Whiter gohan home

Star Trek or Dune; Hierarchy of Bullies or Liberal Democracy?

One common assumption/belief is that for a society to be “functioning well” there must be order. Order can have different meanings, a simple definition  of order  might be a society where most people are able to live a satisfactory life. There are two basic notions  about the nature of a well functioning society.

The theory of the Hierarchy of Bullies is based on the assumption that individuals are always acting in their own self interest, that some  individuals, or all individuals at same time,  will  do bad things in their own interest creating  a poorly functioning society—i.e. the natural condition of people is they are self serving and the natural state of people in society is disorder.

What brings order is the emergence of a bully who uses authoritarian means to establish and maintain order over a group. Society  is a pyramid (from low to high) of decreasing  bullies  in a hierarchy with the top one being a “ head bully.” The relationship that holds the society together is that each level of the hierarchy is responsible for holding their controlled group in line and each bully owes loyalty to the bully above.

The bullies make the laws, or rules and when people resist this order  it is because it is the natural state of people, i.e. its not because of the rules, but this is what people naturally  do causing  disorder and the bully prevents disorder by keeping them in line.

Bullies are authoritarian who make deals based on personal relationships with others, bullies or not and its the personal relationship that keeps order in society.

Liberal Democracy is the notion that  individuals can act in their own self interest while recognizing that  one of their  one of the main “self interests” be a “peaceful consistent functioning society,”

Individuals can develop the skills to understand their needs, communicate with others and democratically—as a group—make conscious agreements —laws— and commitments to maintain a  functioning society.

The bullies theory of society is similar to what Hobbes described in The Leviathan while liberal democracy  may be considered similar to  the development western institutions from the Magna Charta through the development of democratic  institutions and common law.

These are not mutually exclusive , or absolute categories, more like a four dimensional continuum with vary degrees of differences. From recorded history and archaeology  we have a sense of societies through history and while details are beyond my knowledge or the  space here, societies can be placed  somewhere on such a continuum.

Still you do no have to believe me, sometimes its a struggle to get my legs to  reach the ground.

This is made from a  B&W negative, an image of the my shadow in the corner of a store front window, if you can can imagine this in black and white the original image  is my shadow,  I have colored the whole image and the values are not the same relationship  as in the B&W image.

Looking from here, there, wear, qear, it always appears between us. Its’ daytime..

At a street corner waiting on a traffic light,  in a window across the street was this family.  Was it  a hospital or a government building?

You would have to admit that if you met me at Bay Fair Station Fremont Platform you would not.

When I was young I pretended I had needs  and was just looking for someone but usually found, or lost,  myself alone, at least there was door to open . . .

I lived in Jamaica Plain just off Franklin Park and this family would often walk by on their way to shopping, I thought I was about his age then, I did not have his style, wondered if he picked out his own clothes, what kind of job  he had, whether he went to college, What was his life like compared to mine?

Wearever it went, you were weighting for the sound of music so I waited to short for you, its better not to wait for someone else to sing fore you.

 

 

 

Artistical inspite of technicality

Today anyone using a camera can express something  visually complex. Human beings have been around for over 400,000 years while most  people being able to express something visually complex has been around for barely  120 years,  arbitrarily choosing the introduction of the Brownie Camera in 1900.

Expressing oneself visually and expressing oneself artistically are not the same thing and the former is necessary to  achieve the latter while being able to express yourself artistically is not necessary  to express yourself visually.

Many people will have different definitions for what “artistic” means but most will approach agreement concerning  what technical means. Is that photograph just a recording of a moment in time or does it have meaning that I don’t over or understand?

One difference is that to merit artistic accomplishment among  viewers there will be a shared experience, a common feeling.  When  viewers experience an artistic piece of  Art—which is technically proficient—they experience a common feeling.

Many people might say that “Art is in the eye the beholder” but people are not clones, they are dynamic and different. Popular has a lowest common denominator position, the less  you  have to say the more it will appeal to a larger group, while if you  have nothing to say it may not appeal to anyone or if you have something really substantial to say it may require that the viewer be sophisticated (have a developed knowledgable standard).

Do you use your camera to invade the private moments of others? Is the camera expressing a feeling or just what you (and out people) would have seen had your eyes been in the position of the camera lens.

Maybe the camera and you are looking down on me, thinking probably I am too old for this job or that I have been promoted up the professional  ladder until I reached the job for which I was not qualified and just left there waiting to retire.

Some simply  prefer pickled salted mackerel on ekaratsu.

Some of these are no longer with us, and some were potted by Gary Holt from  Berkeley. One American-shino style bowl is of a set of four, found in a local museum of art in Roswell sometime in the 1980s.

Generally in the morning I eat fruit,— we have various fruit trees for much of the year” raison, almonds, granola and milk . . .no Japanese pottery here,  only a few Chinese noodle soup bowls with an image of  rooster—in a Chinese restaurant  you may get served with one of these bowls as they have been  used in restaurants for many years. While mine are old, you can get them cheaply in a Chinese goods store.

Or sometimes I have natto.  This is a Kuro-Oribe chawan— a black Oribe kiln tea bowl.

Designs, made using a photo shadow  image of myself taking an image of myself  It puts  me  in the company of like minded clones

I am not too likely to wander away  frustrated and in rage when I just don’t get it,  the blind bleeting the blind, it is a safer position  than the one  left behind.

Everywear I look the universe looks the same, whenever I look it looks the same, how I look, it looks the same, its enough to drive me sane.

Some thought I was having too much fun to get hit, and even though they said it was their independent judgment and they were just being  honest, my feelings were hurt.

We all have our own struggles, these two arrived  from Appalachia in a car almost out of gas,  barely running,  had not eaten for days . . .

McLuhan wrote about two women approaching each other, one behind a baby buggy. When they meet one says “What a beautiful baby!,” to which the other replies, “Oh but you should see the photographs.”

And then just color is enough, at least it doesn’t make me feel a lone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fleeing my being fore less

On another day it might have been a lasting memory, standing there outside it seemed sad, like the way a dog feels when finding a cold in the nose.

The complexities of Troying to keep it out, would the wall close enough to filter out  those hiding to seek.

That was why I thought to write a letter to record my last words before I die . . .

when then, or perhaps it was a few days later or even befour,  I could not find any to say bye which I wanted to be remembered.

You could decide for yourself  if I were to write them, then again bye the words not written here you can imagine where, wear and ware and no, the meaning not there,  before I could, should or would.

I thought if I just looked hard enough, there was a place for me and you, together, it did not matter if anyone found us, hiding was not necessary when we did not care to see them, and explicitly not to invite them over for dinner or on a Sunday drive in  the country.

Instead it was always outside, on the street without hopes or dreams and with commitments and obligations that know one, or two or  three (n, n1, n2, . . .) wanted.

I address you You’re Excellency, but will not ask for what I knead, that would give you power to hurt me, never more, never more . . .

This would be how you would see my last words when.

 

Sat pat to eat my turn at bat

One day I became interested in string theory, which explains some things by suggesting there are more dimensions than the ones we know—point, line, shape and solid. Or we used to have three: one dimension, two dimensions, three dimensions  and then with relativity; four dimensions or space-time.

Bu actually one, two three dimensions are not “real”—Euclid is definitive on this in The Elements—  a point, a line, a two dimension shape are all just conceptual  tools  humans created and yet no matter how conceptual they have been very useful.

For not being real, for being an concept, pretty much anyone can measure the dimensions of a room and the go to the store and  buy the correct size rug. But then occurred to me that a shadow might be a two dimensional object—shades of Flatland by E. Abbott.

Was my shadow my real self  and this three dimensional object moving through life time  just a  childish illusion. Maybe its the shadows which are real people and the three dimensional things just some kind of collateral phenomenon temporarily energizing in the ether . . .

Who could I ask, where could I hide, when do the Indians dance.

Would I understand my life better by mistrusting the truth? Or by believing in my dark side . . .

Was it here, there

Or where

But the song said “If I knew the way I would take you there ”and so I waited fore you , shaking with miscontrollable anticipation

Searching for myself where could I turn but to Google, I was here, but I was there too, a thinly difference in a “t.” The realty is performed in the hard surface of the street

And in the back alleys, three boys fifty years ago, they could be retired from successful careers,. perhaps shot by a policeman or fell down a well . . .

But then matter where I was in my life or how little of it had to live, I did not want to know what was around the corner.

Empty faces answered my questions

Girls! do you want to know anymore about them?  What’s the group behind doing? a wedding kimono and traditional men’s wear moving through the rain.

In position on the rug, or On the rug in position, another desparado waiting for the mom ent.

And still when I look at this image, I do not feel a desire to know any more than I see  now, do not confuse me with facts

Some people searching for their happiness help others, some hurt, kill and steal.  Or maybe its not even important.

Weighting fore the rapture

I met John while in college, he was not a student the time, claimed to have been and dropped out, could be, I did uotknow, and he seemed to appear now and then, here and there, no schedule, no pre-arranged  dates. Here he is at the campus, his “politics” were on his sleeve, and as you; can see  here, of concern for others.

In 1968 the draft scheduled a physical for my name and as it turned out John was also called. I was instructed to  appear early in the morning for a bus ride to the physical center and when I got there John was there, laying outside the bus in a coffin.

They made him take the coffin to the back the bus  and he played in it the whole trip about three  half hours. When the bus arrived John would not get out of the coffin, no on would carry him out, and  so he stayed in the coffin in the bus the whole day and then retuned  in the coffin in the bus. I do not know what happened after that.

Maybe people today are more interested in their lives than we  were back when

Shiokara—salted squid—goes good with sake and e-karatsu plate

 

My mother–after her stroke, memory loss and expressive aphasia–and I in Adobe Bridge.

Moving fish from one place to another one afternoon at (the old) Tsukiji

Perhaps the two girls joined up with the two boys or both were shy and took long their friends for support  but only one couple, the other two had to stand around being a supportive audience for a drama which left them standing  on the side , what friends do for each other.

Bob and Karen had a pop up crepe in Franklin Park on Kite Day (circa 1970), I would drive them  in my van and pick them up later, no mobile phones then, just pre arranged schedules, and commitments.

A little street food window somewhere between  Sensoji and Kappabashi  Street, they made some delicious yakatori, ¥400 each

Grandfather and grandson practicing or perhaps fantasizing  to be an adult in a state park camping area in Maine.

Two me or knot to me, what could be answer when there was no question.