January - June 2002

January 30, 2002

From a letter to Mills:
re doomsday: A NatGeog special The day the oceans boiled is about the time 55m years ago (not the meteorite 60m years ago) that the natural CO2 sinks (rainforests and ocean floor where methane compounds lurk from accumulated decomposing runoff) that are holding back the greenhouse effect today finally gave out, leading to temperatures 20 degrees higher than today and of course mass extinctions. They said the present estimates for global warming are seriously underestimated because the remaining rain forests are still absorbing 1/2 the CO2 being pumped into the air, but that this will soon end. In 50 years it will be apocalypse even without the political spice of war.
It's crazy - we don't even have any kids and we seem more concerned about 'what we're leaving our grandchildren that the 90% that have them. These mindless capitalists (not that my Soviet bureaucrats were any better on the environment).
I just read Songlines and Chatwin's bio. He puts the blame squarely on 'civilization', not instinct. Once you've got farming, history can be programmed, right down to the rise of capitalism (and apocalypse). Sigh. Maybe people's unconsciousness recognition of this is why Titanic was so wildly popular.
I also read a chilling review in the FT of The Twilight of American Culture by Morris Berman.
"The US lives in a collective adrenalin rush, a world of endless promotional/commerical bullshit that masks a deep systemic emptiness," etc. Berman says we are entering a Dark Ages and need intellectual monks to keep the cultural treasures of the past intact. No hope for collective action.
The reviewer Prabhu Guptara slams him by saying "It remains fashionable in the US to propound individualist solutions even to structural problems."

Re language: Interesting. To be fluent in Uzbek, I know I would have to do the immersion thing, as the word order really is an effective encryption as "I table the on book the put will" makes clear. Immersing presumably means you belong and are no longer a competitor.

February 3, 2002

There are two types of laughter response: the most primitive is in the lower brain, signaling cooperation, trust, acquiescence and reinforcing social-physical bonds (in physical manifestation - tickling and roughhousing); the more sophisticated laughter of word play and social satire, based on language and civilization. It is always a response to social interaction. Play, on the other hand, is an instinct controlled by the frontal lobe in all mammals, and is vital in order to learn and practice skills and establish acceptable patterns of social interaction. Experiments with chimps and rats show if it is denied early, it will be greater later, suggesting it is determined by life span, at least in nonhumans. ADHT, where the child is too impulsive and aggressive, and can't play properly and accept the rules, suggests that aggression is an instinct, and that there is an increasing conflict between instincts and the regimented environment of the school and urban society, that there is not enough room to play in society.

Another interesting social 'instinct' is punishment. In experiments giving the opportunity to inflict altruistic punishment (requiring some personal sacrifice to punish social slackers) subjects readily sacrificed their personal income to punish those not contributing as much to the social welfare. Without the possibility of punishment, the social accumulation of wealth soon stopped and subjects reverted to private hoarding. I recognize that I have a strong bent for social punishment, and resent people preying on me for money. I would love to have the thieves at Enron and the snotty rich in Argentina expropriated or worse. Enron had over 900 dummy companies in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere and managed to go without paying any taxes for years, while bribing politicians with $100ms. It was even buying up internet porn sites last year for some insane reason.

It seems that the lure of dope is that THC mimics the role of endocannabinoids naturally occurring throughout the body, especially in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory. The theory goes that these molecules help lay down new memories by strengthening the connections between nerve cells. But when the brain is flooded with cannabinoids through marijuana use, forgetfulness results - a case of too much of a good thing. When cannabinoids are abundant, every experience becomes strongly linked in our minds. But when everything is marked for memory, the system is overwhelmed and nothing is remembered.
The study quoted in the IHT (Nature) emphasized the negative effect on memory and learning for teenagers. However, this effect could account for its traditional role in religion and creativity - when I need to think through something, dope actually helps me concentrate on what I have already decided is important, and find new connections. Every detail of the problem is given its due and not overlooked. When I'm really stoned, I can feel the mental flood of ideas, like a roller coaster. A stream of new connections, some extraneous, some provocative.
It also produces good vibes, though tinged with paranoia (What is he really thinking? Are the cops after me?). This could be due to the flooding of the hippocampus with extraneous details and is why I prefer to smoke alone in totally safe surroundings, with lots of time to sift through whatever's on my mind.
The 'problem' with dope is just another instance of the rootless, traditionless culture of capitalism ripping a sacred part of nature up and then finding it to be harmful. And then making it illegal, so there is no positive control of its use. Of course it will prove to be harmful - anything is harmful if not treated with respect.
The research suggests that cannabinoids also tone down the production of certain neurotransmitters, acting like the brakes of a car when the system is racing too fast. Yes. When I need to 'veg out' from stress, dope can act to smooth the mind's ruffles.
Another study suggests it is addictive for 10% of users and that the withdrawal syndrome, admittedly much less severe than smoking or alcohol, can last several weeks and include decreased appetite, sleep difficulty, weight loss, aggression, anger, irritability, restlessness and strange dreams.
All in all, its effects are subtle and varied, and it should be treated with respect.

I'm more aware of my frustration politically and sexually - in both spheres I'm resigned to passivity, living vicariously, feeling helpless and inhibited, or altruistic, depending on your point of view. I'm happy to help someone achieve a progressive political OR sexual goal! But what about morally? I'm only generous to a point, always looking out for myself ultimately. I don't trust anyone to look out for me when it comes to the crunch, though I hope I'm mistaken.

I browsed through Karl Marx and the philosophy of Praxis by Gavin Kitching, an obscure lecturer at Polytechnic of North London. I could only marvel at the gall of a professed Marxist daring to critique the master on everything from language use to the labour theory of value. The only good bits were the quotes: (on communism) "My work would be a free expression of my life, and therefore a free enjoyment of my life. C is the return of man himself as a social, i.e., really human, being... Need and enjoyment have thus lost their egoistic character and nature has its mere utility by the fact that its utilization has become human utilization." Admittedly there is the unresolved 'how to get there', and Marx's vague conception of C as made up of very small self-governing communities vs the need for a state to make decisions about mass production and consumption, about abilities and needs, etc. True, Marx seems to have the model of a modernized Periclean Athens where citizens depend not upon slaves but upon automated machines. Self-governed communities would be severely restricted in terms of production and consumption.

February 28, 2002

I just got back from the mtns - already 25 degrees - barely enough snow on the north faces. Almond trees ready to bloom - and it's still Feb. The 'resort' is quintessential Soviet blah - terrible food, nothing to do, grey faced grim inmates. Last night (sat) at 7pm 2 teens hooked up an antiquated sound system in the lounge right by my room and starting playing cheap rock at maximum volume. I had spent 7 hours slogging on my skis and was exhausted. I finally shouted at them to stop. It turns out they were HIRED by the management to host a disco from 7-9pm. No one was there but them. I shouted over the din that all the residents were aged and sickly (yikes - I'm almost there!) and no one would disco. The rooms freezing, tepid water for an hour in the morning and evening, inedible food... All for a whopping 4200 sums ($5) per day. What a bargain!
No bus service, so I started off the hour hike down to the local village to catch a communal 'taxi'. After 5 minutes, I passed a group of 5+ young guys, obviously bored stiff who insisted I stop and show my skis and explain where Cda was. Full of life and joking - Kazakhs. This whole area used to be part of Kazakhstan. Tugat offered me a ride to Gazalkent "for only one dollar". I insisted I was poor and offered him more than the usual fare ($.50) and he agreed readily. His sister magically appeared and we were off, the others pushing the car downhill, and we dodged the many potholes till it jumped to life.
That was probably the most fun of the wkend. (No - hiking past all the dumpy dachas to the untouched gorge and sitting by a fire was the best part, tho' my feet were soaked and I was quite exhausted by then - good thing the return was all downhill.)
I just saw on Deutsche Welle TV (I can't tolerate CNN or BBC any longer) that Savimbi was killed. They even described him as SA and US backed, responsible for 1/2m deaths and a poor loser in legit elections. I hate to celebrate over anyone's death, but... And am I right to think the tragedy we're preparing in Tanzania by development (displacing 1/2 m people to allowing a Canadian mining deal) is far more criminal than Mugabe dispossessing a few hundred white farmers? I can't stomach the holier-than-thou preaching on the BBC about that, while it blithely ignores the moat in its own eye.

We are living through another crisis of the separation of church and state, now that capitalism is the de facto religion and controls our politics. I suppose it's really always been the case that government functions to serve the ruling elite, though in Soviet days, there was at least the pretense of the state serving the interests of the people in the first place, which implied that it was above the immediate interests of capitalists.

Reading Ideas of the Great Economists by George Soule (Mentor Books, 1952), in the mountains I was pleasantly surprised by his implicit liberalism, though after a surprisingly sympathetic account of Marx, he of course dismissed him as mistaken, and had long sections on obscure US economists of questionable merit.
Still, his account of Wesley Mitchell, Soule's predecessor at the National Bureau of Economic Research is interesting. Mitchell investigate the business cycle, but steered clear of elegant deductive theories such as Keynes, concentrating on inductive descriptions of typical cycles, coming up with the generalizations that crop production moves independently of business cycles, production fluctuates more than prices do during the cycle, and that business liabilities bottom out before the cycle does and investment order increases act to turn the cycle around. I like the unprepossessing, modest assessment of complex internal stresses during expansions and uneven contractions paving the way for revivals. All this without the subsequent sophisticated econometric analyses of the post-war period trying to discover and eliminate the 'root cause' of recessions.
Which sends us back to Marx, who made clear that the cycle was inherent in capitalism, necessary for readjusting productive forces and relations. Only Marx recognized that there is no equilibrium, that crisis is endemic to capitalism. Even Keynes supposed a theory positing equilibrium (tho he said there could be many, some dysfunctional). So Mitchell makes a nice footnote to Marx. His conclusion re recessions is that they can be mitigated only if people modify their behavior. How about that? Yes, stop being capitalists!
It was also a pleasure to read a mainstream critique of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. It rejects any moral judgment in the economy, arguing that businessmen are small and make little mistakes, while government is big and makes big mistakes, and government involvement naturally leads to tyranny. Soule reminds us that WWII is a compelling example of how government at times as no choice but to get seriously involved in the economy. "It would be more pertinent to inquire how, so far as planning is necessary, mistakes may be avoided and how bad planning may be made better. And… in what types of economic activity free markets are possible and more useful than planned initiative." He lists the many macroeconomic goals: stable prices, low unemployment, a desirable volume of credit… Not evening mentioning the most pressing now - ecological protection.

More on the brain and learning. Scientists experimenting on chimps found that it was unexpected extra rewards that stimulated production of dopamine, leading to pleasure/ learning. This addiction on the physical level to dopamine translates on the cultural level to learning. In the human brain the dopamine signal is processed in both mid-brain AND frontal cortex 9 i.e., a more elaborate processing than for lower animals). While most physical reactions are u (body reacting automatically to what it has programmed itself to expect, including automatic adjustments, as in reactions behind the wheel), we process consciously information to stimulate the dopamine high, i.e., we learn.

Up and down the road

Walking the lines painted by pride
And I have made mistakes in my life that I jut can't hide
I believe I'm ready for love
I've got myself together and now I'm ready.
I've been searching my soul tonight
I know there's so much more to life
Now I know I can shine the light to find my way back home.

Vonda Sheppard’s theme song for Allie McBeal

April 3, 2002

Seven years here, 4 of them living at this metro station, and I only now discover one of the hot pick-up spots, right under my nose the whole time. I'm not the most savvy cruiser, to put it mildly. What is this magical spot? A cramped paid toilet in the underpass leading to the metro. O mentioned it casually with a knowing smirk last year, after M bought the apartment, which is less than a 100 yards away. I don't think either of them use it, as it is quite sordid and dangerous, with cops constantly dropping in. There are 4 stalls, the last two being the hot ones, between them a square hole conveniently made in the divider so that you can see the other's cock, IF he is so inclined. The walls between the stalls are high enough to prevent observing from above unless you are a cop intent on catching someone in flagrante.

It took me a few clueless visits to realize the set-up, as the reserved seats are truly that, almost always taken, and sometimes for long stretches. Often a board is put up or toilet paper pasted over the hole as well. Perhaps my 4th visit, I hit on one of THE stalls, pulled down my pants, lit up a fag, and saw a cock hanging next door. My immediately started to get hard, and after a few pulls, I saw the other guy jack off, though his cock was small and not erect. Suddenly his hand appeared between the wall and divider, clearly wanted a feel. I was taken aback, but realized it was safe enough, so I complied. I whispered to come to my place, but the hand waved no (reminiscent of the Adams family) so I left, feeling high.

Most of my visits connect with something, though tastes vary widely. A couple of times, an dark Uzbek cock appears, virtually erect, pisses a bit, and leaves after an appropriate time. I figure young guys who like to show off but don't want to 'go all the way'. The great thing is you don't see the face or pot belly (if there is one), so you can focus your fantasy on the cock, groin and feet, which are pretty generic, more consistently beautiful than the whole body. It's eerily like worshipping an abstract but very real image, and the blasphemy, the breaking of the taboo, gives the whole experience a hard, transcendent edge that is very exhilarating. By now means are all these cocks or bodies gay, and O's mention of the spot was in the context of an acquaintance, Sasha, being caught by the cops there. Not a pretty thought.

Last week, a fine erect cock was waiting, and we both jacked off a bit. His hand looked a bit feminine - long fingers, fine black hair on the back, but I ignored that hint and said to meet me outside and left. As I exited the stall, a short, young guy appeared from one of the other stalls, and took my place. Hmmm. I waited outside, looking for the brown trousers. Soon I say the short guy take off in a hurry, which made me think he didn't like what he saw. Then my invitee emerged, and I said hello and he recognized me and decided to follow. Tall, not bad-looking, middle class, a distant, worried look in his eyes. He followed me and then caught up and we started talking. Erkin is a marketer for Nestles, and seemed all right. After a few drinks though, he said "Do you have any women's clothing?" I suddenly lost all interest, but had to go through the motions. He finally came after professing his deep love for me, much groaning, and me sticking my finger up his ass, etc. I finally got rid of him, but he had my phone number and I've had to be diplomatic in my firm refusals. I hope he's got the message. It certainly was not magical, though the anonymous worship is still a piquant high on my way to and from the metro. Some things are better left ineffable (half done, fleeting).
Coincidentally, I saw Ozon's Le petit meur, three gay novellas, one of which featured a gay being seduced by a woman, having his clothes stolen in the meantime, and being forced to go bike home in her dress, which he realized he found sexy and in which he let his gay partner fuck him wildly. So my distaste of feminine dress I guess is either an indication of my enduring self-hate or a different approach to erotica. At least I can't deny Erkin his fetish. Let him find someone that it turns on.

A review of Peter Whelan's play A Russian in the Woods in the IHT startled me, arguing that things are not what they seem, and that 'those who wanted to won the Cold War, leaving the rest of us to suffer." YES, only the greedy cynics on both sides wanted the SU to collapse and the US to effectively take over the world, promoting its soulless consumerism. This is the first time I've read this truth in the media, and it was buried in a throwaway phrase at the end of a theater review. Still it bucked me up.
***
Truth is conformity of theory with reality. Where we can never 'know' anything totally, this means that we must search for truth through our feelings. Our choice of facts will always color the 'truth'. That choice itself is filtered through the realm of feelings. This being a preamble to my wish to justify white lies to save the feelings of others, i.e., my attempt to hide my affairs from M. I don't want to hurt him by him knowing I don't have much sexual attraction to him anymore. At the same time, I don't want to split up. I want him to be my partner at this point in my life. In as much as we're happy and we conform enough in reality (keep up a front?) to maintain our relationship, it's 'true'.
***
(And maybe protection of my own feelings too when it's a question of projecting my fantasy onto an anonymous sex partner - for that instant of connecting, he is true to my thought of him (my ideal). I see anon sex and monogamy as completely different. I am excited in the former by knowing the other is 'getting it off.' In the latter, it should be just enjoying getting my own rocks off, which I am happy to do alone (with my fantasy of the former!). Not for everyone. My sexual calling is like that of an artist, who is by definition outside of society, and who asserts his identity through the creative act.)

Today's apocaplyse is directly connected with the US 'winning the Cold War.' The past 12 years has witnessed the unbridled triumph of the logic of money over everything else in a world where there are no places left unprotected (if you could call the sad state of the SU before its collapse as protected). At least the West had to argue that capitalism could fulfill the nonmarket promises better than the competition. Now there is no competition, and nothing is safe from the market. It is fine for Bill Gates to 'earn' $50b. It is fine for the US to burn 25% of the world's oil and poison the world's air without any consequences. Bush is a convenient symbol of what's wrong with the US. He revels in his power over the physical world and worships wealth, far beyond what is needed to survive in the physical world. There is no room in his vision for feelings and empathy with others. It is blindingly egotistical. His sexless public image (librarian wife, dumpy awkward daughters) and tawdry business career hints at his total sublimation of his eros in money and physical control of others.
***
I found an English library donated by the Seattle-Tashkent sister cities committee (probably a decade ago and it seems unused) in the Foreign languages library, buried away in the architecture institute last month. The ghosts of detente! I stumbled upon Mary McCarthy's Birds of America in it - a humorous satire on the ugly American from the 60s. Plus ca change... The caricatures of small-minded Republican (and Demo) bourgeois types voting for Goldwater were cathartic to read. She was a fellow traveler too and I could imagine writing it myself. It ends with the bombing of North Vietnam in 1965, launching the open 'war against Communism' as the hero hallucinates Kant who tells him God is dead. "But that was Nietzsche," says Paul. "We knew it all along. And what's more, Nature is dead too." The ecological disaster and the consumer madness was quite clear by the 1960s, with the US as the culprit.
Prior to capitalism, we had Pandora, Prometheus's sister-in-law (Zeus's punishment for Prometheus's theft of fire). So knowledge brought us suffering - plagues, war, famine, and eventually the death of God. But now we have the new improved version - P&P + capitalism, so it's not only death, and death of God, but death of Nature.

Karimov, bless his tiny soul, has announced that health care will be privatized. Bravo! After all, it works to well in America. The result: hustling doctors will jump ship and line their pockets and the few humanitarian doctors will try to mop up the rest, making legal what's already going on. However, it will take away the idealistic justification for helping mankind that presumably motivates the underpaid doctors here. but health is the profession closest to feelings (along with teaching), and this is dangerous, even sickening, literally. Often TLC is more effective than an expensive drug (with unknown side effects). Oh well.
***
Jews have always been close to money. Formerly, because they and it were pariahs. As money triumphed, through the creative destruction of capitalism, that put Jews at the center of world finance, i.e., capitalism. Money is the ultimate leveler (democrat). So Israel is in effect the perverse offspring of American imperialism, its ruthless vanguard, and the whole world hangs on Sharon's every twitch. It is leading us to the 21st c gas ovens. Thanks.

Harmony developed out of monody to reach its apogee in the complex system of the 19th c, where a piece is centered around a tonic, and strives towards resolution of increasingly complex discords and distantly related harmony on concords and a return to the tonic (release of tension). By the 20th c, it is the former discords that become the points of resolution, and harmonic progression proceeds through relativity rather than the uniformity of diatonic harmony. Beauty becomes relative, more diffuse, encompassing other traditions and even other disciplines, and much more fleeting and subtle.

I found an exposition of psychohistory (history seen as a reflection cast by the evolving consciousness of man with specific crisis at each stage requiring psychophysical method of transition or initiation to go to next stage of consciousness (Gerald Heard)) and Adam Smith's Powers of Mind at the Tashkent-Seattle library. Both inspired by struggle to a higher level of c. I sense that the peace movement of the 60-70s will revive now, though I fear the technology increasingly in the hands of ruthless imperialists will render it impotent. I hope I'm wrong.

April 18, 2002

I opened Confucius's Analetics at the British Council at random today. Politeness without ritual is tedious, caution - timidity, bravery - aggression, and in a society that cares for its old people, people will be happy.

How my mini-odyssey to the steppe proved the wisdom of this observation. Though the many rigid ritual greetings, ablutions, prays, gestures, conversations, excessive plying of food and drink, etc were wearing to me, unused to them, they clearly were engrained in our hosts, for whom they were second nature, and provided an atmosphere of elegance to even the most penurious surroundings. Their engrained codes of ethics, closely followed even by black sheep, ensured that their responses to events fell within bounds of caution and resoluteness in the face of the very real hardships and uncertainties of their post-Soviet Brave New World. Their respect for elders provided a sense of security to the community.

How the US 'war on terror' shows the danger of a society with no engrained traditions. With no bounds to limit the use of the terrifying military technology it possesses, and respect only for money and material goods, the US is shaping a horrifying world of violence and death, unashamed of vast extremes of poverty and wealth, governed by lies and threats, breeding hatred and fear, unaware of its underlying logic of ecological and social apocalypse.