Karl Marx and Zen

Random thought that I felt the need to write down:

Karl Marx claimed that capitalism takes the fun out of working. His thesis was that while working is healthy and natural, working without any emotional investment in exchange for money is just like having sex without emotional investment in exchange for money, i.e. it is a form of spiritual prostitution, making such work a harmful thing rather than a healthy thing.

There is a Zen saying, "Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water."

What if the key part of Marx's criticism isn't "for money", but rather "without emotional investment"? What if the biggest problem of capitalism is not that some are rich and others are poor, but rather that a lot of people don't have any sort of relation to the work they do?

Time to Whine

All of you who don't like to read angry comments about how stuff is unfair, people should do a better job, this makes me so angry, yada yada yada, please skip this blog post. At its core, it's just a bunch of useless bitching. Just a forewarning.

I just read today about something Swedish schools like to call "Kamrateffekten". This refers to the hypothesis that "If we put high-performing students in groups with low-performing students, the low-performing students will get better results." That is to say, the hypothesis basically proposes "Put the quiet over-achieving little girls together with the rowdy guys who spit tobacco everywhere, and Profit happens."

We've all seen this theory in effect, I believe. Now, what I read this morning that was so shocking, is that there's no psychological study that satisfactorily shows that this effect is true! It's apparently basically just conjecture, and there's little to no evidence in favour of it.

There are many studies which claim to give evidence for this hypothetical effect, but most of them just actually prove unrelated things - for instance, it's well-documented that when you divide up a class into a "high-performing group" and a "low-performing group", the low-performing group gets much worse results. This is apparently for some reason used to support the hypothesis that the "weak" students no longer have "strong" students to help them, and not to support the alternative hypothesis, "It's not exactly motivating to study if you're told you suck at it", which to me, seems like a far more sensible conclusion to draw.

It absolutely horrifies me, because apparently this "kamrateffekt" is used as a basis for lots of pedagogical reasoning in Swedish schools today, and it's just, well - conjecture! Worse, it's a case of "This is how people behave, because it fits well with our ideology", which is a dangerous, dangerous way of reasoning.

In this day and age, you'd think at least the people in charge would give some thought towards science, and not just wildly make shit up and then teach their teachers about it.

Stop! Koan-time.

Keiji, a long-time Zen student, approached his master and said: “I don’t see how there can be any enlightenment that sets you free once and for all. I think we just get ever greater glimpses of Buddha-nature, the vastness that is our true Reality. It’s an ever-expanding process.” The master, looking penetratingly at Keiji, replied. “That may be what you think. But what is your experience, your experience right now?” Keiji looked momentarily confused. “My experience right now, Master?” “Yes. Do you know yourself as Keiji, having ever-expanding experiences of Buddha-nature? Or do you know yourself as Buddha-nature, having the experience of Keiji?”

Form and Function

Here's a thought I had:

My entire way of life appears to be a constant battle between usefulness and art, and I seem to be utterly incapable of reconciling them. That is to say, I'm mortally afraid of being useless - and that fear is what has kept me from trying to become an actor professionally - but at the same time, I'm deeply and passionately an artistic person.

This is very annoying. I don't dare to become a professional entertainer, because that would not have enough utility - but on the other hand, it's what I really love doing. Somehow, though, I have this deep-seated contempt for comedians, actors, writers and the like because they're not doing actual work. This is of course utterly unreasonable - entertainers work, often they work much harder than ordinary people. But somehow it doesn't seem like real work to me, and therefore I despise them. I don't wish to become that which I despise, so I've abandoned my notions of becoming an actor, or a game designer, or a writer, in favour of becoming a statistician.

It's weird, though. Why is it that I can't truly respect things that are beautiful but not useful, and conversely I can't passionately love things that are useful, but not beautiful?

Moving!

So, as of this weekend everybody's moving out. Henceforth, me and Sara will be living in a very much too big apartment. Minna-san, we'll use the spare room as a gaming room - be sure to stop by for your everyday wacky game needs (or maybe not everyday, but, everyweek? Or something.)

Hopefully this signals the dawn of a good era - but difficult to see, the future is.