:: The Place Where I Say Stuff ::

:: Thursday, December 25, 2003 ::

It's been a strange Christmas. Since Nicole, Katy, Tom, and I could only be around my family this past weekend, we had Christmas on Monday night. So today feels like the downtime between Christmas and New Year's rather than Christmas Day. So it was strange to go out Tuesday night to do exchanges and whatnot, and to find people still doing their Christmas shopping. It was like we drove their in a DeLorean.

Now I'm sitting around the house in my shorts (my pants are in the washer), watching TV, checking e-mail, and generally being lazy. I suppose I should pack or do something resembling productivity, but why?
:: timothy paul yenter 12/25/2003 12:02:00 PM [+] ::
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I made it. Through a dense snow storm in Ohio, miles and miles of Pennsylvania, and a very flat Midwest, I arrived on Saturday afternoon from Connecticut with all my belongings packed in my dad's minivan. Now I'm home (=parents' house). It'll be a few weeks before I'm home (=where I will live).

Yesterday was Christmas, since it was the only time my parents, my grandparents, my brother and his fiancee, and Nicole and I could be around. So now the tree has unwrapped presents beneath it, and the first season of The Family Guy in the DVD player. I'll be flying out on Christmas to meet up with Nicole in Montana, so my updates will continue to be relatively sparse. (My parents' computer crashed the day before I arrived.)

Until then...
:: timothy paul yenter 12/23/2003 05:39:00 PM [+] ::
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I've paused. Suddenly it is hitting me. The exhaustion is setting in. After a week of grading, I met with the professor just now to determine final grades for the Intro Ethics course that I have been TAing for. This is after a late, late night watching Return of the King, possibly the best of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The films are all deeply flawed, but oh-so entertaining.

And now it's beginning to settle in. I'm actually leaving Yale. I haven't had much time to think about it, but now it's happening. My dad is somewhere in Pennsylvania now, driving eastward to pick me up. We'll load all my earthly belongings in a minivan (my motto: if it don't fit, I don't take it), and drive back to my parents' house in Wisconsin. There Nicole will join us for a couple days, before she flies to Montana to be with her family for Christmas. Then I fly out Christmas day to join her there. We'll be there for a week (along with her brother and his family) before returning on New Year's Eve to my parents' house. Crash for the weekend with my parents, and then begins the final leg of the move: hauling my stuff up to St. Paul, Minnesota.

I've been focusing a lot on the details of that move, almost to the exclusion of thinking about the fact that I must actually leave New Haven, Connecticut to fulfill this plan. I said good-bye to Dawn last night; I'll say good-bye to Sharon, Dave, Chris, Chris, and everybody else tonight. It's not quite real yet. No more philosophy department. No more graduate school friends. No more New Haven. No more single life.

How can I say good-bye if I can't get myself to believe that I am leaving?
:: timothy paul yenter 12/17/2003 02:20:00 PM [+] ::
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Despite my last entry, I generally shy away from philosophy-related blogs on this site. Here's another reason why:

"Unlike many of my prolific blogging colleagues, I find philosophy to be just another burden in life like bad brakes, leaky roofs, and constipation: eventually, you'll have to spend a weekend taking care of it, but it might not be worth obsessing about on the internet. Of course, this is coming from a guy who thinks that his dog is worth a website..."

Thanks, Barry.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/16/2003 07:19:00 PM [+] ::
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I've been doing so good with grading this set of papers, far better than in the past. The stress level is way down, and I'm cruising through them at a record pace. Until I hit a wall about 45 minutes ago. I've just got seven left, but for some reason I can't get through the wall. So off to blog I go...

Many of the students wrote in response to a question about what system of reward/punishment or praise/blame would be morally justified in a world without free will. Strangely, most students thought that a world without free will necessarily meant determinism was true. Even if they are all libertarians, the inference is simply false. Perhaps they were confused about our discussion of the following inconsistent set: {free will, determinism, no choice principle} (see van Inwagen's discussion in his Metaphysics book. Certainly all three can't be true together, but one could be false, or two, or all three. You can't infer anything about the truth of the other two from the fact that one is false.

They also frequently confused determinism (given A and the laws of nature, necessarily B) with fatalism (whether A or not-A, B). In one sense, the future could not be any other way. But this does not mean that, no matter what, the future must be what it will be. The future is only fixed once you have fixed some prior time and the laws of nature. The fatalist fallacy strikes again.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/16/2003 06:54:00 PM [+] ::
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Apparently Saddam has been captured. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of "what does this mean?" stories in the media in the coming days. I don't usually talk much politics on this site, but let me say one thing about what it does not mean. It does not mean that Bush is unbeatable in 2004.

Nobody is ever unbeatable. Even Washington and FDR could have lost; unlikely, yes, but it could have happened to either of them. Bush still has a lot of support, and a warchest that would make Halliburton proud. Do I think Bush will win another term? Yes. The left is far too unorganized, and nobody is uniformly making a case to the American people (I mean all of them - not just the ones prone to hear it) that Bush should not have his tenure renewed.

It's not clear what finding Saddam will mean for the election next year, but presumably it can only help the Bush cause. Sure, we didn't find any WMDs, the stated reason for entering Iraq, but we got Saddam. Question: now that we's gots him, what do we do with him? Well, for starters, we aren't going to kill him. That's because when the US (I'm sorry - US-led coalition) set up a new government in Iraq, capital punishment was barred. So as I understand it, unless something changes, Saddam will not face death for his crimes, unlike the 18 people who committed a crime while a minor and have been executed in the US since 1990. (The other nations since 1990 to kill prisoners who committed a crime while under age are Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Pakistan and Yemen have since ceased these executions.) I wonder if Bush will lose some of his popularity on the right (even the middle) if Saddam is not executed. I don't think that executing Saddam will help his case any, but I wonder if Bush will feel the need to explain why the man who allowed the executions of at least two legally retarded individuals will not be pushing publically for the execution of a murderous tyrant. Can Bush appease those who will be searching for death?
:: timothy paul yenter 12/14/2003 03:29:00 PM [+] ::
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I've made a few updates to The Underground, specifically some more changes to the Do page, which has been broken up into sections. Which leads me to ask any philosophers out there (especially grad students) who have their own blog to send me a quick e-mail so I can add them to the growing list of philosophers in the blogosphere. I also seem to be missing any pictures of college friends and roommates, at least in digital form. So feel free to send those along, if you have any.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/14/2003 02:55:00 PM [+] ::
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A philosopher makes the news.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/13/2003 08:33:00 PM [+] ::
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It's amazing how easy water is to drink. Is there any liquid that is more drinkable? Any that goes down easier?

I've been fighting off sickness all week, but today I lost a significant battle. I woke up this morning, my voice about two octaves lower (sort of a scratchy, sexy, husky, gutteral sound), and I've been pounding fluids ever since. Tea, hot water with lemon and honey, but mostly a lot of water. And nothing I've tried is easier to swallow. Why is that?
:: timothy paul yenter 12/13/2003 08:01:00 PM [+] ::
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Relax.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/12/2003 05:00:00 PM [+] ::
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The calm before the storm. Today is my last day of no commitments before the third set of Intro Ethics papers arrive tomorrow. Then it's five days to turn around and grade them, assign grades for the semester, pack all my material belongings, throw out whatever can be thrown out, and move the remaining stuff half way across the country with my dad.

Throwing out is an interesting project. I'm naturally a keeper. I hold on to things that may be of use to somebody someday in some unforseeable way. Things accumulate. But these last few months have seen me be more willing to toss than I perhaps have ever been. For instance, my clothes closet has always bulged at its metaphorical seams. I never felt too bad about this since about 90% of my wardrobe was bought second-hand for pennies on the original dollar. So what if I had twenty or fifty shirts, most of which I never wore? It's not like I've wasted money on them; I still pay less for clothes than many a man with a much thinner closet. But now I'm throwing out many of them - that is, giving them away, not actually trashing. I'm actually getting rid of clothes that don't fit, if you can believe it. And even clothes I never wear. This shouldn't be a novel concept, but it's new to my life.

So now I'm packing fewer clothes than I when I last packed up in May. No more bookshelves, dresser, coffeetable - just about everything except books. So right now it looks like I'll have a small filing cabinet with files, maybe a box of dishes, a couple boxes of clothes, and then a carful of books. I'm even surprising myself with how many books I actually own. Not that I ever have enough, as my Amazon wish list suggests. But I'm even selling off some books, I believe. That's how far I've come. I may actually sell a couple dozen books. Shocking, simply shocking.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/10/2003 05:21:00 PM [+] ::
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You become the thing you mock.

A year or two ago I bought a long, dark blue overcoat to wear on blustery Connecticut days. I found it absolutely hilarious because it seemed like the sort of thing that a preppie Ivy Leaguer would wear around. I got a big kick out of wearing it, in my mocking, ironic sort of way. Of course, now when I wear that coat, the thought hardly crosses my mind. Now it's just a coat. No longer a source of amusement, it is just a long, dark blue overcoat. I have become (just a little bit) that Ivy Leaguer I so despised becoming when I arrived in New Haven.

It's the same thing I've thought about U2 in the Nineties. ZooTV and PopMart were full of irony, mockery, and all things laughably loathable. Bono became The Fly, an egotistical pop star, and Macphisto/Mirrorball Man, a washed-up over-the-hill rock-star devil. The music, the videos, and the tours were supposed to make you think about how ridiculous rock stardom, media frenzy, and sensationalistic voyeurism really are. But there's no way to do that without becoming ridiculous for those very same reasons. You can't mock rock stars through music without being one yourself.

You become the thing you mock.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/08/2003 11:10:00 AM [+] ::
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I've spent a good part of the afternoon making some updates to my website, especially on the Do page. I was inspired by a recent e-mail from a philosophy graduate student at Brown University, who has his own blog. It got me wondering if there were many philosophy bloggers out there. I already knew of a couple. So I started looking for more. I didn't get very far before I was side-tracked into other philosophy-related websites, which I then began to collect. There's some interesting stuff out there.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/06/2003 05:08:00 PM [+] ::
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After last week's post in which I claimed that Aretha Franklin is "by far the greatest vocalist of all time," JL!, who has studied music far more extensively and intensively than I have, suggested that he considers Ella Fitzgerald to be the greatest female vocalist. I've been trying to articulate to myself why exactly I hold Aretha in such high regard. There is such power in her voice, and such range in her musical and lyrical choices. that a chill goes down my spine when I hear her sing. Listening to her, you realize that her voice was forged in some dark, hidden place, and that when she sings all the pain and all the joy in her life is powering her diaphramic engine. Do I know what it is like to be a black woman growing up in the fifties and sixties, in a southern gospel church, in and out of abusive relationships? No. I don't even know what it's like when I listen to her sing. I just know that there is a story - some story, whatever it is - and that when she sings, she is singing about her story (even if the lyrics have nothing to do with her life). Sometimes she struggles to tell a story about lost love, desire, empowerment, and sometimes she sings Burt Bacharach tunes. All the while, her voice comes from this cavernous well, where all that is significant in her life is held.

Do I like Ella? Sure. I can appreciate the subtlety and ease with which she sings. But Ella doesn't help me experience my life the way that Aretha does. I can listen to Ella and relax and lounge in her talent and softness and freedom. But when I listen to Aretha, not only do I admire all the technical qualities that she brings to vocal performance, but I appreciate life more. And I think both of those together are what make music important.

Am I competent to judge who is the greatest vocalist of all time? No. And I realize that, and I make pronouncements of this sort with much trepidation and in a spirit of promoting discussion and never ending it. I don't really know why Aretha and Ella are so great, but in "trying to articulate to myself" what I admire in each of them, is I believe the beginning of gaining the competency that I've been wondering about recently. Certainly being able to articulate what make one thing better than another is a necessary component of understanding what makes genius and what makes greatness.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/04/2003 11:55:00 AM [+] ::
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Yesterday on the plane I read a memoir written by Frederic Raphael about his time working with Stanley Kubrick for the script of Eyes Wide Shut (which I then rented and watched). After being disappointed by the start of the book, I warmed to Raphael's style and was drawn into the world of screenwriting and producing. I couldn't put the book down. After I arrived in Hartford and had an hourlong van ride, I tried to read the last thirty pages by the glow of the passing lights on the freeway. I haven't tried to do that since I was a kid. I was completely drawn into this world.

When I finally gave up and put the book down, I began to think about Kubrick and whether he is a "genius," as Raphael describes him. Raphael is not fawning in adoration; he recognizes that Kubrick is a genius, wonders what this means, doubts it at times, but in the end is satisfied that he is working with the best director in the world. But what makes Kubrick a genius? Why are his films so great? What does Kubrick bring to a film that other directors don't? I could point to a few obvious things about subject matter, camera movement, pacing, composition, but none of these seem to give it all. His reputation as a tyrant helped secure his position as an immortal.

My question is not really about what makes Kubrick a genius (if he is). My wondering is about the nature of expertise. What makes someone an expert? How does one become an expert at making quality movies? How does one become an expert at recognizing a quality movie? And not just expertise - but proficiency and even competency. What makes someone competent to judge the work of a filmmaker, author, artist, philosopher?

I am really interested in this question. I want to know how to recognize a good movie from a bad one, or good scenes from bad scenes, or good dialogue/acting/etc. from bad. The same for books and art and everything else that requires intellectual craft. When is an intellectual a genius? When is a critic making worthwhile criticism? I believe there must be some standards, but they are so muddled as to be completely unhelpful. I have the feeling that the best way to become good a recognizing good art is to consume mass quantities of it - always with a critical eye. But developing the critical eye is exactly what I wonder how to do. I think reading more biographies of great lives like Kubrick's, reading basic literary criticism, going more to respected art galleries can all do wonders. I also have to recognize that I have more talent for picking out certain kinds of intellectual prowess (in philosophy, somewhat in film, and a little in music and literature) than others (visual art, poetry, certain genres of literature and music). So maybe build on strengths and minimize weaknesses.

All this makes me want to read more. There is so much interesting stuff out there. I want to digest it all.
:: timothy paul yenter 12/03/2003 11:25:00 AM [+] ::
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