Author: Ophelia Benson

That discussion below in the comments on ‘Memory Tricks’ about memory and how reliable it is or is not, is highly interesting (I think) and suggests a number of other thoughts and subjects. There is for instance the matter of Elizabeth Loftus and her work and what it suggests: that memory is highly unreliable, easily manipulated and changed, a dubious source for evidence, testimony, and information-gathering generally. Not that that was completely unknown before Loftus’ work (defense attorneys have, I believe, long had a heightened awareness of it, for instance), but her research did add some new elements to the picture, and that at a time when memory and its fallibility were in the news, so to speak. That was the time of all those allegations of child abuse, Satanic ritual abuse, recovered memories, etc etc etc – all those allegations that sent people to prison for very long terms on the basis of what seem likely to have been fabricated or reconstructed memories. That poor sad guy just sixty miles south of where I sit typing this, for example, who (it appears) invented a whole stack of memories of his own participation in grotesque ‘Satanic’ abuse of his own daughters, later expanded to include his son. It seems unlikely that any of it ever happened at all – but he was convicted.

And then there is the large subject of how memory plays into the matter of Freud – of Freud’s role in making memory and ‘recovered memory’ seem vastly more credible and reliable than it ought to be and otherwise would be, because so many people were raised on the idea that repression happens often and routinely and can be undone by the right kind of analysis, rather as one might rewind a videotape. Our friend Frederick Crews has an excellent book on that, Memory Wars.

So then there is the question of how belief works, and how skepticism works, and how the two interact, or fail to interact. I’ve been thinking hard about this lately anyway, because of a chapter I’m working on for this book JS and I are writing. I might talk further about this later. For the moment, suffice it to say that I’ve been thinking about the fact that some people learn to be cautious about forming beliefs in the first place, while other people don’t, and that this difference is an important one. It is a good idea to be cautious about forming beliefs. It’s a good idea to be sharply aware that beliefs can always be wrong, that one, we, I, can always be wrong. One step toward that awareness is to recognize various ways that false or unfounded beliefs can be formed. One of those ways, is to have unwarranted confidence in one’s own memory. That’s one of the things I learned from reading Elizabeth Loftus – actually it’s two of the things: how easily we can get our own memories wrong, and how obstinately people refuse to believe that. It’s as if memory is somehow sacred. That’s understandable in a way – memory feels accurate, it feels real and like our own. But if one thinks a little harder, it seems to me, one can realize that that’s an illusion. For instance by comparing a fantasy with a memory, and then trying to specify how they differ. Surely the first thing one notices is that they don’t. And that being the case, how can we be sure we know the difference? We can’t, it seems to me. (Another way might be to consider all those experiments with the guy running into the lecture hall and doing something dramatic and running out again, and then the way everyone’s written answers to questions about the incident give different accounts. Ought to give one pause, that kind of thing. What – everyone else misremembers and only I don’t? Unlikely, don’t you think?)

So maybe it’s relevant that the guy who had such a predictable, generic, Identikit memory of conversations with Bush that took place thirty years ago*, is not a scientist or some other kind of inquirer but a professor in the Business school. Maybe it’s not, maybe I’m just being rude in saying that. But scientists and other empirical inquirers do get quite a lot of training and then experience in, at least, knowing that evidence is not transparent, that it doesn’t interpret itself nor offer the right interpretation of itself written in letters of fire across the sky.

Large subject, as I said. More later.

*Go on, remember a conversation you had thirty years ago, word for word, with some guy you barely knew. Go on, let’s see you.

Timing is everything. At least when it is, it is. I say that because in a few days my colleague is going to be in a place with several of our contributors and/or fans and supporters. People I have had energetic email correspondences with, people I admire, people who have a high opinion of B&W which they have conveyed to me with enthusiasm. I would love to be there. These are people I would really love a chance to talk to, to discuss ideas and events relevant to B&W with. In fact I would give a couple of limbs to talk to them. Meera Nanda, for instance, whom I have quoted here so often and who has written several brilliant articles for us. Alan Sokal, whose title we helped ourselves to and whose hoax is a permanent inspiration to us. Latha Menon, who told me about Romila Thapar and then wrote that wonderful article for us. Kenan Malik, who wrote an excellent review of Meera’s book as well as an article for us (roundly disagreeing with my colleague, who is therefore confidently expecting they will engage in fisticuffs). A.C. Grayling, who is the only one I don’t have an email acquaintance with but who is against FN and N generally, so a sort of ally all the same (otherwise he wouldn’t be there). And of course good old Julian Baggini, who writes Bad Moves for B&W and does one or two other things on the side.

And the final refinement of the torture is that if this confluence of people were taking place a mere three weeks later…I might be able to go. Though I might not, because, er, I haven’t been invited. But I could perhaps loiter around in the street and be able to chat with people as they left. Or I could perhaps just pitch a loud fit until someone invited me – I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, because it’s not taking place three weeks later. Timing is everything. In three weeks (near enough) I’ll be there, but for now I’m here, and that’s that. So let that be a lesson to you. Always be in the right place at the right time.

Everybody’s favourite Rottweiler, Mr Leiter (maybe it’s Dr Leiter; then again…), cites some Harvard Law professor talking about his experiences of teaching G. W. Bush.

Here’s some of it:

[Bush] was totally the opposite of Chris Cox. He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged him.

[In a discussion of government aid for retirees, Bush] “made this ridiculous statement and when I asked him to explain, he said, ‘The government doesn’t have to help poor people — because they are lazy.’ I said, ‘Well, could you explain that assumption?’ Not only could he not explain it, he started backtracking on it, saying, ‘No, I didn’t say that.’

Whatever memory-pill the Harvard Prof has been taking; I want some of it. I used to find it difficult to remember what my students had said five minutes previously, let alone thirty years after the event. Admitttedly, I didn’t encourage them to talk too much. Well, at all, really.

But, in the spirit of democracy and mass participation, here’s a task for you all.

Rearrange the following words in the correct order:*

Memory

Reconstructed

*Okay, I don’t want to claim that these memories are necessarily false. But really, at least a modicum of wariness is sensible here. It’s all just a little too convenient…

This is a deeply irritating article in the Washington Post. The guy who wrote it seems to think (as so many postmodernists and ‘theorists’ seem to think) that postmodernism thought of everything and that nobody thought of anything before postmodernism came along, or independently of postmodernism after it came along. But that is not the case.

Sitting in the shadow of the Capitol, on some of the most prestigious real estate in Washington, the new museum has emerged with ambitions far greater than simply putting a sunny face on the kind of anthropology represented by Mead, or becoming a Disney-style happy magnet for native peoples. It is a monument to Postmodernism — to a way of thinking that emphasizes multiple voices and playful forms of truth over the lazy acceptance of received wisdom, authority and scientific “certainty.”

Um. For one thing, ‘the kind of anthropology represented by Mead’ in fact has a lot in common with postmodernism; Mead is to a considerable extent a hero figure to postmodernists. For another thing, Mead’s research has been sharply criticised in recent years for sloppy research techniques, but not by postmodernists. For another, blindingly obvious thing, postmodernists are hardly the first or the only thinkers to question ‘lazy acceptance of received wisdom’ and authority. It is not very difficult to think of others who have done that sort of questioning. A few thousand, in fact. For one more other thing, scientific ‘certainty’ is a straw man. Scientists don’t (on the whole – yes there are no doubt exceptions) talk about certainty, they talk about evidence. It’s the people they’re talking to who have an ineradicable tendency to translate that into certainty, as I’ve mentioned here many times, with examples. (Seriously. It’s a journalism thing. Scientist will say ‘there is good evidence that’ or ‘there is no evidence that’ and Reporter will answer, ‘Okay so there’s proof that’ and Scientist will sigh [and probably weep, tear hair, kick the table, pretend to throttle self with the mike cord] and say ‘I didn’t say there’s proof, I said there’s evidence.’ And 99 times out of 100 [I’m estimating] the reporter will neglect to report that, because it makes the reporter look stupid, which she/he is.)

And that’s only the beginning. The article goes on in the same damn silly way.

When “The West as America” catalogue was published, Alex Nemerov contributed an article quoting Remington on the merits of using violence against unruly minorities…But when the National Gallery presented an exhibition of Remington’s paintings last year — a very popular exhibition — they did so mostly in the absurdly abstract yet ecstatic language of Art Appreciation. The exhibit was focused on the painter’s “nocturnes” — studies in light and composition and surface control. Remington, the cultural and historical actor, was gone, and his reputation was restored to a more convenient category: great artist. In the words of gallery director Earl A. Powell III, “Remington sought to capture the elusive silver tones of moonlight, the hot flame of firelight, and the charged interaction of both.” Getting free of this kind of glossy art-speak, and wresting control of native identity from the legacy of painters like Remington and the hauteur of scientists like Mead, has been a long road.

Sneer sneer sneer. Absurdly abstract yet ecstatic, convenient category, glossy art-speak, hauteur of scientists. All to back up the odd assumption that it is required to talk about an artist as a cultural and historical actor instead of talking about him as an artist. That’s not to say that the cultural actor aspect is not interesting and important, but it is to say that it seems reasonable for an art gallery to talk about art as art, for Chrissake. And then that business about the ‘hauteur of scientists like Mead’ – it’s such a giveaway, that. Oh those pesky scientists with their hauteur, ignoring all the wonderful daring playful revisionist postmodernists who are the first people ever to notice anything – how we hates ’em.

The Heye Center’s approach was a trial run for the current museum, an attempt to put Indian voices on at least an equal footing with “scientific” ones. It would, wrote scholar Tom Hill in a catalogue published at the time, be in the vanguard of a new reordering of museum priorities — a reordering that sounded like the first step in a broader, societal reformation. “Traditional native values can help guide museums as well,” he wrote. “No longer monuments to colonialism, these institutions may be led to a truly new world in which cultures have genuine equality and creators and creations can be seen whole.”

Note the scare-quotes on ‘scientific’ – because we all know there is no such thing as ‘scientific,’ right? Right. And cultures have genuine equality – well in what sense? In the sense that no culture should have all its artefacts casually scooped up and taken away, fine; but one can think of other senses that would not be so fine. It would depend on the cultures, for one thing. The Taliban have a culture. The Mafia have a culture. ‘Culture’ covers a lot of territory, and so does ‘equality’. But that’s kind of a revisionist thing to say, and revisionism is a monopoly of postmodernism, it seems, so maybe I should leave it to the experts.

Then there’s a hilarious paragraph in which the staff writer tells us to note the language of an article in the Baltimore Sun. He’s a fine one to talk! He uses quite a lot of revealing language himself. (Yes I know – even now there is someone somewhere even nerdier than I am, pointing out all the revealing language I’m using in this comment on someone else’s language. Sit still and be quiet.)

Truth is what individual people say about themselves, beyond refute and suspicion — which is perhaps the most powerful, and radical, challenge that Postmodern thought has proposed.

Hmmm.

Already, in the new museum’s inaugural book…you can see the dizzying Postmodern playfulness at work…This delightful little game can stand for any number of basic Postmodern conundrums: that truth may lie in what isn’t said, that the right to hide meaning may be more meaningful than anything that could be revealed and that, ultimately, the only real truth in the world is the lack of a single truth. This basic mind dance — a corrective ritual to old, stultifying notions of truth — has been driven out of our society, for the most part, by a conservative intellectual entrenchment. But in the National Museum of the American Indian, it is being reanimated, and grafted onto the remnants of a diverse and ancient worldview. On the run most everywhere else, Postmodernism has a victory arch on the Mall.

Old, stultifying notions of truth. What would they be, exactly? Not playful, of course; not ‘revisionist,’ because apparently no historians ever disagreed with previous historians until postmodernism came along (which would be news to Beard, Gibbon, Hume, Thucydides…), not haughtily and bullyingly scientific, not ‘conservative’.

Mock mock. But it’s beyond a joke, really. Because the thing is, postmodernism is not, as this writer apparently takes it to be, some sort of enabler or precondition for critical thinking; in many ways it’s the opposite, and a preventer of it. If you don’t think you can get at the truth, or that there is a truth to aim at, to get closer to or farther from, how critical is your thinking really going to be? Judging by this piece of innuendo-ridden nonsense, not very.

Another update. Crumb Trail has a post on the pigs comment. He points out something –

It’s only funny if you know pigs. They scream for the fun of it, to socialize. Even the wild (feral) pigs that infest the woods around here scream at one another, other animals, the sky, the moon, whatever. They’re vocal like coyotes. Two pigs, or coyotes, can make enough noise in enough distinct ways that you might think there were dozens of them involved in some life and death drama unless you knew their ways. They scream more when they find something yummy than they do when they are being eaten alive by a predator.

Fair point. Pigs do scream a lot – I do know that. I did think of it while writing the comment – that pigs just are vocal, that they scream for anything or nothing. I thought of mentioning that, but the trouble is, the way I remember it (and I may remember it wrong – memory is not infallible) the screaming was concentrated at the end of the chute. So I didn’t mention it, lest I get myself entangled in one of my usual tangles of qualifications and clauses. But Crumb Trail does have a point.

But I’m not sure I think it’s what you might call a knockdown point. The fact remains that the pigs were just sent down a straight open chute instead of a twisting closed one of the kind that Grandin designs, and that they did have time to see hear and smell what was happening. I don’t see why that’s either necessary or useful, or why it shouldn’t be done differently. Therefore I don’t see the point of this part:

Those completley detached from the real world – from nature, food, birth, death and material reality in general – make consistently bad decisions due to lack of information and understanding. There’s nothing amusing about that since they do great harm while feeling innocent. This lack of grounding in reality, detachment from the world, is correctable like any other form of ignorance. In a very real sense they choose to remain ignorant by looking away from contrary information, preferring to see only things that reinforce their biases or perhaps being too emotionally engaged to become intellectually engaged?

Great harm. Hmm. I’m doing great harm by suggesting that humane methods of slaughter are preferable to inhumane ones? Why, exactly? And how? And where does ‘feeling innocent’ come in? And I’ll tell you one thing. If there’s anything I’m not detached from, it’s food. I love the stuff, I’m deeply attached to it, and I spend a lot of time cuddling and embracing it and making it part of my life. So there.