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On Magritte

9/20/2014

Throughout this summer, the Art Institute of Chicago has hosted an exhibition of my favorite painter, Rene Magritte. There has never yet been a show on the major museum circuit dedicated to the years of Magritte’s evolution from surrealistic tinkerer to symbolist master, and the show, titled “The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938,” highlights in force how he sought to make “everyday objects shriek aloud.” A few examples:

If you’ve read a few of my posts here, the station Magritte holds for me should be no surprise. I’ve always been drawn to the enigmatic nature of his scenes, which often juxtapose or even merge household items together to evoke some deep revelation, as though scraping at the mystery with a fingernail. Or even a crowbar. To me, he is not the most technically accomplished of the masters: at times his people and scenes seem flat or oddly shaped. But the potency of his work lies in his ideas, which smack your cerebellum like the head of a hammer. Going through the exhibition, it was interesting to see his maturation; he started his career with almost Dali-esque panoramas filled of many different characters and images, leaving the audience straining to piece together a ramshackle story. But by the mid-30’s, he was concentrating on one idea per canvas, like the pieces I’ll go over below, and it’s this focus where he harnessed the full potential of his form.

But in seeing the exhibition and reading about the man, I’ve had a shift in my thinking about him in that his work plunges deeper into the mystery than I realized. I was, of course, drawn to him for semiotic reasons: he’s a field day for someone who enjoys the challenge of making meaning out of the meaningless.

But reading his giant words quoted on a wall of the Art Institute is when I realized that much of the time he is not concerned with meaning. He doesn’t necessarily want his audience to connect the dots. Often, there are no dots--there's just the mystery. It really is just a train sticking out of a fireplace. In his book Magritte, Jacques Meuris asserts that, in many ways Magritte wasn’t a surrealist, he was a realist in that he took the surrealistic images that his mind created and tried to reproduce them on canvas as accurately as possible. He disdained Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland because it presented fantastic scenes in a dreamscape. Magritte's point is that the dreamscape is a very real part of our reality, albeit one that exists in our minds, though this reinforces the thesis that what happens in the mind, as mysterious and unexplainable as it is, is in many ways just as real as the tangible world around us--a powerful idea that not only challenges the way we think about our minds, but how we look at the perspective lenses with which we view the objective world around us.

For many of his works, there was no point other than the experience of the mystery itself. So let’s tour some mysteries…

Time Transfixed, 1938. Coming soon to a living room near you...Modernism! (Whether you want it or not.) Seeing all these live is obviously a completely different experience, and I have to eat my words about his technical skill here. The unique woodgrains on each individual floorboard are as meticulous as nature. First saw this piece in the excellent high-art-auction board game Masterpiece at age 10 or 11, and the real one is housed in Chicago. Here he's clearly trying to grab your relaxed conceptual mind and twist it like taffy.

The Lovers II, 1928. Emotionally universal; intimately anonymous. It must be difficult to breathe in there, and hot, and they don't care. The color of the wall is soft and warm, a wonderful balance to the dress and contrast the the ominously dark background. The stormy blues and blacks behind, as well as the shadow in the back of his head, contrasts with the glow of the soft white cloth to make their passion that much tighter, honest, and urgent.

Clairvoyance, 1936. A self-portrait, an artist's statement, a revelation. Everything simultaneously contains all its history and all its potential. Also a commentary on our ability to choose what to see: the past, the present, the future, the imagined, the inevitable, and maybe even the hoped for, not to mention the work and time and energy needed to see those hopes realized.

The Treachery of Images, 1928-1929. Brief, boring, and profound. Alfred Korzybski's aphorism that "the map is not the territory" appeared not much later. There's been way too much written about this, most of which I haven't read, so this is no real revelation, but I like to think of that quote and this painting as tools used to unhinge some of the restriction that linguistic constructs and images can have on the way we see reality. The pictures, words, and concepts our brains create to interpret our reality are not the things themselves, and since those concepts have a significant effect on the way we see reality, we should look at them an analyze them. This, to me, is semiotics in a nutshell. Because if we can take a step back and see the distance between the symbols of things and the things themselves, we can increase our general skills of discernment, insight, and appreciation.

The Banquet, 1958. This might be my favorite. The burning sunset sky and searing orange dot contrast well with the somber mute of the trees and silence of the stones in the fence. The detail on the fence is both cartoonish and familiar. You can feel the stone on your hands, hear the crickets, see the lightning bug dancing among the trees. Then you get snapped out of it by that dot, right in the middle, screaming, "This is a painting!" Is it the sun, or a sick joke? Does it make you appreciate what surrounds it any less? Magritte was also frustratingly enigmatic with the titles of his paintings. A banquet of what?

And through web of nonsensically subconscious associations, Magritte was still not primarily concerned with meaning. On page 29 of Mueris book, he's quoted as saying, "...what I paint implies no superiority of the invisible over the visible; the latter is sufficiently rich to form the poetic language which evokes the mystery of the invisible and the visible." As the map is not the territory, the painting is not the thing--but the painting is the painting, and it is the interaction that the viewer has with the painting (though those are also two separate things), all us viewers with all our different histories and personalities and mechanisms for conceptualization. And if that's what Magritte endeavored to create each time he set to the canvas, to create the unique mystery for each of us, then maybe his entire oeuvre is a critique of the idea and necessity of conceptualization itself, and by extension, pointing to all the universalities and uniquenesses our conceptual mechanisms share.

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On Arrogance (Or Omitting the Understood "I think...)

9/16/2014

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Everyone has their opinions, myself clearly not excluded, and the proliferation of the interwebs exposes us to more things to be opinionated about, more opinions about those things, more ways to express those opinions.

And this is where arrogance comes in, because arrogance is forgetting when an opinion is an opinion. Dictionary.com says that arrogance is an “offensive display of superiority or self-importance,” and to me, that self-importance is aligning one’s subjective opinion with objective truth such that one is presenting one’s self as an unquestionable arbiter of whatever is going on. Now sure, some opinions are more well-founded, thought out, or researched than others. But the minute a person switches into “I’m right/you’re wrong” mode, it delegitimizes that person’s opinion by automatically showing an ethical blindspot.

Being confident is different than being arrogant. Confident people still solicit others’ opinions; they want to actively listen; they understand their subjectivity may have flaws. That doesn’t mean they aren’t firm in their stance, it means they have the self-knowledge to know that their knowledge isn’t boundless, and listening to other people helps them strengthen and clarify their own viewpoints on reality.

Having authority is different than being arrogant. Authority can be arrogant, but authority must, inherently, command decisions. To the extent that that authority or authorities listens to others’ perspectives and weighs the needs of the many in his or her or their decision making is the mark of authority.

“Just so you know: Iiiiii’m a very humble person.” True humility is a virtue because it recognizes one’s own limitations; it recognizes that one has limitations, even limitations he or she might not be aware of, and is open to hearing and understanding viewpoints that might not yet have been taken into consideration. Humility is confident because it knows it can act justly and accordingly given as much information as possible, and humility can still hold authority by being open to other viewpoints but being clearheaded enough to make decisions that benefit everyone involved, not just the authority-holder.

Arrogance isn’t easy to miss. Arrogance won’t ask you for your opinion, will readily talk over you, will challenge whatever you say (even if you’re right, or even if a point is inconsequential), will overlook credentials or research, will disregard any blatant counterarguments, will rationalize to you why you hold a wrong opinion. In short, true arrogance lives in a solipsistic bubble; it sealed airtight from other opinions and perspectives, often in a narrowly self-serving way. It doesn’t want dialogue. It just wants to impose its viewpoint. It ignorantly aligns its perspective with truth instead of seeing itself as one in a sea of perspectives. Arrogance marginalizes. It cares about your opinion only insofar as it can tell you what is wrong with your opinion.

Arrogance can get a hold of anyone, though some are probably more predisposed. We all need to be en guard, to be more empathetic to other perspectives, to know that all the information we have is not all the information and that whatever we do affects many lives outside our own, often in ways that are secret and obscure to us.

One easy way to spot arrogance (a.k.a. I-know-better-than-youness) is through how often a person wants to declare a truth like "She's not that good looking" or "This country is a disaster" or "That house across the street needs to get some different colored curtains to match those shutters because what they have right now is just not working" without beginning the declaration with an appropriate modifier such as "I think" or "I believe" or "I'm like 99.99999 and 7/8ths percent sure." This is the way by which people conflate opinion with truth, and consequently, how truth gets created, shaped, and potentially mangled beyond recognition. Not that I think it is absolutely necessary to add "I think" to every statement; clearly I haven't used it in this essay prior to this sentence. (Let this parenthetical serve as a blanket "I think" for this whole piece. Cool?) More that we should just be aware that these phrase or its equivalent is operating even when unsaid. If someone says, "This country is a disaster," do we immediately accept that statement on face value? No. Usually we filter the statement through our trustworthiness of that person, what we know of their character and history, and agree or disagree accordingly. The short- and long-term narratives entrenched in our minds both shape and are shaped by these declarations. And in this way, the proliferation of human knowledge crushes onward.

Another obvious signal of arrogance (which I make no bones about using in spades here either) is state-being-verbs, such as "is." The word can be used to express truth OR opinion, but the linguistic construction both looks and sounds the same. When someone says making your bed is a waste of time or that politician is a liar or that it is important that we get tickets to that musical that you've already seen twice, they are expressing a subjective perspective on reality despite those statements seeming similar to a foot is twelve inches or the sky is full of clouds or that musical is selling out on a regular basis. Again, people don't need to change the way they talk; most listeners can tell statement from opinion on a multiple choice test. I don't think it's as easy when you're hearing what you want to hear. Subjectivity and objectivity are often confused (especially because the overwhelming desire for human connection is about the things our individual subjectivities share). And "is" isn't the only linking verb. Many arrogant statements use words like "seems" or "does" among many others to put forth their opinion as fact.

To untangle the word "is" I know you may want me to post a Bill Clinton video, but that's too easy. Instead, in this gem, Robert Anton Wilson discusses why we should do away with the word "is" altogether.

The apostle of subjectivity, preaching it like no one can (I think/feel/believe/experience.)

My short essay here is far more theoretical than specific. If you want specifics, start a discussion about politics or religion or philosophy at the dinner table or a bar or a message board. Or watch a 24-hour news channel for five minutes and think to yourself, “Who’s perspective is being shared? Who's perspective is being left out?” Or maybe just see who's listening. Who wants to learn. Who can keep their mouth shut.

Don't worry, I'll work on this too. I've not often been accused of being arrogant but I have an illogical fear of it. It’s a fine line we walk: trying to speak the truth, and speak our truth, without confusing it with the truth. While also being economical with language. I'm just guessing you don't want to read "I think" in every sentence. That's fine. As long as we're doing regular maintenance on our bullshit detectors.

For some strategies on avoiding arrogance and promoting dialogue, check out Daniel Dennett's rules for constructive criticism over at BrainPickings.org, and let me know if you have others.

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On a Billion

9/14/2014

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I recently fumbled upon the realization that every day, the human race is setting a new world record for the amount of human beings on the planet, despite all the nasty, unfortunate things that happen to us. Seven billion we’re at right now. Just a handful of billion, which isn’t a lot of them, until you think about how unfathomable a billion is.

The word itself—billion—is a beautiful thing. That “b” in the front gives it a special pop, a bursting impact into the conversation that’s followed with “i“’s and “l” in a row like a bright city skyline. Billion is glossy, glitzy, rolling off your tongue like lollipops down a waterslide. A billion.

(Funny enough, there is another word for the natural number 1,000,000,000: a milliard, not to be confused with the fowl you throw bread crust to at the pond. A milliard is a billion, and vice versa, as if to the actual digits (1,000,000,000) it makes a difference.)

A billion, as in, of course, a billion dollars. Cha-ching. But other than currency and people, a billion doesn’t enter the lexicon very often. Because other than for scientists and math nerds, a billion isn’t practical. We never use that number in our day-to-day mathematical interactions (“stir in a billion nanocups of milk and a few billion nanospoons of butter…”), and really, thinking about that much stuff makes my head hurt.

How many plankton are in the sea? Grains of sand on all the beaches? Water molecules in the ocean? Grass blades in the planet’s history? Moments in a second?

Speaking of time, about a billion seconds ago America and Russia were tangled in the Cold War, a billion minutes ago the Roman Empire was entering the height of its power, and a billion hours ago we were inventing the wheel the first time.

Now think about a billion dollars. A billion dollar bills stacked on top of each other would be nearly 70 miles high, and despite each one being printed the same, with a sober President Washington and the all-seeing eye atop the pyramid, no two are exact, varying shades of ink, creases, edges, wear, tear, dirt, amount of times spent, time left in circulation, purchases made, hands passed through.

The idea of a billion people would take more cognitive RAM to process than our brain can fit inside this cranium, and that’s if we’re just thinking of them as clones of each other, not as billions of unique bodies, personalities, perceptions, histories, philosophies, existential drives, favorite desserts. They say the human brain can hold about seven numbers in consciousness at a time, and memory champions can get that to a few hundred. That’s nothing compared to seven billion, or the hundreds of billions of food, water, and air they ingest each day, or the trillions of dollars they spend, or the quadrillions of actions and interactions they enact, and how do you even count an action? Where does one end and other begin? And if there are more than three hundred quadrillion ants crawling through the planet (about 150 lbs. of ant for every human, according to unsubstantiated internet sources, the possible inaccuracy of which reinforces my point here), how many interactions do they go through in a day? And would they even count them the same? How do ants perceive space and time?

All of this, dirt, water, people, and ants, not to mention all the other sealife and landlife and individual atoms of atmosphere, all compacted into one spherical blue rock whizzing through through empty space, itself just infinitesimal in sprawling ocean of billions upon billions of planets and stars.

At this point, I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the poet-scientist most famous for his use of and reverence to the number.

It’s all just so big. And it’s all just so small. And it’s all exactly the size that it is.

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On Winning

9/13/2014

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Winning inherently feels good because it is not only the satisfaction of a goal (if you're playing, it's usually to win), it's an elevation of self-worth, a mark of your capability and a demonstration of dominance. Unfortunately, this means there's always going to be a loser, which is something nobody wants to be, because losing is less worth for you, less significance, less being a thing that affects its environment, less a thing that matters.

But no one wins all the time; everyone's a loser at some point. Losing over and over is how you learn to win. and in that lies the trill of competition. Feasably, anyone can win at the beginning of a competition. Every underdog has a shot. Anything can happen in the final minutes (even though a close family member says the first 46 minutes of a basketball game are unnecessary).

We like drama. We're entertain ourselves with it; we distract ourselves with it. Competition is unscripted, livable drama. And whether we're talking professional sports or a battle of the bands or a writing contest or a game of checkers on the porch, we're invested in each moment of it, and the story those moments stitch together when you mix individual/team ability with a rigid set of rules and the chaos of possibility.

Which is why, if you care about winning, you gotta put the time in, the work in, and you can't accept losing. When Lombardi says that "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing," he's equating the whole point of the enterprise with the goal of the enterprise, otherwise we wouldn't put ourselves through the grueling struggle of it. We must exercise and sweat and practice and sweat and self-analyze and sweat and sweat until it hurts. We need to invest the suffering to our bodies and egos to build us into the kind of machine that can win, and then when we do win, we can take that time to indulge our fragile human side by relaxing into the pride of a job well done, ideally with some graciousness to those we defeated.

But to do that, you do have to accept losing, and sometimes a lot of it, albeit in a much different way. I know I'm miserable if my contentment with any enterprise is 100% aligned with the outcome instead of the act itself. Even the gloss of winning always wears off.

There's a self-loathing in losing, a measure of lacking self-worth that is illogical because your competitive performance in chess or hockey is only a measure of how good you are at that one thing--it doesn't spill over into the rest of your life. A standardized test only really measures how well you can do on that standardized test. Because, as per the formula of abilities + rules + possibility, there's only so much you can control yourself. Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his book Outliers: we equate success with ability and neglect many of the other uncalculable properties that determine what makes someone successful. However much you want to be the best at that one thing and how much you make it your life stirs into a whole cauldron of luck to become how successful you are at it, and even then, a great game you lose is often far more satisfying than a bad game you win.

But still, obviously, no one wants to lose. We want to matter; we want to impact our environment. "I don't want to be a product of my environment," Jack Nicholson states in The Departed (while playing a gangster who killed to win at life), "I want my environment to be a product of me." When you lose, you've become the product. When you win, you stamp your agency on the world around you. You take the deepest part of yourself and use it to manipulate the physical world to your ends. You impress your will upon reality. Most often without hurting people.

But no one can do it all the time. On the field/court/ice/course/track/mat /etc., OR in life. We each make waves in our realities, but we're all also at floating in an ocean of butterfly effects.

And would you even want to win all the time? A thousand winning percentage is like a drug, like those women's college teams who dominate for two or three straight seasons. It's unnatural. So just like all binaries, winning and losing yin-and-yang, they create each other. Don't get my wrong, I'm trying to win every single time. I'll just be happy winning one out of two. Or happy nonetheless.

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Derek Salinas Lazarski

On Magritte

On Arrogance (Or Omitting the Understood "I think...)

On a Billion

On Winning

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