Number 10 was absurd. Ann Althouse? There's a difference between being big and being influential. She might have been noticeable enough for Isthmus to run a cover story about her, but...
Ha. This is written by Jack Craver, who wrote that cover story in the Isthmus. He insulted me in the article, portraying me as an egotist, and he's doing it again here as he says I "don't represent anything but [my]self." His problem is that, as a lefty, he doesn't get individualism. It's not egoistic to write, representingmyself. Who am I to represent if not myself? I am myself! The writing isn't egotistical. It's honest and expressive. People read what I write because I'm a specific person, and you can tell. It's influential to the extent that other people, as individuals, identify with what I've written or have their own thoughts inspired by it or feel like coming in here to talk with other people because a post set up an interesting conversation. If that's influential, maybe it's because there are a lot of individuals like me who enjoy free speaking and don't want to be led.
"So I'm drunk at the dinner table at Mother and Dad's house in Maine. And my brothers and sister are there, Laura's there. And I'm sitting next to a beautiful woman, friend of Mother and Dad's," says Bush. "And I said to her out loud, 'What is sex like after 50?' "
After that, one could hear a pin drop. It was "total silence," says Bush. "And not only silence, but like serious daggers" from my mom and my wife.
He says that, with a case of "after-dinner remorses," he later called the woman to apologize. But she got the last laugh. Bush says that on his 50th birthday, when he was Texas governor, the woman sent him a letter reading: "Dear Governor, Well, what's the answer?"
Why can't adults talk about sex? This is only a story about the depredations of alcohol... but why? Why must conversation be so boring that an interesting question draws "serious daggers"?
We're happy to find a place that might be okay, open for lunch in New Richmond, Wisconsin. Bellarietta. I misread it as Bellateria and joke that it's deleterious.
(Enlarge to read the text of the open book... and the messages we've penciled on the table.)
After extensive consultation with our excellent server Tanya, I trusted them with a Philly steak sandwich and Meade, oddly enough, went for a black bean burger. It looked like this and tasted as good as you'd hope upon seeing it, and it's hard for bread to meet my high standard:
Computer on the table? Damned right: There was WiFi! Yay! The wifie got her WiFi, and her hubby is happy with that. So marriage can work. It was possible to find a husband who suited my eccentric needs.
And it was possible to find a great place to eat in this little town in the middle of Wisconsin.
The list discussed at the link is all about protecting the delicate sensibilities of novelists. To write, you need a good "ear." (Sorry, that's a metaphor. And a penchant for metaphors is something you might pick up from reading "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy.) The problem with reading is that it puts some author's way of saying things in the place in your mind that would otherwise be occupied by the way real human beings speak.
I think you can immunize yourself from the disease of overly influential writers by getting out there in the world listening to people and doing some talking yourself. Have conversations. Listen to other people and watch how they interact with you when you speak. Develop your voice in real life. Even if you don't end up with a good ear and an original writing style, you will have lived and you'll have your friends. Maybe even some stories to tell.
So put down that book...
... and go parading before it's too late.
And stop looking so scornful, it's twisting your face.
"They’re law students and legal academics. I presume that everyone there is manifestly unqualified to evaluate the scientific evidence one way or the other. It’s rebuttable. If they show me their scientific creds, I’ll listen. Until then, STFU."
Now if these comments just complained about people who write definitive-sounding op-eds or blog posts about subjects they know nothing about, I wouldn’t be responding to it here. But of course the author of the e-mail wasn’t writing an op-ed aimed at persuading the public. She was continuing a conversation with a friend. The recommendation is that non-scientists who don’t know much about the subject shouldn’t even discuss it....
[W]hat a narrow, stultifying notion of education that is. Read quietly, on your own, with no discussion with others who are interested in the subject, until you become knowledgeable enough. Only then should you feel authorized to discuss it. Only then will we be “sympathetic” should you be publicly pilloried for your e-mail to a friend that raises the question — because only then could we say that “actual science is being foreclosed” by the condemnation of you.
The law school classroom experience requires students to discuss complicated and sensitive subjects in front of other students. How on earth are we going to be able to do that if the students think there's a terrible risk in saying the wrong thing — or the right thing the wrong way?
The way most people actually educate themselves effectively, it seems to me, is very different. They get interested in a subject. They talk to friends about it. They read some more. They talk some more about their readings, perhaps especially with people who are also learning about the matter. Their friends might help correct their errors. Enlightenment might emerge in a conversation when it didn’t emerge in mere reading.
Yes. Exactly. Human culture emerges as people interact with each other. Life would be very different if it was all about reading and studying. In fact, this is why we value diversity in the classroom, so that different kinds of individuals will converse and react. We will get to a better understanding of things that way.
Now, part of that really is seeing and feeling what makes other people angry. This conversation that is so valuable can't be bland and emotionless. Emotion is a part of reasoning and learning. But what does the group do to itself? What should the law school classroom (or any classroom) be like? There is an ideal level of interaction that includes ease and care in the expression of ideas and the response to what other people are saying. I want students to debate and even argue, to get excited and even angry, but not to the point where the exchange breaks down.
Back to Volokh:
That’s supposed to be one of the joys of intellectual life. It’s supposed to be one of the advantages of life in a university, where you can find classmates who — like you — have intellectual interests beyond your narrow field of study.
My law school, the University of Wisconsin, prides itself on interdisciplinary study. We encourage students (and faculty) to import other fields of study into working within law. We like the cross-fertilization and don't see the academic disciplines walled off from each other (with the walls staunchly guarded by the experts). Do you think law should be aridly academic? Do you think cases should be argued and decided by people who are intensely specialized in the study of legal texts? If you think you do, I don't think you'd keep thinking that if we had a way to run the experiment and see the results.
Volokh himself is that computer programmer. Jared Diamond is the biophysicist.
I think the lesson here is that we should want to experience our full humanity and to understand and respect and help each other as full human beings. This is an idea that completely harmonizes with the rejection of racism.
“We found this so interesting, because it could have gone the other way — it could have been, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ — as long as you surf on the shallow level of life you’re happy, and if you go into the existential depths you’ll be unhappy,” [said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona].
... is it because deep meaningful conversations cause happiness or happiness causes deep meaning conversations?
[Mehl said that] substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.
“By engaging in meaningful conversations, we manage to impose meaning on an otherwise pretty chaotic world,” Dr. Mehl said. “And interpersonally, as you find this meaning, you bond with your interactive partner, and we know that interpersonal connection and integration is a core fundamental foundation of happiness.”...
“...Can we make people happier by asking them, for the next five days, to have one extra substantive conversation every day?”
I don't know if conversations in blog comments sections count, but go deep and report back in 5 days.
Man, "conversation" has become one of those Orwellian words. There it is in Obama's NYT interview, where he's saying something that invites the relabeling that Sarah Palin so effectively slapped on it — "death panels."
It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.
Conversations! Damn! As if the government does not have power! Oh, but it's "not determinative," you say. It's just "some guidance." He said that, see? Ugh! Spare me! We're right to be afraid now, while the man is burbling about conversation. You know damned well he's about to say and now the time for conversation is over, and we must pass legislation. Before, he was all quick, shut up, it's an emergency, pass the legislation. People freaked, so then he deemed the period of freakage part of the conversation, and there, it has occurred, and now: shut up, pass the legislation. Oh, yeah, here it is, in today's NYT, an op-ed by Barack Obama:
Our nation is now engaged in a great debate about the future of health care in America. And over the past few weeks, much of the media attention has been focused on the loudest voices. What we haven’t heard are the voices of the millions upon millions of Americans who quietly struggle every day with a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them....
It's "debate" now, not "conversation," because the wrong people are doing the talking. The real conversation is what those people who aren't talking would say.
The long and vigorous debate about health care that’s been taking place over the past few months is a good thing. It’s what America’s all about.
But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.
Okay! Let's pick it all apart and examine everything. Have you read the great WSJ op-ed by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey? He had some serious ideas on some real issues, but wait, how dare he speak! How dare he get in the way of the Democrats' ramming legislation through Congress. The Democrats know what the millions upon millions of silent Americans really think, so he and those other loud voices need to quiet down, right? That's what I call conversation — when everyone shuts up and lets me give them what they'd say they want if only they weren't so silent.
Obama predictably insists that we do something now:
In the coming weeks, the cynics and the naysayers will continue to exploit fear and concerns for political gain. But for all the scare tactics out there, what’s truly scary — truly risky — is the prospect of doing nothing....
Why isn't doing the wrong thing a lot scarier than doing nothing? Don't we need to be careful and get it right? If I say that, am I a "cynic" or a "naysayer"? And don't cynics and naysayers belong in the conversation too? Obama's answer is, apparently, no, they are not the real Americans. The real Americans are silent, and I represent what they think.
Obama's final fillip:
In the end, this isn’t about politics.
Oh, come on! But this post is already too long, and it's about the rhetorical use of "conversation." "This isn’t about politics" is at least as common and at least as disingenuous, but we'll have to have our conversation about this isn’t about politics some other day.
***
And yet, I must keep this postscript, while we're talking about "conversation":
I'm not just starting a campaign, though, I'm beginning a conversation -- with you, with America. Because we all need to be part of the discussion... And let's definitely talk about how every American can have quality affordable health care.... So let's talk. Let's chat. Let's start a dialogue about your ideas and mine.... So let the conversation begin. I have a feeling it's going to be very interesting....
Ha ha. Yeah, it was interesting. We sure enjoyed chatting with you. Now, what does your husband think? Oh, yes, he was all about conversation too:
Over the coming year I want to lead the American people in a great and unprecedented conversation about race... We have talked at each other and about each other for a long time. It's high time we all began talking with each other....
I'm sure you enjoyed that chat... which is still going on....
"Asking questions always relaxes me. In fact, I sometimes think that my secret profession is that I'm a private investigator, a detective. I always enjoy finding out about people. Even if they're an absolute agony, I always find it very interesting."
Do you use this conversational technique? Do you use it when — like the movie character Wally — you're feeling nervous? Do you like it when you realize that someone else is using it on you?
