The story of my political formation

The fact that I came of age during the Clinton years had an important effect on my political outlook. The first presidential election I paid any attention to was 1992, when I was 15, and although I naturally rooted for Clinton because my liberal parents did, my observations were mostly superficial. I actually don't remember the 1994 Republican takeover. It just wasn't on my radar at the time. But a year later, as I was beginning college, the government shutdown had an immediate impact on my family. My father was a federal employee, as was our next-door neighbor, a single black woman with a teenage son. It didn't help things that one of my brothers had recently passed away.

For the first time, I got a very direct glimpse of the effect that politics could have on everyday lives. It was no longer just a funny game I saw on TV, featuring colorful personalities in fancy suits. I also began to have my first informed judgment on a political figure, in this case a Congressional leader by the name of Newt Gingrich, who provided me with my first taste of what it was like to deeply loathe a politician.

I also was beginning to discover the phenomenon of Rush Limbaugh, as well as Christian Coalition figures such as Falwell, Robertson, and Reed. I personally encountered people who insisted with a straight face that the president was a rapist, a murderer, and a drug addict. These people, who included a few of my parents' friends, typically spoke of liberals as if describing a distinct species of insect. Arguing with them was usually an exercise in futility, for they had a barrage of "facts" they had picked up from talk radio, which they listened to far more often than I had time to listen to anything.

These experiences left a powerful impression on me, because I couldn't help noticing that the contemporary American right was apparently run by complete lunatics and charlatans. The maligned liberals, on the other hand, were mostly represented for me by thoughtful milquetoasts like Michael Kinsley. Maybe it wasn't fair that I got such a terrible first impression of conservatives, who I know include many reasonable individuals. I was well aware that the left had its share of clowns, such as Al Sharpton, but they didn't seem to matter a whole lot. There was a notable imbalance in the political spectrum that belied the cliche evenhandedness so many pundits found seductive.

I sometimes got the sense that even the conservative intelligentsia were simply playing the good cop to Limbaugh's bad cop, saying the same stuff in gentler language. A 1995 article I read by William F. Buckley took Clinton to task for his attacks on Limbaugh. Buckley conceded that Limbaugh "induces hatred" and that "if I were a liberal, I would hate him," but he went on to suggest that FDR and Truman did the same sort of thing to the other side. Not a word about Limbaugh's lies or conspiracy theories. This from the 20th century's greatest conservative intellectual.

I made these observations long before I gave any serious thought to budgets, taxes, health care, trade, and so on. While certain causes like environmentalism and gay rights were no-brainers to me from the start, I was initially tempted in a more rightward direction on such issues as abortion, affirmative action, and school vouchers. But the disintegration of any sane right-wing establishment was formative for me, and I would watch the problem grow ever worse as the years passed.

Everything that's happening now looks to me like the logical end result of what was happening in the '90s. A very moderate Democratic president presiding over an economic boom is clobbered by conservatives as some kind of left-wing hippie and nearly hounded from office for sexual lapses of no consequence to anyone but his own family. A Republican enters the White House under highly questionable circumstances and in the course of eight years leaves the country in two hapless wars one of which he started for no good reason, unprecedented debt, and the worst recession since the Great Depression. The disaster of the Bush years is so breathtaking I almost distrust my own judgment on the matter. Maybe I'm falling prey to the same kind of partisan hatred that characterized Clinton's adversaries. But no matter how I look at it, I can't escape the conclusion that Bush truly is one of the worst presidents in history. And it's amazing to watch the conservative establishment today attempt to make us all forget that just a few short years ago they practically worshiped the man.

When it comes to the right, the most visible difference between the 1990s and today is the rise of Fox News. Yes, it did begin in 1996, but it didn't become a force to be reckoned with until the Bush years. The first sign came with the election itself, when a reporter who just happened to be Bush's first cousin called the election for Bush, and all the other news networks--the legitimate ones, that is--followed suit. This set the tone for the Florida post-election fiasco that would follow.

Fox has grown steadily worse. Before, it was a right-leaning network that pretended to be fair and balanced. Now it's just a TV version of talk radio, a calculated, large-scale attempt to brainwash its viewers through the use of misleading propaganda, outright lies, and conspiracy-mongering, nonstop 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week. It is nothing more than the right's Pravda. And it still has an astonishing influence on the mainstream networks, the ones we're supposed to believe are "liberal-biased."

So it was all set when the godfather of this mode of politics, Rush Limbaugh, said he hopes Obama fails, and not a single Republican in power had the strength to distance himself from Limbaugh, not without quickly reversing himself and groveling at Limbaugh's feet for forgiveness. This is what's truly new about the right wing: there is now no separation at all between the propagandists of right-wing media and the Republicans holding public office.

And somehow, the things said against Obama and other Democrats are worse than during the Clinton years. Back then, the attacks were merely nasty. Now, it is absolutely no exaggeration to say that Republican politicians and commentators are stoking insurrection. The tone of conservative hatred today isn't just hysterical, but contains not-very-subtle appeals to violence: talks of Second Amendment remedies, drawing crosshairs on Congressional maps with the slogan "Don't retreat--reload," explicitly defending violent overthrow of the government. The rhetoric is increasingly apocalyptic, and the very name of the opposition movement--"Tea Party"--deliberately alludes to the events leading up to the American Revolution. What's scariest about all this is that the Clinton years gave us Timothy McVeigh; who knows what's coming up now. And something will, make no mistake, because the tea-partiers will invariably be disappointed when the officials they have elected fail to stop Obama's agenda. And they don't strike me as the sorts of people to take disappointment by packing their bags and walking home.

That's why there's a lot more to the current political situation than rooting for teams. I don't mean to suggest that the past was one long Golden Age–I know my parents' generation alone went through Vietnam and Watergate–but I feel in my bones that there's something uniquely disturbing about what's happening now, even under the first president in my life I've had any enthusiasm for.

This post is based on a comment I wrote on Emily Hauser's blog last week. She suggested that I post it to my blog. I expanded on a few sections and edited the wording here and there, but it's more or less the same.

Cross-posted to Daily Kos.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and yours is wrong

In the season finale of Boston Legal, a show I've never seen before, a judge files a motion to have the town of Concord, Massachusetts secede from the Union. Alan Shore (James Spader) argues for the defense. Denny Crane (William Shatner) takes the opposing side. Their arguments get so heated (at one point Alan tells Denny to "just shut up") it threatens their friendship.

The case centers on questions we've all encountered over the past several years. Has Bush put our country on a road to tyranny unlike any previous president? Do we face a uniquely dangerous enemy that justifies Bush's actions? Is attacking the president wise in a time of war? Can dissent be patriotic?

Denny privately tells Alan why the case bothers him so much. His explanation is so heartfelt we realize their differences go beyond mere politics. Whereas Alan views the case as an intellectual exercise, for Denny it runs much deeper.

Denny: Something I thought you understood but you clearly don't understand: for people of my generation, being an American is personal.

Alan: I realize....

Denny: No, you don't. You don't. In your life, growing up, you just took for granted that America would always be. Why not? It's a superpower, strongest country in the world. In my lifetime, with Hitler trying to take over the world and having the means to do so, we went to bed scared at night that America would end. Imagine that feeling. The tragedy for me here is, you have no idea how deeply offended I am by the idea of a town wanting to secede...which means you don't know me, Alan. Not really. Our friendship has all the depth of a jigger of scotch.

I wondered why the show wanted to explore how two people of very different political persuasions navigate a friendship with each other. Some in the audience will relate to the situation, others will marvel that the feat is even possible. I'm sure there are Americans who go through life without ever having a close relationship with someone with a different political outlook. How frequent this is, I don't know. It sure doesn't describe me, a lifelong liberal from a conservative community, Orthodox Jews.

I think that political diversity among friends is healthy. It helps prevent people from dehumanizing the other side. Let's say your friend seems like the most decent and reasonable guy you know until he starts talking about politics, and suddenly he sounds to you like an ogre with asinine ideas. You may never come to respect his opinions, but at least you realize that a person you respect can hold them.

Political differences mean a lot to some people. Sean Hannity actually runs a dating site for conservatives. I can't judge that choice--after all, some people cannot understand my decision to date only Jews--but it still seems odd to me.

One couple who'd agree is James Carville and Mary Matalin, who not only belong to different parties but have worked for opposing candidates. They claim not to talk politics at home, though sometimes you wonder at his motivations. When Bill Richardson, a former member of the Clinton Administration, endorsed Obama instead of Hillary, Carville said, "Mr. Richardson's endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic." Carville subsequently wrote an entire op-ed piece defending this idiotic remark, but nowhere in the column did he explain what we all wanted to know: if Richardson is Judas, then who's Christ? Bill or Hillary? Or is that Billary? I must have missed the rule which states that political loyalty must be extended to the person's spouse--unless, of course, your name is Carville.

The last person you'd think of as a poster child for inter-political romance, Ann Coulter, has had a series of them. You begin to wonder about her statement that liberals have "joyless sex." Either she's no selfish hedonist, or we've been right in suspecting that her venomous persona is some kind of act, though if so, I have no idea what it means. Ask her suitors.

I have little patience for villain-style politics because I see most issues as complex. I didn't always feel that way. As a kid, I perceived my own views as nothing more than common sense. But I gradually discovered that views I considered indefensible turned out to be quite defensible once I listened to the other side. This happened to me over and over again. That's why I'm amazed at the number of people who maintain a black-and-white outlook into their old age.

Not that I'm a moderate. I opposed the Iraq War from the beginning, and I'm annoyed by politicians from both parties who started criticizing the war only after it became fashionable to do so. At the same time, I understand why good and reasonable people were led to support it. The decision to take out Saddam is not something I can just dismiss as evil, no matter how unjustified I believe it was.

On the other hand, I may be guilty of over-intellectualizing. I don't have loved ones stationed in Iraq. I haven't been personally screwed by Bush's policies. Thus, it's a bit too easy for me to think of the debates as an intellectual exercise rather than something serious that impacts lives.

The Three Jews

What's the difference between a schlemiel, a schlimazel, and a nebbish? The schlemiel spills the soup down the schlimazel's neck, and the nebbish has to clean up the mess.

That's my personal variation on Leo Rosten's version of an old Yiddish joke. A few years ago as I was watching The Three Stooges, it occurred to me that this joke provides a perfect description of Curly, Moe, and Larry.

Curly is the schlemiel, the clumsy oaf who always causes problems. Moe is the schlimazel, the guy who's always at the receiving end of bad luck. And Larry is the nebbish, the meek middleman who gets punished for Curly's mistakes.

The schlemiel/schlimazel distinction is played out throughout the series, as Curly is chronically stupid but not necessarily unlucky, while Moe is chronically unlucky but not quite as stupid as Curly. There is even an episode (I can't remember the title) in which Curly is blessed with good luck.

Would their fitting into classic Yiddish character types by any chance have something to do with the fact that the actors were Jewish? When I watched the films as a kid, at first I didn't know they were Jewish. And even when I found out, the fact didn't resonate with me. I didn't think of the jokes as "Jewish humor" per se. I perceived them as nothing more than slapstick by comedians who happened to be Jewish, and all that mattered to me was that they made me laugh.

Seeing the films as an adult, I was a little surprised that I still found them funny. But I began to notice things I hadn't noticed before, notably the Jewishness of the humor.

For starters, they use many Yiddish words, which may not have been known to general audiences at the time. It was like their personal inside jokes. I suspect that Larry grew up in a Yiddish-speaking household. When he disguises himself as a Chinese person, he simply speaks Yiddish in a stereotypical Chinese accent. And when he wants to be Indian, he dons a turban and...you guessed it, speaks Yiddish with an Indian accent.

There are also some general Jewish jokes, as when the wind blows in a scrap of paper containing an advertisement for "O'Brien's Kosher Restaurant."

In 1940, they did an episode called You Nazty Spy! parodying Hitler and the Nazis several months before Charlie Chaplin did something similar in The Great Dictator. These films were significant, for they were the first time Hollywood took a stand against the Nazis, in the months leading up to Pearl Harbor. And it's interesting to compare the perspectives of Jews and non-Jews, since Chaplin later regretted having made The Great Dictator, but the Stooges always considered You Nazty Spy! their best film.

They liked it so much they eventually made a sequel, I'll Never Heil Again. This one actually referenced The Great Dictator, parodying the scene where Chaplin dances with a balloon globe. In the Stooges' version, several world leaders are fighting over a beach ball globe, and suddenly it looks like they're playing football.

Return to the source

I have a habit of reading the same books over and over instead of moving on to new ones. Last week I wrote a post on Piers Anthony's Killobyte, which I reread recently and enjoyed as much as the first time I read it 13 years ago. In that post, I offhandedly mentioned Jack, the Giant Killer, the first Charles De Lint book I ever read, back in fifth grade. Over the years I've gone on to several other books and stories of his, but this one stayed in my memory as his greatest work. Rereading it now, I'm rethinking that judgment. It isn't as good as I remember.

The book was his contribution to a series of modernized fairy tales by various fantasy writers. The classic tale he chose to update was "Jack the Giant Killer," but he threw in elements of various other stories (including the related and better known "Jack and the Beanstalk") as well as some folkloric material.

De Lint was ideal for this project, since his specialty is incorporating traditional fantasy into a contemporary urban setting. He could easily write mainstream fiction if he wanted. His books always begin in the real world, and he has a reputation for drawing believable female characters. But he also has a lifelong interest in mythology and folklore. His passion for the subject always comes through in his fiction.

The "Jack" of the book's title turns out to be a young woman named Jacky, who lives in modern-day Canada and has no belief in fairies, elves, or sorcerers. Depressed after her boyfriend walks out on her, she is walking down the street drunk one night when she witnesses a bizarre sight. A biker gang chase down and kill a strange little man by shooting lightning at him through a staff. The dwarf's corpse soon disappears, as does a mysterious man who was watching from a nearby house.

Naturally, she thinks she hallucinated the incident, but one item from the scene remains: the dwarf's red cap. When she returns to the spot a few days later, she discovers that donning the cap allows her to see into the land of Faerie, a world of gnomes, giants, and other mythical races. They all live right in the modern world, occupying the same space and traveling on the same roads. They've always been there, and always will be there, but most mortals are unable to see them.

This intriguing premise is part of what I remember loving about the book. I especially enjoyed the names of the creatures, which include the Gruagagh, the hobs, and the bogans, a race of pirate-like ghouls with a penchant for the phrase "Hot damn!"

The book also has an element of female empowerment, as a tiny woman from the contemporary world becomes a fighter and learns to kick Giant butt. (I have a theory that this book, published in 1987, inspired Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.)

Unfortunately, the novel soon gets bogged down in plot details that aren't quite as compelling as the early scenes promise. Jacky is called upon to rescue some enchanted princess (or something) and restore order to the land. There's a lot of names and places to remember, and my eyes soon glazed over.

De Lint wrote in the introduction that what attracted him to the character of Jack, who shows up in at least three classic fairy tales, was his mixture of luck and pluck; he is, according to De Lint, "both foolish and clever."

But it isn't until a while into the novel that we get a sense of this character in Jacky. The book doesn't feel much like a fairy tale. It seems to owe more to Tolkien than to Grimm. There is even an enchanted object that corrupts the one who wields it, just like in Lord of the Rings.

This weekend, I read the 1990 sequel Drink Down the Moon for the first time. In some ways, I enjoyed it more than the first book, even though it departs even farther from its fairy tale origin, with scarcely any giants in the plot. It is more of a typical De Lint novel.

It continues the adventures of Jacky, now a permanent resident of Faerie. She's forced to confront a powerful villain called the droichan, who is considerably smarter and scarier than the rather witless giants and bogans from the first novel.

The book contains much joy and humor, but the scene I will probably remember for the longest is riveting. The droichan captures Jacky and uses magic to torture her. I will end this post with an excerpt from this scene. Do not read further if you aren't interested in getting nightmares.

"When my kind dies," the droichan said, "truly dies, this is where we go."

One by one, Jacky's senses deserted her. Sight went first--from a gauzy veil to nothingness. Her other senses compensated, becoming more acute.

She heard her own raspy breathing, the droichan's light breaths. In the Tower itself, the cries of the bogans and other creatures readying for war....

Then her hearing went.

Now she could smell the sharpness of her own fear, the earthy smell of the droichan. The open window of the Tower brought in the scents of autumn with a bog-reek of sluagh and bogans.

Smell went.

She could taste her fear now--a raw vomit sour in her throat. The salty sweat that beaded her lips.

Taste went.

There was nothing left but touch. The hard wall at her back. The vague kiss of a breeze on her skin. Then her nerve ends began to tingle and go numb. Limb by limb, feeling withdrew until she was devoid of all sensation.

No outside stimuli entered her. She might as well have been immersed in a sensory-deprivation tank. But there was no peace to be found in this. No rest. No solace. She hadn't chosen to withdraw from the world to capture some inner harmony. She'd had her senses stolen from her by a monster and been cast adrift in a bleak void of his making.

There was no way to measure time.

A moment could have passed and it could have been forever. An eternity slipped by in a scurry of seconds. Blank, utter panic came gibbering up from the back of her mind and flooded her brain....

She was here forever.

She might already have been here forever.

Escape was impossible. Without the droichan's help, she couldn't return to the world.

How Roy Orbison changed my life

The ability to compose music is, I'm convinced, something you're born with. The tricky part is learning what to do with the compositions. That takes knowledge and practice.

I remember composing songs as a child without even trying. For example, I once had a nightmare about some creature trying to push me down the steps, and it sang, in a tune I distinctly remember, "So you have to fall downstairs." Later, I made up tunes on a Casio synthesizer I still have.

But my songs were lacking in a quality I didn't then understand. Each one was just an isolated sequence of notes, without being organized into anything larger. Aside from the dream, only one of my songs had lyrics, but it consisted of nothing more than one verse and a chorus. I somehow didn't realize that it needed something more to be complete.

The day that all changed was around the time Roy Orbison's posthumous hit "You Got It" was released. I'm still not quite sure what it was about this seemingly ordinary pop song that changed my entire musical outlook.

I first heard the song on VH1. I wanted to hear it again but didn't get a chance for several months. When it finally aired on the radio while I was listening one night in my bedroom, I was extremely excited, and I listened to the song closely.

For the first time in my life, I became conscious of song structure. The song had three distinct sections, which I later learned were called verse, pre-chorus, and chorus. It went through these sections twice, then it had a side part I later learned was called a bridge, then it returned to the pre-chorus. This arrangement wasn't unique or original, but having never paid attention to structure before, I found it clever.

I began to dissect other songs. I discovered that most rock and pop songs fall into one of just a few common structures. "You Got It" has one of the more complex ones, originating perhaps in the 1960s.

I went back to the Casio and created an instrumental piece with three sections, plus a bridge. It was my first composition that felt in any way complete. Over the next year, I composed numerous other songs, most of which I can still play.

I was twelve back then. I would have expected my interest in dissecting songs to fade after a while. But to this day whenever I hear a new song, determining its structure is part of the listening experience. Songs with unconventional structures always intrigue me.

Early rock 'n' roll generally stuck to very simple structures--either verse-chorus with no bridge, or verse-bridge with no chorus. The songs tended to be around two minutes long, and when a song was longer, it was usually because of more verses or a slower tempo, not because of greater complexity. The increase in structural complexity in rock music was gradual, probably peaking around the late 1960s when popular rock bands like the Beatles and the Moody Blues experimented and broke out of the radio format that demanded songs of no longer than three minutes. This was the era of long songs, sometimes a result of arbitrary repetition (as in "Hey Jude"), other times due to unusually intricate structures (as in "Stairway to Heaven").

Still, rock and pop have continued to confine themselves to familiar formulas, with only particular genres such as heavy metal and progressive rock seeking to emulate the complexity of classical music and jazz. On rare occasion, a pop song will attempt a more ambitious structure, as in Madonna's surprisingly multi-layered hit "Like a Prayer."

Structure has a significant effect on the feel of a song, even if most listeners aren't conscious of it. The wrong structure can hurt a song even if the music is good. A case in point is Rush's "Roll the Bones" (the video of which can be seen here). It is the perfect example of a good musical idea ruined by structural overkill.

The chorus is great. But the song takes nearly a minute and a half to reach it, and the verse and pre-chorus that precede it sound like they come from a totally different song. It's as if the songwriter felt he needed to fill something into that time slot, so he grafted on the leftovers from an earlier composition.

But that's only the first problem. The song came out in 1991, when it was common for a pop song to include a "rap" verse, and Rush bowed to this trend. In the video, the rapping is done by a silly-looking animated skeleton, which appears after three minutes of live action. The rapping ends and the song cuts to a solo, where we think it's going to return to the chorus. But no--it goes back to the rapping skeleton for another minute! Finally, it returns to the chorus, and the song ends, clocking in at five-and-a-half minutes, pretty much ensuring its exclusion from mainstream pop radio.

The skeleton's monologue includes lines like "Gonna kick some gluteus max," along with a series of similarly cheesy puns and rhymes. This section seems especially incongruous next to the song's earlier lyrics, which were serious and contemplative. The song lacks cohesion: it's like a bunch of spare parts thrown together. Maybe they were rushing to meet a deadline, no pun intended.

What Rush probably should have done is made the chorus the entire song, and abandoned the verse and pre-chorus sections, not to mention the rapping. One-part songs aren't common in progressive rock, but even Rush has done them, as in their 1977 song "Closer to the Heart." There's nothing wrong with a song having many sections, but they should complement each other rather than sounding like appendages. It's hard to explain why some songs do this correctly, while others don't. But you know it when you hear it.

I can only speculate why an understanding of structure helped me learn to compose properly. Deciding which structure to use for a particular song is not an exact science. I suspect that many musicians just pick one that "feels right," without giving the matter much thought. But for me the music itself always came easily, and all I needed to learn was how to organize it into something coherent. And for that I have Roy Orbison to thank.

I post, therefore I am

You're walking down the street, and a scrawny young man approaches you. He has acne and wears braces. He can't be more than seventeen. He says to you, "I'm George, a 52-year-old surgeon." A moment later, he says, "And I'm Clara, a 26-year-old law student."

As absurd as this scenario sounds, many people are acting this way for real, not because they are psychotic, but because the Internet enables them to get away with this sort of behavior. In most online discussion areas, users can adopt whatever name they want and say just about anything without facing the consequences that would result from similar behavior in the real world. Many use this anonymity to their advantage, making up facts about themselves to intimidate others and empower themselves. They also may pretend to be more than one person by posting under more than one name. In extreme circumstances people can be traced to their real identities, but this rarely happens except when law enforcement is tracking criminals. There are other, limited ways of counteracting the problem, none of them foolproof.

It is therefore important to be cautious before accepting claims that people online make about themselves. I'm not saying that you should go around calling people liars, but you should be cognizant about the way people in Internet discussions can use their anonymity to manipulate the situation.

I have had several apparent encounters with such individuals. I say "apparent" because I never was able to prove my suspicions. The earliest was in 1997, on the Excite message boards, which happened to be my first experience with message boards. A fellow started a board entitled "HOMESCHOOLERS ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO TEACH!!!!!!"

He took every opportunity to insult anyone who challenged his views. His main argument was based on personal experience: he wrote that he knew several homeschooled children who were "all lacking in social behavior, adjusting to their surroundings and general knowledge." I asked him to clarify what exactly he had seen, pointing out that his observations may have been too limited to draw general conclusions. He replied that he had encountered numerous homeschooled kids in his jobs as an interviewer and a college instructor, and they were "all blown away by others who had attended formal education."

A fairly well-known homeschooling advocate named Karl Bunday, who has made a side career interviewing homeschooling families, joined the board and asked for permission to interview some of those kids. The person replied, "you expect me to just cough up names of my students so that some nutcase can come to their house to evaluate them?!? That is hardly confidential or professional." The question, then, was why he would base his arguments on information that others could not verify. For all we knew, he could have made it all up. Even if he hadn't, his judgment of those kids may have been less than fair. That was a distinct possibility considering how quick he was to insult complete strangers.

When I raised these points, he said that questioning his claims was unreasonable since the purpose of these boards was to "share experiences." He then attempted to put his experiences on the same level as the documented evidence of homeschooling success I had presented: "I guess I could compile my studies and call it research refuting homeschooling as being effective."

People observing the debate told me I handled myself well, but I felt I was being suckered too easily by this person's antics. He was clearly exploiting his anonymity to win the argument, by relying on "data" that could never be investigated. I acted flustered at times, and he seized on that weakness. (The good news is that I successfully changed the mind of someone else on the board, a person who actually listened to my arguments instead of just trying to fight me.)

Years later, I got a new opportunity to deal with this sort of situation. In 2005, after taking a course in which my final paper examined the movie Fight Club, I went to the Internet Movie Database's message board for that film, eager to share my insights. I soon found myself in a heated argument with two posters. If I take what they said at face value, they consisted of a middle-aged psychology professor and a young female fan. Personally, I suspect both of them were in fact one person. How do I know? I don't. I found clues, to be sure, like the fact that they frequently posted just minutes apart from each other, and that their writing styles (particularly spelling errors) were similar. But I mostly based my suspicions on my familiarity with this sort of situation.

The argument started when the "professor" posted an analysis of the protagonist's mental condition. He ridiculed all the laymen (which he spelled "laimen") who had addressed the issue. Having researched this topic, I found many errors in his post, and I pointed out that the filmmakers were themselves laymen. I hinted not too subtly that I doubted he was a real professor.

He and the "girl" erupted into insults. Here is a sample (pardon the strong language, but this is what they said): "Stop being a little bitch crying because you don't like that someone here has experience and truly knows what they're talking about." "If you ever have something to say, do yourself a favor and just shut up." "YOU were the only retard unable to comprehend me, you think it's my fault. That's your mom's fault." "Being the arrogant asshole you are, I'm sure you're not done yet, so go ahead and prove me right again by posting another whiney bitch post."

Does any of this sound like the words of a typical professor? I asked him for proof of his credentials. He replied that they had been "proven to TRUSTED people on this board, aka NOT YOU." Of course I respected his privacy; however, as long as he was flaunting his credentials, it was ridiculous that he should expect everyone to believe him without verification. Any anonymous user can claim to be a professor. It doesn't prove anything.

For a working professor, he sure seemed to spend a lot of time on the board. He had established a club called the "Space Monkeys" (modeled after the film), and board members who wanted to join he would initiate into it. He started a new thread inviting his Space Monkeys to attack me. There, they each provided me with brilliant kernels of wit, such as the following (I'm not making this up): "Kylopod is stupid and his logic is stupid and the reason he is stupid is because the opposite of smart is Kylopod." Afterwards, the "professor" praised the intelligence of these comments.

I had a chance to get angry and join in the abuse. But I decided to restrain myself from such an emotional reaction. That's one of the advantages of message boards as opposed to real-life encounters. You get some time to think before posting a reply. Here is a passage from one of my posts:

I want to thank you.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking I mean that only in a sarcastic way, and maybe you're right. But I'm actually trying to be quite honest now. I really am thankful for the insight you've provided me with your latest posts, though I realize my gratitude is of a kind that you're not likely to appreciate.

You see, I've always been fascinated by multiple-identity trolls such as yourself. What makes you tick? I've had my theories, but it's largely impossible to confirm any of them. Trolls are elusive almost by definition. All I can deduce about you is that you're pretending to be a professor, and that you are assuming at least two identities on this forum. Other than that, I know very little about you. I assume you are young, but I don't know how young--you could be anywhere from teens to twenties. Perhaps you actually are older; I really can't say for sure.

But your two latest posts have helped me understand the troll mindset better than I ever have before.

Despite his/her/their attempts to portray me as an "attacker," I adopted a cool, detached tone when replying to their rants. I acted completely unruffled by their insults. I gave the impression that I was coldly analyzing them and reacting to their attacks only with quiet amusement. As one observer put it to me in an email, "you calmly and coolly handed them their asses time and again, and you did it without swearing at them. I am humbled by your patience."

I could have simply walked away as soon as they started attacking me. That would probably have been the most sensible approach. But I've always had the weakness that I enjoy deflating bullies. In this case, I was being passive-aggressive, a quality I don't normally display in the real world. I'm usually very direct with people. But because this was a message board, I had the opportunity to try a different strategy, and I was pleased by the results.

I may have improved in my ability to handle this sort of situation, but I'm still perplexed by what it all means. I have made actual friends online. But the lack of accountability remains a problem with Internet communication. I know I'm for real, but I often cannot be sure that someone else is. There's something positively solipsistic about this situation, where the reality of everyone else's life can only be accepted on trust.

Moral philosophy

I used to believe that atheists have no basis for accepting the idea of morality. I no longer believe this is true.

I have recently been discussing on David Guttmann's blog the issue of morality and religion. I admit that my views on this issue have significantly evolved in the last ten years. For my more recent views on the matter, see this post, which is based on an essay I wrote at the end of college. An essay I wrote at the beginning of college, however, presents quite a different perspective. I present an abridged version of the essay here:

Why must we act morally in the first place? An ethical system founded upon a religion that worships God is, in principle, more rational than an ethical system that denies this basis.

Personal feelings are too subjective to base an entire code upon them. The conclusion that "murder is immoral," for example, is not a direct implication of the premise that "murder does not feel good (to some people)." A person may be firmly ethical without following his or her emotions, while a person who follows his or her emotions may be morally lacking.

The argument that morality is a necessary part of society is also insufficient, because it is possible to behave contemptibly without harming society as a whole. While all cultures retain values at their foundation, they are free to adopt new tenets and discard old ones as time goes by. Morality, in contrast, is a permanent value system. It is not a product of Western society but rather an ideal toward which most societies strive. To say that murder is immoral is to imply that there is no possibility of it becoming moral anytime in the future, even if society would begin to approve of it. This is particularly evident in such topics as abortion or euthanasia, where people do not agree on the definition of an ethical concept. Their goal in debating the issue is to make society acquire a better understanding of morality. Since no society is infallible, no society provides us with the ultimate philosophical basis for ethics.

Another possibility is that disregarding proper ethical standards is self-destructive. It is certainly true that many people's moral actions are motivated by a desire for self-preservation. Obviously, most of us will follow the law of the land so as not to be punished. More to the point, all our actions have natural consequences, and for some moral actions, the consequences on the person who performs them are favorable. For example, the case for environmental protection is strengthened by the fact that problems in the environment can have hazardous effects for all the life on earth, including ourselves. On the other hand, the principle does not accurately describe all situations. Throughout history, evil societies and people have thrived while innocent individuals suffered. How does the self-preservation theory account for cases when criminals escape justice, even if such cases are uncommon? In any case, the suggestion that the goal of morality is self-preservation trivializes the concept, which has nearly always been understood to go beyond self-interest.

That last point exemplifies the problem with all these theories, which is their inconsistency with the morality understood to exist in our daily lives. If morality were merely a matter of personal taste or choice, as some philosophers have suggested, that would fail to explain most people's passionate hostility toward opposing moral philosophies. The passion implies that in most real-life situations, morality is assumed to occupy an objective reality of its own. In contrast, the previously mentioned theories invoke a conception of ethics that is more narrow and vague than the conception most people apply in practice.

Despite the general perception that morality is objectively true, people tend to relegate it to a separate realm of reality. For example, most people assume it to be an objective fact that advocating murder is "wrong," but would probably treat a comment that advocating murder is "inaccurate" with bewilderment. Moral judgments cannot be measured by accuracy, they would say. On the other hand, the same people would probably agree that the immorality in a doctrine of racial superiority is intrinsically related to the fact that it is false. The identification of racism as morally wrong in addition to being false is, like the first example, unprovable. Nevertheless, in the second example, we notice a logical connection between the realms of fact and value. It is inherently impossible to "prove" statements about how people should behave, yet such statements still constitute a kind of philosophical knowledge. This is clear because we so frequently use demonstrable facts to back up moral propositions.

If we assume that morality implies a system occupying a sphere of reality, the question presented at the beginning of this essay--Why must we act morally in the first place?--should be rephrased: How do we know that morality exists to begin with? That is, what knowledge confirms our general belief that all people must behave in certain ways and not others? From a rational standpoint, the assumption that morality exists is not self-evident, even though many people--including many religious people--treat it as such. It is rather a logical implication of the fact that it is God's will. Because God created and is in control of the world, He wants us to behave in specific ways, to satisfy the purpose of creation. This also provides the strongest rationale against destruction toward nature and society--because it is all part of God's creation.

Without God, there is no source by which to judge any statement on how we should behave as true. All we can say is that some people are motivated to behave that way, yet that does not tell us whether people should behave that way. Religion allows us to view moral propositions as truths rather than simply as preferences, instincts, or rules designed to maintain social order.

Accepting God's will as the ultimate basis for ethics does not preclude the previously mentioned motivating factors behind moral behavior; it simply gives them a unified point of reference. Compassion still plays an important role by enforcing moral rules deep within our psyche. Furthermore, even religiously based ethical systems use the standard of what is beneficial to society to decide on specific moral issues. Finally, religion embraces a version of the self-preservation argument, by its conviction that God punishes all evildoers. This belief, though, is based on faith rather than observation, whereas the secular version of the argument is an attempt to explain morality without reference to God.

I am not implying that those who do not recognize the ultimate basis for ethics are necessarily amoral. Divine authority is not the only cause of moral behavior, although it is the ultimate rational basis for ethics. The bottom line is that in the absence of religion, there are no ultimate grounds for condemning a person who chooses to behave immorally. Why is the evildoer's choice inferior to anyone else’s choice? None of the non-religious explanations for ethics answer that question; they merely clarify why some people prefer certain ways of behaving over others. Only when we recognize that the ultimate moral authority is God do we have a universal explanation for morality that applies equally to all people in all cultures, regardless of what the people or the cultures themselves may believe.

I actually still accept some of the ideas expressed in the above essay, even if I reject the general thesis. The philosophers who have attempted to root morality in social pragmatism or personal preference have not provided a convincing case for ethics. But I recognize now that basic morality is deducible without believing in God. I believe that the purpose of religion is to move us beyond this basic level in an attempt to perfect the world.

The genius of J.K. Rowling

While I always enjoyed the Harry Potter books, my admiration for them grew over time. I first heard about them in 1998, when my mother described them to me as the adventures of a group of nerdy kids who are also wizards. It sounded like the typical book my mother likes to read, but as the series increased in popularity and a fourth book awaited publication in 2000, I decided to read the first three.

I remember my first night reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I was reminded of Roald Dahl, one of my favorite authors as a kid. All the ingredients were there: the child who lives a cruel life and is then granted a journey into a wonderful magical world; the wretched characters who eventually get their comeuppance; and the bizarre types of candy that are right out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

But I also noticed some differences. Not only was the scantly illustrated book at a much higher reading level than Dahl's fiction, the story itself was far more sophisticated than the modern fairy tales for which Dahl is famous. Rowling's writing is never condescending; it never explains straight out the rules of the magical world. Like an adult fantasy book, it allows readers to figure out these rules for themselves as the story progresses. The first chapter may even confuse children with its bewildering sequence of strange events that only gradually become understandable.

The surprise ending caught me off guard. In hindsight, it didn't seem like an original idea. But I simply wasn't expecting such a twist. Having associated the novel in my mind with Roald Dahl's fiction, I took all the characterization to be black and white. I thought I had the characters pegged, but their motives turned out to be more complex than I had initially assumed.

The first book remains my favorite of the series, with the next three close in line. But the fifth and sixth have not pleased me as much. They get bogged down in plot mechanics and have less of the delightful humor that characterized the earlier books. I know there are many fans who prefer the later books, but personally I think this reflects people's attachment to the unfolding storyline. Everyone wants to know what will happen next.

At first, I did not accept the popular idea that the Harry Potter books are classics. I considered them good entertainment, but hardly groundbreaking. The premise of the series, in which kids attend a school for witches and wizards, seems to lack the uniqueness of true fantasy classics like The Wizard of Oz and Lord of the Rings.

Though the broad sketch of Harry Potter is fairly conventional, the details are incredible in their scope. They bring to life a magical society that exists within our own "muggle" world and that is kept secret by a bureaucracy with its own rules, history, and politics. Rowling's approach differs from that of traditional fantasy, which typically takes place in a medieval type of setting. Even when fantasies are set in modern times, as in Charles De Lint's "urban fantasies," the magic itself is still rooted in the past. Rowling's magical world resembles an advanced technological society. But because that society is fueled by magic and not by science, she has more freedom than a science fiction writer, who is less likely to envision a future where people communicate through owls rather than through telephones. This flexibility makes it easier for us to believe in the story's assortment of creatures from classical mythology and medieval folklore. Rowling, who studied classical literature in college, gives these beings a feeling of reality that is missing from most fantasy books.

But the intricacy of Rowling's world cannot fully explain the popularity of the series. If people love the books, it is in part because they love the characters, who are drawn with a surprising level of realism. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are not high school stereotypes but fully fleshed out characters with many distinctive traits. Harry may look like a nerd, but he's brave, quick-thinking, and altruistic. He also has several flaws. Hagrid may seem on the surface like the standard "dumb giant," but he's more nuanced than that. We get to know these characters inside out as the series progresses. Not all the characters are well drawn. The main villain, Voldemort, always seems vague and generic. But some of the other menacing figures are fascinating, like the ever-elusive Snape, whose true nature has yet to be explained.

The books also have a strong satirical undercurrent aimed at schools, the media, and politicians. The first book contains the following amusing line: "Professor McGonagall watched [her students] turn a mouse into a snuffbox--points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers." The later books lampoon tabloid reporters and obtuse educators, and the sixth book seems to comment indirectly on the War on Terror, though I'm sure that wasn't a part of Rowling's original plan for the series.

One of the most overlooked qualities of the series is the clever plotting. The plots are better crafted than most cinematic thrillers. Rowling never cheats by creating a surprise that doesn't fit the earlier events. I suspect that she had worked out the outline of the entire series before she had published even the first book. As each new layer of the story gets uncovered, I am astonished at how well it meshes with everything that came before.

In this regard, the sixth (and most recent) book is particularly interesting. I have found that readers have two entirely different interpretations of the ending. I suppose we will find out which one is correct as soon as Rowling releases the seventh (and presumably final) novel. This is one of several plot mysteries in the series that explore the theme of how people are too judgmental, making assumptions about other people before knowing all the facts. Harry is unfairly judged by people who put too much stock into rumors, yet he himself misjudges other characters. The plot twists which emphasize this theme are not simply manipulation; they contain lessons about human nature.

Will Rowling provide a satisfying conclusion to the series? I don't see any reason why not. She has shown an absolute mastery over this genre. That's what I failed to grasp when I first thought her books unoriginal. I've since come to the conclusion that it's much less important where artists get their ideas as the way they handle them. I'll take Rowling's finely executed novels any day over an original but sloppily written work.