Steven’s King harmonic theory of time and universe – 11/22/63

Stephen King’s writing has always been above the level of popular literature — whatever he used to write about. His horror books were not interesting because of the frightening horror scenes and plots — they were interesting because of the author mastery of storytelling. I could imagine King writing anything, even stupidest tales, yet I’m sure, it would be worth reading.

Travels in time, alternate histories — such themes were no seldom in novels. So, in some sense, the main theme of 11/22/63 is not very original. Yet King converts the seemingly banal sci-fi theme into a vehicle that he uses to portrait America of nineteen sixties with incredible meticulousness and color (we could even say — with a smell). He also uses it to tell us about his philosophy of time, of past, present and future…

In a synopsis to the novel I could only tell (not to spoil the pleasure of reading it) about its main hero, high school teacher of English from Maine who, with the help of seriously ill local diner owner, finds in this diner a time slip that enables him to travel in time to nineteen sixties. He finds many reasons to go there and “to correct” the flow of events that would later lead to some tragic facts. However, the diner owner’s mission, which he could not accomplish, was to revert the history of America by saving J.F. Kennedy, killed on November 22nd, 1963… 

Let’s leave it for now whether the mission was successful or not. The paradox is that with King’s imagination comes deep thinking about history and its essence.

“The past is obdurate and it does not want to be changed”.

Would we have better world if Kennedy was not killed in Dallas?

Traditional views and our hero say — yes, but are such views justified? King takes us on a journey, where we start with strong conviction of the veracity of such conviction, but where we later end with deep doubts. Yet King's conjectures are not politically motivated, instead he sheds light on the nature of causality itself, on the incredibly connected world where „butterfly effect” of individual human freedom of choice is profound. Its effect is so strong that for many, the world existing in time appears like the pre-ordained rigid and obdurate structure, but when one dares to trust his own sense of freedom — he finds that he could indeed change the course of events. Would it be for good or for bad — that’s another question which usualy remains unanswered… (The novel seems to claim - for bad)

King's mastery allows the mere mortals to ponder on these deep philosophical conundrums without any kind of abstract and unrealistic “philosophizing”.
How often we, in our lives try to rewrite our past? It is hard to find a person who passed his life without thinking (or sometimes even doing) „it would have been better if I did so and so”… Many tried, usually to no avail. In almost all known cases, we come to that simple fact of the persistent obduracy of the past…

It is not a first time when the great literature of our age contemplates time. Kurt Vonnegut in his Slaughterhouse No. 5 makes his hero “unstuck in time”. For Vonnegut events in time are fixed and frozen:

A Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button, and the whole Universe disappears.' So it goes. "If You know this," said Billy, 'isn't there some way you can prevent it?
Can't you keep the pilot from pressing the button?' 'He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.  

For King, the time is open ended and our will can create parallel universes. They harmonize and we perceive all them as one single and consistent universe:

The multiple choices and possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to. They are like strings on a guitar, Strum them and you create a pleasing sound. A harmonic. But then start adding strings. Ten strings, a hundred strings, a thousand, a million. Because they multiply! (…) Sing high C in a voice that’s laud enough and true enough and you can scatter fine crystal. Play the right harmonic notes through your stereo loud enough and you can shatter window glass. It follows (to me, at least) that if you put enough strings on time’s instrument, you can shatter reality.

Here we come to the essence of the novel. The travel in time and Kennedy case are used to teach us the fundamental lesson about the higher harmony that exists in time and in events of history.

It is so easy to shatter the delicate harmony of the world. We must walk and live carefully.

“Every breath we take is a wave”…

The novel ends beautifully. You can read these words, they will not impair your future reading:

„She speaks in a voice almost too low to be heard over the music, but I hear her — I always did. „Who are you George?” „Someone you knew in another life, honey.” Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance.

It was one of the best novels I ever read...

Suspended time in Arkansas ...

I was completely mesmerized and enchanted by John Grisham „A Painted House”. On the surface it is a story narrated by 7-years-old Luke, living with his parents in deep poverty on a cotton farm in Arkansas.
The story itself is simple, and at the first glimpse quite ordinary — maybe because of its apparent plainness and commonness. But when you read it (or listen as I did) carefully, you start to notice some light coming from the background, the light that makes this novel absolutely extraordinary. Is it for the honest and modest depiction of the harsh life in rural America in fifties? For the relation of responsibility and hard work and freedom? For poetic description of the nature and life in Arkansas? For the finest narration?

Maybe.... But I find in the book something out-of-this-world, something that escapes naming it and confining to this or that aspect of Grisham narration. Perhaps I  must admit, that I do not really know what made me so deeply moved by this common story...

I will certainly continue with Grisham. It was my his first book.
You can find the typical summary of the book here.

Political Mind - prophetic or controversial ?

When I read first chapters of the George's Lakoff „The Political Mind” during this year holidays I was almost elated. It played the tune that sounded true not only in American tuning but also in European one and in my Polish tuning as well. I found it almost prophetic and eye openning.

Having the subtitle „Why you can't understand 21st-Century Politics with an 18th-Century Brain” the book uncovers the role of specific language and its structural forms in politics and shows that this role is much deeper than we usually think — that it goes deeply into our brains and moulds our minds...

The book starts by the recall to Anna Nicole Smith case. Of course her life and death story was not the main reason of the interest. Rather the typical "frames" and "scripts" within which her story was told, are of the author interest. The frames and scripts of Anna Nicole Smith life were mostly untrue. Yet they spread to such extent that many people identified with them, despite their almost obvious unreliability. The narrative about Anna Nicole Smith was so important that Lakoff cites David Rieff: „understanding the importance of Anna Nicol Smith will help us understand politics”. And this leads us to interesting part of the book where „conceptual frames”, „semantic fields” or „specific scripts” are used to understand a phenomenon instead of the more deeper knowledge about the phenom itself.

This is typical to politics. And in the XXI century politics with pervasive use of digital media, these frames and scripts spread even faster than before. Lakoff tries to prove that it is not self-fuelling process. Behind most important political frames and narratives of American politics stand the conscious and systematic activity of conservatives. The book lists many examples where certain popular narratives (like that about „war on terror”) were just created to serve a particular goal. When Lakoff speaks about American politics, it is clear he stands on democratic (or how he called them "progressive") positions. He sees his mission, the mission of this book in uncovering the problem:

„Conservatives have excelled at articulating their values and ideas. It is time for progressives to do the same. My job here is to unlock the cognitive unconscious, to take progressive thought off the leash and to draw an accurate picture of conservative thought for the sake of comparison.”

He first finds the source of the polarisation in the family values. By almost equating the empathy with progressive values and authority with conservatives values, Lakoff tries to explain how our family upbringing can lead us to take a specific position on the political scene. Behind this conclusion is the assumption of the deep role of specific brain structures amplified by the specific family models (like Strict Father Model or Nurturant Parent Model) so that we select empathy or authority as the ground of our certain political choices.

This way of thinking is then extended in the analysis of the role of the brain in Political Ideologies. He uncovers certain metaphors that are used by politicians (purity, rottenness, light, darkness) when speaking about morality — and shows how deep is the importance of these metaphors in the formation of political ideology. The working of these metaphors is very often unconscious and some of them have deeply „embodied” aspect.

The central part of the book shows Lakoff way of thinking in practice. He analysies the role of some traumatic metaphors like „The War on Terror” or „Privateering” or some media created stereotypes (e.g. „sons of the welfare queen”) in politics and in achieving certain political goals.

To this moment I liked his book. Certainly its main purpose, i.e. to wake up our awareness of the the role of certain brain activities, particularly — unconscious activities and their role in our political decisions — is achieved. And I'm thankful to Lakoff for that. When I looked through his eyes on my domestic, Polish politics and discovered how many frames and (invented) narratives started to live their own life and influenced politics, even if they were based on false stories. Take the metaphor of „undercover agent” almost synonymic with an evil-doer of communist times and using this metaphor against Lech Walesa by his political opponents....

But on that level, or at these kind of reasoning the value of the book ends...

Let me now list issues which I have against the book. These issues are serious and, in my opinion, they diminish the value of the book — which could be a great contribution to the current political discussion. Could be. But is not.

First, I understand George Lakoff is scientist. While there is nothing bad in scientists to have political opinions and express them openly, it is quite disturbing when the certain political views and biases put shadow on the science the scientists cultivates. As an example take the way in which Lakoff calls political oponents of the US scene. He does not call them „democrats” vs. „republicans” or even „liberals” vs. „conservatives”. He calls the first „progressives” and the later — „conservatives”. By making this delicate and almost unnoticeable shift, he puts a certain frame and certain narration into motion. He tries to amplify his own political agenda by the scientific method (brain science and linguistics) he tries to say it is objective! His „progressive” narration about Democrats is like many narrations and metaphors a bit untrue, to say the least. It ignores the fact that the first, and only one by name, Progressive Party was actually formed by a split in Republican Party! Of course, we can't call today's republicans „progressives”, but we shouldn't speak about political opponents using certain frames and labels that are not quite true... (BTW, I am, like Lakoff, on the side of Democrats :-) )

Second, I'm very sympathetic to the current progress of brain science. I'm far from the understanding of the mind as something disembodied and purely logical. But the current state of the brain science does not allow now for many conclusions that Lakoff makes. For example by literally painting the metaphors as the results of certain synaptic connections — and speaking of abstract context as of result of the another physical connections is such great oversimplification that authors conclusions (even after his acknowledgment of the oversimplification) about important political consequences of brain structures seems to be naive.

I'm not a brain scientist. I'm physicist and chemist. But I read a lot about brain science and I know the simple fact — our current science is still very far from understanding the mind and the brain — its home and cradle. The way Lakoff reduces politics to brain mechanisms is naive — to say the list.

Finally, I was shocked by the naivety of the final chapter „What if it works” where Lakoff gives quite bombastic predictions how fantastic would be the politics if we all apply his way of thinking about brain and politics. This is perhaps the worst part of the book, and in some sense it close to the bombastic parts of Neuro Evolution... I know it was typical to scientists of Enlightenment age (which, ironically, he critisises) to predict bright future if their theories worked ...

But we also know from history how it often ended, despite beautiful words and lips full of empathy. This is why I find the book controversial to the same extent as it is prophetic ....

Gloom and Doom or Hope ...

Where is this world going ... ???

Reading "Inhertiance" by David Sanger is incredible experience. I suppose it is one of the best accounts about the global political, economical and security situation ever written. It is motivated by the drastic change in American policies expected with Obama presidency, by the dreadful facts about Iran nuclear program, Pakistan instability, North Korea convulsive attempts to drag world attention to them and their pigmy leader, terrorism and China's military programs.

The part of the book is about Bush and his misjudgments, but ultimately this is the book about the world as it is at the beginning of 2009. It shows how important are threats that we even 3-4 years ago did not even think of - like that of cyber-terrorism, or the real ability to smuggle atomic weapons to any peaceful country....

I'm sure that we mere mortals do not even think or feel how fragile is the world.

Lest we forget it - it will makes our daily steps a bit more careful and thoughtful....

Added a day after: The actuality and accuracy of the book is clearly seen and heard in the recent Obama's Strasburg speach:

He said something that plays well with my title: "At the crossroads where we stand today, this shared history gives us hope - but it must not give us rest" ...

Inheritance - admonition or realism ....

For some time now I will switch to reading non-fiction... Not because I do not like it any more, but because I will love to return to it :-)

My first non-fiction attempt is very political and timely. It is David Sanger's "Inheritance - The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power". The main thought behind the title of the book seems to be an assertion that Obama inherited unimaginable problems from Bush. And it IS convincing.

I just started, so it is not a review yet - but I already can tell two things: that the book is written in a very exciting and good-to-read language and ... that it is scary to read it....

I just finished the chapter about Iranian atomic program - not only there is certainty that they are on the path to the bomb, but there are not too many options the world, US, and Obama have - to stop them from that deadly path. Unfortunately, some of the reasons for this inability are due to mistakes Bush's administration made in handling Iraq, terrorism etc ....

Terribly true. I must however, admit something. For many years I was a very strong supporter for Bush. My eyes opened not very long time ago. So I do not blame him or people who supported him. As far as I understand myself, I understand them - and him. We are just mere mortals and we stray so often ...

Post written during a 15 minutes break in my lecture about Project Management in a small town Blonie near Warsaw, Poland ....

Noam's Chomsky "9-11"

It is not long reading. The book has about 120 pages and is small format.
It is exclusively composed of Noam's Chomsky interviews following and analysing September 11, 2001 attacks on World Trade Center. This attack had special impact on myself, for many reasons, for my history and for the other events in my life ...

Chomsky is well known for his unorthodox critique of US foreign polices, so the book does not surprise a reader who knows a bit about Chomsky. He gives some very interesting accounts on the potential motives of those terrorists who committed that crime, but in my opinion, he falls short when about to give any real explanation of these motives. To the contrary, the motives he apparently dismisses (they hate us for globalization of our world view, our values), are, possibly the only fundamental deep motives. Instead, through most of the speeches he tries to convince us, that it is US which is the utmost terrorist, legitimized by its power, organization !
Some of Chomsky's opinions are just ridiculous. Let me cite one: "... In those years (1980s), a prime enemy of the U.S. was the Catholic Church, which had sinned grievously in Latin America..."

I do not say, US does always good when is globalizes its outlook on life - but this process just happens with little of any policy makers intention, and we are just hated by terrorists and fundamentalists for it. That's my opinion, and here I disagree with Chomsky.

But, even if I disagree with him, I admire the sharpness and bravery of his intellectual activity. I strongly recommend this little book to all who are interested in global and in US politics.
And, thanks good God and fathers of America - he can proclaim his thoughts being in US, teaching at MIT... That is what is important. That what opens minds of people, even if they do not agree - the essence of free speach and our freedom.