Merry Christmas!

Snowbound!

If you haven't been keeping up with the weather in the Portland (OR) metro area, we're currently experiencing the worst winter storm in... well, they're not really sure. Awhile.

Certainly remarkable for December: the heavier snow tends to come much later in the season.

Caption Contest!

If the New Yorker can do it, why can't I?

(That's a rhetorical question)

Out and about (updated)

A visit to the museum for a rainy Friday afternoon.

(Still mulling over Churchland, but I doubt anyone is really interested.)

I'm still experimenting with regard to how to get accurate pictures to post; the one on the right [or on the bottom, depending on your screen] was scanned in, whereas I used a camera for the one of the left [or, on top]. The scanned image has the advantage of being square (among other things), but the one on the left captures the colors more accurately (although I'll admit that both were digitally tweaked).

Although I like developing Miro's world beyond the bare-bones black and white images, these are challenges I wasn't really expecting.

Small Potatoes

Not much to say this morning--unless you're still waiting on the rant about Churchland.  

I may yet post that, but not this morning.

Mostly Pictures Today

Today, I'll be cooking up a big pot of Bengali Masoor Dal for Thanksgiving, so I'll leave an extended critique of a stray comment made by Paul Churchland for another day.

Chilly Monday

Not much going on here.

Except playing with my colored pencils, and toying with the idea of creating a stencil.

Twofer

This one took longer, because--surprise!--I don't have their albums lying around.

And I don't think it would make a particularly good t-shirt.

Just for Brian

I normally don't take requests, but here you go.

Ethics in Question

I've been reading, in turn, two books that address problems with Kantian ethics from very different standpoints.
One is Paul Churchland's Neurophilosophy at Work; the other is Theodore Adorno's Problems of Moral Philosophy.

Those of you familiar with my book will remember that I discussed Churchland's Moral Network Theory at length; while I found it useful, it ultimately fails to do everything he wants it to (or perhaps, everything I want it to). This collection of essays doesn't add anything that would challenge this evaluation, but it's interesting to see how he's extended and updated the theory over the years.

Adorno, on the other hand, is someone whom I've been reading on and off since taking a class with James Rolleston about 20 years ago. I always struggle with his writings, but unlike some other Continental theorists, I keep coming back for more. This book is based on lectures he gave in the early 60's with (I exaggerate) Nietzsche in one hand, Freud in the other, while standing on Marx.

I like the contrast between the two, since they are both critiquing Kant with very distinct agendas; for instance, Adorno isn't concerned with finding a biological ground for ethics, and Churchland doesn't acknowledge the tension between the "good life" of the individual and the good of the community. I have a hard time thinking outside of the field that Kant has defined; I've delved into his writings (and plunged into the vast secondary literature) more than any other philosopher's except Nietzsche, but I find him problematic and mistaken in ways that I have difficulty articulating (past the traditional critiques, first posed by Benjamin Constant)--even though that's more or less the topic of my book. As anyone who has read Nietzsche knows, his critiques of Kant tend more to the ad hominem than careful refutation (one of the reasons I like Robert Solomon's writings on Nietzsche is that he recognizes that a well executed ad hominem isn't necessarily a fallacy). However, I continue to find myself falling back into well-worn Kantian ruts, even though I know better.

My next book won't attempt to reconcile Churchland and Adorno; it will probably just be a collection of cartoons.


Gratuitous quote of the day:
"As with many lonely children, his problem was not solitude itself but that he was never left free to enjoy it."
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Carney?

As my loyal readers know, I'm in the process of looking for a job (and not, I will add for anyone who is worried about it, putting this blog on my resume). Unfortunately, as you may or may not know, the economy has tanked in the past few weeks. I saw an ad to be a carney in the Pacific Northwest next spring, but I'm still hoping to find work closer to the kids. And, for that matter, indoors.

The last cartoon refers, obliquely, to a Justin Timberlake song which, for the record, I've never listened to all the way through.

And, bonus points to the person who translates the seal behind Judge Mai. (Really: I've forgotten what it was. I'm sure it's absolutely hilarious!)

"Bad idea"

I finished reading Pinker's Stuff of Thought (scroll down for various links!) sometime last week, but there's one more quote I wanted to share--not because it's deep or particularly funny, but just because it makes me wonder if Steve reads my blog:
"When you combine these two aptitudes--metaphor and compositionality--the language of thought can be pressed into service to conceive and express a ceaseless geyser of ideas... Of course these abilities can also feed a ceaseless geyser of bad ideas." (page 437, for those of you following along at home.)

Now I'm reading--and enjoying--Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, but he isn't as quotable as Pinker. Which I find odd, because in general his style is much more accessible and chatty: all the fellow researchers are his friends, he talks about his wife and children frequently, and is generally a compelling and appealing author. Maybe that's the problem: he reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell, whose book Blink I recently read (and also enjoyed very much).

So what's the problem with that? It goes too fast, like a very long magazine article. Both Ariely and Gladwell generalize quite a bit, teasing out suggestive avenues (but not exactly building arguments). There's genuine insight, but I prefer Pinker's slow, dense chapters on microclasses of verbs and his careful dissection of theories of meaning. (Admittedly, I'm more familiar with some of the background material that Pinker deals with--here, I'm thinking specifically of Jerry Fodor's theory of meaning--than I am the details of economics. Then again, Ariely doesn't ever slowly dissect those theories in a way that might make me want to read them anyway, in the way that I get excited about reading Chomsky.)

Of course, I'll want to watch Ariely if he ever gets to the Colbert Report. Malcolm Gladwell wasn't nearly as funny as Pinker (admittedly, that's a pretty high standard!), but his hair is wild enough that Colbert didn't make a joke about it (which is the kind of meta-level humor that I like).

"We might could do that."

The title of this post is not a quote from The Stuff of Thought, but I was reminded of it while reading. Steven Pinker recounts an old joke,

"When a lady says 'no,' she means 'maybe.'

When she says 'maybe,' she means 'yes.'

If she says 'yes,' she's no lady.

When a diplomat says 'yes,' he means 'maybe.'

When he says 'maybe,' he means 'no.'

If he says 'no,' he's no diplomat."

(page 396, although it's a joke I've heard before, and Pinker doesn't attempt attribution. He also acknowledges that it's outdated, so you don't have to draw my attention to it: I remember that Madeline Albright--among many others--was a fine diplomat.)

This reminds me of a conversation I had many, many years ago with Bruce Payne, a professor and friend of a couple of my friends (which is to say, I got along with him just fine, but never took a class from him and didn't socialize with him except when I was with either Stu or Lisa). Bruce tells a story about when he worked for Terry Sanford, former senator from North Carolina, as well as former president of Duke University. Occasionally Bruce would be approached by someone who had spoken with Senator Sanford about a pet project, asking how things were coming along. Bruce, knowing that nothing was coming along at all, would ask, "When he spoke with you, did he say that he 'might could do that'?" They would nod, and then he would gently explain that this was a polite way of saying no.

It doesn't fit neatly into the form that Pinker provides, but certainly follows the spirit.

Another Pinker Quote!

But I'm getting near the end of the book.

"Craig is a latte-drinker in every sense except that he doesn't actually drink lattes."

Apparently, Steven knows I take my fair-trade organic coffee black.

Happy Halloween!

Or not. Whatever.

I like Steven Pinker

But you already knew that.

"The habit of hallucinating causal powers and forcing experience to fit them has shaped human cultures from time immemorial, producing our species' vast compendium of voodoo, astrology, magic, prayer, idolatry, New Age nostrums, and other flimflam."
-from The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. There's already a link to the book around here somewhere... and I'm only halfway through, so expect at least a couple more posts and/or cartoons inspired by it.

Triangle Man

"Triangle Man, Triangle Man

Triangle man hates Particle Man

They have a fight,

Triangle wins

Triangle Man"

-lyrics from the song, "Particle Man" by They Might be Giants.

But it's not Mr. Miro--I doubt he would win a fight with Particle Man.

Language and Thought

Language and thought are clearly related, but it's difficult to articulate what that relation is, precisely.

When I was an undergraduate (a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away), I wanted to write one of my final essays on the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis; my professor dismissed the idea, saying that it was already old news when he was an undergraduate. But it is surprisingly resilient (which Websters defines as, "tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change"), and versions of it persist to this day.

Despite our awareness of our own thinking while we're thinking in words, it's not the same as thought itself: "the sounds of language are the manifestations of thought that are most pungently present in our waking awareness, even if they are the tip of the iceberg of mental computation." -Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought.

Which is to say, we don't think using language, except in unusual circumstances.

Pinker also quotes Thomas Hobbes on the subject:

"Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools."

How did it get to be Thursday already?

Nietzsche wrote, "We don’t love our knowledge enough any more, once we have communicated it." That sits uneasily with my desire to post cartoons here; and while Anne Sexton wrote, "The joy that isn't shared dies young," I'm not sure that it's joy exactly that I share here.

I think I'll go for a walk now.

"The answer to bad evangelism..."

is not not no evangelism but good evangelism. Good evangelism is not proselytizing but witnessing, bearing witness to "the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness had not overcome it"; bearing witness to the prophet's cry: "Let justice roll down like mighty waters," and to the prophetic insight that we all belong one to another, every one from the pope to the loneliest wino on the planet."

-William Sloane Coffin, not an optimist but always hopeful.

For my Seminary F/friends

And I'll add a quote from Peter Gomes later, once I find it again...

Update: the promised quote!

Gomes describes a student giving testimony at daily Morning Prayers (at Harvard, where Gomes is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church). The student had, "come to believe that it is better to give than to receive, that love is stronger than death, that good ultimately overcomes evil, that the love of money is bad, and that peace is the ultimate destiny for the created order."

Gomes concludes the paragraph, "I can say that I have never heard a better expression of the Christian faith. My only concern is that it didn't come from a Christian." (p. 71) Because the student is a self-avowed communist. I'm tempted to offer a length commentary here, particularly focusing on Acts 4:32-35 (which Gomes clearly has in mind but doesn't exegete here), but I'll leave that for another time.

However, I'm reminded of a book group meeting I attended several years ago. At that meeting, the person leading the discussion posed the question bluntly, "Is Christianity compatible with capitalism?" Before I could offer my opinion ("no"), an older woman forcefully declared, "yes!" I mention "forcefully" because, although she couldn't back her position up with Scripture (and I'm not saying it can't be done, only that she didn't do it), her strong reaction shut down further discussion, and that's just frustrating. I don't know what her fears are, since orthodox Marxism is fairly hostile to any religion; but it's dangerous to brand certain topics as off-limits to discussion. Discussion is how we vet whether an idea has merit or not; again, I'll save my thoughts for a later post, but you can read this if you're interested).

I joke about having an "inner Marxist" (which irritates many of my F/friends, whether they identify as Christian, anarchist, or libertarian), but as a person of faith I'm certainly not a dogmatic or "orthodox" Marxist. However, I'm also not a dogmatic or orthodox Christian.

I'm just glad to see a self-described conservative (who delievered the Benediction at Ronald Reagan's second inauguration, and performed the inaugural service for George H.W. Bush) recognizes that there is indeed a connection between Christian moral values and communism.

Sunday Afternoon

It's a relatively pleasant day... too bad I'm looking through the want ads.

And a quote for the day:

"What cracker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?"

I'll have to keep this one in mind next time I visit Julie at work.

It's Friday...

and I had something I was going to post, but I seem to have forgotten. Maybe I'll post again later.

Mai is happy about her new dress.

Post-Debate

I didn't actually watch the debates, but I was acutely aware that they were on.

But there was no judo.

Dreary

Oy.

If it's Tuesday, this must be Richmond

It's good to be back, but also odd: everything has shifted ever so slightly. In many respects it's like I never left, but... something feels off. But, as I said, it's good to be back, at least for the time being.

I know it's the equinox...

But I feel like Frosty the Snowman:

"Frosty the Snowman had to hurry on his way,
But he waved goodbye, saying don't you cry,
I'll be back again someday."

But I didn't get a blowout while driving down the interstate (this time), so there was no "thumpity thump thump," luckily.

Rained Out

I won't be painting today, at least not outside at Towers Mall. (Both of these are old articles, and the traffic problems have been addressed.)
Given that I dropped my phone into a bucket of paint yesterday, that might be a good thing. I doubt the manufacturer would approve of me digging paint out of the keypad with my 5-in-1.

My latest painting

For some reason, people always guess wrong when I tell them I've been painting. When I've been busy with my pen and inks, they assume I'm painting a house; when I'm house painting, they assume I'm working with my pen and inks (or acrylics, or oils...).

Just so there's no confusion, I offer an example of my recent work. I'll admit the influence of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, but don't tell James.

Sundae Funnies

This probably won't be a regular feature of this blog.

Pass with Care

I don't actually draw while I'm driving, but I get ideas for drawings while I drive. This came to me in West Virginia, while I was following behind a pokey car for miles and miles and miles...

You may also notice that I've updated the layout. This new layout has two things that I really like. First, it shows who posted which cartoon, which hasn't been clear before. Second, it shows the time of the last update for the blogs I read. (I've also updated the header, but that may change with my mood.)