Category: Arts & culture

An interesting development

According to a recent news article, Vermont, Maine, and Maryland have removed time limits for law suits about sex crimes. Massachusetts, Michigan, and Rhode Island are currently considering such legislation.

What this means is that if you were abused by someone as a child in these three states, you have the rest of your life to sue them for damages. This legislation is in response to the fact that many people repress childhood sexual abuse until mid-life; but prior to this legislation, if you recalled childhood sexual abuse the statute of limitations would have ended and you’d be without legal recourse.

So who’s going to be financially vulnerable as a result of this legislation? Any individual who committed sexual abuse, obviously. But also any institution that harbored sexual abusers. The Roman Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America are the two best known such institutions, but there are likely thousands of other institutions that can be held accountable for inadequately protecting children from sexual abuse. This could include local religious organizations, summer camps, and a wide variety of organizations that sponsor youth programs. (Ultimately, I hope this will include sports organizations — I’ve written elsewhere about how sports teams have gotten an easy pass on preventing child abuse, and it’s time we started holding them accountable too.)

Now, I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not in the least qualified to give legal advice. But if I were part of an institution where I had good reason to believe there was a history of covering up or glossing over sexual abuse committed in their programs — whether by volunteers, staff, or clergy — I’d be worried right now. I’d be especially worried if my institution owned substantial assets, such as an endowment or real estate, that would make them an attractive target for a law suit.

I’d also say that anyone who runs any kind of youth program should be super focused on abuse prevention right now. If I were part of a youth program that got sued under these new laws, I’d want to be able to say that my youth program had reformed and was following state-of-the-art child protection policies and procedures.

Let us name it … ASS

People talk about “artificial intelligence.” They get corrected by people who say, It’s not intelligence, it’s “machine learning.” But actually machines don’t learn either. All this false terminology isn’t serving us well. It obscures the fact that the humans who design the machines are the intelligences at work here, and by calling the machines “AI” they get to dodge any responsibility for what they produce.

In a recent interview, science fiction author Ted Chiang came up with a good name for what’s going on:

” ‘There was an exchange on Twitter a while back where someone said, “What is artificial intelligence?” And someone else said, “A poor choice of words in 1954”,’ [Chiang] says. ‘And, you know, they’re right. I think that if we [science fiction authors] had chosen a different phrase for it, back in the ’50s, we might have avoided a lot of the confusion that we’re having now.’ So if he had to invent a term, what would it be? His answer is instant: applied statistics.” [quoted by, originally in, emphasis mine]

Applied statistics is a much better term to help us understand what is really going on here. When a computer running some ChatBot application comes up with text that seems coherent, the computer is not being intelligent — rather, the computer programmers had assembled a huge dataset to which they apply certain algorithms, and those algorithms create text from the vast dataset that sounds vaguely meaningful. The only intelligence (or lack thereof) involved lies in the humans who programmed the computer.

Which brings me to a recent news article from Religion News Service, written by Kirsten Grieshaber: “Can a chatbot preach a good sermon?” Jonas Simmerlein, identified in the article as a Christian theologian and philosopher at the University of Vienna, decided to set up a Christian worship service using ChatGPT. Anna Puzio, who studies the ethics of technology at the University of Twente in The Netherlands, attended this worship service. She correctly identified how this was an instance of applied statistics when she said: “We don’t have only one Christian opinion, and that’s what AI [sic] has to represent as well.” In other words, applied statistics can act to average out meaningful and interesting differences of opinion. Puzio continued, “We have to be careful that it’s not misused for such purposes as to spread only one opinion…. We have to be careful that it’s not misused for such purposes as to spread only one opinion.”

That’s exactly what Simmerlein was doing here: averaging out differences to create a single bland consensus. I can understand how a bland consensus might feel very attractive in this era of deep social divisions. But as someone who like Simmerlein is trained in philosophy and theology, I’ll argue that we do not get closer to truth by averaging out interesting differences into bland conformity; we get closer to truth by seriously engaging with people of differing opinions. This is because all humans (and all human constructions) are finite, and therefore fallible. No single human, and no human construction, will ever be able to reach absolute truth.

Finally, to close this brief rant, I’m going to give you an appropriate acronym for the phrase “applied statistics.” Not “AS,” that’s too much like “AI.” No, the best acronym for “Applied StatisticS” is … ASS.

Not only is it a memorable acronym, it serves as a reminder of what you are if you believe too much in the truth value of applied statistics.

Reading list: Hans-Georg Gadamer

I just finished re-reading Jean Grondin’s Hans-Georg Gadamer: A Biography (trans. Joel Weinsheimer, part of Yale Studies in Hermeneutics series, 2011). I read this biography not long after it came out, but decided to re-read it due to the rise of fascism and totalitarianism in the United States.

Gadamer lived through the Nazi Party’s rule of Germany, and after the end of the Second World War wound up in the eastern sector of Germany watching the rise of totalitarianism under the rule of the Soviet Union. He was neither a Nazi nor a Communist, and somehow managed to survive both those totalitarian regimes — though admittedly, he got out of East Germany just a few years after the war, before the border close completely.

So how did Gadamer manage to navigate two forms of totalitarianism? He did not support either regime, but did his best to work around them, in order to maintain the tradition of humanistic scholarship. Looking back from our privileged vantage point, we tend to valorize those who engaged in dramatic acts of resistance. We tend to forget that in a totalitarian regime, just living your day-to-day life puts you at risk — you don’t have to engage in dramatic resistance to be killed or imprisoned. Reading about Gadamer’s life is a salutary reminder that totalitarianism is a threat to everyone living in a totalitarian regime.

Throughout the Nazi and Soviet years, Gadamer did his best to keep the tradition of humanistic scholarship alive. That may not sound like much, but it was actually an act of major resistance — quiet resistance, but still major resistance. He wanted to keep core cultural values and traditions alive for the day when totalitarianism would at last be defeated. Again, this may not sound like much, but when you remember that totalitarianism thrives by effacing humanistic culture, then you realize that what Gadamer was doing was in fact serious resistance to totalitarianism.

As I said, I re-read this biography because I’ve been watching the rise of totalitarianism in the United States. The rapid rise in the number of books being banned, the misogynistic anti-abortion laws being passed, the Christian nationalists trying to impose their perversion of Christianity on everyone else — these are all very worrying. And maybe Gadamer’s life provides one example of one approach to the fight against totalitarianism. Some people will gladly take on the high profile resistance, the public protests, fighting fire with fire. But we also need people to keep humanistic culture alive.

UFOs

Actually, they’re no longer called Unidentified Flying Objects, but rather Unidentified Anamolous Phenomena (UAP). According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, there were 144 UAP reported from 2004 to 2021. Although these remain unexplained, possible explanations include: airborne clutter (including “airborne debris like plastic bags); natural atmospheric phenomena; “developments [by inudstry and government] and classified programs by U.S. entities”; “foreign adversary systems”; and other possible explanations.

NASA recently held a public meeting — a video of this meeting are now available on Youtube — to cut through the cult of secrecy that has long surrounded UFOs…um, I mean UAP. Previously, NASA has spent all its energy debunking UFO sightings. Now NASA is trying to be more open its data collection and data analysis efforts. So, as you’d expect, one of the questions they got during the public meeting was: “What is NASA hiding?”

No amount of public meetings is going to convince people that NASA has nothing to hide. Belief in UFOs is now a part of the U.S. mythos, and the mythos of other so-called developed countries. There are even New Religions Movements based on UFOs, most notably Raelism, for which the influence of extraterrestrial intelligence on humanity is integral to their worldview. Many of these New Religious Movements now downplay any mention of UFOs or alien intelligences (for example, Unarius Academy of Science and Scientology emphasize their self-development coursework, not UFOs). Nevertheless, belief in UFOs remains central to the U.S. mythos. One meeting my NASA is not going to dislodge this firmly-held belief.

The next frontier

We all know about the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic church. It continues to get a lot of press, to the point where if you say “child sexual abuse” a lot of people immediately think “Catholic church.” Which isn’t all that fair. While the Catholic sex abuse crisis has gotten the most publicity (and honestly, it deserves all the publicity it has gotten), it’s pretty clear that other institutions have their own sex abuse crises. The Boy Scouts come to mind, again because they’ve gotten a lot of publicity. But I’m willing to bet that the sexual abuse crisis goes beyond religion and scouting….

I suspect the next big frontier for the revelation of sexual abuse could be in sports. I’ve been thinking about this as I read about what’s happening in India. Olympic medalists have accused a politically-connected wrestling coach with child sexual abuse. There’s the usual denial and obfuscation. Eventually the coach has to step down from his coaching duties, but he doesn’t get arrested or prosecuted. The Olympic medalists engage in public protests, and the government arrests them instead of the former coach.

I’m willing to bet that school and youth sports provides many opportunities for sexual predators on the prowl. Many school sports programs have little accountability to anyone outside of the tight little world of sports — too often, coaches are essentially free from oversight by school administrators, and no one else is trying to hold them accountable. Some youth sports leagues might have even less accountability. When you hear coaches screaming and swearing at the kids during practices, you begin to wonder. If I acted like that towards kids in a church program, I’d lose my job — so if coaches can get away with that kind of abusive behavior, I have to wonder.

Sports is even more sacrosanct than religion. I’m not expecting any movement towards reform to come from sporting organizations (remember how everyone covered for Larry Nasser?). We might wish that more athletes blow the whistle, as is happening in India — but look at the price they’re paying.

I now believe the best solution is uniform child protection regulations that cover all youth programs, like California’s Assembly Bill 506, enacted in 2022. AB506 has some major problems — honestly, it’s not a well-written law — but the fact that it applies to all youth programs is really important. Sports programs have to comply, along with churches and schools. Of course, laws like AB506 still doesn’t address sexual abuse of persons over age 18. But it’s a start, a step in the right direction.

Florence Price children’s song

Composer Elaine Fine found a children’s song by composer Florence Price. This is kind of cool because Florence Price has recently been rediscovered by the classical music cognescenti as an exceedingly talented mid-twentieth century American composer who got forgotten because she was both Black and female.

Now I wonder if Price wrote other children’s songs. And this also makes me think of another fabulous mid-twentieth century American woman composer, Ruth Crawford Seeger, who produced some books of children’s songs, containing her transcriptions and harmonizations of American folk tunes. And finally, wouldn’t it be nice if some of today’s “serious” composers turned their talents to children’s music?

Orcas having fun

Orcas off the Iberian Peninsula have been ramming sailboats, and have even managed to sink three boats, according to Live Science. Humans who claim to be experts on orcas think they know the reason why:

“Experts suspect that a female orca they call White Gladis suffered a ‘critical moment of agony’ — a collision with a boat or entrapment during illegal fishing — that flipped a behavioral switch. ‘That traumatized orca is the one that started this behavior of physical contact with the boat,’ López Fernandez said.”

I’m mildly skeptical of this explanation only because trauma has recently become a popular human explanation for everything. I don’t mean to minimize the effect of traumatic events on humans (or other organisms). But I’m reminded of the mid-twentieth century when, under the influence of Freudianism, sex was the popular explanation for everything. In that time period, trauma was not regularly invoked to explain mammal behavior, so I can imagine mid-twentieth century cetologists explaining orcas sinking boats as somehow being motivated by sex.

NPR reported on the same story, with some additional details, including the fact that orcas seem to like biting sailboat rudders:

“Jared Towers, the director of Bay Cetology, a research organization in British Columbia, says ‘there’s something about moving parts … that seem to stimulate them…. Perhaps that’s why they’re focused on the rudders….'”

Ultimately, we humans don’t know why orcas are ramming sailboats and biting rudders. (Actually, we really know why humans do many of the things we do.) I suspect this has become a news story mostly because humans who are part of Western cultures get worried when other animals threaten us or make us feel that we might not be the apex predator. This attitude is in part due to the influence of Western religions — both Judaism and Christianity have a sacred text that claims that a deity gave to human beings the right to have dominion over all other living beings. But orcas have not read the Bible, and they didn’t get the memo that humans are in charge.

Asian American poetry webpage

Following up on Sunday’s post — I discovered that the Poetry Foundation has a great short essay on “Asian American Voices in Poetry,” with links to lots of poems by dozens of poets.

Thre are links to some stalwarts of the older generation of poets, including well-known figures like Maxine Hong Kingston. Among the older poets, I was pleased to see a link to some of Lawson Fusao Inada’s poetry. I used to have a book of his poetry which I quite liked but it must have disappeared in the last cross-country move. Reading his poetry again makes me want to get another of his books.

I enjoyed seeing a link to Indran Amirthanagayam’s poems. He’s almost exactly my age (an old guy), and I first saw him maybe forty years ago when he was the lyricist and lead singer of a punk rock band. Now he’s older, respectable, a U.S. diplomat — but his poems still have some of that punk rock energy.

I was also pleased to see links to younger poets like Chen Chen and Ocean Vuong. To my shame, I haven’t kept up with younger poets. It looks like this will be a good way to get introduced to some of the newer poets.

Asian American poetry books

It’s Asian American Pacific Islander Native Hawaiian heritage month, and to celebrate I’ve been reading poetry — mostly by Americans of East Asian and South Asian descent (I had to narrow things down a bit, so left off West Asia and all the Pacific Islands). I’ve also been dipping into some Asian poetry. Here are some comments on two books I’ve been looking into:

They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Poets

ed. Christine Kitano and Alycia Pirmohamed (Blue Oak Press, 2022) — I’m really enjoying this collection. No, I haven’t liked all the poems. But I have felt that even the ones I didn’t care for were worth reading. And there are some real gems in this book, like Mai Nguyen Do’s poem “Ca Dao,” which begins:

The rice field is the oldest concert hall.
I’ve sung for four thousand years
here: in my mother, my grandmother,
the mother goddess, God. I’m already dead
when I’m singing….

Do gives the feel of folk poetry, as you’d expect from the title (“ca dao” is a term for Vietnamese folk poetry). Yet the poem itself is very contemporary. The combination makes for a haunting and memorable poem.

I also liked Mary-Kim Arnold’s poem “Forgotten War” very much. At first, it might sound a little didactic in places, but the total effect is not at all didactic. Arnold takes us from scenes of the Korean War to a scene in a U.S. bar, and a few other places along the way. In the powerful last stanza, she says:

You can stay up all night counting corpses and still not know who you are.
You can open your mouth to speak but still not know your own name.

Overall, it’s a high quality collection with a wide range of contemporary poets, from a wide range of Asian backgrounds — West Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Pacific Islands. Highly recommended.

Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

Chen Chen (BOA Editions, 2022) — I liked Chen Chen’s first book of poems, and had high hopes for this new book. There some good poetry here, but the collection doesn’t have the energy and humor which marked the first book. And lines like this one made me lose interest: “I mean, is ‘shit,’ is ‘scat’ more or less literary than ‘poop’?” — that kind of line in the midst of a love poem just sounds academic and self-indulgent. Yet as I say, there’s some good poetry here. For example, I like the first stanza of “The School of Australia”:

Your emergency contact has called
to quit. Your back-up plan has backed
away. Your boyfriend has joined a boy band
named All Your Former Boyfriends….

The rest of the poem doesn’t live up to the promise of that first stanza. But it’s worth reading through this book to find little gems like that. And there’s no doubt that Chen Chen is a poetic talent worth watching. Worth reading.

A cultural phenomenon

Focused as I am on my favorite obscure corners of popular culture, I usually miss the really big worldwide trends. So I was completely unaware of The Wiggles until I read about them on a science fiction fandom blog.

If you too have remained blissfully unaware of The Wiggles, they’re an Australian band that released their first album in 1991. The Wiggles write and perform songs for preschoolers (and their parents); three of the four of original members of the band had degrees in early childhood education.

I did a deep dive into Wiggles subculture today. I listened to a bunch of their music. I read about how children would come to live shows dressed as Emma, the Yellow Wiggle, complete with yellow dress and yellow bow in their hair. More importantly, while watching their videos, I saw how they create developmentally appropriate live performances and videos. Yes they’re primarily entertainers (not educators), yes there are problems with what they do, but on the whole I’m impressed with the way they treat young children with respect.

As one small example of what I mean about treating young children with respect: When they begin a live performance, they do not say, “Hello, boys and girls” — a vaguely condescending formula that leaves out parents — they say “Hello, everyone.” That’s really thoughtful.

I’m also impressed with the way they’re changing with the rapidly chaning culture around them. Take, for example, their video “Di Dicki Do Dum” released last August. In the dance routine, Tsehay Hawkins, the yellow Wiggle, and Simon Price, the Red Wiggle, combine Euro-folk dance with urban dance moves. This kind of cultural mash-up is A Big Thing in the obscure world of folk dance. The venerable Cecil Sharp House in England, center of the universe for many who do Anglo-American Euro-folk-dance, now mixes all kinds of folk dance traditions:

“‘Hip-hop is the folk dance of today,’ said Natasha Khamjani…. They’re both social dances created for crowd participation, both also existing on the fringes of the mainstream, she added. Khamjani was taking a quick break during a rehearsal of a high-energy performance blending Bollywood moves and English country dancing with the unmistakable bounce of hip-hop moves.” [As reported by the BBC]

The Wiggles also make pretty darned good music. Both the singing and the accompaniment in the “Di Dicki Do Dum” video are really well done. The music has to be good. Preschoolers are going to listen to recordings of the sings over and over and over and over again. If the music sucks, parents are going to tear their hair out, and never buy any more Wiggles music or go to any more Wiggles shows.

Looking at The Wiggles videos makes me think about what we do in our Unitarian Universalist religious education programs and in our worship services. Unlike The Wiggles, we’re not in the entertainment business. But if we really want to welcome families with young children, I realized I can learn a lot from them: awareness of developmental appropriateness, respect for audiences, use of dance and movement, respectful cultural mash-ups, and so on.

Having said that, I’m now done with The Wiggles. And trying desperately to forget their songs.

A screen grab from the video, showing a young woman wearing yellow and an older man wearing red dancing, while off to one side a man wearing blue and a man wearing purple play musical isntruments.