cultcha post

[sanpaku_backup]

Mooooovies: Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- this film was wonderful and said a lot of what I've been thinking but not writing about passion and how it plays out in life. Some people found the narrator annoying, but to me it helped make it feel like one of Woody's short stories, which I like. I did get annoyed with the constant Spanish guitar -- although after you leave the movie, it helps to have it as the soundtrack for your life for a while.

Pierrot le Fou: "First there was Greek civilization... then the Renaissance... now we're entering the Age of the Ass." The great thing about this movie is that it knows that since we all try to live in movies, we really shouldn't take them too seriously. (Which reminds me that I need to write a post about Vertigo one of these days.)

Also: Tell No One (not bad), Smart People (blech).

Books: John Edgar Wideman's Two Cities. I loved Wideman's Homewood trilogy and I wanted to see how he would connect Pittsburgh and Philadelphia as places. The book is good, but it's sort of like eating your vegetables; he puts pages and pages into expository dialogue, so that I end up reading the same paragraphs over and over again. They're good paragraphs, though, don't get me wrong.

Also, this week I've been reading (and writing) a ton for work, specifically educational philosophy and how it relates to history -- just inhaling the stuff. And I ran across something that I thought was memorable in discussions of how "empathy" is crucial to developing the historical sense.

"Talk of historians having sympathy for what they are studying... is in part an indication of what they do not do -- namely jump out of their accounts to show their audience how misguided, stupid, or wicked some way of doing things was. ... [T]he historian recognizes the appropriateness of the subjects' emotions, given their assumptions, [and is] more likely to be able to entertain their views." (P.J. Lee)

I don't know what it is in me, exactly, but over the past few years I've come to the conclusion: I don't judge. It's not that I don't think that there are right or wrong actions or decisions. It's just that, in general, when I hear a story, I try to give the benefit of the doubt, find explanations, etc. The older you get, the more you realize that in any given miserable situation in life, you may well have had the same luck and the same unenviable decisions that got someone into their misery. Very little of life consists of being smarter than anyone else. Being a parent and being a historian are about that same realization. It's just choices among options with very limited knowledge.

Conversely, I get extremely defensive when someone judges me, when someone wants to pin me to the wall with their characterization. I think of this as the "you made your bed, now lie in it" kind of thinking. There's such a fine line between being offered advice in a constructive way and being told that you're an idiot for being unable to help yourself, because you didn't think things through. OF COURSE I didn't think things through; how else do you think I got here?

My problem is that I can't help pressing the point too much. Everyone runs out of patience sooner or later. Even on LiveJournal.

Comments

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

Hm. Your historian quote is exactly what I was trying to convince my proto-ministers to do last semester, when I was trying to teach them how to read ancient theologians. It went something like, "What is Tertullian saying here? Let's just get clear about that first, before we denounce him for not agreeing with us and not having foreseen the cultural values of people who lived 1700 years later." Sadly, many of them were not convinced. Sigh.

I wonder if I were to present said students with this historian quote so it was coming from someone besides me, maybe they would be more willing to give it a try.

Empathy

[flw.livejournal.com]

Every time I read "financial" advice it sounds like this to me: "You should be rich. Why aren't you rich? If you were rich, you'd already be rich. If you want to be rich, first be rich, then you're rich." And every time I read "career advice" in some bullshit resume section or something, it sounds like: "When interviewing for the job, make sure you are absolutely 100% perfect in every respect. Don't lie. Just be the exact person that they want for the job. See? Wasn't that smart of you to get exactly the right education, intern at exactly the right place, get exactly the right promotions, turn down the wrong opportunities, accept the right 'risks' and all the while doing so, have perfect hair, immaculate suits, no lingering diseases, a perfect smile... Oh and don't forget, more than a two second gap in your resume is a big no no, so don't ever have been unemployed for more than that." These people are fucking IDIOTS, especially the "perfect job interview" people. If you're absolutely perfect, why would you be reading such a dumb fucking column?

Whatever

WHATEVER
WHAT

EVER

whatevs!

You know...

[flw.livejournal.com]

Hey, you know what those people who took those bad loans should have done? They should have been so rich that they didn't need loans. Why didn't they think of that? Also, when they were being lied to about the terms of the loan by people who were assuring them continually that the terms of the loan were good, they should have read the whole 550 page, fine print loan contract. Why didn't they do that? They deserve what they got.

Orrrrrrr... they should have gone on to the market and secured better terms through bargaining. You know, on the open market!!! But they didn't. They were lazy. People should be like me. I work HARD. It was hard work. But hey we play hard to. I am always sure to make it to Paris two or three times a year, and trips to the lake house of course...