Stand up for what you don't believe in!

So, it's 'A' Week on Facebook, and as everybody knows, nothing truly happens unless it happens on Facebook.

Anyone that really knows me, undoubtedly knows that I am an atheist, and is probably peripherally aware that I take a keen interest in culture, identity and ideology, especially as regards religion and religious thought (not to mention considering the philosophy of theistic beliefs, and metaphysics and ethics which are most commonly espoused as part of religious belief). Consequently, I've decided to acknowledge 'A' Week by detailing why I am an atheist. Not exhaustively, of course, none of us have the time or will to endure that!

Why I am an atheist:
I haven't found evidence of the existence of God
I cannot trust my reasons for wanting God to exist
I do not need God to exist for my life to be good
Post-Script - Why do I have to prove it?

I have a few issues with the question "Why are you an atheist?", and these will be dealt with in a post-script essay. Leaving that aside, I can turn to considering my beliefs, which is useful even if I don't bear the burden of proof. After all, I wasn't asking whether or not I'm right, but rather why I myself am an atheist, which falls in the realm of value-judgement.

Why I do not believe in the existence of God:

First Point - Nothing has yet convinced me to

Not for want of trying!

As a kid I attended church groups, bible classes and Boy's Brigade (like Scouts but without the badass survivalist element). God's existence was granted uncritically in all these activities. But I don't believe in God. If any of that was supposed to convince me that God exists, something went wrong.

As an adult, I'm interested in the arguments for the existence of God, and thus far I remain unconvinced that God exists. I grant that God could exist, but I do not grant that God does exist. I cannot responsibly make that claim as I cannot prove it; even if I believed it and even if the belief panned out to be true, I cannot justify it therefore I do not know it.

The Ontological argument that God exists by definition is considered fairly dodgy, insofar as honest reasoning goes (despite being able to be explained to the tune of Waltzing Matilda, or perhaps because it can be explained to the tune of that famous Aussie epic... you know they're all descended from convicts, can't trust 'em!).The argument goes that basically, God is defined as being "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", and if we consider something that is absolutely perfect in every way, yet lacks existence, then we can think of something greater simply by adding 'existence' to the mix. Therefore God, being that than which nothing greater can be conceived, necessarily exists. Pretty dodgy, right? Particularly because it assumes that 'existence' is an attribute that something may either possess, or lack. The problem is that means there exists things which do not exist. This all gets extremely messy, so look it up on Wikipedia, or write a comment below this article!

Cosmological and Teleological arguments have a bit more grounding in demonstrable fact and rely much less on logical trickery. However, where they fall down is transitioning from the uncertainty of existence itself to certainty in the existence of God: "Hey, isn't it amazing that the universe is so perfectly balanced to allow life, and that there's a universe in the first place! Ipso facto; God". Needless to say, this leap of faith is unconvincing. You'd think that Darwin would've put paid to Teleological arguments by showing that the appearance of design needs no designer, but we have modern day Paleys arguing for design in the Hot New Science (in Paley's day, biology/genetics was de rigueur, whereas today astrophysics gets all the girls... just ask Neil deGrasse Tyson, that magnificent hunk of intellect! What with his dreamy bow-ties and deep appreciation for the responsible pursuit of knowledge... oh dear, I find myself in the throes of a mancrush). The arguments run that the universe is so finely balanced that there must be some controlling force, some designer, to set it as such (in the Teleological case), or that the universe requires a first cause to have created it (Cosmological). Even if we are to grant these considerations, and there's a lot to be said for and against these arguments (boy is there ever!), it is a leap to say the least, to claim that these forces must be some divine personal agent! I suspect that this is so attractive because we spend so much of our lives thinking empathetically, in terms of propositional attitudes, that we see intentionality where there is none. Just like the humble puddle that marvels at how the pothole it occupies is perfectly suited to fit it, and how fortunate it is that God has created a pothole to so perfectly suit this humble , unworthy god-fearing puddle.


Second Point - I'm suspicious of my own desires and thoughts
In other words, I'm sceptical.

I personally believe that we should be most vigilant in regards to the things we most want to be true, in order to counter personal bias.
As such, I'm naturally suspicious of the claims of religion. Who doesn't want more than some 80 odd years to live? What's not to love about some divine cosmic agent ensuring that justice will always be served? (convenient how we only tend to think about justice when we feel wronged, all those times fortune smiles on us to the cost of others tend to get overlooked...) And who wouldn't want the power to alter reality by closing your eyes and asking it to change? Yeah, that cancer you don't really like? Gone, just like that. Where do I sign up? But, I'm suspicious of the Just World Fallacy clause that God ensures that justice will be served, we have no proof of an afterlife (or of souls, fun topic), and prayer seems completely useless if God really does have a plan (if there's a pre-destined plan then why would God change it if you ask Him to?). The philosophical Masters of Suspicion make a few good points about the psychology of religion: Freud explains God as a comforting universal Father figure that will never abandon us (this is amusingly flipped in Fight Club), Marx explains God as our idealized projection of Humanity, and Nietzsche argues religion itself was originally a tool of passive resistance to overthrow the order of more honest tyrants, tricking them into submission. It's not perfect, but it is interesting to consider!

Consider also that our brains are highly developed and VERY good at tricking us. We have elevated pattern recognition to art, literally! As such, we tend to see significance where there is none, patterns that do not actually exist, and even extend intentionality to inanimate objects (like that bastard of a chair that keeps hurting my little toe!). We think of five dice showing '6' as more significant and rarer than five dice showing '1, 2, 2, 4, 6' (unless you're playing Yahtzee with my sister, that cheat), where there's statistically no difference whatsoever between the two throws, in the same way we see combinations of events as more significant. We think in terms of cause and effect, linking unrelated events, seeing intentionality in things/events that lack agency, and think anthropomorphically, identifying human attributes in non-human things. Keep this in mind when considering the concept of God's divine will, where it's claimed that God has a plan that is partially explicable, we can see his will and reason in certain combinations of events... yet when this consistency used to prove God's existence runs afoul of inconsistency, we're told that God's will is mysterious and unknowable... is it not more reasonable to assume that we are fallible and are projecting a connection, a pattern, on events that are in fact distinct? Likewise, we readily see God's will in our surviving the earthquake, yet peculiarly not in sending the life-threatening earthquake to begin with.

Third Point - I don't need God
Here's the big point about 'A' Week: It's not about proving that God doesn't exist, theists are perfectly entitled to their beliefs (and beliefs espoused in the public sphere can be debated on their merits in a charitable and fair-minded spirit). It's about the belief that it's okay to be an atheist (agnostic or otherwise). This section deals with why I'm perfectly comfortable, perfectly happy, to be an atheist.
I don't need God to be a good person, nor do I need God in order to appreciate a fulfilling life.

Ethics: Turn to the letters page of your local/national newspaper of choice, and you'll no doubt see, from time to time, the claim that your nation was founded on Christian values. God knows Garth George bangs on about it in the New Zealand Herald. If our history is anything to go by, our nation was founded particularly on those Christian values of 'Imperialism' and 'failure to live up to the contractual obligations of our founding document', but I suspect these aren't the values the letter writers wish to highlight...
The thing is, just because Christians espouse these values, does not mean they are Christian values. Not exclusively, not as originating with Christianity. Virtue ethics has been around in Western thought since the 4th century BCE, consideration of what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' has existed for as long as there has been social interaction, and the principles of charity/compassion/etc. have been part of social thought long before the Romans decided to violently suppress an upstart Jewish cult of personality. Concepts of virtue exist regardless of whether or not Christianity exists, you do not need God to be compassionate/charitable/honest/trustworthy/hard-working/anything else Christians consider 'good'.
Is it possible to be moral or ethical without God? Consider this for a minute: If virtue loses its value without God, was it really virtue that held value in the first place? If virtue lacks value without God, virtue was worthless to begin with, in which case the argument that we need God for the sake of having a virtuous society is bunk, as there is no innate worth in a virtuous society. Any system that loses its ethical force with the loss of its divine agent, is not an ethical system.
I can be good, because ethical virtue exists independently of God.

A life worth living: Here's where I tend to get passionate, because I cannot fathom living as if this life is merely a test, a dummy run, something to be endured for the sake of some mysterious afterlife. How can this life be meaningful or valuable if it is to serve only as a vale of tears for the sole purpose of creating a robust soul?
There are people who disparage the world we live in. Who insist that beauty can only be found in a Kincaid Painting life with what someone awesome described to me as 'Nordic Jesus' teaching kids to feed birds, where invisible angels are the only thing that make the world beautiful, that sunsets are beautiful only because God made them, where a garden cannot be enchanting if there are no fairies at the bottom of it. I know this to be true, I've seen enough poorly animated emails to burn that bullshit shimmering snowfall permanently into the back of my skull! I cannot see the world this way, I cannot say a pohutukawa tree is beautiful only because God made it; it is beautiful because I can see beauty in it! My world is meaningful and precious without God, without an afterlife, I could not possibly neglect this unshakable fact of my existence that it is a very, very good thing to be alive in a world of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, meaning and whimsy and all.
Life is beautiful. The world is beautiful. Even the ugly bits, especially the imperfect bits, who could love a perfect world? To be alive, to exist, is an immeasurable blessing simply because it is so improbable, fleeting and fragile. Life is that much more precious knowing that I will die, that others die, and believing that is the end. What matters is not what comes after, but what we do while we're here.

"I believe the cost of life is Death and we will all pay that in full. Everything else should be a gift. We paid the cover charge of life, we were born."

-Bill Hicks, February 1988

Happy 'A' Week, and if you're so inclined, God bless you. I will not judge you the poorer for it =)





P.S.

"So why are you an atheist?" - The nature of the question

Warning: This simply deals with the question, and is unnecessary to read. Feel free to ignore!

Before I give an answer, it might pay to examine the question, lest we run the risk of dedicating lifetimes to the pursuit of an answer that turns out to be something as meaningless as 42 without the benefit of a precise and comprehensive question that would render the answer explicable. I guess in that case we could recoup our losses by releasing an autobiographical novel about the whole ordeal, or at least the thrilling climax where we obtain the final question with a flashback about how the answer itself was obtained. Perhaps with a spin-off or two, maybe a movie. But I'm sure you'll agree this is hardly the most efficient and direct way to go about things!

For convenience, I'll operate on the assumption that we're dealing with Abrahamic Monotheism as the counterpoint to Atheism, as that's what most of us will be most familiar with. It also tidies up my next point by virtue of giving me one name to work with:
There's two general ways to look at the question "Why are you an atheist?", which are essentially "Why do you not believe in the existence of God", the approach where the existence of God is assumed, and "Why have you developed no theistic beliefs?", that does not claim any existence of God, or to put it another way, asks only about the presence or lack of beliefs without dealing with the content of such beliefs.

"Why do you not believe in God" posits the existence of a God to disbelieve in. This becomes problematic if we elaborate slightly to ask "Why do you believe God does not exist?", which isn't strictly the same question but has enough general equivalence to be commonly taken as the same thing. In this case the question suggests there is a God, that the target of the question believes does not exist, and as such is somewhat of a leading question. This is a no-no in critical thought, as it has to grant the counter-point or the content of it (that there is a God) in order to answer or respond to it. It also assumes, to a degree, that belief in God is natural, the baseline assumption from which to operate.

The other way of seeing it, to ask why one has not developed theistic beliefs, says nothing about the content of said beliefs, but does assume that believers arrive at their beliefs rather than being born with them. This may be controversial to believers, I'm certain at least some denominations hold that belief in God is innate and that it is merely a failing or a wilful rebellion that forces one to claim disbelief, but I don't think this really holds true of believers. If theistic beliefs were innate (and inerrant, oh-ho!), surely there would be no need for instruction, you would not have to teach children about God, religion, etc. There are counterpoints to this argument of course, but for the sake of brevity I'll assume that people begin from a tabula rasa state, with little more than the building block essentials of a Kantian manifold of sensations from which to construct their conscious minds (I'm name-dropping the Transcendental Aesthetic to show how smart I am, and to justify having sat through the impenetrable density of Immanuel Kant's meticulous drudgery).

Shall we look at the Burden of Proof? If so "Why do you not believe in God/Why are you an atheist?" is the wrong question to ask, as it makes the claim that there is a God which must be disproven, where God is yet to be proven. This isn't merely making others do my work for me, it's a simple operating principle of critical thought: It is harder to exhaustively disprove something than it is to prove something, therefore the burden of proof rests upon the positive claim until such time as it has reasonable grounds for belief, in which case the burden of proof is discharged to the counter-claim. Look at it this way: Have you ever read a Where's Wally book? ("Where's Waldo" in its original American, they translated it into English for us here in NZ, I shall use 'Waldo' henceforth) Taking any given picture, one could claim "This picture contains Waldo", or "This picture does NOT contain Waldo". Now, to prove the picture contains Waldo, you need only point at Waldo, which is easy enough to do once you know where he is. To prove the picture does not contain Waldo, you must meticulously, laboriously and exhaustively point to every single part of the picture where Waldo could conceivably be, every possible point of evidence, and show conclusively and comprehensively that he is not present at any such position. I know finding Waldo is hard sometimes, because he's a jerk (and probably a hipster) who likes to hang out with others dressed almost identically to himself, but the key point to recall here is that once you find Waldo, you can stop looking! In order to prove he doesn't exist, you MUST look EVERYWHERE.

The same thing applies to God. Conceivably, it should be easier to prove the existence of God than it is to exhaustively disprove the existence of God, and as such the burden of proof is on those claiming the existence of God. This is why I assume the 'lectures' organised by the Christian group StudentLife at the University of Auckland, that begin by asking "Has science disproved the existence of God?", are complete bullshit. Simply because they don't even understand the question they're trying to answer. This is why atheists who can articulate their position clearly usually do so not by saying God 'does not exist/cannot exist', but rather by claiming 'there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that God exists'

Putting this back into the original context: The question shouldn't be "Why do atheists not believe in God" but rather "Why shouldn't atheists not believe in God?"

The Diary of Professor Kovacs

Kovacs' journal, February 28th, 2011. :
Discarded pie in Quad this morning, Doc Martin tread on soggy pastry. This campus is afraid of me. I have seen the admission letters.

Bodies block the stairwells as corpses clog sewers, effluent backing up InfoCommons toilets, ruining sneakers.

Whores and sodomites preen like peacocks, oversized glasses and skinny jeans. Anime lolitas, grown-up prostitots.

Cockroaches huddle in high school cliques, deer in headlights, hiding behind bravado and ignorance. Arts students could have been saved, could have learned trades, like my father, worked way out of struggle street like Prime Minister Key. Instead they follow the dronings of lectures and communists, and didn't realize that the trail leads to Burger King until it's too late.
There's conjoint degrees, don't tell me they didn't have a choice.

Young Labour, Amnesty on Campus, Greens, AUSA, feminists and queers. The communists are everywhere.
Children proud to sit in Shadows, all afternoon. Their vice is idleness, the youth are weak, grain liquor in the morning is cereal.

Like herds of demented cows, stood in thoroughfares, pressed up against lecture theatre doors, there is no escape. Invest in electrified cattle prod, ask Dr. Dreiburg to procure one. He has the time, he has tenure.
Students, the best and brightest of the future, too stupid to learn which part of the toilet to piss on.

InfoCommons, library computers, full of students using Facebook. Always talking, saying nothing.

No compromise. The theatre, full of students looking down at me, crying "Grade us!"
I stare back and whisper, "D"

A Tour of Continental Philosophy in the Second Person

You arrive at the auditorium a quarter of an hour early, certain and unshakable in your knowledge of the world and its characteristics. Cartesian scepticism was cast aside with contemptuous laughter, and Humean doubt seemed a touch too hysterical to be taken too seriously, but your friends who told you about this lecture? They told you it was some pretty strong shit. This shit is real, they said, eyes glazed and red with the tell-tale level of sleep deprivation that marks all philosophy students who have had to face, with dawning terror, the unspeakable reality of a deadline.

You note in passing, with a touch of disappointment, that the Kantian Glasses referred to in the flyer are, in fact, metaphorical - and not, as you had hoped, commemorative souvenirs for those in attendance. Taking seat amidst a sea of grey jackets with leather elbow-pads, you are unconsciously aware of your expectations, that the world is as it appears, that effect follows cause, that even if you're hallucinating time must surely exist for it to be possible that two differing states could ever exist (and furthermore, you have the most banal hallucinations known to man). Sadly, as Kant mounts the stage and delivers a sermon on reason and its precise limitations as dry as your sex-life after 12 months in the Sahara, in the meticulously managed prose emerges a new, unshakable truth: You know nothing. Reality is inaccessible as all you have ever known is how to perceive the human experience of an essentially inaccessible world. All you have ever seen is the inside of your own eyes, the noumenal reality is beyond the scope of human experience and we can say nothing of it.

Disconcerting, this seems. Stunned, amazed, you sit in silence reckoning with the certain knowledge that of reality in itself nothing is certain. Lost in your own head, admitting in wry amusement to yourself that that is all you have ever been, you perceive the auditorium again as a public space rather than merely a shared delusion, and realize with a start that Immanuel Kant has been replaced with a young Mr. Hegel. Left and right you turn to find fellow travellers sitting rapt with expressions of attentive incomprehension. Before you stands a man so famous that the task of making sense now falls to his audience. In philosophical circles, Mr. Hegel, as it is said, 'has arrived'. About the only part of his lecture that is intelligible to you is the part where he is crushed by one of the stage lights, a tragic accident in an otherwise pleasant evening.

In a completely unrelated note, in no way affiliated with the events that have just transpired, Herr Schopenhauer arrives precisely on schedule, and must certainly be shocked to discover Herr Hegel's demise, being that Arthur was nowhere near the auditorium at the time it had happened... a lifetime spent following a strict and unchanging schedule is proof enough for that, and the satisfied smirk Herr Schopenhauer sports can be attributed to a great jest expressed by a sharp-witted fellow at supper. Sidestepping the shattered stage-light and muttering some cryptic allusion to the Sword of Damocles, Artur Schopenhauer attends the podium and addresses the audience.

You had been left lost as consequence of Kant's metaphysics, unsure of your place in the world and what could truly be said of it. Hearing what Herr Schopenhauer has to say of it, you feel perhaps you were better leaving it with Kant. Your life is characterised as exclusively an exercise in suffering and misery, doomed to swing between unfulfilled desires and tragic boredom, and you discover it is the unique quality of the human state to be able to experience not only the pains of now, but the dread of the pains to come and the phantom pains of yesterday (and still more, the pains of others and the pains of those who do not even exist). Beyond this human existence of pure suffering, Schopenhauer discusses the nature of the world as it is in itself, a vast striving Will that blindly hungers and consumes itself for it is all that is. A noumenal hydra of stupid, directionless belligerence, a self-destructive beast that always hungers. You feel an intense urge to hug a puppy, and acknowledge that the Mr. Happy t-shirt the MC is wearing displays a degree of unwitting irony that hipsters can only dream of.

After light refreshments, mercilessly free of hemlock (perhaps you should've caught the seminar on Greek philosophy), the fourth and final speaker graces the stage. Nietzsche grants Schopenhauer's contention that the world, far from a Garden of Eden, is in fact a dark forest full of primeval terror, where nature does not bear the countenance of prancing deer, happy hoppy bunnies, and bluejays that perch on the outstretched fingers of Disney princesses. Nature is red in tooth and claw, the prancing deer are eaten by motherfucking bears because bears are bad-ass, and the Disney princess is married off at the age of 14 to a lecherous old Duke because it's politically expedient and God clearly loves a family that marries into a powerful military dynasty. Given the granted harshness of reality, Nietzsche prescribes two teaspoons of cement to help you harden-the-fuck-up in your endeavour to seek your own inevitable and overreaching destruction in order to become something greater than the tame, utilitarian eunuch you would otherwise spend your life as. The desperate flight to escape the suffering of human existence that Schopenhauer proposed is derided, such pessimism is worthy of contempt! The belief in absolutes and categorical imperatives that Kant espoused is merely the shadow of God tainting the supposed rationality of Continental philosophy: the time has come to acknowledge that God is dead, to shatter the tablets of commandments and seek new truths, and acknowledge that nothing has meaning beyond your strength to assert it! Might is right and the world truly is what we make of it!

You're not entirely sure WHAT Nietzsche was actually trying to say, and you're pretty sure there were more holes in his argument than you'd find in the plot of a Michael Bay film (and all the neo-nazis in the audience made you just a little uneasy), but you can't help but feel unjustifiably optimistic upon leaving the lecture theatre.

You stop off at a pub for a nightcap, and spot a familiar face sitting alone at the bar. You can't believe your luck!

No sooner are you sat next to Nietzsche do you discover why he drinks alone. The world is not yet ready for the discussion of his Level 12 Dwarven Ranger, the perfect combination of the Dionysian fury of nature and the Apollonian restraint of the hunter. Over the course of three hours you are subjected to an exhaustive lesson in feat optimisation, a period you begin to mentally refer to as 'The Golden Time' when the begins the awkwardly enthusiastic description of the Ranger's quest to win the heart of the Centaur Queen. Somehow without needing to ask, you know there is slashfic of this already befouling the internet.

My axe is +3 vs. Intellectual Rigour!

Prying yourself away by a clever ruse of singing the praises of narrative-heavy freeform gaming, you manage to escape. You lay down in bed, your head swimming and your sense of reality remarkably untroubled by the string of dysfunctional thinkers you've witnessed tonight. Idly you wonder if it's too late to study commerce...

The Album Concept - The death of the LP in the transition to a digital market

Inspired by this article here, I felt compelled to post it to Facebook to see if anyone else is interested. Tragically, I got interested, and soon realized I'd be saying more than the Facebook Status Update message would allow, and following a small introduction with a long comment or series of sub-comments would likely dissuade discussion. So I'm putting it here for posterity!

The Digital Market and the Evolution of an Industry

I know it's an article about music sales in the UK, but it may well apply globally.

The music industry is changing. This is indisputable, despite the degree of denial the corporate giants of the recording industry exhibit. As an aside, all media is changing, and it's interesting to see how it handles the transition in contrast to how it fared with earlier advancements in technology.

What I rarely see from discussions about the impact of digital media on the recording industry, is the degree to which this will change music itself. Noted in this article, the 'album' is on its' last legs, with the widespread availability of singles through digital distribution at a cost far more affordable than CD or Cassette (both for the consumer and for the producer). This changes the sales trends, the way in which the industry makes money. But what impact will this have on music itself? On what music is produced?

One of my favourite aspects of the album format is the way in which certain tracks that you disregard or discard on the first few plays-through, soon eclipse the other tracks on the album. Songs not released as Singles, songs that don't get frequent radio play, that are superior examples of the artist's work (or truer, less mainstream examples) that nevertheless fail to gain exposure. The way that lesser-known tracks can have more significant meaning or appeal to you, to the peculiarities of your personal taste in music, for whatever reason. Everyone has an example of this, I'm sure, especially considering the constant arguments over music I frequently find myself engaged in! So what does this say for the 'sleeper hits'?

Will we find music becoming catchier but less enduring? Will music that grabs the listener, catchy hooky songs that draw attention but fade from notice, do away with substantive efforts? Artists who produce more disposable singles but less challenging work, will they grow in influence in this transition to the instant selective audience, who will no longer need to even hit the skip button on their iPods? I'm not trying to appear elitist here, I enjoy catchy and entertaining tunes as much as the next punter, I recognize not every piece needs to be a Homeric epic or labour as much pathos as a documentary on the Holocaust. However, I enjoy variety, and the thing I love about albums is the combination of the catchy singles that stand on their own, and the richer depths of album fare. Will the mainstream come to dominate further than it does already? Will artists be less able to slip in unique expressions, will we be less inclined to overcome our initial disdain for the unappreciated tracks? These are things I am curious of.

And then there is the art of crafting an album, to be taken as an expression itself, in the way the pieces are arranged. I enjoy the art of album creation, and with the shift to a singles-driven digital distribution method I fear there will be less impetus to expend the effort on creating a 'sound' about an album, to see it as more than some hodgepodge collection of independent, individual tracks. A loss of a subtle art, perhaps.

Before the Album concept dies, we should hold a Wake for Concept Albums

As an elaboration on that last point, I have to bring up the concept of the Concept Album. Long the domain of pretentious Prog Rockers, Prog Metallers, and indulgent self-fellating indie bands, it's not exclusively performed by these groups and is in fact a practice that is responsible for two of the best CDs I purchased this last year (stupid New Year tripping me up). Namely, 2009's Man on the Moon: The End of Day by Kid Cudi, and 2000's Deltron 3030 by the hip-hop super-group of the same name, headed by Del the Funky Homosapien (the fellow that raps on most of the songs off the Gorillaz' first album). Both are brilliant rap albums of solid songs that tell a story in their complete form. 

Deltron 3030, as noted in the Wikipedia link you'll notice in that last sentence, is a tale of Deltron, a dissenting Mech-Soldier who goes rogue when his Galactic Overlords give him orders he cannot follow in clear conscience. Rebelling and seeking to tear down the corrupt galactic order, Deltron and his companions evade the authorities, deliver a virus to the controlling mind of the overlords' army of robotic warriors, and escape in time to battle in and win the Intergalactic Rap Battle, it's instupituous! It is a work of lyrical extravagance, and is almost unique in the rap genre, being a progressive hip-hop space opera with overtones of The 5th Element and popular anime sci-fi, with a humorous tongue and an awareness of its own incongruous unconventionality.

Cudi's work is a more introspective piece, and as an actual concept album, fits together a lot smoother despite the less evident premise in the individual tracks. Overall, Man on the Moon: The End of Day is the internal dialogue of Kid Cudi's struggle with his own demons and doubts, a dark cloud of 'night terrors' that plague his ultimately indomitable drive to succeed. After a lacklustre introduction capped with a pretentious hype-show to signal that this is the story of Cudi's success, and how important it is in the context of the first decade of the Millenium, the album progresses to an exploration of Cudi's mind and personal history. 

The second track, Soundtrack 2 my Life, is an appraisal of the emotional burdens he carries around that keep him distant from the world, replete with a sense of isolation and introversion, of coaxing forward things long hidden from the world but ever-present. The bouncy third track Simple As is largely inconsequential insofar as message goes, beyond its place setting up the structure of the Acts of the album, each Act starting with a dark or morbid, ambient or haunted track, through a reflective and determined or driven track, to a brighter and uplifted conclusion. If Simple As has a message, it is simply that of an acknowledgement that one has no place to truly belong, and instead is set to carve out some new ground to be 'attached' to. 

Solo Dolo is the beginning of the 'night terrors', where Cudi loses the ability to distinguish between reality and the darkness of his dreams, with a nihilistic feel, set adrift in his own mind with no recourse to act. Heart of a Lion and My World are the most driven tracks on the album, the 'hard work' elements still following the convention of each Act. They're more bitter, more cynical, and more resolved than any other tracks on the album... they have a lot of spine but they don't exactly leap with verve and vitality. 

The next nightmare track is the stand-out single Day'n'Nite, a good track to listen to when you're feeling disconnected and somewhat alone. Very reflective. Sky Might Fall and Enter Galactic are the weakest tracks on the album, and personally I can only justify their existence by the structure of the Acts on the album (okay, that's a little harsh, and Sky Might Fall has at least some depth to it, but they're still difficult to muster the enthusiasm to write about). 

Alive is where it starts getting fun again, the third 'nightmare' track on the album (the nightmare tracks are certainly the strongest, to my mind), with a subtle sexual atmosphere to it, perhaps a darker reflection on desire, but entertaining all the same. The preceding may be a bit too revealing of my own occasional mindset, but so be it. Cudi Zone is a hymn to the virtues of getting high and forgetting about the world, and seeking a safety net of good friends and good relationships. Perhaps there is wisdom here. Then of course, there's the chart-friendly collaboration, Make Her Say, featuring Kanye West and Common, and sampling Lady Gaga, the lighter and more flirtatious counterpoint to the darker lusts of Alive.  

Pursuit of Happiness is one of my favourite tracks on the album, and the video captures perfectly the feel of the entire album: a complete disconnect from the social existence around you, the ability to find yourself completely alone in a crowd, lost inside your own head and far, far gone from the world around you. The blurry, insular stage of late intoxication, the come-down when the party dies, with a quiet strain of contentment like a lifeline tether clutched lackadaisically in your drunken lethargy. I'm on the pursuit of happiness, I know everything that shine ain't always gold, I'll be fine, once I get it, I'll be good. Hyyerr is the wake&bake track, after the darkness of the previous night, after the regret and mourning, it is the relaxation and contentment of letting go. After bearing witness to the darkness of the first Act, experiencing the resolve of the second, facing his demons alone in the third act, confronting his desires in the fourth, and purging himself and letting go in the beginning of the fifth Act, Cudi is free of his burden and rounds off his album with the eminently uplifting track, Up Up & Away. The track has a sense of possibility and new beginning to it, a more grounded perspective with a strong sense of optimism, with the strength of Heart of a Lion and My World but without the bitterness.

The course of the album is engaging, engrossing, and ultimately uplifting, and the whole work is far more compelling than any individual part. I wonder if this sort of production will remain popular if albums diminish further, if there is as much value seen in a comprehensive work as there can be seen in individual lucrative releases? I hope artists remain pretentious enough to manage their overarching works rather than capitulating to the dominance of single tracks ;)

University Musical, une part: The Magic Schoolbus

2011, first week of January, and I find myself back at school. My holiday* disappeared as abruptly as it arrived, no doubt evaporating and serving as the cause of Auckland's famed humidity, and I'm back at the grindstone as a working Uni student seeking to better himself and prepare himself for more profitable employment. Summer School is a peculiar experience, and working every day while studying, and therefore needing to wear formal black trousers around campus in the height of Summer, may wear thin pretty fast. But at least nothing clashes with the Big Day Out. If it had, I'd be forced to choke a bitch.

*Holiday: That period of time where university doesn't get in the way of my manager's desire to have me spend every waking hour at work

So today was my second day back. Due to the electrification of the Auckland rail network, 'rail bus' services have replaced the more direct and more frequent train service. I've had the pleasure of travelling via rail bus on three occasions thus far, and it turns out they're less magic bus and more tragic bus.

Lost in Space: A Two-Hour Odyssey

To Boldly Go where the Bus Driver had Never Gone Before

Today was quite entertaining, provided you're entertained by profound incompetence. It became readily apparent less than five minutes into our trip that our driver had not a clue of what he was doing. Here is a visual aid to put everything into perspective

Our driver was to travel from Papakura to Auckland City. He decided this would be best achieved via Drury. To be explicit, Auckland is North, Drury is South. After this point, the driver missed the entrance to the rather large and obvious Manurewa transport hub... and decided to reverse back to it on a very busy street. After leaving the Manurewa pick-up, our driver took a right turn a street before he was supposed to, turning into the Russell Ave Reserve, driving the wrong way on a one-way street for good measure. However, I did learn of the existence of a flying-fox/zipline there, and immediately questioned whether I should be going to school at all today. Having corrected his error and returning to the main road, our driver drove past the street he was intending, with the very large and obvious bridge over the railway lines, in order to turn into a tiny, dingy little lane immediately following his intended turn. By this point our ticket collector was playing navigator to an obviously lost and distraught bus driver. How he actually managed to find his way to Papakura in the first place will forever remain a constant, nagging mystery to me.

Papakura is roughly half an hour, generously 45 minutes from Auckland City, by car. By train, with frequent stops, it is just shy of a full hour of travel. I gave myself two hours to get to Uni via rail-bus. I arrived for class five minutes late.

This looks promising.

A Bad Sign

The return journey was much quicker, as our driver knew pretty much where she was going. Unfortunately, where she was going was occupied by a roundabout and a large metal Keep Left sign, that she demolished in a screeching cacophony that sounded like Megatron forcefully loving the Wall Street Bull. There was a peculiar noise coming from the wheel that had made the most contact with the sign all the way home, and the ride had a more rough and shuddering quality to it after that little incident.

Next week I'm expecting either suicide bombers, or Mexican hijackers. Either that or the bus will be full of Law students, and immediately crash into Auckland harbour so Arts students can call it 'A good start'.

More misadventures as they occur!

"Be you angels?" - Putting Marion Davis' money where my mouth is

In my last post, I mentioned the Auckland City Mission Be An Angel campaign. To recap, the Marion Davis Memorial Trust has put up $10,000 to be released to the Auckland City Mission Christmas Appeal in $5 increments for each person to have their photo taken with the charitable angel wings dotted around Auckland, and posted on the campaign's Facebook page. I figured there's not much point simply subjecting slacktivism to the scrutiny of logic, if I'm not gonna walk the talk. So I walked around and had my photo taken in order to release a little bit more of the donation, and helped out by pointing out something distressing to the campaign coordinators. I understand not everyone has the time to track down angel wings and get their photo taken, and apparently there's folks living in NZ outside of the greater Auckland area, but I have no excuse not to have a delightful day out and about, so I gave it a go. This was yesterday, and the events are detailed as follows.

The plan was simple! I would travel by rail-car through the inhospitable South Auckland Wasteland, a lucrative trade route through a region of great poverty and desperation. The intention was to go on an adventure with my partner-in-crime, Curvaceous Dee! Although this was to be an adventure, sadly we were not destined to reach Candy Mountain, but we settled on a destination almost as rich: Newmarket. We were to rendezvous at the quaint rest-stop of Lumsden Green, a tranquil oasis in the harsh commercial landscape of Newmarket CBD. From this point, we would travel upland to be received at the court of the King of Bûrghar where we would dine on exotic refreshments and rare salts, and plot our course for the impending expedition. Tragically we were unable to locate any Sherpas, so we were forced to travel light and make do with whatever provisions we could forage. With great anticipation, we were prepared to set out on our Great Expedition! We would locate no fewer than eight Angels, and photograph ourselves with the trophy wings placed upon the wall, and all would know the prestige of the intrepid hunters! But alas, it was not to be, for Angels are wily prey, and much sought-after. It appears they have been hunted near to extinction in Newmarket.

Here we are bedecked in our safari gear. Lady Dee was equipped with a Pretty Purple Parasol, to ward off the interminable December sun, and to lure out any angels or, failing that, fairies in the immediate vicinity. For my own protection and personal safety, I wore a Santa Hat, a talismanic symbol of the commercialization of Christmas, which as we all know is anathema to angels. We both wore black formal trousers and cleavage-revealing tops, in order to blend in with the local fauna. If we happened upon an avenging angel, our clever disguises would allow us to easily elude its pursuit. Behind us you may notice a tastefully appointed containment unit where we could deposit the Holy Spirit if we encountered it (a tough call as we were lacking our proton packs).

We set out for the first leg of our journey. Our guide, Google Maps, had shared with us local knowledge of angel habitats, where we might stalk and locate our prey. We journeyed down the Broad Way, bypassing the renowned Khyber Pass, and came upon a region known obscurely as 'Teed St'. Entering the desolate lands of Teed St, our progress was cloaked in an ominous silence. Ears pricked like vigilant hounds, we advanced, soft footfall after soft footfall. Further and further we progressed, until we feared we may have circumnavigated our goal entirely without a sighting. We would not let despair overtake us, for we knew, in our heart of hearts, that we were mighty hunters. And then we heard it. A rustling behind us! Standing stark at attention, we whipped around with snake-like reflexes to see the feathered beast resting upon the wall, plain as day, taunting us! The beast sought to rend my pride with the obviousness of its placement, but I was unmoved in my arrogance certainty! We locked eyes in a battle of half-wits, neither daring to look away or drop guard for one second. This exercise in banality was curtailed in short order as Dee struck the wing a savage blow with her parasol, and all animation left this illustration. Having bested our foe, we posed for celebratory photographs. Dee may be posting pics of angel wings on her blog at some point, but as her blog is DEFINITELY NSFW I'll see if she'll consent to a re-post here... sorry to anyone that accidentally stumbled upon nudity.

From here, our journey continued South of Eden, hoping we would find an angel upon the Morrow. We searched high and low for our goal, covering much ground in a state of increasing agitation. The summer heat, swimming in humidity, buffeted us with waves of vitae-sapping discontent. This was indeed a harsh, unforgiving land. We had to break off our pursuit of the Angel of Morrow, resolving that we would return to find and slay this wicked beast when we had dealt with its six remaining kin.

Or so we thought.

Journeying West upon the Mortimer Pass, we crossed the idyllic Coventry, and pursued our next target with dogged determination. Long we tracked it, and to no avail. The angel had taken wing, and left us bereft of photo ops. Disheartened and aggravated, we began to know despair. How could we great hunters miss two of our targets? How could they elude us so easily? Their absence was not only mocking, it was malicious. For the angels, they had heard of their hunters, they had learned much. And they had set a trap. We did not find an angel in the Mortimer Pass, instead we found the Devourer of Time; a BOOK STORE! Lady Dee stumbled into this shifting pit of time-consuming literature, and began to sink, dragged under by curiosity and the knowledge that Christmas Is Coming And A Good Book Would Be Just The Thing For... Luckily I was able to find a vine to throw around my companion, and I dragged her to safety before she was able to purchase anything. Had she done so, all would have been lost in a world of imagination.

Battered, yet unbowed, we set off with new-found resolve. We would find our angels, we would capture them in digital form, and all would know our prestige! Our collective fury would be unleashed upon the angels of Nuffield Street. And so we marched. And we marched. And we marched. Then I skipped... but resumed marching not long after, as to skip on a safari would be most unseemly. Quite.

With the eyes of a bat, the ears of an eagle, and the focus of an autistic child, we surveyed the concrete canyon of Nuffield Street for any sign of our feathered foe. Crestfallen, we pressed on with neither hide nor hair presenting itself to our beady little eyes. And I made a most gruesome discovery. Our angels were not simply hiding, they were slaughtered! I had to remove my glasses dramatically and exclaim "MURDER!" in an expression of being very much aghast! We documented evidence of this tragic fate that had befallen the fair angels, to present to the wealthy benefactors of our expedition, the Auckland City Mission.

Further along the road, a disheartening sight. A broken wing upon to footpath, trod under the heavy footfalls of an apathetic public. A sad sight, and a sad turn of events for our great hunt. Our elusive prey was an endangered species. Thankfully the Auckland City Mission has been carrying out a captive breeding program, and a new batch of angels have been released into the wilds, so these locations should hold a prize for enterprising explorers!

Returning to the Broad Way, my fellow hunter and I were able to track down the two remaining angels. This time we took more pity upon these troubled creatures, too few remained, too few. The look of cheerful benevolence expressed herein should convey this Stockholm Syndrome new understanding we achieved with our noble wall-bound friends. A far happier ending, photographed wonderfully, props once more to Dee!

Having completed our goal of obtaining trophy photos, we discovered we had an hour or two to kill before I was required to serve penance in the form of Service Industry Labour. Dee suggested we visit an equestrian supplies store, and in the absence of Sherpas I could see the wisdom of obtaining draft animals. En route, however, a discovery was made! We may have lost a few angels through the course of the day, but we had found A BUZZY BEE! After photographing the lovely miss Dee nestled upon the bee (who, it must gladly be, stated that he, was an entire bee), I mounted the valiant steed and displayed my war face... well okay, my disgruntled face. I still like to think it would scatter many enemies, all the same.

BAH HUMBUG! Anti-Claus will consume your festive spirits!

Having completed my delusions of multi-coloured pastel grandeur, we continued on our trek to the... hey look, a distraction!

A Muzzle-Loading Rifled Cannon! SWEET! It's just what I always wanted! Not only could I see off winged divinities through the gentlemanly art of fisticuffs, but with this newly discovered ordnance, I could repel invasion by the accursed Spaniards!

Unfortunately for my good self, or fortunately depending on how you choose to look at it, all this unbridled power went right to my head and I appeared to enjoy the thought of unleashing hell just a little too much...

But I calmed myself down in short order, and composed myself in a more dignified manner:

Having completed artillery training, we sojourned to the equestrian supplies store, which was every inch as cloistered and divorced from reality as I suspected it would be, and Dee did not disappoint by surreptitiously making a beeline for the riding crops. I'm a Philosophy student so my tolerance for pretension is pretty high, but an equestrian store is a little hard to swallow even for me. Interesting enough, and the owners were lovely, but just not exactly my scene.

After meandering a while longer, it was time for our adventure to head South (every bit as unpleasant as that sounds, all the way to South Auckland, Hole-Sweet-Hole), so we mounted Dee's automobile and made our way to South Auckland listening to the gentleman rhymer Professor Elemental, and the ultimate hardcore rock stars, The Presidents of the United States of America!

Arriving in Papakura, our outing was nearly at an end (accompanied by frantic phone calls from my manager... in a completely unrelated matter entirely, is murder still illegal?). Light refreshments were obtained, and I directed Dee to Papakura's premier hobby store, Steve's Model Shop, and we parted ways so that she could peruse plastic kit toys and so that I could go to work... I can't help but think she ended up with the better end of that deal.

Thus concludes my day of self-serving charitable action. For anyone who survived that onslaught of verbosity, I salute your constitution!

Charity at Christmas: Slacktivism part deux

We all know the score, Christmas is a time of giving, and good will to man. Christmas is charity, and charity is Christmas.

Previously on PACman Speaks...

In my last post, I had a go at 'slacktivism', the act of doing nothing in the name of a noble cause. The best argument for doing something inconsequential to the stated goal (opposing child abuse, in this case) boiled down to "what harm is it doing?" The harm it was doing, seemingly minimal, is muddying up the waters for legitimate campaigns. The 'awareness-raising' exercise of slacktivist campaigns draws attention away from actual charitable foundations and campaigns; raising awareness for a slacktivist campaign decreases awareness of movements that provide tangible benefits to society.

This is about Facebook again. Specifically, this is about the difference between useful things and useless things Facebook can do. You may be tired of me bleating about superficial social networking, but I'm not the one that made Zuckerberg Time Magazine's Person of the Year for his tireless efforts eroding trust in authority and decentralising power, unlike some talentless hacker who clearly has done nothing important in the service of truth or justice this year. But I digress.

Of all my Kiwi friends on Facebook, almost everyone I saw posting during the first week or two of December were re-posting the Change your Profile for Child Abuse! meme. It got exposure. What has failed to get any exposure on my Facebook friends list (except for the fantastically geeky Dee, and the cerebral Angie, who picked up on the campaign when I pointed it out) was the brilliant Auckland City Mission Christmas Appeal's Become an Angel campaign. Auckland City Mission is a brilliant little group, an organisation that feeds the underprivileged and those fallen upon hard times (common in the recession), run a detox centre for drug addicts/alcoholics, and the Calder Centre health clinic. And, of course, the Christmas Appeal!

This year, the Marion Davis Memorial Trust, managed by Guardian Trust, stumped up a $10,000 donation for the Christmas Appeal, to be released as a result of public participation in the Become an Angel campaign on Facebook. The deal is this: Around Auckland, there are a number of Angel Wing stickers put up on walls, bus-stops, and other areas of heavy pedestrian traffic flow. They want you, yes YOU, to have yourself photographed in front of one of these wing-design stickers, and then to share that photo on the Auckland City Mission's Christmas Appeal Facebook page. For each person photographed and shared on their page, the Trust will release $5 of the $10,000 donation to the Auckland City Mission. That may not sound like much, but I can see the reasoning behind it. This is a profile-raising campaign, essentially a free advertising spot for the Auckland City Mission, and I suspect they're hoping for a bit of a 'viral' bump from hip, charitable young'uns of the social-networking generation (oh gawd I feel like a hack for writing that). 

This is 'slacktivisim' that may actually do something positive! All you have to do is have your photo taken, and upload it. Same thing you're doing anyway, right? You don't need to put any cash on the table, the Marion Davis Memorial Trust has that covered for you. And because this requires public participation, it raises the public profile of the City Mission. People tend to ignore the happy, smiley donation collectors on Queen Street, but pretending to be an angel on Facebook is something fun you might actually do... maybe. If you raise awareness for a charitable organization, there's a chance that someone will act on that knowledge and contribute to a group doing something to make the world a better place. Sadly, this campaign hasn't taken off with the same vigour that the cartoon meme did, probably because it requires a little bit of effort so it can't spread as easily (and because it's not a global meme). And perhaps the earlier slacktivism is partly responsible for siphoning away the altruistic will.

I'd like to add that it's not over yet! There's still a few more days until Christmas, you can still get out there and get snap-happy for charity. Failing that, you can let your Auckland-dwelling friends know about this. It can't hurt. And if you don't fancy the idea of making yourself an angel, you've clearly never seen Christopher Walken all Christopher Walken it up in the Prophecy movies.

Take care, all