mills's New Writeups

Hurricane Katrina (thing)

2005-09-04T04:33:38Z

If Katrina doesn't actually necessitate abandoning New Orleans permanently, if its citizens (who are, at this point, becoming ghosts) decide to return after many long months in other states and try to rebuild their impoverished, paradisical city without economic or climatic justification, then the greatest losses we've suffered will perhaps not be the buildings or the neighborhood, fragile though demography and culture are.

To me, the greatest loss will be that of our self-image, for New Orleanians thrive on the sense that we, perhaps we alone in the speed-obsessed, brutally efficient, commerical and antiseptic United States, have a secret cameraderie, a laissez faire-inspired bonhomie that differentiates us.

We are proud to be more racially integrated than other cities; proud to have such deep cultural interconnectedness between whites and blacks, Italians and Irish, Yats and debutantes; proud to celebrate so many things, music and food and life,…

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche (idea)

2003-07-11T18:20:29Z

Pressed For Time? Here's a Summary: Rook's w/u is excellent, and I can only offer a different assortment of details as justification for the inclusion of mine in this node. What follows is an analysis of the role played by Friedrich Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth, in the incorporation of his philosophy into Nazism. Elisabeth was a violently anti-Semitic and vain woman, who loathed her brother's ideas but loved him (in her fashion). She powerfully affected the dissemination of his ideas after his breakdown, and suppressed much of his work in order to mask the fact that her brother hated anti-Semites, German nationalism, and even her.

Note: Cletus the Foetus, whose excellent writeup on Nietzsche can be found here, strongly objects to the suggestion that Nietzsche suffered from syphilis for the last decades of his life; we argued a bit about it, and I include the messages below. In the near future,…

Error and arrogance in Alice Miller's The Untouched Key (idea)

2002-09-23T00:35:23Z

The Untouched Key

Let this title solidify in your mind for a moment: the untouched key. What does this banal phrase actually signify? What could Alice Miller have meant when she selected these words to designate her treatise on the psychology of mankind's greatest geniuses?

The (one and only) Untouched (unseen and ignored by all save the author) Key (which unlocks meaning vital and previously unknown)

Published in German in 1988, Alice Miller's The Untouched Key: Tracing Childhood Trauma in Creativity and Destructiveness is (in many circles) a celebrated exemplar of the power of modern psychology to explain and contain the past, to minimize the awesome power of 'myths' like Genius and Creativity and to illuminate the accepted idea that, in fact, these things are not the result of work or talent, and are as such to be found in all of us. When your…

military-industrial complex (idea)

2001-07-16T22:21:56Z

The idea that a symbiotic relationship exists between the American military and the private, commercial industry which produces its weapons was for years a popular liberal explanation for the machinations of foreign policy. Republican presidents, like Ronald Reagan, were accused of determining America's international behavior by calculating which course of action would benefit companies like Lockheed-Martin most. The profits generated by America's involvement in wars and arms races, the theory posits, were then funneled into the pockets of policy-makers, thus perpetuating the relationship.

Whatever the idea's allure as an X-Files caliber conspiracy theory, it is utterly untenable, factually and conceptually; even if there weren't overwhelming documentary evidence demonstrating that foreign policy is determined by a mixture of pragmatic power politics and idealism, as well as by internal popular pressure, there would still remain the fact…

Attorney General (thing)

2001-05-21T09:55:17Z

Although the duties and powers of the Attorney General of any given principality, state, or nation vary moderately, the essential function of the position is to centralize the legal authority of a government. The Attorney General can be considered a synthesis of a politician and a prosecutor, with a bit of judicial discretion occasionally added for good measure.

In the United States, the Attorney General?s office was created in 1789. The Attorney General is the head of the Department of Justice, as well as the primary liaison between various executive governmental branches and the nation's law enforcement agencies. He is also the bearer of the odd title of "chief law enforcement officer," with administrative control of many departments, offices, and various bureaucratic compartments, such as the U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, and the Bureau of Prisons.

Each state also has an Attorney General (collectively known, incidentally, as Atto…

I Go to Extremes (idea)

2001-05-17T02:23:33Z

Billy Joel is frequently said to have struggled with bipolar disorder, and this song's analysts have often considered the lyrics reflective of his feelings about the illness.

Disclaimers

(1) I have not found any information to indicate whether Billy Joel has publicly declared himself a diagnosed bipolar sufferer (although a friend swears he has).

(2) The bipolar community (of which I am part) is fond of appropriating celebrities, dead and alive, into their sphere, and is also inclined to read almost anything as a commentary on bipolar.

Having said that, however: their interpretation is entirely plausible, even obvious, although it is a relatively reductive, simplistic treatment of bipolar. Then again, it's still just rock and roll to me.

It's a good song, too, if you like Billy Joel and the Storm Front album, on which it is track four.

I recently realized…