Dubious

Hypocrisy has been defined as "the tribute that vice pays to virtue." The question of who first defined it as such is a good one. The first three results that Google gives me are Grover Norquist, John le Carré, and Peter Singer. Since GK Chesterton was familiar with the sentiment I think we can answer "no" for all three. Quotes frequently become disconnected and float freely in the cultural ether, but this post isn't about that.

The term "virtue signaling" is generally thought to be a similar thing to this meaning of hypocrisy. But I think it's more insidious than that, which is why it bothers me. If what vice is paying tribute to is actually virtue then there's an ideal that's being held up, even if falsely. But―and recent events have strengthened this belief for me―I think that in virtue signaling the things that people want to attach their names to aren't really virtues. They're just things that society is promoting at the moment, and might actually be evils.

Of course this isn't new either, but it's important to see it for what it is.

Hanging on the telephone

One thing you could have some fun with would be a compilation of hilariously bad spam robocalls. There are some doozies out there. 

One case in point: a couple of weeks ago I actually broke with custom and answered the phone without checking if the number was one I recognized. The "caller" turned out to be a droning voice on tape. Told me that my social security number had been matched to an incident of tax fraud and a warrant had been issued for my arrest. Kinda didn't help their credibility that they didn't know my name, or anything else about me really. 

Similarly I've been getting messages today on some ridiculous amount of money I seem to have laid out in Amazon purchases. Same issues as above, but with a couple of new wrinkles this time. They don't even say who they are. Like, is Amazon reaching out because of the insane amount I've spent on butterscotch or whatever? Pretty sure they're not trained to look a gift horse in the mouth. Which leaves my credit card company, but they're not identifying themselves as employees of such.

I know I should be grateful that they don't demonstrate any core competence. And truly, I am. That would make for a scary world.

Drama queening

The headline on this article is a little on the melodramatic side. Yes, there will be a few changes to the political map due to the Census-driven reapportionment. Sure to be some jockeying and gerrymandering as well. But most of these developments are unsurprising, just a crystallization of trends that have been happening out in the open for all to see.

California loses one and Oregon gains one, which would seem to suggest that a lot of people leaving California for financial reasons or whatever just drove a little north. That said, if the Beaver State doesn't pull out of its current funk I wouldn't expect them to hold onto that seat.

Here in Rhode Island we were bracing for a loss of a seat, which would have made us a single-representative state like Vermont and the Dakotas. Didn't wind up happening. My friends and I all reached the conclusion that Langevin would have been the one to bite the bullet if it had.

Their early stuff, before they went mainstream

Quantity can compromise quality.

The stronger a hold religion has on society, the cleverer atheists have to be. David Hume questioned the precepts of Christianity at a time where much of the West was still taken up by what were effectively theocracies. He'd be more accurately described as an agnostic or deist, but scandalous enough for his time. Friedrich Nietzsche, of course, was much bolder. "And now you upbraid me for teaching that there is no reward-giver, nor paymaster?" Agree with him or not, he was a genuine vanguard.

Subsequently in the West religion has lost both power and representation in the greater populace. You can believe what you want to believe, or not.

Which is why I never found the New Atheism movement of the turn of the millennium particularly compelling. It's no secret that a lot of believers―call them fundies, cultists, or what have you―are reactive and simply shut out other viewpoints, facts, etc. But by that point a lot of nonbelievers were making just making a lot of lazy half-arguments and exhibiting a similar closed-mindedness. They'd let too many people into the club.

It's difficult to place Richard Dawkins on this continuum. On the one hand his attitude toward the question of God and things not seen in general might best be characterized as dismissive. On the other hand he has a genuinely curious mind and provocative way with words. These very qualities appear to have gotten him into trouble with his onetime confederates.

In a way this is not too surprising. Much of the atheist movement was made up of urbanites eager to prove their superiority to the great exurban unwashed―red states and flyover country here in the States. Now a number of social attitudes fulfill the same purpose, and it's only natural for Brights to latch onto those as well. Now Dawkins can't even play devil's advocate on those without facing exile. New Atheism always carried the seeds of its own destruction.

Time capsule

Any kind of creative endeavor is an optimistic act on one level. You're acting, first of all, as if there will be people in the future to act as your audience. And also that they will have an interest in what you wound up saying, even though your time and theirs might be quite alien from each other.

In many ways it's gotten more difficult to nourish that kind of hope. Especially as culture has been overtaken by politics, and those politics have become stupider and more binary. Yet some people are still out there, making things. 

And there is a way. You can focus, even if your focus needs to be private.

Black and white and red all over

See what you make of this. There's a lot of repetition, obviously. In fact you could say it's all repetition. But there's also a great deal of care being taken. And the lone color, the rich red of the envelope (?) shifts around in an intriguing way. I think I'd describe this animation as meditative.

More hall monitors

 This story about reactions to the title character of Luther at the show's BBC home base came to my attention earlier this week. I've read elsewhere that Idris Elba, who strikes me as having a good head on his shoulders, was attracted to the role because it wasn't race-specific. So the standard of "authenticity" is just being imposed from without by the politically minded. As Ricky Nelson said, you can't please everyone so you've got to please yourself.

It reminded me of this Saturday Night Live sketch from a couple of years ago, featuring none other than Idris Elba.

Whatever you can imagine would be the reaction of the woke Twitter addicts the skit tweaks, it was that but much moreso. Accuse some people of being humorless and doctrinaire and you can count on their reaction being I resemble that remark.

A few flakes

 Today was one of those days when the rain seems to be working a full day shift. Even it was looking forward to the weekend. Not only that but the temperature dipped low enough so that―at least for part of the morning―there was some snow mixed in. Which I just found funny, because I blogged about Prince not too long ago. Think end of Parade. Wonder if someone is trying to tell me something.

Slow down indeed

 

I certainly like this. Lisa Hilton is a pianist from California. She's got a good rapport with her combo.

Jazz is unusual in the fact that a drummer―such as this very good one―might stick to his cymbals for almost the length of a song. It makes for a dramatic switch when he starts tapping on the snare drum

50/50

Exchanged a few words with a girl today while waiting for the bus. She said when she'd left the house it was warm, so she figured she didn't need a coat. But by the time we were out there it was much cooler. So she was regretting being out with just a sweater over her shirt. I said it can be tricky this time of year, which is true. It can also be inconvenient to be wearing a substantial coat or jacket and suddenly realize you don't need it.

Mildly acidic news

 One simple item that can make life slightly more livable: a vinegar shaker. Not a dramatic change, I grant you, but an improvement.

This is because vinegar has roughly the same consistency as water. So trying to pour it directly from the bottle it came in, or the cap, or any other makeshift container means that you're likely to get too much on your food if you get any, and unevenly distributed. 

The vinegar shaker helps with that because it's got just a little hole in the top. It keeps everything from coming out at once. So, good recent acquisition for me.

Proto-Python

 

Looking into prehistory here. Well pre-Monty Python history at least. This is from At Last the 1948 Show, which the BBC ran in 1967 and I trust I don't need to explain that. It features Tim Brooke-Taylor―who I'm not much familiar with―and Marty Feldman―who I know mostly from Mel Brooks movies. But Graham Chapman gives the most placid performance of the 3/6 contestants. A bold choice, and it works out. He and Cleese might have a future together.

The true meaning

 I thought this was a thoughtful look at the long-term social effects of COVID-19 and lockdown, as well as a possible change in values. Just one small passage struck me as off, which is when Bristow says that "It is not that we have suddenly become a nation of introverts..."

People frequently have misunderstandings about introversion, thinking that it's simply an aversion to social life. We do prefer our own company, which can manifest in a number of different ways. But enjoying being with people in given circumstances doesn't make a person less of an introvert. 

And in recent months the social world has been decimated by expectations and outright commands that we stop going anywhere and doing anything. The people who've engineered this might be introverts or extraverts, but there's usually some kind of ulterior motive. Like, before this, if I didn't feel like going out at night, I was free to just not. I didn't need every pub in the UK shut down.

Old factory

 It makes sense that smell would be the sense with perhaps the closest relation to memory. For one thing, smell is how humans from the beginning identified which things―fresh fruit, cooked meat, et al―are food, so it's good for an organism to have a catalog of that.

A lot of this goes on below the level of conscious memory, though, which is more auditory and visual. So while olfactory stimuli trigger emotions, it can be difficult to pin down exactly why they do.

For instance, I got a used book recently. It's from the seventies, so the pages have taken on a beery yellow tint. Books that old have a certain aroma that enchants me, takes me back. When and how was this reaction instilled in me? I'm not sure. Not complaining, though.

Sherman's just rubbing it in now

 Interesting. Georgia passes a ballot reform act that, overall, seems like a curate's egg. Biden calls it "Jim Crow on steroids" and tells reporters he'd support Major League Baseball pulling the All Star Game out of Georgia. MLB immediately caves and does so. This despite both of the state's Democratic US Senators opposing the move, for the natural reason that losing the game punishes the state's people as a whole.

Hey, remember this time last year when we had a thoughtless President who would break the world by saying stupid shit in public. Man, thank God we don't have to deal with that anymore, right?