interpretive communities and no-clothes emperors

I read an article about Han van Meegeren, who was a painter who copied the style of Jan Vermeer to pass off his own paintings as lost Vermeers. He was so successful that one of the most prominent Dutch art critics called a painting by Van Meegeren the greatest Vermeer.

Naturally, the public and critical opinion of the painting dropped precipitously when it was discovered to be a "fake."

Errol Morris, the author of the article, alludes to "The Emperor's New Clothes," suggesting that everyone agreed on an opinion to bolster their reputations. This comparison casts an unfavorable light on the art community at large, as it suggests that art lovers only care about the name of the artist, which is to say they only care what everyone else thinks.

This is true to a point. We all belong to interpretive communities, to use Stanley Fish's term, which goes for everything from fine art to things as mundane as our everyday speech. The ideas that we use to communicate within our communities carry agreed-upon meanings, which also means that they carry agreed-upon value.

This idea clashes with the typical discourse on art--a successful work of art is a communication between the artist and the viewer that is felt personally and deeply. We like to think that there is something transcendent about great art that speaks to our soul, something that we can feel but not explain. To ground such a feeling in something as explainable as an interpretive community seems to rob us of our personal feelings about the art that we love.

But we can't entirely explain away our personal feelings about works of art. Even if we take into consideration the confluence of our many interpretive communities, we still have favorites and dislikes that are idiosyncratic.

Besides, why is it so disappointing to see works of art as things that bind us to our communities, shared cultural experiences? I still love classic rock because my older brothers listened to it when I was growing up. When I hear certain songs, a large part of my enjoyment comes from knowing that my brothers enjoy it too.

There is also enjoyment in your idiosyncratic tastes; I proudly dislike some Van Halen songs, and I enjoy The Fall even if no one I know listens to them. But it's a false hope to try to attain 100% idiosyncratic taste. If artists and art lovers in the West would own up to the extent to which our communities shape our opinions, we would be less vulnerable to detractors who claim that art lovers are merely dilettantes. Thoughts?

corn or flour?

mormon causes that mormons ignore

So I’ve been reading The Lord’s University, an account of issues of academic freedom at BYU. I recommend it for anyone who attended or who is otherwise interested in BYU. Of course, the Honor Code devotees who most need to read the book would never open it or else summarily reject the meticulously detailed research somehow.

Anyway, it’s got me thinking again, for better or worse, on the clear conservative bias of the leaders of the Church, many of whom have been intimately concerned with the affairs of BYU.

What I don’t understand is why the Church decides to inject itself with a hard and fast position in messy debates like the Equal Rights Amendment and gay marriage. Members and leaders of the Church appear to subscribe to the opinion that the world is steadily devolving, and all our efforts should go towards stemming the tide, even though we know that eventually the world will become irreparably wicked. Ernest Wilkinson, the former BYU president who gave us the modern Honor Code and in whose student center BYU cool kids regularly gather to eat from the Word of Wisdom-flouting Cougareat, believed that the USA would soon be destroyed for wickedness and that requiring Cougars to dress modestly and keep their hair short would stave off the liberal agitation that was tempting the Apocalypse.

Anyway, if gay marriage will really ruin the fabric of society and call down the wrath of a vengeful god, it’s probably not the only thing about our society that will. So here’s my list of progressive causes that the Church has ignored in favor of more patriot-friendly ones.

“It is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin” (D&C 49:20).

Income inequity has proved historically to provoke more societal unrest than any other issue. If we’re concerned with the unraveling of society, why do we continue to shout down any support for a system that doesn’t promote a gulf between rich and poor? Putting aside the fact that we accept capitalism a priori as the best imaginable system, why are we so opposed to progressive taxation and business regulation, including actually enforcing the tax code on the 80% of US corporations who use offshore tax shelters?

The oft-cited defense is that even though income inequity has been steadily on the rise since the 60’s, we are all better off than we were then. Well, real wages have actually dipped since then, but beside that, there is absolutely no evidence that the Lord cares about our having a DVD player and two cars. Instead, “this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low” (D&C 104:16). If equality comes at the expense of ballooning wealth for the super-rich, so be it. Yet it’s a sacred cow, even in Mormonism, that those with means are entitled to an ever-expanding piece of the pie. This is a clear case of cultural bias taking precedence over LDS doctrine.

“Renounce war and proclaim peace… And again, this is the law that I gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people, save I, the Lord, commanded them. And if any nation, tongue, or people should proclaim war against them, they should first lift a standard of peace unto that people, nation, or tongue; and if that people did not accept the offering of peace, neither the second nor the third time, they should bring these testimonies before the Lord; then I, the Lord, would give unto them a commandment, and justify them in going out to battle against that nation, tongue, or people” (D&C 98:16, 33-36).

The Iraq war has cost a half million Iraqi lives, cost the US $2 trillion and thousands of soldiers’ lives, alienated many of our allies, galvanized terrorist opposition, set unsettling precedents in terms of torture and privatized warfare, and overall displayed a bumbling, naive effort full of selfish power struggles and unaccountable immorality.

With every day that passes since its miserable inception, it becomes clearer that Bush et al. engineered a case for the American people and Congress with the predetermined conclusion of invading Iraq. At our most generous, we could say that Pres. Bush truly believed that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s. But even then, according to the above passage of scripture, this is not justification for war.

Where were the Saints in pushing back against the rush to war?

“It is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures” (D&C 104:13).

There can be no doubting the importance of the earth’s Creation in LDS theology. What is less certain is our collective commitment to taking seriously our stewardship of it. Salt Lake City has the 6th worst air pollution in the country, and Utah County gets an F for air quality. We blithely watch industrial mining tear down the mountains around us, favoring industry in the imaginary economy/environment opposition. Utah Lake, thanks to the indiscriminate dumping of waste, is practically a dead swamp.

Furthermore, we fail to get involved on a broader scale, even as environmental decay threatens God’s greatest creation: humanity.

“I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose” (D&C 101:80).

Mormons’ cultural allegiance to the Republican Party left us blind to the realities of Pres. Bush’s power-seeking, filling us up instead with the veneer of patriot rhetoric and opposition-bashing. The Bush administration took executive privilege to a startling degree, bypassing the court’s checks on surveillance. He convinced Congress to grant him their Constitutional power of declaring war, and even was allowed to sign into law an act that strips habeas corpus from US citizens deemed (by the Executive Branch, of course) to be “enemy combatants.”



My purpose with this is not to argue for more political intervention from the Church, but for less. The mix of politics and religion, I’ve said before, make for bad politics and worse religion. Additionally, I would like us all to take a step back and try to distinguish our culture from the Lord’s culture and strive to more fully adapt the latter.

manifesto

“If you want to make the world a better place
Just look at yourself and make the change”
-Michael Jackson

Words of sage advice from (still) the world’s greatest entertainer. In this post, I will in all seriousness make the case that the best way to save the world is to begin with self-improvement.

The systemic injustices of the world seem to demand sweeping, systemic solutions. However, these repeatedly miss the mark, not least of which because we tend to boil systemic problems down to one factor and propose its binary opposite as the cure—more food will solve global hunger, more money will solve global poverty, more force will solve war and terrorism, etc. Any student of development quickly realizes that systemic problems are not so cut and dry.

One reason is that human systems are not some external mechanism, but will inevitably reflect the humans that compose them. Dumping money into a country will never solve its poverty, because the system for distributing wealth will reflect the souls of its members. If an ethos of selfishness exists, even among the poor (it is a mistake, tempting though it may be, to lionize the unfortunate), an unequal distribution of wealth will occur. This is one reason why late capitalism and its championing of greed will never cure poverty. The humans behind the system do not value anything above their own self-interest.

As long as humanity has had a history of oppression and exploitation, it has had a history of systemic solutions, typically a revolution of some sort. Most revolutions have been doomed to repeat the excesses and injustices of their parent societies, as they are performed with the assumption that the aggrieved are in the right simply by their being mistreated. Seldom do they have the foresight to see their enemy in themselves.

The American Revolution is a notable exception. (I’m not going to launch into an American Heritage lesson; don’t worry. There was plenty of abuse, exploitation, and hypocrisy in the U.S.A.’s founding.) What they got right was to anticipate that revolutionaries themselves, once out from under the king’s grasp, would try to set themselves up with as much power as possible. So the founders designed a form of government that would pit aspirations for power against other aspirations for power. The result has been a remarkably stable (if wholly unspectacular in the realization of its ideals) nation.

Even this breaks down. The U.S. system isn’t perfect, as we saw in an alarming degree during the Bush presidency. If the electorate doesn’t mind a lopsided executive branch, it will get it.

So what is the hope for humanity?*

If we can’t depend on systemic solutions, we have to reform the individuals within the systems. The problems that have faced humanity throughout recorded history are not simple enough to be pinned on the Republicans, nor are they external to those who acknowledge the myriad problems facing humanity (but it is a small victory to acknowledge them). They are present in each of us, like a kind of virus in our DNA. That’s why I feel that all of liberal orthodoxy isn’t worth one of Jesus’ teachings:
“How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye” (Matthew 7:4-5, NIV).

If we want to scrub humanity of its greed, lack of compassion, intemperance, cruelty, violence, and covetousness, we have to first get it out of our own hearts.

But once we start with the proverbial man in the mirror, we have to remember not to stop there. We then have to help someone else do the same.

Again, as humans are complex creatures, there are bound to be complications. First of all, how do you know when you are actually helping someone and not simply projecting your own guilt and insecurities onto someone vulnerable under the guise of helping them? I would say that if it feels like you’re giving someone a present that you received in turn, you’re helping them. If you don’t feel like you’ve been given any presents, take time for yourself, ignore the pressing problems around you, and learn to forgive and take care of yourself. This will feel selfish, given the urgency of the problems the world faces, but it is necessary. Saddling yourself with guilt is part of the problem, not the solution.

Another challenge is that humans offend each other even when not willfully malicious; sometimes people are careless because of a lack of appreciation for others’ circumstances. While the victim has every right to be offended, this isn’t productive. Saving the world will require both a sensitivity to justice and a generous talent for dissociating oneself from offense.

Reforming oneself and helping others to do the same requires discipline. It means giving up self-destructive behaviors and habits—if you don’t care enough about yourself to preserve yourself, how can you care what happens to humanity?

Saving the world requires an intolerance for injustice (others’ and our own) but also a sense of mercy for those (others and ourselves) who perform it or are complicit with it. It’s a marvelous balancing act.

Even if we did solve the world’s problems for a generation, there would be the issue of raising our children so as to not revert to the ancient patterns. If we became too jealous of our state of being, our distaste for injustice could turn to panic, leading to overstrict parenting, which would leave our teenagers to find psychological comfort in indulging in what we find abhorrent.

To be explicit about my influences, my view on this comes largely from my religion, both the doctrines and my personal spiritual experiences. So I have to acknowledge that my religion teaches that humanity will continue to polarize itself into good and evil camps until we have practically destroyed ourselves, at which point Jesus Christ will destroy the wicked and transform the Earth into the home of the righteous forever; salvation will come from above. But I don’t think it’s contradictory to believe that we can salvage humanity into a more peaceful, prosperous existence for everyone.

Of course, we would have to abandon oppressive systems, such as our lack of regulation of pollutants and our exploitation of the world’s poor; I’m not suggesting that we halt entirely efforts at systemic reform.

Ultimately my point is that saving the world is best done counterintuitively--that is to say, person to person. A personal injustice assuaged makes it less likely that injustice will be waged on a grand scale.

*The attempt to save humanity is a fight against nature. We’re trying to save cultures that are failing to adapt to modernity. The Marxist notion of a linear progression to utopia where capitalism is the only obstacle is a fantasy and a hindrance. A global, pluralistic, peaceful, prosperous society is an uphill battle, folks.

chad hokama=pee wee herman

super midnight

I uploaded the last track of Super Midnight. You can now download and enjoy the full ep at my website: fridayismyweekend.googlepages.com

what I wrote for my mom for mother's day

Whenever anyone learns that I’m the youngest in my family, they always joke about my being spoiled. I tried to deny it for so long, but it’s true. I am spoiled.

Of course, everyone thinks of being spoiled in the material sense—getting whatever toys and clothes and money that one asks for. I can’t say I didn’t get more of that than my older siblings, but I also refused quite a bit of it, conscious of the stigma. No, when I say I’m spoiled, I mean I’m spoiled by how my mother, Carolyn Housley, sees me. I can do no wrong in her eyes. I’m always right, always noble, always the hero.

The downside of this is that I want everyone else to see me that way, to look past my mistakes and questionable judgment calls and see me as a hero. I tend to test girlfriends by pushing them away, trying to see if they can value me in the same way my mother does. I’m almost offended when prospective girlfriends look at my lack of marketable skills and aversion to conventional employment and don’t see me as destined for greatness.

But the upside of my being “spoiled” greatly outweighs any downside. My mother’s love has helped me to value myself when others haven’t, when I’m tempted to measure myself by my failings.

A couple of winters ago I was going through a really hard time. I had just graduated, moved across the country, and was preparing for law school in the fall while working at a law firm. Most significantly, I had fled the pharisaical culture of Utah County Mormonism, realizing that not only was it making me increasingly edgy and bitter, but I was myself was beginning to adopt the prevalent keeping-up-with-the-Johnsons spirituality.

I was confident in my assessment that such an attitude wasn’t intrinsic to the LDS Church, confined only in the self-righteous bubble of Provo, Utah. Consequently, it was devastating to find the same kind of attitude in the same kinds of kids in the same kind of ward in Washington, DC. I felt inadequate—even with the plan of going to law school, I felt directionless and foolish for having moved there without a short-term plan. I felt undervalued—no one seemed to want to talk in Sunday School about the kinds of questions that I did. And, I felt lonely. Mormons in DC were absorbed with things that I cared nothing about—titles, salaries, position, power, influence, esteem.

It was at this low point that I heard a talk from a member of the stake presidency at stake conference. The talk was pleasant enough, if not entirely memorable, up until one of his last points. He began to extol the virtues of “good” music, opining that the natural order of God’s creation is reflected in harmonious, sonorous music. He scorned discordant music, likening it to contention and confusion.

The point was innocent enough, unless you are attuned to its subtext as I happened to be. His point, aside from being medieval (a particular musical interval was banned by the Church in the Middle Ages for being demonic, based on its dissonance) hewed closely to the culture war of the last few decades that I had studied in my last semester. What he meant was, Don’t listen to the noisy music of the unstudied, unwashed riffraff—heavy metal, punk, rap, etc. Probably 80% of my beloved music collection wouldn’t pass his bogus consonance litmus test. I left after that meeting on the verge of a panic attack, breaking my personal Sabbath music rule to blast the most dissonant, tuneless music I had while I drove home.

His stance on music deconstructs easily enough—any music is meaningless without tension and dissonance (not to mention that any one definition of dissonance is not the same across cultures). But that wasn’t entirely the point. I didn’t need to prove to him or to myself or to anyone that he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. It was such a fleeting point, practically an afterthought, that most of the congregation probably didn’t even register it. But because of this, it felt like God Himself had singled me out and rubbed it in my face that I didn’t belong.

I called my parents that evening.

Before I continue with the narrative, I want to first tell a friend’s story for sake of contrast. The grandson of an apostle, he would try to talk to his parents about his doubts and frustrations with the Church. They couldn’t sympathize, or at least wouldn’t allow themselves to show that they did. This is the expected Mormon response. In talking about the Church, any opinion that isn’t simultaneously a bearing of testimony makes Mormons uneasy. The typical response is usually a prescription—read the Scriptures, pray, don’t fault-find—instead of an expression of sympathy. The Church is perfect, so it must be your own damn fault. This friend left the Church not long after his mission.

So when I called my parents that evening and told them I didn’t think I could go to church anymore, my dad did the wisest thing he could have done. He handed the phone to my mother.

She asked me a question that betrayed her incisive intuition: “Is it the culture of the Church or the teachings of the Church?”

“The culture,” I replied. I went on to tell her the story of the talk I had heard earlier.

“Well, Nathan,” she said. “You’re just more intelligent than everyone else, so it’s hard on you. You’re a musician, and you know more about it than he does.”

I fully had not expected to tell my parents that I wanted to stop going to Church and hear a compliment in response. But it was exactly what I needed to hear. She reminded me that what I valued in myself actually is valuable, despite how much others may fail to appreciate it. She was wise enough to build me up, not kick me when I was down. I don’t believe that in actual fact she had traded on her loyalty to the Church to do so, but the fact that she was willing to even make it seem that way when so many others wouldn’t is a testament to the love she has for her children. This love has been a sustaining force for her children and will be passed down through the generations of her descendants.

Happy Mother’s Day, mom.

mattresses

firm or soft?

this world is not your home

Put up another track, you know where: fridayismyweekend.googlepages.com

In other news, I've been recording with the Protons. Things were going swimmingly until my demo version of Cubase freaked out on two of the three tracks we've done and now it won't play back. F&*$.