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The early 2020’s have already poked a new hole in Federalist No. 10

James Madison argues two important points in this paper.

One is that in a so-called pure democracy, society “has no cure for the mischiefs of faction,” such as falling victim to populist strongmen or the oppression by a dominant party.

The other is that the solution to this issue lies in the representative government of a republic.

These papers played an important role in shaping the language of the United States Constitution. About 230 years later, on January 6, it was demonstrated that representative government is not a stalwart defense against “the mischiefs of faction.” The United States has developed a faction which is committed to strongman ideology, and the general factionalism attitude has left Congress more or less incapable of performing their duties.

Part five of Nine Months of Non-Fiction.

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In Defense of the Unquantifiable

Humanity has gained a lot through using the scientific method, but we must not allow hubris to reduce the whole of existence to what is quantifiable.

The subjective experience, inherent at the very least to humans, and possibly inherent to matter itself, does not lend itself entirely to measurement. Mental experiences may be correlated with brain activity, but, perhaps, the extent to which one causes the other may not be knowable.

Unfortunately, many things may not be knowable. Take a look at mathematics, particularly logic. While math is often taught as methods to solve problems involving numbers, at its core, it is built upon proofs, carried out by using axioms and inferences. As phrased by Gödel in his famous Incompleteness theorems, math is incomplete – in a consistent formal system, there are statements which cannot be proven nor disproven, including proving that the system is, in fact, consistent.

In other words, there are mathematical problems which can be clearly articulated which cannot be solved, at least not by using mathematical techniques. Logic and math being of the utmost importance in the realm of science leaves open the possibility that there exists scientific problems which can be articulated and not proven – that there more in the universe than conceivable to the human mind. Scientists, at least in part, already agree that the nature of reality we experience is constructed mentally – why assume that what we perceive is the fundamental truth?

To paraphrase the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the universe is not obligated to make sense to us. Everyday ideas, like time, might have more to do with how we as a species experience reality rather than being an actual aspect of it. A understanding of time without respect to human perception may exist, but it is an open question as to whether or not this is knowable. What else falls into this same category?

Simply put, we do not know what we do not know. Maybe someday, there will be a rigorous scientific understanding of luck, of “bad juju,” etc. Maybe someday, there will not be. Whether or not we have this rigorous understanding does not mean that these events do not occur, if nowhere else, in our minds.

Part Four of Nine Months of Non-Fiction.

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The Rock Hand

Iwate Prefecture, located in northern Japan, gets its name, at least supposedly, from a legend.

The kanji characters used to write Iwate are the ones for “rock” and “hand,” 岩手.

This is commonly agreed to come from a legend known as Oni no Tegata (鬼の手形, the demon’s handprint). This legend is associated with the Mitsuishi Shrine (三ツ石神社, three-stone shrine) in Morioka City, the prefectural capital.

The relatively small shrine, a bit removed from the beaten path, holds three large stones, said to have originated in an eruption of Mt. Iwate.

Mt. Iwate is a large, conical, fairly quiet volcano which commands the horizon of Morioka. In the historical era, the mountain has been very quiet, and if these boulders truly came from an eruption, then it was either in the late 1700s or late 1600s, neither of which, as far as I can find, document any enormous boulders being shot several dozen miles away – indicating that this assertion and foundation of this shrine predates the historical era. The ensuing legend mentions Morioka Castle, which was constructed in the early 1600s, adding further support that these boulders and shrine predate any known eruption of Mt. Iwate within the confines of recorded history. Of course, people have been living in the area for much longer than people have been writing about the area, and when they did write, they did not capture everything nor interpret things in the same manner as is done these days.

While discussing Shinto, kami/gods, and where they come from is beyond the scope of this writing, suffice to say that natural objects capable of astonishing people, whether they are large or “there’s just something about them,” are sometimes considered to be deities, or to house deities. This is the case with Mitsuishi Shrine, the three stones being considered to either be or be home to the deity Mitsuishi.

One of these stones bears the mark of a demon’s hand. Or at least, it used to.

Back when Morioka Castle was a full-on castle and not just the foundation and ruins of a castle, it, like many castles, had a town surrounding it. A demon known in Japanese as Rasetsu (羅刹, a dictionary will state this is the Japanese name for a rakshasa, a human-eating breed of demon of Hindu origin – however, none of the Japanese sources I consulted mentioned this and instead read as though Rasetsu was the name of a demon) was terrorizing the town.

The townspeople prayed to the god Mitsuishi for assistance. The god Mitsuishi then bound Rasetsu to the rocks, and agreed to release the demon on the condition that it never hassle the people again. To seal the deal, the demon left a handprint on one of the boulders. The demon Rasetsu then fled to Mt. Nansho. The ensuing celebration became known as the Sansa Odori festival, which Morioka is known for.

Most accounts of this legend stop here. However, this legend drew my attention first when I studied abroad in Morioka, and returned when I returned to live there after finishing college.

When I studied abroad, I visited this shrine. The third boulder is housed inside a building now to protect it from the elements. I could see the print, but it was weathered and faint enough that I could see it only after being told precisely where to look for it. Like seeing a shape in the clouds.

A few years later, when I lived there, a friend of mine told me that in her youth (she was in her late 30s or maybe early 40s at the time) the print could be clearly seen. As in, it was obvious where to look, and that it was clearly a handprint, a large one at that. In other words, it wasn’t the weathering of hundreds of years that was making the print fade – the fading had occurred not only within her lifetime, but within something like the past fifteen years.

Third installment of Nine Months of Non-Fiction.

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The Earth Does Not Belong To Humans

On what authority do humans claim dominion over this planet?

An influential part of the philosophy which politics and laws are built upon (particularly in the United States and similar places) are themselves built upon at least one false premise regarding the nature of property. The nature of conditional logic may lead them to “true” conclusions, as a true premise and false conclusion is the only way which the argument may be considered false, and yet, a false premise with a true conclusion does not make the argument valid (for example, ‘if two is odd, then four is even’).

Take a look at both Hobbes and Locke, commonly thought of as key thinkers in regard to American political thinking. While they may disagree over what the state of nature is, they do seem to agree that in one way or another, the planet was gifted by God to the first humans and thus primarily existing for the sake of humans to use. This is based on what is written in a theological text being used as a historical reference.

The claim simply has not aged well – we know now that Adam, the supposed first human, (to say nothing of this “God” fellow) absolutely did not exist. There was no “first” human, that is not how species evolve, and seeking to find a “first” human mistakes an incremental yet continuous change for one of discrete steps – it is examining the set of all real numbers through the lens of the set of all natural numbers, it misses literally infinite parts. of the process.

Their assumptions of the state of nature do not take into account the way of life and outlook of the planet of the hunter-gather communities, in which humans, in their known entirety, lived in without exception until about 12,000 years ago (the oldest known remains of a modern human is from about 300,000 years old, by the way).

One could read political philosophy and suppose the earth existing for human use is just a decided fact. The proposition that the planet exists explicitly for the purpose of human exploitation is not supported by anything which is not based squarely in mythology.

In other words, the authority of these ideas around the resources of this planet being free-for-taking comes primarily from theology, of which there is no actual proof, leaving the claim with no alternative justification. There is no place for unjustified authority.

If not humans, who does the planet belong to?

Simply put, it doesn’t belong to anyone or anything. Does it have to?

A plot of uncultivated land is not waste. Even considering things purely from the perspective of the impact on the human world, the world of insects and microorganisms is not absolutely distinct from the world of humans. The connection may not be obvious due to the scale of this ranging from things much to small to see with the naked eye to things much to large to directly perceive in their entirety. Trees, for instance, do not exist for the various things humans can make of them – humans and other land animals actually rely on the existence of trees and similar lifeforms to create what we deem a breathable atmosphere. Everyone can agree on that, however, it is the ecosystem of the soil which supports the tree; who knows what else is built upon it? The various ecosystems of the planet are connected, this much is known, how change in one area influences change in another is an observable phenomenon, but the implications of this are unclear.

In any case, seeing the earth as property or as a commodity, is not the only model for society nor is it the only perspective that one can take.

Second installment of Nine Months of Non-Fiction.

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Rushmore Retrospective

1998 was not the year of women. The fact that even the negative reviews of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore don’t mention how much of a creep the protagonist is is evidence of this.

Like, have you seen Rushmore lately? Like, any time since, say, 2017 (the year the #metoo movement became widely known seems to indicate the time when American media shifted to considering the radical possibility that women are full-fledged people, complete with all the complexities and complexes that makes someone “normal” )?

My girlfriend and I recently revisited this film. Both in our 30s, we recalled enjoying the film in the past, and settled in for what we thought would be the kind of idiosyncratic, colorful experience which Wes Anderson is known for.

It turns out, the premise of the film is, presumably, a nightmare for many women and a questionable playbook for men.

A woman, in her first year of being a widow, is stalked by a high school kid and his adult friend. That is, more or less, the plot of the film. The men lie, the men modulate their behaviors to try to win her. No one really is held accountable for their behavior.

I don’t think it is such a radical idea that people should not stalk one another. I don’t think it is such a radical idea to be true to yourself rather than to shape your identity to impress those around you. I don’t think it is such a radical idea that people be held accountable for their pathological actions, particularly when they involve harming others.

All that I’m really trying to say here is that the kid in Rushmore is a creep.

First installment of Nine Months of Non-Fiction.