Small Problems: Prelude to the Paradox

Tammy was Timmy, before the Vet said he was a she. She’s long, sleek and very black, with white on all her tips. She likes to stretch in sunbeams and curl into perfect black balls, with all the tips tucked away, on chairs, sofas, and beds.

One evening, she was a perfect black ball on Jacob’s favorite chair in the front sitting room. He had a book with tiny print and a cup of steaming hot chocolate, but no favorite place to sit.

“If I disturb Tammy, she will be worse off, but, if I don’t disturb her, I will be worse off,” he said to himself. “I could sit in another chair, but so could she. Does it matter that she arrived before me today, when I sat in the chair yesterday?”

Fortunately, for Jacob, he discovers Zeno’s paradox on another evening.

Poem: Crow

Poets
and other lesser
prophets pretend
to perceive personality
and other anthropoid
properties in you.

Crow,
inside your eyes,
I know
this poetic pretension
is a prevarication.

Descendant of dinosaurs
too deft not to persevere
in the cacophonous repercussions
of that colossal bolide’s
prodigious plunge,

your ancestors scrutinized
with petulant patience
our impetuous ascent
while your progeniture will
contemplate our phosphorescent descent.

Crow,
inside your eyes
I know I
am the anthropomorphism.

Why I Love Social Media: Translating the printemps érable.

I will admit it. The Quebec student protests never really resonated with me.

Despite my liberal democratic ideals, despite my support for a fully accessible public education system, and despite my conviction that public protest is an essential component of a healthy democracy, I didn’t instinctively find any common cause or sense of purpose with the events in Montreal.

Even when the Charest government passed the ridiculous Loi 78, I responded with a detached sense of incredulity — like it was a bad move in a chess match I was following online.

I will also admit, I even started to buy into the notion that these protests are somehow distinctively Québécois and French. We are living, after all, in the land of the “Two Solitudes”, where those wacky French Québécois get up to all kind of antics that can only mystify English Canadians.

Fortunately, a Francophone and recent arrival from Montreal, who I met through social media, flipped me a link to “Translating the printemps érable”.

The premise of the blog is simple.

The bloggers think the English mainstream media is doing a poor job of covering the student protests and the now much broader response to Loi 78. They are trying to help English Canadians get a better understanding of the events on the ground by translating — to the best of their ability — some of the French press that, they feel, is providing a more nuanced portrayal of the events.

For Canadians, I think the significance of this blog really can’t be overstated because its essential premise explodes the notion that the “Two Solitudes” is a basic fact of Canadian identify.

Fundamentally, the authors of the blog recognize and accept:

1. English Canadians are not intrinsically disinterested in the events unfolding in Montreal and Quebec and are not too alien to care or understand, but are, in fact, simply being misinformed by mainstream English media;
2. It is worthwhile for what is happening in Quebec to help English Canadians better understand what’s, in fact, happening there.

In other words, the blog is living proof that there is no essential and intrinsic disinterest between French and English Canada. The reception the blog has received on Twitter also supports this view.

Furthermore, whether they intend it or not, the existence of the blog also implies a very plausible explanation for the fact of the “Two Solitudes.” The supposed disinterest between French and English Canada is, in all likelihood, something manufactured by our national media and political elites.

In retrospect and thanks to Translating the printemps érable, it’s now painfully obvious why the events in Montreal did not resonate with me. I was experiencing them through the lens of the national English media, which is hell bent on convincing me these events aren’t significant and are somehow intrinsically foreign and alien to me, as an English Canadian. I like to think I’m a fairly savvy consumer of media but, clearly, I was sucked into this manufactured narrative, without even fully realizing it.

So, if you value democracy — in any sense of the word — you should give a few minutes of your time to Translating the printemps érable. What matters most, whether you agree or disagree with this or that point of politics, is that you recognize and accept that the events unfolding in Montreal and Quebec are significant for all of us in Canada, whatever language we speak.

If you recognize and accept this key idea, please follow @TranslateErable and tell as many of your friends as you can that, unlike the national media, there’s a blog dedicated to helping them better understand the events unfolding in Montreal and Quebec.

Small Problems: How To Divide the Cake?

Trish and Jacob are both very fond of chocolate cake and, unlike many boys and girls their age, they are both very fond of sharing chocolate cake. The small problem they often face is how best to divide the cake.

“I guess we can both be sure that we aren’t the mother of this piece of delicious cake,” remarked Jacob.

“Agreed,” Trish agreed, as she smoothed the long folds of her bright Sunday school dress. “How shall we divide it?”

“Why don’t I divide it,” said Jacob. “Boys are better able to divide cake than girls.”

“Very well,” said Trish, “but I get to choose first which piece to take. Girls are better at choosing pieces of cake than boys.”

Jacob, who couldn’t quite believe his luck, quickly said, “Why, of course, that makes perfect sense!”

Whatever might be said about the relative skills of boys and girls, you can be sure Trish is no saint and that she prefers larger to smaller shares of chocolate cake.

Righting All Wrongs: There’s No Single Way To Do It.

In the face of a wrong, shortcoming, failure, or problem, there really are only three plausible responses.

1. Pretend the wrong doesn’t exist.
2. Address it indirectly.
3. Address it directly.

While it’s tempting to claim that, in every instance of wrong, one should always and only respond in one way, in fact, any of the three responses can be appropriate or the best option, depending on the nature of the wrong and the circumstances in which it comes to light. Similarly, each response can be inappropriate or even the worst option. One size does not fit all.

For example, for the most part, I prefer to address wrongs directly when they come to light, however, I have learned over the years that, given the nature of the wrong, shortcoming, failure, or problem involved, ignoring or indirectly addressing it is a totally reasonable response.

Problems and wrongs are often compounded, when a community, as a whole, responds in the same way to all wrongs. Although I think I would prefer a community where most problems are addressed directly and immediately, I can also see how such a community could lead too easily to incessant and neurotic henpecking and fear mongering, leading to a community as unhealthy as one in which all wrongs are ignored.

Tensions emerge, of course, because we will very often disagree — quite reasonably — about the exact nature of a wrong, the circumstances in which it comes to light, and how best to respond to it. One person’s bullying is another person’s tough love. One person’s personality quirk is another person’s tragic flaw.

Even near the extremes, there is no clear consensus about what constitutes a wrong. For example, everyone seems to agree that murder is wrong, but there are any number of concrete circumstances when killing is never considered murder. Everyone seems also to agree that lying is wrong, but, once again, there are any number of concrete examples when not speaking honestly is judged to be legitimate.

Ultimately, this means that the how and the why of identifying and addressing wrongs, shortcomings, failures, and problems is always up for disagreement, dispute, and negotiation. There are better and worse approaches for any given instance of a wrong, but no single approach for every and all instances. We can only sort it out one case at a time, appealing to and learning from experience, but never pretending experience or history can tell us exactly what we should or should not do.

At first blush, that may seem like a rather tepid conclusion, but it is robust in what it denies: that there is one and only one approach to identifying and addressing a wrong, shortcoming, failure, or problem. Once stated, I suspect you will begin to see how often people of all political stripes claim they know the one true means for identifying and righting a wrong.

If there is a backstory to this random blast of moral philosophy, I suspect it is my utter frustration at the unwillingness of so many people and communities to address directly what ails them. It is I suppose a reminder to myself (and others like me) that it is as reasonable to expect disagreement about how best to identify and address wrongs as it is to identify and promote the good. Liberty of conscience applies not only to a person’s understanding of the good life. It also applies to his or her understanding of the obstacles to it.

Small Problems: Up The Hill.

Jacob and Trish live in a motley neighborhood of houses, which end abruptly at a broad field with a large hill in the middle — perfect for sledding in the winter. Trish doesn’t know about the sledding, because she’s new to the neighborhood.

Sitting together on the hill one day, they watched the distant pines buzz in the late summer sun.

“We didn’t bring a pail of water,” said Jacob.

“You shouldn’t,” replied Trish, “the first time you go up a hill together.”

“I guess, I shouldn’t have brought this crown either,” Jacob said nervously.

“No, I think it looks rather smart on you,” she replied.

Do you remember the age before irony? Refreshing, isn’t it?

New Poem: my father was a liar.

My father was a liar

– is a liar –

and he wanted

– wants –

to please people,
to tell a good story,
to be Irish,
to make life easier.

I can’t say

– I don’t know –

if he ever got what he wanted out of lying,
but, once I figured out
he couldn’t be trusted,

I resolved not to be a liar.
And that’s a useful fiction

– the causality –

because, had he been an honest man,
I wouldn’t have resolved to be a liar,

unless the hard wiring

– my hard wiring –

is set
to opposition
rather than honest,
as I hope it
to be.

later on
I resolved to write like a camera

to make eyes of words
a lens of sentences
and sprocket holes of punctuation

the light
our light
our shared light you
as reader I
as writer
would do the rest.

because I wanted to be true
true to these moments
these still moments
of clarity

But nothing can be true to them

truth is a property of language
and these moments
are felt
deep in the history of the brain
before sentences
words
punctuation and the spaces between them
this knowledge
this feeling of knowledge
of understanding
knowing feeling understanding
emerged

– emerges –

long before our reflective minds.

So, I guess that makes me a liar.

—

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