There is so much more to say on the subject of programming without math, and it will take many more posts to even begin doing justice to the subject. But I don’t want this blog to be hijacked by a single topic. Therefore I will adopt an alternate days strategy – posting about pwm on odd days, and other topics on even days, until the pwm discussion has run its course.
Yesterday evening I was having a fascinating and exciting discussion on a far ranging set of topics, with a friend who is reliably brilliant and full of unique insights. In other words, a perfect evening. Topics ranged freely from early pre-Hayes code talkies to the plays of Alan Ayckbourn to the origins of Indoeuropean languages, while touching upon a vast array of other subjects besides.
All was well – joyous and inquisitive and freely explorative – until the topic turned to politics. Suddenly my friend closed up like a book. The arms went across the chest, the body language stiffened, and the tone became bitter and angry. Why have the bankers been given free handouts? What will become of the people out of work, and why isn’t more being done? Why are we back in Afghanistan? I no longer felt that I was talking to an individual, but rather to a representative of familiar talking points brought into the room from other conversations.
I tried to shift the discussion to something more positive, such as our president’s recent announcement of a $260 million consortium to use games to help childrens’ education (a topic I actually know something about). But my friend would have none of it. It seems that my unwillingness to share in the general community bitterness was coming across as a kind of avoidance. My friend seemed to want to know – why wasn’t I sufficiently angry?
Today, in the sunshine of a new day, after I had described my experience of the evening before as clearly as I could, my friend completely came around to agreeing with my views on this, that the “warlike stance” of political discussions seems to take us quite out of our own actual identities and into some sort of weird reflexive group mind.
Yet I have run into this dynamic before in recent times. Two weeks ago I found myself talking to some Germans who were very angry and bitter about their government. Last week I was in Sao Paulo, and encountered one conversation after another with Brazilians who were completely appalled and disgusted by their government.
Yes, I understand – politics is rotten. Nation states are self-interested and highly combative creatures whose realities are generally far less palatable than their national myths. That hero you thought you elected into office generally turns out to be – of all things – a politician. I really do get it.
But why does this obvious reality need to hijack our personal interactions? Why do we cease to be ourselves and become blind with rage when confronted with these sad truths?
Personally, I am quite happy to accept that my president and my country are far from perfect, and at the same time to throw my efforts into helping that same president to improve kids’ education. It seems to me that this is a much more productive use of my psychic energies than yet another angry conversation about how rotten it all is.
Does this refusal to be sufficiently infused with indignant rage make me a hopeless Polyanna?