On Tolkien and Multiculturalism
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I do some of my best thinking when I'm driving. When I was younger, I had a 30 minute commute from the town where I lived to the town where I worked with very little of it being actually in town. So I regularly spent time on the open road. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you have to listen to me when I get done) I don't drive much anymore. I live about 5 minutes away from work and don't get a chance to travel much, so opportunities for uninterrupted musing just don't present themselves too often.

Today I drove over to my parents's house. Before I left, the Head Rat and I had watched the Two Towers again. While on the road, it occurred to me how glad I am that Tolkien wasn't a multiculturalist. Imagine if you will, the Tolkien universe transformed by today's notions of multiculturalism and political correctness. In the PC Middle Earth, there is no notion of good and evil. All the varieties of experience are valid. Orc culture, civilization and life experience are no different and inherently no better or worse, than that of hobbits, elves, dwarves or men. Taking unilateral or cooperative action against a neighboring kingdom whose actions appeared threatening, without actual proof of current hostile intent would be unthinkable. A conspiracy to retain possession of the Ring would be unacceptable. The Ring is, after all, a cultural artifact and the Politically Correct thing to do would be to return it to its rightful place in the indigenous culture from whence it came. Not much of a story, when you think of it.

OK, maybe its a good thing I don't do much driving anymore...

by Cziltang 
Posted: Saturday, January 24 2004 07:18:23 PM

Still Alive
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Last week I was all wired up about the material I was working on. I wrote quite a bit, but then got sick and spent the better part of 6 days in bed trying not to get pneumonia. I don't like staying in bed and I detest daytime television so I listened to a lot of music and the rain on the roof and didn't do much of anything else, because I couldn't concentrate long enough to write or read. Although I have a bit more written, the only bit I'm ready to post is this small section:

The First Wave

The first wave of crystallization occurred when I came to grips with what I had perceived as my own failure. After a few years I had a pile of evidence that no matter how much "help" I forced on people, some of them still did stupid things and I had to send them to prison. I thought I wasn't trying hard enough or I didn't know the right thing to do. So I worked harder and read more social theory, because it was obviously my fault. But still the evidence mounted. There were cases where I was convinced there just wasn't anything else I could have done. I eventually came to the conclusion that the failures weren't all my fault. Some of the clients were victims of such horrible socialization and oppression for so long that I just couldn't fix it in the time allotted to me. So I pardoned myself for some of my failures, convinced that it was the system and there the first wave grounded out. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

 

Other Matters

I ran into this article last week in the Register (the IT website). Since I run a treatment program, I'm always looking for advances in the field, but treatment for text message addicts? Not bloody likely. (By the way, if you have any interest in IT news, you really should read the Register. And check out the BOFH installments. I would try to explain the BOFH, but its something you should see for yourself. I will just say that BOFH stands for "Bastard Operator from Hell".

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, January 20 2004 06:55:50 PM