THE STUPIDITY OF SANE-WASHING

I am trying to watch Ezra Klein’s interview with Gillian Tett. To say that people are confused is an understatement but there also is a very definite intention to deepen confusion. I myself have trouble understanding what consumers and purveyors of confusion think they are doing and for what results. Only very stupid persons canContinue reading “THE STUPIDITY OF SANE-WASHING”

Making Room

A Poem for Aimee I have heardSome people talkAbout looking atThe books people keepSaying that saysA lot about whetherIt would beWorth spending timeAnd how muchTime would youSpend with that personbased on the books I am something ofA person ofBooksSomething ofA person ofWordsAnd you seem toLike thatComing into myBook worldTouching the spinesReading the titles You openContinue reading “Making Room”

WHAT HAS “IDENTITY” GOT TO DO WITH “US”?

We assume a role not only in the immediate social context but also, coming into it, based on everything in our lives which has come before. From the circumstances of birth down to the “choice” of attire, we bring who we think we are more broadly to each and every social interaction. We bring thisContinue reading “WHAT HAS “IDENTITY” GOT TO DO WITH “US”?”

Familiar Objects in a New Light

From New York I returned, my balconyNeither as large nor high as that at the hotel;The metal railing dusty though I neverNoticed before; the bolted rectanglesThat fix the railing in its place appearPeculiar in this new light of my return. There I saw new an old friend’s other faceSo sadly different in that different place,IndifferentContinue reading “Familiar Objects in a New Light”

IDENTITY AS CENTRAL TO BEHAVIOR

We Act On Who We Think We Are It first occurred to me in context of sexuality that people’s thinking (particularly ideological and paradigmatic conceptions) is based on identity, not facts or evidence or logic or science or even just belief. This was back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was thinkingContinue reading “IDENTITY AS CENTRAL TO BEHAVIOR”