I've done it. I changed the name of this series to "Pandemic Journal" as threatened in the previous entry. We're on to Part Seven, which covers some of what I've been thinking about April 18-May 9, 2020. Also, this part is chock-full of even more memes that have amused me recently. Enjoy!
Sat. 18 April 2020
This morning Beth had a wonderful idea to order Indian food delivery. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved my spouse so much.
I hope we will rethink things in light of the pandemic. I doubt we will.
I was going to miss the Chattanooga Film Festival this weekend because I was going to the History of Philosophy Society conference in Salt Lake City instead. Joke’s on me, I guess.
I’ve been in more of a reading mood this weekend, but maybe I’ll have to watch a few films in honor of an experience doubly missed.
Last night I watched a documentary on YouTube about Metallica’s Master of Puppets (one of my all-time favorite albums). That almost feels like film fest thing. Maybe I’ll watch one of the Joe Bob Briggs shows on Shudder, since he’s always a guest at the Chattanooga Film Festival. I also learned about a film called Hawk the Slayer on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast on an episode on awesomely bad 80’s fantasy movies. Might be worth checking out.
Mon. 20 April 2020
Yesterday my social distancing walk took me to a previously untraversed (at least by me) alley with a bamboo grove. Part of it has cobblestones. I guess this goes to show that there are always new experiences to be had, even in your own neighborhood.
I wonder if people with PhDs in other disciplines misspell the name of the discipline in which they are allegedly experts as frequently as I do.
Tues. 21 April 2020
So, there have been these rallies in many states calling for state governments to allow businesses to reopen now. Groups have been gathering, often without masks or social distancing. I even saw a few kids in one picture. Thankfully for a change this idiocy started up north (in Michigan, I think), but we did have a small one here in Chattanooga the other day.
I’m all for peace, love, and understanding, but… what the fuck is wrong with these people? This would be funny if they weren’t putting everyone more at risk.
I realize the right wing media is responsible for a lot of it. Some people have pointed out that white supremacism behaves like a death cult (Confederate flags aplenty). Some of it may be that many of us don’t personally know anyone who is sick or dying, so it’s harder to understand why we’re doing this. But at a deeper level I think there is something about the basic American orientation toward reality and society that is not only ill-equipped to deal with this crisis but exacerbates it.
This idea that we are all isolated, atomic individuals who are not affected by the decisions and behavior of other people and whose decisions and behavior don’t affect others is getting people killed. I mean literally: this fundamental American orientation is killing Americans. Along with a lot of other complex factors (getting hit a little later than some parts of the world, more awareness, more but still not enough testing, etc.) is probably why the United States has far more cases and deaths than any other country right now.
I’m not saying (as many proponents of such views claim about their opponents) that we should give up our right to form our own opinions or that we should blindly follow group think. Ironically in America doing that leads directly to the kind of dangerous individualism I’m talking about. (I’m reminded of my favorite line from Life of Brian: “We are all individuals.”)
Here’s what I hope, but which I doubt will happen for most Americans: I hope we will come to see that, while, yes, we are all individuals, being an individual means being connected to others whether you want it or not, whether you believe it or not. It means that what you do affects other people, and vice versa. It means that, although we are all different and vive la différance, we are all in this life together even if our social and economic systems seem hellbent on trying to erase this fact. It means that, while you should think for yourself, a responsible, mature individual comes to think that they should care about others. It means that we are all vulnerable to disease, aging, death, and ill-fortune no matter how tough we think we are, but it also means we are all precious instantiations of humanity beyond other people’s economic valuation or social enmity, no matter what the bosses and bigots say. It means that we get by with a little help from our friends. Above all, to be an individual means to realize that one’s very individuality is only possible because of others: we are dependent on one another not only socially but metaphysically—the barriers between us that seem so real and so immutable are, for all the real harm they cause, figments of our imaginations.
Given my previous reflections, the work I was going to present in Hawaii next month on Ratnakīrti’s arguments against the very idea of a mind separate from others seems… almost more like applied philosophy rather than pointless, abstract metaphysics. I feel like my mental wheels were turning somewhere toward the direction of thinking there was something profoundly relevant about Ratnakīrti’s arguments. Maybe this is where it’s heading. We’ll see.
Where my online classes are these days:
· Some students have already turned in their final projects, which aren’t due until next week. Others still haven’t turned in a bunch of stuff due several weeks ago, which I will still grade when it comes in.
· I just posted an announcement on Canvas with the subject, “Assignment due today (or, you know, whenever).”
Wed. 22 April 2020
Happy Earth Day! … I guess.
I’m having my office hours on Zoom today. There are many ways that Zoom office hours are not like regular office hours, but there is one way they are exactly the same: I’m usually surprised when students drop by.
I’m advising a thesis student writing on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which I took as a good chance to sit down and read the Meditations again. It has been great. I don’t always agree with Marcus (he can be a little bit judgey and too certain where he probably shouldn’t be, and I think we should be a little easier on ourselves), but overall I love this text. I’ve been especially struck this time by his meditations on death and the ephemeral nature of all things, including most especially ourselves. Sitting on the porch reading it, I’m dipping into a feeling I’ve called coolness of mind.
(Note: the porch is the best place to read Stoic philosophy, since the Stoics are named for a covered walkway or porch in Athens where the school began.)
This journal is something like my own Meditations. Marcus wrote most of his on a military campaign. I’m writing mine in the midst of a pandemic. So… not really the same thing, but still kinda. Maybe.
I also doubt anyone will be reading this 1,850 or so years in the future, but in case I’m wrong…
Salutations, people of the future! This humble denizen of the past greets you from the abode of non-being across the ocean of time. As I am now so you will become.
Marcus Aurelius 1,850 years ago foreseeing the people protesting stay at home orders:
“What’s so bad or surprising about the ignoramus who acts out of ignorance? Find fault instead with yourself for failing to anticipate his offensive behavior. Your ability to reason should have told you that he would misbehave, but you refused to listen and are now shocked by his misbehavior.” (Meditations 9.42)
“If someone makes a mistake, correct him with kindness and point out where he went wrong. If you fail, blame yourself, or better yet, don’t blame anyone.” (Meditations 10.4)
Another good one for our times:
“Plainly, no situation is better suited for the practice of philosophy than the one you’re now in.” (Meditations 11.7)
In the science fictional realm, but dealing as well with concepts of time and history, I finished Adrian Tschaikovsky’s Children of Time recently. Amazing stuff! Some of the best science fiction I’ve read recently. I’ll be writing a full review soon.
Fri. 24 April 2020
Yesterday and today I’ve felt a bit tired and run down. I think the end of the semester is catching up with me. I had a lot of Zoom meetings yesterday, too, which I find particularly draining.
Pizza via contactless delivery! Yum!
Sat. 25 April 2020
Tonight I made the sugar cookies from a mix I bought in December. Ironically I didn’t make it back then because I was really sick at the time. And then the semester and life got in the way. I’ve been meaning to make them for a while, but the lack of candy in the house made me keen to make something sugary. They turned out pretty tasty. They don’t look like the greatest cookies, but they taste good. I even made an icing for them and put sprinkles on them.
Anyway, now I’m finally getting around to writing a review of Children of Time even though I feel that my review won’t do it justice. I did decide to call the review “humanities in space,” with a double meaning of “humanities” both as a plural and as a type of discipline. Clever, I know!
Sun. 26 April 2020
I stayed up late last night writing my review of Children of Time. It’s not as polished as it could be and I feel like my philosophical connections never go deep enough to interest my fellow philosophers (which honestly probably makes the reviews more readable by non-philosophers). I feel like I got some of my thoughts about the book out, which always feels good. I’m not getting as many hits on my blog as I used to a few years ago, but I still write these things because I enjoy it. It’s a nice hobby. Other people make sourdough. I write blog posts (and occasionally make cookies, apparently).
Actually, during the pandemic I’ve found myself drifting toward my default setting of staying up until about 3am, sometimes even on weekdays. This is always what happens during breaks or any time I don’t have to be up early. (Lucky for me, I’ve mostly avoided any Zoom meetings before noon so far, although I may have one for an online conference in a couple weeks).
The time around 3am is my favorite time: it’s quiet and peaceful. Most of the night owls have gone home and most of the early birds aren’t up yet. (Why are these common metaphors about waking and sleeping bird-based?)
A weird dream last night: I was going to go into long term hibernation (as in Children of Time and other science fiction) for decades or centuries to avoid some creeping doom that was never explicitly identified as the pandemic, but probably kinda was. And there may have been vampires going into hibernation, too, including one who looked like Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Beth has been rewatching that recently, and I sit in sometimes; I’ve also been watching the TV show What We Do in the Shadows for funny vampires). But I decided not to go into hibernation, because I felt like it was my duty to live through the tough times. Also, I had forgotten to call my dad first.
Weird. But a good reminder to call my dad.
Mon. 27 April 2020
I was eating a big salad for lunch and halfway through I remembered that we have croutons. So I put the amount of croutons a normal person would put on a whole salad on my half-salad.
Some things I did today for the first time: Coordinated my colleagues to make a Zoom video together, recorded a Zoom video, used iMovie to edit a video, created a YouTube channel for my department, uploaded a video to YouTube, edited closed-captions for a YouTube video. (See the video here.)
I took a nice evening social distancing walk tonight. I got a nice picture of the moon, Venus, and one bright star (I’m not sure which one, and I only knew it was Venus because I checked online when I got home. Yeah, I know a space loving nerd like me should be better at amateur astronomy, but I’m actually really terrible at identifying celestial bodies.)
Today some restaurants in Chattanooga are opening their dining rooms, which seems like a really, really bad idea. Here’s an explanation by way of what I said about it on Facebook.
tl;dr: Please don't eat in at restaurants yet.
Background: Tennessee's Republican Governor is, in opposition to advice from the medical community, allowing some restaurants to be open starting today as long as they follow (relatively strict, but insufficient) social distancing guidelines, but the counties with the largest populations were exempted (including Hamilton County, where Chattanooga is). The Mayor of Chattanooga sensibly decided to keep restaurants closed to dine-in. However, the Mayor of Hamilton County (yes, that's a thing) instructed the county health department to allow restaurants to open. The Governor sided with the county Mayor (a fellow Republican) over the city Mayor (a Democrat).
So, anyway, if you live in Chattanooga, please don't eat in at restaurants just yet. I say this as someone who really, really loves going out to eat, so you know I must be pretty serious. Remember the wisdom of Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park: just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.
Tues. 18 April 2020
Here’s what I wrote on a survey for the faculty senate in response to the question, “What fears do you have about the future?”
I am most afraid of draconian budget cuts in faculty, staff, and services that will affect the university and higher education for years or decades to come. We saw this during the 2008 financial crisis, especially in creating a constant scarcity mindset that is still with us in higher education.
I'm worried short-sightedness about the budget, especially on the part of our state legislature and upper administration, will adversely affect our students and everyone in the university community in the long term. We must prioritize saving jobs and serving students above all else. If we have to cut the budget (which given our unfortunate dependence on the state legislature and tuition dollars) seems unavoidable, we need to prioritize the people that make up our community above all else and commit to no layoffs. If we must have furloughs, they should only affect those at the upper end of earnings. If we have to cut student services, cuts should not adversely affect the health and well-being of our students at a time when many students will need those services more than ever (especially in the counseling center, emergency assistance, food shelf, etc.).
We don't know exactly how bad this crisis is going to be, but meeting it with austerity measures that disproportionately affect students and our most vulnerable employees would demonstrate a lack of courage and imagination in these difficult times.
Here’s what I had to say about what we should do if we have to go online in the fall.
The university should offer training over the summer not just about specific tools and software, but big picture pedagogy classes about how to design an effective online class. None of us who abruptly switched to online in March had time to really plan for an online course, and none of our students signed up for online. This semester has just been about muddling through to do the best we can in difficult circumstances.
Above all, I think the administration and staff need to understand that most students do not like online courses, and they don't care if online courses are more efficient or cost-effective from an administrative point of view. In my experience, students dislike online courses even more than faculty. On the other hand, students are reasonable and recognize that during a global pandemic we all have to give something up and they are doing the best they can. We may lose some enrollment in the fall, but I think we will get some of that back when the worst of the crisis has abated.
I've spent a good chunk of today putting off grading by granting students' requests for extensions. Thus, the circle of procrastination continues...
A recent headline about a terrible milestone: “Coronavirus has now killed more Americans than the Vietnam War.” Think about how much that war changed the US and Southeast Asia. How will this pandemic change the world for decades to come?
Thurs. 30 April 2020
I’m in the thick of grading now.
You know when you’re dining in a group (or were in the Before Times) and you think someone in the group might be a bad tipper so you tip extra? That’s how I feel about grading right now at the table with some of my fellow professors.
I took a walk with a face mask on the whole time. I’ve been wearing a mask for trips to the store and other quick things, but this was the first time I’ve wore it for so long. Usually on my walks I just stay far away from other people, but I figured I should be extra cautious especially since so many other people (including our Governor) seem to be getting less cautious recently. My glasses were fogging up a bit (brisk walks outside=more breathing than moseying in the store), but it was mostly manageable.
Fri. 1 May 2020
Happy May Day!
We had a union meeting this afternoon bringing in some new people from campus to discuss our concerns and next steps. I’ve said a lot in previous entries about the huge challenges facing higher education now and in the future. A more immediate issue is safety for people who are still on campus (custodians, maintenance, housing, etc.), especially issues like getting the PPE (personal protective equipment) they need to work safely. In the near future and probably for years to come, scarcity-mindset-fueled budget cuts are going to affect us all.
I’m in the middle of grading hell in the middle of pandemic hell--a pocket hell realm if you will (or if you won’t).
Sat. 2 May 2020
A Skype with friends and a FaceTime for my nephew’s 4th birthday! And, of course, grading… and trying to get in touch with students whose work is late so… I can get more stuff to grade.
Sun. 3 May 2020
I haven’t really missed working in coffeeshops until the last week when I’ve had to sit and grade all my finals at home. I am, however, deeply thankful for my porch and the magnificent weather we’ve been having lately.
Facebook added a new Care reaction. So far I've been using this reaction mostly to react to memes about the Care reaction. Maybe the purpose of the Care reaction is to be an infinitely recursive reaction to itself? Is this how Facebook will become a self-aware distributed meta-consciousness that will outlast us fragile biologicals? Anyway, let’s look at some funny memes.
Mon. 4 May 2020
Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you!
Tues. 5 May 2020
One good thing about working from home: You can eat something with a bunch of raw onions for lunch and then immediately go to a conference while only annoying the people who are already used to your bullshit.
I'm waiting on a couple stragglers, but grades are almost done. And soon it will be time to stop ignoring that I, too, am a straggler behind deadlines of my own.
I enjoyed the Instructional Excellence Virtual Conference today (organized by our campus center for teaching and learning). I’ll be presenting with my colleague Wes Smith tomorrow about the film-making project we created for students in my horror and philosophy course. I’ve never done this conference before because it’s always on campus right after grades are due (a time when I’m usually taking a break), but I was asked to do it this time and figured it would be a good thing to do since most of my other conferences were canceled.
Wed. 6 May 2020
Our online conference presentation went well this morning. Overall the conference was a good experience.
Then I graded the last straggling final and entered all my final grades. Whew.
I also made a farewell video for my students (posted on YouTube and everything). Here’s what I said:
Greetings! I’ve entered your official final grades. We made it!
It’s been… a weird and difficult semester. Let’s be honest: the past several weeks have been pretty shitty.
I want to say that I’m proud of each and every one of you for making it to the end of this semester. I greatly admire your persistence in these circumstances. You’ve inspired me when it seemed hopeless to abruptly transform to an online class during a global pandemic, tornadoes, and general malaise. So, thank you.
To those who are graduating, I’m sorry we couldn’t have a regular ceremony for you, but I’d like to congratulate you and wish you the best.
None of us know what the future holds. We never did before, but this is even more true these days. If you learned anything in this class, I hope it’s this: philosophy teaches us that there are problems that are not entirely clear and whose solutions are not immediately obvious, but it also shows us that everyone has the capacity to think creatively and critically about possible solutions to these problems. I suspect—in fact, I hope—that we will have to rethink a lot of things about our society in the near future. Most of you are younger than me, so a lot of this rethinking will be up to you. This may be daunting, but I’m confident that you’re up to the task.
Stay safe! Wash your hands! Don’t endanger everyone’s health by taking unnecessary risks! Take care.
I was drinking Laphroaig on the porch in today’s unseasonably cool weather letting it start to sink in how emotionally exhausting the spring 2020 semester has been for me and how much worse the last few months have been for so many others. But now perhaps: a nap?
Thurs. 7 May 2020
I’m going to take a few days off to relax.
Today I took a walk over to the park next to the Chattanooga Zoo. I’ve been avoiding that area because to get there I have to walk over a bridge with a narrow sidewalk, but I figured it was okay if I was wearing my mask. I did have to pass one pedestrian (oddly, a man in scrubs not wearing a mask), but otherwise I only saw a few other people in the park who maintained proper social distance. The playground, thankfully, was still closed, but I’ve heard the zoo itself is re-opening soon with strict social distancing guidelines. Let’s hope the animals and humans are okay.
What We Do in the Shadows is my new favorite show. Vampire comedy is just what we need when everything sucks.
Fri. 8 May 2020
I was reading an article about experts’ advice for how to proceed as some states and cities reopen restaurants and other businesses. Even some of this expert advice waffles a bit. I don't think the American ethos that emphasizes personal choice and freedom above everything else is serving us well in this pandemic. If governments tell Americans what to do, many won't do it out of spite, but if governments don't tell Americans what to do, many will take stupid risks. You can't win.
Pandemic stats (via worldometer.info): Worldwide cases: 3,950,917. Worldwide deaths: 271,802. US cases: 1,295,101. US deaths: 77,059. From reddit: Hamilton County, TN cases: 234. Hamilton County, TN deaths: 13.
Sat. 9 May 2020
Amaud Aubrey, a black man jogging in southern Georgia, was shot and killed by two white men in February. His killers were just arrested this week after a video of the killing went viral. The sinking feeling this gives me about white supremacy, guns, and general shittiness in America is hard to describe. I can’t imagine what this feels like for black Americans.
Last night I finished The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal. This is the sequel to The Calculating Stars (the winner of the Hugo last year). This sequel didn’t grab me like the first one did, but it was okay.
I decided I needed some old school Stephen King in my life, so I started Christine, which I think is the last on my list of “A List” classic Stephen King novels. I’m not a car person, so the haunted car book never really seemed like something I’d like, but I have to say I’m really enjoying it. I’m really loving the first-person narrator’s sarcastic sense of humor. And it’s as engrossing as King’s work usually is.
I’m looking forward to a lot more reading this summer. All my travel plans are canceled, but reading is its own kind of travel (cheesy, I know, but my fellow bibliophiles understand).
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