Ta-Nehisi Coates's Blog, page 60

Western Thought for Avid Atheists and Sucker MCs

Leviathan (Chapter II: Imagination)
So I need help today, more than usual. Let's start here:

....Imagination, therefore, is nothing but decaying sense; and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking. 
The decay of sense in men waking is not the decay of the motion made in sense, but an obscuring of it, in such manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light of the stars; which stars do no less exercise their virtue by which they are visible in the day than in the night. But because amongst many strokes which our eyes, ears, and other organs receive from external bodies, the predominant only is sensible; therefore the light of the sun being predominant, we are not affected with the action of the stars. 
And any object being removed from our eyes, though the impression it made in us remain, yet other objects more present succeeding, and working on us, the imagination of the past is obscured and made weak, as the voice of a man is in the noise of the day. From whence it followeth that the longer the time is, after the sight or sense of any object, the weaker is the imagination. For the continual change of man's body destroys in time the parts which in sense were moved: so that distance of time, and of place, hath one and the same effect in us. 
For as at a great distance of place that which we look at appears dim, and without distinction of the smaller parts, and as voices grow weak and inarticulate: so also after great distance of time our imagination of the past is weak; and we lose, for example, of cities we have seen, many particular streets; and of actions, many particular circumstances. This decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself (I mean fancy itself), we call imagination, as I said before. But when we would express the decay, and signify that the sense is fading, old, and past, it is called memory. So that imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations hath diverse names.

I was not prepared for so much science in a work of philosophy. More precisely, I am amazed by the hardness--the relentless physicality--of Hobbes' world. I keep thinking of that line from Angeir in The Prestige, "The world is simple, miserable, solid all the way through."
This is Hobbes' world--solid all the way through. Imagination is not some airy thing. It is the impression of some motion against your organs (sense) decaying. And this can be expounded upon by referencing still other physical phenomena--as when the stars in the sky are obscured by the sun, and we can only recall them through "decaying sense." Thus "decay" is not the removal of an impression but its obscuring by some greater force of motion. 
I don't know if I have that right, but my larger point is that Hobbes is not abstract. Reading Leviathan is like watching a mechanic take a part an engine, lay it on the ground and explain how every piece interacts with all the others.
More:

Nevertheless, there is no doubt but God can make unnatural apparitions: but that He does it so often as men need to fear such things more than they fear the stay, or change, of the course of Nature, which he also can stay, and change, is no point of Christian faith. 
But evil men, under pretext that God can do anything, are so bold as to say anything when it serves their turn, though they think it untrue; it is the part of a wise man to believe them no further than right reason makes that which they say appear credible. If this superstitious fear of spirits were taken away, and with it prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be would be much more fitted than they are for civil obedience. 
And this ought to be the work of the schools, but they rather nourish such doctrine. For (not knowing what imagination, or the senses are) what they receive, they teach: some saying that imaginations rise of themselves, and have no cause; others that they rise most commonly from the will; and that good thoughts are blown (inspired) into a man by God, and evil thoughts, by the Devil; or that good thoughts are poured (infused) into a man by God, and evil ones by the Devil. 
Some say the senses receive the species of things, and deliver them to the common sense; and the common sense delivers them over to the fancy, and the fancy to the memory, and the memory to the judgement, like handing of things from one to another, with many words making nothing understood.

This reads a lot like the wonderings of a closet atheist. 
Do we have any info on the history of atheism and philosophy? When did it become OK to attack the idea of God? Was Hobbes accused of atheism in his own time? What came out of it, if so? How does his view of God compare to the view of his contemporaries? Descartes comes up a lot here in reference to Hobbes. Any links?
And can I say that "with many words making nothing understood" is awesome?
Last week's discussion here.

Western Thought For Avid Atheists And Sucker MCs

Leviathan (Chapter II: Imagination)
So I need help today, more than usual. Let's start here:

....Imagination, therefore, is nothing but decaying sense; and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking. 
The decay of sense in men waking is not the decay of the motion made in sense, but an obscuring of it, in such manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light of the stars; which stars do no less exercise their virtue by which they are visible in the day than in the night. But because amongst many strokes which our eyes, ears, and other organs receive from external bodies, the predominant only is sensible; therefore the light of the sun being predominant, we are not affected with the action of the stars. 
And any object being removed from our eyes, though the impression it made in us remain, yet other objects more present succeeding, and working on us, the imagination of the past is obscured and made weak, as the voice of a man is in the noise of the day. From whence it followeth that the longer the time is, after the sight or sense of any object, the weaker is the imagination. For the continual change of man's body destroys in time the parts which in sense were moved: so that distance of time, and of place, hath one and the same effect in us. 
For as at a great distance of place that which we look at appears dim, and without distinction of the smaller parts, and as voices grow weak and inarticulate: so also after great distance of time our imagination of the past is weak; and we lose, for example, of cities we have seen, many particular streets; and of actions, many particular circumstances. This decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself (I mean fancy itself), we call imagination, as I said before. But when we would express the decay, and signify that the sense is fading, old, and past, it is called memory. So that imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations hath diverse names.

I was not prepared for so much science in a work of philosophy. More precisely, I am amazed by the hardness--the relentless physicality--of Hobbes' world. I keep thinking of that line from Angeir in The Prestige, "The world is simple, miserable, solid all the way through."
This is Hobbes' world--solid all the way through. Imagination is not some airy thing. It is the impression of some motion against your organs (sense) decaying. And this can be expounded upon by referencing still other physical phenomena--as when the stars in the sky are obscured by the sun, and we can only recall them through "decaying sense." Thus "decay" is not the removal of an impression but its obscuring by some greater force of motion. 
I don't know if I have that right, but my larger point is that Hobbes is not abstract. Reading Leviathan is like watching a mechanic take a part an engine, lay it on the ground and explain how every piece interacts with all the others.
More:

Nevertheless, there is no doubt but God can make unnatural apparitions: but that He does it so often as men need to fear such things more than they fear the stay, or change, of the course of Nature, which he also can stay, and change, is no point of Christian faith. 
But evil men, under pretext that God can do anything, are so bold as to say anything when it serves their turn, though they think it untrue; it is the part of a wise man to believe them no further than right reason makes that which they say appear credible. If this superstitious fear of spirits were taken away, and with it prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be would be much more fitted than they are for civil obedience. 
And this ought to be the work of the schools, but they rather nourish such doctrine. For (not knowing what imagination, or the senses are) what they receive, they teach: some saying that imaginations rise of themselves, and have no cause; others that they rise most commonly from the will; and that good thoughts are blown (inspired) into a man by God, and evil thoughts, by the Devil; or that good thoughts are poured (infused) into a man by God, and evil ones by the Devil. 
Some say the senses receive the species of things, and deliver them to the common sense; and the common sense delivers them over to the fancy, and the fancy to the memory, and the memory to the judgement, like handing of things from one to another, with many words making nothing understood.

This reads a lot like the wonderings of a closet atheist. 
Do we have any info on the history of atheism and philosophy? When did it become OK to attack the idea of God? Was Hobbes accused of atheism in his own time? What came out of it, if so? How does his view of God compare to the view of his contemporaries? Descartes comes up a lot here in reference to Hobbes. Any links?
And can I say that "with many words making nothing understood" is awesome?

The World That Hip-Hop Made

I've been really killing this DOOM collabo with Jake-One, lately. DOOM is, of course, sick with the wordplay, but I've been thinking a lot about the hook which, with some scratching in between, is basically--"Yo son\Git r done." So you have some straight black slang and a sample from Larry the Cable Guy. And it's done by a dude who is, himself, sampling the mythology of The Fantastic Four. Larry's white working classic aesthetic is not really something you would immediately pair with underground hip-hop. Except if you know hip-hop, you would. 
I've talked about this before but the entire aesthetic of hip-hop is sonic democracy. Basically any sound, any where, by any people, or any thing is fodder for hip-hop. Nothing is too low-culture (Get R Done.)  And nothing is too high culture (Miles Davis.) 
This is not original to hip-hop. Ray Bradbury captured the same aesthetic:

A conglomerate heap of trash, that's what I am. But it burns with a high flame.

But hip-hop is how it came to me. I was talking with my homeboy Minkah the other day about RG3 and the notion of blackness as "limiting." He said, "It would never occur to me to think of being black as limiting." It's not even RG3. Obama says he is rooted in the black community but "not limited to it." I think I understand what Obama is saying, and yet I kind of don't. I have generally found racism to be limiting. Black people, not so much.
I feel like Nas--I don't even know how to start this...
Here is the thing: I never wanted to leave home. I played D&D and I read comic books and I was a little weird. I was 16. I wasn't good with girls, but, like, who was? I was weird, and so were a lot of other people. Perhaps most importantly is this--whatever happened in the crack years, whatever socio-economic indicators I was on the wrong side of, I felt loved by my parents, my family, my community and (to be archaic) by my race. And I didn't really feel "different" than other black people. And so when people talk about "black nerds" I have no idea what they mean.
This is my particular experience. Talk to some other black person and you will get another. What I am trying to convey is that what you see here (and what I hope you like here) going from Hobbes to Voyager to Français to CTE to drones is a byproduct of my community (because this is how we talk) and the music I loved as a child. Hip-hop says "All Your Sonics Are Belonging To Us." And all your knowledge too.

The Awesome Irrelevance and Vast Amorality of You

I've spent the past few days on the road talking (mostly) to young people. Many of these conversations have revolved around the difference between education and credentialism. Within that conversation is still another idea--the discomfiting nature of historical study. That is to say, the idea that history was not made to make us feel good, or to raise our self-esteem. On the contrary, an humble engagement  with history--one not rooted in opportunism--is, initially, going to be a downer. 
When I was young the myth of ennobling oppression was all around me, and it was thought that the fact of racism and all its effects proved our inherent goodness. I am sure this notion isn't original to black people. When you've been kicked in the teeth it will always be easier to think of yourself as having been robbed, then having simply lost out. That you would likely be doing the kicking yourself, that your weakness is not kindness is too much to take.
History takes you down a peg. Science too. Our own Rebecca Rosen kicks the ballistics:

Last summer, an eruption on the sun's surface scored a solar weather hat trick, racking up all three of the major phenomenon scientists observe: a solar flare, a coronal mass ejection (CME), and coronal rain, "complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere," NASA explains. The solar flare in the video is not massive, by the sun's standards, but "moderately powerful," as NASA calls it. But what makes the show special is the coronal rain, charged plasma slowly dripping in fiery loops along the sun's magnetic fields.

There is a moment in this video where a scale version of earth is measured against this solar hat-trick, and you can see how this event is bigger (many times over) than the entire planet which you and I inhabit. Last night I was out with my wife and some friends. We were thinking about how Star Trek is basically limited to our own galaxy. Voyager which is supposedly in some distant part of the verse, is actually still within the Milky Way. And yet there are gazillions of Milky Ways--of galaxies--beyond the fictional world of Star Trek. (Some talk about Species 8472 and the failure of the Enterprise series then ensued. It was resolved that we needed more Knob Creek.) 
Carl Sagan says that on a galatic level, "Our preferences don't count." From there you can the seed of our denialism--from climate change to the Civil War--and perhaps the seed of religion, itself.  Our sciences (in which I am including history) don't ennoble us. They don't reflect well on humans, instead they confirm a kind of powerlessness, a deep moral weakness, and sense of futility. 
At least that's the start. I'd argue that when we can get past our own vanity, as scientists, there comes something else--Wonder.

The Awesome Irrelevance And Vast Amorality Of You

I've spent the past few days on the road talking (mostly) to young people. Many of these conversations have revolved around the difference between education and credentialism. Within that conversation is still another idea--the discomfiting nature of historical study. That is to say, the idea that history was not made to make us feel good, or to raise our self-esteem. On the contrary, an humble engagement  with history--one not rooted in opportunism--is, initially, going to be a downer. 
When I was young the myth of ennobling oppression was all around me, and it was thought that the fact of racism and all its effects proved our inherent goodness. I am sure this notion isn't original to black people. When you've been kicked in the teeth it will always be easier to think of yourself as having been robbed, then having simply lost out. That you would likely be doing the kicking yourself, that your weakness is not kindness is too much to take.
History takes you down a peg. Science too. Our own Rebecca Rosen kicks the ballistics:

Last summer, an eruption on the sun's surface scored a solar weather hat trick, racking up all three of the major phenomenon scientists observe: a solar flare, a coronal mass ejection (CME), and coronal rain, "complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere," NASA explains. The solar flare in the video is not massive, by the sun's standards, but "moderately powerful," as NASA calls it. But what makes the show special is the coronal rain, charged plasma slowly dripping in fiery loops along the sun's magnetic fields.

There is a moment in this video where a scale version of earth is measured against this solar hat-trick, and you can see how this event is bigger (many times over) than the entire planet which you and I inhabit. Last night I was out with my wife and some friends. We were thinking about how Star Trek is basically limited to our own galaxy. Voyager which is supposedly in some distant part of the verse, is actually still within the Milky Way. And yet there are gazillions of Milky Ways--of galaxies--beyond the fictional world of Star Trek. (Some talk about Species 8472 and the failure of the Enterprise series then ensued. It was resolved that we needed more Knob Creek.) 
Carl Sagan says that on a galatic level, "Our preferences don't count." From there you can the seed of our denialism--from climate change to the Civil War--and perhaps the seed of religion, itself.  Our sciences (in which I am including history) don't ennoble us. They don't reflect well on humans, instead they confirm a kind of powerlessness, a deep moral weakness, and sense of futility. 
At least that's the start. I'd argue that when we can get past our own vanity, as scientists, there comes something else--Wonder.

Oscar Pistorius and the Wages of Bad Police

I don't really know much about the South African justice system, but when the lead investigator for a high-profile murder case (or really any murder case) is himself "facing seven charges of attempted murder" it's safe to assume that it's a problem:

The decision by the national police commissioner to remove the investigator, Warrant Officer Detective Hilton Botha, was the latest in a series of abrupt twists and setbacks in the prosecution of Mr. Pistorius, the double amputee track star accused of murdering his girlfriend on Feb. 14 by firing four shots through a locked bathroom door while she was on the other side. 
Riah Phiyega, the commissioner, said at a news conference that a divisional police commissioner, Lt. Gen. Vinesh Moonoo, would be assigned to preside over "this very important investigation." 
After widespread media reports about the charges against Detective Botha, Gerrie Nel, the prosecutor, said at the start of the hearing on Thursday that he had just learned about them. The news only compounded questions about Detective Botha's work on the Pistorius case. Under cross-examination on Wednesday, he was forced to acknowledge several mistakes in the investigation and to concede that he could not rule out Mr. Pistorius's version of events based on the existing evidence.

Police misconduct is often discussed as a problem for potential suspects, and it is. But less noted is how it's also problem for victims of criminals--both actual and potential. I've said my piece on the reactionary lionization of Christopher Dorner. But it's worth noting that in their wild pursuit of Dorner the police shot two innocent women (ages 47 and 71) and then shot (but missed) another innocent dude. In each case, the only mistake was driving a pickup truck similar to Dorner's. Plenty of innocent folks were swept up in the Ramparts scandal. It's almost certain that plenty of actual criminals were also put back on the streets.
As I recall, we have some folks here with some familiarity with South Africa. I'd love here how it is that the prosecutor on a case like this, doesn't know that the lead investigator is facing seven charges of attempted murder.

Oscar Pistorius And The Wages Of Bad Police

I don't really know much about the South African justice system, but when the lead investigator for a high-profile murder case (or really any murder case) is himself "facing seven charges of attempted murder" it's safe to assume that it's a problem:

The decision by the national police commissioner to remove the investigator, Warrant Officer Detective Hilton Botha, was the latest in a series of abrupt twists and setbacks in the prosecution of Mr. Pistorius, the double amputee track star accused of murdering his girlfriend on Feb. 14 by firing four shots through a locked bathroom door while she was on the other side. 
Riah Phiyega, the commissioner, said at a news conference that a divisional police commissioner, Lt. Gen. Vinesh Moonoo, would be assigned to preside over "this very important investigation." 
After widespread media reports about the charges against Detective Botha, Gerrie Nel, the prosecutor, said at the start of the hearing on Thursday that he had just learned about them. The news only compounded questions about Detective Botha's work on the Pistorius case. Under cross-examination on Wednesday, he was forced to acknowledge several mistakes in the investigation and to concede that he could not rule out Mr. Pistorius's version of events based on the existing evidence.

Police misconduct is often discussed as a problem for potential suspects, and it is. But less noted is how it's also problem for victims of criminals--both actual and potential. I've said my piece on the reactionary lionization of Christopher Dorner. But it's worth noting that in their wild pursuit of Dorner the police shot two innocent women (ages 47 and 71) and then shot (but missed) another innocent dude. In each case, the only mistake was driving a pickup truck similar to Dorner's. Plenty of innocent folks were swept up in the Ramparts scandal. It's almost certain that plenty of actual criminals were also put back on the streets.
As I recall, we have some folks here with some familiarity with South Africa. I'd love here how it is that the prosecutor on a case like this, doesn't know that the lead investigator is facing seven charges of attempted murder.

The Lost Battalion

Je vous le donne, mes amis...

The Rock of Ensisheim

Here is Megan Garber baiting me with everything I love in this world--early modern European history, France (sort of), and thunderstones:

On November 7, 1492, people around the Alsatian city of Ensisheim heard an explosion, accompanied by crashes of thunder. The air lit up with fire. A smoky flash streaked, screaming, through the sky, hurtling toward Earth at a sharp angle. The source of the chaos -- a celestial stone -- finally slammed into a wheat field on the outskirts of the town. 
The only direct eyewitness to this unusual event, it seems, was a young boy. He proceeded to lead the stunned residents of Ensisheim to the charred-but-shiny rock, an object whose impact had carved a hole in the ground that was more than three feet deep. 
The people assumed it had been sent from God. They also assumed it might be an omen. The Austrian emperor Maximilian I, who happened to be in Ensisheim at the time -- adding, no doubt, to the superstitions -- ordered residents to expose the rock at the local church. Chaining the object on holy ground, it was thought, would mitigate any evil it might bestow on the town.

So much awesome-sauce. There's some cool art in Megan's post also. As for the present, I can't stop watching the video. It's like that scene in Signs where dude sees the alien. "Move children! Vamonos!" 

Bobby Brown Didn't Kill Whitney Houston

When Whitney died about this time last year, I spent some time in comments and on twitter debating people about her relationship with Bobby Brown. That Brown was abusive is a matter of fact and he deserves all due condemnation for it. But there was, along with that, a narrative of ruin around the time of Houston's death that generally held that Brown was, somehow, responsible for Houston's descent from American royalty to crack-is-whack to death. Specifically, a lot of people claimed that it was Brown who "hooked" Whitney on drugs.

It was not:

For years, rumor had it that Bobby Brown had introduced Whitney Houston to drugs--but Michael Houston, one of the singer's two older brothers, has revealed to Oprah Winfrey that the real story was quite different. It's a story that has Michael Houston "living, but not alive" since his younger sister's death almost a year ago.

"I feel responsible for what I let go so far," he told Oprah in a Monday interview on OWN that primarily featured mother Cissy Houston, who has a new tell-all memoir out. In that book, Cissy says she didn't understand her children doing drugs then, and she doesn't understand it now.

Said Michael Houston, "We were always, you know, being together most of the time, and her following behind me -- I taught her to drive. We played together -- everything that you do together as you're growing up -- and then when you get into drugs, you do that together too, and it just got out of hand."

Then Oprah presented what she called "the big question": Did he introduce her to drugs?

"I would say, yeah, we did everything together, so once I was into that, then she followed suit," he said.

From a human perspective, I understand why an older brother would feel responsible for Houston's death. But it's been my feeling that the country at large has trouble accepting that Whitney Houston was a person, endowed with all the requisite flaws. One reason they had trouble was because Houston's image was engineered to make them think that way. I'd argue that Bobby Brown, as a black man from the projects, was tailor made for the role of despoiler of virgins and author of mad villainy.

The inability to accept that Houston, as free as any man, engaged in the drug use that destroyed her voice, is parcel to an inability to accept the full humanity of women as a class. Houston's handlers capitalized on that inability and sold her as goddess of femininity. America bought this. Thus the pairing of the patron saint of ladyhood with the patron saint of unreconstructed niggerdom could only be explained by magic and time travel.