Mark Rowlands's Blog, page 5

Injuries

This post is prompted by Pauline's remarks on her experiences of injuries sustained in the practice of the martial arts (see the comments section of the previous post).

A couple or so weeks into my return to martial arts (after a roughly twenty-two year hiatus), I partially ruptured my Achilles tendon - the result of a nasty assault by gravity. It was entirely my fault. I was showing off while sparring, trying to do an 'Ali shuffle' - something with which the twenty-something me had little trouble but the forty-something me apparently can't do without 'ramifications'. I was back at the dojo about a week later, but it prevented me running for just over a month. Hugo, my GSD, and running companion, was not impressed.

A couple of months later, turf toe - again my fault, didn't pull my toes back enough when executing a front snap kick (again, while sparring). Turf toe sounds like nothing, but is surprisingly annoying. Back running, rather gingerly and with heavy straping, about four days later. Eight months later, it's still not right.

Hyperextended elbow (probably) - not sure how I did that, although history suggests it was (a) done during sparring, and (b) my fault. Surprisingly tenacious - although I suspect that, after about three months, it's starting to get better.

My fingers, it goes without saying, are all in pieces.

So, it is a strange little puzzle: why do I enjoy this so much?

Philosophy and Martial Arts

Last weekend, I spent a very enjoyable few days at a Philosophy and Martial Arts conference, organized by Sylvia Burrow and Marc Ramsey, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was good to meet Damon Young, author of Distraction and co-editor (with Graham Priest) of Mertial Arts and Philosophy: Beating and Nothingness.

I've been getting back into martial arts in a big way over the last year. I used to box when I was a kid. The last time I did karate was more than half a lifetime ago. Brenin actually put a stop to it - I couldn't take him along to classes with me, and anyone who has read TPATW will remember what would happen if I left him on his own in the house. These days, I practice Goju Ryu karate. I don't know why I find fighting relaxing, but it seems I do.

Alan Saunders

I've just heard the very sad news that Alan Saunders, the Australian (though born English, I believe) broadcaster, has died:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-15...

Alan interviewed me in front of several hundred people on stage at the Sydney Writer's Festival back in 2009. The supposed topic was The Philosopher and the Wolf, but Alan just wanted to talk philosophy - entirely typical of him, I've subsequently heard. I sensed the crowd wanted more wolf and less philosopher, but, anyway, I enjoyed it.

Alan was a great friend of philosophy, and a thoroughly nice person.

Frans de Waal on Moral Animals

Intereasting video from the Beeb here. Frans de Waal talking about moral behavior in animals.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120...

FYI, my two penneth on the subject - a book entitled Can Animals Be Moral? - will be published in October with OUP.

The Extermination of Wolves in the US, Part II

I am sure many of you are aware of the immense damage being done to wolf populations – and, therefore, of course, to individual flesh-and-blood wolves – in the Northern Rockies, particularly in the states of Idaho and Montana. This follows Obama administration’s delisting of wolves – that is, their removal from the endangered species list. The state governments of Montana, and especially Idaho, have taken this opportunity to declare open season on wolves, and the reintroduction of the sort of practices that blemished the environmental record of the US in the previous century. For more details, see, for example:

http://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com/

What to do? Well, of course, I signed the usual petitions, and sent off the usual letters to elected officials. But that, I suspect, is futile. My potato dollar, of course, no longer goes anywhere near Idaho – and when you have two half-Irish sons, the potato dollar is not as trifling as it might seem. But, in the end, none of this is going to do any good.

Therefore, I was intrigued to receive an email yesterday, from a man named David Forjan, which I have reproduced below. I have no further details (and, of course, am not in a position to confirm the veracity of the claims made in this email), but I await them with interest (and perhaps even a little nascent hope - even though I once described hope as 'the used-car salesman of human existence'). Needless to say, if there are any further developments, I shall relay them to you. Here is the email:

Dear Mark,

I trust I can call you Mark.  I appreciate and enjoy all your writing on behalf of animals, especially wolves.  Brenin gives me strength also, and keeps me relentless.

I'm writing to ask you to help spread the word, when time comes, about a campaign to ask animal lovers to speak up on behalf of wolves.

Please give me a few minutes to explain this campaign planned for the wolves, how it came about, and who is involved as of this writing.  I'll be calling many more organizations and people to enlist their participation.  I'm greasing the skids for this campaign. 

The genesis of this campaign came from a number of conversations that transpired recently, with various animal advocates/directors of various animal welfare/rights organizations.  Suzanne Stone and Jamie Rappaport Clark of Defenders of Wildlife.  Michael Robinson and Kieran Suckling of The Center for Biological Diversity.  Wendy Keefover and John Horning of Wild Earth Guardians.  Derek Goldman and Leda Huta of The Endangered Species Coalition.  Spencer Lennard of Big Wildlife.  Maggie Howell of the Wolf Conversation Center.  Also from previous email conversations between myself and Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States.

These conversations centered around the slaughter of wolves in western states in the Northern Rockies.  Truly a slaughter.  Practically with a vengeance.

From these conversations came that almost magical creativity that results from group dynamics and interaction of give and take and open-ended discussion.  Allow me to explain that idea.

First, it became clear that today we face the strongest headwinds in decades that hinder animal protections.  Maybe longer.

Legal actions are increasingly difficult.  Especially given the judicial appointments that occurred during the President Bush administration.

Political actions are also stacked against us on this side of this issue, more than ever, by far.  A Rider, practically an asterisk, on an appropriations bill, to end species protection for wolves.  An end-around run, completely around the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and Department of the Interior.  A power grab with huge ramifications.  A successful power grab.

Economic actions/solutions are more elusive than ever.  Largely due to the Great Recession that threatens funding and donations for all social programs and organizations, especially animal rights/welfare efforts.

Second, it was clear that these obstacles affect ALL animal welfare/rights efforts.  Not just wild animals.  Domestic animals.  Laboratory animals.  In other words, we on this side of the issue are all affected.

Third, it was clear that all too many times, we on this side of the issue, are increasingly on the defensive.  Reacting.  With shorter time periods to react.  We are blind-sided all too often.  We don't take the offensive much at all.  And we should.

And finally, one little statistic, one seemingly inconsequential data element, one poll number, was the spark of the creativity.

A statistic from Idaho, where the slaughter of wolves is most extreme.  With most extreme hatred of wolves.  Most extreme brutality against wolves.  That statistic is this:  In a poll of Idahoans, when asked about reducing the wolf population, 60% were in favor of leaving the wolves be.  Leaving them alone.  In favor of leaving the population as it was before protections were removed.  60% in favor of the wolves.

And suddenly, it was clear that the approach, the solution animals require is... Democracy.  And we thought to ourselves, how many animal lovers are there in this country?  A huge number.  How many people have dogs or cats or horses or birds, and on and on.  And love them. Personally, I'll bet all I own there are 100 million animal lovers in this country.

And so the campaign is this.  To get all animal lovers in this country to raise their voices at one time, in favor of the wolf in this campaign. To get 100 million citizens, animal lovers, VOTERS, to raise their voices.  At the same time.  This summer.  A show of force , if you will.  To show our elected officials how many constituents are animal lovers.  Us constituents that voted them into office.  To show our elected officials, to whom "votes" is their number one priority, that us animal lovers outnumber everyone else.  And we speak for the wolf in particular right now.

Or we'll vote elsewhere.

To force Director Ashe and/or Secretary Salazar and/or President Obama to re-list the wolves as endangered, before the August 31 hunting seasons begin again.  To stop hundreds more wolves from being slaughtered by cruel animal haters.  To re-list the wolf as endangered, this time because of the vengeance and slaughter perpetrated by Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, etc.  At least we all can agree that they violated their commitment to manage the wolf populations.  They blatantly ignore that obligation.  Because it's not management, it's a cruel, violent slaughter.

Here's where things stand right now.  I've gotten conditional commitments to join the campaign from the following organizations so far. Conditional because any final commitment will obviously depend on the final action/wording/campaign details.  Understandable.

        John Horning of Wild Earth Guardians

        Kieran Suckling of Center for Biological Diversity

        Jamie Rappaport Clark of Defenders of Wildlife

        Edwin Sayres, via Laurie Beacham of The ASPCA

        And Leda Huta, Executive Director of the Endangered Species Coalition would gladly include the other 400 member organizations of the ESC as recipients of a request to take action by all their members.

        Maggie Howell and the Wolf Conservation Center will add their voices, and howls from their wolves.

        George Wuerthner, writer, wolf advocate

I'm presently trying to contact Ashley Judd, Board member of Defenders of Wildlife, to ask her to help generate publicity.  And given the HSUS participation in a failed lawsuit to negate that sleazy rider delisting, I fully expect Wayne Pacelle to join.  He's been receptive in the past.

There are two old sayings that guide us now.  "That which does not divide us, unites us."  and  "In unity and in numbers, there is strength."

The specific action that we'll ask be taken is still undecided.  I should also say at this time that I do not officially represent any of the organizations I've mentioned.  And that officially, any opinions of mine, may not be indicative of the opinions of the organizations I've mentioned.  In short, I don't speak for them.  Except to the extent that they've agreed to the request to participate.

Would you consider helping spread the word when time comes? 

Thanks for listening. 

Be well.

Regards,

David Forjan

 

The Chautauqua Lecture 12

A Raggedy Absence in the Real

The content of memory is transient. There is nothing brightly embossed on it that decisively indicates ownership. And when placed side by side, the contents of memories are dubiously coherent. If my memories make me who I am, I can only conclude they do not do so in virtue of their content. If I am to be found in my memories at all, it will be in their form. But what is the form of memory?

Here, we are at the limits of language: for the function of language is to express content. And so I can only fall back on metaphor. Form is what shapes content. If I am to be found in the form of my memories, then I am the traces left on the contents of memories. I am the scratches, indentations, and tooth marks left in these contents. The contents of my memories – they could be the contents of anyone's memories. What makes them mine are the marks I have left on them, the marks that shape them. Every mark, every trace: that is me saying, "I am here too!"

Content is what is the case. The world is a totality of content, a totality of facts not things. Shape is always, ultimately, a gap, a lacuna in content. If I am to be found in the form of my memories, then what I am, fundamentally, is a raggedy absence in the real.

 

The Chautauqua Lecture 11

 

The final memory I want to discuss is really a juxtaposition of two memories, separated by a decade, and recorded in Running with the Pack. 

Brenin has lymphoma, the vet tells me, and the prognosis is what, in the profession, they call "guarded". In other words, he is going to die. It is going to be soon, and my primary duty now, the last important thing I can do for my old friend, is to make his death as easy as it can be. As easy as it can be for him, I mean. That probably means making it hard for me. If he could just slip away in the night, painlessly, unaware … but I suspect that is not the way it is going to be. I am going to have to make a decision, a final judgment. The judgment will be that Brenin's life is no longer worth living. Not a second less of a life worth living, and not a second more of a life that is not. That is the goal. Then I will have to take him to the vet, and I will have to ask the vet to kill him. I suspect that whatever decision I make will always be riddled with doubt. Years later, I will ask myself: Was that the right day? Did I get it right? Was it too soon? Or was I too slow, already too late – too weak?

We have just returned from taking Nina and Tess to boarding kennels, for a few days. They are still young, exhausting to be around; and I decided Brenin might benefit from a short rest, a break from their grinding effervescence. Upon our return, I quickly notice a change in Brenin's demeanour. Brighter, more alert, more interested, hungrier than he has been in weeks – I offer him the spaghetti I had made for my lunch and he quickly devours it. Then he does something altogether unexpected. He jumps onto the sofa and howls.

When he was a young wolf, Brenin had a little party piece that he would perform most days. He would run, full tilt, at the settee, jump on to it, and then continue his run up the wall. When he had got as high as his momentum would carry him, which was typically around three-quarters of the way up a standard living room wall, he would spin his back legs up and around – a kind of canine cartwheel – and then run back down the wall. This was his way of letting me know we had been dawdling in the house for far too long, and that it was time for a run. Time had stripped him of this sort of outrageous athleticism – jumping on the settee and howling had become his middle-aged substitute. Still, I know exactly what he is suggesting.

There is a ditch at the end of the garden, and when we get there, Brenin begin to run up and down it, over to the trees on the other side and back again: a display of excitement of the sort I have not seen – not from him anyway – in a number of years. When we left the house, I had envisaged a gentle stroll, an opportunity to sniff a few smells, and mark a little territory. But something in his behaviour, perhaps it was a glint in his almond eye, convinces me that something strange is happening. And so we do something that even now I still cannot quite believe.

I had not been running for the best part of a year. Whenever I tried, Brenin, more than a decade old now, would soon start lagging behind. At first, I had tried to incorporate this into the run: running forward for a while, then jogging back to reunite with Brenin, before heading forward again to catch up with Nina and Tess. I think it had been the look of desperation on his face, the desperation that goes with understanding that your body will not do what you want it to anymore that convinced me to stop doing this. Nina and Tess could still run all day, of course. But I couldn't do this to my old wolf brother, and so my running with the pack had transformed into gentle walks.

So, this is how we begin our last run together. I quickly put on some shorts, dig out my neglected running shoes, and we set off through the woods, along a narrow path that brought us out to the Canal du Midi.

For the first couple of miles we run in the shadows of the giant sycamores. If this had been July, the trees would have been a blessing. But it wasn't, and they weren't. This was January; we are only a few days into the New Year. The tramontane – the mountain wind – tasting of the snows of Lozère and Auvergne, sweeps down between the trees, a sycamore wind tunnel. This is a run as cold as death. Every run has its own heartbeat, and this is the beat of a heart that is cold. The barren, leafless branches of those giant plane trees dance to the wind of snow and mountains. Our feet are soundless; our breath, and the jingle, jingle, jingle of Brenin's chain are lost in the wind. We are not here. 

I had expected Brenin to tire quickly. I had expected a quick return to the house. But he does not tire. Not a bit: he drifts, apparently without effort, over the ground beside me, almost like the Brenin of old – almost as if he was floating an inch or two above the earth; almost as if he wasn't dying.

There is a turn off from the Canal, down a little dirt track that runs along the edges of the village's vineyards. I was getting a little worried, because we were approaching the furthermost point of the run from our house. The cancer has robbed Brenin of a considerable amount of his weight. But, even so, he is still around120lbs, and I really do not relish the prospect of having to carry him three miles home. But he glides on, apparently inconvenienced by the death that grows inside him. After about a mile, the track swings south and brings us to the eastern edge of the grande maïre. On one side, there is the maïre, the densely bullrushed marsh. On the other there are fields scattered with the white horses and black bulls of the region. The sun warms us slightly, now we have left the trees behind. Even the tramontane can't quite take that away from a sun that has begun its slow afternoon descent into the sea, and dances fiercely on the wind-worried waters of the maïre.

After a mile or so of tracking the lagoon, we reach the digue, the dyke built to stop the storm surges of the winter Mediterranean. We run along here for half a mile or so, and then turn south again, and we soon reach the beach. It is here that we rest and sit in the dying January sun, watching the waves wash gently onto the golden sands, sands littered with trunks of trees and assorted detritus from last week's storm. The sun sinks slowly over the snow-peaked Canigou, nestled in the mountains that wrapped around the coast, south down to Spain.

The empty house is waiting for both of us. But, for a while at least, we sit and watch the sun.

 ***

Ten years later I find myself on the same beach in the south of France. I have built sandcastles, surrounded by a system of moats that would not have embarrassed Pierre Paul Riquet, the man who built the Canal du Midi. The sole purpose of these sandcastles is to be destroyed at some subsequent time to be determined by my two sons. Running from distance, they perform graceless belly flops on the castles, hitting the sand hard, yipping like hyenas over and over again, aided and abetted by Hugo, the dog of their childhood, who bounds along beside them barking and frothing like a dog in the grip of la rage. I might have played this game once. But then I got old and didn't understand it any more. Perhaps I am beginning to understand it again.

I suspect children, and the dogs of children, understand what is important in life far better than adults. When I build the sandcastles, it is work. I do it for the enjoyment of my sons. When they destroy those castles, it is play: they do this for no other reason than to do it. As the castles die the death of a thousand belly flops, I can think of no more emphatic affirmation of the value of play over work. There is a joy that goes with this – the joy of giving yourself over wholly to the activity and not the outcome, the deed and not the goal. Perhaps I can no longer understand the game; but I can see the joy, I can feel it: I can hear it echoing out across the water towards Africa.

And yet: we are not far away. I can see it. We're no more than a few metres away from the place where I once sat with a dying wolf, and watched the cold winter sun set slowly on his life. That this life, this single pathway through space and time should contain both memories: this is what seems so improbable to me.  This is what, for me, is a "faintly surreal discovery".

Sgt. Rex

I'm sure many of you have heard this sad, and totally avoidable, story. I find it difficult to believe the Air Force would actually euthanize Rex, given the astonishingly bad publicity this would engender. But, just to be on the safe side, I hope you will consider signing the petition at:

http://www.change.org/petitions/help-...

Peter Rowlands 1929-2012

My father was killed in a car crash on Tuesday. I have only good memories of him. I'm struck by just how naturally much of this recent work on memory I have been writing applies to him. My most important memories of him are not the ones that glow warmly on the conscious stage (although I am certainly glad there are many of those) but the memories that have gone and come again, the ones that have become part of my blood, glance and gesture, nameless and no longer to be distinguished from me. Being a person he helped fashion and living a life he helped forge: these are the ways I both remember and honor him. Goodbye dad, and thank you.

The Chautauqua Lecture 10

A Wind Blowing Towards The World

Why would my memories be like this? Why would they show themselves to me in such a way that my ownership of them should sometimes strike me as a "faintly surreal discovery"? When I remember, I am – so I'm told – aware of the content of my memories – of what my memories depict. And, far from making me what I am, I suspect the content of my memories really is not part of me at all. The French existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, reached a similar conclusion.

In his classic investigation of the nature of consciousness, Sartre defended a rather remarkable claim, one that, I am beginning to suspect, few since have really understood. He wrote:

"All consciousness, as Husserl has shown, is consciousness of something. This means that there is no consciousness that is not a positing of a transcendent object, or if you prefer, that consciousness has no 'content'".

Consciousness has no content – there is nothing in it. Consciousness is nothing – a little pocket of nothingness that has insinuated itself into the heart of being. Sartre's rather large book, Being and Nothingness, is, I think, nothing more than an attempt to work out the implications of these two sentences.

"All consciousness is consciousness of something". This has a clear, but striking, consequence: nothing I am aware of can be part of my consciousness. Everything I am aware of is outside my consciousness. At one time, many years ago, I would have been standing on a beach with Brenin and Nina, watching them run around in the teeth of an Irish gale, as I donned my wetsuit and got ready to climb into some of the best surf of the winter. Obviously, Brenin and Nina are not part of my consciousness. But Sartre's idea applies much more generally. Not only are Brenin and Nina outside my consciousness, so too is my memory of them.

What would it be to remember Brenin and Nina on the beach at Inchydoney? Does an image flash before my mind, like an old photograph? But the image, in itself, could mean anything at all. This was a theme championed by the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein:

It is not common to think of Wittgenstein and Sartre as having the same ideas or concerns, but I think there is close connection between them. Wittgenstein would have pointed out that the image might depict two dogs on a beach. It might depict play. It might depict happiness. In principle, the image might mean any number of things. Nothing much is changed if we replace a static image, like a photograph, with a moving one – such as a film. Certain possible ambiguities would be closed off, but others remain; yet others might be engendered by the transition from static to dynamic images.

Sartre would have put the issue in these terms. Whether static or dynamic, the image has no intentionality. Taken in-itself it is not about anything. It can be about something – it can mean or signify something – but not in-itself. What it means is a function of how it is interpreted. And, for Sartre, what provides the interpretation is consciousness.

Consciousness is intrinsically of or about something. It is, as philosophers call it, intentional. But the content of memory is not about anything – not taken in itself. The conclusion, Sartre realized, is that the content of memory is not part of consciousness. And, if I am consciousness, this means the content of my memory is not part of me. The same point applies to anything I am aware of.

Think of Sartre as supplying a challenge: try to point to consciousness – try to point to something that is in consciousness. As you say "Here it is!" – mentally pointing to something you remember, or something you think, or believe, or feel – this becomes an object of your consciousness and so is, if Sartre is correct, precisely not a part of your consciousness; it is not part of you. The entire world is outside you – for the world is simply a collection of things of which you are aware; or, at least, of which you can be aware if your attention is suitably engaged. Therefore, consciousness can be nothing at all. Consciousness, Sartre concludes, is simply a pure directedness towards the world – a "wind blowing toward the world" as he once put it. Consciousness is a directedness towards things that it is not and it is nothing more than this. If I am consciousness, then everything I am aware of is outside of me, irreducibly alien to me. If am aware of the content of my memories, then they cannot be part of what I am.