Husband is spending the morning watching American news clips discussing Sarah Palin, which all involve the talking heads getting really heated and shouting at each other.  He finds this hilarious; it really stresses me out.  There’s nothing worse than het-up newsanchors trying to shout each other down over something that, let’s face it, should be so painfully obvious that no discussion is required.

Here is a summary: Palin is underqualified and scary right wing.  The haggling over what her role and abilities are reminds me of all the talking that went on in the wake of 9/11.  Long after the rest of the world had accepted that the US used it as an excuse to wage a war for money, the American news media was still going on and on about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism and the intelligence provided by the CIA, as though there was really any debate - which basically just made them look like asses.  They weren’t fooling anyone but themselves.  Same with Palin.

But I recently read an interesting article that is very relevant here, about why people vote Republican, and why folks like Palin have special appeal.  It’s about moral sense and how people intuitively understand and apply morality.  Of the five dimensions of morality identified by the author throughout his research career, Democrats utilize two: harm/care, and fairness/reciprocity.  Republicans use these two, but also the other three: ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. In short, Republicans hit all our moral receptors - Democrats only hit two, and rely on the application of reason to justify staying away from the other three.  Alas, we are a species driven by its hardware, and reason is often not good enough.

Here are some traditionally Democrat/left values that violate our moral sense: tolerance of all races and genders and sexual orientations violates ingroup/loyalty.  Challenging authority, protesting the government, holding sit-ins and other acts of civil disobedience violates authory/respect.  Keeping religion out of government, “traditional” family values being moved aside in favour of gay adoption, divorce and abortion rights violate purity/sanctity.

If I understand this article correctly, we are all instinctual Republicans.  This is an evolutionary legacy.  It requires quite a lot of difficult work to overcome - compounded because, as Pascal Boyer writes, it further goes against our evoluionary programming to even think scientifically.  Two unnatural acts are required before one can arrive at Democratic principles - none for Republican.

Internet, have you forgotten all about me?  It’s true I neglect you.  It’s also true that scant-posting apologies from bloggers are exceedingly tiresome… nonetheless I feel compelled to offer some explanations.

1. I am sick.  I had a flu-ey thing recently that was of short duration and perhaps never went fully away because I am ill today and was yesterday and expect to be so again tomorrow.  Even Husband is sick, and in the four years of our acquaintance I have seen him sick exactly twice.  This is the second time.  We have the same thing.  I feel strangely justified in being sick if he is too - I mean, if the bug could get by his immune system, what hope did I have?

2. I am about to go away for a week to Halifax for a training thing, and I am trying to focus on not getting sicker, because I dread the thought of flying while sick (mainly because of the discomfort - I don’t care much about infecting others.  I’m an asshole.  There, I said it.).

3. The sick thing is making it harder to do everything, including clean my house, which is currently at that state where there is not a single clean room and I want to cry just looking around it.  I can’t relax in a messy house.  It totally freaks me out.  But I’m too tired and weak to clean up.  Honestly, I could cry.  And we’re supposed to host dinner for a friend from Ontario who is coming out on Sunday, which when I think of it causes me to die a little on the inside.  We can’t go out for dinner because one of the guests is under a year old and it seems these infant creatures do not adhere closely to rules of decorum at restaurants.  Which is just further proof that babies are assholes, in case you needed any, which you probably don’t if you’ve ever met one.

4. My practicum has started, and though it’s only three days a week, the amount of mental energy it consumes is simply shocking.  Part of this is probably the rather large amount of anxiety I’ve been having in anticipation of My First Clients.  Thank god that’s over because I didn’t enjoy the stress of having First Clients at all.  Of course now that I’ve ripped that band aid off I get to commence dealing with the stress of Learning To Ply My Trade, which is obviously going to be a much longer process than enduring The First Clients.

5. I am reading a motherfucker of a book, The Quincunx, which I am only finishing because I refuse to let it beat me.  At page 699 the protagonist got his first lucky break, at which point I couldn’t stop myself from shouting: “Thank Christ!” because before then it was one long relentless series of catastrophes and disappointments, truly an epic reading experience, and all the worse because it’s actually a very good book.  The reading process is definitely masochistic in nature, as I force myself to read with dread in my heart because I know it’s going to be a clusterfuck, and then have to force myself to stop because dammit I want to figure out this stupid mystery!  This may be the most evil book I have ever encountered.

6. We’ve started rewatching the TV series Deadwood and I am consequently walking around perpetually stunned due to the sheer number of times the characters say “cocksucker” and “c–t” which obviously is a lot.  We love this show and titter with glee all the way through each episode but I feel I should wash my mouth out with soap afterwards.  It’s hard to blog when you’re engrossed in a gritty western.

And finally, I just want to say I am craving a pizza like nobody’s business.

Did I tell you I got a parking pass at Mountaintop University, where I am doing my practicum?  I did!  Rank hath its privileges - as staff, I get the much coveted sticker and my life is much improved as a result.  If you are local and attended MTU, you know what I’m talking about.  To give other folks an idea, they hold a lottery there every semester which students can enter hoping to win the privelege of buying a parking pass.  There are also a select number of spots open outside the lottery, and students regularly camp out outside the parking office in the days leading up to the sale day so they can be close enough to the front of the line that they’ll be able to buy a pass.  It’s really that bad.

Okay.  You don’t care about where I park.  I’m just pretty excited about this because in my years as a student at MTU, I never got a pass.  I’m a rebel so I used to park anyway, angling to place my little Ford Escort between two larger vehicles in the farthest reaches of the least desirable parking lot to escape detection by security.  I even went so far as to source out a sticker to put on my window that, from a distance, looked sort of like the MTU parking pass.  I don’t know if my Miskatonic University gag sticker was a factor or not (it was the right colour but it did have the octopoid beast Cthulhu as the chief image) but I did manage to park for months with only one ticket.  But there was always the stress - will today be the day I get towed or boot locked and I can’t leave campus because I don’t have the money to get the car out of hock?  No stress for me now - I may only be permitted to park in distant, sneered at G lot but I’m doing so with the consent of The Man and no one’s gonna tow me!

Yeah.  Moving on.

I got a new shipment of books today!  In it is a new novel, The Quincunx by Charles Palliser.  I haven’t started it yet but it is simply covered in shockingly good reviews from every major source you can think of.  I’m hoping this means it’ll be good and not that it’s just a mass market disaster like that stupid Da Vinci Code, which was a steaming pile of poo if you ask me (and you implicitly did, by coming to my website!).  I also got the Martha Stewart book on housekeeping, because let’s face it, I’m a girl.  And more Erich Fromm, because I’m a nerd too!  I also got a bill (and am now cut off from ordering books online until I dig myself out of my book debt) but let’s not talk about that.  Everyone has a vice - Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!

What are you reading these days?

So I’ve been reading Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett.  The title is pretty self explanatory, but while it provides much information as to the book’s content, it fails to alert the reader in advance to how hard this book is!  Turns out there are a lot of very complex and difficult ideas and arguments about evolution, and some very smart people have thrown a lot of buns around over it, so when you’re reading a book that proposes to sort it all out from a philosophy of science perspective, things get sticky fast.  So, while I normally chew through a book in a day or two, this one is taking quite a bit of time.  I’m toting it all around with me to read when I have a spare moment, and this means that once in a while I put it down somewhere and forget that I’ve put it there.  It also means Husband has taken to calling Daniel Dennett my new boyfriend, since we’re always together (for the record, Mr Dennett is married, as am I, and in fact we have never met.)

With the preamble out of the way, we can progress to the story portion of this post.  Last night Husband woke me up in the way you never want your spouse to wake you: by shaking me urgently and whispering in my ear, “Listen!” Adrenaline took care of my sleepy fogginess and I strained to listen to what was surely the sound of home invading axe murderers.  And there is was:  Rustle rustle… rustle rustle!

There are few things more terrifying than becoming convinced in the middle of the night while in a sleepy fog (because let’s face it, adrenaline really isn’t enough to knock you into a state of cognitive clarity at four a.m.) that you are about to be slaughtered by strangers in search of drug money.  I was contemplating my impending grim fate in this state of terror when Husband, who I freely admit is smarter than I am, suddenly sat up, leaned forward, and picked something up off the end of the bed.

A book.  Left in the open position at the foot of the bed, and with pages rustling in the wind created by the fan we run at night to provide sleep-enhancing white noise.

And because when you’ve been scared in the night the most important thing is to assign blame, I said, accusatorily: “Did you leave a book on the bed!?”

In my defense Husband is prone to leaving things on the bed and I have a neurosis about it - nothing can be put on the bed.  I have very strict rules about this.  So statistically speaking, there was every probability that the offending article was his.  But alas, that was not the case.

Husband responded: “Daniel C. Dennett!”  It was, in fact, my book.  I must have put it there shortly before going to bed.

We had a giggle about it, and then indulged in an amusing fantasy of Daniel Dennett (who looks a great deal like Santa Claus) being actually present in the room, crouched at the foot of the bed and rustling the pages of his book at us in the dark.

Anyway, I am really learning a lot from this book.  It is, as I say, not an easy read.  But certainly a worthwhile one!  And when this one is finished I have another waiting in the wings….

In the past, my devoted readers have been valuable sources of recommendations for books which I can give as gifts and which the recipient will love.  Just about every book I ever gave my brother was based on your advice, so you know I take you seriously.  So, Internet, I turn to you once again for help, this time for me.  I need some fiction!  But I don’t know what to buy!  So would you mind offering some advice on what I should check out?

Generally speaking, I like a more serious book.  It has to be complicated enough and well written enough to be interesting, though not hard for hard’s sake, obviously.  That’s just stupid.  I like mysteries/crime genre, sci fi, and historical fiction.  But not that historical fiction that’s all about women having epic romantic journeys - that stuff bores the tits off me. I don’t like fantasty, not even Tolkein (I know! Gasp!).  I love stories (especially true ones) about man gettin’ whupped by nature (I own lots about journeys to Anarctica, for example).  I am irrationally drawn to big books.  I like a psychologically and/or politically complex story.  And for god’s sake do not recommend The Da Vinci Code.

Here are some books I have loved:

- Everything by Neal Stephenson.  And Kim Stanley Robinson.

-The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

-Shogun by James Clavell

-The Road by Cormac McCarthy

-Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel by Susanna Clarke

-The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

-The Children of Men by P.D. James

If that sparks any ideas, I’d love to hear them.  All of the above books I listed came to me because of someone else’s recommendation - doesn’t it always seem like the best books fly under the radar?  It’s like there’s a secret underground method of divining what’s worth reading.

Today I have a few things to do:

-Plan meals for the week and get groceries.

-Take the “Unexpected Christmas” Erroneous Triple Shipping of Chapters books back to the Chapters store downtown.

-Settle down to take a chunk out of my new book.

-Clean up the detritus from last night’s poker game.  Speaking of which, last night I baked some chocolate chip and walnut cookies for the gang and by the end of the evening there were only three left: an unqualified success for vegan baking!  There is little I find as satisfying as the disappearance into gullets of things I have cooked.  I’m generally a little trepidatious about serving vegan foods because I worry I won’t notice if they taste of soymilk or other strange veg foods that other people aren’t used to, but it seems I don’t have to worry about those cookies.  Excellent!

-Be a lazy slug.  Yesterday I endured my final day long class with Chi-Woman and I think I’ve earned it.  Later this week I have the final evening class with her, which is also my final class with her ever and my final non-supervision class ever.  YAY!  This calls for some slugging around, yes?  Yes!

Today I have already accomplished (warning: scatological content):

-THE MOST IMPRESSIVE BOWEL MOVEMENT EVER.  I think that after two years of vegetarianism I have at last achieved poo nirvana: the Perfect Poo.  Long, full, soft, with a gentle curve - it should be bronzed.  I’m so proud.

I occurs to me that talking about baking and pooping in the same post probably violates some etiquette conventions but I have to tell you, according to my blog stats, people come here for those two topics.  So in theory this should be my most popular post ever.

Which means if you don’t like baking and poo together, you are the one with the problem.

Have I mentioned this is my last semester of academic work? Oh, only about a thousand times. It’s not a moment too soon. Get me out of here!

School is a lot of work, if you actually do it right and try hard and stuff. Yeah, I’m a nerd. Okay. But this last term I am doing as close to nothing as I can manage. For one thing, I’m tired. It’s been a year and a half without a break and some of my courses were real ball busters. I guess I’m lazy because I can’t keep up this pace. I needed a summer break or something, some kind of moment to regroup. I didn’t get it.

For another, I am in two classes with that same professor who is all about the chi. In addition to being kind of flaky, she doesn’t know her material, uses powerpoints created by someone else and which she obviously has not viewed before class, assigned textbooks she never read (”Hey, I’m half way through this one, what do you guys think of it?”), and generally is useless. It is basically impossible for me to care about her classes because it is so painfully obvious that there is no material to be learned from them. Even the textbooks I referred to are popular books rather than proper texts or journal articles or even, I know it’s a lot to ask for, books written by psychologists. I have entered this state of apathy mixed with anger: I know there are two topics (her classes) that I’m paying a lot for but am not learning shit about, but it’s so hopeless and I know there’s nothing to be done for it.

I guess I could do the research on my own, but it just doesn’t seem right. Why am I in these classes if I have to do all the work on my own? And how to even begin? The great thing about classes is that (ideally) someone who knows the field picks out the best sources, tells you what the most important things are to know, explains the difficult concepts, answers your questions, and so on. It’s a massive undertaking to try and learn a field with no guidance. You waste a lot of time and energy. I am not up for that right now (see comment above about lazy).

So what am I doing these days? Glad you asked: reading mountains of books that have absolutely nothing to do with psychology. Now that we are totally without satellite I just live on the couch and nerd out to reading (this week I read this and this, am in the middle of this, and am starting this today). If I were more clever with the internets, I would add one of those “what I’m reading” sidebar thingies to this blog so I can show you what’s keeping me busy, but yeah, the internet is not one of my strengths. I do however make a wicked pasta salad! Speaking of which, I’m thinking of buying a new camera and if I do, I may do some posts with good recipes including step by step pics. Could be fun, no?

What I’m not doing: learning a damn thing in school. Oh well.

I’ve been somewhat troubled by the recent rambling post on meat eating and judging. I haven’t really been able to put my finger on why for the longest time, but it’s been nagging at me.  In hindsight, it probably would have been best if I’d just stopped writing after (I paraphrase) “I just don’t judge, and that’s all there is to it.”  I ended up in a big thing trying to prove it, or at least prove why it could be logically possible, and yeah, I’m not sure that was very useful.  Or even very accurate, which I think is where the nagging feeling comes from.

My recent reading has been fixing the problem.  This is a rather long book (400 pages of closely argued philosophy) and I haven’t finished it and I don’t pretend to be able to adequately summarize it here, so of course you should just go read it, but it made some really interesting points that demonstrate why what I said is pretty lame.  Let’s see if I can get it all organized here…

1. I tried to take a realistic position.  I tried to say, without saying it, “It’s okay if people do something horrible (eat meat) because they really haven’t thought about it, live in a culture that condones it, and that makes it not their fault.”  That’s so waffly it’s apologist.  Why am I apologizing for something other people do that I think is wrong?

2. It’s more than just me thinking (or feeling) it’s wrong.  This is the nature of moral positions: they are necessarily exclusionary.  You and I can have different preferences (I prefer red, you prefer blue) and that’s okay - my preference doesn’t infringe upon your preference, and vice versa.  But if I say a thing is wrong, such as killing animals for pleasure/taste buds/culture/whatever, then that necessarily infringes upon your right to engage in the killing.  If a thing is morally wrong, then it is wrong for all people and all the time.  That’s what a moral position is.  You can tell I didn’t know this when I wrote that post because I tried to wafflingly take a position that says, it’s okay for us to do different things because I have no right to infringe upon your freedom to eat meat.

In many ways that is still true.  Legally, for example.  Post modernistically also.  (Though I’m finding I’m becoming more and more of a moderist/realist.)  But I no longer think it is morally true.  I still accept the various reasons why folks eat meat - that’s just reality!  But I no longer think that morally justifies things.  Eating animals is wrong, period.  For everyone, all the time.

3. Do I judge meat eaters now?  Gosh, that’s a pickle.  Honestly I still don’t feel judgmental.  It’s just doesn’t seem to be in me.  Yet when I think about animal rights, which I’m doing a lot these days (mainly because I’m in the process of reading that book and going full vegan), I do experience a range of emotions that would suggest judgmentalism should be present: sadness, anger, indignation.  Maybe it’s in there and currently not accessible to me?  I am often superficially judgmental (”Man, look at those pants! What an idiot!”) but when it comes to more significant issues am quite tolerant by nature.  I’m not sure what to conclude here.

4. I still believe that there is next to nothing to be gained by being an ass.  This is true in almost all venues of life.  With my newfound clarity regarding my moral stance, I still have no intention to start preaching the word of animal rights, or hassling folks who do not act in accordance with its tenets.  As I freely admit, I am no saint and regularly trample on animals through the process of my daily life.

5. It’s not acceptable to excuse immoral behaviour based on lazy thinking.  Just because someone can’t be bothered to consider what they’re doing and what its consequences are is no reason to condone their behaviour.  This is something else I failed to consider when I wrote that post.  My argument for tolerance from culture was exactly the opposite: People can’t be held responsible for what they’re taught to do.  But I no longer think this.

But of course I realize not everyone has the capacity to really do this, because they lack time, resources, intelligence, skills, or whatever.  This is why we have philosophy as a science to do our mental heavy lifting for us.  But this still requires people to be able to find, read, understand, and judge the products of philosophy.

So… what am I saying here?  I guess you’re all just getting a little window to my own process as I think about morality.  I think I’ve been mentally lazy and resistant to accepting the necessary consequents of taking a moral position.

I would like to say that I really appreciate that to date, all comments on these issues have been respectful and thoughtful.  No one has to agree with me, but it is nice that we can disagree like civilized people!  With that in mind, I go to my question to you: What are your moral positions?  What do you think should be a Rule for everyone, all the time?

Hello all. Today was my final day of this practicum and I must say I am feeling mighty fine about it. After the serious ego battering I took for these last five months, it felt great to walk out of the office with some thank you cards from clients and from my supervisor, who also loaded me up with a thoughtful pair of gifts. I feel appreciated and, what’s better, hopeful about my burgeoning abilities to do therapy. Stay tuned for upcoming bursts of this bubble. Because there is nothing like trying to do something very hard to have your ego knocked down to size.  I am probably not qualified to be a garbage man, that’s how I feel after nearly half a year of trying my hand at being a therapist.  But man is nothing if not irrationally hopeful!  Surely this trend will turn around!  Right?  …Right?

Bueller?  Bueller?

Ahem.

I am also hard at work on a response to Incognito, but the post is just growing and growing and it’s not going to be done tonight.  I think tomorrow it should be ready to go.  But yeah, it’s getting long.  Who knew it was going to be so difficult to give an explanation for the claim to not be judgmental of meat eating?  Oy!  But it’s a fun process and hopefully one or two of my audience of four will find it interesting.  Otherwise I am wasting a lot of time that could otherwise be spent in the tub, but doesn’t this just show how dedicated I am to all of you, how I give you all personal attention?  Think of the havoc you could wreak in my life if you just commented more often with brain bending questions!

But now I am off for a little reading, a little tubbing, and general relaxation.  Good night all!

Having just suffered an attack of “somehow they’ll know it’s me!”, I just removed my post about making a report to child services.  It probably could have stayed up here, since my panic has passed and I remember again that I kept anything even sort of confidential out of the post, but now it’s deleted, so there you go.

Anyway, I have something different to entertain you instead: the care and feeding of introverts.

This article describes me absolutely perfectly, except that I like talking about myself, particularly on this blog.   Okay, it’s not perfect.  But it is pretty close, especially the parts about liking socializing but being crappy at small talk, and needing a long period of recharge after contact with other humans.

I experience a lot of needless anxiety trying to think of things to say because I know most folks think you should be saying something, and it’s embarrassing to find yourself without some kind of smooth transitional comment that both acknowledges the current topic and advances things to the next fascinating topic.  Like you extroverts seem to know how to do purely by instinct.  Which I am envious of.  And try to fake, with a success rate that only people who know me can report on - I’m too nervous to make a good assessment during the heat of the moment.

But anyway, there you have it.  I’m off to bed to stew on the day and hopefully have a good night of rest.  I hope you are all doing well tonight.