Hello.
Welcome to my blog. I am here to write on a variety of topics. The title of the site 'Fractal Journal' reflects the way I see the world and wish to explore it. I believe that everything is interconnected and the best way to understand it is through studying perspective.
I suppose some may find it pompous but I view what I do as,
'Perspective Journalism.'
There will be recurring themes throughout. For instance there may be long spells in which I will write about a single topic from many angles. One such topic will be water, the natural resource about which I am currently writing a book.
If you find that you enjoy what I do, please subscribe.
I just received an issue of Vanity Fair as a free gift for my subscription to The New Yorker. I discuss some of the articles therein and do a series of riffs on various topics including those found in my most recent essay: Pop Psych Perils
Edit: Trink bis auf dem grund translates ‘to the bottom’ not without a reason. I’m pretty sure that’s correct. But I already messed up once so maybe better you don’t trust my attempts at worldliness.
Topics Discussed
Trink Bruder Trink
merLOT
American Zen Revisited
Mail – Little Fears + Vanity Fair Why
Vanity Fair? | Because Hitchens
George Lucas
Howard the Duck!
Pop Psych Perils
Pop Evo Psych
‘Neo-Freudian’
My Psych Professor
Suits are Zen
Caution is Due Diligence in Science and Life
Maintenance and Progress
Fiddle Tune
More Vanity Fair
It Repenteh Tim Burners Lee
Fake News Discussion
Critical Thinking and Responsibility are the Answer Not Censorship
One of my favorite articles on this topic is David J. Ley’s ‘No, Dopamine is not addictive.’Which is published in Psychology Today. There are however deeper and more complex perils at play in the age of information.
The reason that I find the aforementioned article particularly salient is because it touches on something that I call ‘facility delusion.’ Which is a rather awkward way of codifying an even more unwieldy idea. Namely, that technical jargon and the perception that one has grasped some concrete knowledge leads one to dangerous overconfidence. In the case of dopamine, it reduces your range of solutions to your problems and causes you to misinterpret and diminish the struggles of others.
As the meme goes, ‘We live in a society!’ And that means lots of complex interactions from even more complicated beings. The temptation to simplify is understandable even necessary but oversimplification is just as obfuscating as ‘Inception’ style convolutedness.
Now on to a bigger, uglier, stinkier fish. Think Coelacanth, it’s fitting since this fish is actually Evo Psych.
I happen to be somewhat infatuated with this sexy new idea. But just like the blonde in the littleblack dress it’s probably better to take things slow, with skepticism, and prophylactics.
Caution is rare, especially in romantic situations. Which is why so many courters of this cute little theory are a touch overeager.
Primarily I am talking about lay people of whom I am a number. I have seen some professional academics turned raconteurs get a bit carried away. But, the likes of Peterson and Gad Saad suffer more from overzealous audience members than from serious errors. Which is why I’ll be discussing popular conceptions of Evo Psych and the giddy cynics that it both attracts and manufactures.
Narrowing your range of options can be healthy. In fact, focusing on specific aspects of specific phenomenon in a specific way is pretty much how science works. However, relying too much on a particular lens can make you nearsighted.
As funny as it sounds, myopia, is exactly what I’ve been seeing. The popular imagination wants to feel smart, gritty, and down to earth. So, everything is seen in pseudo-Darwinian terms. Breaking things down to limbic forces forged in the crucible of a dog eat dog world gives us a cynicism boner. Dr. House is in! Now we’re armed with all we need to spit forth world-weary, sarcasm-tinged, wisdom to the bewildered herd. We can break their rose-colored glasses and reveal the truth in all its chaotic primordial fury!
Cheeky!
That would be great if what we had was the truth. But sadly we don’t even have a very clear grasp of evolutionary psychology when we smugly opine about things like Sexual Market Value or ‘genetics.’
Evolutionary psychology is psychology that functions from the perspective of evolution. Assuming that evolution is true it uses the theory to explain neurology, general biology, and behavior.
Which is all well and good. The problem is not evo psych. It is Pop Evo Psych. The problem is that evo psych gives us insights into biological and behavioral mechanisms, it explains how those mechanisms arose, and why (Adaptation). It tells you that this is a car and that it functions so and so because it makes sense to function so and so, you are well adapted to be on roads etc. But it doesn’t tell what roads you are on.
The giddy cynics that I’m describing don’t realize this. Instead, everything is a comically oversimplified, edge lord-esque, set of ideas. You’re not depressed because your spouse cheated on you, your dog died, and your friends are listless idiots, you’re depressed because your mother was depressed. Your love interest isn’t a complicated barely scientifically understood entity that rejected you for mercurial reasons. No, your market value wasn’t high enough. Better hire a PR firm, preferably one sporting fuzzy hats and designer sunglasses.
Peacockus Maximus
The sexual market value idea has merit. Some of it can be supported via biology and evolutionary psychology. However, immediately jumping to it as the cause for your relationship woes is silly. Just because we have primordial urges, that it may be the engine that drives the car that we are, this does not mean it is the road we’re traveling on.
There’s a huge emergent world of complex phenomenon like philosophy, ethics, art, and culture that comprise the highway system of human existence.
So when you feel lost in your relationship, in your understanding of the world, if you’re depressed or anxious this can be a multitude of things. Most of which don’t have much to do with the fact that you’re low on some arbitrary totem pole or attracted to pithy inattentive men.
The world is not a sterile laboratory. The world is dirty and baroque.
Monochromatically chanting the muh genes, muh secks mantra will leave you bored and lost. No matter how slick you feel reducing everything to chimpanzee absurdity.
Silence suggests stealth. And stealth suggests malevolence. A man who enters your house belting a show tune is less likely to be a thief or killer than one who silently finds an open window.
I had heard that Percy Fawcett was fond of singing and that he often sang with the natives. There are many anecdotes from this hundred-year-old tale and I’m not sure which are true. I do know however that it is advisable to make your presence known. So perhaps the Colonel’s singing was less indicative of a cheery disposition and more of a practical necessity.
Us Americans had the luxury of only the briefest questioning before we were returned to the hotel. Cook, Lobo, and Frog were probably going to spend the entire night deliberating with the police chief and Indian Rights organizations.
Honestly, this whole thing was beginning to feel more and more insane by the minute. Even despite the fact that madness had become the norm for us. We were as out of sorts here as if we were on the moon. Probably more so since the moon is uninhabited.
Lobo had looked happy. Maybe he had purposefully forgotten to inform Cook of the unknown tribe. Maybe he was trying to delay or sabotage an expedition that he found daft.
We were going to be well equipped. We were going to have native guides, fighting men, medics, and enough supplies to sate a small army for a full years quarter. GPS phones, air-conditioned tents, antivenoms, MRE’s, despite all this…it felt crazy…it felt wrong.
And tonight had deepened the feeling.
I lay in the hotel, appreciating the cool sensation of the fabric, the crystal glow of the football match, and even the shitty eighties wallpaper. I was nearly thirty, and military or not, conditioned or not, a very recent boozehound.
Was Thorton trying to get us killed now that he had extracted all usefulness from us at the Lodge? But then what was all that I had seen the lights, Jesses story, and that damned airport beneath the waves. Above top secret meant we knew things but in bits and slivers and how did I know that the bits and slivers weren’t being fed to me for the amusement of an old sadist or the founding of some cult.
My eyes and forehead hurt from the strain of trying to figure a way out of it. Out of trekking through a place where I had no business. Out of looking for a myth that had killed countless others.
But then I recalled my father. I recalled his final years. Listless as I was now, sitting before a screen, with his only outings being protestant worship or a buffet. He’d been active but a work injury had dampened his athletic resolve and his cinematic escapism led to diabetes which precipitated a premature death. I remember the hospital bed, I remember the bored look of bored pain….
Lucky that I was close to a Gazebo when the downpour started. Gave me an opportunity for some nice atmospherics and I recorded a couple of musical bits for you. Which I used as a transition to talk about Goethe, Bach, enlightenment values, and make a brief critique of modern nostrums regarding prose.
I received a notification about a comment on my phone and may have accidentally deleted it. Touchscreens. Apologies if this was indeed an error on my part and not somebody choosing to remove a comment.
Came across an annoying Prager U clip oversimplifying the role of men in society.
Am I a triggered snowflake for reacting or am I manly manhood defined for standing up and voicing my opinion? You decide. No, screw that, I decide because
The recording is a voice memo I left to myself Thursday night after listening to Matt Elliots drinking songs and trying to fall asleep. I also added a slideshow of hastily sketched concept art set to a little musical theme I worked out on acoustic guitar.
Story Introduction
Artie grew up in a grimy city. His toys always broke. The children of the better off would often mock him. He vowed that one day he would break all their toys.
He was good with his hands and a passionate tinkerer. A hobby that came from equal parts necessity and genius. With this gift, he would make toys, toys which soon sprang to life with the minutest whirring of gears.
When the machine wars came and society became even more bifurcated Artie would finally get to break all their toys.
Of his chief companions and tools is Cecilia a mechanical spider with highly dextrous arms abuzz with a Luddite itch.
This came out a bit dry.. but I was able to hit across most of the points I wanted to make.
The piece in question appears in the August 20, 2018 issue of The New Yorker. It is written by an English expatriate/repatriate who left the United States due to her distaste for the current political climate.
I discuss the merits of this decision and the piece from several angles.
The Fractal Journal 