Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I really wish I had found this quote earlier!
Quotes
Homage to Catalonia
One of the things that I promised myself was that I would read more fiction after I was done with the PhD. Right now I am reading Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” which is a mix of memory and description of the Spanish civil war were Orwell went to fight against facism. For Orwell the journey to Spain was necessary since it was the first country to actually protest the facist regime and to put up a fight against what was to prove to be the last centuries biggest political mistake.
He also writes with brutal honesty about the terrible conditions of those involved in the everyday fighting of the war. There is no glamour and even less honour.
An example which takes place after an attack on a facist position outside the town of Heusca. They took the facist trench but were driven back again:
They had left the parapet and were coming after us. ‘Run!’ I yelled to Moyle, and jumped to my feet. And heavens, how I ran! I had thought earlier in the night that you can’t run when you are sodden from head to foot and weighted down with a rifle and cartridges; I learned now you can always run when you think you have fifty or a hundred armed men after you. But if I could run fast, others could run faster.
On the totality of his experiences in Spain, Orwell writes:
When we went on leave I had been a hundred and fifteen days in the line, and at the time this period seemed to me to have been one of the most futile of my whole life. I had joined the militia in order to fight against Fascism, and as yet I had scarcely fought at all, had merely existed as a sort of passive object, doing nothing in return for my rations except to suffer from cold and lack of sleep. Perhaps that is the fate of most soldiers in most wars. But now that I can see this period in perspective I do not altogether regret it.
This is the most iconic photo of this conflict. It is Robert Capa’s Death of a Republican
comfortably numb
The song Comfortably Numb is one of my favourits from Pink Floyd’s album The Wall. The lyrics reflect a “coversation” between Pink (who has passed out in his hotel room) and the doctor who is attempting to treat him (or drug him) so that he can perform. The first verse here is the doctor followed by Pink’s reply:
Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
…
There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I cant explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.
Why post this today? Well I have been sitting re-reading and correcting my manuscript and the phrase comfortably numb is actually quite representative of how I feel.
Brigadier-General Dyer
I came across this quote and it is an amazing example of the thoughtlessness and banality of violence. Which reminds me I keep meaning to read Hannah Arendt.
“It was a horrible duty to perform. But I think it was a merciful thing. I thought I should shoot well and shoot straight so that I or anybody else would not have had to shoot again. I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing but they would have come back again and laughed, and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself.”
The words of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer the perpetrator of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (Amritsar massacre) of 1919 where he ordered his troops to fire on an unarmed crowd gathered in peaceful political protest. The attack took place at close range and in a confined space. It left 379 dead and 1,500 injured. General Dyer said his action was meant to punish the people if they disobeyed his orders. He thought from a military point of view, such an action would create a good impression in Punjab.
While his acts and his attitude can be dismissed as being a result and perpetration of colonialism his words are interesting in that he is an example of how someone manages to divide his feelings. Firing upon an unarmed crowd was, according to Dyer, a horrible duty. Duty must be performed well. Killing everyone was therefore merciful. In addition to this his authority would have been lost if he had chosen a non-violent approach and he would look the fool.
When questioned if he had taken any steps to attend to the wounded after the firing he replied: “Certainly not. It was not my job. Hospitals were open and they could have gone there.”
Milton
They who have put out the people’s eyes
reproach them for their blindness
Open door research
A quote of a quote. This quote is from a lecture Richard Hamming gave at Bellcore in 1986 entitled “You and Your Research“, via pasta & vinegar
I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you donâ??t know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, â??The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.’â?? I donâ??t know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing – not much, but enough that they miss fame.
A book…
“A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.”
Umberto Eco – Name of the Rose
Government Quote
Pray for the welfare of the government, since if not for the fear of it, a person would swallow his fellow man alive. (Rabbi Chanina, Pirkei Avoth 3:2)
This quote comes from the Pirkei Avoth (Hebrew: Chapters of the Fathers, פרק×? ×?×?×?ת ) or simply Avoth is a tractate of the Mishna composed of ethical maxims of the Rabbis of the Mishnaic period. It is the second-last tractate in the Mishnaic order Nezikin. (Source wikipedia)
Herring and Creativity
Herring is not the foremost on my mind. However I came across a recent thesis (defended 10 December 2005) by Hrefna M. Karlsdóttir â??Fishing on Common Grounds â?? The consequences of unregulated Fisheries of North Sea Herring in the Postwar Periodâ?? Doctoral Thesis, University of Göteborg. Read abstract here.
The term common property resource has been effectively used during the last forty years especially after Hardinâ??s classic discussion on the problem arising from an exploitation of a common property resourceâ?¦many scholars, especially anthropologists, have pointed out the misunderstanding of using the definition common property resource to describe a resource without any regulation. They have criticised Hardinâ??s study for allegedly ignoring the possibility of an information arrangement over a resource usage.
â?¦
When one gets rights under a property rights regime they are regarded as rights to use for oneself the benefit stream from the resource. This definition of property rights means that the claim one makes to a benefit stream is regarded as legitimate to those who it concerns or that it is protected by some kind of authority. The point is that it is not the resource itself that has any entitlement. Such entitlement lies with those who have the right to use the resource and benefit from it.
pp17-18.
Naturally I ignored the fish and found the commons. Good arguments with a few sources to look up. The interesting argument (for me) that the thesis puts forward is on the topic of how to create a successful commons. Here Hrefna writes:
Successful attempts to establish common property regimes or governed commons…are most likely to happen in inshore fisheries. The important presumptions needed include a small group of fishermen that have a stronger feeling for the common interests than for the individual, who know each other well and are able to control each others fisheries.
pp 20-21 my italics.
The last sentence there is probably the most interesting. The local fishermen could more easily persuade each other. Using tools such as social control and shared local values the commons could be maintained – probably becuase the shared resource is not depenedent upon maximising profits but ensuring a continued benefit stream for them and the future fishermen. The question therefore for me (involved in Creative Commons) is can such a local agreement be scaled up to an international level while maintianing this interconnectedness and social control necessary to maintain the commons?
Quote
“Let us return to what was and ever should be the office of this Abbey: the preservation of knowledgeâ??â??preservationâ?? I say, not â??search for;â?? because there is no progress in the history of knowledge, merely a continuous and sublime recapitulation.”
Said by “Venerable Jorge” in the film “The Name of the Rose” – I cannot remember if it is the same in the book.