Düşünmek ve taraf olmak

Düşünmek ve taraf olmak

Bildiğiniz gibi Taraf gazetesinin sloganı, "düşünmek taraf olmaktır." Bir kere taraf olduktan sonra düşünmeyi bırakmak ise, herhalde en yaygın ve sinsi düşünce hastalığı. Bu hastalık, insanın, taraf olduğu şeyin inandığı gibi olduğuna olan inancını sarsabilecek tüm emareleri görmezden gelmesiyle kendini belli eder. Her inanç gibi, bu inancın sürdürülebilmesi de, ancak algı körlüğü ile mümkündür. Böyle böyle gerçeğin ucunu kaçırır insan, hiç farkında olmadığı amaçlara hizmet eder.

Halbuki insan insanlara, hükümetlere, partilere, kurumlara ve ülkelere değil, gerçeğe ve değerlere taraftar olmalıdır, sadık kalmalıdır. İşi gerçeği görmek ve göstermek olan insanlarda bile, körü körüne taraftarlığın yol açtığı akıl sektesini gözlemlemek mümkün. Aydınlar, ilkesel olarak destekleyebilecekleri bir politikaya sırf uygulayıcısı yüzünden karşı çıkıyor, başkası yapsa haksız bulacakları bir şeye sırf sevdikleri yapıyor diye göz yumuyorlar. (Tabii burada taraftarlığın gönülden, üstünü örtmenin istemsiz olduğunu varsayıyoruz.)



Yanlış ellerdeki doğru davalar

AKP'nin Avrupa Birliği üyeliği için yaptığı ilk siyasal reformlardan bu yana, izlenen politikaların demokratikleşmeye mi, yoksa bir iktidar mücadelesine mi hizmet ettiği sorgulanıyor. Aradan geçen yıllar boyunca, AKP politikalarının arkasındaki itici gücün bireysel özgürlüklere, sosyal adalete, hukukun üstünlüğüne duyulan ilkesel bağlılık değil, biraz iman gücü, biraz intikam arzusu, biraz da iktidar hırsı olduğu anlaşıldı.

Bu durumda, başlangıçta (ya da belki şimdiye dek) AKP'yi desteklemiş liberal demokratların yapması gereken şey, AKP'nin hatalarını kabul edip, gerçekten bu değerleri içine sindirmiş bir alternatifin önünü açmak, belki de bu alternatifi yaratmak olmalıdır. Böyle bir alternatif, amaçlarını gerçekleştirebilecek gücü Türkiye'de kazanabilir mi, tabii orası belirsiz. Ancak bu denenmediği sürece, doğru davalar yanlış ellerde oyuncak olmaya devam edecek. Liberal demokratlar "düşmanımın düşmanı dostumdur" politikasını kendilerine daha ne kadar yakıştırabilirler?

Liberal demokratlar, bir eylemin arkasındaki itici gücün, o eylemin yönünü ve kapsamını belirlediğini unutmamalılar. Derin devlet tarafından işlenmiş suçların açığa çıkarılıp, sorumluların cezalandırılması gereği ve Ergenekon soruşturmasının derin devlete ilk ciddi "dokunma" denemesi sayılması, soruşturmanın hükümet karşıtlarını sindirme politikasına dönüştürülmesini haklı çıkarmaz. Aynı şekilde, hükümetin Kürt açılımını son yedi yılda değil de şimdi ortaya atmasının sebebinin, bireysel özgürlüklere ve sosyal adalete olan içten bağlılık değil, biraz Güneydoğu'da oy kazanma isteği, biraz da Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nin bu yöndeki telkini olması, açılımın beklentileri karşılamamasına, Türk ve Kürt milliyetçilerin engelleme çabalarına kurban gitmesine neden olabilir.


Dış politikada "eksen kayması"

Tabii aynı düşünce sığlığıyla "öbür taraf"ta da karşılaşmak mümkün. Bunun en yeni örneği, Türkiye'nin İsrail'e soğuk ve sert tavrının ve buna karşılık İran, Suriye ve Körfez ülkeleriyle kurduğu yakın ilişkilerin, ülkenin batı ekseninden ayrılıp, şeriat eksenine girmesi anlamına geldiği düşüncesi.

Bu argümana son zamanlarda İsrail ve Amerikan medyasında, düşünce kuruluşlarının raporlarında sık sık rastlıyoruz. Bu ülkelerin bize çıkarları doğrultusunda bakmaları, bu analizleri de evrensel doğrularmış gibi saygın gazetelerinde ve raporlarında yayınlamaları doğal olabilir. Ancak bizim dış politikamızı mensup olduğumuz ideolojik kampa göre değil, kendi çıkarlarımıza, ilke ve değerlerimize göre değerlendirmemiz gerekir. Ortak liberal, demokrat değerlere sahip olduklarını iddia eden 'batı ekseni' mensuplarının, dış politikada çoğu zaman bu değerlere göre hareket etmediklerini unutmamalıyız.



Kullanılmakla eskimeyecek yegane şey, herhalde akıldır. Farketmeyi, düşünmeyi ve kendi inançlarımızı, taraftarlığımızı ve sadakatimizi sorgulamayı bir an bile bırakmamamız gerek.

Poison

I once wrote that we have a well of affection inside us that needs to be channelled. If noone takes it, we start feeding cats. But that was incomplete. We also have a well of hostility. Our inconsistencies are borne out of the co-existence of these emotions. And we can feel both affection and hostility towards the same person. Before I thought if someone treated me mean, it canceled out all their kindness up to that point. If they were able to treat me mean, all their good deeds lacked truth, genuinity. I thought they hated me all along, and they were just good at hiding their real feelings towards me. I was so stupid for not having seen it earlier.

Meanwhile, I felt so guilty if I felt something I shouldn’t have felt towards someone. I questioned the purity of my motives constantly: Am I being helpful and nice for the sake of being helpful and nice, for the sake of this person, or my own sake? Am I writing this to show off my liberal, inquisitive, reflective mind, or am I writing it to get my point across? Is my need to help someone or write something genuine, or is it merely a manifestation of my need for self-gratification?

Now I think differently. Kindness and hostility can both be genuine. When we help someone, it can be part kindness and part self-gratification. Admiration and envy mixes together. Mothers can feel hostile to their children from time to time, children can contempt their parents. We have all kinds of heresies within us, they just wait to rise to the surface like the bubbles in a boiling kettle. Sometimes our hostility towards someone runs through words and glances like a colored liquid passing through tiny veins. They seem random and innocent, but they are not. They are poisoned. Those words taste bitter, they look green.

Sometimes the guilt we feel about our impure motivations, our insecurities distort our perception, blur our judgment. At times like those it is we who poison others' words and actions, not they. It's our conscience speaking, not them. We poison ourselves with imagined insults.

But with intelligence and maturity, we can learn to keep the lid on our emotions. It means that we care enough about someone to protect them from our own hostility. It means that we know someone well enough to trust their kindness towards us. Mothers care enough about their children, children care enough about their parents. Friends care enough about each other. I no longer accuse people just because they feel hostile towards me, but I accuse them because they didn’t try hard enough to contain it. I no longer feel guilty for my impure emotions and motives, but I feel guilty (and stupid) when I let them seep through my words, deeds and perception.

Finally, we can choose to be someone better. There is nothing wrong with liking the idea of being an open-minded, liberal person, and acting like one. There’s nothing wrong with liking the idea of being a couragous person, there is nothing bad with liking the idea of being a nice person. There is nothing wrong with performing these qualities consciously and actively. Unless, of course, we are delusional about who we are, and we should be attentive to this possibility.

After all, even the fact that we like the idea of being a helpful person, as opposed to the idea of being a selfish person, shows something about the kind of person we are.

ps. I told you I’m an extraordinary machine.

Kürt sorunu

Kürt sorunu ile ilgili son tartışmalar alevleneli beri net bir fikir oluşturamadım kafamda. Sorunu iyileştirmesi beklenen çözüm paketinin içeriği henüz tam olarak belli değil, ancak bu da sessiz kalmak, bu konuda düşünmeyi ertelemek için bahane olamaz. Sorunun varlığını ve ne olduğunu bilen, sorunun ortadan kalkmasının ne anlama geldiğini de bilir. Seslendirilen (ve seslendirilemeyen) seçeneklere ani ve duygusal tepkiler vermektense, soğukkanlı bir şekilde sorunun nereden kaynaklandığına ve varılması gereken noktanın ne olduğuna karar vermek, bu kararı verdikten sonra da çözüm için atılması gereken adımları kararlılıkla atmak gerek.

Türkiye'deki Kürtlerin, özellikle de Doğu ve Güneydoğu Anadolu'da yaşayan Kürtlerin derdi nedir? Adaletsizlik duygusu ve kızgınlık, insanın kendi hayatını kontrol edemediğini, yönlendiremediğini farketmesinden doğar. Ömer Laçiner, Türk ve Kürt milliyetçiliğinin psikolojik nedenlerini, Birikim Dergisi'nin son sayısında çok güzel analiz ediyor. Milliyetçilik ve ayrımcılık, insanın "doğası"na, en temel ve hayvani duygularına hitap ediyor. Ancak dış siyasette ve olimpiyatlarda kullanılabilecek semboller, iç siyasetin bir aracı haline geldiğinde toplumu zehirlemeye başlıyor. Bir ülkede bir grubun bir diğerine göre (ve karşı) hissettiği üstünlük duygusu, kendi başına verdiği tatminin yanında, sosyal, siyasi ve ekonomik güce daha kolay ulaşmanın yolu. Üstünlük, imtiyazı haklı çıkarıyor. İşte bu yüzden Kürtlerin verdiği tepki hem Türk milliyetçiliğine, hem ekonomik adaletsizliğe karşı; hem Kürt milliyetçisi, hem solcu düşüncelerden besleniyor.

Çoğunlukta olmak bizlere imtiyaz sağlamıyor, Kürtlere göçmen muamelesi yapamayız. "Kendi iyilikleri" için asimile olmalarını bekleyemeyiz. Sorunun kaynağı üstünlük duygusu ise, çözümü bu duygunun yok edilmesinde. İşte bu yüzden sorunu sadece ekonomik ve askeri yollardan çözmeye çalışmak, kanseri tedavi için aspirin kullanmakla eş değer oldu. Bu yüzden kültürel hakların iadesi, üstünlük duygusunu çağrıştıran, bir grubu diğerine, bir bireyi diğerine karşı "gaza getiren" her türlü sembolün yok edilmesi bu kadar önemli. Ancak bunu kabul edersek her birey için fırsat eşitliği sağlanabilir. Bu zaman alacak, ancak aklımızdan bir an bile çıkarmamamız gereken hedef bu olmalı ki, sorunu çözebilelim.

Şimdi sorunun çözümünde "muhatab"ın kim olması gerektiği, teröristlerin "affı"nın tahayyül edilip edilemeyeceği konuşuluyor. Terör örgütüyle müzakere etme, Türk askerlerini, öğretmenlerini, doktorlarını öldürmüş insanları "affetme" fikri, bende de içgüdüsel bir tepkiye yol açıyor. Şimdiye kadar verilen kayıplar boşu boşuna mıydı? Hepimizin içinde, "bizim için", bizim imtiyazlarımızı, üstünlük duygumuzu koruyabilmek için ölmüş askerlere karşı bir suçluluk duygusu var. Halbuki soğukkanlılıkla düşündüğümüzde göreceğiz ki, suç aslında ne ölende, ne öldürendedir. Suç, ölene de, öldürene de bu emri verendedir. Suç, yıllardır milliyetçiliğe karşı durmak, insanları şiddete yönelten adaletsizliklerle yüzleşmek yerine, akıntıya kapılıp gitmeyi seçen, süre giden savaştan kendisine güç deren Türk ve Kürt liderlerdedir. Aslında yıllardır bunun ayırdına varmadığımız için, belki biraz hepimizdedir. Savaş, ona neden olan milliyetçilik duygularını daha da körükledi, sorunu iyice içinden çıkılmaz hale getirdi. Ayça Şen'in çok güzel dediği gibi, bir yerden başlamak, bir yerde durmak gerek.

Bazen bir sorunun gerçek nedenini görmek, gerçekçilik insanda çaresizlik yaratıyor. Bu kadar temel, hayvani milliyetçilik duygusuyla, onu yıllardır besleyen, yılların acısıyla beslenen savaşla nasıl başa çıkılabilir ki? Gerçekçilik, bazen hareketsizliğin, korkaklığın bahanesidir. "Tamam sorun çözülsün ama nasıl çözülecek?" deyip çaresizliğe kapılmak, sus pus oturmak korkaklıktır. Bu sorun kafalarda çözülecek. Hakkımız olmayan imtiyazlardan vazgeçebilecek kadar vicdanlı ve dürüst olabildiğimizde. O yüzden yüksek sesle konuşmak, insanları iknaya çalışmak, misyonerlik yapmak gerek.

From a "global market" to a "global society" - 2

This article is the edited version of my long response to Nihan's From a "Global Market" to a "Global Society".

Constructivism argues that actors' understanding of the pay-offs may change without an actual shift in material interests. In crisis situations actors may be open to new ideas, as they realize that what they have always believed in does not work. A crisis provides the "policy window" for a charismatic actor ("an institutional entrepreneur") to come up with new ideas and 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.

A change in values could be what is meant by a change in pay-offs. The important point is having greater awareness about the non-immediate consequances of our actions. Once we are aware, we feel more responsible. Realizing the far-away consequences of our individual actions, inactions and transactions is key to an evolution from a “global market” to a “global society”. There are people who can no longer bring themselves to drive SUVs, or throw a glass bottle away without recycling it, because they are not able to act despite their knowledge. People should think about security and development issues in the same way, as well as the cross-border regulations and supervision of financial markets. Western societies are no longer isolated from the poverty and violence in "remote" corners of the world. Injustice breeds insecurity. Not only politicians, but “thought leaders” from all fields have a duty to tell these hard truths without commercializing or sensationalizing the subject.

It is time for leaders to evaluate their assumptions about their constituents. Are we knights, or are we knaves? Knaves are self-interested, they serve others only when that will serve their own material interests. Knights, on the other hand, put the interests of those they serve above their own. They serve others even when they gain no material reward, or they actually face a cost doing so (Le Grand, 2003).

The resulting organizational structure will be reinforcing the assumptions that gave rise to it. When a leader thinks that his constituents are knaves, he mistrusts them and treats them like naughty children. He tries to keep information hidden because he is afraid that he will be punished for telling the truth. He establishes a structure that is based on close monitoring, strong incentives and harsh penalties, even if they are not always enforced. The constituents will perceive this system as a controlling form of external intervention, which leaves no room for intrinsic motivation, inquiry and innovation.

What if we are more knights than knaves?

The questions that need to be asked to bring about the transition from a "global market" to a "global society" can be very exciting and inspiring. They give people’s lives a meaning beyond day-to-day survival characterised by tedious office jobs, family lives and consumerism. They give each person a stake in improving the humanity’s well-being, bringing about change. This is what today’s left-wing politics should embrace. People would be far more receptive to this than we (and politicians) think. Only one leader fully grasps this: Obama.

This morning

this morning it was drizzling

and my oyster didn't work

had to cross through the underpass

the tube was packed

and it was slow

I was pressed against the door

all I could do was look around

and I didn't see any point at all

in everything we were doing

but I didn't give up, in my head

I searched for something

there was only one thing:

making people's lives easier.

that was the only thing.

Extraordinary machine

I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes
-And-
I certainly haven't been spreading myself around
I still only travel by foot and by foot, it's a slow climb,
But I'm good at being uncomfortable, so
I can't stop changing all the time

I notice that my opponent is always on the go
-And-
Won't go slow, so's not to focus, and I notice
He'll hitch a ride with any guide, as long as
They go fast from whence he came
- But he's no good at being uncomfortable, so
He can't stop staying exactly the same

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me, or treat me mean
I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine

I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day
You deem me due to clean my view and be at peace and lay
I mean to prove I mean to move in my own way, and say,
I've been getting along for long before you came into the play

I am the baby of the family, it happens, so
- Everybody cares and wears the sheeps' clothes
While they chaperone
Curious, you looking down your nose at me, while you appease
- Courteous, to try and help - but let me set your
Mind at ease

(Chorus)

-Do I so worry you, you need to hurry to my side?
-It's very kind
But it's to no avail; I don't want the bail
I promise you, everything will be just fine

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me, or treat me mean
I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine

Fiona Apple

I haven't been so excited about discovering someone's words and music, and particularly words, since Leonard Cohen. "Discovery" makes it sound like a chance encounter, you know universe sends something along, that kind of thing. I'm not sure that's the case, I think it's more the case of opening yourself to something once you get to a point where you can understand it. It's like pregnant women seeing the other pregnant women on the street. (She's a fellow Virgo, if that explains anything!)

I listened to several interviews with her, and she said that most songs are like pep talks with herself, usually she's not as strong as she claims to be in a song until a few months after it's written. And Extraordinary Machine is like a letter to those who care about her, to make sure they listen to her when she tells them that they don't need to be concerned. She shelved the first version of the album because the songs didn't feel right. When Sony didn't give her full support to rework the songs, she stopped working with them until they withdrew their conditions. (In the meantime the first versions of the songs got leaked to the Internet and more trouble ensued, fans organized campaigns for the album's official release.) The album was released in 2005, two years after the initial date of release, but she was happy with it.

I'd whole-heartedly recommend you get to know her.

Metal bars

When I was a student and when I was given an assignment, first I would diligently read what the "authorities" had to say, and then I would mix and match their arguments like reporting on a panel discussion. Sometimes I would write a sentence or two explaining why I particularly like one view, why it seems more plausible, but usually I would just let them do the talking. Because they knew, and I didn't. I was there to learn.

Then Nong said that she would first put all her ideas about the topic on paper, and then start on the reading. This seemed like a refreshing idea to me, this giving your "consciousness" a chance before it is constrained by everything that was thought and said by the wise men and women before you. I remembered the conversation with my professor while I was trying to pick a question for my dissertation. When I told her that I wanted to write it on something I didn't know about, because I wanted to learn, she said the purpose of writing a dissertation is not to learn. It is to contribute.

But then, as Vidi pointed out, when one has opinions about a subject, their attention will be drawn to the supporting views, even if they don't actively seek it. (Am I still doing the same thing, just reporting on what people said instead of stating my own views?! Well I honestly don't have a view on this one.) When we recognize an idea that confirms our own views about a subject, it's like a shining gem in the middle of all the "irrelevant" clutter. It jumps at us from the page and we do a little self-congratulatory dance in our heads. When I wrote for the school paper, I would always find the right quote to prove the point I'm trying to make. When journalists call my colleagues to ask for their "expert views", they are often not trying to learn, but they are trying to make a point without making it themselves.

How to free our minds from others' words, how to free others' words from our minds?

How to free our minds from our minds?

Isolated actions and usual suspects

Since Polish/French director Roman Polanski got arrested, I am trying to come up with a consistent way to think about this: I'm trying to put his actions in different compartments, so that his raping a young girl has no bearing on his films, and his films have no bearing on his crime. But while the latter seems so obvious to me, his crime will always hang over like a shadow over his films. I feel the same about two Turkish columnists, Deniz Gökçe and Sevan Nişanyan, who have degraded their wives in much-publicized cases of domestic violence. It's not even like what they think and write is genius, for the record, they always have that bad-ass attitude whenever they write or say something. But even if they said something bright, I don't know if I could open my mind wide enough to let it in.

It is easier to disentangle things when I think of the Doğan Group. At first my view of them as victims in their spat with the government was tinged with the knowledge that all these years, they used their newspapers to secure favors. This is karmic justice, their bomb exploded in their hands. They never said anything to fix what was wrong when things were going their way, did they? But then I realized that this in no way frees the government of the responsibility to fix things, replace this power game with the rule of law, where journalists do their jobs and bureaucrats do, too. Judges will (hopefully) not allow their judgement in one case to blur their understanding of another one.

But when looking at an art work or reading the wise words of someone who claims to be an authority in economics or linguistics, I am the judge. And I can't prevent my knowledge about the person from standing in the way of my full understanding. I can't put my trust in them enough to lend my eyes and ears to them. It may be simplistic to say only good people produce good work, but I can safely say that I only really listen to good people. Because really listening to someone or really looking at what they show you requires to let them guide you for a while.

That said, over the past few years I have come to realize and accept that good people may be inconsistent, inconsistency is sometimes nothing but the passage of time and people can change their minds and break their promises, people may be good despite their mistakes. It is not always wise to throw something or someone overboard just because they disappointed me once or twice. But it's also not wise to forgive anything and everything. Our actions do point at something about us, sometimes to fundamental personality defects. Moments of weakness are not always moments, they are not completely arbitrary or unintended.

Delivered

A little less than a year ago, I wrote this. Since then a lot of things happened, inconsequential in some ways but very consequential in others, some only in my head. Today I realized that I did get delivered - to my own doorstep. Now I'm looking at the package through noone else's eyes, but my own, and I'm liking it. (And I'm not saying this just to impress you with my newly-found maturity and independence and confidence or whatever. OK, maybe a little, but it's not just that... The only way you or I could be impressed is if we believe that it's not just empty words, it's not just to impress. We'll see. And I know these things don't have to make sense.)

Anyhow, the package does have a lot of flaws, what must be corrected and fixed will be, but overall it's good value. I'm finally happy with it.

Positive disintegration

I just discovered this today, please read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_disintegration

"It became apparent that the "modern" worldview, which explained the world in terms of 'states and failed states' and which was shared by both the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, no longer sufficed to explain what is truly going on in the world today and why. However, the objective truth of the modern world was not replaced by a new objective truth.

Now we are left with post-modernist "accounts," subjective opinions of self-appointed experts, because we often lack hard data about the nature or severity the problems we face. Policy makers and states now use the "precautionary principle," (thanks to the Bush administration) which presupposes that you don't have to wait for conclusive hard evidence to act against a perceived threat. The way "experts" frame the problems, or "questions" at hand, determines our response to these problems. The academic gave the example of HIV/AIDS. Is it a developmental problem or a security problem? The answer we give to this question will determine which actors will tackle it, what they will do to solve it, and what resources will be spent on it. We can think of many other examples. Take terrorism or climate change.

Although we often don't have hard evidence and easy answers, it is still important to try to understand the actors we are dealing with. For example, the West perceives China as a rising power, a competitive force so competitive precisely because it does not respect the rules. But it is difficult for Westerners to convince China that complying with international labor and environmental standards, reining in on corruption and crime, and refusing to deal with the likes of Hassan al-Bashir will be good for the Chinese in the long-term. China needs high economic growth in the short-term to maintain social peace." From my article, Leading Uneasy Lives, 17 January 2009.

"Also in 2001, Bent Flyvbjerg in his book Making Social Science Matter identified a way out of the Science Wars by arguing that (1) social science is phronesis, whereas natural science is episteme, in the classical Greek meaning of the terms; (2) phronesis is well suited for the reflexive analysis and discussion of values and interests, which any society needs to thrive, whereas episteme is good for the development of predictive theory, and; (3) a well-functioning society needs both phronesis and episteme in balance, and one cannot substitute for the other." From the Wikipedia entry, Science Wars.

"[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and theeffects which it produces. By 'action' in this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent that the agent or agents see it assubjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either (a) the meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' to be thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of prioridiscipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning." – Max Weber The Nature of Social Action 1922, from the Wikipedia entryAntipositivism.

A few thoughts on social sciences

When I studied economics in university I considered subjects like sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology and even politics "soft." They didn't give definite answers, there was little way of "falsifying" them. Because they couldn't be tested, it was hard to tell their value. But then I realized, as with many things, social reality isn't something that could be understood easily.

Once a senior colleague explained me the three ways of approaching social reality (please correct me if I'm missing something). Durkheim believed that the society was like an organism; interdependent actors and institutions performed different, but complementary functions in it. The characteristics and health of a society could be studied objectively. Marx argued that the power struggle between distinct groups gave rise to social action and conflict. Weber thought that there was no objective social reality, neither the meaning an outsider gives to an action nor the insider's intention in performing that action could be taken as its objective meaning.

We unconsciously draw from all three approaches while trying to make sense of social reality. However, I find Weber's insights particularly useful. The outsider should shed her preconceived opinions and try to understand the context, imagine. The insider should shed her interests in that particular context and try to judge her actions against more objective benchmarks.

Limits of perception

I wrote before (here and here and here) that doing things that allow you to lose and forget yourself are the ones that make you happy. You don't think about yourself, what other people think of you, running out of time, what you will gain or lose, the before or the after. This is cliché, I know. But you are consumed in whatever you are doing, you are lost in the moment. You are not in control. You don't know where it's taking you, but you are willing to go.

(It is like reading a long book. A long book wouldn't be intimidating if you didn't think about how you will get to the end. A long journey away from home wouldn't scare you if you didn't count the days. Work would not be frustrating if you did not set your eyes to a vacation or promotion. Let go.)

Imagine you lived life like that. You didn't typecast yourself, your appearance, you didn't think about what others think of you, you didn't think about the past or the future. All these things wouldn't constrain your consciousness like metal bars. That way, you would become aware of so much more. You would constantly discover new truths, more pieces of the truth, the kinds I described in my post about truth and value in literature.

We could even discover original truths, truths noone else ever discovered before. Because we are not shy of being ourselves, looking at the world through noone else's eyes but our own.

We fear these discoveries, because they involve a "rewiring of our inner circuit," as Zadie Smith wrote in her essay about writing. Instead we prefer to hold on to our convictions of what is right and what is wrong and what is beautiful and what is plausible. We measure everything against the benchmarks in our head. When we look around, we only want to see confirmations to our beliefs. Our beliefs are like bubbles, they take up so much space. But we are afraid of bursting them, because we don't know how to fill the void of their absence. How much of the truth can you see looking through a bubble?

I went to BBC Proms with a friend the other night, and she told me that children are much more receptive of modern compositions than adults. Then yesterday, a colleague of mine who used to teach languages said that children can start speaking a new language much more easily. "College kids understand what you are talking about, but kids start speaking much more quickly," she said. That was probably because college kids were thinking too much.

We often fear forgetting what we have learned during our twenty years of education. But the point of our education was not the knowledge per se. That time and money was spent to train our brains to work better. We shouldn't be afraid to use it.

How can Babacan mend a broken heart?

As I was listening to Ali Babacan (our economy minister) on NTV Radio in the office, I almost liked him. I liked it when he said "they tell us to spend more money, to drive our debt/GDP ratio to 80%... we should also look at the maturities, the structure of the debt. Each country should find her own 'right' policy." He admitted that an agreement with the IMF would leave more room for private sector borrowing. He said that the skill sets of job seekers do not match what the employers are looking for. He observed cutting taxes isn't enough to ensure compliance. When given the opportunity to accuse the banks, he didn't take it: "The profits of the banks are increasing because the value of the government securities are increasing. Of course banks are being more selective now, but we also know that they are extending large loans to healthy companies - naturally only unsuccessful applicants speak up and complain."

My infatuation with him lasted until I saw his lecture at the LSE. I didn't mind so much that he arrived an hour late, but I am a bit impatient with bullshit nowadays. If there was still time for questions by the time I built up my courage to ask them, I would ask the following:

First of all, I would ask him, why didn't his government get on with the structural reforms when the global economy was booming and money was pouring into the country? Now he is talking of tackling the informal economy and investing in the education and training programs to improve the skills of the workforce. These problems are not new, they were always there, but the shower of foreign money allowed his government to look over them.

When asked about the persistent tax charges to Doğan Group, he said no sector should be immune to tax investigations. This is a clever way of turning the call for "freedom of media" on its head, but I hope nobody in the audience was naive enough to buy it (except maybe for that one guy who "applauded" our democratic and economic advances under the AKP). Then he proceeded to explain how Doğan could go to court or negotiate with the Finance Ministry, and in fact, 85% of the companies who went to court to dispute their tax penalties won the cases. Hımm, maybe that is a sign that the investigators of the Revenue Administration, the one the government is so afraid of making independent, are not doing their job properly? Way to encourage companies to repent and move into the formal sector.

But Babacan dealt the fatal blow when he started talking about democracy and judicial reform. In moments like this I emphatize with those activists who lose it and start screaming at the speaker. (Sometimes sanity seems like a privilege only to the ignorant and the naive.) How noble and enlightened of him to acknowledge our shortcomings so openly. Yes, we have a government so enlightened and open minded to recognize the mistakes of the past.

Only if they understood the spirit of democracy and justice.

Truth and value in literature

My friend forwarded me a video, an interview with thinker Jacques Derrida about the fear of writing. The video was comforting, as I found justification for my own fears in Derrida's words. I feel quite vulnerable when I write and publish something here, because it makes me open to scrutiny, judgement. The value of my thoughts and feelings will come out in the open. But I already decided that not standing your ground for fear of rocking the boat is not very respectable.

The reason I go ahead and publish my stuff here is neither this principle, nor a disregard for others' views. It is rather the strong emotion a "good" idea creates or a desperate need to overcome my confusion over something. My favorite posts were written under the influence of a powerful idea or feeling, or they culminated in it. A discovery gives rise to this emotion - gaining a deeper, vaster understanding of something. My discovery may be obvious to everyone but me, but it is new and dear to me. If I can come up with something that rings new and true to others, then I could call myself talented and my work valuable.

(Precisely because I love this feeling, I am also scared by it. I am scared of being possessed by a bad idea, convincing myself that it's good simply because I like the ecstasy of conviction.)

I am possessed by a new idea now: Over the past few days I have been thinking about truth and value in literature. I have written before that the idea of value in art or science is closely associated with the belief in the existence of a truth. The quicker and closer you get to a truth, any truth, the truth of a place, a time, a feeling, a dilemma, an encounter, a relationship, a situation, a conversation- the more valuable your work is. In this quest for discovering and portraying the truth, I don't think a literary piece is any different than an academic article. I like it if it can show me something new and meaningful. The ecstasy of reading a good novel or story would only be second to writing it (I have never written fiction, so I can only guess). It is like the first derivative of the enlightenment I described, only shadowed by a hint of envy.

A piece of fiction is obviously not an opinion piece, academic article or lecture. This is simply because of its subject matter. A good fiction writer does not try to reach conclusions, he simply presents the many facets of human relationships and dilemmas. This is the truth of our lives: there is no absolute truth. I can't imagine anything more off-putting than a self-righteous "moral of the story" in a work of fiction. A writer should respect his readers enough to let them think and decide for themselves.

I also believe in the limits of prose. Words are like rays of light flowing from our reason, hence I find it redundant to try to use them to break into the opaque world of emotion. The result would be melodramatic. Emotions are to be felt, not read about or understood. Poetry, music and cinema can evoke emotions, but prose can only point at them and rely on the readers' memory and imagination.

A reader puts his trust and faith in a writer when he starts reading them. He is after that second-hand joy of discovery, understanding. If the writer hides the meaning under too many cushions, he robs an open-minded reader of this reward.

Many readers, including myself, are too ready to underestimate their knowledge and abilities when faced with complicated prose. We are used to not understanding and find this quite normal. Sometimes we may really be ill-equipped to understand something. We may understand at another time, or we may never understand. But opaque language should not stand in the way of meaning. I started to detest being told that something is too sophisticated to be told in simple terms. I am not convinced of the value of a work of art unless I see it for myself.

As I said, I feel vulnerable when I share my thoughts, but even more than that, I fear false enlightenment. (Besides, it was me who wrote this, too.) I would appreciate comments very much.

"It was true that a person of great faith could with impunity have acted boldly: It was only that Michael was not that person. What he failed to do was accurately to estimate his own resources, his own spiritual level: and it was indeed from his later reflections on this matter that he had, with a certain bitterness, drawn the text for his sermon. One must perform the lower act which one can manage and sustain: not the higher act which one bungles." Iris Murdoch, the Bell, page 207.

"'We are both boulder-pushers.' This is his phrase for what he sees as his own failure. His fight to get out of his poor background, to win scholarships, to get the highest medical degrees, came out of an ambition to be a creative scientist. But he knows now he will never be this original scientist. And this defect has been partly caused by what is best in him, his abiding, tireless compassion for the poor, the ignorant, the sick. He has always, at a point when he should have chosen the library or the laboratory, chosen the weak instead. He will never now be a discoverer or a blazer of new paths. He has become a man who fights a middle-class, reactionary medical superintendent who wants to keep his wards locked and his patients in straitjackets. 'You and I, Ella, we are the failures. We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept the truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. But do the great enlightened mass of the British people know it? No. It is our task, Ella, yours and mine, to tell them. Because the great men are too great to be bothered. They are already discovering how to colonize Venus and to irrigate the moon. That is what is important for our time. You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, we'll put all our energies, all our talents, into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind.'" Doris Lessing, the Golden Notebook, page 195-196.

"What is terrible is that after every one of the phases of my life is finished, I am left with no more than some banal commonplace that everyone knows: in this case, that women's emotions are all still fitted for a kind of society that no longer exists. My deep emotions, my real ones, are to do with my relationship with a man. One man. But I don't live that kind of life, and I know few women who do. So what I feel is irrelevant and silly... I am always coming to the conclusion that my real emotions are foolish, I am always having, as it were, to cancel myself out. I ought to be like a man, caring more for my work than for people; I ought to put my work first, and take men as they come, or find an ordinary comfortable man for bread and butter reasons - but I won't do it, I can't be like that..." Doris Lessing, the Golden Notebook, page 283.

Ideas and actions

My friends were over for dinner and we were discussing whether we have a moral duty to help others, others who are less fortunate than ourselves. One of them suggested that big principles won't translate into action. Actions spring not from ideas or opinions but somewhere else, from a well of emotion. It may be years before grand theories spark up emotions. Everybody likes the idea of performing noble acts. How many of us are actually pushing the boulder?

That is why religions manipulated fear and guilt to motivate people into doing the "right thing". That's how magnificent churches were built. Aren't most of our actions (and inactions) still driven by fear and guilt? Maybe that is why it is so difficult to create a secular morality, it is so difficult to get people to feel and do anything. They tell us people are suffering, women are being trafficked, climate change will bring disaster if we don't care - they sound like a false alarm, we just look at them and wonder what's in all this for them. Are we supposed to respect them for their grasp of the truth and high moral sense? And mind you, if there's anything in it for them, we will feel much better because we won't have to question ourselves and change our behavior.

One of my friends says how important it is to live up to your principles, matching action with ideas. But are we those people, do we possess the emotional energy to back up our ideals?

So maybe the only way to understand who we are is to look at what we do, and what we don't.

Not done

Apparently, once Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi described his life story with the simple line, “I was raw, I cooked, I burned.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. I don’t have any claim on the spiritual connotations, obviously. I simply feel like some truth is escaping me, but I have no idea what it is. Sometimes writing really is like walking in the dark.

A good friend of mine got quite disappointed in me for not speaking openly about my disappointment in her. I gave her these long-winded explanations, bitter that she got the upper hand in our little philosophical debate: She was accusing me of being insincere, me, “the defender of sincerity and truth”! She was confident that my action was flawed at a much deeper, more fundamental level than hers, everything I was saying was obvious and beside the point, and I lacked the appreciation of a fundamental, common value... but what?

Then this morning I remembered something I wrote to another friend a few months ago. I wrote, “if I’m telling the feelings and thoughts you spark in me not to you, but to others – then no, we are not close.” And I remembered that I felt really strongly about it. So I did have this notion buried somewhere, I just forgot… I guess this is not a good enough answer.

The question then is; why am I not telling what I should to these people? People have their reasons for keeping quiet. There are different levels of relationships. Sometimes we foresake a higher, closer, more fulfilling relationship for security, peace and quiet, and just stay at that lower, “civil” level. We don’t rock the boat. The same can be said for foresaking dreams, principles, the truth. And when we don’t face and speak the truth, we are insincere. Sincerity is not just about sharing the most mundane details of your life and feelings. Ayca Sen wrote a beautiful piece about this yesterday.

And the reason I do this is simply my insecurity. If I don’t try for something better, I will never have to face my true worth.

Last night I also remembered something I wrote when I was sixteen. The girl I was then doesn’t like the person I turned out to be. Perhaps I am living a Benjamin Button lifestyle, turning raw as years go by.

Recipe for writing

In one of my posts I asked, "So far I've only seen feelings and ideas in the world. Will I be able to create worlds out of feelings and ideas?"

Now I realize even more clearly that this is how people write. There are concepts behind the stuff of every day life. Emotions and opinions trigger our deeds and words, they are the gist of the story. But one can't give them away just like that, that would be too obvious. First pick an emotion, a thought that moves you. Then work outwards, create a world out of that concept. Serve it to the reader and let them explore and think for themselves, let them recognize the gist, the truth. Let them unwrap the story. Because true joy lies in discovery. You just tell the reader to "look!" but don't tell them what it is they should see.

parallel currents

I've been in this town for a while

and I'm not going away just yet

we have history

we laugh and chat away

we stay in here, now

it's in the silence

it's in our eyes

common knowledge

common understanding

we won't refer to it

although this seems

shrewd and shallow

we won't mention it

below the surface

a strong undercurrent

background noise

of lower frequency

words can't break into it

don't listen to it

stay in here, now

we have history

it's better with it-

better to leave it

alone.

anything goes

I realized something only today - I wrote before that in East London I feel like myself, just like I do in Galata/Tünel. Without really thinking about it, I assumed that it was because these places had an atmosphere that somehow suited my personality. But today I realized that it is not that they have a personality - it is their lack of personality, their heterogeneity that is so accepting and liberating. Nobody is like one another - everybody can be like themselves.

animal spirits

It's been a long time since a book inspired me not to quote it, but write about it. I got Iris Murdoch's Bell from the second-hand book stalls under the Waterloo bridge. The themes it was addressing, I have been thinking about myself recently. More than talking about the book per se, I would like to explore these themes.

The book follows the thoughts and feelings of three members of a layman's religious community in West England. It primarily deals with the dichotomy between relativism vs. absolutism, as the characters search for the absolute truth, only to find that it is unattainable. Just like the enclosed grounds of the abbey across the lake, which is home to an order of nuns, truth and purity are there, theoretically possible, but out of reach.

Michael, the leader of the community, cannot find the strength in himself to live up to absolute moral standards in the face of love and desire. Dora, the erring wife, finds it impossible to grasp herself and the people around her as they really are; only the paintings in the National Gallery are able to comfort her with their absolute beauty - true beyond her interpretation. Toby, the young and wholesome boy, loses his carefree innocence with a simple kiss, falling into desperate confusion.

And all this seems to stem from one simple fact: The human condition, the mess we find ourselves in. Our minds sitting on top of an elephant of emotion, struggling to ride it. Sometimes it fails. And our curse is precisely this: We are aware of having lost control of the elephant, and we are aware that the elephant is taking us to the gutter. We are aware that nobody in their right minds would be doing what we are doing. We are aware that we are not interpreting people, situations correctly. But we simply don't know how to interpret them, what the truth is. Only if we had a manual to describe how people actually are. The whole thing has the urgency and inevitability of a disaster, and we are as helpless as in a dream.

That's why we worship and seek the absolute - wisdom, love, rules to live by. Only because we know we are unable to attain them. They are just ideas in the poor rider's head, the residue of a lost day and age, when people weren't as free to so visibly succumb to their weaknesses. But ideas and expectations remain; they continue to fool us into believing that something better is possible. We don't fail to be caught off guard every time reality falls short of what ought to be.

I should give the last word to poor Michael, who so eloquently explains that we are only entitled to the compass that is within us, and nothing else:

"In each of us there are different talents, different propensities, many of them capable of good or evil use. We must endeavour to know our possibilities and use what energy we really possess in the doing of God's will. As spiritual beings, in our imperfections and also in the possibility of our perfection, we differ profoundly one from another. How different we are from each other is something which it may take a long time to find out; and certain differences may never appear at all. Each one of us has his own way of apprehending God. I am sure you will know what I mean when I say that one finds God, as it were, in certain places; one has, where God is concerned, a sense of direction, a sense that here is what is most real, most good, most true. This sense of reality and weight attaches itself to certain experiences in our lives - and for different people these experiences may be different. God speaks to us in various tongues. To this, we must be attentive." pg. 209-210.

Piyale Madra, Radikal, 29 Temmuz.

İmam Hatip Liseleri ve Türkiye'de Eğitim

İmam hatip lisesi mezunları istedikleri üniversiteye girebilecek. Bundan böyle devletin bütün kurumlarında ve özel şirketlerde üst düzeylere yükselebilir, başbakan bile olabilirler.

Geçen hafta Yükseköğretim Kurulu (YÖK), meslek lisesi öğrencilerinin kendi alanlarından başka bir alanda üniversite öğrenimi yapmak istemeleri halinde orta öğretim başarı puanlarının daha düşük bir katsayıyla çarpılması uygulamasına son verdi. Bu uygulama 1999'daki bir YÖK kararına dayanıyordu, AKP 2004'te katsayıları kaldıran bir yasayı meclisten geçirmiş, ancak dönemin cumhurbaşkanı Sezer yasayı veto etmişti. AKP o zaman konunun üstüne daha fazla gitmedi. Bu sırada YÖK'te AKP'yle aynı görüşteki üyeler çoğunluğu kazandı, bu karar da en sonunda "normal yollardan" alınabildi. Yargıtay onursal başsavcısı Sabih Kanadoğlu kararı kimin iptal edebileceğini söylemiş bile: Danıştay.

...

Yazının geri kalanı burda.

"Dora had been in the National Gallery a thousand times and the pictures were almost as familiar to her as her own face. Passing between them now, as through a well-loved grove, she felt a calm descending on her. She wandered a little, watching with compassion the poor visitors armed with guide books who were peering anxiously at the masterpieces. Dora did not need to peer. She could look, as one can at last when one knows a great thing very well, confronting it with a dignity which it has itself conferred. She felt that the pictures belonged to her, and reflected ruefully that they were about the only thing that did. Vaguely, consoled by the presence of something welcoming and responding in the place, her footsteps took her to various shrines at which she had worshipped so often before...

...

Dora was always moved by the pictures. Today she was moved, but in a new way. She marvelled, with a kind of gratitude, that they were all still here, and her heart was filled with love for the pictures, their authority, their marvellous generosity, their splendour. It occurred to her that here at last was something real and something perfect. Who had said that, about perfection and reality being in the same place? Here was something which her consciousness could not wretchedly devour, and by making it part of her fantasy make it worthless. Even Paul, she thought, only existed now as someone she dreamt about; or else as a vague external menace never really encountered and understood. But the pictures were something real outside herself, which spoke to her kindly and yet in sovereign tones, something superior and good whose presence destroyed the dreary trance-like solipsism of her earlier mood. When the world had seemed to be subjective it had seemed to be without interest or value. But now there was something else in it after all."

Iris Murdoch, The Bell, pg. 195-196.

yok şöyleymiş de yok böyleymiş de

I.

Ters-yüz

Garip.

Bir dalga nasıl

Yaklaşıyor, yaklaşıyor da kıyıya

Birden kırılıp kendi içine dönüyor ya

Sonra genişliyor ve inceliyor ve geri çekiliyor ve yok oluyor

Bütün yanlarıyla.

II.

Su sporları

İnsan bazen durgun denizde

Gidebilecekken her bir yöne

Kendi akıntısında sürüklenir

Kafası suyun içinde

...

Seninle dalıyormuşuz

Derinliğin ışığı çaldığı bir yerde

Sonra sen birden çıkmaya kalktın

Meğer bağlıymış tüplerimiz birbirine

Ben biraz daha durdum suyun içinde

Çıkan kabarcıkları seyrettim

Dipteki renkli, canlı şeylere son bir kez bakıp

Can havliyle çıktım suyun yüzüne

Gerçeğe.

III.

Kâğıt üzerinde

Siz beni yanlış anladınız, üzerinize alındınız.

Neden acaba?

Bu bahsettiğim siz değildiniz.

Ben bile değildim.

Öyle çok soyut şeylerden bahsediyordum ben.

Herkesin başına gelen şeylerden.

Nitekim siz okuyun diye değil

Herkes okusun diye yazıyorum.

Bu makyajı sizin için değil

Kendim için yaptım

Aslında iyi tuttunuz kendinizi

Neler neler anlatmıştım ben size

Başkalarının önünde,

Kendi önünüzde yüzüme vurabileceğiniz.

Ne kadar inkar etsem inandıramazdım kendimi

Öyle güçlü kanıtlar var elinizde.

Yakınlık dürüstlükse

Hiç yakın değiliz sizinle.

IV.

Yanlışlık

Şu son ayları görecek gözüm yok

Bir yanlış anlama yüzünden böyleler

Bu kadar mahçup, boynu bükükler.

Aman ne yapayım

Atsan atılmaz, satsan satılmaz.

.

Kader

Bugun Hrant Dink davasindaki tanigin ifadesini okurken, kaderin ne demek olabilecegini dusundum. O tanik hanim, isminin gazetelerde belirecegini, saniklarla benzer kafa yapisina ve goruslere sahip kimselerin, hatta saniklarin azmettiricilerinin hedefi olabilecegini bile bile, korkusuzca taniklik yapmis. Sonra soyle dedim: Bu tanigin kisiligine sahip birisi, karsisina boyle bir olay ciktiginda, boyle davraniyor. Bir denklem gibi bir sey bu. Birini iyi tanidiginizda da degisik durumlar karsisinda ne tavir alabilecegini kestirebilirsiniz ya. Bu tanigin Hrant Dink’in ofisine yakin calismasi, Dink’in vurulmasina sahit olmasi tamamen tesaduf. Sahit oldugu olaya tepkisi ise tesaduf degil, aslinda ozgur irade de degil, kendi kontrol edemedigi, karar vermedigi bir seye, oldugu insana boyun egis. Cunku baska turlu davransa ici rahat etmeyecek, kendine ihanet etmis olacak. Hayatin karsimiza cikardigi olaylara ve insanlara tepkimiz, bizi iyi taniyanlarin malumudur aslinda. Kendimizi biliyorsak, bizim de.

Latest from Turkey

Today Ali Sirmen from the Cumhuriyet newspaper appeared on Ruşen Çakır's and Mirgün Cabas' Yazı İşleri on NTV. I don't like repeating myself or other people, but sometimes you have to keep making the same point. Here's a little backgrounder:

Last week, our parliament passed a law that transfers the authority to try military personnel from military courts to civil courts for crimes against state security, the government, judiciary and the constitutional order, as well as forming an armed organization. This applies to the soldiers, who are accused of being involved with the Ergenekon plot to overthrow the AKP government. In fact, the government appears to have deliberately targeted them with this new law. The most prominent one is colonel Dursun Çiçek, the alleged author of the strategy to "finish" reactionary Islam and the Fethullah Gülen brotherhood. He was arrested for his alleged involvement with Ergenekon a couple of days ago, only to be released by the same civil court yesterday.

The new law is an EU accession requirement, and an outsider would view it as a step towards a sounder democracy, making soldiers more accountable to civilians. This would be the case if our judiciary was truly independent. However, some of the prosecutors and judges (as well as the police) are ideologically motivated. One of the judges has withdrawn from the case due to what he called "institutional pressures." The suspects of the Ergenekon investigation have been under arrest for a long time without a trial. The indictments are so complex that even well meaning judges would take a very long time to untangle them. We may never find out the truth.

In this environment, it is not possible to be happy about a reform, knowing that the roots of the problem lay much deeper. The judiciary and security forces are used as weapons in this power struggle, leaving Turkish citizens with a deep suspicion about these institutions' willingness and ability to protect their rights and freedoms.