Frank Kogan

Continuing a thought from the last entry's comment thread, my opinions on political issues, on macroeconomics, on global warming, on a whole bunch of stuff, aren't based on much knowledge but rather based on whom I've decided to believe; in effect I've farmed out the ideas to others, owing to lack of time. And the result is that my opinions are the ones that Someone Like Me would have — I vote my hairstyle — and often the people who disagree with me on these issues are the ones who make me the most wary; and so these issues, the ones that I don't understand, are where my own views are most resistant to change. That's because the views are based on my social identity not on my knowledge, and people opposing them represent a potential threat of deep social conflict: conflict between types of people. Someone not believing in global warming somehow represents to me the possibility of my being killed in a civil war or a genocide, even if the particular person I'm disagreeing with happens to be sweet and kind, and even though I hardly know the science or the evidence for global warming.*

Not to say that the ideas I do think my way to and through have nothing to do with my social identity or that people's reflected-upon and well-worked ideas don't nonetheless cluster by social type, since they usually do. But at least I've got a sense of the uncertainties as well as the certainties, and of where potential counterarguments and counterevidence might be coming from.

*Of course, if I did know the science, the person who disbelieved in global warming might nonetheless represent the exact same threat. Whereas if we both knew the science, while this is no guarantee we wouldn't feel the social threat, we might not be arguing from the depths of our insecure social selves. [And yeah, I know that People Who Are Like Me don't think it's possible for someone to both know the science and disbelieve in man-made global warming; but as I said, I don't know the science, so I don't know this.]

(1) I can eat three times as much food in one third the time as my parents. This leaves me with a lot of extra time at the dinner table, even when I choose to eat six times as much as they. Perhaps I need to discover a snack that involves intricate and concentrated peeling.

(2) Alex writes: "I can see that 'everyone takes each other's course' moderates the hierarchy required by the notion of authority by placing it on a basis of equality." For the DDR I'm not actually against hierarchy as such or in favor of democracy as such except when they hinder or help the expansion of my knowledge! I suppose that some people might not feel equal to having me as a student, but that's a different problem. The point is to... push a button, or something, that stimulates people to start teaching/learning, when they hadn't allowed themselves to previously.

(3) Listened to the GN'R album last week on MySpace, felt like I was pushing against a weight. This man used to be one of the great live wires, gave speed and sass and weirdness and intensity and danger and dance back to what I'd been ready to dismiss as a dead language. Maybe the last male rock star*, willing to embody mystery, menace, and attraction. (Cobain was doing something different, at least to me.) There was a lot of stuff going on in the new album, but the man sounded tired. Maybe I'll accept this and take the album for what it is if I listen again. Only two songs - the first two - stood out as extra special on first listen.

(4) Listened to the stream of the Kanye, too. Sounded real good at the start but ran out of songs halfway, and the Autotune became samey after a while. Worth hearing again.

(5) Want to hear the Will Young.

*Unless you count Kid Rock and Eminem and, oh, I don't know, a bunch of hip-hop and crunk guys as rock, which you might as well.