Opinions, passive-aggressiveness and more

First, passive-aggressiveness isn't necessarily a bad thing. Often, it's the personal relationship psychology equivalent of asymmetric warfare. People lower on a power scale fight with the weapons they have.


No, passive-aggressiveness isn't good in a more equal relationship, like an intimate one. And counselors are right to point that out. But, something like an employee vs. employer situation, especially if the employer is putting the energy in the "versus"?


And, isn't it passive-aggressive of an employer to berate an employee for not being able to do something that was at least partially beyond his control, then admit to a third employee just that difficulty with the issue while never fully apologizing to the original employee?


Specifically, the issue of photography.


No, I'm not Ansel Adams. But, I can't make silk purses out of sow's ears. And, I know enough about photography to know when I'm faced with little more than a sow's ear to work with. And, if not a total sow's ear, at least, no better than synthetic velour -- and an employer who should know that in advance, from having been around a while.



That, then, gets to the issue of opinions.


Is it passive-aggressive, even, to not bother offering opinions, or, a better word, ideas, in the first place, if you know they're going to be ignored, rejected, or not listened to?

And, is it really people pleasing to not speak up more, either? Might it rather be an acceptance of reality, or how reality is perceived at the lower end of the stick by someone who's not a stereotypical Type A male?



Of course, from my point of view, these are offered up as largely rhetorical questions.


But, they reflect larger societal issues related to income disparity, job outsourcing, and, some industries (creative-type ones) becoming ever tighter with the dollar and expecting more for less.

Does consciousness go down to neuronal level?

Antonio Damasio, one of the leaders in the investigation of what makes humans conscious, certainly thinks that's what will prove out.


And, because of the number of connections each individual neuron has, that could mean that consciousness for a computer or robot may be quite some ways off, still.


Back to futurist dreamland for Ray Kurzweil, Michio Kaku and others, in that case.


Even if Damasio isn't totally on the right trail, I think he's headed in the right direction. Now, what led to the precursor of consciousness to "emerge" at some level of animal life? How much brain complexity was needed? Is neuronal number per body weight, or neuronal connections per body weight, a power law situation?

The varieties of infinities, or why heaven won't work

I'm an avid nonfiction reader. So, especially at larger libraries, I just head to the new books display and grab what I want ...

While at the same time, knowing I can't read every book I want to.

That has an analogy to Western monotheisms' view of a perpetual, individual-soul afterlife. (Hinduism and some other religions besides the Judeo-Islamo-Christian tradition may fall here, too, but I'm focused on them.)

The analogy? Has roots in one Georg Cantor and the mathematics of infinity.

If you have any familiarity with this, you know there are different infinities of sets, such as

א-null, א-one and א-two. Well, picture your or my individual infinite life in heaven as א-null. Well, if the “set” of א-null is multiplied by itself, we get א-one, a different level of set-infinity. Arguably, even though the number of people in the Western version of heaven, with no procreation, will be finite, one could still say that all the works they will produce will be something like א-one to an individual person’s א-null.

So, heaven would be a sort of “bounded infinity,” and, aside from medieval Christian notions of the real greatness of heaven being to bask in the glory of god, we would see our individual infinities as essentially “bounded.” That, in turn, would be a sort of psychological pain.

Bill Buckley, warts and all

Buckley: William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism by Carl T. Bogus

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Excellent overview of Buckley, and his particular flavor of conservativism, and how he was able to unite disparate wings of conservativism into one "movement."

Bogus has written for The Nation, among other things, but, from my POV, there's no liberal ax-grinding; Buckley is acknowledged for his successes, while still criticized for his flaws.

Besides the "political sociology" success of creating this modern movement, Bogus notes that Buckley himself was primarily a libertarian, but with social conservative leanings to, albeit of a religious nature. He was NOT, Bogus says, a Burkean, in his take on individualistic vs. collective strands in conservativism. Bogus says that Americans' "rugged individuality" probably has militated against a Burkean line of thought gaining too much steam in America. And, after Russell Kirk decided to pitch his tent under Buckley's Burkeans had no independent leader in the U.S. (And really still don't today.)

Buckley's biggest failing? That of Ron Paul today - race issues. I knew about mid-1950s National Review issues, which were bad enough to be called, if not racist, at least pandering to racists. But, as late as the late 1960s, Buckley was lamenting that too many blacks were in leadership positions in the fight against the Vietnam War, and claimed they were communist dupes, in part because they weren't smarter. THAT I did not know.

And, that was Buckley's second-biggest mistake - Vietnam. He never did admit he was wrong for backing that war to the bitter end. Bogus says that's because Buckley, beyond "evil empire" takes on monolithic communism, had no coherent foreign policy, nor did he attempt to make one.'

That, in turn reflects not a single mistake, but a larger failing. Bogus rightly calls Buckley not a deep thinker. (There are conservative deep thinkers, but, to riff on Bogus, they're not to be found at the main conservative opinion journals.)

Anyway, I don't want to give away too much about the book. Moderates, liberals, and even honest conservatives who don't worship at Buckley's altar will find plenty to like here.



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Did God only talk to 1 of 2 pastors?

Did the message to 1 get garbled? Was only 1 listening?

I'm normally not like Gnu Atheists, taking cheap potshots at organized religion. But, per this interesting substory within last week's Florida traffic accident tragic pile-up, this is one time to partially set aside those rules.


For the omnipotent god of conservative Christians, of course, the only answer is that "god is inscrutable." Really? Well, as I have said before, then such a god causes psychological pain to his creatures, at least those who would like to believe in some higher order in the universe, but can't blindly accept "inscrutable."


And, contra Gnu Atheists, but contra stereotyped conservative Christian beliefs, there are people who at times wish such psychological comforts existed, but not on terms of blind faith. To use human parenting language, children have blind faith in a parent only to the point in their maturity in learning what non-blind levels of trust are, and are to be offered.


That said, non-literalist Christianity hasn't, for people in the pews, figured out a way beyond this, at least for thinking people in the pews who would still like some sort of "higher order." If this order, power, or divinity is less than omnipotent, while we might yearn for it/him/her to do something, how much can actually be expected?


In short, without endorsing ideas of "progress," in the modern social world, many people who are willing to think these things are at least 16 years old, psychologically. We're old enough to see that, if there is any "higher order," it may not be that much above our heads, and that alleged "answers" for these issues aren't, either.


But, many of us also aren't social Darwinist Gnu Atheists, either. We reject the idea that it's "weak" to feel the need for religious solace (or solace of support/comfort groups in general). And, yes, Gnu Atheists, "name it and claim it" New Agers, and success gospel Christians are all social Darwinists, or the psychological equivalents thereof.

The state of consciousness studies

Science News has two excellent articles on where we are at, part of a just-started ongoing series.

The first, by Tom Siegfried, follows in many of the footsteps of Douglas Hofstadter to talk about consciousness and self-referential systems. The title of "Self as Symbol" gives some hint of where he's headed. And, he says self-referentiality may actually deepen our eventual understanding of consciousness rather than acting as a barrier.


Laura Sanders looks at the neuroscience side of the coin, and what brain studies are telling us these days. Not too much of high specificity, but we're getting ideas on how to refine, and in some ways change, our searching.

Are we all Kantians?

At least in terms of major moral issues, it looks like we're Kantian rule-based decision makers.

That said, there's two caveats:
1. Just 32 people were studied;
2. It's based on fMRI evidence, which is, at its current temporal and spatial resolution, is but loosely connected to specific brain activities.