Fri, March 4, 2005
Paul Graham: What You Can't Say
Paul Graham is one of my favorite essayists. What's great about him is that he writes about technical topics with a style that makes them accessible to most people, but he also writes about other general topics. The technical stuff is fascinating (and in most cases falls into a category more like "philosophy of technology"): I always like writers who deal with complex ideas in a relatable way, because there are many things that I'm curious about but don't have time to be an expert in. Writers like Graham, John Gruber, or Carl Sagan can give me something to think about without confusing me.
When I'm looking for something pleasant and thought-provoking to read for a few minutes, I browse Graham's archives. (You should too. If you're a computer programmer, every article will be good reading; if not, the entirely technical ones won't be interesting, but the general articles are great and the "philosophy of technology" ones have a lot to say about non-technical matters as well.) This week, I got into an article from January of 2004, called What You Can't Say.
Since the "culturewar" concept is the sole element of the Bush Administration and the current political climate that I can still get riled up about, this article about the battle over unpopular ideas and the unreliability of a moving target like "community standards" was very appealing. The religious right's current campaign to sanitize our airwaves and our lives was brought to mind when I read passages like the following:
I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them.
Graham does an excellent job of dissecting the concept of intellectual curiosity, providing historical context and looking at the reasons that certain ideas (especially those that challenge other popular ideas) are uncomfortable to express and how silly that is. It strikes a similar chord to that of Douglas Adams in one of my favorite speeches of his, Is There An Artificial God?:
Why should it be that it’s perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that’s holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we’ve just got used to doing so?
I'm not saying Graham comes at this from the religious perspective – he doesn't. But his ideas about challenging an established hegemony are certainly applicable to a wide variety of topics. You could apply the same concept to the Ward Churchill controversy, or the Larry Summers situation that Arksie is so het up about. (Ironically, Graham mentions Summers in reference to another, earlier speech. Clearly Summers's reputation for being outspoken is well deserved.)
I'm completely tired of the Iraq war, and tired of whining about how unjust or expensive or misrepresented it is and/or was. But I found this passage of Graham's column eerily apt:
Most struggles, whatever they're really about, will be cast as struggles between competing ideas. The English Reformation was at bottom a struggle for wealth and power, but it ended up being cast as a struggle to preserve the souls of Englishmen from the corrupting influence of Rome. It's easier to get people to fight for an idea. And whichever side wins, their ideas will also be considered to have triumphed, as if God wanted to signal his agreement by selecting that side as the victor.
Replace a few key words with "Iraq" and "democracy" and this starts to resemble the current situation pretty tellingly. Just saying.
Graham's article explores plenty of other examples of "inappropriate" ideas being nurtured (or squelched), and it's all pretty intriguing to think about. (For example, I think I've had three or four conversations with friends in just the last few weeks about the propriety of saying "fuck" in front of a toddler.) Ultimately, the conclusion Graham reaches is that a healthy respect for examining unpopular ideas starts at home:
The optimal plan, if you can manage it, is to have a few trusted friends you can speak openly to. This is not just a way to develop ideas; it's also a good rule of thumb for choosing friends. The people you can say heretical things to without getting jumped on are also the most interesting to know.
I've always considered myself remarkably fortunate that the friends and family who surround me have fit this description.
© onebee · all rights reserved
Brandon — Sat, 3/5/05 8:59am
A well-written and interesting essay by Graham. I agree with much of what he has to say, with the exception of this one small side point:
But the thing is, for the most part, children are innocent. And I don't mean that in the "gumdrops and lollipops and kittens and rainbows" kind of way; I mean at certain ages, they lack the maturity to truly understand/appreciate complexity and nuance, particularly in the areas of emotion and language.
I agree that swear words are part of the language, but as for "adults use them all the time," I disagree. (And I realize that's probably just a generalization, but for the benefit of my point, I'm going to take it and apply it literally) I think there are definitely adults that use them all the time, just as there are adults that use them sparingly and others that don't use them at all. I'd like to think that I fall into the "sparingly" category. Swear words have a certain power when used properly, and I try (the key word there being "try") to restrict my usage of them for that reason - to preserve their power. Same thing with compliments. With both, I try to say them only when I mean them. People who swear all the time or constantly toss around compliments devalue the power of those words, in my opinion.
Take fuck, for example. Here's a word that has expanded its usage to the point that it's now used not only as an interjection, but as a noun, an adjective, a transitive and intransitive verb and a part of any number of turns of phrase (like "fuck up," which also, in its various tense forms, gets used as a noun, verb and adjective). That's a very powerful and complex word.
It takes a certain level of mental maturity to be able to handle a word that powerful and complex. And why teach a child a word if they aren't going to be able to fully understand and master its usage? You likely wouldn't teach a young child to use, oh... (starts flipping randomly through dictionary) "legitimate" or "correlate"; sure, they could parrot the pronunciation, but they wouldn't really understand what they were saying until they were older.
So if there are already non-dirty words in the language that we set aside for teaching at an appropriate time, why can't the dirty ones fall under the same umbrella? I'm not saying this happens consciously, but I do think, that on some small level, this does happen. A parent might think they're trying not to swear in front of their kid because of the whole "innocent" thing, but perhaps, subconciously, it's partly because they know that little kids aren't ready to get behind the wheel of that particular car (if I may make an analogy that references another activity that we restrict for mental and emotional maturity).
Of course, my damn kid got me up at 7am on a fucking Saturday morning, so maybe my thinking's gone all to shit. (See? Powerful!)
Bee Boy — Sun, 3/6/05 6:34pm
Yeah, it's a nice analogy, but I don't get glared at when I say "correlate" in front of my little cousin, and I don't have to put a quarter in a swear jar for saying "legitimate" (unless I say "fucking legitimate").
I have to agree with the kid on this week's West Wing – kids should be allowed to vote, and lobby Congress, and say swear words if they want. Sure, some wouldn't be mature enough to handle the responsibility, but some adults aren't either. You never know: if you give them a chance, perhaps some will rise to the occasion.
As the 11-year-old kid told Toby Ziegler, "Don't just give us the brush-off. We have a fucking legitimate point, here."
Brandon — Tue, 3/8/05 11:31am
Finally saw the episode. That kid was 11?? No way that kid was 11!
Bee Boy — Tue, 3/8/05 7:27pm
Okay, fine. 11 1/2? 15, maybe? The point is, he's young enough to catch Jacko's eye.