Assassin!
I recently read Bernard Lewis's
The Assassins, a reasonably scholarly account of the Ismailis generally (they being the second largest Shi'a community after the Twelvers) and the Assassins in particular (they being a particular Ismaili sect, now pretty much defunct). Their historical story is gripping, and it kind of surprises me that we don't have more references to it in popular culture.
Reading about the Assassins in a post-9/11 world must be a very different experience than doing so just 5 years ago, I realize. While it doesn't seem prudent to make the claim that the Assassins were the first terrorists (history is long, and I'm hardly an expert on such things), they certainly do seem to prefigure terrorism today--a point that Lewis makes abundantly clear in his (new?) final chapter. The assassins sent people out to murder political and religious enemies; they privileged martyrdom and promised paradisal rewards to those who died while carrying out a mission; they appeared cult-like and secretive to those around them; they followed even self-destructive orders with uncanny devotion; they performed their killings in public, apparently in order to inspire fear; they didn't often control territory, and didn't particularly appear to want to do so (that is, they weren't fighting for land--which is part of what made them so frightening to their contemporaries); they infiltrated governments and killed heads of state routinely.
But there are important differences, which, perhaps, are not played up enough. The Assassins were Shi'a; most of their murderous efforts were directed against the (Sunni) Abbasid Caliphate. For most of their history, their disagreements were over the correct succession of power after Mohammad--a political problem, to be sure, but also a religious problem set squarely within a shared Islamic context, and buttressed, at the beginning at least, with significant amounts of religious scholarship and well-drafted theological philosophies. This was not interreligious terrorism as we know it now, then (even if, later on, the Assassins were occasionally thought by their neighbors not to practice Islam; and they allied with Crusaders from time to time; and they eventually practiced a kind of populist, millenialist, firebrand religion in which Islamic law was sometimes suspended).
Moreover, it's worth noting that the Assassins didn't kill innocents. While they publicly murdered numerous heads of state, political advisers, and Sunni religious leaders, they were painfully careful to do so in a well-ordered manner (usually leading to their own capture) in order to avoid harming others. They almost always killed with a knife, from close quarters; they wouldn't shoot arrows or use poison to attack their victims. They didn't wreak havoc, but sometimes spent years gaining the confidence of the intended target in order to get close enough to attack. Assassins never chose to attack large numbers of people ("all the people at the Sunni court," for example), instead focusing on carefully chosen individuals whose names they recorded and whose death they prepared for with a kind of single-minded devotion. This is scary and indeed caused great fear among the enemies of the Assassins, but is hardly equivalent to today's terrorism.
And finally, the Assassins were recognized as a (sometimes quite powerful) government unto themselves. They certainly sponsored terror-like practices, and horrific killings, but they also entered into alliances with other, clearly legitimate powers. They had serious negotiating power (as evidenced, for example, by their ultimate truce with Saladin after he had been bent on destroying them). To be sure, the Assassins were recognized as odd, frightening, and disturbingly obedient to their leaders--but they were also
recognized.
It's easy to fall into the post-9/11 trap of viewing those who consistently use murderous means to achieve their ends as terrorists. The parallel between terrorist and Assassin seems even stronger, I posit, because of the Islamic character that we give to each of them these days (though that's hardly fair these days; we would do well to remember the IRA, for example). We should be careful here, though. While the history of the Assassins may indeed shed some light on terrorism, it cannot, I think, correctly be called terrorism itself.
Associations
On Sunday, I went to hear William Unwin, tenor, sing (along with the entire Monteverdi Choir) at Lincoln Center. They offered up a solid rendition of Mozart's C-minor mass and a perfectly splendid version of the Requiem. By way of associating myself with greatness, I'd like to point out that just hours before the concert, I'd been hanging out with Will on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building. It's a small and awesome world.
Everything's always better in Canada. Sigh.
I admit it: I struggle to get the plastic stay-fresh seal off the top of Starbucks "frappuccino coffee drinks" like those pictured here. Those damned seals! They're shrink-wrapped on or something, so that you have to bite or cut them to get them off. Since I get my frappuccinos for free, I confess that this still seems worth it to me; the annoyance is a small price to pay for a smooth chocolatey milk-filled fake-coffee drink. Nonetheless, I hate those plastic seals. They are one of those small annoyances in life that really make a bad day seem horrid. They vindicate the idea that the human race is, on occasion, idiotic.
This brings me to my second point. In Canada, Starbucks frappuccino coffee drinks look very much the same as their US counterparts (except for the fact that they feature French on the label as well as English, at least sometimes). One might therefore overlook the most impressive feature of the Canadian frappe: perforation. As I recall from my lengthy
trip to Alaska last summer,
Canadian Starbucks stay-fresh seals are perforated. This, needless to say, makes it far easier to remove them in order to enjoy one's caffeine, which in turn makes it far easier to continue to drive to Alaska (or whatever).
The patriot in me says: Those Canadian wusses! They need perforation in order to open the seal! They must have very little tooth-strength.
The rationalist in me says: Why would this be? We must have a law that specifies that it can't be too easy to break this seal. Perhaps this is a reasonable law in order to ensure freshness and untampered goodness. Perhaps.
The disgruntled idealist in me says: Mountains! Manners! Gun laws! Hockey! Immigration agents! Niagara Falls! Beaches! Winter! And especially plastic bottle seals! Everything's better in Canada. Sigh.
How do you write a limit in html?
A couple days ago, I finished reading
The Infinite Book, by John D. Barrow. Though I think overall the book was hit-and-miss, some parts were thought-provoking indeed. The two most fun games that Barrow gives us follow.
1. The problem of infinite numbers of actions in a finite amount of time. We know that the infinite sum 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ... + 1/(2^n) approaches 1 as n approaches infinity. But concieve of it this way (Barrow's way): a demon switches a light on after half a minute, then off 1/4 of a minute later, then on 1/8 of a minute later still, and so on and so forth (literally
ad infinitum). After 1 minute has passed, will the demon have done an infinite number of tasks? And will the light be on or off (or both, or neither)?
2. The problem of infinite size in a random universe. If the universe is infinitely big (or, as an alternative statement of roughly the same problem, if it has been around for an infinitely long time), and if we don't presume that some larger intelligence is conspiring to make earth special, then must we presume there to be an infinite number of earths with an infinite number of people who are exactly like ourselves (or, in the formulation instead of the infinite age of the universe, must we presume that those people did and will exist)? This is the same idea as the
monkeys on the typewriters: enough random combinations of atoms in space (letters on the page) and you will get other Earths (other copies of Shakespeare's plays). Of course, the probability of any sufficiently large number of atoms combining to form another you on another Earth around another sun in another spiral galaxy is extremely low. But if you have infinite numbers of atoms combining in infinite numbers of random ways, then even an extraordinarily low probability translates into an infinite number of instances.
There are ways around these mind-benders, to be sure. #1 doesn't take into account the relativistic effects of moving very, very fast. Eventually, you've got to be turning the light on and off at speeds that are appreciably close to c (the speed of light). In fact, the way this problem is set up now, you eventually would be turning the light on and off at speeds
faster than the speed of light. This is of course impossible; as you approach c, time slows down so you're never able to exceed the speed of light (or, perhaps, reach the end of the minute?). Even if you could transend c theoretically, though (which you can't), it may not be trivial that no person could ever do this practically: you'd run out of energy from all the work and die first (or, if it wasn't a
person, then whatever the power source was would run eventually out of energy), and anyhow you'd be going faster than any known body would be able to go. Maybe the universe is set up not to let us dabble in infinities in any practical way, ever. Maybe infinity has no real, non-mathematical meaning.
The ways around # 2 are rather different. We could of course posit some sort of divine selection that makes our world unique, thereby avoiding the problem of infinite earth-worlds (since the infinity-hypothesis only works if we assume that the creation of our earth was not special). Or we could presume that the universe is neither spatially nor temporally infinite. This kind of makes sense, too, even though we don't have a clue what that would mean we'd see if we looked out from the "edges" of the universe: it would not be absurd to posit that time began with the big bang, that space did too and is merely a function of our universe (or our experience thereof), and that the universe is "closed" and so will not continue to expand infinitely long and far. All these things are at least plausible. The big question here, though, is why # 2 is paradoxical or problematic in the first place. To be sure, it's a little weird to think that not only might we not be special cosmologically, but we might not even be unique (instead, living the exact same lives, with the exact same motivations, and in the exact same observable world, as someone somewhere else in an infinitely large universe). But let's say it's
true. Is there anything logically wrong with that?
Chronicles
Despite myself I saw the
Chronicles of Narnia yesterday night. Without commenting particularly on the movie
per se (which I confess I found surprisingly good, if a bit heavy with the Christian allegory), I have a few thoughts:
1. The frame of the movie seemed unneccessary. Why doesn't it seem so in the book?You might recall that the children in the
Chronicles of Narnia are sent out to live in the English countryside during World War Two. It is while there that they stumble into Narnia and have all of their adventures. I was struck by the fact that you could have just had Narnia, in the movie at least, without needing an explanation of how the kids got there or where they came from. Perhaps the book is stronger on the idea that they are strangers in Narnia (which is importantly true for the flow of the story) and so their backstory is also more important. Or perhaps the frame in the book works because it seems to take a story of "real" kids, whereas in the movie they are already fictional characters merely by virtue of being onscreen. But that seems unlikely and inconsistent, since they are as much characters from the opening pages of the book as they are from the opening shots onscreen.
2. There's a problem with treating ever-older "children" as kids.If you can send your 8-year-old off to live with relatives she's never met in World War Two, and she can buck up and take it and even feel that there's some purpose in doing so; if you can marry your daughter off when she's 15 if you live in 15th-century Verona, and she can run a household and have a family (albeit probably not that happily); if you let your 11-year-old run away in the 1920s and he can support himself by sweeping shops; then how come 25-year-old Americans today live at home, don't have jobs, and are quick to feel discouraged, unhappy, and incapable? Were we never given any responsibility growing up? Or was there no responsibility to give, since everybody was going to be okay anyway? Or do our actions (or lack thereof) just never seem to matter (either for ourselves or for anybody else)? Or what?
3. Our wars often allow us to abstract far from actual killing.In historical terms, it's a strange, strange thing that we can destroy our enemies without ever seeing them. In the
Chronicles of Narnia, two wars take place, and they are represented very differently on film: one features hand-to-hand combat, the other is epitomized by the Luftewaffe bombers conducting air raids over Britain. Bows and arrows abstract away from actual physical contact; guns abstract away once more; bombs do so yet again. ICBM's represent the farthest we can do this and still be on earth, I take it. None of this is a new thought, but the relative newness of this ability still strikes me. It's a rare thing to be able to destroy from such a distance.
For Goodness's Sake...
... greater cost does not equal better product!
Or at least, not always.
Why on earth do people--and here I mean lots and lots of people--go ice skating,
repeatedly, at Rockefeller Center? Bryant Park is less than a mile up the road, right on the orange subway line (and one block from Times Square, which is to say, one block from every other Manhattan line but the 4-5-6); it's at
least as easy to get to as the Rockefeller ice rink.
Price of an ice skating session at Rockefeller Center: $13 (winter and spring, but not during the "Holiday Season" when prices are higher)
Price of an ice skating session at Bryant Park: $0
Not being a financial idiot: priceless? I mean, there are plausible real benefits to going to Rockefeller Center once. It's a storied holiday activity, there's the view of the big Christmas tree (and maybe this just warms your heart, I don't know), there's getting to say you've done it if you're a tourist, there's the fact that your kid
really wants to skate when you take her there and, like any decent parent, you like to indulge your kid sometimes. But after doing the Rockefeller Center thing once, don't you think native New Yorkers should go somewhere else for their skating pleasure?
I <3 iPod
My parents recently gave me an iPod (a thing I have very much wanted for some time now). I am quite taken by it. Already I've grown attached to slipping it into my back pocket and running a soundtrack to my life. I like choosing the music; I like being absorbed in the sound; I even like the slimness of its body.
But wearing an iPod is a problematic thing, far more problematic than listening to music in other ways. It is unlike the radio, because you can't share it with anybody else while listening, or, at least, you can't effectively talk about it (or anything else) while mutually listening. It is unlike a Walkman, in that a Walkman is too bulky to always carry with oneself, and too unreliable, generally, even to take jogging (buffering notwithstanding). It is unlike both in that one can easily pick out songs to listen to on an iPod. These are all selling points: an iPod is quiet and doesn't bother the people around you; it is small and easy to carry, and can clip onto an armband if you're jogging; and you get much more choice over your playlist than you do if you rely on tapes, CDs, or a DJ to play the next song.
As I listen, however, I can't help thinking of Allan Bloom's
The Closing of the American Mind: "Nothing is more singular about this generation [that of students and "young people"] than its addiction to music. This is the age of music and the states of soul that accompany it," he wrote (in 1987, the age of the Walkman). So far, so good, and apparently true today as well. But then Bloom continues, perhaps as an alarmest, but nonetheless essentially correct in what he says: "It makes conversation impossible, so that much of friendship must be without the shared speech that Aristotle asserts is the essence of friendship and the only true common ground.... As long as they have the Walkman on, they cannot hear what the great tradition has to say. And, after its prolonged use, when they take it off, they find they are deaf." Extreme? Perhaps. But not essentially wrong. Indeed, even if we toss out any philosophic attachment to "great tradition," the point about friendship still stands boldly on its own two feet.
Or let us consider "Harrison Bergeron," Vonnegut's short story about a truly equal dystopia. Those who are "unfairly" smart are fitted with earpieces; and the constant sounds in their heads break up their thoughts and distract them from the activity at hand. This resonates rather strongly with me at the moment (resonates-- get it?
get it?). After all, the iPod, with its excellent technology, is not merely an earpiece projecting disruption into you; rather, it really makes it seem that the music is inside your head. If it is a disruption, it is therefore a rather more disturbing disruption than the one Vonnegut envisions.
So does wearing an iPod make you antisocial? It is perhaps arguable that strangers in New York are never very social anyhow--but it seems clear that the short answer must be "yes." Do they addle the mind? Well, let's just say that the precipitating force behind this blog entry was that I spent over an hour trying to solve a sudoku puzzle today--and then I gave up. Before I was the kind of person who plugged in, I was the kind of person who would do a sudoku every morning in the seven minutes it takes me to get from 86th Street to Grand Central Station. I could probably still do that if I wasn't listening to my iPod at the same time-- but the point is, I probably
will be listening.
There's a third problem with the iPod, though, and one that seems very widespread indeed. It may even mark a significant social and cultural change, one that radio and Walkmans (Walkmen?) have not prefigured during their respective heydays. With the iPod and other mp3 players, listeners are, for the first time, able to choose their songs at a whim. Of course you can call in to a DJ, make a mixed tape, or burn personal CDs and thereby hear the song you're looking for-- but those activities require planning and forethought, and with them you can't reorder something next week when you feel like a different song. The iPod, however, is a very different creature. It offers the capacity to write one's own playlists on the fly, to pick individual songs as one goes, or even to scramble between a very select group of songs or artists. But, cool as these things are, and gratifying as it is to hear just what you want to hear, it is in this wealth of choice and subsequent near-immediate gratification that there lies the most insidious problem with the iPod: emotional masturbation, to say it crudely.
We all like picking our songs (myself included). But at some point--a point which, it seems, most iPod owners quickly reach--this means that we are no longer merely
listening to music. What we are doing, rather, is consciously writing the soundtracks to our lives. Angry? Turn on the Ride of the Valkyries or Tupac Shakur. Happy? Go for Weezer. Sad? Find something in a minor key. And don't worry about sharing it with anybody else--it's your iPod, after all, a nice hand-held portable headphone-rigged personal music player. But what does this active approach to choosing one's music actually
mean? Well, suddenly our music has become a thing where we express ourselves
to ourselves. We feel one way, we share it (with our iPod!), and it responds sympathetically. Meanwhile, no other person is involved. No longer is it just that personal music isolates you from the rest of the world when you're listening (which is Bloom's big concern); now, sometimes at least, we show strong feelings through the iPod while at once
not caring that nobody else is paying attention. This, some might say, is a productive dialogue with the self. But I think I buy that it is a dialogue with a muddle-headed self, an indulgence that at once expresses a mood and dulls one's capacity for thought Vonnegut-style.
The Impossible Forest
New Yorkers are finally (finally!) tossing out their Christmas trees here in the city. This rather unremarkable seasonal phenomenon has had, of late, a rather unlikely and impressively strong influence on me, however.
Walking to work (well, to the subway to work) takes me through the residential neighborhoods that characterize the Upper East Side. Cross streets are rarely flecked with restaurants or stores: the population density of our blocks must be stunningly high. This translates, this time of year, into an enormous number of Christmas trees in front of every apartment building.
And that, in turn, translate itself into a pervasive smell of fir trees. Between this week's particularly crisp outdoor chill the ever-identifiable odor of fir and pine trees (fun fact: a douglas fir is actually a kind of pine!), one could be forgiven for mistaking January on 84th street for the wintertime of the countryside.
It's really a nice feeling. I love the city: so much is happening, so much is available, and there's a kind of elegance in a brick-walled upper-east-side apartment with clean lines and suave furniture. But closing my eyes and walking down 84th reminds me how much I'd hate to live here all my life.
