Comments on my Kalpen Modi Post

This is an odd experience.

I've been very much sidetracked from this blog for a bit--I returned to school, was working on an article for Createquity, found myself directing and writing a show from start to finish in 19 days (we're on our second performance tonight, which is why I am starting to get breathing room back in my life), and otherwise have found myself busy.

A couple days ago, I started getting comments on this blog on my Kalpen Modi post from at least a month ago. This is not a very widely read blog, to say the least. But in the last twenty four hours, I've started getting posts on my blog--it feels overreactive to call them "attack posts" or flames because, honestly, the effort put into them is just... lacking. I could come up with better vitriol against myself, if I was trying. Maybe I will sometime, it sounds like fun.

The problem is, if you want to hurt your opponent, you have to understand them.

For instance: "Have you ever read Animal Farm?" Yes, I have. George Orwell is one of my favorite writers. I spent a semester in the Czech Republic studying totalitarianism, because totalitarian movements are an interest of mine--understanding how they work, why they go wrong, and how they relate to the masses.

Actually, this seems like a fruitful, complicated area of discussion: how can the grassroots coexist with the structure of a democracy without becoming organs of mass directedness. After all, democratic republicanism requires the coexistence as well as the friction between mass movements and directed government. Totalitarianism is also based on that relationship, but in different ways. It seems important to delve into that, so I'll try and look at that this weekend.

I wish that the poster had somehow highlighted that problem. Instead I get those just weak shots across my bow. For instance, I've never smoke marijuana, so "Puff puff pass" doesn't really get at me. It had the effect of reminding me how conservative I am in comparison with a lot of my peers--I recall watching the Howard Dean fervor and being like, "That isn't me. That's not my party."

The shots just feel lazy. If someone (almost all of the posts were from "anonymous" but one was from "andrew") wants to knock me down a peg, they need to put some back into it. Find out who I am, what I'm actually on about, find the cracks in my arguments, use my own weight to bring me down.

(I'm studying Aikido now and the approach of finding out how to redirect your opponent's energy to bring them down is a very useful one).

At any rate, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that this weak, pointless vitriol comes from the fact that if you google "Kalpen Modi," I come up at the bottom of the first page of results. That's really the only thing I've learned from this experience.

Sustainability II: Legitimacy Pt. 1

I got into a discussion the other day about the future of Iran following the Iran Elections with my mother the other day (just wait, I promise this is about arts development). She was expressing her (understandable) frustration that Obama didn't intervene more in the Iran Election, to do something to help out the protesters. She didn't understand why Moussavi didn't call upon the world for help.

I tried to explain to her the crucial importance of legitimacy in government. An illegitimate government is an unsustainable government. In fact, I wish I had some high-power quotations from Rousseau or Montesquieu, or the founding fathers, because that's what the Enlightenment was based upon. Governments that are illegitimate are unstable, and the Enlightenment sought to bring stability to war-torn Europe by creating more legitimate governments into power.

Moussavi could ask for foreign intervention to help counterbalance the physical force of Khameni's government, but if he did, he'd lose that crucial bit of legitimacy that defines his movement. The movement is based on two key principles:

1) Allowing the Iranian people to self-determine their own government
2) Using legal, peaceful processes to ensure that this happens.

Clearly, whether or not Moussavi would be brought into power by a US-led intervention, or by UN Peacekeepers, is irrelevant. Forcing Moussavi into power violates both of those principles, and he loses his legitimacy. Moussavi understands legitimacy rather intimately, because the only reason he is in the position that he is is because Khameni rather stunningly gave up a huge foundation of legitimacy that the government was predicated on.

If you look at the above two principles, both of them were (at least to a large degree) applicable to the post-1979 Iran, well through Ahmadinejad's first election. There was a high degree of censorship (which is not what the people are protesting) and some election massaging, but in several structural ways you could demonstrate that Iran was holding to those principles more than any other Muslim nation in the area, minus perhaps Turkey.

To bring this to arts groups, which I've really been talking about all this time: the sense of "sustainability" of an arts organization is very much linked to the sense of "legitmacy." The question, really, is how does an arts leader:

1) Identify legitimacy
2) Cultivate legitimacy

I think I have a few posts left in me for today on the subject of legitimacy. But the first thing I want to say is that for an arts community, it is crucial to keep an eye on whether or not your actions are creating legitimacy--and not the window-dressing of legitimacy. For instance, a building is not legitimacy, never mind the fact that it tells the community that you're a powerful, stable organization. It is no more a sign of "legitimacy" than the Basij are symbols of the legitimacy. The demonstration of resources is not a sign of legitimacy (although the demonstration of stability might be, in some cases, part of legitimacy).

Conversationalism + 2008: How Our Conversation's Going

Culture is a conversation, and in a democracy, one of the most important culture-defining conversations is an election. Overall culture is often given many defining characteristics by its leaders: often, much of the culture defines itself in response to that. In a democracy, the choice of leaders is, in effect, a choice of cultural values and guiding philosophies to engrain in our culture. As our candidates compete, not only are we voting for policies, we are voting for the philosophies which underly policies. Hence, in previous elections, you get candidates winning on platforms built on the Bible or Reaganomics, even they don't necessarily apply in the situations they're being applied to. Why? Because the voters are responding to principles they agree with, regardless of the actual issues.

So, how is our conversation going in this election cycle?

I think it's going really well. It's still having some problems, but it's alive. Two points:

• The Debate: This nearly was a debacle. If McCain had stuck to his intention not to attend, it would have crippled one of the key moments of conversation in this election. After all, the chance to actually put two candidates in conversation with each other is not seen anywhere else in the campaign--and putting the candidates in conversation forces the core supporters and the undecideds to really see both candidates side-by-side, responsive. Having no debate would have been a truly souring event, and it would have set an incredible precedent: that candidates have no responsibility to the national dialogue in the lead-up to the election.
  
  As for the debate that actually happened: both candidates were (mostly) respectful (McCain's body language was rude, but it wasn't overtly rude). Both candidates (mostly) addressed the issues (as much as politicians have ever been seen to previously). And both candidates were (mostly) sticking to the facts.
  
  There is a way to go, for both sides. But the fundamentals of this debate were strong.
  
  The format of the debate was better than many before. Unlike the laughably constructed CNN or Fox Debates (and the horrendous ABC-Gibson/Stephanopolis Debates), Jim Lehrer tried to get the candidates to speak clearly and directly to each other. I actually agree with the candidates that speaking directly to each other is not necessarily the best way to frame it, but it does need to be responsive--Question Time in the House of Commons is a fantastic example of that balance. Diffuse the tension without losing responsiveness.
  
  
• John McCain/Sarah Palin's Relationship to the Press: This has been one of the more disappointing aspects of the campaign. The refusal of Sarah Palin to face the press, and the refusal of both candidates to answer straightforward questions, has been disgraceful. The same goes for certain blatant lies that have been repeated by both sides. Up until the Bush Presidency, there was a tradition that politicians would sometimes lie, but once caught, they would retract those lies. The idea that a politician can simply continue to insist that his lie is true is flabbergasting. I hope that this idea is put to rest when he loses.