You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2007.
First 30 minutes:
- Less clapping, please. (And cheering.)
Platform:
- Mostly good stuff. (Though the townhall format encourages some complaints vocalized louder than the percentage of people affected by the issue.)
Voting:
- Most undemocratic procedure, ever. (Having people do a show of hands in a room full of peer pressure, ugh. Are you for equality? Yeah!)
Singing:
- GEO needs to hire a professional songwriter. (Contact Jason Konek.)
In light of J.K. Rowling’s recent pronouncement that Dumbledore is gay and the subsequent philosophical discussions in the blogosphere (namely at Show-Me the Argument and Reality Apologetics), I thought I would bring up an old post. Back in March, I made a post at Go Grue! summarizing and discussing some issues that came up in Ian Flora’s work on the relationship between canonical fiction and fan fiction. There were really thoughtful comments, too, that one may find relevant to the present discussions about Dumbledore’s sexuality.
I thought the New York Times column could have considered more philosophical implications.
But it is possible that Ms. Rowling may be mistaken about her own character. She may have invented Hogwarts and all the wizards within it, she may have created the most influential fantasy books since J. R. R. Tolkien, and she may have woven her spell over thousands of pages and seven novels, but there seems to be no compelling reason within the books for her after-the-fact assertion. Of course it would not be inconsistent for Dumbledore to be gay, but the books’ accounts certainly don’t make it necessary. The question is distracting, which is why it never really emerges in the books themselves. Ms. Rowling may think of Dumbledore as gay, but there is no reason why anyone else should.
Of course, it is not about what is made necessary, but what kind of considerations you have to keep in mind when you engage with the fiction. Authorial intent is one, but certainly not the only one. However, much more needs to be said than this hasty dismissal.
I picked up William Dowling’s Confessions of a Spoilsport yesterday from the library. I am a bit behind on the controversy. In case you are more behind, this book is a memoir of a group, Rutgers 1000, that tried (and failed) to dissuade Rutgers from joining the ranks of big-time collegiate sports.
I should say, first of all, that I am probably one of the most impartial readers of this book outside of members of the athletic department and the Rutgers 1000. I have written a column criticizing the university’s athletic department, which if I remember correctly Dowling actually responded to. I was on the Daily Targum staff when the Fraidy Reiss controversy went down. Finally, I was a member of The Rutgers Review, a publication somewhat associated with Rutgers 1000 and has an article excerpted in the book.
I am basically in agreement with Dowling’s main points: big-time sports is bad for academics in a university and most arguments for it range from confused to downright deceptive. Still, I went in expecting worse, given what I know about Dowling’s fanatical nature. I am happy to report that it was not as bad as I thought. This book is not an argument against big-time collegiate sports. It contains few systematic studies and most arguments are supported by mere anecdotes. In the text, however, Dowling does point you to a few places that do make such arguments and present evidence for them.
Anyway, all this is fine if you read this book as a memoir. Yes, he cherry-picks his facts (particularly in the Fraidy Reiss chapter; see Nick Sevilis’s response at the time) like boosters cherry-pick theirs. Yes, he paints an unrealistic image of Ivy League sports (go to a Harvard hockey game and tell me that is not big-time sports) like boosters paint an unrealistic image of Big Ten academics. Yes, he displays a paternalistic racism toward recruits like coaches and boosters comments do also. But this is a man passionate about his cause, possibly moreso than boosters are about theirs. If you read the book this way, I think it really is an interesting account, from a very particular perspective. There are complex books that give pros and cons of big-time collegiate sports, but this is not one of them. It is partial, and unapologetically so.
(By the way, I should say this post is written in the same spirit. I am not trying to point out and refute all the problematic parts of his book, but to give my reaction to it.)
At any rate, I found it a fun read. It probably should not be someone’s first introduction to the debate, but for someone like me, who was caught in the middle of the controversy, it was an interesting recount. I was particularly pleased to learn that RU 1000 students made a website demolishing all the fallacious arguments boosters use. I might look that up next time I teach critical reasoning.
In most cases, our pretense episodes are quarantined from reality. This is usually taken to mean that the imaginings have no effect outside of the pretense, particularly with regards to behaviors. But imaginative quarantine also fails systematically. Broadly speaking, imaginative contagion are cases where imaginings do have effects outside of the pretense, noticeably with behaviors. Tamar Gendler (2006) points to three sets of cases: visual and motor imagery, affective response, and social priming.
I think imaginative contagion is a really interesting phenomenon. There is a rich body of empirical evidence, and it seems like accounting for the phenomenon should impact our functional analysis of the mind. I am puzzled, though, about how exactly to interpret the phenomenon. What part of the mind is affected in contagion cases? Or, to put it metaphorically, what is contagious about imaginative contagion?
