Saturday, December 30, 2006

Taking Sides in Iraq

A very true saying goes, "not taking sides is injustice to the right side." Saddam Hussein was executed in Baghdad today, just on the eve of Eid. Probably he deserved this sentence. So we might say the output of the trial is legitimate. But the lawyers I just listened to on TV claim that his trial did not meet the international standards, and the execution was carried out too quickly to avoid any legal or violent contestation. Watching the video of the moments right before his execution, I could not help but pity him. Think what the Sunnis in Iraq and Muslims all over the world will think seeing this execution video right on the eve of Eid.

Bringing democracy is not a justification for invasion. The hope was that ensuing security and democracy would make people forget and forgive the means through which democracy was pursued, i.e. invasion. But the lack of legitimacy in the process is the greatest obstacle in the way of the desired outcome. This is not an ex-post conclusion one reaches after seeing the violence that ensued in Iraq. This is a general lesson that needs to be taken.

This is all I have to write in 2006. I wish a happy new year to everyone.
Rats

The story I'll tell now, I read long ago. It's disturbing and chauvinistic, and although it was presented as a real experiment where I read, I think it is just a made-up story. I will use it here, because it is a useful metaphor, more like a warning (to myself and any girls who might be reading this.)

Male rats and female rats were put in a box with an electric wire seperating them. After a while, a male rat attempted to jump to the other side, but was tangled in the wire and died. None of the rats moved for a while. Then, seeing that the male rats weren't doing anything, female rats started jumping over the wire one by one, falling dead one after another.

We girls are used to doing our best. We think that we can attain everything if we work hard at it. We believe in meritocracy. But relationships require mutual effort, and it won't work if it is only us who is trying to make a relationship work. Besides, if we change ourselves too much, we won't be the same person he loved in the first place. So doing your best isn't always working hard. Doing your best is realizing what works and what doesn't, putting effort in the right person, protecting and preserving yourself. (For more on this, read "He's Just not that Into You.")
Attachment

In an interview with the Sabah newspaper, Orhan Pamuk said that he believes in attachment more than love. He described attachment as something "instinctive, childish," likened it to what a small child feels when his mom goes shopping. I guess you realize you are attached to a person in periods of "dispossession." It comes with spending time with that person, being able to be comfortable, safe and "yourself" around that person.
Rationalism and Constructivism

So my German friend was right, after all :) Every option has a pay-off, shaped only by the player's material interests. The option with the highest pay-off is the preferred option. Rationalists argue that the pay-off associated with each option, thus the preferences are fixed. Institutions they work within only constrain their means to reach given ends, and ideas are only language and symbols to justify their "self-interested policies." Agreement between two players is possible only if their interests coincide, or they accept each other's preferred options simultaneously through issue-linkage. Let's say Actor A advocates Policy A, and Actor B lobbies for Policy B. Actor A's pay-off associated with only Policy B is very low. But if Policy A and Policy B are passed simultaneously, the combined pay-offs may be acceptable to Actor A. Through issue linkage, pay-offs of Policy A and Policy B stay constant, but their combined pay-off also becomes relevant, breaking the stalemate.

Constructivists, on the other hand, argue that actors' understanding of the pay-offs may change, without an actual shift in material interests. Especially in crisis situations ("a policy window"), actors may be more open to new ideas - because they realize that what they always believed in doesn't work. A charismatic actor ("an institutional entrepreneur") comes up with a new idea, and uses such a policy window to persuade the other actors. As they interact and negotiate ("social learning" within the existing institutional framework,) actors change their minds about the pay-offs associated with each option.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Post-Emotionalism and the Third Way

I found out that what I tried to describe in the last few entries has a name, and it's called "post-emotionalism." I'm putting all the related entries under one label now.

"Certainly, there is evidence, for example, that over the past quarter of a century people in Britain have come to see personal relationships 'less in terms of social responsibilities and obligations and more in terms of personal resources and fulfilment.'...

It has been suggested that we live increasingly in an amoral, 'post-emotional' age, in which people's emotional responses have ceased to be aesthetic or authentic and their goals are informed by a self-centred form of survivalism. The consumer culture to which the inhabitants of Western societies are subject leads to a 'Disneyfication' of the emotions. Though people can express or 'perform' emotions, these are trumped by rational self-interest...

Post-emotionalism entails a hollowed-out form of compassion for others and a distinctively apolitical preoccupation with one's own interests and well-being, or those of one's most immediate family. It is ostensibly consonant with a Third Way approach to social policy that regards the welfare functions of the state no longer in terms of meeting needs, but of managing risks. " - Hartley Dean, from "The Third Way and Social Welfare: The Myth of Post-emotionalism"

Although people believe that everybody should be held responsible for the choices they make (and disapprove of the "dependency culture,") there is still recognition that people are vulnerable to risk and uncertainty. Dependency out of choice is not tolerated, but people realize that they might be dependent to others (and others may be dependent on them) out of bad luck.

[T]he majority –in spite of the prevalence of popular prejudices against welfare dependency- acknowledged that they themselves were at least potentially dependent beings (and/or that other people dependent on them); and that there are at least certain things to which all human beings are or should be entitled… From behind a Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance’ as to the extent of the risks they face, people do by and large espouse an implicit theory of social justice (Dean, 704, 705.)

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Another very very true piece :) Again Hasmet Babaoglu! (04.12.2006)
http://www2.vatanim.com.tr/root.vatan?exec=yazardetay&sid=&Newsid=96024&Categoryid=4&wid=9



“Arkadaşlığın bir üstü, sevgililiğin bir altı”

Hani yıllardır yazıp duruyorum ya... Aşktan söz edilmesine bayılıyoruz, içinden aşk geçen şarkılara, türkülere, şiirlere yanıp tutuşuyoruz; dahası, aşka âşık oluyoruz; hepsi tamam ama aşkın hayatımızdaki anlamı “arıza” gibi bir şey. Oysa “arıza” çıksın istemiyoruz. Kafamız bulansın, işimiz gücümüz aksasın istemiyoruz. Açıkça itiraf etmekten çekiniyoruz ama kimi zaman sevmek artık sevilmek için ödenecek bir bedel gibi algılanıyor! Ve en önemlisi şu ki altan alta asıl derdimiz aşk şarkıları eşliğinde âşık olmak falan değil. Hayır! Aşk şarkıları eşliğinde EĞLENMEK istiyoruz!Modern flört kültürü gizliden gizliye aşktan kaçtıkça, aşk da gitgide kaba saba bir delilik; hatta gazetelerin 3. sayfa haberlerine özgü bir suç türü olup çıkıyor.

***

Geçen gün Marie Claire dergisini karıştırırken Hollywood’un yeni gözdelerinden Kirsten Dunst’ın bir sözüyle karşılaştım. Hazcı beklentileri yüksek olan günümüz insanının aşka dair endişelerini çok net ortaya koyuyordu. “Arkadaşın bir üstü, sevgilinin bir altı olmak en ideali!” İşte modern flört kültürünün en özlü ve yalın anlatımı! Zamanında “Vampirle Görüşme” filmindeki küçük kız rolüyle gönülleri çalan ve şimdilerde “Hollywood’un en erotik bakışlı genç kadını” olarak tanınan Kirsten Dunst’ın, bu sözünün ardından söyledikleri de çok anlamlı. “Böylece kimse yara almaz, zarar görmez. Seks utanca dönüşmez, yetişkin duruş bozulmaz, aşk daha uzun sürer.” (Tabii, buradaki “aşk” sözcüğünü “ilişki” olarak anlamak gerek!) İşte aşk üzerine onca şamatanın, onca aşk filminin, onca aşk hikâyesinin gençleri getirip bıraktığı nokta! İnançsızlık mı? Korku mu? Acı çekmeye ve bunalıma dair en küçük bir ihtimalin varlığından bile uzak durma çabası mı? Yoksa hayatımızın bütün hücrelerine egemen olmaya başlayan “iyi vakit geçirme-eğlence-haz” anlayışının en son hali mi?Belki hepsi!

***

Yaldızlı laflarla aşkı savunup bu bakışa burun kıvırmak kolay! Önce bu hali anlamaya çalışmak ve aşkın tarihini-sosyolojisini sorgulamak gerek. Aşk insan içindi. Ama herkes için miydi acaba?İnsanlığın hiçbir büyük geleneği aşkı herkes için ve herkese göre bir şey diye anlatmamıştı. Aşk hiçbir zaman herkesin çıplak elle dokunabileceği bir ateş olarak tarif edilmemişti. Her gelenek “yanmak”tan söz etmişti. Sonra nasıl olmuşsa olmuş, romantik çağ Batı modernizminin içine bu ateşi üflemiş; içtenliğin ve cinselliğin aşka, aşkın da mutluluğa yeteceği iddiası geniş kabul görmüştü. Bugün o romantik yanlışın, o popülizmin acısı çekiliyor. Aşkın mutluluk ve huzurla aynı platformda yer aldığını sanmanın acısı şimdi şimdi çıkıyor. İlişkiler arkadaşlığın bir üstü kadar mahrem, sevgililiğin bir altı kadar canlı-renkli olsun isteniyor. Malum, arkadaşlık yeterince yakın değil fakat eğlencelidir. Sevgililik de çok yakın fakat bu yüzden “boğucu”dur. Tablo bu. Tartışmasına gelince...Bitmez.


This one is basically in line with the one below (read that one first.) There are a couple of cool points though. The first one is that "loving is seen as the price to be paid for being loved." Second, Kirsten Dunst defines the ideal relationship as being "above friends and below lovers." "Above friends," because we want it to be close and intimate, but "below lovers," because we want it to be chill, lively and fun - we don't want it to be suffocating. That way, she says, "Nobody gets hurt, sexuality doesn't turn into shame, the adult posture doesn't break down, love is sustained longer."

Lastly, to Babaoglu, the assumption "sincereness and sexuality will be enough for love, and love will be enough for happiness" was a mistake. The truth is, love is not for everyone, unlike what movies try to make us believe (besides, if our lives were that exciting, we wouldn't take refuge in stories.) And it brings neither happiness nor peace.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

A very very true piece from Turkish columnist Hasmet Babaoglu, 26.11.2006:

http://www2.vatanim.com.tr/root.vatan?exec=yazardetay&sid=&Newsid=94839&Categoryid=4&wid=9


Aşk, iş hayatı ve modern zamanlar

“Hoşçakal sakin kafam, Hoşçakal kanaatkâr ruhum...” Bilin bakalım Shakespeare ne zaman söyletir bu sözleri Othello’ya? Ülke yönetmeye kalkışmadan biraz önce mi? Ticarete girip hesapları karıştırdığında mı? En yakın dostlarının ihanet ettiğini anladığında mı? Hayır! Hayır!

***

Aşk kapıyı çaldığında böyle seslenir Othello. Çünkü bilir; aşk hem çok ateşli hem çok kırılgandır. Sanıldığının aksine huzurla değil, huzursuzlukla kardeştir. Ve aşk mutluluk değildir; âşık olunanın varlığından mutlu olmaktır. Peki modern insan nasıl? Biliyoruz... Onca “kendiyle barışık olma” arayışına; parayla saadet satın alma kültürüne; Ferrarisini satıp bilge olma gevezeliğine karşın modern insanın ne kafası sakin, ne de ruhu kanaatkâr! Ne zihni durmak biliyor modern insanın, ne de ruhu doymak! O halde... Shakespeare’in ünlü kahramanı gibi hepimiz âşık mıyız?Kalplerimizdeki bu bitmek tükenmek bilmeyen kımıltı, aşk yüzünden mi? Bir bakıma, evet! Ama durun, durun...Öyle değil. Othello gibi değil yani... Modern insan âşık ama işine âşık! Şunları bir düşünün bakalım. Yoğun arzu, tutku ve bağlılık, kalp kırıklıkları, mutluluk ve mutsuzluk med cezirleri, kuşku nöbetleri, ateşli sayıklamalar... Bütün bunları modern insan nerede yaşıyor?Çalışma hayatında yaşıyor daha çok. Sevdiği tarafından terk edilmeyi kaldırabiliyor ama iki yıldır beklediği terfi gelmeyince kendini “terk edilmiş” hissedip yataklara düşüyor. Geceleri uyuyamıyor; aklı hep işinde oluyor; işiyle sevişiyor. Tatminsizlik bütün ruhunu sarıyor, bütün eylemlerini yönetiyor. Kıskançlıklar, kuşkular, hayal kırıklıkları deseniz... Neredeyse hepsi işiyle, işyerindekilerle ilgili.

***

O halde gerçek aşka ne kalıyor? Hadi aşkı da geçtik ama aşka benzer flörtlere; içinde bir parça aşk olsun diye adaklar adadığımız ilişkilere ne kalıyor? Pek bir şey kalmıyor. O durumda kimse kimsenin kafasını bozmasın; çok “arıza” çıkmasın isteniyor. (Oysa aşk başlıbaşına “arıza”dır, bu dünyaya başka bir dünyadan “emanet” ciddi bir uyumsuzdur; tersini söyleyen yalancıdır.) Acaba aşk şarkılarına, aşk şiirlerine vurgun fakat kendini üstünkörü flörtlerin; akılcı beraberliklerin; “seviyeli” evliliklerin sakin denizlerine bırakmayı tercih eden insanlar olmamızın nedeni bu mu? Enerjimizin başka bir alanda tükenip gitmesi mi sebep?

***

Aşk meşk denilen şey, kabul edelim ki çoktan işten arta kalan zamanlarımızda hoşnutluk-haz-kafa dinleme-eğlenme kaynağımız olup çıktı. Ağır rekabete dayalı iş hayatı ve başarı kültürü içimizdeki binlerce yıllık “ateşi” yavaş yavaş kendi alanına çekiyor. Şiirler direniyor bir tek! Ama dikkat edin; şiir sevgisiyle dalga geçen “akılcı”lar da çoğalıyor. Şarkılar direniyor bazen. Ama damardan şarkıları hor gören; müziği oyalanma vasıtası olarak değerlendirenlerin alaycılığı baskın çıkmaya başlıyor.

***

Tablo açık. Ekonomi global, aşk git gide yerel. Arzular zengin ve dizginlerinden kopmuş, aşk yoksul ve zincirlenmiş. Hayat genel, aşk istisna. Herkes yalandan bilge, aşk hâlâ deli divane. Göreceğiz bakalım, ne olacak sonu(muz)?

******

For those who don't speak Turkish (I love to overlook "0 comments" and pretend I actually have a readership!)... He says that we long for the true love that is described in songs and poems, but we try to avoid all the imbalances, disappointments and "defect"s it might bring to our lives. We want to remain level-headed, keep our peace of mind and stay focused to our work, and reduce love to a fun leisurely activity. Therefore we prefer "superficial flirtations, reasonable relationships, measured marriages..." Cynicism saves us from getting carried away.

The last part deserves direct translation: "Economy is global, love is local. Desires are rich and unbridled, love is poor and chained. Life is the norm, love is the exception."
Miscellaneous Thoughts

Turks, who are relieved that Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Lecture was just a personal account, must read it again. It's also very consistent with his political remarks. Take this paragraph:

"But as can be seen from my father's suitcase and the pale colours of our lives in Istanbul, the world did have a centre, and it was far away from us. In my books I have described in some detail how this basic fact evoked a Checkovian sense of provinciality, and how, by another route, it led to my questioning my authenticity. I know from experience that the great majority of people on this earth live with these same feelings, and that many suffer from an even deeper sense of insufficiency, lack of security and sense of degradation, than I do. Yes, the greatest dilemmas facing humanity are still landlessness, homelessness, and hunger ... But today our televisions and newspapers tell us about these fundamental problems more quickly and more simply than literature can ever do. What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kind ... Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational, overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world – and I can identify with them easily – succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West – a world with which I can identify with the same ease – nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid."

You can read the whole lecture here:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-lecture_en.html

***

I ran into a really cool photo exhibition while I was strolling along the Thames on Sunday: http://www.colinobrien.co.uk

And I bought two books from the book market under Waterloo Bridge. And withdrew Euros from an ATM and thought they were Pounds until the guy in the book market rejected them. It was a nice day. Now I'm home, which is also very nice. And 'nice,' although not interesting or exciting all the time, is a good, peaceful thing.

***

"A writer talks of things that everyone knows but does not know they know. To explore this knowledge, and to watch it grow, is a pleasurable thing; the reader is visiting a world at once familiar and miraculous. When a writer shuts himself up in a room for years on end to hone his craft – to create a world – if he uses his secret wounds as his starting point, he is, whether he knows it or not, putting a great faith in humanity. My confidence comes from the belief that all human beings resemble each other, that others carry wounds like mine – that they will therefore understand. All true literature rises from this childish, hopeful certainty that all people resemble each other. When a writer shuts himself up in a room for years on end, with this gesture he suggests a single humanity, a world without a centre." - Orhan Pamuk, in his Nobel Lecture

I realize that my entries have gotten pretty personal lately. I was hoping to avoid that at the beginning, because I thought personal matters were keeping me from what I really need to focus on (see below entry :) But writing is healing. Knowing someone out there might be reading is also healing. I share my weaknesses with you, only because I have faith in your good faith.

Monday, December 11, 2006

"Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life." Goethe.

“There can be no me in isolation, to be considered abstractly: I am the totality of roles I live in relation to specific others… Taken collectively, they weave, for each of us, a unique pattern of personal identity, such that if some of my roles change, the others will of necessity change also, literally making me a different person.” Henry Rosemount.

“In their efforts to mediate all of the stimuli and accommodate all of the possible connections, young people continue to create new sub-selves and meta-selves-in effect, giving over bits and pieces of their persona to each new relationship just to stay engaged in all of the networks that surround them. The fear is being excluded… In an era of global connectedness, the old idea of a fixed, self-contained, autonomous consciousness is giving way to the new notion of the self as an unfolding story whose plot lines and substance are totally dependent on the various characters and events with whom one enters into a relationship.” Jeremy Rifkin, Universalizing the European Dream (think of Facebook!)

"Actually I was angry at my father because he had not led a life like mine, because he had never quarrelled with his life, and had spent his life happily laughing with his friends and his loved ones. But part of me knew that I could also say that I was not so much 'angry' as 'jealous', that the second word was more accurate, and this, too, made me uneasy. That would be when I would ask myself in my usual scornful, angry voice: 'What is happiness?' Was happiness thinking that I lived a deep life in that lonely room? Or was happiness leading a comfortable life in society, believing in the same things as everyone else, or acting as if you did? Was it happiness, or unhappiness, to go through life writing in secret, while seeming to be in harmony with all around one? But these were overly ill-tempered questions. Wherever had I got this idea that the measure of a good life was happiness?" Orhan Pamuk

Addicted to be Linked

As far as I remember from my theology class, the road to happiness in Zen philosophy is to lose, forget yourself in whatever you are doing. I think writing is the closest I get to that. There are moments when I write that I can totally concentrate on what I'm writing, especially if I left it to the last minute (and those moments are very rewarding.) Often enough, though, even my writing experience is disrupted with expectation to be remembered, acknowledged, loved. I listen to music - I always find something in the music or lyrics that relates to my relationships. I check my E-mails. I check Facebook. I check my cell phone to see anyone wrote me. I get upset if nobody did. I get more upset if I was expecting a text or e-mail from someone. I write E-mails. I text people to figure out the details of what we will do that night. I get jealous if the person studying next to me gets a call. I'm walking around with this "overall fog" around my head that constantly distracts and confuses me, the need to stay connected and included never seizes.

I was thinking this phenomenon was borne out of my own insecurities, I sometimes feel like I used all my intellectual energy when I was a teen and now is the time to catch up with everything else. But whatever their reasons, some of my friends are also suffering from the same symptoms.

One friend told me that she used to be an introvert child, completely content in whatever she was doing, actually getting angry if anyone tried to intrude. As she grew up, she started going out and interacting with people, and now she has difficulties concentrating. Another friend said he constantly feels the need to be out and about, and whenever he has free time between two things he has to do, that's when he reads. We started questioning what might be the reason. Why do we feel horrible if we stay home and read on a Friday? My friend offered that it could be the "consumerist society" that gives the message that we have to go out and do things with people. Sometimes even our social interactions turn into a rat race.

I don't see how this constant dependency on connections will bring me success in anything. I need to learn to focus and stand on my two feet.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

"It is dangerous to spend all one's time with Beethoven, just as all privileged positions are dangerous.
Tamina had always been a bit ashamed of admitting she was happy with her husband. She was afraid of giving people a reason to hate her.
...
The privilege of love was not only a paradise, it was also a hell. Life in love was constant tension, fear, agitation. She is here among children to gain, at last, the rewards of calm and serenity.
Milan Kundera, the Book of Laughter and Forgetting


I can't sew it anymore

When I was younger, and I was disappointed, I would just lie in my bed and imagine that my soul is like a ghost made of white silk, or white smoke or dust, and somebody made a few cuts on it with a knife (imagine Zorro). So I would just lie there and imagine that I was sewing the cuts in my soul. So I was trying to do that again but it didn't work this time. I told myself I'm strong, I'm a fighter, I will wake up stronger tomorrow, but it doesn't work. I pitied myself and my fate. I still have this weird belief that I deserve to be happy. Why? When there's so much poverty, sickness, death, disappointment, insecurity in the world, why should I be happy? When I'm so reckless with people's hearts (I'm probably not even aware of half the hearts I break) why am I so disappointed when they hurt me?

But then, I look around and realize there's so much happiness in the world. There are happy couples. There are happy families. There are happy babies. This gives me the wrong impression that I, too, might be happy someday. But I guess I won't.