January Sun

 

Weather Mood

I finished the Graduate Student's Question just in time, as my diabetic condition now seems to be taking another "step down." The Peripheral Neuropathy is moving into the rest of both hands at a rapid pace. While I can still type, I have to be more careful lest I make so many errors that I never finish anything. And, I am getting "tireder," if that word makes any sense. Diabetes is a relentless disease that works its ill will on people slowly. It uses the  good old Chinese Water torture, automated. While I try not to write about it - what's the point? - sometimes I want to scream. This is definitely not how I had planned to spend my so-called Golden Years.

On the other hand, it certainly has been an incentive for me to get going on the stuff I wanted to write, but never did, for years and years. There is, of course, the old conundrum that the stuff one didn't write wasn't written because it wasn't supposed to be written. In other words, maybe I am only deceiving myself about another gigantic waste of time and money. I admit that could be the case. At this point, I am suffering post-book-partum depression, so it is easy to convince me my efforts are worthless, at least for the time being. But, I think I will overcome this latest moodiness without the benefit of lithium, Prozac or Viagra. A bit of sun and spring weather helps a lot.

Words Signifying Nothing?

Macbeth's lament seems worthy of my present mood. Was it all really just a waste of time? A temporary delusion, hoping against hope that the words will take? It feels like it, but it is really too soon to tell. Against that is the recent spate of well read books appearing in bookstores and on C-SPAN BOOK TV carrying messages similar to that in GSQ. Maybe I was barking up the right tree, but too soon or too late? As in all other things, it is not just what is done, but when it is done as well. Time, place and manner count as heavily as the deed.

But it is not only my words that fall on deaf ears. Apparently, even the greatest words suffer the same fate, dissipated by the sun, moon, winds and rains of too many seasons. What a person speaks is not what is heard, and what is written is not what is read. In between is not simply a slip between cup and lip, but, more ominously, the way of our Universe. Entropy degrades intentions and meanings from their inception, so no syllable is ever heard as it was uttered. No word carries its author's meaning. This  natural decrepitude infects everything, even what I just wrote. In the end everything signifies nothing, nothing at all.

The Constitution and the Laws

Prof C apprised me of a Professor's complaint that is nearly impossible to teach Constitutional law in the present political climate. I was at first surprised to hear that, but later not shocked. After all, what has been happening in Washington, D.C. for some time is a war over interpreting laws from top to bottom. More generally, "culture wars" are about completely different attitudes (hence behavior) toward birth, life and death. Conservatives oppose abortion because they believe in souls, and favor the death penalty because they believe in souls. For conservatives, life is about gaining one's eternal reward in the hereafter. For freethinkers like me, living a life worth living is what it is all about, not killing people, enslaving women or overpopulating the planet. In their opposition, the Left and Right point to the very same words of foundation documents to justify their opinions.

How is it possible? Have those words lost their meaning?

I take it as another case of Entropy working its way. I think the Left is more honest in the debate, as it openly advocates a "Living Constitution." This simply means the words are taken to mean what people of the time take them to mean. The Right abhors such a shabby attitude toward the hallowed Founding Fathers, just as it attempts to enforce the Bible (Qur'an or other Good Book) on the populace. The Right, impelled by thousands of more immediate and self-serving reasons as well as taught conviction, defends the wisdom of our forefathers; for, as Plato said, 'what is older is better.'

What the disputants have in common is the high value they place on words, words, words.

Consider, for example, the impressive courtroom ceremonies in which people are asked to swear or affirm their testimony is true, while placing their hand on a bundle of written words. When "swearing in" officials, and at other official acts, books are presented which show the great store we put on words. We risk our lives based on the content of  documents called "contracts," in which certain things are agreed and promised by the signatories. Words are considered more solid than rocks in a prison quarry.

Into Thin Air

But, here I must ask: what reason does anyone have for believing that words are weighty? Why are we appalled when a contract is violated, or a promise not kept?

Words reflect our beliefs. They are connected in some way to what each of us thinks. (That way may be different for each individual.) We judge others to have similar beliefs when they act the same way - in the way we expect - upon stimulation by the same words. In the physical world, the words are just sounds or visible marks. What they mean is entirely in our brains. This relationship is exactly the same as the sound made by the proverbial tree falling in a forest is to our hearing.

We have no reason whatsoever to believe a priori that words mean the same thing to one person as another. What they mean can be learned from a complex pattern of behavior subsumed in 'culture.' This implies words are only secondary indicators of something conceptually more fundamental.

What's behind interpreting and enforcing the Constitution and laws is culture. When one culture imposes its will on another, that is oppression, no matter what the words say.