Incommensurable systems exist when there is no common measure. Human beings with different genetic makeup, different databases and different histories are to a significant degree incommensurable systems. Yet we communicate. We participate in markets. How is this done?
There are two parts to this phenomenon - coincidence and value calculi. When two incommensurable systems coincide they 'agree' on some aspect of existence. Such coincidence is the precondition for the generation of brokered values, the marketplace, and the creation of an accepted value calculus which represents the values so generated on a relative scale.
Language is a value calculus. So is money. They exist not as common measures but as the representation of values brokered in marketplaces, whether the university or Wall street.
These values are generated in transactions between incommensurable systems which have achieved significant ad hoc coincidence. These transactions describe a market which the value calculus orders.
These concepts are simple yet powerful in their comprehensive scope, in their coherent structure and their universal utility.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Instrumentalism and Postmodernism
J.M. here. The single question dividing postmodernism and postmodernist philosophy from the rest of creation is that of instrumentalism.
Instrumentalists believe, in a vast oversimplification, that we do not know reality. We only know our perceptions of it. Taken to the Nth degree, this fairly undeniable fact, tempered with inherited cognitive predispositions, gives rise to the radical position that human thought and reality are incommensurable in the terms of Thomas S. Kuhn. Given his explanation of and exceptions to incommensurability such a position is tenable with only one constraint, probability.
Is a construct a model or a flight of fancy? Is it possible to say something about reality when that reality is disjunct from human thought? The history of observable fact is a picaresque journal of events exhibiting probability constraints. The narrative of thought conserving these observations is punctuated by moments of extreme re-invention of systems of thought. It is not a grand narrative, as documented by Kuhn himself, but, in his words, an evolution and speciation. Any attempt at convergence across disciplines results in that one constraint, probability.
Any attempt at thought in terms of explanation and/or prediction, which is why we think large thoughts, must, in order to conserve the events of our individual lives, reference probability.
Can the occult constructions common to postmodernism and the bizarre constructions of paranoid minds have validity in philosophical argument? Only if they exist as an exception to an expectation of probability within the laws of probability.
'Tunneling', the well known phenomenon predicted by the probabilities of quantum mechanics has been described as 'spooky' by sober physicists. That is case enough to argue that reality really is disjunct from human thought and we cannot 'know' reality and that truth is a probability variable and the occult, as explanation, is simply a reflection of these facts.
Any system of thought that has a significant degree of coincidence with observable facts is explanatory and predictive of that incommensurable reality. If it references probability even as exception then it has validity in postmodern philosophy. We are not talking about Truth as the end result of a Grand Narrative. We are talking, to continue Kuhn's metaphor, of adaptive versus maladaptive behavior. It is not for us to 'say' what is true. It is for us to 'do' what is true.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books
Instrumentalists believe, in a vast oversimplification, that we do not know reality. We only know our perceptions of it. Taken to the Nth degree, this fairly undeniable fact, tempered with inherited cognitive predispositions, gives rise to the radical position that human thought and reality are incommensurable in the terms of Thomas S. Kuhn. Given his explanation of and exceptions to incommensurability such a position is tenable with only one constraint, probability.
Is a construct a model or a flight of fancy? Is it possible to say something about reality when that reality is disjunct from human thought? The history of observable fact is a picaresque journal of events exhibiting probability constraints. The narrative of thought conserving these observations is punctuated by moments of extreme re-invention of systems of thought. It is not a grand narrative, as documented by Kuhn himself, but, in his words, an evolution and speciation. Any attempt at convergence across disciplines results in that one constraint, probability.
Any attempt at thought in terms of explanation and/or prediction, which is why we think large thoughts, must, in order to conserve the events of our individual lives, reference probability.
Can the occult constructions common to postmodernism and the bizarre constructions of paranoid minds have validity in philosophical argument? Only if they exist as an exception to an expectation of probability within the laws of probability.
'Tunneling', the well known phenomenon predicted by the probabilities of quantum mechanics has been described as 'spooky' by sober physicists. That is case enough to argue that reality really is disjunct from human thought and we cannot 'know' reality and that truth is a probability variable and the occult, as explanation, is simply a reflection of these facts.
Any system of thought that has a significant degree of coincidence with observable facts is explanatory and predictive of that incommensurable reality. If it references probability even as exception then it has validity in postmodern philosophy. We are not talking about Truth as the end result of a Grand Narrative. We are talking, to continue Kuhn's metaphor, of adaptive versus maladaptive behavior. It is not for us to 'say' what is true. It is for us to 'do' what is true.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books
Sunday, October 25, 2009
A Moment's Reflection
For those of us who have a generalist background, who lack a dogmatic loyalty to any political doctrine and who are paying attention to the large picture, there is present in these troubled times a sense that this is a critical moment in Western Civilization.
It is not a radical intrepretation of the history of Western Civilization that when the complexity of the social norm is raised, as the Greeks with mathematics and philosophy, it essentially raises the bar to meaningful participation in one's own society. When people find that the bar is over their heads, their knee jerk reaction is to do the limbo, to be a player in a game that is negatively referential to the social norm. They do this because they find themselves aggressed against by what is represented as civilization. Being the target of social aggression, they exhibit a counter aggression in a sort of psychological self-defense. This is the problem that all political address with the exercise of powers we have come to call counter-insurgency.
This is all comprehensible. What is not particularly comprehensible is the reaction of what we call liberals in Western Civilization, people who honestly care about the dispossessed. Their knee jerk reaction is to raise the bar further as though people doing the limbo to a higher bar would improve their social performance. The net result is that more people are dispossessed, aggression in social behavior is increased and at some level of significance, society endures but civilization is lost.
We have now empowering technology. We have the essential element in the construction of a society of minimal aggression, Game Theory. It will take twenty years for incremental advances in our knowledge of this paradigm to reach a critical mass sufficient to a General Game Theory. Which means we face twenty years of social aggression and counter-insurgency.
We are at a critical moment in Western Civilization, let us behave temperately, rationally and with compassion. It's for all the marbles.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books
It is not a radical intrepretation of the history of Western Civilization that when the complexity of the social norm is raised, as the Greeks with mathematics and philosophy, it essentially raises the bar to meaningful participation in one's own society. When people find that the bar is over their heads, their knee jerk reaction is to do the limbo, to be a player in a game that is negatively referential to the social norm. They do this because they find themselves aggressed against by what is represented as civilization. Being the target of social aggression, they exhibit a counter aggression in a sort of psychological self-defense. This is the problem that all political address with the exercise of powers we have come to call counter-insurgency.
This is all comprehensible. What is not particularly comprehensible is the reaction of what we call liberals in Western Civilization, people who honestly care about the dispossessed. Their knee jerk reaction is to raise the bar further as though people doing the limbo to a higher bar would improve their social performance. The net result is that more people are dispossessed, aggression in social behavior is increased and at some level of significance, society endures but civilization is lost.
We have now empowering technology. We have the essential element in the construction of a society of minimal aggression, Game Theory. It will take twenty years for incremental advances in our knowledge of this paradigm to reach a critical mass sufficient to a General Game Theory. Which means we face twenty years of social aggression and counter-insurgency.
We are at a critical moment in Western Civilization, let us behave temperately, rationally and with compassion. It's for all the marbles.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Time goes away and the world with it.
'There is more day to dawn.'
Henry David Thoreau
I can think of very few moments in that memoir and museum we call Western Civilization that is so defining and differentiating as the moment we are now expecting in five years. In that moment, an experimental fusion power reactor will flash into life and a new world will be born.
Costly and difficult in its initial implementation, it will someday power the world and the hybrids the world will drive. I cannot imagine a more momentous occasion in the whole of that lore and lexicon that generates our institutions and values than when that reactor generates its first few kilowatts.
We are twenty years away from a coherent and comprehensive postmodernist model and twenty years away from a first generation of producing fusion power reactors. That is the kind of coincidence that is driven by inspiration and drives large events, such as a new world being born. We are so close to doing that that even a reclusive, provincial Southwestern writer can see it.
It is a huge moment.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.Amazon.com/books
Henry David Thoreau
I can think of very few moments in that memoir and museum we call Western Civilization that is so defining and differentiating as the moment we are now expecting in five years. In that moment, an experimental fusion power reactor will flash into life and a new world will be born.
Costly and difficult in its initial implementation, it will someday power the world and the hybrids the world will drive. I cannot imagine a more momentous occasion in the whole of that lore and lexicon that generates our institutions and values than when that reactor generates its first few kilowatts.
We are twenty years away from a coherent and comprehensive postmodernist model and twenty years away from a first generation of producing fusion power reactors. That is the kind of coincidence that is driven by inspiration and drives large events, such as a new world being born. We are so close to doing that that even a reclusive, provincial Southwestern writer can see it.
It is a huge moment.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.Amazon.com/books
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Taking 'Chances'.
Basil here. I'm enjoying the reactions to a very light and entertaining video trailer for my detective novella, 'Chances', currently available for viewing on my Amazon.com/books display page.
Speaking of 'Chances', I guess it's time again to write a little about the book. It's an entertaining look at the desert Southwest structured around a gritty tale of terrorism and smugglers. The message is that there is meaning in the moment. When someone is searching for meaning, a common pursuit in the dehumanizing machine culture of Modernism, they are searching for a defining moment, an instant of being alive in and to the universe.
I enjoyed writing the book and, judging from the critical comments I've had, it shows. It's written to be read quickly. It's an entertainment for an hour or two, not a hobby. If it interests you, check out the campy video.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books
Speaking of 'Chances', I guess it's time again to write a little about the book. It's an entertaining look at the desert Southwest structured around a gritty tale of terrorism and smugglers. The message is that there is meaning in the moment. When someone is searching for meaning, a common pursuit in the dehumanizing machine culture of Modernism, they are searching for a defining moment, an instant of being alive in and to the universe.
I enjoyed writing the book and, judging from the critical comments I've had, it shows. It's written to be read quickly. It's an entertainment for an hour or two, not a hobby. If it interests you, check out the campy video.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
And time goes away and the world with it.
'The sun is but a morning star.'
Henry David Thoreau
At this critical moment in economic history, we see an incredible scenario unfolding. OPEC is now an established power in economic affairs. Their pricing and market strategy will not allow unrestrained growth. If the economy grows, their price will spike causing both inflation and a consequent rise in interest rates will choke off continued growth. We have seen their strategy in action and it has stopped the industrial world in its tracks twice. It is a fact.
Growth and innovation go hand in hand. Easy money feeding innovation causes growth. However with growth off the table, innovation continues as a function of investing opportunity cost. Stability puts a premium on the sort of risk opportunities which characterize entrepreneurs and innovation, however the implementation of that innovation with low growth and the technology that is coming into existence becomes both more difficult and more costly in its social effects.
So we are now looking at high structural unemployment, high rates of innovation and a steady rise in productivity. And these parameters are so unusual and so beyond the reach of the paradigms that exist today that we will have to, and are actually in the process of development of, a new economic paradigm.
It is a critical moment in world history, whether one views that as a grand narrative or a picaresque memoir. It is one for the books.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on Amazon.com/books
Henry David Thoreau
At this critical moment in economic history, we see an incredible scenario unfolding. OPEC is now an established power in economic affairs. Their pricing and market strategy will not allow unrestrained growth. If the economy grows, their price will spike causing both inflation and a consequent rise in interest rates will choke off continued growth. We have seen their strategy in action and it has stopped the industrial world in its tracks twice. It is a fact.
Growth and innovation go hand in hand. Easy money feeding innovation causes growth. However with growth off the table, innovation continues as a function of investing opportunity cost. Stability puts a premium on the sort of risk opportunities which characterize entrepreneurs and innovation, however the implementation of that innovation with low growth and the technology that is coming into existence becomes both more difficult and more costly in its social effects.
So we are now looking at high structural unemployment, high rates of innovation and a steady rise in productivity. And these parameters are so unusual and so beyond the reach of the paradigms that exist today that we will have to, and are actually in the process of development of, a new economic paradigm.
It is a critical moment in world history, whether one views that as a grand narrative or a picaresque memoir. It is one for the books.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on Amazon.com/books
Friday, October 2, 2009
Postmodernism and the 'L' Economy
J.M. here. Don't forget to check out the new video trailer on Amazon.com for 'Chances'.
Watching the CNBC crew puzzle at the new market is extremely entertaining for me. They have become so used to following large trends that a stock market doing what it is supposed to do, interest rates doing what they are supposed to do, and creative destruction proceeding inexorably puzzles them.
We live in a technological age. That may sound trite, but the technology in question, while empowering, is extremely capable, more capable than some people. This is raising the bar and driving the 'L' recovery. As Basil writes in the book in process, 'You can't make a market on the backs of dead people.' The gigantic market driven redistribution of wealth is triggering a significant governmental response of a countering redistribution of wealth. People are the essential element in markets. Robots don't buy cars.
So here we are in the midst of the definably final chapter of the Grand Narrative that is Industrialism, large events driving large responses. And the economy is in 'L' mode. Unless you share the conceptual basis of postmodernism that will confuse you.
So postmodernists watch as trends vanish into normal market operations secure in the knowledge that we are functioning at a high level in a critical and difficult moment.
Sooner or later, the CNBC crew will solve this puzzle and focus on individual stocks on a value basis while factoring in that complex equations drive economies and markets and the ability of any one person to understand what is going on in the world of finance is very limited.
This scenario is extremely amenable to the rise of a rational postmodernism and as sure as the sun rises that will occur.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on Amazon.com/books
Watching the CNBC crew puzzle at the new market is extremely entertaining for me. They have become so used to following large trends that a stock market doing what it is supposed to do, interest rates doing what they are supposed to do, and creative destruction proceeding inexorably puzzles them.
We live in a technological age. That may sound trite, but the technology in question, while empowering, is extremely capable, more capable than some people. This is raising the bar and driving the 'L' recovery. As Basil writes in the book in process, 'You can't make a market on the backs of dead people.' The gigantic market driven redistribution of wealth is triggering a significant governmental response of a countering redistribution of wealth. People are the essential element in markets. Robots don't buy cars.
So here we are in the midst of the definably final chapter of the Grand Narrative that is Industrialism, large events driving large responses. And the economy is in 'L' mode. Unless you share the conceptual basis of postmodernism that will confuse you.
So postmodernists watch as trends vanish into normal market operations secure in the knowledge that we are functioning at a high level in a critical and difficult moment.
Sooner or later, the CNBC crew will solve this puzzle and focus on individual stocks on a value basis while factoring in that complex equations drive economies and markets and the ability of any one person to understand what is going on in the world of finance is very limited.
This scenario is extremely amenable to the rise of a rational postmodernism and as sure as the sun rises that will occur.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on Amazon.com/books
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Is Love the Answer?
I dunno. What's the question?
Basil here. I am extremely proud of my new video trailer for 'Chances'. You can see it by searching 'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on Amazon.com books. Check it out.
Being creative, I have a continuing interest in the process and context of creativity. Writers write. Should the world end, the last light will go out on a writer's desk while he's writing. There's no cure for the disease. To write well, however, requires the writer to be engage' with the world around him and that's just code for emotional involvement and that's just psychobabble for love.
I'm at the genesis point for a new book, good concept, good characters and a strong sense of the story. My muse and I have parted company. Love abstracted is not engage'. So I tweet and blog waiting for my motivation to begin. I'll write it even if I have to use espresso to make my hand move. Writers write. I just don't know how good it will be. It's like that.
The question to which love is the answer is what motivates excellence. I endure but I will probably not excell because I have no answer to give.
Do well and be well.
Basil here. I am extremely proud of my new video trailer for 'Chances'. You can see it by searching 'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on Amazon.com books. Check it out.
Being creative, I have a continuing interest in the process and context of creativity. Writers write. Should the world end, the last light will go out on a writer's desk while he's writing. There's no cure for the disease. To write well, however, requires the writer to be engage' with the world around him and that's just code for emotional involvement and that's just psychobabble for love.
I'm at the genesis point for a new book, good concept, good characters and a strong sense of the story. My muse and I have parted company. Love abstracted is not engage'. So I tweet and blog waiting for my motivation to begin. I'll write it even if I have to use espresso to make my hand move. Writers write. I just don't know how good it will be. It's like that.
The question to which love is the answer is what motivates excellence. I endure but I will probably not excell because I have no answer to give.
Do well and be well.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Postmodernism, Civilization, and Creativity
J.M. here.
When you see a multiform culture that is in Being not Becoming, you see Postmodernism realized. It is the Modernist view of Civilization as Grand Narrative that colors our perceptions of what social existence implies. The Western Canon is a fairly recent invention, a Modernist attempt at Order out of Chaos and successful in the establishing of a baseline of reference in thought and communication, a baseline that must exist and which Postmodernism seeks to define by convergence across disciplines and by a community of personal myth.
However personal the demon of creativity, one ultimately plays to an audience. It is the nature of the thing that it be experienced. Writers write because they are driven to do so. They write to make to money. Ultimately and essentially, however, they write to be read. We write in shared symbols out of neccessity, not convention. I may reject the legitimacy of a Grand Narrative and embrace the timelessness of Being, but I cannot reject that Becoming is a state of existence in its own right. Post is not 'after', it is 'beyond' and must coexist with narratives of large and powerful extent however limited one considers them to be in a true existence.
Multiform culture includes Modernism and its Grand Narrative. It's an uneasy peace we keep in a complex world, philosophically and geopolitically.
Do well and be well.
'Chances', available on Amazon.com.
When you see a multiform culture that is in Being not Becoming, you see Postmodernism realized. It is the Modernist view of Civilization as Grand Narrative that colors our perceptions of what social existence implies. The Western Canon is a fairly recent invention, a Modernist attempt at Order out of Chaos and successful in the establishing of a baseline of reference in thought and communication, a baseline that must exist and which Postmodernism seeks to define by convergence across disciplines and by a community of personal myth.
However personal the demon of creativity, one ultimately plays to an audience. It is the nature of the thing that it be experienced. Writers write because they are driven to do so. They write to make to money. Ultimately and essentially, however, they write to be read. We write in shared symbols out of neccessity, not convention. I may reject the legitimacy of a Grand Narrative and embrace the timelessness of Being, but I cannot reject that Becoming is a state of existence in its own right. Post is not 'after', it is 'beyond' and must coexist with narratives of large and powerful extent however limited one considers them to be in a true existence.
Multiform culture includes Modernism and its Grand Narrative. It's an uneasy peace we keep in a complex world, philosophically and geopolitically.
Do well and be well.
'Chances', available on Amazon.com.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The New American Myth
J.M. here. When one looks at the philosophical mix that informs the American Mind, one finds an emergent Game Theory above all with various older constructions that are dated to the point of qualification, i.e. neo-Schumpeterian, post postmodernism. The stars are moving in the intellectual universe and where they will be when they are in conjunction is only a guess.
Still, in the midst of this vacuum and confusion, we build and we buy and we live productive material lives. What drives us? What myths ordain this heroic behavior?
For me, the metaphors of sport are significant in motivating and structuring my behaving. Football season is here and, while I don't memorize stats, I do follow the game. When I start a difficult project, I suck it up and fire out. When I face obstacles, I broken field run. I am metaphorically a player in a very large game and now there's Game Theory to back that up. Sport is the American mythology in my personal experience and it is translated in the best of American performances into Benjamin Franklin's succinct, 'Do well by doing good'.
Do well and be well.
'Chances', available on Amazon.com
Still, in the midst of this vacuum and confusion, we build and we buy and we live productive material lives. What drives us? What myths ordain this heroic behavior?
For me, the metaphors of sport are significant in motivating and structuring my behaving. Football season is here and, while I don't memorize stats, I do follow the game. When I start a difficult project, I suck it up and fire out. When I face obstacles, I broken field run. I am metaphorically a player in a very large game and now there's Game Theory to back that up. Sport is the American mythology in my personal experience and it is translated in the best of American performances into Benjamin Franklin's succinct, 'Do well by doing good'.
Do well and be well.
'Chances', available on Amazon.com
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Life and Art
Basil Brylcreem here, watching sales of my new book, Chances, on Amazon.com and starting to write my next one. While waiting for the next sentence to manifest itself to my creative mind, letting the language generate the phrases, I contemplate the nature of Art or in my case, as Dylan Thomas put it, 'craft or sullen art', and the nature of Life. They differ.
I am not a minor god creating new worlds of imagination. I am an instrument of culture and language managing a creative process that is undeniably human, synthesizing language, paradigm, and database to a negotiated conclusion, as illogical as Life but different in its complexity and composition.
Why do I do what I do? That is the question I pose in 'Chances' and it is a very real problem in the analysis of human behavior. What motivates artists? Freud said, wealth, fame and beautiful lovers but that presentation is the way of artists who too often do not know why they create. We writers have an inside joke of graphomania that points to the compulsive nature of the creative process.
Prizes are nice and a lover who makes you smile when you break from the drudgery of compostion is indispensable, but are they truly the motivation for what I do? No. My motivation is my promise to myself and my God to contribute to a civilization I love in however small a fashion. I write because it is what I am in a culture that places some value on that endeavor.
Do well and be well.
Chances, available at Amazon.com.
I am not a minor god creating new worlds of imagination. I am an instrument of culture and language managing a creative process that is undeniably human, synthesizing language, paradigm, and database to a negotiated conclusion, as illogical as Life but different in its complexity and composition.
Why do I do what I do? That is the question I pose in 'Chances' and it is a very real problem in the analysis of human behavior. What motivates artists? Freud said, wealth, fame and beautiful lovers but that presentation is the way of artists who too often do not know why they create. We writers have an inside joke of graphomania that points to the compulsive nature of the creative process.
Prizes are nice and a lover who makes you smile when you break from the drudgery of compostion is indispensable, but are they truly the motivation for what I do? No. My motivation is my promise to myself and my God to contribute to a civilization I love in however small a fashion. I write because it is what I am in a culture that places some value on that endeavor.
Do well and be well.
Chances, available at Amazon.com.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Workin' at it
Labor Day. It evokes the whole of the tumultuous Twentieth Century. From Pope Leo the XIII's pronouncement of the morality of the struggle for reform of labor conditions in 1894 to the rise of the trade professional in an entrepreneurial context in the 1980's and 1990's, it assumes symbolic importance in the life of industrial nations. It is the bookmark of the grand narrative of the relation of man to machine and as technology raises the bar to dizzying heights in the last act of that grand narrative, we are left to wonder at what we have done.
Pause and reflect this Labor Day on who ran the show in the Twentieth Century and wonder about how much of the struggle for worker's rights and living wages was simply a desperate reaction to the tail wagging the dog, to the machine structuring human society.
Today we stand eyeball to eyeball with technology. The list of tasks that machines do better than humans is grown long and worrisome. Whose world is it anyway and what good is a machine in the quest for meaning that is human existence if it drives the process.
What does meaning mean to a robot?
The die is pretty much cast in terms of technological context. The bar is pretty much raised. What we are left to ponder is our treatment of the dispossessed and our individual, empowered, visions of the future.
What kind of lives will we make in this world we have made?
What better day than Labor Day is there for we dogs in the technological car to worry that bone?
Do well and be well.
'Chances', available on Amazon.
Pause and reflect this Labor Day on who ran the show in the Twentieth Century and wonder about how much of the struggle for worker's rights and living wages was simply a desperate reaction to the tail wagging the dog, to the machine structuring human society.
Today we stand eyeball to eyeball with technology. The list of tasks that machines do better than humans is grown long and worrisome. Whose world is it anyway and what good is a machine in the quest for meaning that is human existence if it drives the process.
What does meaning mean to a robot?
The die is pretty much cast in terms of technological context. The bar is pretty much raised. What we are left to ponder is our treatment of the dispossessed and our individual, empowered, visions of the future.
What kind of lives will we make in this world we have made?
What better day than Labor Day is there for we dogs in the technological car to worry that bone?
Do well and be well.
'Chances', available on Amazon.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
'Let us now praise famous men'
I am not a Liberal anymore. I am a postmodernist which is somewhere beyond politics. It is a cultural, philosophical discipline that informs political action but it is only incidentally political. Yet still I remember.
The great Liberal fight that took this society from primitivism to sophistication, from ignorance to philosophy, from oppression to empowerment cannot be forgotten. The whole of postmodernism is contained in an 'infrastructure', if you will, of liberal instituitions and liberal ideals.
Liberalism is no less than the attempt to balance individual liberty with social responsibility. Those of us practicing liberty bordering on license cannot forget that we do so at the sufferance of enlightened government and within the strictures and guarantees of a liberal constitution. We owe.
We owe great debts to people like Senator Kennedy who honored a sense of community not particularly shared by postmodernists. He was a modernist and therefore beyond the characterizations of Left and Right that originated with the French revolution of the 19th century. He was a man of his time and of his country.
We shall miss him.
The great Liberal fight that took this society from primitivism to sophistication, from ignorance to philosophy, from oppression to empowerment cannot be forgotten. The whole of postmodernism is contained in an 'infrastructure', if you will, of liberal instituitions and liberal ideals.
Liberalism is no less than the attempt to balance individual liberty with social responsibility. Those of us practicing liberty bordering on license cannot forget that we do so at the sufferance of enlightened government and within the strictures and guarantees of a liberal constitution. We owe.
We owe great debts to people like Senator Kennedy who honored a sense of community not particularly shared by postmodernists. He was a modernist and therefore beyond the characterizations of Left and Right that originated with the French revolution of the 19th century. He was a man of his time and of his country.
We shall miss him.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The New Industrial State
It does not exist. J.K. Galbraith did not dream of the conditions that exist in today's world when he penned that interesting volume. It is about centralization, economies of scale and regimentation of behavior and it informs modern liberalism to an unfortunate degree.
Today we are global, flexible and empowering of the individual. We are, in dialectical terms, in pursuit of the antithesis to the thesis stated by Galbraith. The world we live in today is a dynamic synthesis of those two exclusional conceptual frames of the nature of existence.
J.M. here. Basil has the day off, drinking his espresso, listening to Corelli and generally doing his impression of a carrot or some similiar vegetable. When writers shut down their conscious mind, they really shut it down. Creativity is so much an unconscious process that to write requires retreat. It is a solitary and anxious profession. Writers are, by nature, postmodernists. They do not appreciate regimentation. Basil likes the new synthesis.
It goes well with the world.
Do well and be well.
Today we are global, flexible and empowering of the individual. We are, in dialectical terms, in pursuit of the antithesis to the thesis stated by Galbraith. The world we live in today is a dynamic synthesis of those two exclusional conceptual frames of the nature of existence.
J.M. here. Basil has the day off, drinking his espresso, listening to Corelli and generally doing his impression of a carrot or some similiar vegetable. When writers shut down their conscious mind, they really shut it down. Creativity is so much an unconscious process that to write requires retreat. It is a solitary and anxious profession. Writers are, by nature, postmodernists. They do not appreciate regimentation. Basil likes the new synthesis.
It goes well with the world.
Do well and be well.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The Postmodern World
Basil here. I'm going to let J.M. have a turn at blogging so get ready to think
What characterizes the postmodern world? Relative truth? I would argue with the radical view of a personal myth that social existence requires shared language, relevant to and descriptive of phenomena, shared databases, for lack of a better word, and shared experience.
I would argue that truth is a variable related to strategy in game theory and constrained by the rules of the complex multi-player game we call existence. The bold statement that delusion has truth value, that insanity is a legitimate reality, hasn't been openly stated since the 1950's. The EEG, the CT scan, and the MRI have all checked in on the question with the exact same observation. Without proper medication, the cerebral cortex is dysfunctional in the insane mind.
Of course you could hold to the radical view of relative truth if you think that very large lizards are capable of legitimate performance in legitimate human games. It's up to you. It's your quarter. You can call it anyway you want. That's the way of postmodernism, isn't it?
Do well and be well.
What characterizes the postmodern world? Relative truth? I would argue with the radical view of a personal myth that social existence requires shared language, relevant to and descriptive of phenomena, shared databases, for lack of a better word, and shared experience.
I would argue that truth is a variable related to strategy in game theory and constrained by the rules of the complex multi-player game we call existence. The bold statement that delusion has truth value, that insanity is a legitimate reality, hasn't been openly stated since the 1950's. The EEG, the CT scan, and the MRI have all checked in on the question with the exact same observation. Without proper medication, the cerebral cortex is dysfunctional in the insane mind.
Of course you could hold to the radical view of relative truth if you think that very large lizards are capable of legitimate performance in legitimate human games. It's up to you. It's your quarter. You can call it anyway you want. That's the way of postmodernism, isn't it?
Do well and be well.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Novel is Dead Air
Basil L. Brylcreem here. The writer. The novel as art is dead air. You could sell it by the pound. There are no more Hugos, no more Melvilles. The only blip on the scope of art in the marketplace is Pynchon and that's only because he's technically a writer without equal. He's not a great Writer. He won't make the canon and that's a smart money bet.
The problem is that this is the age of the technico, the number and hardware specialist, and they are underrepresented to the point of disenfranchisement from the world of literature. Denial? I think maybe so.
I'm placing my bet on the novella. It's quick. I can challenge the reader with a vocabulary relevant to the argument in a few pages and not dismay them. I enjoy writing them and it shows. Take a break from graphomania and spend an hour with a novella.
Do well and be well.
The problem is that this is the age of the technico, the number and hardware specialist, and they are underrepresented to the point of disenfranchisement from the world of literature. Denial? I think maybe so.
I'm placing my bet on the novella. It's quick. I can challenge the reader with a vocabulary relevant to the argument in a few pages and not dismay them. I enjoy writing them and it shows. Take a break from graphomania and spend an hour with a novella.
Do well and be well.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Intro
Hello, my name is Basil L. Brylcreem. I write. My alter ego, J. M. Frazier, thinks. We feed off each other in a kind of multiple personality symbiosis. Whatever. It works.
I have a new book out. It's available on Amazon. I titled it 'Chances' because the moment is defined by doing something and when you're doing something in this world you're generally taking chances. Get it? It's a popular title so look for the one by Basil himself. It's a very fast, very short mystery that's perfect for a cappuchino and a quiet hour or two in an afternoon. J.M. works his way into a paragraph or two so it'll make you think. I recommend it. But then I would, wouldn't I?
The novella is fiction and the questions with fiction are twofold involving escapism and relevance. It has both. There's the romantic figures of the Private Investigator and his associates and the dark forces of the Villains. It's good entertainment.
It also addresses the modernist quest for meaning by answering, within the context of postmodernism, that there is meaning in the moment. What you are doing when you are fully engage' matters.
If the context interests you, J.M. has a crude but comprehensive paper, 'Towards a Postmodern Synthesis', available on Lulu.com. Of course his thought will be criticized, but it is convergent across disciplines and it lacks a plan for a grand narrative. That makes it Postmodern. Any comments that it is somehow not 'true' postmodernism are modernist, absurd and disengage'.
As this blog continues, J.M. will have a turn or two at topics. It could get interesting.
So enjoy the book. Enjoy the paper.
Do well and be well.
I have a new book out. It's available on Amazon. I titled it 'Chances' because the moment is defined by doing something and when you're doing something in this world you're generally taking chances. Get it? It's a popular title so look for the one by Basil himself. It's a very fast, very short mystery that's perfect for a cappuchino and a quiet hour or two in an afternoon. J.M. works his way into a paragraph or two so it'll make you think. I recommend it. But then I would, wouldn't I?
The novella is fiction and the questions with fiction are twofold involving escapism and relevance. It has both. There's the romantic figures of the Private Investigator and his associates and the dark forces of the Villains. It's good entertainment.
It also addresses the modernist quest for meaning by answering, within the context of postmodernism, that there is meaning in the moment. What you are doing when you are fully engage' matters.
If the context interests you, J.M. has a crude but comprehensive paper, 'Towards a Postmodern Synthesis', available on Lulu.com. Of course his thought will be criticized, but it is convergent across disciplines and it lacks a plan for a grand narrative. That makes it Postmodern. Any comments that it is somehow not 'true' postmodernism are modernist, absurd and disengage'.
As this blog continues, J.M. will have a turn or two at topics. It could get interesting.
So enjoy the book. Enjoy the paper.
Do well and be well.
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