dagblog - Comments for "Keep It Complex, Sillyhead"

I would agree with your

Elusive Trope — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:39:59 +0000

In reply to [....] I'll stick with the

I would agree with your analysis of the discord on the political sites.

As I was commenting to AA, there was another section to this blog (as if it was already too long, eh?) which looked at the various motivations and needs people bring with them, drive them to enter political discussions.

The two core groups would be what you refer to as the practioners and analyzers. I grouped them as the ideological and the academic*. Both of them can be incredibly dogmatic and resistant to accepting counter views and perspectives, while there are those who enter with an openness to seeing what new views and perspectives others have on the issue(s).

But the irritation (and anger) between the ideological and the ideological, or the academic and the academic, can pale in comparison when the ideological and the academic clash. This may be in part because the general gravitation is based on political leanings, so there is fewer clashes on this front.

Maybe your terms are better for the two groups, since mine might lead someone to believe that I see the analyzers as being the intellectuals and practioners as the mere grunts in the trenches, which I don't believe. It is really the difference, for example, as between an anthropologist and a community organizer looking at the same situation.

Actually when writing this

Elusive Trope — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:24:16 +0000

In reply to And then there is the value

Actually when writing this particular blog there was whole other section I didn't complete that dealt with the various motivations and needs people have when entering into political discussions. The first is the personal, that is the needs and motivations which are not related specifically to politics and the issue(s) being discussed. One of the significant groups of the personal needs would be what could be referred to as journal writing. There is the drive to put one’s thoughts out there regardless of whether any one sees or acknowledges it (even though one is putting it out there for potentially the whole world to see it).

I think maybe part of my problem (if one would call it that) in blog and comment writing is that at times I tend to be writing more for my sake than any readers. I've spent most of life writing in my journals, without the intention of anybody ever seeing it, that when I get into some issue, I work it out in my mind by writing it on the "page." I'm not so interested in these moments in the exactness of the language from the other's pov, but in just getting the swirl in my head out so I can see it.

[....] I'll stick with the

artappraiser — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:22:44 +0000

In reply to Keep It Complex, Sillyhead

[....] I'll stick with the good guys in this fight. Which side are YOU on?
by SleepinJeezus 2/16/2011 - 8:54 pm (re: artappraiser)

[....] I'm on the side of figuring out what's happening in the world [....]
by artappraiser 2/16/2011 - 10:17 pm (re: SleepinJeezus)

Dag Blog thread

Years ago I decided that there basically two very different audiences on group political blogs, with only a very few "in-betweeners":

1) those who are looking to practice politics and to affect politics

2) those who are looking to analyze politics

These two groups irritate and sometimes even anger each other; they do not communicate in the same manner and are looking to do very opposite things. Both would be much happier if they had separate spaces to pursue their interests, but no site ever seems to want to offer this separation. I've always thought that catering to each audience separately is a key to solving a lot of problems for site operators and a lot of discord between participants.

I have seen little yet to prove my assumption wrong.

Though verbiosity and/or nuanced length discussion irritates some people in and of itself, I suspect this is the main reason you get so much flack from people: you really like to analyze stuff, to excess and over a great length of time.

And then there is the value

Verified Atheist — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:27:31 +0000

In reply to Your reviewer gave some sage

And then there is the value from allowing oneself to just be swept in one's stream of thought, allowing it to just pour out on to the page (there is something to writing it down rather than just thinking in a stream), and then there is quieting the mind, concentrating on the breath.

True enough. Sometimes we write more for our own sake than for any reader's sake.

Your reviewer gave some sage

Elusive Trope — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:18:22 +0000

In reply to Einstein* is said to have

Your reviewer gave some sage advice.

It is interesting (at least to me) that among the diversity of people and their proclivities, there is those who gravitate toward the simple or minimal and those who toward the elaborate or extensive. I remember an interview with novelist Don DeLillo who when asked if he had ever tried writing short stories, responded that he had but as soon as he started, the story always turned into a novel.

One compares the great novel and the great short story (or even haiku) - one is not better than the other. Each carries its own benefit and value, its own unique way, provide a "way in" to the truth that is not possible in the other form.

And then there is the value from allowing oneself to just be swept in one's stream of thought, allowing it to just pour out on to the page (there is something to writing it down rather than just thinking in a stream), and then there is quieting the mind, concentrating on the breath.

In the end, we are just struggling to say (write) we mean and mean what we say (write). Does that take one word? or ten thousand?

Einstein* is said to have

Verified Atheist — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:04:39 +0000

In reply to Keep It Complex, Sillyhead

Einstein* is said to have paraphrased Occam's razor as:

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

I think many people tend to miss the last part of that sentence and over simplify. That is most definitely not a fault you have.

I think there's a time for simplifying and a time for looking at the complexities. I had a reviewer give me the advice that in my writing, I should go from the simple to the complex. Start with a very simple explanation of what I'm trying to say, and then expand on it, in waves of necessary, as the paper progresses. If I can't come up with a simple explanation of what I'm trying to say (two sentences at most), then I haven't thought about it enough yet.

*The attribution might be apocryphal, however.

One can perceive oneself as

Elusive Trope — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:28:19 +0000

In reply to Only in this way can we

One can perceive oneself as being an active participant, swept forward clinging to whatever features of our mind that have emerged.

But it is my position that, yes, to be conscious of the world implies a particular understanding, an particular awareness. If I elaborated upon this, I would posit that for the vast majority of us (including myself) slip in and out of this particular awareness. It is only with a struggle, a particular kind of discipline that can sustain this mindfulness.

And I would call it the same kind of mindfulness as offered by the practice of Buddhism. This is one path.

What I am working out in my mind is how do we arrive at a similar place while engaging the shimmering fragments as fragments.

Engaged Buddhism struggles with a similar objective. If all things are truly transitory, the multitude of shimmering fragments merely constructions of our mind, what does one do with notions of justice, nationhood, inalienable rights and so on and so on.

Only in this way can we

kyle flynn — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:28:06 +0000

In reply to Keep It Complex, Sillyhead

Only in this way can we consciously be active participants in the unfolding to something better.

Only? C'mon Trope, use your imagination.