The Illuminati

Listening: nothing.
This is my newest spoken-word piece; it would be a slam poem, but it's too long and I want to perform it while improvising on the piano to emphasize the motif of "music".

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I heard Lady Gaga was part of the Illuminati.

I heard that our radio stations are actually controlled by Freemason masterminds whose object it is to ruin American morality in order to make it easier to control our spending habits.

I heard they write songs that worship youth so we'll ruin ourselves with pleasure at party schools instead of learning logic and overcoming ignorance.

I heard they attract young atheists by pointing out that all the great intellectuals were too smart for God, dropping hints about Lucifer being the good guy, the one who embraces the free will of man and rejects religious morality as a control device. They make it seem like those who are willing to sell the souls they don't believe in are the ones who rise to the top. That people like Lady Gaga and Beyonce and the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift are really musicians with incredible talent who are paid to sing only the kind of music that keeps people focused on money, love, and themselves. That these people are perfectly willing to do it because they still have their talent, and they can still make beautiful music in their own homes and it's a small price to pay for a release from the control structure. And that one day, because of the talent they were born with, these young atheists will walk into an office at a recording studio and someone will close the door and tell them yes, it's all true, the Illuminati want you to sing about sex on the radio to keep people from thinking about anything else. And they'll summon their courage and sign the papers because they think they'll be able to change the game from inside. And then they get their fame, and they fall in love with it and stop caring. And the atheists who do not have this mythical meeting simply go on living the life described in Lady Gaga's music: sexual, passionate, loving, intense, and inconsequential.

I heard that the Illuminati don't mind if you do believe in God. Because that makes it even easier: you follow the rules most of the time, feel guilty when you don't, listen to Taylor Swift, focus on trying to be a monogamist by listening to songs about love, cheating, and breakups, and secretly wonder whether you're doing the right thing. You memorize songs with lyrics like "let's play a love game, play a love game, do you want love or do you want fame, are you in the game?" And if that line caught your ear, made you look up, then you're already faced with a choice. Do you subscribe to Lady Gaga's affirmations of ephemeral sexuality, or do you wanna get married? Or is it both? Do you wanna slut around now and settle down later? Of course - everybody does. And look at that - 40 years later and you made your personal life your everything, and didn't get famous, and had no influence, and justified that by convincing yourself that the influence you have over the lives around you is enough to make a difference in the world.

Now, according to the theory, the Illuminati themselves aren't trying to make you believe one way or the other. They know you'll pick one for yourself. They write music that constantly reminds you of the choice: a Christian hears Lady Gaga and says "I'm such a good Christian that I don't need to go to the club on Friday, so I won't"; an atheist hears Lady Gaga and says "I'm so enlightened; I know there's nothing to stop me from going to the club on Friday, so I will". But they don't care whether you go or not! They tempt you with eternal life and they tempt you with pleasure. It doesn't matter which one you take, all that matters is that you spend your life taking it. Because the Christians focus on being strong and avoiding drugs and sex and worldly influence, and the atheists focus on being smart and living their lives and transcending the petty obligations of the Christian doctrine.

I heard they're creating a world where the faces of Jehovah and Lucifer overlook an ongoing battle between Christians and atheists, moralists and nihilists, conservatives and liberals, workers and dreamers, none of whom are doing anything with their lives but trying to become closer and closer to their ideals: THEIR ideals.

Because the Illuminati, I heard from someone, they control both sides, and your personality predisposes you to one or the other. They own Lady Gaga and they own Taylor Swift, so no matter what you believe, they have music for you to buy. And by creating this conflict, they make you passionate about "living your life", no matter what kind of life it is. Whether your addiction is drugs, sex, God, math, or pain, they get you addicted to something, so that you cannot contribute to the resistance. You are desiring, but you are not inventing. You are writing, but you are not publishing. You are thinking, but you are not acting. And you say you'll act once you get older, once you get more educated, once you acquire a position where people take you seriously. But once you get there, you don't want to do anything to risk your job, because you worked so hard to get it!

Now, the Illuminati probably don't exist. Lady Gaga might just be a talented singer who grew up in New York and got lucky enough to sign a record deal. But does that mean, even if there's no one behind it, that pop music and religion don't still have this combined effect? That this really is the way we live our lives? And if so, what do we do?

I say we fight simplicity with diversity. Don't be part of a category. Don't even use nouns. When somebody asks you if you're religious, don't just say "yes" or "no", explain yourself. Say you believe in God because of Pascal's wager. Say you don't believe in God because you think evil can't coexist with benevolent omnipotence. Say something other than "Methodist." "Catholic." "Atheist." When they ask you if you're straight or gay, tell them about the Kinsey scale. When they ask you if you're liberal or conservative, ask them what issue they're talking about. Stop simplifying yourself. The only word that accurately describes you is your name. When you escape from categories, you escape from categorical methods of control.

And if you can, learn how to make music that sounds like you, so you don't have to sound like someone else.

Utopias and Dystopias: Reading List

I thought you guys might find this interesting. It seems whenever I post a Facebook note nowadays I'm compelled to copy it here, but nonetheless:


TOPI.LAN.09.2.B
Extended Reading List

This is a list of the books from which excerpts were taken and distributed to the “B” section of the Utopias and Dystopias course at CTY Lancaster, second session, 2009, by instructor Adam Rzepka. The books are sorted by the date on which they were presented in class; books presented on the same day are grouped thematically. After each listing appears the ISBN-13 number and price of a recent or established printing.

Alice in Wonderland was a required text and so is not included here; we also purchased The Utopia Reader and The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Articles such as Heather Booth's “Toward a Radical Movement” (1968) are left out because they were distributed to us in their entirety.

Thomas More – Utopia
9780140449105 $10 from Penguin

Plato – The Republic
9780140455113 $10 from Penguin

Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy
9780451208637 $19 from Penguin

John Milton – Paradise Lost
9780140424393 $12 from Penguin

Jonathan Swift – Gulliver's Travels
9780141439495 $8 from Penguin

Francis Bacon – New Atlantis
9781606201770 $7 from Amazon

William Shakespeare – The Tempest
9780743482837 $6 from Amazon

Henry Neville – The Isle of Pines
9781437527926 $10 from Amazon

Peter Lamborn Wilson – Pirate Utopias
9781570271588 $10 from Amazon

John Thomas Codman – Brook Farm
9780217912990 $12 from Amazon

Henry David Thoreau – Walden
9780451529459 $6 from Amazon as Walden and Civil Disobedience

Charles A. Reich – The Greening of America
No ISBN. Available at Amazon: ASIN B000NQ18SO ($10)

Michael Foucault – Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
9780679752554 $11 from Amazon

George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four
9780451524935 $10 from Penguin as 1984

Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
9780060929879 $8 from Amazon

Le Corbusier – Toward an Architecture
9780892368228 $25 from Barnes and Noble

Lucienne Piery, J. Maizels, P. Lespinasse – Nek Chand's Outsider Art: The Rock Garden of Chandigarh
9782080305183 $25-50 from Amazon

Ravi Kalia – Chandigarh: In Search of an Identity
9780809313105 $25 from Amazon; hardcover only

William Gibson – Neuromancer
9780441007462 $11 from Amazon

I Am Not Just A Stubborn Atheist

Listening: "Après Moi", Regina Spektor.

I've been debating a lot. Religion, philosophy, government; anything. I think now that my MIT application is due in (gulp) seven days, my body expects some intense stress; since I'm procrastinating the essays I have to write, I'm putting the stress into argument. People don't like it. The same form inevitably arises: I present an outlandish idea that my outlook happens to support, and my opponent starts attacking the whole of my philosophy. I guess that's normal, but the fervor with which they deny my ideas is so uncomfortable. The common theme among their objections isn't even a certain syllogism: it's a worry. They're worried that I think I have everything figured out, and so I won't be able to deal with anything I haven't already considered. They each think I have some rule that I apply to every problem: Paula thinks it's a refusal to apply rules at all (which she insists is a rule in itself), my mom and my sister Allie think it's just a half-baked agnosticism, and my other sister Melissa thinks it's a dependence on logic. They all insist that there are things outside of the domain of logic, or that logic is as fallible as any other human invention.

And there's the question. I always start to answer it by asserting that mathematics is completely objective: even if you don't have words for "two", "three", and "five", it is still true that the concatenation of "II" and "III" is "IIIII". And that would be true even if no one existed to count objects. Why? Because mathematics is universal, rather than particular. You apply particular problems to it, like "How many apples are there in a uniform grid of apples whose sides number 6 and 4?", and get answers with units: "24 apples". But six sets of four things together always contain twenty-four things; we write that statement shorthand as "6*4=24", a statement without units. Of course "6" and "4" don't exist by themselves. They're hypothetical; they're symbols. The whole beauty of mathematics is that manipulation of symbols can mimic exactly the much messier manipulation of real objects, and thus the mathematician can solve a physical problem in the abstract. If it doesn't work, all it means is that his system of symbols didn't represent the situation exactly enough.

So did humans invent mathematics? Not any more than we invented fire. Invention is the application of a truth into a method to solve a particular problem. Writing "4+6=10" is a method. "4+6=10" is a truth. So while the human application of a mathematical truth to a situation might be prone to human error, mathematical truth itself is flawless.

The same is true of logic. Take the basic modus ponens syllogism: "The belief that a certain fact is true, combined with the belief that the same fact implies a second fact, causes belief in the second fact." (Or, in short: "If A is true, then B is true. A is true. Therefore B is true.") Notice that I wrote "belief" and not "knowledge". "A" doesn't have to be inherent, or empirically demonstrated, or even popularly accepted. If somebody believes A, and the implication from A to B, then he believes B. In that way, the application of logic (that is, discourse) is subjective. In fact, misapplication of premises to syllogisms is the idea we know as "fallacy". But the truth of the relationships among different kinds of syllogisms, just like the relationships among different kinds of mathematical operations, is inherent.

The problem I run into is this: I rely on logic. Where other people evaluate arguments based on their religious convictions, or their emotional reactions, I evaluate them based on their merits: whether they are fallacious; whether I believe their premises; whether their forms are valid. And life makes sense to me, doing that! And yet faith, which is supposed to be such a desirable virtue, consists entirely of denying a conclusion that you would otherwise believe.

Now, when people say that spirituality is outside of the domain of logic, there are two different ways to interpret them. One is that they have been convinced, by their younger selves or by a religious compulsion, that their beliefs are simply not to be challenged; that the only way to protect their beliefs, and the happiness that rests upon them, is to deny all attempts to undermine them.

The other is that spirituality is a way of dealing with the emotions that come with being human that cold logic can never be: logic can help you to understand, but not to feel better. And so we adopt religion, superstition, unsupported categorical assertions. We trust people despite the knowledge that they will fail us; we love life despite the knowledge that it will end. These things fly in the face of logic, but we accept that and agree to integrate a contradiction into ourselves in order to balance logical understanding with emotional contentment.

By breaking out of the first interpretation, and adopting the second, a person may not even change his actual system of beliefs: the important thing is that he understands them and is not afraid of challenges to them, because he does not rely on them. He knows there's really no deep meaning in the frequencies that comprise music, but he listens and plays anyway because he loves the way it makes him feel to imagine the meaning that could be there. The judgment he develops throughout his life fine-tunes his ability to decide when this kind of escapist placebo is appropriate.

Maybe my sisters are right. Maybe I've spent so much time defending the merits of atheism that I haven't stopped to consider the fact of my own emotions' control over me. But I will say this: If the world is the same for everyone, and yet we are all predisposed to different personalities, then our beliefs ought to be correspondingly different. So now I'm searching for something to believe, to accept in the face of contrary evidence, and it better be something good.

In Support of the Equality March

Since I couldn't get to DC this weekend, I made a Facebook video instead. This is its transcription:



Hey everyone,

This video is my vote in support of the equality march that took place in DC yesterday. I wasn't able to get there, but I went online and watched videos of some of the speakers, and the negative reactions that I saw to those videos give me cause for concern.

The United States is a republic, which means that the authority of the government comes from the consent of the governed. This is different from an oppressive dictatorship, where authority comes from basic force, or a religious monarchy, where authority comes from the belief that the monarch is a representative of God. In America, citizens decide whom to elect based on who they think will further the causes they believe in. The only effect that a religion can have on this system is that it can define some of those causes for some of those citizens. One religion cannot have a direct effect on our government, because government represents the people, and our people do not all follow the same religion.

Now, it is true that our Founding Fathers believed in God. In the earliest days of our nation, our colonies were used mainly as a haven for particular kinds of Christians. But since then, our country has grown and changed, and now we have people of every faith, people of no faith, and people who aren't sure. So it bothers me when people say things like "This country was founded on Christian values and therefore Christian values ought to form the fundament of its laws."

Because that's not how it works. In America, we settle legal disputes by arguing based on our written laws. If the laws are confusing or contradictory, we appeal to more general laws, and so on, until the Supreme Court decides how our Constitution applies to the situation. And nowhere in our Constitution does the name of any religion appear. The Constitution doesn't say "Congress shall act according to the interests of the Christian population". In fact, the word "religion" only appears once, in the following context:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

There are two clauses there. The second one guarantees that the government will not prevent you from exercising your religion, but the first one guarantees that religion will never be addressed in legislation. Which means that Christians, Jews, Muslism, Buddhists, Wiccans, and all other believers are obligated to find non-religious arguments for their beliefs if they expect them to be manifested in American law.

Now if you want to vote against gay marriage because you believe that homosexuality is a sin, then you can. California proved that such referenda as Proposition 8 are going to occur. Unfortunately for you, California law is subservient to the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which explains that "no state will deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Anti-gay legislation is unconstitutional, just like legislation limiting rights of women, of people of color, and of any other group that Americans have discriminated against in the past. And just as in the past, discriminatory legislation will be struck down by the Supreme Court.

So every time you vote to deny rights to the queer community, you blatantly contradict the Constitution, which by virtue of our citizenship is the only document that governs all of us. The only way a majority vote is going to succeed in discrimination is if that vote amends the Constitution itself.

If you are an American, you live in a free country. That means people who disagree coexist. That means people you don't like are not going to shut up. If you can find a country that hates gay marriage as much as you do and enforces it with Constitution-level legislation, then move there. Otherwise you will bear witness to the change that has been coming since the Fourteenth Amendment, and the only solution for you is tolerance.

Congratulations to everyone who marched yesterday; I love you, and I hope you don't have to wait much longer.

Paradigm shift...well, paradigm tweak, anyway.

Listening: nothing.

Stuck in head: "Whatcha Say", Jason DeRulo

I haven't been posting here, and I think it's because I feel obligated to post things with Formidable Cohesiveness. But I don't really have time, so until I get some time, I'm going to have to make do with blurbs like the one to follow.

I was job-hunting at the mall the other day, and most of the stores were closed. I did get a chance to apply at Jamba Juice, though, so let's hope they just call me and I don't have to bother with going back next week. Because, really, who wouldn't want Jamba Juice as their first job? It's friendly, it's colorful, and it's easy. When I went in for the application, the employees were waving at people outside the store, in a contest to see who could get the most people to wave back. Deal-breaker.

Anyway, I made a list of the other stores I might apply at (F.Y.E., Barnes and Noble, the movies, etc.), and then I went and sat on a bench on the first floor between Victoria's Secret and Old Navy. I thought it was interesting that there were three benches in a triangle, so you could effectively choose which store you wanted to face when you sat down, or choose to face down the hall. So I wrote an essay about how different periods in American culture were prudish, sex-positive, and in between. And then I came up with a brilliant twist which I can't share because I'm using it for my college essay, but I'm pretty excited about it.

That's all. Like I said, want to keep this blog alive, even if it sucks for a while. See ya.

Nocturne, but a few hours later

Listening: The local Spanish channel (Univision 41), so I can concentrate.

In the fourth hour of the morning, the vigilant observer may detect an anomaly in the teenagers' behavior: they are no longer actually watching the TV. They are listening to the sound of the fan in the projector, maybe, or at most taking stray words from the characters' voices and fueling their hazy imaginations.

It always seems very important to me, during the early morning, that I express this feeling, that I not let it pass with the dawn and fall asleep. But there's not much to say: I feel inspired, but have no subject. It's just that everything is so much more interesting, more exciting, when you're so tired that you regress to childhood and you find yourself thinking thoughts that were familiar then: "it's 4:49. 4 plus 4 is 8, how do I get to 9? 4 divided by 4 is 1, 8 plus 1 is 9; so (a+b)+(a/b) = c ... shit, now it's 4:50."

As soon as you move, even just to sit a different way, the feeling either changes or disappears: just in writing this I've almost lost it. Why does it feel so important to hold on to it? It's not really a feeling of being alive. It's just that words like "alive" are reentering my vocabulary. "Pain". I've been living off the words "beauty", "love", "morality", "ennui", "sex" - every feeling that you can make impersonal, intransitive. The words "trust", "honesty"...well, it's harder to think of them; these are the ones I haven't been using.

My sister and I walked to the pizza place yesterday, where she informed me that I was aloof, self-centered, and unavailable. I denied it, but it was true. This blog is helping, though. I know you've only seen three posts so far, but I have about five more in Drafts, and I think about it a lot. I ate with my dad at the diner on Route 303 this morning, and I told him something that I think made sense:

I know the answer to almost every question people ask me. That doesn't mean I'm smart, it's just that over the course of a day, nobody asks me anything I don't know. So it becomes easy to give automatic answers, and to simply let my mind wander - except that it doesn't wander, it falls asleep. And it's been asleep all summer. So I think I'm doing this blog in order to ask myself questions I don't know the answers to, in order to force myself to think, be creative, and eventually rejoin the ranks of sentient humans. And, as I assured my dad, to tune up my writing for those college essays I'm supposed to be working on.

How strange, to realize there's actually something wrong with you.

Mathematician disenchanted

Listening: Justin Timberlake, "Cry Me a River"

I was emailed a rude awakening today.

Back in April, my BC Calc class was learning about Taylor series, and I decided to figure out whether there was a non-recursive formula for the nth derivative of a function. I spent two months (really, four weeks, because I put it down for a while) working on it, and by June I had the answer and an eight-page proof for it. I submitted it as my final project for the course, and made a presentation of it to my class. It was really impressive, by all accounts.

Fast-forward to August 11, when I had a meeting at Pace University in the city to show my work to a high-ranking professor. She was incredibly friendly, besides displaying a fluency in mathematical thought and discourse that I was beginning to believe didn't exist. She worked out two simple but diverse examples of my formula, expressed her surprise that it held for such different kinds of functions (polynomial and trigonometric, if you're keeping score at home), and said that she'd forward it to a friend of hers at UNC Chapel Hill. Most importantly, she said she'd never seen it before, which meant I might have an opportunity to publish it, breeze into college, and live happily ever after.

Except that she just emailed me back to say that the UNC professor had already known of the formula. It was impressive that I'd come up with it independently, but it was definitely not original.

And here I was strutting around in the meantime like I were a prodigious Mathematician, imagining myself opening a Priority Mail envelope to find a copy of the Whatever-Organization Journal of Mathematics with my name in the table of contents, acceptance letters, bragging rights, recognition, satisfaction.

She's still writing a letter for colleges describing the meeting and vouching that I did come up with everything independently, but I really had had the highest hopes. And now I'm a lowly peasant-child again.

Shit!