Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 90
December 27, 2018
Sometimes...
Sometimes it seems like AI will take over the world and leave us as whimpering fools. Anyone who has played a somewhat strong chess program will have felt the boa-constrictor remorselessness of the computer. Heartless. Tireless.
Or are we?
Thing is, one need only look at other forms of brilliant computing (Arabic translation from English for example, or maybe just run a few phrases through a handful of languages and see the gibberish you come out with at the end). Or one can look at the search results for somethig even somewhat complex. Or ask Alexa, Siri, someone, a basic task you think a child could accomplish.
They simply aren't up to the task.
So that begs the question.
Why are we talking so highly about these minions of ours?
I understand the marketing behind it. But why is everyone falling for it (even I, I suppose)?
* (that last word is doing a lot of work, I know. I'll define it sometime in the nebulous future)
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Or are we?
Thing is, one need only look at other forms of brilliant computing (Arabic translation from English for example, or maybe just run a few phrases through a handful of languages and see the gibberish you come out with at the end). Or one can look at the search results for somethig even somewhat complex. Or ask Alexa, Siri, someone, a basic task you think a child could accomplish.
They simply aren't up to the task.
So that begs the question.
Why are we talking so highly about these minions of ours?
I understand the marketing behind it. But why is everyone falling for it (even I, I suppose)?
* (that last word is doing a lot of work, I know. I'll define it sometime in the nebulous future)
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
December 26, 2018
Deleting my tracking widgets
I am going full Luddite, it would appear. I read a piece about how websites track people. I have a google and shinystat widget to let me know more accurately how many people visit. It's all bots anyways, I suppose, so I have deleted those. As you were.
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
What I've read, Winner Takes All.
I've been reading as much as I can recently, and I've found that the amount one wishes to read will never equal reality. Furthermore, as a writer I like to interact with what I see, read, experience, and sometimes that takes a long time per book (or trip/experience). Note that recent piece I had published on the Theaters of War (ToW) was about a reading I attended 2 years ago.
I'm getting old and Slow, you say?
Maybe
But it's been a good way for me to absorb, react and write about my world. It also helps in terms of deeper thoughts. Take the piece on ToW. Just recently, after reading my short piece and wondering about it, I think I've come to something of an epiphany about it all. It helps to visit and revisit thoughts.
This is why I don't sign up for 100 books in a year kind of thing. It just wouldn't work for me. Sure I could do it, but like many things in our world, quantity doesn't equal quality.
Anyhow. So this piece is about the book Winner Takes All . It's a good book and worth reading, though it didn't make the cut for my favorite books of the 2018. The book takes a look at the idea of elites in our society, especially the philanthropic work and the idea of what good actually gets done.
It's a brave book and certainly one that's needed for today's world, though I think that in the end it doesn't seem to go far enough.
Let me break it down. The book does a good job of tearing apart the incestual world that I had long ,true to my contrarian soul, thought of as nothing more than grift. Things like TED talks and conferences where people who want to do good, necessarily meet up with very rich people to get that done.
This means that any one who wants to do good (in this world of philanthropy) must necessarily suck up to the powerful who have a vested interest in making sure that the world stays a certain way (with all its iniquities and inequalities and hierarchical ways). Essentially what ends up happening is that the "ideas" created to solve problems are necessarily ones that will never change the status quo.
So the people advocating for tax cuts etc are being kowtowed to for money and they will never ever give money to something that will undermine how they got most of their money.
The same goes for the lecture circuit like TED and the like. You do some incisive lecture that tears into the status quo and you don't get invited again. You kiss ass to the corporate sector, don't focus on systemic issues (or if you do, claim there's some easy solution that will overcome centuries of oppression) and you'll be fine. So don't join a union, pop a pill. Or actually, don't change the status quo stand up straight.
I went to Columbia and this kind of thinking, where the people think one only need to change the size of their smile to "win" is endemic in the elite circles of the world. Sure, it works for some people, but when there are larger systemic issues at play, it's mainly useless.
Well, not useless for the plutocrats of our society as energy not spent taking down a system that benefits them is something they want.
To that end, this kind of thinking is inherently conservative (even if many of those who run in this specific set of crowds are socially liberal in terms of rights for some marginalized folks) as it does blame people for being poor and does accept that bootstrapping is a valid way of getting people out of poverty.
Indeed, it's easy to like these plutocrats as they seem to have their hearts in a better place than some other plutocrats. Take the Koch brothers, for example, and how they are actively trying to undermine many levels of government for the good of some mad libertarian vision of the world. (if you want a good book on that topic, Democracy in Chains is a solid one).
That gets us into the problem with the book. He's looking at liberal plutocrats (and their courtesans), the world that naturally forms around them, and he's not giving us many numbers to prove the stupidity of the situation (or the inherent falseness of their acts of "giving"). Furthermore, he's not looking deep enough into the conservative plutocrats who do a lot of damage as well.*
I sense that another problem with the book is that it should dive a little more into the details at hand (like I said above, numbers would be nice). Also a lot of the beginning seems to linger without making the incisive point (made later) about how the plutocrats are looking to seem helpful but don't want to change the status quo. I would also say it's much more sinister than that: that they don't help outside of the social status gained from that.
Nevertheless, the book is good enough that I recommend it to you and think it's valid as it gets the main idea about much of the rich liberal world right (the don't be negative thinking that we see in the media as well).
Hell, just writing this review** makes me think about the ToW piece I did and how that is in fact another way of packaging some "don't change the status quo" thinking in the cover of classical literature.
endNote: I should say that the reviews on Amazon are a whole different beast. It's very interesting to see how some people who claim to be a part of the system that Anand criticizes make the mistake of claiming this is a solutionless book. Sounds familiar. I imagine if Anand had told people that they just need to pop certain pills or gave some pseudo-scientific reason for why they should stand straight before usurping the system, they would have liked him better. So it goes.
* This is even if I understand that the book can only hold so many ideas before becoming useless.
** And yet another aside, just writing on a blog, even one as scatterbrained as this post, makes me realize the biggest issue with Twitter is that it doesn't allow for the thinking and discovery that comes with long form writing (typing or longhand). No, really. This may be near "get off my lawn" territory, but it's not. Give it a try and let me know.
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
I'm getting old and Slow, you say?
Maybe
But it's been a good way for me to absorb, react and write about my world. It also helps in terms of deeper thoughts. Take the piece on ToW. Just recently, after reading my short piece and wondering about it, I think I've come to something of an epiphany about it all. It helps to visit and revisit thoughts.
This is why I don't sign up for 100 books in a year kind of thing. It just wouldn't work for me. Sure I could do it, but like many things in our world, quantity doesn't equal quality.
Anyhow. So this piece is about the book Winner Takes All . It's a good book and worth reading, though it didn't make the cut for my favorite books of the 2018. The book takes a look at the idea of elites in our society, especially the philanthropic work and the idea of what good actually gets done.
It's a brave book and certainly one that's needed for today's world, though I think that in the end it doesn't seem to go far enough.
Let me break it down. The book does a good job of tearing apart the incestual world that I had long ,true to my contrarian soul, thought of as nothing more than grift. Things like TED talks and conferences where people who want to do good, necessarily meet up with very rich people to get that done.
This means that any one who wants to do good (in this world of philanthropy) must necessarily suck up to the powerful who have a vested interest in making sure that the world stays a certain way (with all its iniquities and inequalities and hierarchical ways). Essentially what ends up happening is that the "ideas" created to solve problems are necessarily ones that will never change the status quo.
So the people advocating for tax cuts etc are being kowtowed to for money and they will never ever give money to something that will undermine how they got most of their money.
The same goes for the lecture circuit like TED and the like. You do some incisive lecture that tears into the status quo and you don't get invited again. You kiss ass to the corporate sector, don't focus on systemic issues (or if you do, claim there's some easy solution that will overcome centuries of oppression) and you'll be fine. So don't join a union, pop a pill. Or actually, don't change the status quo stand up straight.
I went to Columbia and this kind of thinking, where the people think one only need to change the size of their smile to "win" is endemic in the elite circles of the world. Sure, it works for some people, but when there are larger systemic issues at play, it's mainly useless.
Well, not useless for the plutocrats of our society as energy not spent taking down a system that benefits them is something they want.
To that end, this kind of thinking is inherently conservative (even if many of those who run in this specific set of crowds are socially liberal in terms of rights for some marginalized folks) as it does blame people for being poor and does accept that bootstrapping is a valid way of getting people out of poverty.
Indeed, it's easy to like these plutocrats as they seem to have their hearts in a better place than some other plutocrats. Take the Koch brothers, for example, and how they are actively trying to undermine many levels of government for the good of some mad libertarian vision of the world. (if you want a good book on that topic, Democracy in Chains is a solid one).
That gets us into the problem with the book. He's looking at liberal plutocrats (and their courtesans), the world that naturally forms around them, and he's not giving us many numbers to prove the stupidity of the situation (or the inherent falseness of their acts of "giving"). Furthermore, he's not looking deep enough into the conservative plutocrats who do a lot of damage as well.*
I sense that another problem with the book is that it should dive a little more into the details at hand (like I said above, numbers would be nice). Also a lot of the beginning seems to linger without making the incisive point (made later) about how the plutocrats are looking to seem helpful but don't want to change the status quo. I would also say it's much more sinister than that: that they don't help outside of the social status gained from that.
Nevertheless, the book is good enough that I recommend it to you and think it's valid as it gets the main idea about much of the rich liberal world right (the don't be negative thinking that we see in the media as well).
Hell, just writing this review** makes me think about the ToW piece I did and how that is in fact another way of packaging some "don't change the status quo" thinking in the cover of classical literature.
endNote: I should say that the reviews on Amazon are a whole different beast. It's very interesting to see how some people who claim to be a part of the system that Anand criticizes make the mistake of claiming this is a solutionless book. Sounds familiar. I imagine if Anand had told people that they just need to pop certain pills or gave some pseudo-scientific reason for why they should stand straight before usurping the system, they would have liked him better. So it goes.
* This is even if I understand that the book can only hold so many ideas before becoming useless.
** And yet another aside, just writing on a blog, even one as scatterbrained as this post, makes me realize the biggest issue with Twitter is that it doesn't allow for the thinking and discovery that comes with long form writing (typing or longhand). No, really. This may be near "get off my lawn" territory, but it's not. Give it a try and let me know.
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
December 21, 2018
Best Books of 2018
Trying to maintain the tradition here of letting you know what the best books of the year that I read (not published in any particular year). It was a good year, btw. I found a handful of authors and a handful of books which I found to be absolutely brilliant. Of course, some are old classics, but that's the way it goes, right? If you want to take a look at last year's list, then check it one out. You can see quite a few Russians on that one. Quite a few short story collections too. Yeah, there are some in this year's too. How could there not be?
So here is my list:
Funny is how even I hesitate to back him up because it's so contrarian to the herd. The betting man wouldn't bet against him. And he'll be proven right again. One thing this book does show is how the news (with 24hour TV and other methods of corporate misinformation—read here why I just quit Twitter) has made reporters like Hersh ever more a rare breed. Let's hope not.
Arabian Nights. What's that? You've already read this? Not this translation. First off, Shahrazad is not some unlucky girl, but one who knows she must save other women by putting herself at risk. And that's what she does. Basically this version is truer to the original and much more debauchery goes on. Check it out.
Ajax . If you've been reading this blog, you'll know that I have mulling over this piece for quite some time now. It's a classic so go ahead and read it, ffs.
There there . I'm not sure I'm a fan of the ending, but I say that about a lot of books. Everything about
this book is brilliant and well done. It's mainly about urban Native Americans and the author's ability to write about so much in such little space is a tribute to his skill. Check it out.
Tell me How it Ends . Very short but worth it! About the problems at our southern border before it was the topic du jour of our gnat-minded press corps. Yes, even Obama was bad (not to the same degree the current occupant is) with regard to this.
Jamaica Kincaid. Read all her work. That I just discovered her is something I can only blame on myself. Don't make the same mistake I did. A Small Place is a brilliant expose of the island she grew up on. At the Bottom of the River is likewise brilliant work (a collection of stories). I'm not even sure about what to say. Just buy and read her work. Now.
Gilgamesh . Yeah, a classic. It's damn good, though. Who knew that the story of Noah was basically Sumerian fanfic? Well find it all here. This is a good tale.
Human Acts . One of the best books of the century. Yeah, I liked it that much. About how the South Korean government shot students and the aftermath of that on the fabric of society. Really worth it for the calm hand with which Kang describes this world.
Open City . I like Cole's essays. This reads like a wandering but incisive piece about the world. Well, NYC mainly, but you get the world out of it.
Hiroshima . Another classic. But with the doomsday clock getting closer to midnight, something we should all read. The book with which to read this is below:
Crazy Iris . You like used bookstores? Yeah, I do too. Love them really. No way to properly replicate that randomness in finding books anywhere else. Not at all. I found this book randomly. It's shorts about the aftermath of the nuclear attacks in Japan. Absolutely necessary reading, if you ask me.
Paradise . A work from the library of the queen of American lit.
Independent People . Iceland's epic (outside of it's really old epics).
Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom . Important and vital reading, especially with Gaza on the brink of complete collapse.
Just Mercy . Want to hear about how fucked up our justice system is? Well read this book. Don't? Well, you need this book more than anyone, assuming you know nothing about injustice.
Mussolini Canal . Good multi-generational epic on Italy's flirtation with fascism. How that gestated and died within one family, at least.
Well there you have it. Hope you read a few of them, or if you've read them, go ahead and mention what you thought of them. I'd say of this list of favorites, Kincaid's Bottom of the River, Kang's Human Acts, & the Crazy Iris anthology stand out as insta-classics (Gilgamesh and Hiroshima not withstanding).
peace
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
So here is my list:
Funny is how even I hesitate to back him up because it's so contrarian to the herd. The betting man wouldn't bet against him. And he'll be proven right again. One thing this book does show is how the news (with 24hour TV and other methods of corporate misinformation—read here why I just quit Twitter) has made reporters like Hersh ever more a rare breed. Let's hope not.
Arabian Nights. What's that? You've already read this? Not this translation. First off, Shahrazad is not some unlucky girl, but one who knows she must save other women by putting herself at risk. And that's what she does. Basically this version is truer to the original and much more debauchery goes on. Check it out.
Ajax . If you've been reading this blog, you'll know that I have mulling over this piece for quite some time now. It's a classic so go ahead and read it, ffs.
There there . I'm not sure I'm a fan of the ending, but I say that about a lot of books. Everything about
this book is brilliant and well done. It's mainly about urban Native Americans and the author's ability to write about so much in such little space is a tribute to his skill. Check it out.
Tell me How it Ends . Very short but worth it! About the problems at our southern border before it was the topic du jour of our gnat-minded press corps. Yes, even Obama was bad (not to the same degree the current occupant is) with regard to this.
Jamaica Kincaid. Read all her work. That I just discovered her is something I can only blame on myself. Don't make the same mistake I did. A Small Place is a brilliant expose of the island she grew up on. At the Bottom of the River is likewise brilliant work (a collection of stories). I'm not even sure about what to say. Just buy and read her work. Now.
Gilgamesh . Yeah, a classic. It's damn good, though. Who knew that the story of Noah was basically Sumerian fanfic? Well find it all here. This is a good tale.
Human Acts . One of the best books of the century. Yeah, I liked it that much. About how the South Korean government shot students and the aftermath of that on the fabric of society. Really worth it for the calm hand with which Kang describes this world.
Open City . I like Cole's essays. This reads like a wandering but incisive piece about the world. Well, NYC mainly, but you get the world out of it.
Hiroshima . Another classic. But with the doomsday clock getting closer to midnight, something we should all read. The book with which to read this is below:
Crazy Iris . You like used bookstores? Yeah, I do too. Love them really. No way to properly replicate that randomness in finding books anywhere else. Not at all. I found this book randomly. It's shorts about the aftermath of the nuclear attacks in Japan. Absolutely necessary reading, if you ask me.
Paradise . A work from the library of the queen of American lit.
Independent People . Iceland's epic (outside of it's really old epics).
Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom . Important and vital reading, especially with Gaza on the brink of complete collapse.
Just Mercy . Want to hear about how fucked up our justice system is? Well read this book. Don't? Well, you need this book more than anyone, assuming you know nothing about injustice.
Mussolini Canal . Good multi-generational epic on Italy's flirtation with fascism. How that gestated and died within one family, at least.
Well there you have it. Hope you read a few of them, or if you've read them, go ahead and mention what you thought of them. I'd say of this list of favorites, Kincaid's Bottom of the River, Kang's Human Acts, & the Crazy Iris anthology stand out as insta-classics (Gilgamesh and Hiroshima not withstanding).
peace
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
On Quitting Twitter
I'm not sure what will be next on my quit list, but it'll be something I sense. I mentioned before how I had been using Medium more and more. It used to be a great site to find some eccentric and marginalized voices who would truly add something to the world of ideas. And yet now, there seems to be a lowering of standards of what I'm reading, not to mention that the diversity there is lacking. I'm still on the fence about it (especially given its ease of use) but we'll see if it improves. Here, though is my piece on quitting Twitter. It's on Medium, of course.
Nevertheless, Twitter was never as useful as I hoped it would be. I'm sure someone will one day create a twitter collage of all the tweets about a certain subject. I might do that one day. But for now I won't.
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
Nevertheless, Twitter was never as useful as I hoped it would be. I'm sure someone will one day create a twitter collage of all the tweets about a certain subject. I might do that one day. But for now I won't.
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
December 20, 2018
On Ajax and the idea of PTSD
So I recently shared my piece on a play about Ajax that I attended . if you haven't attended one of these, or if you need to read it, here it is in a most recent translation. Nevertheless, as with all pieces made, beaten into a certain length and of limited scope (it has to be thus, since we need to allow the reader to focus on one thing, right?), I want to add to it. See, the piece only deals with my reaction to the Theater of War (TW) and the audience's views of the play and rifts between people up to and including the rift between veterans and civilians. I left out my view of the play itself and about the interpretations themselves (if that makes sense, mainly the piece focuses on the world outside the play) because there wasn't enough space to deal with them.
But I'm thinking that the idea of moral injury is a little too disparate to matter and either needs to whittled down or made into something worthwhile. A more studied version of PTSD, TBI, is not mentioned, mainly because the Greeks didn't have issues with explosions.
Of course, this gets to my final issue with the play, in that we try to shoehorn everything to what the Greeks experienced.
Not to say I don't like the Greeks and their work. Like I said before, they, with the use of their mad gods, really do convey a lot of reality to us (and do it better than many other genres out there). But with this play, Ajax, is it really about PTSD?[1]
First, moral injury can be several things. At its more basic we're talking about having a prior set of values disrupted by something traumatic one sees that forces them to rethink that moral viewpoint of the world.
Fair enough.
Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia page:
This is something easily applied to the veteran. We all think of a veteran as having seen or done something far too horrific to explain and being unable to deal with it. I think when that's combined with the lies that have gotten us into some wars, we're can easily see that the rationale for doing something will wither away and we have nothing but what we've done.
In a similar way, it can be applied to the medical field, in that people who work in a hospital will see a lot of traumatic things and can suffer the consequences of their decisions and suffer moral injury.
Okay, and that's what the play and TW hinted at.
But the play really dealt with a different example of it. Ajax is a battle hardened warrior and he has no qualms about what he did in battle, or those he killed (a war of choice, mind), [2] but rather is infuriated with those who have denied him the armor of his friend, Achilles, even though he helped bring it back. Instead the contest has little to do with the battle skills (or what he did) of Ajax and instead he loses based on an oratory contest.
So part of the issue, or his rage, comes from being cheated out of his rightful winnings.
This was construed as the two separate moral systems. One in battle, and one at home. One can be good at a certain system and not the other (usually the case, I suppose).
Ajax then plans to kill these officers for doing him wrong, but Athena (again, the Greeks have a way of showing how impersonal forces prey upon the powerful and weak alike) makes him mad. Here she makes him believe that he's killing these superior officers, but instead murders and tortures sheep and shepherds.
Is the Goddess of war giving us an example of what "war" can do to a great warrior? Athena thus being a stand in for the forces of war? Why else turn him into a sheep-torturing fool? Laugh, she says, to Odysseus (who won Achilles' armor), at your foe.
Is this, then, madness, or an example of how the violence of war can come home to roost with the target anything but the intended enemy?
Is the officers making up some rules in a contest to deny Ajax his rightful ownership of his friend's armor an example of the usual betrayal in war?
What I mean is that now that they have gotten all the use they need from Ajax's fighting, they can cheat him out of what he morally deserves and, furthermore, because the goddess of war is what she is, she makes him mad, rather than allowing him to kill the mortal powers that be? This shame of both failing to kill the mortal powers that be and instead killing helpless sheep is then what makes him kill himself.
An easy comparison is that some soldiers coming back from war and acting out some madness. Fights. Accidents. Killing animals, even. Or perhaps being cheated out of honor in the odd way "civilian" life can make happen. Or perhaps seeing the lies of the war for what it was?
Or maybe the need for suicide comes when, Ajax, powerful on the battlefield is made mad and helpless in "civilian" life by Athena. Then the difference in these two power structures and one's place in them could be the issue.
But I'm not sure I would place this as major reasons for PTSD, though I'm sure they play a part.
Well I suppose that, ultimately, I'm not sure I understand the play as much as I thought, but I would like to hear what you have to say.
EDIT: So someone linked me to a piece of audio from NPR that helps to unpack the thought behind war then and now (the piece has more than just the play Ajax in it). Go ahead and read it. It's about the anger at superior officers for letting warriors down. Or, it seems to focus on the pain experienced rather than any other parallel similarity.
For example, that the brotherhood of war is something that will never be replicated in civilian life is something that speaks to the rift between civilians and warriors. Yet I don't see that in this play. I do see the betrayal of troops by those in charge, but in a different way these days.
Oh, and I wanted to add something about the medical field. Many there were talking about the trauma seen in a hospital, etc, telling us about the rift between them and "civilians" or expectations of outcomes of their work.
Something in me wants to buck this narrative, however true it may be (for those in the medical field or in the "warrior" field) in a worldview sense of the word. I'm reminded of an article in the LRB "Don't join a union, pop a pill" (or don't change the status quo, pop a pill, or don't discuss systematic issues, talk about what you had in common with ancient royalty) where systematic issues (and our system is sick, make no mistake about it) are viewed in the prism of an individual having to deal with some random psychological phenomenon.
That TW reading which I went to had been talking about the rise in suicides in the medical field (as well as burn out). The same has been said for veterans. Thus a play about a soldier killing himself really seems like the right way to go, I suppose. And yet it doesn't. Does it?
Suicides are up for our nation, not just explained by a handful of fields in, admittedly, high stress jobs. Maybe everyone is a little Ajax? Maybe it's something more.
We've come a long way since the Greeks, as great as their stories are, and though I see some parallels, I hope we can move from the focus on the individual to the system. Not one person talked about redoing the medical system. The same goes for the forever wars. Mission accomplished, I imagine.
[1] For now I'll leave my idea (not original, I'm sure) that PTSD is a range of things (more than a linear range, too) and will have to be further studied because what I'm hearing now doesn't make as much sense as I would have thought (and also, that the manifestations of PTSD, in less known forms like domestic violence, have yet to be studied and would certainly not be dealt with within the framework of what the Greeks knew, though they sensed a little more about it than I thought.
But for now, let's look at it as a result of TBI as well as moral disruptions that can't rationalize away what was done, or what was done that wasn't enough to save a friend, or what was done to an enemy for the wrong reasons (or reasons that weren't enough afterwards)
[2] Indeed some have even examined Achilles reaction to battle and there is no qualms about killing or being killed, which is another frame of mind entirely. But it has been applied to soldiers who have to get through the idea of being killed and thus of killing. This, I wouldn't say, is PTSD, but it could lead to it, I suppose, once that moral view is upended or has a tough time "coming home".
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But I'm thinking that the idea of moral injury is a little too disparate to matter and either needs to whittled down or made into something worthwhile. A more studied version of PTSD, TBI, is not mentioned, mainly because the Greeks didn't have issues with explosions.
Of course, this gets to my final issue with the play, in that we try to shoehorn everything to what the Greeks experienced.
Not to say I don't like the Greeks and their work. Like I said before, they, with the use of their mad gods, really do convey a lot of reality to us (and do it better than many other genres out there). But with this play, Ajax, is it really about PTSD?[1]
First, moral injury can be several things. At its more basic we're talking about having a prior set of values disrupted by something traumatic one sees that forces them to rethink that moral viewpoint of the world.
Fair enough.
Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia page:
Moral injury can also be experienced by those who have been transgressed against. For example, when one goes to war believing that the purpose of the war is to eradicate weapons of mass destruction, but finds that not to be the case, the warrior can experience moral injury due to a sense of betrayal. Those who have seen and experienced death, mayhem, destruction, and violence and have had their worldviews shattered – the sanctity of life, safety, love, health, peace, etcetera – can also suffer moral injury. This injury can also occur in the medical space – among physicians and other emergency or first responder care providers who engage in traumatic high impact work environments which can affect their mental health and well-being.
This is something easily applied to the veteran. We all think of a veteran as having seen or done something far too horrific to explain and being unable to deal with it. I think when that's combined with the lies that have gotten us into some wars, we're can easily see that the rationale for doing something will wither away and we have nothing but what we've done.
In a similar way, it can be applied to the medical field, in that people who work in a hospital will see a lot of traumatic things and can suffer the consequences of their decisions and suffer moral injury.
Okay, and that's what the play and TW hinted at.
But the play really dealt with a different example of it. Ajax is a battle hardened warrior and he has no qualms about what he did in battle, or those he killed (a war of choice, mind), [2] but rather is infuriated with those who have denied him the armor of his friend, Achilles, even though he helped bring it back. Instead the contest has little to do with the battle skills (or what he did) of Ajax and instead he loses based on an oratory contest.
So part of the issue, or his rage, comes from being cheated out of his rightful winnings.
This was construed as the two separate moral systems. One in battle, and one at home. One can be good at a certain system and not the other (usually the case, I suppose).
Ajax then plans to kill these officers for doing him wrong, but Athena (again, the Greeks have a way of showing how impersonal forces prey upon the powerful and weak alike) makes him mad. Here she makes him believe that he's killing these superior officers, but instead murders and tortures sheep and shepherds.
Is the Goddess of war giving us an example of what "war" can do to a great warrior? Athena thus being a stand in for the forces of war? Why else turn him into a sheep-torturing fool? Laugh, she says, to Odysseus (who won Achilles' armor), at your foe.
Is this, then, madness, or an example of how the violence of war can come home to roost with the target anything but the intended enemy?
Is the officers making up some rules in a contest to deny Ajax his rightful ownership of his friend's armor an example of the usual betrayal in war?
What I mean is that now that they have gotten all the use they need from Ajax's fighting, they can cheat him out of what he morally deserves and, furthermore, because the goddess of war is what she is, she makes him mad, rather than allowing him to kill the mortal powers that be? This shame of both failing to kill the mortal powers that be and instead killing helpless sheep is then what makes him kill himself.
An easy comparison is that some soldiers coming back from war and acting out some madness. Fights. Accidents. Killing animals, even. Or perhaps being cheated out of honor in the odd way "civilian" life can make happen. Or perhaps seeing the lies of the war for what it was?
Or maybe the need for suicide comes when, Ajax, powerful on the battlefield is made mad and helpless in "civilian" life by Athena. Then the difference in these two power structures and one's place in them could be the issue.
But I'm not sure I would place this as major reasons for PTSD, though I'm sure they play a part.
Well I suppose that, ultimately, I'm not sure I understand the play as much as I thought, but I would like to hear what you have to say.
EDIT: So someone linked me to a piece of audio from NPR that helps to unpack the thought behind war then and now (the piece has more than just the play Ajax in it). Go ahead and read it. It's about the anger at superior officers for letting warriors down. Or, it seems to focus on the pain experienced rather than any other parallel similarity.
For example, that the brotherhood of war is something that will never be replicated in civilian life is something that speaks to the rift between civilians and warriors. Yet I don't see that in this play. I do see the betrayal of troops by those in charge, but in a different way these days.
Oh, and I wanted to add something about the medical field. Many there were talking about the trauma seen in a hospital, etc, telling us about the rift between them and "civilians" or expectations of outcomes of their work.
Something in me wants to buck this narrative, however true it may be (for those in the medical field or in the "warrior" field) in a worldview sense of the word. I'm reminded of an article in the LRB "Don't join a union, pop a pill" (or don't change the status quo, pop a pill, or don't discuss systematic issues, talk about what you had in common with ancient royalty) where systematic issues (and our system is sick, make no mistake about it) are viewed in the prism of an individual having to deal with some random psychological phenomenon.
That TW reading which I went to had been talking about the rise in suicides in the medical field (as well as burn out). The same has been said for veterans. Thus a play about a soldier killing himself really seems like the right way to go, I suppose. And yet it doesn't. Does it?
Suicides are up for our nation, not just explained by a handful of fields in, admittedly, high stress jobs. Maybe everyone is a little Ajax? Maybe it's something more.
We've come a long way since the Greeks, as great as their stories are, and though I see some parallels, I hope we can move from the focus on the individual to the system. Not one person talked about redoing the medical system. The same goes for the forever wars. Mission accomplished, I imagine.
[1] For now I'll leave my idea (not original, I'm sure) that PTSD is a range of things (more than a linear range, too) and will have to be further studied because what I'm hearing now doesn't make as much sense as I would have thought (and also, that the manifestations of PTSD, in less known forms like domestic violence, have yet to be studied and would certainly not be dealt with within the framework of what the Greeks knew, though they sensed a little more about it than I thought.
But for now, let's look at it as a result of TBI as well as moral disruptions that can't rationalize away what was done, or what was done that wasn't enough to save a friend, or what was done to an enemy for the wrong reasons (or reasons that weren't enough afterwards)
[2] Indeed some have even examined Achilles reaction to battle and there is no qualms about killing or being killed, which is another frame of mind entirely. But it has been applied to soldiers who have to get through the idea of being killed and thus of killing. This, I wouldn't say, is PTSD, but it could lead to it, I suppose, once that moral view is upended or has a tough time "coming home".
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December 12, 2018
Piece out in Solstice Magazine
Well more stories out, this one, though is a little bit of a muse on the veteran civilian divide. And the Greeks. You know how we like them.
Go ahead and read and comment over there. Otherwise, enjoy it.
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Go ahead and read and comment over there. Otherwise, enjoy it.
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
December 11, 2018
Adbusters Part N
Well, fame is fleeting in this life. I had mentioned how happy I was that I finally had a story in a somewhat famous magazine. Oh, but when I went to a bookstore, I realized that it was already time for the next issue and mine was no longer on bookstands.
Yes, I cried. Well not really. But I'm sure you did when you realized you couldn't find it. Or maybe you cussed me out and wished me a horrible end. Well, here is your chance to get a hard copy or pdf of this issue. Just go here and you can find it. No, that's not me on the cover. I'm not that pretty.
Anyhow go and get the magazine if you haven't already and read my story (with the well chosen and spooky af picture that Adbusters chose for the story. Good times.
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Yes, I cried. Well not really. But I'm sure you did when you realized you couldn't find it. Or maybe you cussed me out and wished me a horrible end. Well, here is your chance to get a hard copy or pdf of this issue. Just go here and you can find it. No, that's not me on the cover. I'm not that pretty.
Anyhow go and get the magazine if you haven't already and read my story (with the well chosen and spooky af picture that Adbusters chose for the story. Good times.
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November 28, 2018
Once there was a fool.
He lived happily ever after.
I didn't see who did it. But some days later I saw a homeless man drawing over and over different short stories on the walls of our emerald city. I looked and saw different micro shorts all over the place, but in out of the way places.
I asked what the drive for this creation of a million stories was. He didn't say much except that the stories we tell will all be dust, so tell or don't. Doesn't matter.
Never saw him again.
Shame.
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I didn't see who did it. But some days later I saw a homeless man drawing over and over different short stories on the walls of our emerald city. I looked and saw different micro shorts all over the place, but in out of the way places.
I asked what the drive for this creation of a million stories was. He didn't say much except that the stories we tell will all be dust, so tell or don't. Doesn't matter.
Never saw him again.
Shame.
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
Donate Bitcoins
November 26, 2018
Flash Fiction
Once I met a man with a mesh of wrinkles for a face. He claimed that a good humble man was worse than a powerful evil man who pretended to be good because the latter's good deeds (through mimicry or philanthropy) outweighed what the former man did.
I asked if he could actually believe this, and he said what else was he supposed to believe.
Thing is, the man was a proud boomer and no matter what, no matter how many facts I presented him, I couldn't shake him off his belief in what was this truth he had learned through out his life with the basic punishment and positive reinforcement that life forces on all those who survive.
Last I saw of him, he was at the bus station yelling at snowflakes as they drifted down onto the muffled winterscape. "Where's my global warming you fucking hippies?!"
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I asked if he could actually believe this, and he said what else was he supposed to believe.
Thing is, the man was a proud boomer and no matter what, no matter how many facts I presented him, I couldn't shake him off his belief in what was this truth he had learned through out his life with the basic punishment and positive reinforcement that life forces on all those who survive.
Last I saw of him, he was at the bus station yelling at snowflakes as they drifted down onto the muffled winterscape. "Where's my global warming you fucking hippies?!"
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.
Donate Bitcoins
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