Politics and good conversation do not mix

Yadda yadda

Why isn’t politics germane to good conversation? Why is it a dangerous topic to discuss in public? The answer lies with what conversation is for and what distinguishes harmless, approving subjects from the more important and yet contentious ones.

Conversation makes up a large percentage of communication, and remains the source we seek approval of the others. But what has changed is the nature of conversation itself. It used to be solely between family members, whereas nowadays it is done between competitive peers in society. Continue reading Politics and good conversation do not mix

Saraswati

A former Hindu goddess of knowledge, Saraswati was the daughter of Shiva and Durga. She is credited with the invention of language and knowledge for mortals, and the divine inspiration of their holy Scriptures. Mortals pray to her for moksha, or true wisdom that will deliver them from their mortal shells.

Saraswati’s fealty to fixed ideas causes her to bend all gods and mortals to high standards. Since she desires change in others into becoming better people, she is relentlessly critical and judgmental. Sometimes Saraswati is surprised when others do not appreciate her judgments, although she is quick to praise whoever meets her standards. Continue reading Saraswati

The 50th Law by Robert Greene (review)

I bought this book on September 8th and finished it last night. As a fan of Robert Greene, the modern-day Machiavelli, I was eager to snatch his latest book that’s a collaboration with 50 cents, the rapper.

The 50th Law is a decent book that spins 10 variations on the single theme of fearlessness into 10 chapters. Each chapter is further broken down into sections: the eye of the huster, the key, the strategies, and the reversal, which is similar to the original structure of the 48 laws of Power. 50 cents contributes the material of his biography and the key to fearlessness as pithy quotes. Several new individuals are also included here, from Richard Wright to Malcom X to Amelia Earhart to John Ford, along with returning favorites like Napoleon and Scipio. However, 50 cents’ biography is stretched thin across 200 plus pages, and there seems to be a great deal of overlap that borders on repetition. Robert Greene should be applauded for moving into new territory, into the world of the hustlers and the rappers to supplement his previous works on the great leaders, seducers, artists, thinkers, and generals.

One thing that bugs me: there’s no mention of the 49th law. Perhaps in the next book?

Paradise Lost: How ASL as a concrete language is shortchanging the D/deaf.

Despite the scathing title above, this is not ammunition for the Oralist nor the Signing Exactly English (SEE) user, nor an excuse for American Sign Language (ASL) purist to burn an effigy of yours truly, but a serious discourse on whether ASL, as a concrete language, has been shortchanging a certain segment of our population of our nation known as the D/deaf people. Continue reading Paradise Lost: How ASL as a concrete language is shortchanging the D/deaf.

Some remarks about The Wire

Today, literary criticism is an exceedingly complicated discipline – one so complex that most people are unable to put forth a serious critique of a book without falling back on their own subjective tastes that lack rigor and reflective thought.

However, I have discovered a technique that may aid us in our attempt to judiciously critique a work of literature, be it a novel or film. Simply put, this technique is a careful analysis of the characters, how they are deployed in the story: do they represent the classic protagonist/antagonist that’s based on a black and white picture of reality? Or are they representative of a morally ambiguous reality in which the audience is trusted to be able to judge them? Merely a placeholder for an overarching ideology the author is foisting upon the reader? Continue reading Some remarks about The Wire

Not Deaf enough?

Deaf Power, by Paul Scearce

In February, I submitted the dialogue, None The Wiser, to a collection of Deaf American Prose, in the hopes of being published. However, the professors helming that project had decided that my dialogue was not “deaf” enough to make the cut – even though in their call for submissions, they specified that the topic did not have to be “explicitly about deaf, Deaf, or hard of hearing American lives, but … the author [must be] deaf, Deaf, or hard of hearing.”

As a deaf author, I thought this project was not necessarily a collection of writings about deafness by deaf authors. But, given the politics behind the rejection, it appears that, in order for me to be published as a deaf person, I must write about deaf issues. I was mistaken in the naïve belief that being a deaf man who could write like a philosopher would be sufficient, and that I need not be defined by my deafness, but this is not the case. Continue reading Not Deaf enough?

Do you praise or condemn the dead?

Deader than a doornail

In passing, I made the argument that because an individual’s life project was closed, we no longer have any right to vilify him for his shortcomings – that we should be honoring his contributions of society instead, especially if we (media and public) have been vilifying him the entire time until his death.

Before death, an individual’s life is an open book, a project to be completed. That’s when we have free reign to disparage and criticize for the wrongdoings or failures. After death, the meaning of the individual’s life is complete, a closed book, and finished.

Michael Jackson’s death has closed off all his possibilities, and puts him at the mercy of others – us. As long as he was alive, he could, through his actions, change the meaning of his future, and his past as well. Continue reading Do you praise or condemn the dead?

History according to pessimism

Marvin, the pessimistic android

After hearing about Fukuyama’s End of History thesis, I began to wonder:

Were there truly an “end” of history, a post-history, the possibility of all events coming to an end, who would be a competent historian to observe this end of all cycles?

This does not refer to theoreticians of the “end of history,” but of a different type – a true historian looking back after all histories had ended, a post-historian observing that there are no more events to record, except perhaps the act of recording for the unknown readers of the future. The end of history is the end of the fall into time – when man became historical after being exiled from paradise. Continue reading History according to pessimism