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There are quite a few recurring themes within Jewish thought and ritual.
Since this is a time of thinking about the future for much of the world, I
thought it might be appropriate to mention one of them. It goes something
like this: The Jews are a weak and despised people. Our lives are exceedingly
precarious. Everyone wants to either kill us or convert us. Life is full of pain
and suffering. Yet, we are optimistic.
I'm optimistic about the coming year.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 09:20 PM Permalink
| Comments (3) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/61306
Comment:
I hope you are right. I do feel the Moshiach is right around the corner; and I feel we each need to do just a push more to bring the Moshiach here. Take care.
Raised in Boston, USA, I think I learned about the American Revolution every
year of elementary school, and one more year in High School. Featured
prominently among its instigators was the hated
Stamp Tax:
Also established was the Stamp Act, the first direct levy on the
Colonies and passed to generate funds for the British. Newspapers, almanacs,
pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dice, and playing cards were taxed by
this act. Stamps, issued by the British, were attached to the taxed items to
indicate that the tax had been paid.
How surprised I was, on coming to Israel, to find the infamous
Stamp Tax alive and well in another corner of the former British Empire: The
Jewish State. Thankfully, Binyamin Netanyahu is getting around to
repealing it, only 243 years late:
The Knesset Finance Committee today approved a gradual
abolition of stamp taxes by 2008. The committee fully approved the Ministry of
Finance’s proposal to eliminate stamp taxes in stages in 2005-2008.
In the initial stage, which will begin this Sunday, the tax will be abolished
for mortgage and other loan agreements, residential leases, and other
documents directly linked to these agreements (e.g. guarantees and liens).
Taxes on these documents will be the first to be eliminated, because they
usually place a tax burden on the average citizen. Canceling this tax will
cost NIS 300 million in the coming year.
That is, NIS 300 million saved by the citizens.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 10:08 PM Permalink
| Comments (2) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/61316
Comment:
Now if we can only get rid of the hated television tax!
Actually, what's really stupid is that they could tax cable TV instead. Payments would just be part of people's monthly bill and would hardly be noticed... not that I'm suggesting it! I don't think TV should be supported by any taxes at all.
Here's a good economic review of the past year. Exerpt:
Netanyahu's fundamental assumption is that Israel can achieve 4-5%
growth by carrying out several measures:
Cutting public spending and taxes, in order to free up resources for
the business sector and boost growth, by increased entrepreneurship and
incentives to work.
Increasing the proportion of the population in the labor force, in
order to accelerate growth, by expelling illegal foreign workers.
Slashing welfare allocations to groups that could join the labor
force.
Gradually implementing the Wisconsin plan, adapted for Israel.
Market liberalization and rapid privatization will boost growth, as has
happened in other countries. Countries undergoing liberalization can boost GDP
by 1-1.5% a year.
I only hope it will continue:
The new government, especially its Mapai members, must recognize that
Netanyahu's policy has achieved most of its goals, and should be pursued, with
adjustments to meet national needs in 2005 and 2006.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 10:25 PM Permalink
| Comments (0) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/61319
Feel free to nominate Rishon Rishon
for any suitable category. Remember, it's just a nomination, you don't have to
vote for me! (Do I have to remind you that this is a new blog? It's my only
chance in this particular category...)
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 10:10 PM Permalink
| Comments (0) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/61473
I think I was avoiding news of the Tsunami. The way I avoid reading about
terrorist attacks. I've read enough of them. How many variations of tragedy to I
need to read? It's all the same, only the details change. The dead, the maimed.
The ones that almost died by a stroke of bad luck that turn good - or the
opposite. But every once in a while I stumble over a story by accident, and
then, of course, I am engulfed in the magnitude of it.
Back in September, I met Lisa of On
The Face. So when I read
this post about her friends in Sri Lanka, I felt as if they were mine too.
They were surfing when when the Tsunami hit! It's all described in
this harrowing comment thread. Before, during, and after. It leaves me
speechless. Excerpt:
Basically we rode out the first huge wave on our boards and stayed above
the water/wave while everyone else was being swept away and everything was
being destroyed. Then the water pulled back out of the bay we were in and we
barely managed to avoid being swept out to sea with the current. We landed on
the beach after the first surge, but couldn't go ashore because another wave
was coming, our surf instructor told us that it was a matter of life and death
that we stay away from the shore so we started heading back towards the water
before it surged back in. We really didn't know what to do. Unfortunately we
had to cross some flood waters as they ran back from the inland to the sea -
it was filled with mud, sand and debris. We were still attached to our surf
boards and I was swept under the mud by my board in the middle of the river. I
have to say that I did almost drown - I had the thought in my head that this
was such a stupid way to die. Luckily, because I was still attached to my
board (even though it had sucked me under in the first place) I was eventually
pulled up to the surface with it before I blacked out. I managed to pull my
board to me and flopped on top of it until I could breathe again, then started
trying to look for Ran. He had jumped in after me and had taken off his surf
leash so I was worried that he'd drowned. I couldn't find him, the second big
wave came in and I was pushed on to the shore because I was too exhausted to
fight the surge. I was able to catch some branches before hitting very much,
then got off of my board and starting screaming for help. Some Sinhalese man
ran up to me and led me to a 3-storey building where there were about 20
people on the roof. The waves came in and out for almost 2 hours and every
time there were people being caught in it - I can't really describe the sounds
and what it was like. I couldn't find Ran - though I thought I saw him about 1
km out in the bay being swept by the current out to sea. Then I couldn't see
him (or what I thought was him) anymore. No one could really help me - the
other people I was with were gone and all the boats had either been smashed on
the shore or pulled out to sea. After some time the surf instructor (Yannick)
came up the road during one of the times the water surged out of the bay and
he was thrilled to see that I was alive. I was pretty hysterical by that time
though and was trying to get back to the beach to find Ran. Yannick went out
on his surf board to look for Ran three times - one time bringing in a body
that all these Sinhalese assholes were telling me was my lost husband. I spent
at least 2 hours pacing the shore with the water coming in and out destroying
things every time, looking for Ran or his surf board (but I knew if I just saw
his surf board that would mean that he wasn't attached to it so he would be
dead) - I think I know a little bit about what hell must be like. I kept
feeling that I was waiting so long and that I couldn't wait any longer, but
then I thought if he was dead I would be waiting forever. I have never been so
afraid or for so long in my life. Finally Yannick and this other woman we were
surfing with pulled me away from the spot I'd last seen Ran and tried to get
me up the road toward higher ground - and after about 5 min. we spotted Ran
walking down the road towards us. It was probably one of those really cheesy
Hallmark moments where a couple runs crying towards each other. I have never
been so happy to see anyone before - I really did think he had died.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 11:16 PM Permalink
| Comments (1) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/61485
Comment:
Good grief, that was heart wrenching.
Posted by: RP at January 4, 2005 11:25 PM Permalink
A 'landsman', in Yiddish, is someone from the same country, or especially the
same town as you. In my grandparents' time, it was common for Jewish immigrants
from the same shtetl (hamlet) to form a
landsmanschaft
- a landsman's association, once they got to the Goldene Medina (Golden Country,
i.e. the US). Yesterday I discovered a landsman of mine in the blogosphere:
Daniel in Brookline.
Brookline, Massachusetts was my hometown for the first 25 years of my life. Not
just a geographical landsman, he appears to be an ideological landsman as well.
An unusual thing for that part of the world. If you missed it, check out
this
comment that he left here on Rishon Rishon.
UPDATE: I just realized that Solomon of
Solomonia is from Boston, a
landsman in only a slightly wider sense of the word.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 06:55 PM Permalink
| Comments (5) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/61611
Comment:
Hey neighbor!
Well, I never lived there, but spent plenty of time around your environs - attended BU - crossed the highway many a time for food and party (and still do!)...used up a lot of shoe rubber walking up and down Harvard and Beacon. Ah for the days when I had time to take walks from place to place!
Benjamin, I didn't know! The hometown you described once seemed so far left that I didn't recognize as the leftish town I grew up in. I guess times change.
For the record, I only recently moved to Brookline (Sept. 2004), just before my fiancee and I got married. So if my opinions seem out-of-step for the Boston area, it might be that I'm not truly a Bostonian myself.
(On the other hand, my opinions don't seem all that unusual. As I noted in one of my posts a while back, a lot of people around here didn't buy into the John-Kerry-is-my-personal-savior business... and had the bumper stickers to prove it.)
My wedding was in Brookline -- Temple Beth Zion on Beacon Street, if that rings bells for anyone...
Hakotel Hama`aravi (הכותל המערבי) - the Western Wall
is often described as the last surviving relic of the the Temple in Jerusalem.
This is inaccurate on two counts. First, the Kotel (wall) is not actually a wall
of the Temple, but part of a retaining wall built around the summit of the Temple Mount
in order to increase the area on top. Second, all four retaining walls of the
Temple Mount survive. So what's so special about the western wall? The Talmud
explains:
אמר רבי יוסי ברבי חנינא
הנה זה עומד אחר כתלנו
זה כותל מערבי של בית המקדש
שאינו חרב לעולם למה
שהשכינה במערב משגיח מן החלונות בזכות אבות
מציץ מן החרכים בזכות אמהות
Amar rabi yosey b'rabi hanina
Hine ze `omed ahar kotlenu
Ze kotel ma`aravi shel beyt hamiqdash
She'eyno harev l`olam lama
Shehash'khina b'ma`arav mashgiah min hahalonot bizkhut avot
Mesis min haharkim bizkhut imahot
Rabbi Yosey said in the name of Rabbi Hanina
Behold, this is what will remain standing after our walls (are destroyed)
It is the western wall of the House of the Sanctuary (the Temple)
That will never be destroyed ever, why?
For the Divine Presence in the west watches over us from from the windows because of the merits of the fathers
Peeks from the cracks because of the merits of the mothers
כאשר נבנה בית המקדש, חולקה העבודה בין חלקי האוכלוסייה השונים. בניין הכותל המערבי
עלה בחלקם של העניים, שלא יכלו להרשות לעצמם לשכור פועלים ובעלי מלאכה על מנת שהללו
יעבדו בשבילם ולכן טרחו ועמלו על בנייתו במו ידיהם.
כאשר השמיד האויב את בית המקדש, מסופר ש"ירדו" המלאכים ממרומים ופרשו את כנפיהם על
הכותל כשהם אומרים: "כותל זה, עבודתם של העניים, לעולם לא יחרב." (ע"פ אגדות ארץ
ישראל).
When the Holy Sanctuary was built, the labor was divided
among all the different sectors of the population. Building of the western
wall turned out to be the portion of the poor, who couldn't permit themselves
to hire workers or builders who would work for them, and thus went to the
trouble and effort of building with their own hands.
When the enemy destroyed the Holy Sanctuary, it is told
that angles "came down" from on high and spread their wings over the wall
while saying: "this wall, it is the work of the poor it will never be
destroyed." (According to Legends of the Land of Israel).
The Western Wall is often called Judaism's holiest site - but
that's not true. Judaism's holiest site is the Temple Mount itself, especially
the site of the Holy of Holies, roughly at its center, which is now occupied by
the Dome of the Rock
(not the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's 3rd holiest site, which is nearby, also
on the Temple Mount). Though the western wall is quite long, Jews usually pray
in a particular place - the place along the wall which is closest to Judaism's
holiest site.
So why am I talking about this now? There's a
webcam at
the Western Wall. I looked at it once a long time ago, and it was so slow and
blurry that I never looked again - until yesterday. Now it's beautiful, clear
and fast, at least if you have a broadband connection. I just looked now, and I
see that it's raining. It's raining outside my window too, which makes it seem
very real.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 01:27 PM Permalink
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To our modern way of thinking, the universe is governed by forces of nature.
Not that forces of nature are independent of one another: centrifugal force
derives from the laws of motion, gravity derives from General Relativity,
and presumably all forces derive from a Universal Field Theory not yet
discovered. Traditionally, Judaism has a similar understanding of the governance
of the universe. God, of course, is the ultimate governor of everything. And
what are the forces of nature? In the language of Judaism, they are called
angels. Angels are forces of nature: there are angels of wind and rain and
angels that guard over people and nations, and of course there are spiritual
angels.
Hebrew has several words meaning 'angel': mal'akh (מלאך),
k'ruv (כרוב), saraf (שרף), ar'el (אראל),
and probably some more that don't come to mind at the moment. The most generic word
is mal'akh, which is related to the word m'la'kha (מלאכה)
- fabrication, work. Angels are workers. In Judaism, they are specifically agents of God - they have no
free will, and thus have a lower status than human beings. (Though, being
without free will, they can't sin.) When an angel does something, it is as if
God did it directly - only its appearances are indirect, as with any force of
nature.
Angels, like forces of nature, are arranged hierarchically. Below God are Mikha'el (מיכאל) - Michael, and Gavri'el (גבריאל)
- Gabriel. Which represent the forces of Hesed (חסד) and
G'vura (גבורה), grace and might
(i.e. the taking-in force, and
the going-out force, explained in more detail
here).
According to the Talmud, Michael is made of snow and Gabriel is made of fire,
but though they work side by side, neither damages the other. In other words,
though they are opposites, both are forces of good - they work together:
אמר רבי שמעון בן לקיש
מיכאל כולו שלג וגבריאל כולו אש
ועומדין זה אצל זה ואינם מזיקים
Amar rabi shim`on ben laqish
Mikha'el kulo sheleg v'gavri'el kulo esh
v`omdin ze esel ze v'eynam m'ziqim
Rabbi Shim`on son of Laqish said
Michael is all snow and Gabriel is all fire
And they stand next to one another and are not damaged
D'varim Raba 5:11
Widening the hierarchy a little, we get the angels represented by the acronym, Argaman (ארגמן) - royal purple: Uri'el (אוריאל)
- Uriel, R'fa'el (רפאל) - Rafael, Gavri'el (גבריאל)
- Gabriel, Mikha'el (מיכאל) - Michael, and Nuri'el (נוריאל)
- Nuriel. They appear in this line from the bedtime prayer:
On my right Michael
And on my left Gabriel
And before me Uriel
And behind me Rafael
And above my head the Divine presence of God
In fact, there are a myriad of angels. Most of the angels (not
all of them) found on
this page, for example, are of Hebraic origin.
However, they play no part in Jewish theology: They are not worshiped, or prayed
to - having no free will, that would make as much sense as praying to gravity,
or to the wind. This, despite the fact that they are everywhere in the rhetoric
of prayer. For example, every Shabat begins by welcoming mal'akhey hasharet (מלאכי
השרת) - the ministering angels (of God), based on the following passage
from the Talmud:
רבי יוסי בר יהודה אומר
שני מלאכי השרת מלוין לו לאדם
בערב שבת מבית הכנסת לביתו
אחד טוב ואחד רע
וכשבא לביתו ומצא נר דלוק ושלחן ערוך ומטתו מוצעת
מלאך טוב אומר יהי רצון שתהא לשבת אחרת כך
ומלאך רע עונה אמן בעל כרחו
ואם לאו מלאך רע אומר יהי
רצון שתהא לשבת אחרת כך
ומלאך טוב עונה אמן בעל כרחו
Rabbi Yosey son of Yehuda says
Two ministering angels accompany a person
On the Sabbath eve from the synagogue to his house
One good and one bad
And when he comes to his house and finds a lit candle and a set table and his bed
made
The good angel says: May there be another Sabbath like this!
And the bad angel answers: Amen - against his will
And if not, the bad angel says: May there be another Sabbath like this!
And the good angel answers: Amen - against his will
Shabat 119-B
In other words, it is a force of nature that things generally
continue as they were. Nevertheless, we welcome the angels. Other examples: When you do
a misva (comandment), an angel is born, when you say a blessing an angel
is born, i.e. doing a misva or saying a blessing is a force (of good) in
the world. I say this to my kids every day when they go to sleep:
May the angel that redeems me from all evil
Bless the children
And may they be called by my name and the name of my fathers
Abraham and Issac
And may they grow to a multitude in the midst of the earth
Thanks, Smooth. I like your site too. Are you located in Israel? (I'm asking, because I'd like to add you to my blogroll the next time I do an update, and I want to know if you are in the Israeli category.)
Edge.org (via
GNXP Sci-Fi)
asks 120 intellectuals: What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove
it? I read only a small fraction of
the answers (I'm sorry, I
have a life) but what I read was interesting. Of course it begs the question,
what do I believe but cannot prove? It's late, and I have a cold. I don't
have much time or energy at the moment to put into it, so I'll answer more
briefly than the subject requires.
As I've said before, my most basic belief is logoism (that existence has
meaning). But I guess I believe in some other things too, like hashgaha
pratit (השגחה פרטית) - that God is watching over
me, and in hishtadlut (השתדלות) - that if I try to do the
right thing, God will help me out. I suppose that anyone who's been reading my
blog can come up with a lot more things too.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 10:27 PM Permalink
| Comments (0) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/61973
Trackback from Willow Tree, Touring the Blog World:
Here's a quick glimpse at what old friends have been saying. Rishon Rishon talks about believing the unprovable--linking to a series of articles by other great thinkers on the same topic. Lex of Neptune Lex, has a pic and post...
Most life transitions happen rather abruptly, though they may be building up
for some time. Probably a tipping-point phenomenon, where small quantitative
changes suddenly add up to something qualitatively different. The first such
transition comes about the age of three months. This is when babies start to
smile, but smiling is really just one aspect of a much wider phenomenon. It is
at this stage that babies begin to interact with their environment (other than
the reflexive nursing instinct) - it's at this point that parenting starts being
fun. (My wife disagrees with me on this point, but agrees that there's an
order-of-magnitude change at three months.) It's no coincidence that Yokheved
waited three months before sending her son Moses into Pharaoh's daughter's arms.
Vatahar ha'isha vateled ben
Vatere' oto ki tov hu vatisp'nehu shlosha y'rahim
V'lo' yakhla `od haspino vatiqah lo tevat gome'
Vatahm'ra vahemar uvazafet vatasem bah et hayeled
Vatasem basuf `al sfat hay'or
And the woman conceived and gave birth to a son
And she saw that he was good and she hid him for three months
And when she couldn't hide him any longer she took for him a box of rushes
And she daubed it with clay and tar and put the child in it
And put it in the reeds at the edge of the river
Exodus 2:2-3
The next transition occurs at about one year, when the child
begins walking and talking. Suddenly he begins not only interacting with the
environment, but doing that most human of all activities: communicating. The
third transition occurs at about three years, when the child begins to
understand the passage of time, and not unrelated: begins to be able to reason.
And that, in the Jewish way of thinking, means it's time to start to formal
learning.
There is a tradition followed by many Jews not to cut the hair
of their sons until they are three years old. Some time on or shortly after
their third birthday they get their first haircut. Israelis and Sephardic Jews
call this a halaqa (חלקה), from the word halaq
(חלק) - smooth, unadorned. Ashkenazi Jews often use the
Yiddish word:
upsherin - cognate/translation: shear off.
My son's halaqa was last night. It wasn't that big a
deal, we mostly invited neighbors, with only a very few friends and relatives
coming from outside a 5-minute-walk radius. Nevertheless they filled the house.
The men took turns giving my son a brakha (ברכה) -
blessing, and snipping off a lock of his hair. We intended to finish off the job
then and there, but our designated barber wasn't feeling well and the boy of
honor was falling asleep (serving of the cake woke him up pretty fast), so we
put it off until this morning.
Today they made a birthday party for my son in school, and
admired his haircut. At 12 o'clock I went in and the school rabbi (not his usual
teacher) came down and gave him is first "official" lesson. The rabbi showed my
son a plaque of the Hebrew alphabet on which the letters had been traced over in
honey. One by one he introduced each of the letters and had my son pronounce it.
As he introduced them, he pointed out their distinguishing features ("see, the
gimel has legs and she's walking", "the lamed holds her head high up", "the mem
has a sister mem-sofit"). Then he let him lick off the honey.
I think that my son really connected with this rite of passage.
There's a way in which the formative experience of a boy is dramatically
different from that of a girl. Babies are born to identify with their mothers.
The feeling of "I am my mother and my mother is me" is our first feeling of
identification: it is from this point that our tribal identity expands outward.
In a girl this process, under normal circumstances, proceeds smoothly from birth
throughout her life. But a boy switches his most fundamental sense of
identification from his mother to his father. My observation is that it's a
gradual process beginning at about the age of one, and finishing by the age of
three. From here may it expand outward!
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 09:55 PM Permalink
| Comments (1) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/62435
Comment:
Mazal Tov. Being a parent is so rewarding. I look forward to seeing my children upon my return home every day.
Posted by: Jack at January 12, 2005 07:55 PM Permalink
there is perhaps an order(s), truth(s), beyond our conception because of
the cognitive limitations of our reality as an evolution-shaped mammal which
somehow managed to slip over the hill which hides various insights from the
rest of the animal kingdom.
i believe there are many other hills which hide many other truths. i don't
think we have the equipment to really scale those hills...so i have hope in
transhumanism and other such developments with which we might transcend the
limitations of our minds. as wittgenstein said, "whereof one cannot speak,
thereof one must be silent." speech is a constraint on insight, but we are too
dumb to figure out ways around these constraints. for now. i believe the day
might come when "man" might take wing and lift himself above the hills which
hide the full expanse of all that is from our sight and take in the fullness
of it all in one fell swoop.
perhaps.
Beautiful, really. He is saying that just as our cognitive abilities enable
us to perceive much more than other animals, so too another being might perceive
that much more than we. It is a non-theist (not necessarily atheist) variation
on the child-parent paradigm: just as we do things that make sense, which our
children can't understand, so too our Heavenly Father does things that make
sense, which we can't understand.
(BTW I don't believe that "speech is a constraint on insight" - I think that
if our intellect is able to understand it, our speech is capable of expressing
it. On the other hand, there are many things that we understand not with our
intellect, but by other means. It is that which we find difficult to express:
states of being, for example, or even such a simple thing as the taste of an
apple.)
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 11:46 PM Permalink
| Comments (9) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/62452
Comment:
The human brain, considered as a computer, seems to be a classical computer - an approximation to the Universal Turing Machine. Theory suggests therefore that what one human mind can learn, another mind can learn also (given sufficient resources such as time, food and memory).
So I think Razib is mistaken, although it's true that future knowledge may enhance our perception in interesting new ways.
Animals can't create new knowledge (they never seek explanations), so the animal/human divide is fundamentally different from the parent/child divide (which is merely a matter of learning).
Tom: The parent/child divide isn't merely a matter of learning, at least when they are small. There are things small children are not capable of understanding no matter how much they know.
And as I said, there are things that we know, but not with the intellect. The intellect builds on these things much more than we appreciate.
I, too, tripped over "speech is a constraint on insight".
But, I think that what he meant is that language constrains our understanding of our own insights. We form arguements with words, but sometimes -- when a new idea comes along -- words can't meet the task at hand.
We don't need to explain the taste of apple to ourselves because we're familiar with it and remember it abstractly. No words required. Insight, revelation, isn't so easy to deal with because it's new, not familiar. And, when language fails to give form to our insight, we tend to dismiss the idea as strange and, in (and without) a word, unformable. Frustrated by inadequate language to express it, we doubt our new insight.
And so, "Speech (language in the head) is a constraint on insight."
Tom: Small children don't understand the concept of time, and won't understand it no matter how much you try to explain. Though they are completely capable of mastering the language of time, and so can fool you, e.g. they can say, "tomorrow it's my birthday" but they really have no idea what tomorrow is.
Adults have a little-realized sense of Proprioception - the knowledge of where all the parts of our body are at all times. We use this same sense to drive a car, plus many other activities. Without it we would understand much less of the world.
It's not hard to imagine senses which would make us aware of things now invisible to us: a 4th spatial dimension, the wave-packets of matter, and maybe others not part of our knowable universe.
Spork: I think you are agreeing with me. We tend to doubt that which we can't understand cognitively, i.e. put into words.
Tom, i don't know. I can't make that claim, as i am yet unsure if non-computable processes exist myself. I'm just parroting Turing.
Umm, "speech is a constraint on insight" only until we can get over the local hill we're working on in razib's topology. For example, Einstein originally thought entanglement too absurd to occur in nature, and that quantum theory had to be incomplete-- it is difficult for even geniuses to "think outside the box". We've had to derive a new language to think about quantum theory. But that's just one example, there are many other hills.
Jinnderella has opened up comments on her
blog, and it's become
quite the happening place! I expecially liked
this comment by Dymphna. Exerpt:
During my formative years I lived in an orphanage run by nuns. My whole
day was punctuated with religious language (even at the age of six, I thought
it strange to recite daily the prayer to St. Joseph for a happy death), but in
addition there were religious icons everywhere. In other words, it wasn't just
thought and language: there were compelling visual images as far as the eye
could see. There were statues, crucifixes, holy cards with saints' images to
contemplate; each element in the visual image had a deeper meaning, just as it
did for those in the 13th century.
We prayed when we got up, we went to Mass before breakfast, we said grace
before and after meals, we said the Angelus at noon. We prayed in class, after
class and before going out to play. After supper we gathered in the chapel to
say the rosary. And after our Recreation Hour we knelt down one last time
before going off to bed. Our rewards often consisted of holy cards: images of
saints whose lives we knew as well as we knew our own. The day was punctuated
with vocalized prayer in the midst of an otherwise silent time. Even in
silence we were supposed to pray. We learned to pray in the midst of any
exigency. Lose your pencil? Pray to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost
things.
The months were punctuated with feast days: I know the saint for my birthday.
The year was described within the confines of the liturgical year: Advent,
Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Eastertide, and Pentecost. Each season had its
color and that color represented something. Lent, for example, was
penitentially purple. Every moment was accounted for.
And God's language was, of course, Latin. "Ora pro nobis" responsively
repeated in an endless litany left one's mind free to wander. Sometimes the
words come back, unbidden but here anyway..."like a song on the radio."
What that experience taught me was that life had a deeper, higher and wider
meaning than anything I could assign to it. From the outside it sounds harsh
(btw, there are no horror stories to relate. The nuns were mostly kind, if a
bit rigid) but as a lived experience it brought order out of chaos and I was
grateful even while I longed for my mother. As Erikson said, children can
survive anything as long as it has meaning.
Even more God-suffused than the average observant Jewish life (and that's
saying a lot)! Though there are Jews who attain this level - just make the
appropriate substitutions (and don't pray to anyone but God). I especially liked
the last sentence, "children can survive anything as long as it has meaning" -
it's true of adults too.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 07:42 PM Permalink
| Comments (1) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/62706
Comment:
Note that, as I understand the theology, prayers directed to Saints are in a sense directed thru them. The power to fulfill the prayer rests with G-d; Saint Anthony, for example, runs the lost and found department on His behalf.
As to why Saint Joseph will deliver your request for a prompt and profitable sale to G-d's residential real estate department if you bury his image in your yard is, however, beyond me.
A long time ago
I realized that I had a fundamental belief that wasn't going to go away even if
reason told me that the evidence points in the other direction: Life has
meaning. My choice was thus: (1) Embrace my true belief and run with it where it
would take me, (2) Deny my true belief and be depressed, (3) Neither embrace it
nor deny it, and live a life of timid anxiety. I chose #1, and it has taken me
quite far from my birthplace. Not long ago I coined the word 'logoism' to
describe this belief, after a long search in which I turned up nothing,
surprising me because I wanted nothing more than an antonym to nihilism. The
lack of this term indicates to me that not enough people are thinking about it.
What are the implications of meaning? God? Or could it be something else? More
here.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 02:11 PM Permalink
| Comments (0) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/62836
You've probably figured out by now that I like linguistics. In fact, I can't
remember ever not liking linguistics. Long before I knew that such a thing
existed, and that other people thought seriously about such matters, I remember
noticing that the consonants y and w were an awful lot like the vowels i and u
(that's why they're called semivowels, but I didn't know that). I can remember
being around 7 or 8 years old, and arranging the letters of the alphabet in
different ways according to their characteristics: voiced/unvoiced,
stop/fricative, point-of-articulation, etc. Of course, I didn't know any of
those terms. For a long time, around age 10, I was interested in devising a
spelling system with the minimum number of symbols, for example the 14 letters:
b, c, d, f, g, j, k, p, q, s, t, v, x, z could be replaced with just five: 3 for
points of articulation, and 1 each for voiced and stop. All this was inspired
simply by observing the two writing systems I knew, since I had never even heard
of linguistics. For example, I noticed that ph (sounding like f) is a p that doesn't stop the
air flow, t is sometime pronounced like d, s like z, etc. Every once in while I
would think of a new way to reduce the number of letters, and I would update my
private hypothetical spelling system.
I also liked 'grammar' such as I was taught, which wasn't much. I don't ever
remember having a problem with it, even though it was widely hated by the smart
kids I went to school with (I was in the top-rated school district in
Massachusetts). But, when I got to college, the idea of studying linguistics was
ridiculous to me. Why? Because I was not just a poor language student, I was a
linguistic imbecile.
I started learning a second language at a young age, for an American: I
started learning Hebrew when I was seven years old. I remember liking it at
first, I had no trouble with the Hebrew alphabet. Since Hebrew writing is
perfectly phonetic (you just have to learn one special rule: -יו
at the end of a word is -av, not -ayv) it's no problem to read without
understanding. But once we got to the language itself, my peers zoomed ahead
leaving me completely in the dark. For the next six years I sat in Hebrew class
not understanding a thing that was going on around me.
Several years later I entered seventh grade. In seventh grade they started
teaching me French. It was my chance to redeem myself. For years I had been
sitting in Hebrew class understanding nothing, without a prayer of ever catching
up. Now I could start over at the same level as everyone else. We got quarterly
grades in my school, and my first grade was a C. It was downhill from there. In
eighth grade, while my 80 classmates went to French class, I went to a special
study session with three other kids. One of them was a new kid who had studied a
different language the previous year. I was used to being one of the smart kids,
and now I was in the bottom 4%. One of three kids too dumb to learn French with
the rest of the class.
In High School I took French again. Started from the beginning, again. My High
School class had 500 kids. Out of those 500 were maybe a dozen who, for whatever
reason (strange, I never asked) were taking French over. I was one of those
kids. I stuck with this same class for three years, advancing a grade every year
without learning a thing. I actually managed to do fairly well, getting Bs and
Cs, but not by learning French. The reason I did well: All the tests were
multiple choice. I became quite good at reverse-engineering the answers to
questions, while understanding neither the question nor the answer. They tended to
give choices which were all of which were variations of the right answer. The trick was to
figure out which answer differed least from all the others.
Finally, I graduated High School, and went to University of Pennsylvania.
They didn't have much in the way of requirements there, except for
distributional requirements, but they did have two: You had to pass an English
test and a foreign language test. I don't remember the English requirement - I
took the test and passed as soon as I got there, but the foreign language requirement was supposedly
the equivalent of four semesters of study. I decided, for personal reasons, to go for
Hebrew.
So there I was, with years and years of Hebrew experience behind me, taking
an intro to Hebrew class. I got a C. And, once again, it was downhill
from there. I had a really nice Israeli grad student teaching me, but at the end
of 3 semesters, she agreed to pass me only on the condition that I didn't take
Hebrew the following semester. What to do? I needed four semesters to graduate. Not that it would be enough,
in my case, since I would still need to pass a test. I figured that my only hope
was total immersion. I looked for Hebrew programs in Israel. The next summer I
went to Kibbutz Ketura (Qibus Q'tura in the orthography of this
site) to learn Hebrew.
It was an eight-week work-study program. Half a day we worked, half studied. I got up before dawn every day at
3:45, got dressed, had a cup of coffee, and climbed into a tractor which would
take us down to the fields. The sun would be rising over the mountains of Moab
as we rode down, and it was COLD. We were all lightly dressed, because we knew
it would be 110°F before we came back, but we all warmed ourselves by those
first rays, and when the sun came fully over the mountains we were always
grateful. We worked for four hours, came back at 8:00, and had a big breakfast.
The food was quite simple, but as I remember it, it was very good. This was also
the time when I learned to drink coffee. We made coffee out in the fields by
throwing the grounds, some sugar, and water into an old cast-iron pot, and
putting the pot directly into a fire which we built on the sand. The pot had a
fixed handle arching over the top, which we used to remove it from the fire,
hooking it with a convenient stick. The result was strong and sweet, a little
burnt, with something of a metallic flavor. It was the best coffee I've ever
had.
After breakfast, at 9:00, we'd begin the Ulpan. (Ulpan, in Hebrew, means
studio, but it's also used to refer to classes in Hebrew as a second language.)
There were two classes, which were called alef and bet, after the first two
letters of the Hebrew alphabet. I was in bet, but our teacher explained to us
that the class wasn't really at bet-level, according to national standards (in
which there are 6 levels, alef to vav, after the first six letters of the Hebrew
language), our class was more like alef plus. So there I was, after years and
years of Hebrew study, including three semesters of university-level Hebrew, in
alef plus.
It's not clear to me how important the class time was for me. By this time I
was a kind of idiot savant of Hebrew. I knew Hebrew grammar backwards and
forwards (better than I do today), and this was the kind of thing we spent a lot
of time on in class. My weak point - so weak as to be non-existent - was
comprehension and speaking. My vocabulary was lousy, but even when I knew the
words I was incapable of understanding them when they were spoken. Translating
each word, figuring out the root, pattern, person, tense, figuring out which
words were which parts of speech, were all things I could do, but not nearly
fast enough for it to be any use in understanding real speech. Speaking was a
little better - if my listener was patient enough, I could, eventually, produce
a grammatically correct sentence, assuming I had the vocabulary. I knew that
this was what I had to work on, and for some reason, I also knew how.
My Hebrew teacher, back at Penn, had once told us in Hebrew,
tapping her head, "You don't learn Hebrew through the head," tapping her foot,
"you learn it though the foot." This is a play on on words, because 'the foot'
in Hebrew is haregel, while hergel (same root) is habit. You learn language
through habit - the foot. I had spent something like 15 years trying to learn
Hebrew through the head, and somehow I knew that my head was getting in the way
of learning it. Instead of trying to figure out the Hebrew around me, I made a
deliberate attempt not to try to figure it out. Instead, I would just
listen to it. Let it wash over me and though me. My Ulpan teacher was very nice,
and it is probably because of her that I can speak Hebrew now. After lunch
people would usually nap, and around 4:00 start socializing for a couple hours
before dinner. (We seemed to gain an extra meal: breakfast was like lunch, lunch
like dinner, and then there was another meal at 6:00!) Every day I would visit
my Ulpan teacher and listen to her talk to her friends. In the morning, out in
the fields, I was lucky to be paired up with one of the few other serious
students, and we'd talk in Hebrew, to the best of our ability. I made every
effort I could to immerse myself in Hebrew.
At the end of the eight-week program we spent one week touring the
county. We combined forces with another Kibbutz, which had the same work-study
program. There I met a student about at about my level who was willing to talk
to me raq b`ivrit - only in Hebrew. We spent a lot of time in busses, going from
one place to another, and we spent a lot of time trying to speak Hebrew.
Then one day - I remember this clearly - I was sitting on the bus,
as usual trying to speak Hebrew with my fellow student, when suddenly I realized
- I was thinking in Hebrew! And that was the end of the beginning. From
that point on, I have never had a problem with foreign languages. Not Hebrew - I
went back to Penn and easily got an A in the final semester, and even took a
Hebrew literature class following that - and not any other language. Some years
later I took a class in spoken Arabic (Jerusalem dialect) and had no problems -
I was even one of the better students.
Something changed that day on the bus. It was as if a new module
had been forged in my brain. It makes me wonder: What else can I do?
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 11:29 PM Permalink
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Comment:
Congratulations -- I've always found languages other than English to be completely impossible! However, I have noticed that the stuff that takes the longest to master seems to stick the best.
>what else can I do?
The most important pre-condition for learning something difficult is to *want* it badly enough. (The most important thing about a person is: want do I want the most?)
This is why young children are fantastically comptetent learners - they want nothing slightly or confusedly, their minds are joyful and well-integrated.
The problem is that we are forced by others to learn stuff before we become interested in it. Naturally, the mind attempts to protect itself and maintain integrity. The result is a set of hang-ups which inhibit creativity in that area of knowledge even if, in later life, we discover a genuine interest in the subject.
This is why education should be autonomous and non-coercive (self-coercion should also be avoided).
>I had a really nice Israeli grad student teaching me, but at the end of 3 semesters, she agreed to pass me only on the condition that I didn't take Hebrew the following semester
She may have been nice in other ways but assessing a student on anything other than competence is a cruelty, in my opinion.
>It was as if a new module had been forged in my brain
Do you believe in a window of opportunity for language acquisition? Since you didn't start thinking in Hebrew till young adulthood, presumably this would make you a counter-example.
Posted by: Tom at January 14, 2005 03:06 AM Permalink
Comment:
Tom: I'd like to comment more later (no time...) but I don't think my problem at age 7 was not wanting to learn. I think it was that, even at that young age, I was using the wrong part of my brain to solve the problem. In fact, viewing language acquisition as a problem to solve is itself a problem. Somehow you have to let your conscious mind take a back seat and "do what comes naturally" - let your instincts take over.
Tom: I do think there's a window of opportunity for language acquisition. But it isn't an open-and-shut case. Even 80-year-old stroke victims can learn to use different parts of the brain when some parts are damaged.
The really interesting question, to me: If I can modularize one task at age 19, how many other tasks might I be able to modularize? And is there a systematic way to do it?
I greatly enjoyed your detailed description of your language learning experiences. I grew up in Colorado and New Mexico in rural areas and small towns where it was hard to find foreign language materials. I've been fascinated by foreign languages since about age 10. I started collecting dictionaries and textbooks then. I needed a few more years for my reading knowledge of my native English and my understanding of grammar to mature enough to benefit from the textbooks. I had some indirect encouragement from my father who was one of the few white men who could speak Navaho fluently. I started semi-seriously studying languages on my own around age 12. I taught myself one or two college semesters worth of Russian, Latin and biblical Hebrew. I took the one year of Spanish my high school offered. When I went to college, I was interested in so many different languages, it was hard to focus. French was the first one I learned well enough to read for pleasure. Later I added German and Spanish. After college, I kept on reading as much French, Spanish and German as I had the time and energy for. It took me about 5 years each to get to where I could read French and Spanish well. It took about 10 years for German, partly because it's a bit more difficult and partly because I spent less time and concentrated discipline on it.
I found large doses of repetition and carefully structure drills to be the most helpful for language learning. These are the last things most potential language learners want to do, but it's a very effective method. The textbooks I found most useful introduced small amounts of vocabulary per lesson and had lots of word substitution drills. Textbooks from the US State Department's Foreign Service Institute are pretty good. Another good example is Meri Lehtinen's "Basic Course in Finnish" published by Indiana University. I award first prize for meticulously well structured language learning materials to John DeFrancis' Chinese reader series published by Yale University Press. I think this kind of repetitious drill is the only way language learners in a class room setting can learn grammar well enough that it starts to become automatic. Foreign language immersion is the only other way to get the same result.
I learned about Internet radio three years ago. I started using it for foreign language study two years ago. It was the single greatest language learning tool I ever found. It only took me a few months each to bring my listening comprehension in French, Spanish and German up to the same advanced level as my reading comprehension. The process was fast because I already knew those languages well. I started studying modern Hebrew a year ago. It was the first time I tried using Internet radio for learning a language at beginner's level. It has been extremely helpful. I have to quickly identify words I know while ignoring words I don't know, but still listen closely enough to select unfamiliar words which are repeated several times so I can look them up in a dictionary.
The consonantal nature of the Hebrew writing system makes Hebrew quite a bit more difficult to learn to read than any European language. That's one of the reasons I put off studying it for so many years. It turned out to be less difficult than I expected. Internet radio was a huge benefit for this part. Hearing words repeated many times, even though I don't understand most of them, gradually builds up a passive recognition of vocabulary and grammatical forms.
I've never had the kind of difficulties you had with foreign languages. It was something that always seemed to come naturally to me even when I was young and it was all new. After 30 years of being obsessed with learning foreign languages and getting lots of practice at learning them, it's even easier, almost automatic like breathing. Now I live in Seattle where there are thousands of immigrants speaking dozens of foreign languages. I'm so fascinated by languages, I find it interesting even to listen to a completely incomprehensible language. Can I identify it? Can I pick out a few words when I have no idea what they mean?
Thanks again for your Hebrew vocabulary help last June! Thank you also for your many interesting blog posts about Hebrew.
Interesting post. I had a similar experience with Spanish -- failed in in middle school (the only "F" to ever appear on my report card), started over in high school and managed a "C" grade over 2 years, but understood nothing. During college I provided some church service which required me to learn Spanish. Suddenly things that I heard (but did not learn) in high school began to make sense. Within months I was able to participate in conversations with native Spanish speakers.
In high school I tried to learn the words and rules, trying to understand the tools. In my church service I focused more on communicating - what you can produce with the tools. I believe it was the need to communicate without focusing on the "language" that enabled me to succeed the third time where I had failed before.
Randall: I know someone (a very bright guy) who has a similar story. He failed French in school, then he married a French speaker. Now he speaks it. The ironic thing: Though I was in the bottom 4% of language learners in school, I doubt that more than 4% of my classmates now speak a foreign language - and I'm one of them!
I must have missed this post entirely, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It resonated with me. I recently blogged about it(http://wwwjackbenimble.blogspot.com/2005/01/hebrew-literacy.html)
Anyway, I have noticed a couple of times that there seems to be a "key" for me that unlocks language. It is like a puzzle in which a missing piece is found and then everything falls into place.
The biggest challenge for me now is lack of use.
Posted by: Jack at January 17, 2005 09:58 PM Permalink
I have been keeping an eye out for some time for a good satellite picture of
Israel. I finally found
it! (Via
mentalblog.com) The reason I was looking for it is that it shows one of the
most amazing little-known facts that I know: You can see the borders of Israel
from outer space!! The reason for that: Israel takes relatively good care of its
environment.
Most importantly, Israel makes sure that the land isn't overgrazed. I have seen
it up-close myself. I once drove down the entire length of the Negev-Sinai
border - from the Gaza Strip to Eilat. There's a security road there, which is
now closed to the public because lately Egypt has been letting people take
pot-shots across the border, but once it was open. It's amazing. I drove from
north to south. On my left, the desert was covered with grasses and shrubs. On
my right, sand. The desert areas provide the most dramatic contrast along
Israel's borders, but look carefully at the map: you can see all of Israel's
borders. You can see the outline of the West Bank, with the Jerusalem corridor
in the middle. You can see the northern border with Lebanon. You can't tell from
this view, but the border between Syria and the Golan is also clearly visible.
You'd think this would gain us some points with the supposedly environmentally
aware, but I've never heard any such thing.
UPDATE: If you know of any other good pictures of this nature, not too large,
let me know.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 10:06 AM Permalink
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Amritas, back from the undead, has a
couple of interesting new posts up. In the
first, he talks about
descriptive vs. prescriptive linguistics:
Seriously, it might seem at first that the problem with linguistic
conservatives is one of infinite regress. If older is better, then
oldest is best, right?
But when people talk about how their language is in 'decline', they have
no real intention of turning the clock back. They implicitly assume that their
version of the language is 'perfect'. What they are really saying is, 'I don't
want the language to deviate from what I see as its peak when I grew up in the
year 19XX'.
I guess I'm a linguistic conservative of a different stripe. I don't think
that one set of linguistic rules is intrinsically better or worse than another
(assuming they are both fully expressive, which is true of any language that
people really speak). On the other hand, the purpose of language is to
communicate, and this is only possible if the speaker and the listener both
know its rules. When language changes, it cuts us off from the works of our
past, which we can then only appreciate in translation. In the case of English,
very little was written before Shakespeare's time (Chaucer and Beowulf are two
of the few exceptions), and Shakespearean English is still fully accessible,
with only a little effort. On the other hand, I consider myself incomparably
blessed by the fact that I can read 4000+ years of Hebrew literature in the
original. It would be a real shame if Hebrew were to change so much that its
speakers couldn't do it.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 09:38 AM Permalink
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If most people, or indeed everybody, has multiple grammars in their
minds, the idealisation to the monolingual native speaker is
misleading, as inaccurate as saying we should study the breathing of human
beings by looking at those with one lung rather than two. If the architecture
of the human mind involves two languages, we are falsifying it by studying
only monolingual minds ...
From my first contact with English-speaking expatriates in Israel, I was
struck by how their English was infiltrated by Hebrew. These changes seem to
fall into three categories:
1. Words for things not frequently encountered in the country of origin.
2. Hebrew words that are hard to translate into English, but are very
useful.
3. Grammatical structures that are easier in Hebrew than in English.
In the first category would be words like eshel (אשל)
- a cultured milk product like buttermilk, makolet (מכולת)
- general store, qlita (קליטה) - immigration
absorption, acculturation. In the second category are words like tiq (תיק)
- any kind of carrying bag e.g. backpack or pocketbook, `agala (עגלה)
- any kind of cart or carriage, davqa (דוקה) - a word
which introduces a clause that contradicts what was previously said by another
speaker.
But most interesting, to me, is the third category. Grammar is something we
normally don't think about. What could entice someone to abandon the familiar
structure of their native language and embrace the alien grammar of another?
Let's look at an example:
זה הילד שראיתי אותו אתמול
Ze hayeled shera'iti oto etmol
That's the boy whom I saw yesterday
But among expatriates, you're likely to hear this:
That's the boy that I saw him yesterday
Which is a literal translation of the Hebrew. There are many
ways in which English grammar differs from Hebrew, but only a few in which the
English seems susceptible to replacement. What is special about these few
instances? I would say that there is a natural grammar, if not a universal grammar,
at least in the sense that some structures are easier (more natural) than
others. In the English version, the object of 'saw' (him) is merged with the
relative pronoun (whom) while in the Hebrew version it is still present in the
surface structure. Doesn't that sound easier to you?
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 02:35 PM Permalink
| Comments (2) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/63171
Comment:
My favorite story about words was from maybe 30 years ago, when we lived in Bayit V'Gan. There was a family with a few children, and they spoke only English. One day their child asked: "How do you say mepeset in Hebrew?"
Posted by: muse at January 16, 2005 09:54 PM Permalink
Comment:
I understand now why some 19th century philologists thought Welsh and Hebrew were related - Welsh has exactly that structure too! Plus inflected prepositions and a few other things. (I read somewhere that despite the fact that any connection has long been dismissed as romantic fantasies, there are a couple of linguists out there now who seriously are looking into the idea that the Celtic languages have a Semitic substrate).
BTW, Welsh also borrowed a good word from Hebrew - except it's spelled Wlpan in Welsh.
My position is that the Universe does not have meaning. The Universe
simply is. (That's somewhat tautological, because I define the Universe as
what exists, but anyway...)
Meaning is what intelligence generates when applied to the Universe. It
does not, indeed cannot exist of itself; it is the product of the process of
thought.
All this is just fluffy bunnies though unless we defined meaning. Until
you do that, you can't say, for example, what you mean when you say "it would
imply that an Islamist’s meaning is just as meaningful as Pixy Misa’s".
Certainly my worldview is more founded in reality, more productive, more
conducive to happiness and learning in myself and my fellow man, than that of
the Islamists. Does that make the "meaning" I have created for myself more
"valid" than the "meaning" the Islamists have created for themselves? I dunno.
But it's a hell of a lot better.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 04:30 PM Permalink
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This will be short, because I really don't have much to say about it. It just
occurred to me that that Europeans and Israelis took away opposite lessons from
the trauma of World War II. The lesson the Europeans learned: War is bad, stop
war. The lesson the Israelis learned: We have to defend ourselves. But when you
look at it, it's not really so surprising. The Europeans let the Nazis roll over
them, then sat back and watched as the US and Britain saved them. But for the
Jews, it was too late. Nobody saved the Jews.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 09:48 PM Permalink
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So good morning everyone, hope you have your cup of joe, and are ready to kick back and see what's what this week in the Jewish blogverse. First because mornings are always confusing to me (what day is it?) I...
Comment:
That happens in the lives of individuals as well. I suppose that its not only important to learn from the past, we have to make sure we learn the right lesson.
What about the Russians, French, Poles, Yugoslavs, etc. who also stood up to the Russians. Sure, the French, Poles and Yugoslavs dropped out, but they got beat pretty bad in the war. Nothing like the Russians, but then... The Eastern front in Russia made the Polish bloodbath look like a frickin' picnic.
not so sure, the Russians (Soviets) learned that military conquest, not the strength of their argument, was a less time-consuming way of spreading their "paradise".
It's amazing that the French and others were so incapable of defending themselves militarily that, in a proverbial heartbeat, their Resistance had to work in the shadows. The USSR had guns, distance and weather on their side. Italy, of course, abetted the Nazis.
The Swiss are the real curios. They could defend themselves just fine, and thus were never attacked by German troops, but they refused to join in the liberation of their fellow Europeans. Many applaud Switzerland's steadfast neutrality, but I have nothing but contempt for that kill-whoever-you-want-just-leave-us-out-of-it rot.
And just what were the Swiss going to do? Remember Austria.... same thing would have happened to the Swiss.
And the Nazi's didn't attack Switzerland because they couldn't take them. They just had no reason to go after them. Itlay on the South, Germany on the North and France (after it fell) on the East. In all but a formal way the Nazi's were in charge of Switzerland. They didn't need to waste troops on it. Where was Switzerland going to go? Hawaii? Sometimes the best policy is look harmless and hope you don't get stepped on.
And the French... what happened was simple. The depression sapped their stength. They had the largest army in Europe at the time. Just no money to pay for supplies for it. The Nazi's made up for the same problems by being, well...Nazi's.
The French also thought they were going to use the same tactics as in the last war, cause after all they won WW1. They **knew** what to do in order to win. The Germans had to think of new ways to conduct war, especially since at the time she had fewer troops on the ground, and thus the Blitzkrig was born.
The US did not save anyone, nor the british. They simply contributed. People should remember that the major losses wheren't US, by far not. They where Russians and Chineses (although we may argue about the real influence the chinese front had in the winning of the war), and other nationalities, although maybe not bearing the main losses, sufferent en important number of casualties.
We can also argue about where the US were when the germans attacked the french. They entered the war a bit late. Indeed, they forgot to honour the Versailles Treaty that their President had signed in their name. Indeed, I find it was the UK and allies (Canada, South Africa, ANZAC, ...) that really saved democraty (or whatever it was) by their stubborn resistance and the population collaboration.
I am indeed tired of this centric opinion of "we US arrived and saved everyone". We still hear it today after the 11 September 2001. This does not mean their *important* role should be minimized, simply put into context.
Concerning the swiss, I can tell you that the germans did not controll them. And if they did not invade them it was simply because the cost would have been too high for little benefice. It is proved that the swiss did help the Allies far more that the Axis. In the word of Churchill: "Of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right to distinction. . . . She has been a democratic State, standing for freedom in self-defence among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side."
Indeed, not only the swiss where ready for a long resistance, they where also the only critical neutral voice agains the axis, and they saved far more jewish than the US (who refused ships) although they did not have enough food for their own population.
Of course they did not help the Allies. What would you expect the swiss to do? Attack Germany? Their strength lied in their neutrality, where, through among others the red cross, served far better the cause of the Allies that they would have done by entering the war. And do not forgot that the allied bombers worked with swiss products. Indeed, the precision bombing aiming machine was swiss made ;-)
I've heard too much swiss-bashing (specially in the 90's) from people without knowledge of the country nor their history. Although everything they did was not pretty (judish gold, ...) their role was important and they deserve recognition and gratitude.
Finally, the concept of Blitzkrieg is british :-)
Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart was an early advocate of mechanized warfare, and his thinking had a profound effect upon the German high command prior to World War II. He also evolved a number of infantry tactics and training methods that were adopted by the British army. The problem was that the germans where the only one who listed to him and applied his principles.
The WWII is a complicated moment in time, where nothing is as simple at it seems. The 3 major alignements (communists, fascists and "democraties") where in an unstable alliance where each countries interests where often far from each other. It is difficult to separate people between "good" and "bad", as some still do today (Bush, for instance...).
By the way... in case someone wonders, I'm not swiss :-)
There's been some talk lately on Gene
Expression about
Empathizing-Systematizing.
I haven't read the sources, but I must say it seems like just a rehash of a
piece of a much more well-developed theory of personality that has been around
for quite some time, and successfully employed in business and government: the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). (Interesting aside: Myers
and Briggs were a mother-daughter team.) Since I don't think anyone can claim to
intelligently discuss personality without relating to it, if for no other reason
than to contest it, I will endeavor to introduce it now. Warning: this is my own slightly
idiosyncratic view of the subject.
I, personally have used Myers Briggs productively in both my personal life,
and on the job. I was first introduced to Myers Briggs about ten years ago, and it was a
transformative experience. (Actually, I knew about it for many years without
paying much attention, until one day I saw a
book on someone's shelf and began to
read...) I can't think of anything else, that can be learned
in a couple of hours from a book, that can so utterly change the way a
well-educated person sees the world. It was like suddenly being able to see a
new color, and with a little reflection and experience it has thoroughly informed
the way I understand people and interpersonal relations.
Myers Briggs describes personality types according to four pairs of traits.
While often these are treated as binary choices: you are either on thing or the
other; I think of them as endpoints of axes: you are somewhere on the continuum
between them.
An added complication is that personality types describe preferred modes of
behavior, while well-rounded people are often quite skilled in behaving in their
non-preferred mode, as
this site
says:
This is analagous to handedness, where you sometimes use your preferred
hand (eg: when using a pen to write) and sometimes use your non-preferred hand (eg:
the hand you use to change gear whilst driving a car is determined by the design
of the car, not your preferences). [It's a British site. In the UK you shift
with your left hand - DB]
OK, the first thing people always want to know is, "what's my type". Here are
a
couple of tests.
I didn't take either one of them, so I can't vouch for them. But here's my test:
Extrovert/Introvert (E/I) - If you like to have lots of social
relationships, if you enjoy meeting new people, if you often talk to strangers
when you encounter them, you are probably an extrovert. If you prefer to
concentrate on a few special relationships, if you don't like meeting new
people, if you rarely talk to strangers when you encounter them, you are
probably an introvert.
Sensing/Intuitive (S/N) - If you like to learn examples first, theory
second, if you think in words, if you like details, you are probably sensing.
If you like to learn theory first, examples second, if you think visually, if
you are impatient with "irrelevant" details (though they may be essential to
getting the job done), you are probably intuitive.
Thinking/Feeling (T/F) - If you like thinking about things or ideas,
if you enjoy sparring (physical or verbal), if you prefer truth to peace, you
are probably thinking. If you like thinking about people, if you
especially enjoy making people feel good (or bad, in pathological cases), if you
prefer peace (or war, in pathological cases) to truth, you are probably
feeling.
Judging/Perceiving (J/P) - If you prefer to make a decision now rather
than wait for more data, if you think that there's usually a right way to do
things, if you like achieving goals whether or not the goal has any objective
value, you are probably judging. If you prefer to wait for more data
rather than make a decision, if you think there are usually many right ways to
do things, or it usually doesn't matter too much how you do things, if you are
comfortable with vaguely defined objectives, you are probably perceiving.
Follow the links above for a description of each of the axes. I think the
hardest one to explain, and the most interesting is the S/N axis. (At least to
me, for it characterizes my personality more than any of the others - I am an
extreme N.) Sensing people tend to relate directly to inputs from their
environment, while intuitive people tend to use these inputs to construct
complex inner models, and relate to them. A lot of people have trouble
differentiating between thinking and judging. If you're having trouble, look at
their opposites, for some reason they're easier to distinguish.
So which type are you? (I'm an INTP.) Here are links to descriptions of each
type.
Read the description of your type. Does it sound like you? Try varying one
letter at a time, especially if you are not sure about one of the answers. Do these types
seem somewhat like you? Now switch ALL the letters, how much does this seem like
you? (These descriptions are short, and so much less impressive than the
descriptions that appear in the book.
The first version of this book was my introduction to Myers Briggs. There was
another book that I liked better, at the time, but I can't seem to locate it.)
Now comes the fun part. Myers Briggs doesn't just give you a way to describe
yourself, it gives you a way to think and talk about personality. For example,
the 16 types can be grouped in various ways in order to make more general
statements, the most common is:
SP, SJ,
NT,
NF. I often use this
particular breakdown when interviewing candidates for a job. Usually I can
figure out pretty quickly what a person's personality type is (and when I can't
it says something too, that they're probably near the middle of the spectrum, or
they're good at using their non-preference). It's my
experience that the best predictor of success in a job is not ability but
enthusiasm - so I want to know what motivates a person:
SP - Action: These people like activity. All the best athletes are
SPs. Soldiers are usually SPs (but officers are usually SJs). The best
salesmen are SPs. Lots of really good programmers are SPs - they're they guys
that just love programming, I call them computer jocks. To be really good at
something, you have to love to do it over and over again, only SPs are capable
of this.
SJ - Order: These people love to make order out of chaos. They love
directing things, planning things, organizing things. A lot of bosses are SJs.
Good secretaries are SJs. Most schoolteachers are SJs. Lots of good
programmers are SJs - they're the ones that will research and plan before
methodically carrying out the task.
NT - Ideas: These people like thinking about ideas. They like
solving problems (not the administrative kind), inventing algorithms, and architecting solutions. Most
scientists and engineers are NTs (though a lot of engineers are SJs). Lots of
good programmers are NTs (I'm one of those), but they're likely to view
programming as a means to an end rather than an end in itself (in contrast to SPs).
NF - Empathy: These people like to help people and express themselves
(to people). Naturally, they gravitate to the helping professions: teaching,
medicine, social work, social advocacy. They also fill the ranks of artists,
writers, journalists. I once saw a claim that they make the best salespeople,
and I believe it, but few NFs are interested in sales. NFs are not likely to
be interested in programming, but when they are they're motivated by the
notion of helping people by what they write, or pleasing the boss.
The 16 types are not distributed equally in the population, by any means.
Keirsey claims the following
figures (I couldn't find figures for individual types):
Assuming that personality types are inherited (and I think they are - my
mother is an INFP, my father is an INTJ, and my sister is an INFP), I think
this is clearly a case of
frequency dependent selection. My skills, for example, as an INTP, are in
demand because they are extremely rare. But I don't think I would want to live
in a world in which my type were common. I have trouble with a lot of everyday
tasks that most people would consider extremely simple, and I'm glad that there
are a lot of people around to help me out with them. A typical programming task
(for example) can always use another good SP or SJ, but how many NTs does it
need? Especially INTPs (NTJs can fake being SJs - their J side enables them to
do what is called for at the moment). Ten thousand years ago, I'm
not sure what we would do.
The other interesting skew in the percentages is on the T/F axis (and this
brings us back to the origin of this post). The T/F axis is the only one which
exhibits sexual dimorphism. About 75% of men are Ts, while about 75% of
women are Fs. I am quite sure that this explains most of the differences in
career choice that we see between men and women, plus a lot of other differences.
Anyone ever notice that men and women tend to have different personalities? Does
it come as a surprise that most women are feeling, while most men are thinking?
Okay, lets have some more fun. I claimed to be able to tell a person's
personality type without much trouble. So let's pick one: Razib.
(My estimate of his personality type tells me he won't mind.) First: E or I?
Well, that's easy, he's one of the most extroverted people I know (and I don't
even know him - I'm judging by the stories he tells, and the fact that he tells
them at all), E. Second: S or N? That's a hard one. I would guess S because he
writes so fast, and works through so much material. I don't think an N
personality is capable of it. Also, his writing style can be very sensual, but
that could be an F influence (we'll get to that). However, and this is why I
said it was hard, he's clearly very good at building internal models. But I'll
go with the preponderance of evidence: S. Third: T or F? Another easy one, he's
clearly a thinker. However, I note that he's quite good at using his feeling
side when he wants to, T. Fourth: J or P? I think it's a P, I just don't get a
goal-directed feeling about him, nor do I see him express strong opinions about
a lot of things, usually he keeps his options open: P. So there's my guess:
ESTP. Is it right?
Well, do you believe me or the test? Anyway, as I said, the important thing is that it gives us a way to think about the subject. I stand by my observations even if their relative importance may be somewhat different than my estimate.
i think the issue is you have a slice of me. for example-it is a tricky business on whether i'm judgemental or not. when it comes to ideas, i tend not to be, or political opinions, etc. when it comes to personal behavior i tend to have clear lines, and if i perceive someone as being inconsistent in what they do in the context of what their state their principles as i will never really take them seriously again.
i think your assessment is probably accurate if you base it empirically on what you know from the blog.
I have noticed that people often display different preferences over different domains. To extend the handedness analogy, it's like preferring your right hand for some tasks and your left hand for others - which sometimes happens.
Furthermore, no matter what your preferences, your behavior will still
sometimes indicate contrasting behavior. Thus, no behavior can ever be used
to falsify the [MBTI®] type, and any behavior can be used to verify it.
That is reminiscent of Chomskyanism: in theory, no 'surface' structure
can be used to falsify a proposed (invisible, inaudible) 'underlying'
structure since 'transformations' can account for anything. (In practice,
there are constraints on transformations, but even so, there is no hard
evidence for them or for the 'underlying' structures that they allegedly
affect. Saying that magic spells are not omnipotent still does not address the
issue of whether such spells exist at all.) Something that is not falsifiable
is not scientific.
I have never looked at the Skeptic's Dictionary before. My instincts are to
be partial to it based on its name - I am skeptical by nature, myself. But I am
very disappointed by this particular entry. Most of it amounts to little more
than an ad hominem attack, i.e. attacking Myers and Briggs (the originators of
the test) as individuals because they (may have) made some mistakes, and Jung,
who came up with most of the original concepts, but likely wouldn't have
supported the way Myers and Briggs developed them. The only comment about the
test itself is the one Amritas quoted, and that is demonstrably false. Myers
Briggs does make verifiable predictions, the fact that the predictions aren't
100% accurate in no way invalidates them - the question is only whether they are
statistically significant, and anyone who has worked with large samples
knows that they are.
A coworker of mine once came back from a business seminar and told me about
the most amazing experience. The participants of the seminar (about 60 people)
were given a Myers Briggs test and divided into groups of 5-6 that were as
homogeneous as possible. Each group was then given a task of building something
out its component parts - evidently something quite difficult, though I don't
know what it was. What made it amazing was not just the variance in how well the
different groups performed, but how different their approach to the problem was.
"Some of the groups just gave up and chatted at the back of the room", my
coworker told me with amazement (my coworker was an SJ, so her reaction is not
surprising), "Your group did the best" she added, by which she probably meant NT
- I doubt that there were 5-6 INTPs in a group of 60 business seminar attendees.
She reported different styles of problem solving and cooperating, e.g. the SJs
divided up the task, etc.
There's a certain pseudoscientific idea that if something is hard to measure,
it doesn't exist. People who have this notion will often discount soft and
fluffy ideas like happiness. I, for one, think happiness is an exceedingly
important concept, whether or not it is hard to measure. And though I know of
know way to objectively compare the happiness of one person to another, I have
no doubt that some people are happier than others, and I trust my own subjective
evaluations of the matter to be significantly correlated with the truth. Myers
Briggs tests have this problem - they are dependent on peoples' self evaluations
regarding a lot of soft-and-fluffy questions like, "Direct-contact group
discussions stimulate you and give you energy - Y/N". Nevertheless, according to
this
paper:
Several researchers have studied the construct validity of the MBTI
scores. Carlyn (1977) found evidence indicating that "... a wealth of
circumstantial evidence has been gathered, and results appear to be quite
consistent with Jungian Theory" (p. 469). Validity of MBTI scores is typically
established by correlating the scores with findings from various personality
instruments and inventories of interest. Statistically significant
correlations have been found between MBTI scores, behaviors reflective of MBTI
constructs, and persons' self-assessment of their own MBTI type (DeVito, 1985;
Myers & McCaully, 1989). Using factor analysis, Thompson and Borrello (1986)
reported that the factors were largely discrete in their sample, and all items
had factor pattern coefficients higher than .30. These results supported the
structure of the MBTI. More recently, Tischler (1994) noted that "... factor
analysis provided unusually strong evidence that the MBTI items are correlated
with their intended scales: the scales are almost factorially pure" (Tischler,
1994, p. 30).
Furthermore, if you measure the test-retest accuracy not as a binary outcome
(e.g. S or N) but as a quantitative score, you find very high correlations, i.e.
people near the middle will often flip, but their numerical scores won't change
much. If you still think, like the Skeptic that:
The profiles read like something from Omar the astrologer and seem to
exemplify the Forer effect.
Then take my advice in the previous
post, and
look at the description of your opposite. Ask yourself: which is more like me?
UPDATE: The Skeptic also warns, "There is also a pernicious side to these
profiles: they can lead to discrimination and poor career counseling." Of
course, if you are talking about individual cases you have to take into account
that Myers Briggs tests are not 100% accurate, and assuming that they are can
lead to unfortunate results. This in no way falsifies the theory, though it may
limit its usefulness. My personal experience is that it's very useful even when
I get it wrong (i.e. my subjective impression doesn't agree with the "objective"
test). Why? Because it gives me a powerful way to think about the subject:
The beginning
of wisdom is the definition of terms. A well-chosen terminology helps you
to think, and understand. Whether or not I'm right about Razib's personality in
the previous post, I'm confident that I'm right about the characteristics I
examined, and that I understand something about his personality as a result.
UPDATE: I think that the main reason it's not taken more seriously in
academia is that it was developed by non-academics. Who cares that it works in
practice, and that thousands of profit-making enterprises that have to explain
themselves to their shareholders spend money using it to help them do
business. It doesn't have the right credentials!
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 11:51 AM Permalink
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Comment:
The way people dismiss these ideas strikes me as similar to the way people dismiss religion. They don't accept truth that isn't "concrete", but what they really mean by that is "self-evident", although they don't admit that.
In other words, the fact that a theory works in practice doesn't count as evidence. The kind of evidence they take seriously is not so much scientific as physical. This severely limits their awareness of any knowledge to do with how human beings actually function. It also enables them to believe false theories that do not work, but which have apparently demonstrable/ material/ physical bases. I think this is a fundamentally different worldview than the truly moral one, being essentially materialistic and therefore amoral.
Critical rationalists, for example, dismiss experiential evidence as false because the mind can distort it; but this is a mistrust born of not understanding the mind. The only kind of evidence that theories can actually be based on in that case is uncontestable facts not derived from experiences. So in critical rationalism, "best theories" are held to be the most valid thing we have, but the criteria for "best theories" is implicitly supposed to be material in some way.
I think their vehemence and low level of reasoning on such matters reveals a kind of sensitivity to being exposed to truth which reveals their own errors of thinking. Interesting psychological phenomenon.
Alice, I don't think Myers Briggs is comparable to religion. Religion deals with things which are by definition (my definition) not falsifiable. Myers Briggs IS falsifiable, you just need to do a little statistics. I don't think it's falsifiable for a single person because you can't measure the internal state of a person's mind, and since people are very complex, their behavior doesn't map one-to-one with their internal state. But in aggregate you can ignore Myers Briggs claims about the mind and directly predict behavior, and it works!
By way of comparison, there is no way to prove that religious people are happier, because you can't measure a person's happiness. But you could, say, predict that religious people commit suicide less or suffer less from stress-related diseases, and test that. (I don't know if either are true.)
In the case of Myers Briggs and job performance - what you care about is the job performance itself, and the fact that the theory predicts this indirectly by way of statements about personality is irrelevant.
On the other hand, we are all human beings, and it should be obvious to all of us (barring a few psychotics) that happy people tend to behave in certain ways. The same can be said for the 4 dimensions of Myers Briggs. I can look inside myself and see that they are there, and I presume others are like me - even when they sometimes behave in unexpected ways.
Not sure about the 'There's a certain pseudoscientific idea that if something is hard to measure, it doesn't exist. ' If it can't be expressed in maths it's not science is one phrase i've heard. For myself. it if can't be measured, i want to know how it can.
I'm not even sure what people are arguing about: that different people have different personalities? That personalities can be at least roughly categorized? That Myers-Briggs is at least a halfway decent attempt at categorizing them?
I expect we're all complicated enough that the future actions of any individual will never be completely predictable based on a personality test, but does anyone seriously doubt that some people tend to be more extroverted and others introverted, or did I maybe just make up two words that don't mean anything?
I'm not sure how well this scheme compares to others, the OCEAN one for example, but it almost has to be an improvement over the 4 vital humours theory.
I agree that Myers Briggs and religion aren't comparable- what I'm trying to get at is the criteria by which a certain approach to those things (and others as well) judges whether or not they are worth taking seriously.
There is a kind of scepticism that rejects both hard-to-measure and impossible-to-measure ideas as if neither can possibly contain truth, but I think it is unconscious. It strikes me as a type of impatience that mistakes itself for common-sense. One of the signs of it is people suddenly making arguments that fall significantly below their normal standards of reasoning.
It's not really relevant dismiss potentially useful, hard-to-measure theories unless the evidence is that they are false. They should just go into the "pending physically scientific physical verification" box, but still be used when it is useful to use them. I think a lot of people's scepticism extends to not recognising that box at all.
So I agree with George's implicit argument that there isn't any argument to be had here on Briggs Myers itself. If the worst thing that can be said against the tests is that "they can lead to discrimination"- well, that's abuse of the ideas, and any ideas can be abused. What does interest me is why anyone would feel moved to make such poor arguments in the first place.
Posted by: RS at February 8, 2005 09:59 PM Permalink
Comment:
RS: Thank you. The problem is not with Myers Briggs types, but with the Myers Briggs Type Indicator - specifically the notion that the types are binary. Here's the crux, which I agree with:
The fundamental weakness of the MBTI, that must be appreciated, is that it classifies people together who have very different scores on the continuous dimensional measures, and then uses this categorisation to infer characteristics of those individuals. At the same time it contrasts those falling either side of the cut-off, but scoring closely numerically, as qualitatively different. For this approach to be valid the sixteen different personality types in the MBTI should contain some predictive power over and above the continuous dimensions they dichotomise – that is they should tell us more than simply that someone scored above or below the cut-off score on the continuous dimension. This is a view endorsed by the designers of the instrument
The Myers Briggs system is so practically relevant to making the best of
relationship difficulties that it’s hard for me to sit by watching an exchange
on this topic that does not address this aspect.
Specifically I’d like to jot down some observations on personality type and
marriage. An old-school question with regard to one’s possible mate used to be
“what do you have in common?” Presumably what there is to be had in common could
be background or economic class, common interests, or similar personalities (the
last two being related, as one’s personality influences his or her interests.) There
was an intuitive understanding that a partnership required substantial
commonality to weather the storms of the years. The folk-wisdom that contradicts
this, of course, is that opposites attract - complementarity is what produces
chemistry in a relationship, together with our own earliest patterns resounding
within us (see Harville Hendrix,
Getting the Love You Want).
Ideally the challenges of juggling family life and the work world prove
catalysts to personal growth of each partner. However, those stressors can also
push a couple to the brink. A little insight goes a long way in softening this
kind of known adjustment, and here is where Myers Briggs has real practical relevance. It
can help you grope your way through a quagmire of personality dynamics in your
relationship. I’ll offer a few examples of what Myers Briggs can and cannot shed light
upon, sprinkled with a few Laws of Living (or Loving…)
Law I: Benefit of the Doubt - Assume the best motivations of your partner. It
will help you tremendously in understanding what motivates his or her behavior if you
learn to understand his or her personality composition. Myers Briggs traits create a framework
within which certain trends in behavior are predictable, as are certain
pitfalls. For example, if he’s a strong extrovert and she’s a strong introvert,
she’ll consider quiet cuddling on the couch to be True Quality Time, and he’ll
be bored out of his mind (after a year or so, especially if, as some modern
couples do, they live in the same city!) Combine this with another strong
contrast, such as Sensing/iNtuitive, and it gets stickier: she wants to talk
about her deepest feelings and he dozes off on the couch, leaving her feelings
hurt and her needs frustrated.
This is not to say that partners with strongly contrasting personalities are
doomed, but that the incompatibility which may manifest in specific areas is a
known entity. You’ll want to walk in with your eyes open. The couple could agree
to plan activities which appealed to each type so as to vary their time spent
together, but most importantly they might avoid deep misunderstanding by
realizing that their partner’s preference is not a personal slight.
A word on the limits of Myers Briggs to illuminate your life - its field is inborn
personality traits, while some aspects of personality are learned. Issues such
as difficulty in managing anger may arise, based on a pattern or experience in
childhood, which cannot be decoded or predicted with Myers Briggs. Likewise,
personality evolves over time, and marriage is a universal challenge to
maturity. Law II: A degree of development is necessary to appreciate the long-term goals of family life, with its frequent requirement of delayed
gratification, and its deeper satisfactions plus mundane day-to-day.
This said, there are some common problematic responses to the stresses of family
life, such as escapism (hiding in your outside activities), martyrdom (making
one’s family commitments one’s sole identity, without taking pleasure in it) and
abusive behaviors, verbal, physical or otherwise. Your Myers Briggs profile can help you
understand what within you drives you toward a certain problematic response, and
perhaps help you see where you could use some healthy balance. A personality
with a strong drive toward service and order might bury himself in his duty
toward his family, although it’s especially common among women; a strong
sensing-perceiving type, which is a classic thrill-seeker and athlete, will
elect a more escapist route in response to stress.
In sum anyone already feeling confused or depressed about the state of a
partnership might gain self-awareness and perhaps some new directions by
investigating the role of type in the relationship.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 02:35 PM Permalink
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Comment:
Bravo! That is sooooo good!
I hope you both have contributed to my sample size in the MTBI poll at Gene Expression. :)
Since I discovered him, I have felt a kinship with
David Warren: we both, in our
respective ways, spent our youths and early adulthood traveling the world, and
we have both come back to an unexpected home. Perhaps I have discovered the
origin of our kinship. His latest-but-one
article
reveals his formative reading:
A friend and I once had a semi-public discussion about
character-formation through books read in early childhood. I attributed my own
moral outlook to Rudyard Kipling, via Just So Stories, and then Kim. He
attributed his to Kenneth Grahame via The Wind in the Willows.
I now realize that the Kipling influence, which began as late as age five,
could only have been superficial. The Pookie books [see source for details
- DB] are the true source of my Weltanschauung.
Nothing against Wind in the Willows. I didn't read it until aloud, as a parent
at the bedside of a child. I was of course joking when I suggested that an
early exposure to it might explain my friend's liberal propensities. As an
adult, I found it finely written, clever, and sentimental, but lacking in the
quality of nobility; one of those "empathy books", with elements of stand-up
comedy.
It's probably just a coincidence that the people who have told me Wind in the
Willows was their formative book have all been gliberals, leftoids, and sex
perverts.
I think I had 'The Wind in the Willows' read to me in school, I remember of
it nothing more than vague impressions. But Kipling's 'Jungle Book', and before
that 'Just So Stories' (read to me by my parents, Kipling was un-PC even in
those pre-PC days when I was a child) made an impression on me that has lasted a
lifetime (I am now reading 'Just So Stories' to my own children, and have just
bought the 'Jungle Book') - I, too, found them possessing a certain nobility, as
David Warren said. I think it a certain adventurousness of spirit, a playful
earnestness - nobility, I think, comes from bearing burdens lightly, from never
taking oneself too seriously, yet being serious nonetheless. It it the opposite
of idle self-importance. (Not that I want to belittle earnest do-gooders, with
the proviso that they are actually doing good. It just helps, I think, to
remember that Man tracht und Gott lacht - Man plans and God Laughs, a
Yiddish proverb.)
So I was somewhat dismayed on New Year's Eve, when David wrote (in his usual
thoughtful manner) a screed against evolution, and has since expanded his
thoughts into
afour-partseries.
Of course, history is not something that can be scientifically proven - we
cannot prove that evolution is responsible for the origin of species any more
than we can prove that Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo - but we can martial
a quantity of evidence that makes the alternatives vanishingly improbable.
Though this, too, is dependent on the assumption that God is not deliberately
deceiving us: there is no way to assign probablies to the notion that God
created the world 5000+ years ago, complete with its fossil (and human) record.
But, then, you could just as easily claim that the world was created yesterday,
complete with each of our false memories. In that case, however, I would claim
that there must be some intrinsic truth to our false memories (after all, God
created them) that it behooves us to investigate. (Rabbi
Moshe Hayim Luzzatto
claims that God made the world logical only for mankind to understand it.) And
so, back we get, to evolution.
In any case, I think all this is odd, because it seems that David's main
objection is not science at all, but politics:
What distinguishes Darwinism, in the end, is the nasty figurative edge
to it, the popular use of it to communicate "nature red in tooth and claw". It
became associated very early with Victorian atheism, and does the missionary
work of the old Bloomsbury set that lost its Christian faith in the mid-19th
century. It is an ideology that continues to reach beyond the strict realm of
biology, into areas of philosophy and theology with which it has nothing to
do. It sells a cosmos that is blind, random, purposeless.
It is a religion, sez I; a religion with prophets like Thomas Henry Huxley,
and Herbert Spencer, and Richard Dawkins today.
Personally, I have never had this problem. I didn't learn evolution from
Huxley, Spencer, or Dawkins. My official introduction to evolution was in 10th
grade biology, and it was preceded by a thoughtful disclaimer, where the teacher
said something like: This is what most scientists think. You don't have to
believe it - this is not a religion class - but for this class you have to know
it. I, too, am offended by people who mix science and politics - even when I
agree with the politics. True, science can lead to conclusions of political
import. But arguments of fact and arguments of policy must be kept separate,
otherwise facts will be rejected because of their supposed policy implications,
to the detriment of both. And that is exactly what has happened. Unfortunately
ideas, like people, are judged by the company they keep.
But David redeems himself, for this is how he concludes:
Evolution is, on the other hand, not a "crock" in the way it is
presented by non-ideological science writers. E.O. Wilson, for instance (whose
co-written book on The Ants was among the most wonderful Christmas presents I
ever received), is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Richard Dawkins,
who makes a point of throwing evolution in the face of believing Christians.
Prof. Wilson is a gentleman; Prof. Dawkins is a pig.
And by the way, it would be no skin off my nose if every aspect of Darwinism
were by some miracle demonstrated to be true. I would then have to accept it
as a genuine insight into "how" God works.
And that is a sentiment that I can stand behind 100%.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 06:26 PM Permalink
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Comment:
David, poor Sir Richard is so misunderstood. He has been driven mad by the inability of the ID contingent to assimilate his elegant arguments. David Warren is a sophist-- you cannot believe in Wilson without believing in Dawkins. It is all one. :(
And I loved the Just So "abune 'a thing". The Elephant's Child is my life metaphor, and i can quote it by heart.
David Warren is not a sophist and he's not convinced by either. He's just not insulted by Wilson.
The Elephant's Child made quite an impression on me too. I remembered the phrase, "the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees" from childhood until I read it to my children.
i have only time to read your quotations of warren, but 'huxley, spencer and dawkins' make a peculiar triad.
1) huxely invented the term 'agnostic.' he was not, from what i gather, militant against religion per se, but a particular sort of religion (and also humanistic snobbery!) which inserted itself into the purview of science (he was for 10 years member of a metaphysical society where he interacted with anglican clergy and a catholic bishop).
2) spencer was a philosopher whose ideas about 'survival of the fittest' converged with, but did not derive from, darwin's. spencer coined the term 'survival of the fittest' several years before darwin published 'origin of species.' spencer's real antecedant, from where i stand, is malthus, and more broadly speaking the manchester school of lasseiz faire economics. additionally, evolutionary ideas date as far back as the greeks, and were in general circulation in the mid-19th century, so spencer could appeal to the gist of the idea without any foreknowledge of the subtle precision of darwinism.
3) dawkins is a scientist, like huxely, but unlike huxely is a militant atheist. but, i have met dawkins, and from that, in addition to my reading, i must say that though his militant atheism is somewhat off putting, i suspect that at its root it is drawing (subconsciously or not) from a wellspring of upper-middle-class english anti-papism. his jabs tend to be aimed in particular at roman catholics in both print and in private. if he was an american it would possibly be aimed at southern evangelicals. dawkins is in some ways a synthesis of h.l. mencken and thomas huxely.
Tonight is Tu Bishvat (ט"ו בשבט) - the
15th of the month of Shvat. The Hebrew equivalent of Roman Numerals uses
the first 10 letters of the alphabet for the numbers 1 to 10, the next nine
letters are used for 20 to 100, and the last thee letters are used for 200, 300,
and 400. According to this system, you would expect 15 to be 10 + 5, but this
combination happens to spell a name of God, so instead 9 + 6 is used. The ninth
letter of the alphabet is tet (ט) and the sixth
letter is vav (ו), and if you pronounce tet-vav as
a word, you get: 'Tu'. What looks like a quote between the tet and
the vav, called gershayim (גרשיים) in Hebrew (literally,
the dual of geresh, which is: '), is the way numbers and acronyms are written - the gershayim
being placed between the second-to-last and last letters (geresh is used for abbreviations).
There are four New Years (heads of years)
On the first of Nisan the new year of kings and of the holidays
On the first of Elul the new year of tithing animals
Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon say on the first of Tishrey
On the first of Tishrey the new year of (counting) the years and the
sabbatical year and of the jubilee of planting and of vegetables
On the first of Shvat the new year of the trees according to the school of Shamay
The school of Hillel says on the fifteenth of the month
Rosh Hashana 1:1
The halakha follows the school of Hillel in this case (as it usually does),
so the New Year of the Trees is on the 15th of Shvat - it is at this time
that we can really feel the coming of spring. The daffodils and crocuses have
past, but the most emblematic sign of spring, the blooming of the almond trees,
has just begun. I have to say that I love Israeli seasons. The weather is always
better than my native Boston. Though the summers here are long, they are dry (at
least where I live, though not along the coast) - not hot and humid. Spring and
fall are milder and more pleasant, and winter: just when I feel like it's about
to begin - it's spring!
In the spirit of the day, I will relate a story from the Talmud,
about Rabbi Yishaq, who describes his relationship to his student, Rabbi Nahman,
comparing it to a tree, and wants to bless him:
אמשול לך משל למה הדבר דומה
לאדם שהיה הולך במדבר והיה רעב ועיף וצמא
ומצא אילן שפירותיו מתוקין וצילו נאה ואמת המים עוברת תחתיו
אכל מפירותיו ושתה ממימיו וישב בצילו
וכשביקש לילך אמר אילן אילן במה אברכך
אם אומר לך שיהו פירותיך מתוקין הרי פירותיך מתוקין
שיהא צילך נאה הרי צילך נאה
שתהא אמת המים עוברת תחתיך הרי אמת המים עוברת תחתיך
אלא יהי רצון שכל נטיעות שנוטעין ממך יהיו כמותך
אף אתה במה אברכך
אם בתורה הרי תורה
אם בעושר הרי עושר
אם בבנים הרי בנים
אלא יהי רצון שיהו צאצאי מעיך כמותך
Emshol l'kha mashal l'ma hadavar dome
L'adam shehaya holekh bamidbar v'haya ra`ev v`ayef v'same'
Umasa ilan shepeyrotav m'tuqin v'silo na'e v'emet hamayim `overet tahtav
Akhal mipeyrotav v'shata mimeymav v'yashav b'silo
Ukhshebiqesh leylekh amar ilan ilan b'ma avarekh'kha
Im omar l'kha sheyihyu peyroteykha m'tuqin harey peyroteykha m'tuqin
Shey'he silkha na'e harey silkha na'e
Shet'he emet hamayim `overet tahteykha harey emet hamayim `overet tahteykha
Ela' y'hi rason shekol n'ti`ot shenot`in mimkha yihyu kamokha
Af ata b'ma avarekh'kha
Im b'tora harey b'tora
Im b`osher harey b`osher
Im b'vanim harey b'vanim
Ela' y'hi rason sheyihyu se'se'ey m`eykha kamokha
I will tell you a parable about what the thing is like
Like a person that was walking in the desert and was hungry and tired and thirsty
And found a tree whose fruits were sweet and and shade pleasant and true water passes beneath it
He ate from its fruits and drank from its water and sat in its shade
And when he was going to leave said: O tree, O tree with what shall I bless you?
If I say to you may your fruits be sweet, your fruits are already sweet
May your shade be pleasant, your shade is already pleasant
May true water pass beneath you, true water already passes beneath you
But: May it be willed that all the seedlings that sprout from you be like you
Even so you, with what shall I bless you?
If with learning, you already have learning
If with wealth, you already have wealth
If with children, you already have children
But: May it be willed that the children of your loins be like you
Talmud Bavli Ta`anit 5B
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 05:40 PM Permalink
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Comment:
My oldest daughter (kindergarten) stopped me before we took her to school this morning; she ran out ot out front yard and stood in front of our tree. She stood for second, and then said "Happy Birthday" to it. She is so sweet my teeth hurt!
You can view all polls on one page by clicking
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Voting Rules
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2. These polls are only for those categories whose number of valid
nominations exceeded the cutoff number of 12.
3. Each of the categories is split into two groups. The
top 6 vote-getters from
each group will proceed to the finals.
4. All valid nominees in the following polls (which are not included in
this preliminary round) automatically proceed to the Finals voting:
Best Overall 'Mega' Blog
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5. You can vote only once in 24 hours.
6. Please no cheating. It goes against the spirit of these awards, and ruins
the fun for everyone. If I discover any cheating (automatic voting bots or
multiple voters in one poll within 24 hours), the voters IP address will be
banned, and the number of votes accordingly adjusted.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 04:23 PM Permalink
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Comment:
Where is your attractive nominee logog so we can vote by clicking on that? :)
There's a certain kind of remembering that I think is unhealthy: it keeps us
from moving forward. It's for this reason that I'm far from enthusiastic about
the various Holocaust-related suits that are going on. Not because I think the
defendants are innocent, but because I think it's unhealthy for the Jews: It's
time to move on.
This is not to say that we should forget the past, on the contrary. I was
very moved by
this post (via
Solomonia, also
found
here) by a
David A. Yeagley, a Comanche Indian (I
have long felt a kind of kinship with American Indians). I know how he feels. I,
too, speak the "language of Europe", and like him I would find it easier to
write about his suffering than mine:
Why would a Comanche Indian write an opera about the Jewish Holocaust?
Shouldn’t an American Indian write about his own Trail of Tears? Why this
convergence of cultural ethos? Why this crossing of paths?
I hear these two giant, genetic dirges in the same key. Both are the
lamentations of unwanted people. But, the reason I chose to write an opera on
the Jewish Holocaust has to do with my educational background and personal
experience.
Although I’m an Oklahoma Indian, I speak the artistic language of Europe. It
so happens that, since I was a young teenager, Jewish people have always
valued what I have to say. They have appreciated me and my work. Therefore I
have always felt close to Jewish people.
I trust the Jews with my
tears. I once told a rabbi how I felt about Jewish people. I confessed, “I know
if I really wanted to cry my heart out, I could come here (the synagogue) in the
sanctuary, and just cry. No one would make me feel embarrassed. No one would
shame me. No one would ask any questions. Everyone would understand. The Jews
know.”
What would I be crying about?
The Indian story. It’s taken me many years to face it, but in my Comanche blood
is written the worst historical trauma of all: to be free as the wind, then
caged forever; to roam the prairie like a wild horse, then to be roped into
everlasting confinement. Yes, I cry for an irreparable, tragic past. It is a
doleful drone in my soul, a long, lonely drum beat.
I don’t know how to describe the sorrow. For all my education in the arts, I am
mute. I have no voice. Yet.
I remember my composition teacher, Daniel Asia, at the University of Arizona. A
nice Jewish boy from Seattle, Dan was wholly reluctant to talk about the Jewish
Holocaust. He simply can’t. It is ineffable. I understand now.
The Jewish Holocaust has always held special meaning to me as a Comanche
Indian. The threat of extinction is a fear to which I can strongly relate.
Last year, I composed what I am told is the first grand opera on the
Holocaust, "Jacek," a three-act story based on the personal life of Jack P.
Eisner, 75-year-old survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and several
concentration camps.
I met Mr. Eisner in Caesarea, Israel, on January 8, 1998. I was there
for the debut of my newly composed chamber music, "Three Spirit Dances On The
Bark Of An Ancient Stump." It was a three-movement duet for oboe and bassoon.
I had rehearsed the music with Ayalet Ballin (bassoon) and Mirav Kadichevski
(oboe), two young, brilliant music students from the Rubin Academy at the
University of Tel-Aviv.
Mr. Eisner was kind enough to attend the concert. I was introducing a
new system of harmonic organization and tonality, and gave my first public
presentation of it in a pre-concert lecture.
I also introduced a new style of Hebrew cantorial chant, which I sang
myself, and finally ended the concert with a performance on my Comanche flute,
the type designed and made famous by Doc Tate Nevaquaya. (The late Doc Tate
was noted as one of the top five Indian flute players in recorded history.)
As Mr. Eisner, my Israeli host Ted and I were walking home from Shabbat
morning services, Ted – who had introduced me to Mr. Eisner – said, "Hey,
Dave, you’re a good composer. Why don’t you write an opera on Jack’s story?"
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 02:03 PM Permalink
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I read Rikki-tikki-tavi to my
kids last night. I remember loving it as a child, and it's more self-contained
than the Mowgli stories. It's a wonderful story. This is how it begins:
This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought
single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee
cantonment. Darzee, the Tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat,
who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by
the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting. He was a
mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a
weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose
were pink. He could scratch himself anywhere he pleased with any leg, front or
back, that he chose to use. He could fluff up his tail till it looked like a
bottle brush, and his war cry as he scuttled through the long grass was: "Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!"
Noble
indeed! He didn't shun the help of his allies, but also he didn't hesitate to do
his calling. I remembered from childhood the images of Darzee, the
good-for-nothing songbird, and Chuchundra, who is always "trying to make up his
mind to run into the middle of the room", but is too fearful to ever do so. But
Rikki-tikki-tavi is not the kind of hero who has to maintain his heroic pose, he
is just himself.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 03:26 PM Permalink
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Generalissimo Duane forsees a bigger fight over Alberto Gonzales than we saw over Dr. Rice. Let's hope his math is worse than mine. RatherBiased reports that CBS's "expert" Marcel Matley is accusing the network of harming his provessional reputation as...
Comment:
The Harry Potter books pay hommage to the cobra couple, Nag and Nagheera, with the great snake Nagini, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. the thing about JK Rowling, all those books are just stuffed with literary tags and tributes.
I love that story. Also the Just So Stories, but not the Jungle books so much. I love Kipling in general. I reread Kim right after we went into Afghanistan. Some thingsd haven't changed.
PS Your blog won't let me post my URL for some reason.
According to Rabbi Bunim of P'shiskha, everyone should have two pockets, each
containing a slip of paper. On one should be written: I am but dust and ashes,
and on the other: The world was created for me. From time to time we must reach
into one pocket, or the other. The secret of living comes from knowing when to
reach into each.
The first phrase is spoken by Abraham when he realizes that he's bargaining
with God over S'dom (סדום) and `Amora (עמורה)
- Sodom and Gomorrah:
וְאָנֹכִי עָפָר וָאֵפֶר
V'anokhi `afar va'efer
I am but dust and ashes
Genesis 18:27
The second phrase is from the Talmud, illustrating that we are
all unique individuals, though we are formed from the same mould:
לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי
ללמדך שכל המאבד נפש אחת מישראל
מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא
וכל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל
מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא
ומפני שלום הבריות שלא יאמר אדם לחבירו
אבא גדול מאביך
ושלא יהו המינים אומרים הרבה רשויות בשמים
ולהגיד גדולתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא
שאדם טובע כמה מטבעות בחותם אחד כולן דומין זה לזה
ומלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא טבע כל אדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון
ואין אחד מהן דומה לחבירו
לפיכך כל אחד ואחד חייב לומר
בשבילי נברא העולם
L'fikhakh nivra' adam y'hidi
L'lamedkha shekol ham'abed nefesh ahat miyisra'el
Ma`le `alav hakatuv k'ilu ibed `olam male'
V'khol ham'qayem nefesh ahat miyisra'el
Ma`ale `alav hakatuv k'ilu kiyem `olam male'
Umipney shlom habriyut shlo' yomar adam l'havero
Aba gadol me'avikha
V'shelo' yihyu haminim omrim harbe rehuyot bashamayim
Ul'hagid g'dulato shel haqadosh barukh hu
She'adam tovea` kama matbe`ot b'hotem ehad kulan domin ze l'ze
Umelekh malkey hamlakhim haqadosh barukh hu tava` kol adam b'hotmo shel adam harishon
V'eyn ehad mehem dome l'havero
L'fikhakh kol ehad v'ehad hayav lomar
bishvili nivra' ha`olam
For this reason a single person was created (Adam was created alone)
To teach you that anyone who kills one soul of Israel
Is considered as if he has killed an entire world
And anyone who sustains one soul of Israel
Is considered as if he has sustained an entire world
And because of peace among mankind, so that one person won't say to his fellow
"My father is greater than your father"
And so that the apostates won't say "There are many authorities in heaven"
And to tell the greatness of the Holy One Blessed Be He
That a man mints many coins with one stamp, all of them the same as one another
And the King of Kings the Holy One Blessed Be He minted every person with the stamp of Adam
And not one of them is the same as his fellow
For this reason every single person must say
The world was created for me
Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 37B
UPDATE: It occurs to me that the above is likely to be
impenetrable without a little background. First of all, you have to understand
that in the time it was written down (probably much later than when it
originated) a tribal point of view was a fact of life. Thus, the passage first
compares two Jews (souls of Israel) to emphasize our worth as individuals, not
just as members of a tribe (remember this was written by Jews for a Jewish
audience), the logic being that every individual is capable of being an ancestor
to the whole world, thus by killing him you have also killed his descendents,
i.e. everyone. The passage then compares individuals from different tribes, who
are likely to say "my father is greater than your father" i.e. "the founder of
my tribe is greater than the founder of your tribe". (The expression 'shlom
habriyut' is stock phrase within Judaism referring to the explicit value of
peace among mankind.) And finally proceeds to the common (in those days) but
anti-Jewish idea of patron gods, i.e. that different tribes had different gods
(we are familiar with this in the west from ancient Greece, where each city had
a patron god), were people might be tempted to say "my god created my tribe and
your god created your tribe". The passage winds up by exploring the wonders of
sexual reproduction in that no two people are alike, even though God "minted
every person with the stamp of Adam" - so that not only can everyone can claim
to be God's original creation, but to deny it is to deny God - it would imply
that He made you by accident.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 11:35 PM Permalink
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Comment:
The Gematriah [alphaneumerics] of "V'anokhi `afar va'efer" comes to 754. For "bishvili nivra' ha`olam" it comes to 758. If we remove the letter "bet" (or "beis" as I would call it) that appears twice in "bishvili", you get "shai li" [gift for me] and makes the 2 quotes numerically equal... now what to do with those 2 pesky letters. .
Hannah Szenes (the spelling is her native Hugarian, in Hebrew: Hana
Senesh - חנה סנש) is
one of the best loved Israeli poets. Her most well known poem is halikha
l'qesarya (הליכה לקסריה)
- Walking to Caesaria (a Roman ruin on the coast of Israel):
אלי, אלי
שלא יגמר לעולם
החול והים
רשרוש של המים
ברק השמיים
תפילת האדם
My God, my God
May it not end forever
The sand and the sea
The rush of the water
The lightning of the heavens
The prayer of Man
I understand that the move Schindler's List ends with this song.
This
site tells Hannah Szenes's story. Here is what she wrote about that walk to
Caesaria:
In the morning, I roam through the ancient ruins; in the
afternoon, I walk in the fields, or to be more precise, on the land designated
to become our fields. When I see with what fury the foamy waves rush against
the shore and how they become silent and peaceful upon crashing against the
sand, I think that our enthusiasm and anger is not much different. As they
roll, they are powerful and vigorous and when they touch the shore, they
break, they calm down and they begin to play like small children on the golden
sand.
This is how her life ended:
Soon after, Hannah is recruited by the British Intelligence
Services. During the winter of 1943-44, she and her companions parachuted into
Yugoslavia in order to make contact with the partisans. For their part, the
leaders of the Palestinian community - the yishuv - call upon them to come to
the aid of the Jews threatened by the Nazis. They will accomplish both tasks,
joining the partisans, conveying information to the Allies and urging their
fellow Jews to secure Palestine. According to her comrade, Yoel Palgui, Hannah
proves to be the most enterprising and determined of all. She is ardent about
the Jewish question and about Israel.
On May 13th, 1944, Hannah and her comrades cross the Hungarian border in small
groups. The Hungarian police arrest some of them including Hannah. She is
incarcerated in the same prison as Yoel to whom she recounts the circumstances
of her arrest and interrogations. The following are excerpts of Yoel's
testimony:
She suffered the most terrible forms of torture without
yielding. A missing tooth was testimony of their cruelty. They had whipped
the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. They had tied her up,
forcing her to remain immobile for hours. They had beaten her so violently
that her body was completely covered with ecchymoses. Her torturers wanted
to know the radio code. They had discovered the transmitter that she had
hidden before being captured and they wanted the correspondence code in
order to send false messages and direct the Allies' bombers to their
anti-aircraft guns. Aware of the importance of the code, Hannah refused to
reveal it. (...)
The worst was yet to come for Hannah in the prison in Budapest. She
certainly did not long to find herself again in the city of her birth. They
threw her into a cell where, to her great sorrow, she met her mother. At a
loss of words, she embraced her tightly and could only murmur these words: "
Mother, forgive me, but I could not renounce my obligations. "
The Germans knew what they were doing. They threatened to torture her mother
and to execute her before Hannah's very eyes if she refused to reveal the
code. But she did not yield. Only those who knew how much she loved her
mother could begin to imagine her suffering. For my part, I was shaken by
her account and could not hide my bewilderment. How could she remain so calm
and so steadfast? Where did she find the courage to sacrifice her mother,
whom she so loved, rather than reveal a secret, upon which, it is true, the
lives of many depended? Who knows? Perhaps her determination indirectly
contributed to saving her mother? Had she yielded, the Germans would surly
have executed her, sending her mother to the gas chambers in Auschwitz.
Imshin (I can't
believe this is the first time I'm linking to her, I really like her site) tells
about her
special relationship with Hannah Szenes. Go
read it.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 03:09 PM Permalink
| Comments (2) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/64647
Comment:
That was well worth reading. I have mentioned it on my blog.
Posted by: Jack at January 29, 2005 12:17 AM Permalink
Comment:
Hello, David.
While in the labour camp in Hungary, my father got to know a guard (German or Hungarian) who boasted of having taken part in Senesh's execution. If the guy was telling the truth, that's something we'll never know.
Lisa of On The Face (via
Not a Fish) begins a series about the
Oslo War. Although my story is quite similar to hers, give or take a few
details, I don't remember it with the clarity that she does. My memory of the events is already fading. It's hard
for me to remember what came before what. For example, what exactly was going on
when Ariel Sharon was elected? I just remember that it was bad.
It was a hard read. It really took me back to those hard days. The fact that
Lisa worked in a high-tech company adds to similarity between her story and
mine. But it's a good read too. Excerpt:
The major suicide bombings didn’t start until the end of May 2001. For
the first six months of the intifida, daily life in Tel Aviv wasn’t really
affected. This was not the case for Jerusalem. Gilo, a Jerusalem residential
neighbourhood, was shot at by Palestinian fighters in bordering Beit Jala
throughout the month of December. Residents of apartments facing Beit Jala put
sandbags in their windows, kept the lights turned off at night, and crouched
low when they moved from room to room. One evening I was at my local
laundrette, watching the news on the television mounted on the wall while I
waited for my clothes to dry. The woman sitting next to me pointed her long,
thin cigarette at the footage of bullets tracing streaks of light through the
darkness and said, “It’s madness. Forty-five minutes away from here, there’s a
war going on. And we’re sitting here doing our laundry.”
Except:
Soon after Sharon was elected, I saw a rather interesting interview on CNN.
A veteran member of Barak's just-ousted Labour party and a prominent member of
the Palestinian National Council (PNC) were interviewed, simultaneously but
from different locations, by a studio moderator. At one point the Palestinian
shook his head mournfully and said that Israel’s willingness to discuss peace
had been called into serious question by the recent election of Ariel Sharon,
the man who many believe was indirectly responsible for the infamous
Sabra and
Shatila massacres. At that, the Israeli Labour politician grew red in the
face, rose up halfway from his chair, and, pointing his index finger at the
camera, shouted, "We did not elect Ariel
Sharon! You know who did?! You did! You! With your decision to initiate this
violence instead of negotiating!"
"And we're out of time, gentlemen," said the moderator. "Thank you both very
much and goodnight."
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 03:25 PM Permalink
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Today is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I often wonder
how our history would change if little things had been different in
those dark days. If the war had been won a little sooner. If the Allies had seen
fit to bomb the railroads that supplied the death camps. If it had been a
priority of some nation, somewhere, to rescue Jews. But in fact, not only was it NOT top priority to the
US and the Allies to rescue Jews - their policies were determined, in part,
by the effort NOT to appear to be fighting for the Jews. The argument that going
to war against Nazi Germany would benefit the Jews was an argument AGAINST it.
Perhaps I am biased by feeling that there is something unique about the
Holocaust. It is a horror that touched members of my family whom I knew, and
others whom I would have known, had they lived. Of course, the Jews have no
monopoly on suffering, and it could be argued that other peoples have suffered
more - others have been exterminated entirely. Still,
the scale of the Holocaust sets it apart - once you set aside the auto-genocides
of various communist regimes, an altogether different kind of horror. But there
are some other things too, I think. For one: the killing machine. The genocides that
have taken place since World War II, like the ones before it, were committed
with the standard weapons of the day - in fact the Rwanda massacres were
committed largely with machetes. Only the Germans developed technology for the
sole purpose of mass murder. Only the Germans made a science of genocide. It was the
Holocaust of the future.
I was raised with the observation that Germany was the "most civilized"
country in Europe before it embarked on the Holocaust - indeed the Jews of Eastern
Europe looked to Germany as beacon of light illuminating the darkness of their
lands. The message being: Don't think anyone is too civilized to kill Jews. The
rhetorical question was always: Could it happen again? And the answer was
always: Not in America. Not in Europe. We're democracies, we're... civilized.
But now we are engaged in a new World War. And now, once again, the US and
its allies are doing everything possible to deny that winning it is good for the
Jews. Once again, the notion that going to war will benefit the Jews is one of
the strongest rhetorical points against it. Once again it is respectable to tell
lies about Jews, which no right-thinker cares to rebut. But this time it's
different: the Jews can fight for themselves. We may be small and weak, but
compared to no power at all, it's a world of difference. Remember what Dick
Cheney
said, just a few days ago:
Well, one of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without
being asked, that if, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had
significant nuclear capability, given the fact that Iran has a stated policy
that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well
decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the
diplomatic mess afterwards. We don't want a war in the Middle East, if we can
avoid it. And certainly in the case of the Iranian situation, I think
everybody would be best suited by or best treated and dealt with if we could
deal with it diplomatically.
Those Jews, all they can think of is saving themselves from genocide. It's
just like them to go and prevent a nuclear holocaust, "and let rest of
the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards".
Imagine if Israel had been one of the allies in World War II.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 11:37 PM Permalink
| Comments (18) Trackback URL: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/trackback.cgi/64720
Comment:
Yeah,
I caught that remark as well. I kept thinking, so what is the US doing in Iraq? Wasn't that the point? Wasn't that the argument of Europe?
But then I have always felt the thinking goes like this; Jews are only acceptable to much of the world if we are villians or victims, but not as victors. It destroys too many peoples percetions of us and our role in the world.
Rachel Ann.
Maybe the US learned something from the Jewish Holocaust. And that's why Iraq. We can only hope. The Iraqis had their own holocaust under Saddam. 1.3 million dead.
The world has looked the other way during holocausts since the Aztecs. Bosnia and Iraq are the first initiations of interference before the end-game, ever.
David, everyone must be able to fight for themselves. Why did the founding fathers put the right to bear arms into the US constitution? For the protection of the individual. Preventing holocaust is an individual responsibilty. The founding fathers were terrified of demi-gogues, and understood full that states can turn rogue. Our guns are insurance policies. :)
Doesn't it bother you that so much money is spent on dead Jews and not live ones? With the same breath, the UN, after all these years made one ceremony that hardly anyone attended, outside of Jews and Israelis and a few non-arab diplomats. Jordan was the only Arab country represented. And that doesn't stop the UN from condeming Israel for defending her citizens.
Posted by: muse at January 30, 2005 08:43 PM Permalink
Comment:
Interested: If Israel had been around in WWII, there would have been one country in the world for whom saving the Jews was a priority in the war.
10 million Congolese killed by the Belgians, who turned the Congo into a massive work camp. No holocaust museums for the Congolese. No Hollywood blockbusters telling their story. No billions in reparations.
the scale of the Holocaust sets it apart - once you set aside the auto-genocides of various communist regimes, an altogether different kind of horror
Mmm? The "auto-genocides" you say? Do you have any idea what group of people composed the bulk of the Communist party's leadership in the Soviet Union. Here's a clue: It wasn't Russians.
The reason we hear about the "Holocaust" is because the Jews are an extremely literary group of people. They talk (and talk) about themselves, thus they talk about their sufferings. Unlike the Ukrainians, unlike the Arabs, unlike, unlike...
jinnderella,
That was my point. Israel, if she decides to go after Iran would have every right to, just as the US had the right to go into Iraq, because the president conclude, despite the antagonism of many foriegn governments, that it was in the best interest of the US.
Frankly, I don't give two shakes of a rats tail about "diplomatic mess" that's just another way of saying the Arab countries will start shrieking at the US again because of its ties to Israel. So? Let them shriek.
Neither were Russian either. Communism is internationalist in flavor, and that is undeniable. And Jews, particularily, have always been overrepresented (read: Vastly overrepresented) among the Communist party.
The Georgian had to get rid of the Jews, that's true. That's just the revolution eating its children--happens every time.
To those who might not get "onetwothree"'s reference, the "Georgian" is Stalin: Lenin's 2nd-in-command, and heir. A fairly early and important figure, don't you think?
What "onetwothree" is trying to do is called guilt-by-association.
Notice his modus operandi: First the fallacious claim that "the bulk" of communist leadership in Russia were Jews (later toned down to "Jews have always been vastly overrepresented" - not the same thing), therefore the Jews were committing genocide against the Russians, therefore it was not an autogenocide, therefore the Jews are responsible for communist autogenocide, therefore Jews are responsible for the autogenocides in China and Cambodia (which were wholly lacking in Jews). And all because the Jews talk and talk and talk, which must be a crime or something because it makes people pay attention to them instead of the virtuous Ukrainians, Arabs, etc.
My point is: The millions dead in the Soviet Union did not commit suicide. You know full well you are attempting to trivialize the affair by saying that. (As in, this suffering is important, while this is not.)
Look at the bottom chart:
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p-4_Weber.html
Yes, Jews are overrepresented. But that's only half the story--because the Communist party was internationalist in spirit, you had a perfect mongrel and a Georgian immigrant leading Russia, a Russian (Khrushev) running the Ukraine, and (yes, indeed) a vast overproportion of Jews filling out the party's leadership. I wouldn't have brought any of this up, but for the "AutoGenocide" remark.
I am not referring to other Communist regimes, either, such as that of China.
Onetwothree: You know very well that it is you who are trying to minimize the Holocaust by saying that other people suffered too. I specifically said that the autogenocides are a horror. And what's all this "internationalist" and "mongrel" garbage? The fact is that in one case you have a country (or several) that enthusiastically committed genocide against a minority, and in the other you have genocide committed by government against its own people. Two different kinds of sociopathology.
Worse than trying to minimize the Holocaust, you are trying to blame the Jews for mass murder. Why are you insisting on the Jews' involvement with the communist party in Russia if your point is merely to equate the genocide of one people against another, with the genocide of one people by its leaders? Why didn't you bring up Cambodia or China as counter examples of genocide? Why didn't you simply say, "other peoples have suffered too", or something like that? I really don't want to equate the suffering of one people to another, but to talk about the unique aspects of the Holocaust - and I tried to make that clear. The fact is that it is a repeated theme of history that minorities are over represented in revolutions because they have no stake in the existing regime. Nevertheless, they have to have wide backing among the majority to achieve their aims - the only alternative is when a small minority has vast technological edge, or when the "revolution" is more akin to a palace coup. (A combination of the two occurred in the Spanish conquest of the Incas and Aztecs.) By your line of reasoning, the French people had nothing to do with the Napoleonic wars - it was really a Corsican war.
In the year 1886 the Grand Trunk Railway wanted to build the Victoria
Bridge and it would span the mighty St. Lawrence River and connect Montreal to
the Kahnawake Reserve.
They contracted out the job to the Dominion Bridge Company. In exchange for
being allowed to run the railroad through Mohawk Territory, Grand Trunk arranged
for Dominion to hire some of the Mohawks as laborers to work on the bridge site.
This decision would have a huge impact upon the lifestyle of many Mohawks, an
effect that remains to this very day.
Their first job was to supply the stone for the large piers that would support
the bridge.
When their shifts ended, they would hang out on the bridge watching the other
workers to see what they were doing.
Even young Native children became curious and soon they were climbing all over
the span, right alongside the men. The workers noticed that the Mohawk's
agility, grace and sense of balance made it seem as though they had a natural
disposition for heights.
When management became aware of this, they hired and trained a dozen tribal
members as ironworkers. The original twelve, all teenagers, were so adept at
working at high altitudes, they were known as the 'Fearless Wonders'.
They would walk on narrow beams several hundred feet above the raging river and
yet it appeared as though they were just on a casual walk along a forest path.
As one company official later wrote, "It was quite impossible to keep them
out." Indeed, "As the work progressed, it became apparent to all concerned that
these Indians were very odd in that they did not have any fear
of heights."
What made
the Mohawks such superb high steel workers remains something of a mystery. The
legends assumed some kind of genetic advantage, but there is little evidence
of this. Joseph Mitchell, in his scrupulous New Yorker article, "The Mohawks
in High Steel," thought Kahnawake children in Brooklyn "have unusual manual
dexterity; by the age of three, most of them are able to tie their
shoelaces"—but Kanatakta, Executive Director of the Kahnawake Community
Cultural Centre, suggests that it's more "a question of dealing with the
fear."
What do you think accounts for this? Is it genetic? Cultural? Either way, it
is pretty unusual.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at 08:03 PM Permalink
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Comment:
Is it genetic? Cultural?
I would think that it is probably a mixture of both. If you have outstanding dexterity that provides some confidence and security by itself.
In combination with control over your fear you would have something that would be a very effective tool for working in a job like this.
Posted by: Jack at January 31, 2005 06:18 PM Permalink
Comment:
I agree with Jack; I'm sure there is some genetic component to phobias, and that may not be present in Mohawk. Plus, what one is accustomed to, plus perhaps there is a genetic component to a good sense of balance.
It would be interesting to study somehow, but I'm not sure how one would go about it. I guess take dna samples from the fearless (not limited to the Mohawks) and the fearful and see if there is some genetic component in the majority of cases.
Tu B'Shvat is over, although there's one more seder tonight at the JCC, which I won't be attending as it is a very crunchy environmentalist event, and there will be much hand-wringing over the election, which I don't want...
Paul Wolfowitz at the UN Special Session on the Shoah:. . . We are proud of the role of our own American soldiers, the so-called �young old men� of 19 and 20 years of age, who and fought through...
Comment:
What a nice family picture. Your kids are adoreble!
I'm not making this up, but I seriously think I saw your friend Bjarni today on my way to university. (I know what he looks like cause I googled him last night).
