Tuesday, October 21, 2014

affective forecasting

Did I imagine it?  A psychologist recommending African safaris?  Because you can savour the memories for years.....

That's a wise way to spend your money, he said.

But who was his audience?  Surely not the majority of mankind.

Has psychology given up all pretense of being a science?  Is it now the psychology of  the bourgeois, and not a science of human beings in general?

Well, they tell us we are bad at "affective forecasting".  The most terrible things will happen,
but I will return to my normal affective state.

Is that supposed to be good?

Is it a justification for the genuinely bad things?--As if they don't really matter?

Of course, once I've lost my job, I'll adjust; but it's a bad thing to be unemployed.
And suggesting that somehow I return to my steady state is not helpful.

Because despite our flexibility, once a bad thing has happened, that's a genuine loss.
And it's not counter-balanced by my ability to retain my equilibrium.

The psychologists' view trivializes human suffering.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

"Hey!  Accept it!  It's the Czech Republic, after all.....:

Coming from an English speaker, from the UK, that's sort of racist........

University of Pardubice Dorms managed like Communism, Like Kafka

The rules have been changed.

Who changed them?  What's their name?

You cannot know.

Now, another new, and previously un-announced policy:
You can't use the washing machine after 6pm.

Why not?

Someone complained about the noise.

Who?  Some nameless person complained.

Errrrr,  it's a bit like being accused, and not knowing who accused you......

UPCE Housing:   WE make the rules!  You:  PAY and OBEY!

noted in passing----"better than Communism"

Observation:
In Central Europe, the remark "Well, Communism was worse...", or "It's better than Communism."
is not a serious remark.

It is a conversation-stopper.  It is a way to avoid thinking.

Context:
I was riding a crowded train, and I was complaining.  The First Class compartments are usually sparsely populated.  The Second Class compartments are crammed full like a tin of sardines.
And, as I was complaining, suddenly, I imagined the retort:  "Well, it's better than Communism."

Really?  You have newer trains, but they are still crowded.  Now, you pay for them, or pay more than you used to. Where is the progress in that?

But, I noted with horror that my own brain produced those words, "...better than Communism...."
To stop me from complaining.

Let's review:  The ruling class, via the banking system have stolen trillions of dollars.
We are paying for their bail-out.  Schools, public services including trains, salaries,
hospitals, etc., etc.  are all affected.  They are filthy rich and getting rich.  We are getting
poorer.  Public transport in Central Europe continues to be unpleasant.  The illusion
that there is now "competition" because a few rich men are now running their own trains
belongs to a catalogue of idiocy which should produce only embarrassment to the perpetrators.

But we can complain about it?  That's the difference?  So, we don't fear imprisonment, only
starvation, humiliation, and falling into the under-class?  But we can talk about it?

And our no-longer-enslaved audience responds with the knee-jerk reaction:  "Well, it's better than.......

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

pre-literate or just creatures from a Kafka novel?

My latest unpleasant experience with the "ladies" of the University of Pardubice Housing Authority leaves me in astonishment at the depth of the inhumanity so easily propagated by women who have the ability to deny me clean clothes.

They sit, sphinx-like behind a thick plane of glass (is it bullet-proof?) and it isn't so easy to hear them.  Due to the think glass, they seem to communicate silently with one another-- as if I were an intruder.  And they take a smug satisfaction in saying "no".

All I want to do is wash my clothes.  I will even not complain about the perversity of the fact that my employer is renting the washing machines to me.

I found myself wondering whether for this segment of the Czech population literacy is not a completely absorbed cultural artifact because the rules change and are never written down.

The rules for the use of the washing machines have never, to my knowledge, been written down or announced, and I must discover them anew whenever I trudge across the street (sometimes busy with dangerously speedy and impatient cars) and across the lawn to the large dormitory where the ladies sit behind their protective glass cage.  

Today, once again, they have invented a new rule.   No washing after 6pm.  Why?  Someone complained.  Well, I am complaining now, as I have before---but no one listens to me. They smile
in an indulgent sort of way, as if to say, "Here he goes again......"

This is 2014, yet the habits of the old system, prior to Communism, seem to live.  If you are a bureaucrat or any sort of official, associated with the monarchy, you are superior to other people.  And you need not explain yourself to them.  They must follow your rules.  Resentment, Schadenfreude, all the nasty things Nietzsche attributed to Christianity seem fully present in the sub-group within atheistic Czech society.

I would like to suggest, once again, that the University of Pardubice, on its website should embroider the housing branch with the motto:
UPCE Housing,
Where WE make the Rules,
and YOU:  PAY AND OBEY!

Monday, October 13, 2014

just another arrogant American?

Oh, so you think that the Housing Authority of the University of Pardubice is not especially democratic?  Who are you to say that?  What makes you an expert about democracy?
Aren't you just being an ugly and noisy American?  Arrogantly assuming you know?

I can imagine someone saying that after reading my recent posts.
I do have views about the nature of democracy, but not because I am an American,
or not because America is especially a good example of democracy.

On the contrary, America (the United States) suffers from a serious democracy deficit.
(And here I don't have much to say that hasn't been said elsewhere by Noam Chomsky
or Robert Paul Wolff.)

But, to review a few basic facts:  most Americans don't like the constant war-making,
and the government spends a lot of money scaring them, and trying to convince them
that yet another war is needed.  Most Americans would prefer more spending on roads, schools, and hospitals.  Most would prefer to have universal health care.  And so on.  But the government of the USA, in its actions, ignores what most people want.  That's not democracy.

I'm not going to document these claims.  They can be easily documented.

So, no, I do not think I have some special expertise as an American.  Nor does anyone else.

And I do think it is very un-democratic when a nameless individual makes decisions which
directly impact upon my life, and when I am also not allowed to discuss or criticize their decision with them--and, especially when I was not allowed input into the original decision-making process, but was presented the decision as a fait accomplis.    And that is exactly what recently happened to me at the University of Pardubice in the Czech Republic.

just like communism?

IN retrospect, it occurs to me....

Yesterday, when I journeyed to the nearby dormitory where I picked up the keys
to the laundry room and washing machine. ...

The lady behind the thick glass (hard to hear her) lectured me sternly about a new policy.
I would be allowed to use only one washing machine.

After I protested at length, she said that since they were not busy, she would allow
me to use two....

That sort of granting of special favors is, I believe, characteristic of corrupt regimes.
It is, in fact, characteristic of the old regime in Czechoslovakia,the so-called
'Communist" one.

Well, I didn't want any special favors, and I didn't want to get her in trouble; so, I said 'no'.

But notice. If I had accepted, I would be in debt to her.  And someday I might be expected
to do her a special favor.

All in all, this is very unpleasant, and it interferes with simple living.  Nonetheless, it
reminds me of something that has been called the "inner communism".

I don't don't really think it is essentially connected to Marx or egalitarian political ideas.
It has a lot to do with inequality, injustice, and maneuvering within a society to achieve a position.  Where formal mechanisms don't work, people will invent others.  I did not see the offer as a case of anarchistic mutual aid, however.  I saw it as the granting of a favor to a less powerful person by a benign more powerful one, and that is disgusting.  It is not real kindness.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Mundane Totalitarianism at the University of Pardubice

A couple of months ago, they put locks on the washing machines---that's in addition to the fact that they are behind a locked door.  At the time I thought it was a waste of money.  What's needed is more washing machines, and larger washing machines. (And dryers!)  Right now, we have a building with, oh I don't know, maybe twelve stories, and many people living here.  Two little machines aren't enough.

I have to trudge across a busy street to get the keys---after having the money deducted from my salary.

Today I was informed that I am no longer allowed to use two washing machines at once.---And they are small washing machines.  I cannot wash everything I have even with two machines.----I am only allowed to use one machine, but (oh so generously) for four hours.

Well, I would like to use two machines and finish in two hours.  I don't have that option.  So, in effect my time is being robbed.  I am being fined two hours every time I do laundry.  Two hours are stolen from me, and that's going to happen at least four times a month.  Not an insignificant waste of my time.

When I asked who was responsible for that decision, I was not told.  Indeed, when I pursued the matter, the other the UPce employee became increasingly evasive. I am not allowed to know the name of the person who has robbed me of my time.  Since I am not even allowed to make a complaint, my opinion is completely disregarded.  Strange, I thought democracy meant openness. Strange, I thought democracy meant transparency. Well, at any rate in this case, the University of Pardubice Housing Authority is very un-transparent and very un-democratic.

There was no discussion in advance.  There was no explanation in advance or after the fact.  The decision was announced as a fait accomplis.  That's called the arbitrary and non-democratic exercise of power.  In colloquial American, one might even refer to that as "fascism"--although, I know, on the authority of Andy Levine, distinguished author of a dictionary of Political Words, that to do so would not be, strictly speaking, correct.

Someone has decided for me how I shall spend my time.  They have done so without prior discussion.  I was not consulted and my opinion (about how I shall use my time) has been disregarded.  A nameless person is running my life for me. 

In keeping with what seems to me to be a local fondness for advertising/marketing, I suggest that the Housing Authority of the University of Pardubice should adopt the motto: 
UPce Housing Authority:
WE make the Rules;
You PAY and OBEY.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Heaven forbid that students should make films in the dormitories!

In the past couple of years, I have had my share of frustrating conversations with the custodian of university housing.

Yesterday, I had another such maddening conversation.

I was so insane as to suggest that, for purely formal purposes, I might register my current accommodation as the site of a "business".

Yes, I know what you are thinking.  But this is the post-Communism Czech Republic.  If you teach English, that is a business.  If you are a prostitute, that is a business too--I gather, though I've not
undertaken extensive research.  And heaven forbid that the happy hooker did not pay her taxes.

I must indulge the aside:  We focus upon petty crooks (if that's what they are) and we ignore the historically unprecedented robberies of the financial elite.  How, for example,  can I take seriously the "crime" of riding the local buses without paying, when the bankers have robbed us of billions?--And continue to do so......

( I would have like to say that to the "revizor" who I recently saw disciplining an elderly woman with her shopping bags, a large green vegetable protruding from the top of one bag, of a Saturday morning when the bus was empty.....The confused lady did not punch her ticket.  Maybe she did it deliberately, maybe not.  But why shouldn't she, at her age, be allowed to ride for free?)

But were I to have a License to teach English, the location of my "business" would be a theoretical matter.  Holding the License would allow me to do extra teaching outside the premises of my accommodation.  And I assure you, I am busy enough with my current responsibilities that no enormous amount of extra teaching will ever occur any time soon.

Nonetheless, the extremely thoughtful lady of the housing authority immediately had a head full of worries, apprehensions, and the general bad behavior which she would bring into the world if she signed the paper granting me the location as a business site.  "Why, if I let you do that, the next thing will be...."
Pause to catch your breath....and steel yourself against the truly awful possibilities....
"Students would be making movies in the dormitories!"
Yes, what an awful thought!

Later, I realized that once upon a time, say 15 years ago, I was, as a Professor attending
an NEH Summer Seminar,  resident in an NYU dorm
where students were making films, during the time of my stay, in the actual dorm where
I was living.
And no disaster ensued.
But, then I also recalled that there was an easy to access room for doing laundry (which actually
had dryers---unlike my current accommodation), and this probably indicates the much greater level of physical comfort enjoyed by students living in NYU accommodations......
In my current habitation, I must travel across a busy road, and pay in advance, after explaining my needs through thick glass of the sort found in banks, to the ladies working in a student dorm, at its front desk.  They will supply me with a host of keys---one for each washing machine, and one for the door to the basement room where they are found.  The keys which control the washing machines are a recent innovation.  Heaven forbid that a student or visiting scholar should wash his or her clothes for free!

Sunday, October 5, 2014

If I could vote.....

If I could vote in Prague, I'd vote for the Green Party.  This is one of their billboards...

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The geniuses at apple

The geniuses at apple gave no thought to the elderly when they designed their oh so wonderful devices.
My mother finds the IPad increasingly difficult to use.
She has had operations for Carpo-Tunnel on both hands.
The recessed, oddly shaped black button for volume is something she finds it very difficult
to use.
Her hands do not work with the touch-screen.

Thank you Apple for being such generous geniuses and thinking about everyone in the society.