Power Break
A little break can be a good thing. After posting my Minimalism entry,
I entertained friends on Wednesday night and then Thursday we had a little
trouble with the utilities in Manhattan, so we entertained stranded co-workers
willing to climb 28 floors: an
evening
of candlelight,
wine and conversation reminded us of simpler pleasures ("Let's drink
the white first while it's cold").
It was a surprise three day weekend and the
Internet seemed less compelling than I would have thought–I found it relaxing
to be offline. I had unused power in the PowerBook battery and a POTS phone
line and internal
modem, but it didn't seem necessary to add to the descriptions of what was,
essentially,
obvious.
When asked to comment on Niagara Falls by its enthusiastic boosters, Calvin
Coolidge took a look and asked, "What's to hinder?"
Amy Harmon of the New York Times called on Saturday for background
on an article she
was writing. I told her I really didn't have anything more
interesting than relaxation to report. And so she didn't.
I do have a small bit of advice for handling blackouts. Yesterday
was a glorious day, so I took a long walk, enjoying a street fair on Lexington
and a stroll through the Park. Last night brought stomach upset and a real-life
Immodium commercial. Why would a seemingly rational man buy a Gyro sandwich
from a
street vendor
the day after every piece of meat in town has been warmed to room temperature?
Now back to our regular programming...
Resistance is Mutual
The theme I discern from my idle rants and the more thoughtful
deliberations of others is consistent: at a deep level, each of us is convinced
of our authority as the pinnacle of reason; that intelligence and insight
degrade
rapidly
with the distance from our influence (ignoring the fact that,
if a husband's alone in the forest, he's still wrong). So, rather than a
participatory search for collective enlightenment and right action, we
spend all our
effort trying to convince others to think and act as we do.
How well does this work? Take a look around.
So is there a way out of this foolishness? It looks to me
like the Internet's hive mind is working on the answer without us realizing
it. In other words, paraphrasing Scott McNeely, the network is the
human.
If so, then the self-directed Clint Eastwood is a mirage,
though most of us believe that's how we're supposed to lead our lives if
we weren't so weak and other-directed. What's worse, we believe that people
who appear to be like Clint are people worth
following, deferring to and voting for.
So we may be in a society where the leaders cling to their illusion of competence
to stay in power and the rest of us cling to their illusion to stay in denial.
The Bloomin' Truth
Howard Bloom is the one who first clued me that we're not
wired for solitary action, back in 1995 when his important book, The
Lucifer Principle,
was published. In fact, his second chapter (after Who is Lucifer?) is
The Clint
Eastwood Conundrum. Bloom demonstrates that we are totally social
creatures and that isolation
is the ultimate poison.
My guess
is that we are drawn to those who appear to be independent and
strong for the same reason that chimps and wildebeests are, but those types
need our attention as an actor needs an audience. Bloom suggests,
and
Susan Blackmore reinforces the point, in The
Meme Machine, that
these strong, self-assured types are indeed actors, posturing in ways that
have become second nature, attracting us with their compelling demonstrations
of independence and stubbornness to ensure that they can avoid the fear
we all share: never be alone.
So I wonder if we aren't all resisting the truth that the
strong, independent father figure is a threat to us all. George
Lakoff points
out that we're inclined to embrace the metaphor of the strong
father and
question the value of a nurturant
parent.
What if all our emperors are naked and we're just their credulous
patsies? What if the reality of sucking up to a strong-appearing leader is
that we simply give a questionable ego more fuel and their self-indulgent
personality more reason to spurn us?
10:14:00 PM 
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