Tag: eh

 

Eh, ragazzo, I didn’t want to go this way, but we are at war.  Stupid fucking Hobbit.  Stupid fucking man.  

BooMan is pushing the long-ago debunked IAEA report and wishes that the international community squeezes Iran like a balloon to enact regime change.  

And he thinks I’m the moron.  Needless to say, I think such manifest nonsense is crazier than a shithouse rat dining on Dick Cheney’s rotting corpse.  Are you listening, driftglass?  We haven’t even finished our latest war crimes that broke us to pieces.  Suffice it to say, if we attack Iran, I rely upon the noble Persians to shove the Fifth Fleet up our collective ass, for the sake of justice.

Ideological insanity.

I want to touch on the problem of ideological insanity.  It strikes me as a Necker cube problem, wherein people lose their ability to “flip” between ambiguous interpretations of reality.

Allow a brief digression.

Jeff Hawkins, who invented the palm pilot, has an interesting theory of cortical function, as good as any, better even.  Based on the virtual uniformity of structure of the large dinner napkin we call neocortex, as originally noted by Mountcastle, he suggests that the invariable function of the six-layered neocortex is to correlate data, the higher the layer, the higher the level of correlation; such that low-level properties (lines, angles, colors) are correlated in the lowest parts of the hierarchy, whereas high-level concepts (war, peace) are correlated in the highest levels of the large dinner napkin.  To quote Hebb, neurons that fire together wire together, and the cerebral cortex is nothing but a massive hierarchical multivariate analysis.

Yes? So good, so far.

The brain’s three parts (I hold with the “four-parts” people, spare parts excluded) can be sub-divided as far as you want to go, but at Swanson’s considerable eyeblink, it goes “cortex, cerebral nuclei, brainstem,” which suffices for our discussion.  

Within the brainstem are two major parts: the incoming and outgoing processes: sensory inflow (thalamus) and motor outflow (hypothalamus), what you see, what you do; low-level stuff, but stuff that should not be dismissed.

The high-level “CEO” (how I hate that acronym) in the cortex relies on incoming data.  He is only as good as his data.  But what happens over time, learning, development, is that the high-level correlations, i.e., belief-systems, come to dominate sensory input; that is, expectations come to rule, even above incoming facts. The large dinner napkin begins to instruct and bias sensory input.  Quite literally, cortical output dominates sensory input, over time.  To put it simply, religion dominates facts, the ‘cerebral cortex coerces sensory input, in the same way Dick Cheney coerced prisoners at black sites (albeit via the triple-descending outflow of cortex).

Now that is fucked up, but that is the way that it is because it is that way.

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 This isn’t a GBCW essay.  Rather it’s an “uh, can’t-we-be-a-little-less-orange-like?” essay.  Actually, not even an essay.  Just a thought or two, then I’ll see you later.  There are ways to get in touch with me directly, which a few of you know, and the rest can figure out, if you want to.  Just in case you want to correspond directly.

 Anyway, here’s the thing:  when someone works up an essay about, say, the wonders, culture and cuisine of Mexico City, it’s — in my book, by definition — Trollish to use that essay as a vehicle to rail against (the deservedly rail-againstable) corrupt government in one of Mexico’s outlying states.

 When, hypothetically speaking, someone works up an essay about the culture and history of the Sea Islands, it’s — in my book, and by definition — Trollish to use that essay as a vehicle to rail against the (deservedly rail-againstable) horrors of Jim Crow, hypocrisy of South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, or rather presumptuousness of North Carolina Vichy Dem Heath Shuler (who now wants to be minority leader).

 When, hypothetically speaking), someone works up an essay about the natural beauty of the islands off southern Thailand, or the ways in which they themselves are working to restore their battered tourist industry in the wake of the tragedy of the December 26, 2004, it’s — in my book, and by definition — Trollish to use that essay as a vehicle to rail against (the deservedly rail-againstable) loathsome crimes of child prostitution in Bangkok.

 While I’m repelled by those posses over at orange that jump all over any diary that, to them, smacks of anything less than laudatory of The One, I’m likewise disappointed when a diary about something worth celebrating in a state, a region, a country, is peppered with off-topic remarks about this or that awful aspect of the country that are actually tangential to the topic at hand.

 If among a group of friends I were to say, “By the way, Stan, I heard you just got a promotion.  Good for you.” I dare say that some (hopefully majority) part of that convivial group would be taken aback and be rather aghast if someone “from left field” said, “Yeh, Stan, I heard you had a drinking problem, too.  You pretty much suck, don’t you?”  I mean, while it may be true that Stan has a drinking problem, and it may be true that that sucks, and even causes heartache in the lives of his family, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to bring up in that otherwise congratulatory context.  I mean, not unless you’re an asshole.

 Well, please consider that when, as you’re reading the Comment Thread to current or future essay and you see such things. Rate as you see fit.  I hope, though, that “Ponies” would not be in the offing.  And let us emphasize that if, indeed, the tangential, tertiary-at-best comment does describe a real horror, then I’m not making light of the horror, I’m only saying the commentor should up and Write Their Own Goddam Diary and not try and highjack someone else’s.

 Good luck.  Godspeed.  Courage.

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