Excellent Avatar Review

Conor Friedersdorf is one of the most intelligent, clear thinking, and intellectually honest writers on the internet right now, and his review of Avatar is worth reading, especially if you want a more in-depth political/philosophical analysis than Ebert's or the NYT's reviews.

Once you've read that, I highly recommend you check out more of Friedersdorf's writing. More intelligence and rational, honest engagement than you can find in the op-ed sections of most major newspapers.


EDIT:
Another fascinatingly in-depth review, with a slightly different angle, here.

Thoughts on Avatar

EDIT: Damn, had this one marked as 1/8/09 at first. That 10 does take some getting used to.

How does one begin to address a movie as immense and encompassing as Avatar? I’ll start by putting Roger Ebert and the New York Times’ reviewer forward as pinch hitters, both far better writers than I, and with that warm up I’ll proceed to my own thoughts.

I’ll start with visual effects so as to avoid spoiler warnings until later.

For me, the most important question concerning computer generated imagery (CGI) in an otherwise live action movie is whether I can tell which bits are CGI and which bits are real. Perhaps it’s due to technological limitations, or perhaps the director doesn’t really care, but whatever the reason, in nearly every movie I’ve seen that uses CGI, it's been painfully easy for me to sort out which of the visuals are physically real and which have been painted on by a computer. The Star Wars prequels and the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie (specifically, the storm/whirlpool at the end) contain some of the most glaring examples of this, though if I were to put my mind to it I could come up with multi-page list. The Lord of the Rings series did a surprisingly good job, considering the subject matter, of appearing realistic, most notably in the subtle CGI crowd simulations used for the Battles of Helm's Deep and Gondor in the second and third movies, respectively. Still, there were some glaring missteps, particularly the cave troll in the first one and the oliphants in the third.

Coincidentally enough (or not), the one movie I’ve watched that manages to pull this off really well is Terminator 2. While fantastical and unnaturally liquid and shining in appearance, the T-1000 was specifically intended to appear this way. With the help of the occasional old-fashioned prop/prosthetic, Robert Patrick's metal side appeared to truly exist in the real world. The digital effects served to bring the fantastic to life, as opposed to simply showing off just how powerful ILM's computers were.

Well, I can't truthfully say that James Cameron's latest opus completely satisfies the CGI question, as there are definitely areas where I could tell the difference. But I can say that Avatar comes far, far closer to nailing this category than any other movie out there. Avatar's Wikipedia article describes Cameron's fascination with the Lord of the Rings' hybrid CGI Gollum, and it really shows here. The blue-skinned alien Na'vi, brought to life with what I can only imagine to be a massively complicated combination of heavy makeup, prostheses, and judicious use of CGI (apparently the actors actually had miniature cameras attached to their heads and suspended in front of their faces in order to perfectly (95%, say the filmmakers) capture their expressions), really do appear to exist. Keep in mind that each one of these creatures is a 10-12 foot tall two-legged humanoid possessing "supermodel dimensions (slender hips, a miniature-apple rear); long articulated digits, the better to grip with; and the slanted eyes and twitchy ears of a cat," to quote the NYT review. And they move gracefully, yet naturally--realistic stumbling is probably harder for the effects people to well than preternaturally graceful walking, yet they do it here very, very well--so rest assured that this would have been literally impossible to do justice to without CGI. And back to my main point, you don't notice that it's CGI, you just see an alien being as if it had strode out of James Cameron's overactive imagination directly onto the screen.

Especially the faces (very minor plot spoiler, skip the brackets if you'd prefer not to see it).

SPOILER [[scientists in this movie actually link with and pilot/become Na'vi bodies grown specially for themselves in order to study the planet and interact with the natives, and seeing the resemblance between the human faces and corresponding Na'vi faces is really...I hate to use a cliche, but just mind-blowing.]] END SPOILER

I can't overemphasize just how incredible this looks.

And it's in 3D. That's right, 3D glasses-type 3D. Cameron apparently went all in for 3D in Avatar, far beyond the sort of novelty niche that 3D glasses movies generally occupy. I haven't seen any verbatim quotes from him to this effect, but based on other things he's said, the fact that he went to some lengths to get theaters on board, and the fact that even the video game based on the movie is intended to be viewed in 3D lead me to believe that he considers 3D the definitive way to see Avatar. Ebert probably sums it up best:

Cameron promised he'd unveil the next generation of 3-D in "Avatar." I'm a notorious skeptic about this process, a needless distraction from the perfect realism of movies in 2-D. Cameron's iteration is the best I've seen -- and more importantly, one of the most carefully-employed. The film never uses 3-D simply because it has it, and doesn't promiscuously violate the fourth wall.

Don't be put off by visions of horrid red-green 3D glasses, though. 3D viewing technology has come a long way since the 50s, and the colors and brightness appear as real and true as they would in a 2D movie.

And now to the story and characters. I'll have to put up general spoilers for this section, just so I don't have to constantly micromanage my writing to avoid giving anything away.

MEGA SPOILERS

I've heard the plot of this movie compared to Dances With Wolves, which I haven't seen, but after hearing a bit about that movie, it sounds more or less correct, with the major differences besides the general sci-fi setting and other obvious areas being the Na'vis' and the biosphere's actual neural connections with each other.

I hadn't seen Dances With Wolves, which probably enhanced my Avatar experience. I found Avatar particularly wrenching. It's hard to articulate exactly why it evoked such intense emotions in me; the closest I can come to even describing them is a vague hybrid of joy and sadness, as well as a strong sense of finality in many areas, like that of an old life left behind and a new one wholly embraced (not surprising considering the ending) but also an acknowledgment of eternity and one's own mortality, perhaps thrown into sharper relief by the adoption of the new life.

Spotty recollections of FernGully (the book most especially, though Wikipedia appears not to have a page for it) come to mind, and I can remember a somewhat similar emotional reaction to that book, which I read well before I was 10. There are definite parallels, mainly the environmental aware plus immersion in a wholly alien culture. I was quite the little dreamer in those days--I both felt for the natural world and conjured up my own fantastic ones with the sort of all-consuming ardor and passion that only a child has the time and undivided attention for. Deeply, deeply emotional--I had few if any friends in those days, which let me push even further into such feelings.

The only other creative work that also evoked the sort of emotion in me tapped by this movie was E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan, about a friendship between a boy and a swan who cannot sing but can communicate with humans via chalk on a slate and with fellow swans by using a trumpet. Beautiful book, and with the same sort of serene happiness at the end that seemed so perfect that I actually cried after finishing it. I was probably 11 or 12.

But back to Avatar. Again, I can't put my finger on any single thing or things that truly moved me in this film. There were many touching moments, many of them sad, but none of them really shook me emotionally—I felt no deep sense of loss when the Na'vi chief was killed during the felling of the Hometree, nor when Grace (Sigourney Weaver) died/melded with Eywa. In fact, at several points I found myself silently tsk-tsking Cameron for making the Na'vi a perfect amalgam of the Native American and African stereotypes of the Noble Savage, and gently ridiculing him for glorifying primitivism. There are other flaws I noticed that I point out at the end of the post.

Yet despite all of this, as the movie ended I felt the most bittersweet sort of feeling overtake me: joy at the new, more personally fulfilling and meaningful way of life Jake and the others would now lead, combined with the most exquisite, aching sort of longing, perhaps at the unblinking knowledge that this was all a dream, a spectacular parade of images of a world that will never exist in my lifetime or probably at all within our universe. But the sadness wasn't just a desire to escape to a fantastic dreamland full of lush forests, pure emotion, and noble savage aliens (a double whammy for the sci-fi environmentalist hybrid that I am). It was far more diffuse than that, I think. By the time the credits rolled, Cameron had done such a wonderful job of slipping it all past me--the fictional future, Pandora, the Na'vi, the whole story--that I found I had unwittingly immersed myself far more in the movie and its world than I allow myself to do with most things these days.

Immersive, yes, that's the best word for Avatar. And that's probably why the first things that came to mind afterward were two books. Movies may excite with sound and motion, but go pick up your favorite novel and tell me you don't feel more mentally and emotionally there than if you were to watch it on a screen. Avatar is almost like that. I just wish I could go back.

Flaws/loose ends:

*"fight terror with terror"--this line made no sense and sounded suspiciously like it had been inserted to push a contemporary comparison; the Corporation had just won a smashing victory against the Na’vi by destroying Hometree, and while the Na’vi had certainly been hostile to the humans before this, they could hardly have been said to have waged any sort of terrorist campaign against them. More like Vietnam--even in Iraq today we generally call the enemy 'insurgents,' switching to 'terrorists' only for propaganda purposes or if they strike at us outside of the combat zone. In Avatar, the entire planet is a combat zone.

*the ‘boss battle’ with the Colonel dragged on a bit, felt like Cameron was trying to milk as much hate from the audience as he could.

*related to the above, I felt slightly uncomfortable about the Colonel at times--just a bit too easily villainous, though Cameron could have done much, much worse.

*The film does get a bit indirectly preachy at points; I already mentioned the Colonel as a representation of Bush Administration arrogance, and there's also the primitivist and environmentalist stuff I discussed in the body of the text. It can get tiring, though perhaps a bit less so for me as I agree with most of the environmental stuff. Certainly Cameron could have really twisted the knife by adding that 'unobtanium', the mineral that the Corporation is mining on the planet and that goes for "$20 million a kilo" back on Earth, is, say, crucial to the manufacture of medical products that save thousands or millions of human lives. Far too ambitious in scope for a movie, though; try a book or perhaps a TV show.

NOTE: Cameron did acknowledge the primitivist angle and described his use of it thusly: "'the Na'vi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves, what we would like to think we are' and that even though there are good humans within the film, the humans 'represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future.'" Well and good, but it still felt a bit too black-and-white.

*I understand how well the final transference of Jake’s soul to his Avatar served as the ultimate coda, but it did seem a bit odd that he wouldn’t have done so earlier, most notably after mating with Neytiri. Spiritually and emotionally, that was the point of no return for him, though he did seem a bit slow to catch on to the full social consequences of the act. Granted, the circumstances immediately following his awakening (Battle of Hometree, being perceived as a heartless spy by the Na’vi) would have made it impossible for him to conduct the transference until after he tamed the Toruk, at which point the attempt is made to transfer Grace. But why didn’t he make the transfer then, though? It seems odd that he would enter into the final battle against the Corporation as a full Na’vi warlord without addressing the glaring chink in his armor of remaining tied to his crippled human self, unconscious in an undefended trailer in the forest. [note: the more effects-oriented moviegoer in me was very disappointed that Grace's body transfer failed; perhaps it’s because she’s the only Avatar actor whose face I knew long before this movie, but again, I found Sigourney Weaver’s avatar particularly fascinating to watch.]

*probably minor: at the end, Jake narrates the departure of the Corporation with words like "back to their own dead planet, which they had killed long ago". I couldn't help but think that there are probably not a few people back on Earth who didn't make the trip to initially hellish Pandora but who would fit right in with the remaining scientists and their appreciation of nature. Still, what can you do? It also drove home the point that Jake's adventure and the overall story required an immense amount of technology, funding, and general overhead, what with the specially grown Na'vi bodies and interface system which must have cost ungodly amounts of money, plus the extreme bad/good luck of joining the mission at the last minute because your twin brother died. In this incarnation, at least, this is not at all a universal story or an adventure accessible to all, which detracts from it slightly.

*minor: the Na’vi’s Light Brigade-style charge into the fully automatic, high powered rifles of the ex-Marine mercs. Even if one concedes that Jake, himself a former Marine with full knowledge of the tactics and weapons of his old Jarhead Clan, was too busy with strategy and inter-clan diplomacy to drop a quick line to the Na’vi ground forces about basic tactics, it seems odd that the Na’vi themselves, after years of skirmishing with Corporation forces, did not realize the futility of a Pickett’s Charge and adjust their tactics accordingly. Simply attacking one or both flanks from the sides would have made a world of difference, though perhaps a chivalric emphasis on the ‘honorable’ frontal attack is part and parcel of the more angelic Na’vi psyche. Alternatively, one could argue that until now the Na’vi had only fought the mercs at the squad (10-20) or platoon (50-60) level, whereas engaging a full battle line of several companies (~100 each) requires altogether different tactics and an entirely new level of command and control.

*very minor, but the plot was a bit too predictable overall, especially after Jake entered Hometree for the first time. Given the already massive length of the movie, though, I suspect that it would not have been feasible to add more to make it less predictable.

*****

LAST NOTE: I added 'Margaret Atwood' in the tags for this post because both she and Cameron are Canadian by birth and both write about/film pessimistic futures with a similar general tone.

Liang Qichao follow-up

Yes, yes, it's been a long time coming. I've finally gotten around to it, though.

According to his wiki, Liang Qichao was an influential intellectual in many respects, but I am most interested in his historiography, his presentation of China as a single nation.

Liang Qichao’s historiographical thought represents the beginning of modern Chinese historiography and reveals some important directions of Chinese historiography in the twentieth century.

For Liang, the major flaw of "old historians" (舊史家) was their failure to foster the national awareness necessary for a strong and modern nation. Liang's call for new history not only pointed to a new orientation for historical writing in China, but also indicated the rise of modern historical consciousness among Chinese intellectuals.

During this period of Japan's challenge in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), Liang was involved in protests in Beijing pushing for an increased participation in the governance by the Chinese people. It was the first protest of its kind in modern Chinese history. This changing outlook on tradition was shown in the historiographical revolution (史學革命) launched by Liang Qichao in the early twentieth century. Frustrated by his failure at political reform, Liang embarked upon cultural reform. In 1902, while in exile in Japan, Liang wrote New History (新史學), launching attacks on traditional historiography.

All very interesting, but annoyingly vague. How exactly did "old historians" fail to foster national awareness, in his view? How did the historiographical revolution address this--what new perspective did it offer?

(You may have noticed that Liang's wiki is not one of the best written articles out there. Keep this in mind when considering its completeness and impartiality.)

His views on political philosophy come tantalizingly close to current received PRC/"East Asian" wisdom--"'Freedom means Freedom for the Group, not Freedom for the Individual. (…) Men must not be slaves to other men, but they must be slaves to their group. For, if they are not slaves to their own group, they will assuredly become slaves to some other.'" And they do dovetail nicely with Liang's stated wish to reconcile Confucianism with Western ideas--Hobbes seems to have been his preferred choice here.

But meeting and diagnosing the patient come before prescribing treatment, and those areas remain frustratingly hazy. Following the link to Chinese historiography proves equally disappointing, though Chinese nationalism bears some interesting fruit:

The official Chinese nationalistic view in the 1920s and 1930s was heavily influenced by modernism and social Darwinism, and included advocacy of the cultural assimilation of ethnic groups in the western and central provinces into the "culturally advanced" Han state, to become in name as well as in fact members of the Chinese nation. Furthermore, it was also influenced by the fate of multi-ethnic states such as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. It also became a very powerful force during the Japanese occupation of Coastal China during the 1930s and 1940s and the atrocities committed by such regime.

Over the next decades Chinese nationalism was influenced strongly by Russian ethnographic thinking, and the official ideology of the PRC asserts that China is a multi-ethnic state, and Han Chinese, despite being the overwhelming majority (over 90% in the mainland), they are only one of many ethnic groups of China, each of whose culture and language should be respected. However, many critics* argue that despite this official view, assimilationist attitudes remain deeply entrenched, and popular views and actual power relationships create a situation in which Chinese nationalism has in practice meant Han dominance of minority areas and peoples and assimilation of those groups.

(*Allow me to clear up any Wikipedian ambiguity by noting that these "many critics" are, by and large, quite correct)

No mention of Liang Qichao here, but, interestingly enough, his wiki does mention a fascination with Social Darwinism, something I dismissed as irrelevant on my first read-through. After some thought, I realized that whoever wrote these articles doesn't define "social darwinism" the same way I do. I see it as applying the "survival of the fittest" concept to human society, with the implication that the best individuals are those who attain the most fame, money, and/or power, and vice versa, regardless of the tactics used--pretty largely removed from cultural comparisons, hence my initial dismissal of the term as used in these articles.

While that sort of social darwinism certainly isn't far removed from post-Mao China, what these articles are discussing could be more accurately described as "cultural darwinism." That is, assimilation of minority ethnic groups into the supposedly superior Han culture, as the quote describes.

According to Wikipedia, the proper Western anthropological term is cultural colonialism, the "internal domination by one group and its culture or ideology over others." The page goes on to use the U.S.S.R. as an example, noting its "domination...by Russian language and culture." As for official reasons, it notes that "The oneness of socialist internationalism was to unite all the republics and their peoples."

But cultural colonialism is not new in the world, nor is it really what Fear of a Red Planet meant by 'nationalism', is it?

As I mentioned in the previous post, the current, particularly intense brand of Chinese nationalism is largely couched in bitter memories of Western influence and control. Whatever his actual role may have been, Liang does appear to have drawn much of his motivation from a desire to see a strong, free China stand unmolested on the international stage, which in turn grew out of indignation and despair at its treatment by the West and Japan. Again, I would need to see what he wrote in greater detail in order to properly address this.

Was Liang so crucial in making this connection, though? Couldn't it be argued that the idea of a zhong hua min zu, a Chinese race, would have been a natural reaction among most Chinese to the humiliations of the 19th century? "Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately"--isn't that the basic gist of Liang's message?

Perhaps it's the combination of the abovementioned socialist internationalism and memory of past humiliations that has made Chinese nationalism so potent...I really must research this further.

The "China model"

Courtesy of Sullivan, I happened upon a very insightful post by Fear Of A Red Planet concerning China's potential as an example to developing countries; that is, "a single-party dictatorship combined with relative economic freedom." Those of you with an interest in international politics may be familiar with the term "the China model." And, ceteris paribus, I have generally agreed that the China model can be transplanted to other countries looking for rapid growth without any pesky democratic constraints.

FOARP, however, argues that the "Chinese model" relies on factors unique to China, citing, among other things, the recent (19th-20th century) development of the idea of a Chinese national identity. A certain Liang Qichao ('Leeang Cheechow,' 1873-1929) apparently figured largely in this transformation, which I find particularly intriguing as I've never heard of him. The argument runs thusly:

Thirdly, this ignores the essential glue that holds together the Chinese state under circumstances not dissimilar to those which tore Yugoslavia and the USSR apart: nationalism. Firstly under the nationalists and now under the communists China has been subject to the greatest and most successful program of nation-building ever seen.

Whilst in India there are reportedly still whole villages in which nobody has ever heard of the country ‘India’, since 1912 the Chinese nation has steadily been built up, with ethnic and regional loyalties largely subsumed into the Chinese identity or race (中华民族 [zhong hua min zu]). Whilst it is generally believed in China that this identity has existed for thousands of years, it is in fact an invention of nineteenth century theorists like Liang Qichao (梁啟超), intended to replace an imperial system fairly similar to the one that existed in the Austro-Hungarian or Russian empires. This has largely succeeded, and it is only in those areas with ethnic identities so entirely different to that of the majority as to be incompatible (such as Tibet and Xinjiang) that it has failed.

The high level of nationalism in China (Australian China-hand Ross Terrill described it as “the nearest thing China has to a national religion”) has allowed the Chinese state to survive pressures which would shatter other countries, as such the Chinese model cannot simply be transplanted to countries with strong regional identities.

I'll definitely check out Liang Qichao. Fascinating thesis, as Chinese nationalism and its causes remain a subject of great debate. Additionally, this gels with what I know of it so far.

Which is: post-dynastic, pre-Japanese invasion (1912-1931~37) China was a chaotic, often lawless place where regional warlords regularly battled each other for supremacy. After the Japanese defeat in 1945, the Nationalists, or KMT, fought a bitter civil war against Mao's Communists for four more years before being driven off to Taiwan.*

The Chinese people, as much as they can be said to form a single entity--not counting the Tibetan, Uighur, and other official minorities, of course, so I guess I should say Han Chinese within China--have a very clear and bitter memory of the pre-1949 chaos, often lumped in with equally bitter memories of being divided up under colonial occupation. National unity and solidarity is considered paramount, and special hatred is reserved for secessionism or anything hinting of it.** Most of all at the governmental level, of course, but I know from firsthand experience that the average Chinese person (men more than women), while generally no foaming-at-the mouth xenophobe, will become firmly nationalistic if pressed. Significantly, the sort of insecure, reactionary nationalism often borne of past humiliation and shame, the bitter realization of status lost accompanied by the iron determination to regain one's rightful place. As such, more reminiscent of Putin's Russia than of the otherwise comparable India.

With this in mind, the poster definitely seems to be on to something here. I may post a follow up after reading about Liang Qichao. I'm still amazed I've never heard of him, which leads me to wonder whether FOARP is not giving him more credit than is due, but I'm keeping an open mind.






*Where they eventually developed into the current Republic of China and now form one of the island's two major political parties, the other being the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.

**Hence the PRC's especially intense stance and violent rhetoric concerning Tibet (the Dalai Lama has "the heart of a jackal") and Taiwan (pro-independence former VP Annette Lu is "insane" and "scum of the earth").

Ross Douthat on Palin's resignation

This excerpt from Ross Douthat’s latest NYT column may seem a bit bizarre at first:

Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

First, we have meritocracy positioned opposite democracy. Funny, I had thought that democracy was the best route to meritocracy, that the two generally complimented each other—electing, and more importantly reelecting,* people based on performance. Yet somehow Douthat finds them opposed.

In order to do that, he has to gut the phrase “democratic ideal” of its core spirit, at least as we know it—election based on popularity, itself due to performance**—leaving only the barest of shells: election based on popularity, itself due to…“success,” which he leaves undefined. Oh, but the important thing is, he tells is, that she stands as a representative of the working class, Real American Values. Just keep that in mind, everybody.

So, election based on popularity, itself based on…ah…what? Just popularity via, in Palin’s case, cultural identification? Republican pollster Alex Castellanos, of the (in)famous “white hands” ad, does admit that “…with Republicans her support is not based on her record as governor of Alaska.”***

It’s not a meritocracy, then, I’ll give Douthat that. And it is indeed a form of democracy; in fact, Plato himself considered this form—rule based purely on immediate mass appeal, whether due to identification with a certain class, pacification through “bread and circuses,” or other means—to be the most accurate definition of the word. The philosopher also ranked it as the worst possible form of government for precisely this reason, behind even oligarchy, rule by merchants (his definition).

Douthat’s passage makes sense, then, if you assume he’s talking about “democratic ideals” as a Platonian. For some reason, I don’t think he would agree...but rather than accuse such an esteemed thinker of intellectual dishonesty or inconsistency, let’s go with this reading.

Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story, rising by virtue of merit alone. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a charismatic, shallow, power-hungry egomaniac† without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

The man finally writes a column I can agree with! Good to be on the same side for once, Ross.

*Something that Palin, perhaps not coincidentally, has just taken off the table.
** Often correlated with some measure of intellect and open-mindedness.
***Full quote: “For independents and Democrats, [Palin's] already not their candidate, and with Republicans her support is not based on her record as governor of Alaska.”
†A universally human sort of success story--Ross was even careful enough to leave "American" out in the original piece

A niggling thought on godhood in general and Christianity in particular

EDIT: Eva has reminded me that the various branches that make up Christianity have no set, universal definition of "God." The point is well taken; please do not take my use of the word "Christianity" in this post to mean "every single Christian denomination ever to exist." I use it to mean "the faith of conservative-leaning practicing Christians within the United States" (and the Vatican, I suppose).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god#Christianity

“Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that there are good reasons to suggest that a ‘personal god’ is integral to the Christian outlook, but one has to understand that this is an analogy: ‘to say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe.’”

So on the one hand, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, yet on the other, He is both willing and able to relate to beings which could charitably be described as ants before Him. I mean, of course, humans, as within the Christian framework there are no other gods and the Bible makes no mention of intelligent non-human mortals.* How to put this…it seems very fantastical and far-fetched, the idea that a single being can be both all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present, and yet also be able to genuinely relate to such puny things as humans. "God loves you"--really, when He's got an entire universe to run?

The natural reply is that such is God and we can never hope to understand Him—there are realms of existence, ways of thinking, logic beyond logic, that we could never hope to grasp, one of which explains this apparent contradiction. So, to my complaint that “this is inconceivable,” the devout smile and reply “you couldn’t be more right.” I can respect this sort of thinking--that there are concepts so disconnected from the human experience as to be impossible for human brains to understand. Enshrining the idea at the center of one's belief system, however, requires an awful lot of...well, faith. Must the Lord always and invariably “work in mysterious ways”?

This is by no means my primary beef with traditional concepts of a higher power, but it struck me very clearly and strongly while I was browsing that Wikipedia article. Besides, I find the idea of the literally inconceivable--for our brains, anyway--rather intriguing.

By the way, pneumatology is the study of "spiritual beings and phenomena," or within Christian contexts the study of the Holy Spirit. Pneuma meaning "breath" or "air" in Greek (pneumatic, anyone?), which in this case "metaphorically describes a non-material being or influence."

*All right, nitpickers, the nephilim qualify, but anyone who knows what a nephilim was will also understand why they're a meaningless outlier.

* * * * *

On a totally unrelated note, the John Birch Society’s web site is surprisingly slick. (Found it through a fascinating New York Times piece on the group, which makes the same observation).

More on Iran

The previous post was heavy on background and short on current events, so I'll address more current issues in this one. All articles linked are courtesy of the Dish unless otherwise noted.

First, further analysis and news of the situation in Iran. It goes without saying that, considering the frustratingly murky nature of everything surrounding this election and its aftermath, most of the following should be taken with a grain of salt.

--Except for this: a statistical analysis of the official vote counts as reported by the Iranian Ministry of the Interior.

--Continuing in that vein, here's a good summary by the CS Monitor of the case that the election was rigged.

--Some have argued that rural Iranians, more traditionalist and conservative than their urban counterparts, went strongly for Ahmadinejad. However, one analysis of Iran's rural vote shows economic worries trumping everything else, to the incumbent's detriment. The report also emphasizes, though, that rural Iranian antipathy towards Ahmadinejad does not extend to the idea of the Islamic Republic, though certain reforms may be welcomed.

--Regardless of which side an Iranian may have initially taken in the election, polls indicate that respect for free speech and free and fair elections transcends party lines in Iran. As such, tactics like blatant vote rigging, using violence to suppress peaceful demonstrations, photoshopping pictures of his own rallies, etc. may backfire badly on Ahmadinejad, drawing comparisons with the suppression and unrest that preceded the 1979 revolution.

--Speaking of suppression and violence, never forget Moral High Ground Rule #1: do not be [seen as] the aggressor.* In the current unrest, restraint is key to legitimacy, a fact not lost on either side:

What we are witnessing, from afar and through contrasting methods of information control (the regime by filtering the flow of information, the opposition by not filtering it), is a struggle for power, where both sides' legitimacy depends upon not being the aggressor in the event of violence. That's why, notwithstanding the opposition's dramatic demonstrations and the regime's brutal but relatively limited repressive measures, both sides have essentially been playing for time. It's as if two armies were maneuvering in close proximity, knowing that the first one to open fire loses.

Mousavi, especially, benefits from this, as violence is a far riskier option for his side than Ahmadinejad's, which enjoys the backing of the Basij and probably most of the Revolutionary Guard. He appears to be milking this benefit for everything he can.

--An Iran expert writing for the New Republic agrees with the general analysis of that New York Times AEI op-ed, if not its conclusions. In his eagerness to take down Mousavi, Khamenei may be unleashing forces beyond his control.

--An abortive olive branch bid for time in the form of a recount proposal appears to be DOA. At this point, Mousavi stands to gain more by rebuffing and delegitimizing it than he would by agreeing. Aaaaaand it looks like he wasn't wrong to reject the 'limited recount':

According to the New York Times, Fars News Agency reports a partial “recounting” of votes has begun in Iran. But they are not being counted. They were not even counted the first time. Fars says the “recount” in the Kurdish province of Kermanshah shows “no irregularity.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has almost no support among Kurds whatsoever. Claiming he “won” 70 percent in Kermanshah is as outlandish as Dick Cheney winning San Francisco and Berkeley in a landslide.

This is followed by a quote from a Kurdish separatist commander "just on the Iraq side of the Iran-Iraq border near Kermanshah," saying that there was zero if any Iranian Kurdish participation in the elections.

Kurdish-inhabited regions, for reference:



I'll deal with the less time-sensitive American side of the equation in my next post.

One final note: for those of you receiving my posts by email, I edited my previous Iran post somewhat after I published it for the first time (which triggers the email). It's not substantially different, though I certainly hope it's an improvement over the emailed version.

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*This has held true throughout history. Tellingly, aggressors have occasionally gone to some lengths to play the role of innocent victim, even if only to muddy the waters and play for time until battle is joined. On the other end of the spectrum, some forewarned defenders have deliberately forsaken a preemptive strike in order to retain the moral high ground--generally for quite concrete reasons, of course.

The Yom Kippur War makes for a great case study of this phenomenon. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, made aware at the last minute of Arab plans for a surprise attack, intentionally allowed them to strike first. The thinking was that maintaining good international standing and ensuring an uninterrupted supply of American aid in the ensuing conflict was more valuable than any advantage gained by a preemptive strike. In Meir's words, "'If we strike first, we won't get help from anybody.'" [Do note, however, that this was by no means the optimal situation: "It was assumed that Israel's intelligence services would give, at the worst case, about 48 hours notice prior to an Arab attack," in which case Israeli strategy did call for a preemptive strike. Meir had barely 6 hours, an intelligence failure largely responsible for the postwar collapse of her government.]

Though initially costly, the war did end in an Israeli victory, a victory probably impossible without American aid--early on, the situation looked so grim that Meir actually authorized the crash construction of nuclear weapons. Additionally, for what it's worth, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger later remarked that "had Israel struck first, they would not have received 'so much as a nail.'"