Improbable Discourse

I'm blogging from the HUB.  Woot!

Comm 100 is one of the strangest classes I've ever taken.  Everything I've learned in there sounds like a conspiracy theory, even though we're only studying the way everything works.  There's no conspiracy.  We're a debt-based capitalist democracy (which does sound a little pradoxical) and our economy really is driven by consumerism.  So it should come to us as no surprise that nearly everything we do is riddled with advertisements and endorsements to entice us to buy more.

I'm unsure whether to call this bad or good.  In fact, there are aspects of both in there.  Hopefully, I'll develop some cohesive overview of mass communication in our country by the end of the semester (and if I don't, I'm sure visiting Tokyo and Taiwan will help me reassess everything a little more effectively).

I found this video on YouTube by comedian Jon Lajoie.  In the words of Corky Romano, "It's funny 'cause it's true!"

Just a quick post.  Sorry for the lack of updates...

It's my birthday, so I'm posting a video made by a redhead.

Actually, a friend had me watch it and answer a couple of questions: 1. Do you believe in the existence of free will?, and 2. If not, do you think it's good for people to believe in it?  I think it's a little intriguing something to post on the blog...



I've been trying to churn through "The Selfish Gene" in my 'spare time,' and it's changed the way I look at things.  Experience from the college campus has shown be how driven by hormones and genes college kids are generally, and every person has this expected set of actions ('personality,' although I think there's a number of people on this campus who have none...).  It's an action thing - I programmed myself to start working out and eating healthier, and voila.  I did, but I did so because the weight was affecting my health and self image negatively.  I agree with her - we have the imaginary notion of free will, but it doesn't actually technically exist.  At least, not the way religion claims it does.  Things are too tied down to internal and external pressures, and our social and environmental nets as humans are so complex that it's easy to see how something like free will could be expected, but it's not actually there.

I don't think it's good to believe in free will, but that's because I'm an idealist.  If we understood why and how we operate, we'd better be able to assess each other's actions and figure out why we're acting erratically or how we can improve our condition.  Of course, here enters the argument that "all human blood runs red," and we'd much sooner find rapists being cut loose because their genes made them do it.  Maybe their genes did make them do it.  But if we know to look for it and catch it early enough, that kind of crime may never have had happened.

In conclusion - no, I do not believe in the existence in free will as anything but an imaginary construct created by the incomprehensibility of the entirety of our surrounding factors, and yes, I think knowing we're predisposed to certain expected behaviors would benefit us as a society and a species, although there would initially be some some pretty nasty debates.

My time at Penn State is possibly coming to an end.  Before I leave, I want to do something I should have done years ago.

The student populations at universities across the country have become apathetic.  Education is not quite a first interest and specific communities do not benefit the whole.  Overall, the intellectual, cultural, and social atmosphere of the American university is rapidly becoming rank and stale.  There are oases, but many are too small and difficult to find.

Tomorrow, I will propose a new student organization to my composition professor.  This organization will be dedicated to improving the cultural, social, and intellectual climate of Penn State through impromptu and extensively planned artistic performances and discourse.  The club will be open to anyone interest in philosophy, art, performance, writing, thinking, or life in general.

There is intellectual discourse going on on this campus.  I'm sure of it.  But it's time we let this underground aspect of student life emerge and run free.  "Art Is Resistance" takes its name from Trent Reznor's "Year Zero," where it is a fictional organization of artists and thinkers dedicated to rebelling against the sleepy-eyed public and a nation-wide culture dominated by mind-numbing pastimes and an overall lack of critical thinking or openness to examination.

This will be the analogous to the Fluxus movement of the late 1900's, but with a heavy-handed agenda: to bring the world around us into awareness in terms of its shortcomings, problems, and inherent beauty and power.  I believe we can achieve all this through artistic performance.

Unlike other student groups, "Art Is Resistance" will focus on experimental and unconvential methods of performance that directly engage or surround the audience by crossing different schools of thought and media.  The internet is as powerful a tool as ever, and few times in the past has the outdoors of the campus been seen as a performance stage.

We live in a time when people are so locked into themselves that they forget how awestruck by the world and life in general we all once were.  I believe that the first step to reviving a true widespread academic community is artistic performance and intellectual discourse.

If I am here next year for grad school, this may be one of my big projects.  If you're interested in this organization, I will gladly take suggestions or support.  We will welcome with open arms.


Although perhaps not entirely what John S. Hall originally meant, I present the closing stanza of King Missile's "It's Saturday":

"If what I'm saying doesn't make any sense,
that's because sense can not be made,
It's something that must be sensed,
And I, for one, am incensed by all this complacency!
Why oppose war only when there's a war?
Why defend the clinics only when they're attacked?
Why are we always reactive?
Let's activate something
Let's f*** s*** up
Whatever happened to revolution for the hell of it?
Whatever happened to protesting nothing in particular, just
protesting!  Cause it's Saturday and there's nothing else to do!"

A quick google of the term presents a lot of websites, including this one, all dedicated to bringing the fictional land of "Galt's Gulch" to reality.  Much of this initiative seems to be propelled by libertarian ideology, which, ironically, I've heard several objectivist speakers between Penn State and YouTube distancing themselves from.  This movement is spurred by the obvious "socialist" skew that the Obama administration supposedly has.

Well, to a degree, yes, I can see how Obama's administration was seen as socialist (an amusing CNN broadcast last week discussed the events that deemed Obama a socialist no more).  If you dig up objectivist writings and readings, they're always speaking out on key governmental issues.  To have this movement suggested is, well, predictable.

Socialism isn't quite what it was 40-60 years ago.  Not that a state of total socialism is particularly desirable, as key problems rise fairly quickly (a famous socio-political web-meme claims, "Is it not impossible to see that all blood runs red?").  But basing our entire mode of existence on a monetary system isn't fool-proof either, especially when that economy is as flawed and front-loaded as ours.  From this standpoint, Galt's Gulch seems like the most logical decision.

It's interesting to see how Rand's philosophy plays out in reality, although I find absolute objectivism not perfect in of itself as well.  Not to mention, the supposed manifestations of objectivism in recent years haven't been all to popular (i.e. Ron Paul was pushed for a while).

Are the great intellectuals really leaving the world behind?  And what do they expect to find when they come back?  Will the country really be in shambles?  What's the grand solution here? 

Then again, Randy Newman foretold of the end of America, too (video below)...

Some days, I honestly just don't know.

In case you haven't read the Collegian, here and here are articles about the 'holiday.'  State Patty's Day isn't a whimsical part of the Penn State Experience.  It's an abomination.  If we spent as much time debating or rallying as we give to hooliganism, Penn State might be known for something more than Football, Ice Cream, Research, Alumni, and Parties.

We're in a difficult financial time, and our best solution is spending an entire day drunk for no reason?  If it were in active opposition for something, okay, impress me.  But in the words of Elizabeth Goreham, "You guys have got to grow up."

P.S. Biden announced last week that many of the troops we're pulling out of Iraq are going into Afghanistan.  Too little too late, or Bush 2.0?  Where's the outrage?

I don't want to bring this up again, but I had a class this morning where we were discussing ways Penn State capitalizes on student body, and ways that it (in part or in whole and in some manner) discourages student drinking without exactly eradicating it.  Naturally, the conversation veered to State Patty's Day, which carried enthusiastic support from the vast majority of the students in the class (it's a 50-person gen-ed class, COMM 100).  That's when I turned off.

On this *wonderful* holiday, I was downtown after my 7-9am radio show mailing a score out for a competition. I was lucky enough to pass the Phyrst just as someone was being thrown out.  Yes, this was around 9:45am.  I was fighting my way through crowds of drunk college students.  It was like a badly directed zombie film.

It is impossible for me to justify devoting an entire day to nothing but drinking for the sake of drinking.  That's not a holiday.  That's not even a cultural event.  That's a waste of time.

I'm glad the university refuses to support it, but students need to realize that this isn't a joke: it's a downright shame.


I said before that in the Daily Collegian a few weeks ago, there was mention of a past 'holiday' in March that consisted of a day-long peace-sitting on the HUB lawn.  I'm surprised that whenever I bring this conversation up in COMM 100, students latch onto the State Patty's Day and completely ignore whatever that other thing was.  This is a serious problem with our generation.  We really need to change this now.

I'll let Jon Stewart show you what that looks like...