Saturday, June 30, 2007

years ago, as in many moons ago, i saw a post by a brilliant woman. it was on an early internet forum called' the well'. i dont remember her name but i always watched for her because she had a tendency to startle me with bright ideas. these ideas often came in mundane packages. they came in the conversational tone of people having an online chat complete with the requisite typos. one of her little quips that is still with me is: civilization is hypocrisy. it is one of those really great subversive ideas that you initially recognize as being special in some way, worth saving, but you dont yet recognize the power of it until you watch it work on you for a while. it starts to infect your world view. it starts to appear everywhere. from the kabuki theater of politics to the moment in the grocery store when you are stopped, looking at the carnage that is glossed over in the pork chops weve packaged under neat little plastic wrapping. we enjoy our moral superiority over paris hilton while we follow her every move. but before you start to misunderstand me, before you start thinking that i sound preachy, let me first say that i havent found this information about civilization to be an idea that makes me feel morally superior. instead i find that, as truth often does, it frees me. it is difficult to feel outrage and easier to feel understanding when i am reminded that civilization is hypocrisy. there is a core misunderstanding of my own personal hypocrisy underneath almost all of my moments of righteous indignation and moral superiority. i am just another monkey trying to make his way through the world, making calls the best i can and susceptible to all the confirmation bias, fear, and good old fashioned stupidity that tarnishes all our decisions. wow. coffee moment. just had that moment of awareness that the caffeine has been speaking through me again. blah blah. i could go on and on but i wont because my wife wants me now. we are off to a farmers market and then a serious consideration of the deepest of todays deep thoughts: to iphone or not to iphone? dweeb on.

26 comments:

Brian Smith McCallum said...

EA,

"Civilization = Hypocrisy". Trademark that one, and start selling the t-shirts over the Web. :) I agree w/ you that lowering our expectations of others and the world is liberating. Please let us know if you sprung for an iPhone. I'm tempted as well. A Blackberry is tugging @ me, too.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

To iphone or Not To iphone, that is the question.

i say no, wait for iphone v 1.2

Anonymous said...

civilization is hypocrisy...
yeah..maybe you're right
if civilization is the iphone you're goddamn right..
hypocrisy is letting people think that there's the need of the iphone. don't u think?
love
V.

Anonymous said...

E,
talk about civilization and hypocrisy, i urge everyone to go see the film "sicko", tonight!
And about the iPhone, of course you'll get one, and you will marvel at it. Remember when we were young boys and tried to imagine the future with it's space age technologies ? Well the iphone fufills some of that.
by the way, do you read terrence mckenna ?
Sent via my iPhone, damn does this thing have spell check ? Dani

matt volpe said...

Hey Eric,

I agree that civilization can be hypocritical in some ways, however, without civilization, I believe there would be no great music, mesmerizing art, or any kind of motivation for artists in general to create amazing work. To me it's like anything else in this world, a ying and a yang, there's always a bad side to something good. I think it lies within an indiviudual's character to determine what he or she will put more stock and faith in the good or the bad. Maybe I'm being a little to black and white, as we all know life has a lot of gray areas. Anyways, just thought I'd comment on this interesting topic. Happy 4th to you and Mrs.! Talk soon amigo, Matt

Anonymous said...

I agree w/george d's comment...wait for
the NEXT version of the iPhone

while the interface IS revolutionary
the actual Phone capabilities are not
(and are even lacking...only EDGE network???
pretty slow/outdated technolgy)

in my opinion, the one(s) TO COME
will be the ones to get

Anonymous said...

heard you were surfing with Pete D lately....NICE!!!
when are you two going to write/record something???
THAT would/could be AMAZING

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna think about this over the week. thanks, eric.

Ellis

Anonymous said...

EA--long time no post...checked out your interests and saw that you like hockey...Kings fan?

Against my peace-loving interests, I'm a big supporter of the enforcers out there...nothing like a Marty McSorely to keep the peace (i know...that whole policing thing is bs).

Who's your favorite "enforcer"?

Cheers,
KV

Anonymous said...

Hi, Anxious for the new album. Interestingly, I heard rather faintly some PB on a History Channel program (Hopefully you are aware of that, I found it quite...well, just quite.)
Wondering if Set and the horde of the Mangled Men ever embraced you among walls of tensile in or around Pigeon town, in Orion?
Clarity strikes in certain cycles, as Ive been jogging, listening, concerning myself with cataclysms amidst dried-up fountains...

Vol- Wilmington

Anonymous said...

This missive has lingered with me a bit. It touches down squarely on the delicate balance for an individual between apathy and grandiosity, and for me, wherever that appropriate balance may be found, grace or tranquility might be the reward. Clearly, I am not there yet, but the seach...futile as it may be...teaches me many, many lessons along the way.

But I do think that a healthy dose of dissatisfaction is divine. There is more to be concerned about than PH.

Hypocrisy iself indicates that there is an ideal that can't or won't be measured up to, but one will assume the qualitites of that ideal falsely, so I will go with the more optimistc view and then steal and morph the idea from the consumate skeptic
Descarte, that if an ideal can be conceived it must actually exist.

Be well,

SR

-ea. said...

c. brian- i did not get the iphone. i was there. in its company. but just did not have to have it. i am a tmobile customer and am hopeful they will get their shit together with their new technology (@home) which i read about in the ny times a few days ago. i am happy with my blackberry, and like most tmobile customers i fucking hate my coverage. so if they get their new @home coverage available for blackberrys im staying. of course all roads lead to apple and eventually i am sure they wil have my soul again. but not today.

-ea. said...

dani- i am constantly reminded of the future i wondered about as a young man. i often have those moments that belle and i refer to as 'the future is now' moments. i dont know terrence mckenna. should i? sounds vaguely familiar.

-ea. said...

matt volpe- i absolutely agree. and one of the most interesting things about the context that the woman originally said the civilization.. quote is that it was not necessarily in any pejorative sense. she was quite simply stating that civilization is hypocrisy. theater. not good or bad. just not what it presents itself as.

-ea. said...

lit- edge network. yikes. so right you are. im actually supsicious of just about anything these days that calls itself 'edge' or 'edgy'. marketing marketing marketing.

-ea. said...

lit- i know that nothing much happens quietly around peter but how did you know we were surfing the other day?

-ea. said...

kv- i remember well the brutal but beautiful charge of sitting amongst 16000 people chanting, "marty, marty, marty..." after he just kicked some ass.

enforcers? hmmm. well i think the undisputed heavyweight champ right now is boogard in minnesota. the guy is fucking scary. but my personal taste leans more toward gritty players that also scrap like shanahan or iginla rather than the straight goon.

-ea. said...

vol- cant seem to pin down what the history channel show is that is using it. no one in the band has seen any money from it if so.

what is "set and the Horde..."?

Anonymous said...

Hi, well, I'm glad that I wrote to you in regard to the program as it caught me by surprise. Also, pleasantly surprised that you responded. I didnt realize that you had a blog, in fact.
Hopefully, this will serve as some assistance. It is definately a PB song, without question. The program is of all things titled "Vampire Secrets." I happened to view it recently by chance one lazy evening and heard some very familiar sounds. The song played is either, if memory serves, "Gimme" or "Leader." I had it on dvr, but, like everything, it ERASED ITSELF. It is played, ever so faintly, midway through the program which is an hour long. This is the only info I could find off hand: http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=76768

Money? Is there a finders fee? Ha, just razzing you. But, if I catch anything else, however remote, I'll drop you a line.

Set and the horde? Ah, you know. It's like sometimes you catch yourself, fishing for cats in the twilit morn of a Gemini-eye mind-field off the pier of destiny.

Anonymous said...

Eric,
about how I foud out you & pete surfed the other day...i simply read it on his website.... he just made a post about the 4th and how he was looking forward to spending it with his kids in the water and said that he spent hte previous day surfing w/you (and listening to new Hybrid)....

it just got me thinking....MAN, it would
be SO cool for you two to make some music together. You and Pete are among my absolutely
MOST respected ARTISTS out there (esp in music).
Have you two ever discussed working on some "project"together? Do you think there is actually possibilty of that happening someday? Or am i just a DREAMER????

Anonymous said...

Modern society=Hypocrisy is 100% Freud.

Man he's so good at lying at himself.

We are only puppets, freedom and choice is a pure myth; we are just devices for our blinded fool gene's chemistry....

Books to read:
Don Chisciotte by Cervantes
Odi by Orazio
Canti by Leopardi

Sticky-

Anonymous said...

EA--haha, the "Boogeyman"!

I'm a Ranger fan myself, so I do hope we re-sign Shanny. The hands-on leadership he showed taking on Brashear in a game this last season was very inspiring.

I really like the grinders, role players, 4th liners because they're not glamorous but they do the job that needs to be done and that's how I try to live my life as well (....plus the Rangers are proof that you can't win with salary, you win with heart!)

You've probably seen this site:
http://hockeyfights.com/

Good for guilty, voyeuristic pleasure...respect to the trenches!

KV

Anonymous said...

Evrything is just one foot in front of the other, eh? Sometimes just laying your head to pillow at night, and convincing yourself that you're not a jackass is enough of a project, let alone figuring the truths of civilization.

I mean the "big" you, not you personally eric.

Anonymous said...

Bumped to the first quarter?
R-

Anonymous said...

Oh man this sucks, january?!?! januaray!!!!!!

What is it about january that dangerbird would wanna wait, they got the silversun pickups, they have on egood song time to milk em for all there worth.

Oh well i guess i have no choice but to wait, Cant wait to here PB, hope u get that downloading thing set up soon.

Peace