the elderly population and/or to inflate the death
tallies in NY and NJ, since many of those who were designated as "recovered"
were still capable of infecting others. But yes, aside from the Fox Folks, there
are legitimate questions about the wisdom of the policy of sending these
patients back to the nursing homes---though it is not at all clear that the
infection rate within nursing homes was strictly a result of this policy.
Indeed, it is entirely possible that the spike in nursing homes was as much the
result of nursing home residents coming into contact with asymptomatic
infected staff.
The initial policy was adopted because the hospitals in NY were being overrun
and taxed to a catastrophic degree, and when the USS Comfort arrived, and the
Javits Convention Center (along with four other centers in the outer boroughs)
were set up, they were opened to take in patients who were not sick from
Coronavirus; they were to be places where folks facing traumatic medical
problems unrelated to the virus could be cared for under "virus-free"
conditions. The private and public hospital network were to shoulder the burden
of the growing population of sick and dying patients from the virus, while these
other places (the Comfort, Javits, etc.) would provide medical care for those
not infected with the virus, but in need of urgent medical care (so-called
"elective" surgeries were all postponed, but, obviously, there are many other
medical problems that people face, for which they require treatment, in medical
facilities that are not death traps for those with underlying pre-existing
conditions).
Though the official reversal came at the beginning of May, the policy actually
started to change at the beginning of April. It was at that time that the
Comfort and the Javits Center were finally opened up to care for the overflow of
COVID-19 patients. But, yes, the damage was done. And I suspect that's what
Cuomo's mea culpa is about. He's certainly not in agreement with the Fox Folks
that his policy was designed to kill people; but it was a policy that was shaped
by the exponential growths in hospitalizations and intubations that were
happening in late March and early April, until the state hit a plateau of
800-1000 deaths per day. Once it became clear that the healthcare network, as
taxed as it was, would not collapse, and that these other facilities could take
in COVID-19 patients, the practice of sending recovering nursing home patients
back into nursing homes started to change. And extra precautions were put into
place at the beginning of May. ... Clearly, mistakes have been made at every
level of government; but it's a huge leap to characterize something that was a
tragic mistake to viewing it as a criminal act. I live in NY; I've lost
neighbors, a cousin, friends, and even cherished local proprietors, to this
horrific disease. There's a lot of blame to go around; those most at fault,
however, were the folks who denied that there was even a virus at work, that the
whole thing was a hoax, and that one could just wash it away with a little
detergent or by mainlining bleach.
While this is not the final word on this pandemic, I'd like to say to readers
that this is going to be my last word for quite a while about this
subject. I have devoted, now, twenty-eight installments to this issue, and if
folks don't know where I'm coming from... that's their problem, not mine.
Done.
Postscript (17
July 2020): It should be noted that Sweden,
whatever its intended policy aims, did not achieve herd immunity (see Scott
Sumner's essay) and that the other Scandinavian countries, such as
Finland, Denmark, and Norway have closed
their doors to Swedish travelers this summer. By contrast, the
hardest hit state of New York (in terms of the number of cases and
the total number of deaths) now has an infection rate of less than 1%,
relatively low hospitalizations and very few daily deaths from COVID-19 (zero
for several days, 15 today, after a height of over 800!). Once the pariah of the
United States, NY is now asking most travelers to the state to quarantine
for 14 days if they intend on traveling here.
Oh, and I've also noticed that Billy Binion over at Reason has just
published an essay entitled "Andrew
Cuomo's Coronavirus Response Has Been a Failure." At least Binion
gets the numbers right; but I think the piece is flawed by adopting the same
nursing home narrative outlined above. It drops the context of the ever-changing
facts on the ground, which I've highlighted here. And his comparison of NY
deaths to other states' tallies also drops the context of time frame: The
treatment options today are not the same as they were in March, April, and May.
So, I'm left Shaking My Head (not because I'm a defender of Cuomo, but because I
still see ideological blinders dictating Monday-morning Quarterbacking
concerning an admittedly flawed response to a virulent pandemic---flawed
partially because hindsight is always 20/20).
On these issues, readers should check out various posts on Policy of Truth by
Irfan Khawaja, to which I've contributed some comments along the way,
especially here, here, here,
and here (the
last of which applies some Hayekian insights on local knowledge to the issues in
question).
Postscript (30
July 2020): To all those who would like to be a part of massive COVID parties so
that "we" can all get "herd immunity", please check out these two articles on
vox.com, which should at least give you folks some pause---given the fact that
there are still so many "unknowns" with regard to COVID-19:
2. "The
stark differences in countries' coronavirus death rates, explained."
In N.Y.C.'s Spring
Virus Surge, a Frightening Echo of 1918 Flu
"In March and April, death rates rivaled those seen during the
country's deadliest pandemic, a new study finds. 'What 1918 looked like is
basically this.'... Amid a pandemic, it can be difficult to determine an exact
cause of death, even with sophisticated diagnostic tools. So Dr. Faust and his
colleagues compared data for 'all-cause mortality'---deaths from any cause---in
New York City during two pandemic periods. Nearly 33,500 people died in New York
City between March 11 and May 11 of this year, according to the city's
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. With a total population of nearly 8.3
million, this amounts to an incident rate of 202.08 deaths per 100,000
person-months---a standard way of denoting deaths over time. The overall death
rate in those 61 days was more than four times the rate in the corresponding
periods in 2017 through 2019. The researchers then looked at deaths in October
and November of 1918, the peak of the city’s flu outbreak.... Dr. Faust
identified 31,589 deaths among 5.5 million city residents, for an incident rate
of 287.17 deaths per 100,000 person-months. This number was nearly three times
higher than the city's death rate in the previous three years. In all, the death
rate in the city last spring was about 70 percent of that seen in 1918. When the
epidemic hit in 1918, the spike in deaths was not as shocking to the city as it
was in 2020. At the time, the increase in deaths was less than three times
higher than the previous year’s toll, the researchers noted, whereas 2020's rise
was more than four times higher than 2019's figure. Simply put, life was riskier
a hundred years ago."
Posted by chris at 02:09 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Politics
(Theory, History, Now)
The Dialectics of Liberty: Review in "The Independent Review"
The Dialectics of Liberty: Exploring the Context
of Human Freedom has
been reviewed in the pages of The Independent Review (Summer 2020). The
review, written by Kathleen
Touchstone, can be found here.
Keep up with the flow of reviews (many are forthcoming!) here.
">
Kathleen Touchstone writes:
"The Dialectics of Liberty .
. . includes eighteen essays written by nineteen authors. The essays draw from a
variety of disciplines which include aesthetics, economics, psychology, history,
and philosophy. It is the first collection of works on this subject by scholars
with this range of disciplinary diversity. Dialectics of Liberty represents
an important contribution in advancing dialectical libertarianism."
After surveying all the essays in the book, Touchstone offers a comprehensive
discussion of the various themes. She concludes:
"Challenges to freedom of speech and other cultural changes are in need of
systematic analysis. Dialectics of Liberty offers perspectives from
authors spanning a variety of disciplines on how this analysis could proceed for
those willing to take up this challenge. I invite those interested to read DOL.
The invitation is not limited to practitioners. The book covers a variety of
subjects. There is something to interest virtually anyone."
Posted by chris at 04:20 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Dialectics | Periodicals | Politics
(Theory, History, Now) | Remembrance
Decal of the Day
In-between editing papers for the forthcoming December 2020 issue of The
Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, editing links on my
home page in preparation for the forthcoming migration of my site to
a new server, and conducting an interview for another installment in my WTC
Remembrance series (to be published on 11 September 2020)... I took
an afternoon constitutional.
And with the streets of Gotham relatively quiet, I came upon the Decal of the
Day, which I couldn't take a snapshot of, but which I found online.
">
It gave me a much-needed chuckle.
Posted by chris at 02:38 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Blog
/ Personal Business | Frivolity | Politics
(Theory, History, Now) | Rand
Studies | Religion | Remembrance
Song of the Day #1798
Song of the Day: Afternoon [mp3
link], words and music by Philip
Verdi and Joanne
Barry, is featured on the album "Holding
On," with Carl
Barry on guitar, Steve
LaSpina on bass, and Eliot
Zigmund on drums. The fact that Joanne is
my sister-in-law and Carl is my
brother [YouTube channel link] has nothing to do with it! Nepotism
aside, they're great! And I can't think of a lovelier way to spend a summer's
afternoon than to take in the sounds of their love for the music and each other.
(And while you're at it, check out a few of their other recorded tracks,
including "My
Favorite Things," "Rollercoaster"
(an original), "Embraceable
You," "Empty
Faces," "Autumn
Leaves," and Carl's trio on "Footprints"
[site links].)
Long Overdue Thanks for Pod Shout-Outs
I have been so busy meeting deadlines, and have not had an opportunity to
express some long overdue appreciation to several colleagues and friends for
giving me a shout-out in their various podcasts.
o To Steve
Horwitz who mentioned me in an interview with Ari
Armstrong, while discussing his book, Hayek's
Modern Family, here (16
February 2020).
o To Anastasiya
Vasilievna Grigorovskaya who mentioned me in her talk, "Ayn Rand's
Artistic Work in the Russian Context" at the Ninth International Conference of
the Hayek Institute and the European University (Center for Modernization
Studies) on "Capitalism and Freedom" (live streamed on 20 June 2020) here (yes,
it's in Russian!).
o To Daniel Bastiat who discusses some points from my book, Ayn Rand: The
Russian Radical on his "Stateless
Atheist" podcast, "7 Things Atheists Should Stop Saying" here (7
July 2020).
o To Sheldon Richman, whose talk, "Context-Keeping and Community Organizing"
(which also appears in the superb volume Markets
Not Capitalism [pdf link]), mentions my dialectical method here (1
June 2015).
o To Pasquale Cascone, my neighbor downstairs, who is co-host of the "Majority
Rules, NY" podcast, who gave a shout-out to me, during a 27 June 2020 discussion
of "They Say Opposites Attract?", here.
(It's a really entertaining show! Check out past
episodes!)
I encourage listeners to subscribe to all the channels of the folks above! And
thanks again!
Postscript:
Oh, and thanks to this
sweet squirrel for making my day!
Posted by chris at 07:55 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Austrian
Economics | Blog
/ Personal Business | Education | Frivolity | Politics
(Theory, History, Now) | Rand
Studies | Sexuality
I've been working really hard on deadlines, and have fallen a bit behind in my
reading. But I finally got to the July 3, 2020 issue of New York's Hometown
Paper: The New York Daily News. And I came to the op-ed essay by Eli
Merritt, entitled "How
To Remember the Founders" (also found at the History
News Network) ... and my jaw dropped. Merritt is
a visiting scholar at Vanderbilt completing a history of the founding period
entitled Disunion Among Ourselves: How North-South Compromise Saved the
American Revolution. I have no idea how much we might agree or disagree on
any number of issues, but, as you'll see from the excerpt below, he had me at
"dialectical thinking."
As many folks know, I've been championing the
virtues of dialectical thinking for the better part of four decades
now. But too much of that discussion has gone on in scholarly circles. So it was
a breath of fresh air to see Merritt's application of a more contextually
sensitive approach to understanding the American founders. Whether or not you
agree with Merritt's characterizations or conclusions, I think he's spot on with
regard to how to approach these issues, something that I drove home in my
recent post, "On
Statues, Sledgehammers, and Scalpels." Here's a dose of what Merritt
has to say:
Over the past several decades, the Founding Fathers have fallen severely out of
favor. Once revered as the trailblazers of American liberty and equality, they
are now often denounced as the nation's patriarchal and racist architects of
white male supremacy. Statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are
under attack, sometimes literally. Especially for the original sin of slavery,
whether as practitioners of it themselves or as willing conspirators in its
perpetuation in the Constitution, the Founders are held up as objects of
censure, not honorary celebration, including on the Fourth of July. ... [W]here
does the reality of the Founders' racism and barbaric practice of slavery leave
a history-conscious nation?
After grappling with this question for years, I find only one way out of the
grievous moral morass of our founding history. It is dialectical thinking. This
method of analyzing historical questions contrasts with dichotomous or all-or-nothing
thinking, in which the thinker makes binary judgments based on
formulas of "right or wrong" and "good or bad." In dialectical thinking, we
tolerate the cognitive dissonance of holding opposing, contradictory viewpoints
in our minds at the same time, such as the proposition that Washington and
Jefferson were immoral and corrupt slaveowners and, simultaneously, fierce and
brilliant dissenters who established equality and justice as our nation's
founding principles.
In fact, once we subject our analysis of the founding period to the dialectical
method, we can marvel at the unity of our history from the toppling of the
statue of King George III in New York City in 1776 to the toppling of
Confederate and other white-dominant statues across the country today. Opening
our minds to historical paradox, we discover that, in spite of the horrors of
the past and present, Americans are philosophically one people with one
narrative. Our common narrative centers on the undying fight for equality and
justice for an ever-widening circle of "We the People."
What Merritt drives home in this thoughtful essay is essentially the central
motif of dialectical thinking, which requires us to pay attention to the larger
context. When we do look at things from different vantage points and on
different levels of generality, and as we broaden the scope of our inquiry, we
tend to move away from what psychologists in the
cognitive-behavioral field characterize as cognitive
distortions. Such distortions include: All
or Nothing Thinking; Overgeneralizing (for example, thinking that if
one thing goes wrong, everything must go wrong); Mentally Filtering Our
Experiences (viewing an entire experience through either a fully positive or
fully negative lens); Catastrophizing (magnifying a single aspect to the
detriment of the wider context); and Jumping to Conclusions (taking a single
factor as universal and rendering a judgment that drops the wider context).
I think that what Merritt puts his finger on is something that dialectical
thinkers have understood, from Aristotle to Hegel (and Hegel himself saw
Aristotle as "the fountainhead" of dialectical method). As I write in Total
Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism:
One of Hegel's distinctive concepts in this regard is the notion of aufheben,
which, Hegel tells us, "has a twofold meaning in the language: on the one hand
it means to preserve, to maintain, and equally it also means to cause to cease,
to put an end to." [It] has been translated on occasion as "to supersede." ...
Hegel occasionally uses the phrase "erhalten und verklaren," which means,
more broadly, "to preserve, transfigure, or illuminate" [sometimes rendered as]
"to sublate," which means to cancel, abolish, or annul---and, simultaneously, to
preserve. This translation has become standard. ... To sublate, then, actually
has three cognitive implications: to cancel, to preserve, and to elevate or
transcend. [It can be compared to] the English phrase "to put aside." To put
something aside "may mean to put it out of the way, to have done with it,
abolish it. Or it may mean to put it aside for future use, to keep and preserve
it." "To sublate" embodies both of these meanings, taken together.
So, in a sense, when we look at any historical event or social problem, even
when every aspect of our moral conscience tells us to cancel, abolish, annul ...
there is a moment when we need to take pause and move away from "all or nothing
thinking." Because it is equally important to preserve, elevate, and transcend.
And dialectical thinking about any event or problem offers us the tools by which
to get that job done ... with scalpels, rather than sledgehammers.
It's a good article, whatever your perspective on current events; I recommend it
to your attention.
Posted by chris at 05:06 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Culture | Dialectics | Politics
(Theory, History, Now)
Song of the Day #1797
Song of the Day: The
Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Main Theme) was composed by the
legendary Ennio
Morricone for the Sergio
Leone-directed 1966 epic
Spaghetti Western film. Today, Ennio
Morricone, one of the most prolific film score composers of his
generation, died
at the age of 91. Check out the
original soundtrack version and the 1968
Hugo Montenegro hit version [YouTube links]. Then, in keeping with
our Summer Music Festival (Jazz Edition), check out, from the 2007 tribute
album, "We
All Love Ennio Morricione" this Quincy
Jones-Herbie Hancock collaboration, and a
truly superb live jazz interpretation featuring Herbie, Steve Woods, and Patti
Austin [YouTube links].
Posted by chris at 06:45 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Film
/ TV / Theater Review | Music | Remembrance
Independence Day Fireworks: A Tribute to the Spirit of New York
For those who didn't catch the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Display... check it
out here (cued
to the beginning of the show).
It was staged throughout the week and combined with live footage, extending
from Times
Square to the Empire
State Building to the Statue
of Liberty to Brooklyn's own Coney
Island (where the Wonder
Wheel is celebrating its 100th anniversary ... ). And with a little "New
York, New York" thrown in from <
href="https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/notablog/archives/002032.html">Ol'
Blue Eyes for good measure, it was as much a tribute to the resilience of the
people of New York (and its first responders) as it was to the 244th anniversary
of the Declaration
of Independence.
Posted by chris at 02:03 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Culture | Film
/ TV / Theater Review | Politics
(Theory, History, Now) | Remembrance
Song of the Day #1796
Song of the Day: Prelude
No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor (from "Three
Preludes"), composed by Brooklyn-born George
Gershwin, is illustrative of the uniquely American integration of classical and jazz idioms
in a superb instrumental setting. The composer himself premiered the work at
the Roosevelt
Hotel in New York City in 1926. Check out recordings of this piece
by Gershwin
himself [YouTube link] and as later interpreted in 1959 (on the album
"Brazilliance,
Volume 3") by guitarist Laurindo
Almeida and alto saxophonist Bud
Shank, who, on
this track plays the flute [YouTube link]. It was also given a
fabulous treatment by Dave
Grusin on his #1 Grammy-winnning Billboard Jazz
Album, "The
Gershwin Connection", featuring an all-star band, including Chick
Corea (keyboards), Lee
Ritenour (guitar), John
Pattitucci (bass), Gary
Burton (vibes), Dave
Weckl and Harvey
Mason (drums), and Eddie
Daniels (clarinet). Check out this
wonderful rendition [YouTube link].
Song of the Day #1795
Song of the Day: When
Johnny Comes Marching Home Again has a
history of varied origins, but was most likely written by
Irish-American bandleader Patrick
Gilmore during the American
Civil War. The song was
sung by people North and South who yearned for the return of their friends and
relatives from the field of battle (though
it was later used by Ulysses S. Grant as a campaign song with lyrics promising
to leave the KKK "a-tremblin' in their shoes"). This staple of the Independence
Day Songbook was even resurrected by later generations and
immortalized in World War II films such as "Stalag
17" [YouTube link]. In keeping with our Summer Music Festival (Jazz
Edition), there are at least two notable renditions: a classic take by the
Andrews Sisters and a swinging scorcher by jazz organist Jimmy
Smith [YouTube links] (with Quentin
Warren on guitar and Donald
Bailey on drums). Americans mark this as the day on which the
colonists---imperfect as they were---pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred
honor in declaring their independence from the British Empire. The project of
this country's founding remains incomplete, but forever emancipatory. I yearn
for the day when all the Johnnies, Janes, and everyone in-between come marching
home again---in a world of peace and freedom. Have a Happy
and Safe Independence Day!
Posted by chris at 12:01 AM | Permalink |
Posted to Culture | Film
/ TV / Theater Review | Music | Politics
(Theory, History, Now) | Remembrance
Sign O' The Times
Stephan Pastis hits
another HR with this "Pearls
Before Swine" installment:
Posted by chris at 12:55 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Culture | Frivolity | Politics
(Theory, History, Now)
Celebrating Lives and Legacies
When Carl
Reiner (March 20, 1922-June 29, 2020) died
the other day at the age of 98, the actor, comedian, director,
screenwriter, and author left behind a legacy of uproarious hilarity. I was
first exposed to him in "The
Dick Van Dyke Show" (and CBS
will be airing back-to-back colorized episodes of the show on Friday, July 3 at
8 pm ET!). I greatly enjoyed his many movies and television specials
over the years.
Today, another legend from Reiner's generation is celebrating a birthday. Olivia
de Havilland, one of the few surviving stars of the Golden
Age of Hollywood, turns 104!
From her films with the great swashbuckler Errol
Flynn to her Oscar-winning turns in "To
Each His Own" and "The
Heiress," she has provided us with quite a film legacy.
So I'm celebrating two lives tonight... and two legacies.
Posted by chris at 08:15 PM | Permalink |
Posted to Culture | Film
/ TV / Theater Review | Remembrance