In keeping with the opening of The Dark Knight

Which Manohla Dargis loves ...

I have taken it upon myself to determine my true superhero identity through the scientifically validated instrument known as the Superhero Personality Test. Apparently, it has determined that I am The Flash—"fast, athletic and flirtatious"—though Spider-Man comes in at a close second.

The Flash 70%
Spider-Man 65%
Superman 60%
Green Lantern 60%
Robin 55%
Hulk 45%
Iron Man 40%
Batman 30%
Supergirl 30%
Catwoman 30%
Wonder Woman 20%

I'm actually surprised by this, because I've always had an affinity with Spider-Man's awkward geekyness. But then again, there's also my interest in constructive hermeneutics—the interpretation of texts—which in antiquity was closely associated with the Greek god Hermes, god of travelers, orators, athletics, magic, and, of course, flower arrangements.

That explains it.

Don't you make me plug in my toilet!

The Post-Gazette had an article this week about a man in Cecil Township, Washington County, who is prepared to go to jail instead of plugging into the local sewer system.

In reading the article, I sympathized with the man, to a point. Should people be forced to buy into public utilities—often at great cost—that they do not want? Should I be forced to purchase cable, for instance, if I do not want to own a television? This is not necessarily an idle question, nor is it a wild libertarian one. As more and more people become sensitive to environmental concerns like energy usage and water conservation, they may choose to live "off the grid," not only to save money but also to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and seek a more environmentally sustainable means of living.

But there is another question, too. To what degree are persons obligated to support assets and programs that the community has undertaken for the common good? Electricity systems, sewage systems, and other utilities are expensive community assets that provide for the common good even if one does not want to use them. Even Mr. Williams, the curmudgeon in the story, benefits from the improvements to public health and property values that a sewage system provides. Is he, then, not obligated to support these initatives? What are his obligations, if any, to the common good of his neighbors, who don't want a septic system that could leak into their backyards?

It's all about the enthymemes

When he wrote about rhetoric in ancient Greece, Aristotle noted that the most powerful forms of rhetorical reasoning took the form of what he called enthymemes (en-tha-MEEMs). An enthymeme is a syllogism in which one of the premises is suppressed and intuited by the audience.

For instance, while a traditional syllogism goes something like this:

Premise 1: Socrates is a human.
Premise 2: All humans die.
Conclusion: Socrates will die.

An enthymeme goes like this:

Premise: Socrates is a human.
Conclusion: Socrates will die.

The enthymeme is powerful because it incorporates the audience and their beliefs into the argument. In supplying the premise from their own understandings of what they believe or know to be true, the audience validates the argument as being "obvious." In recognizing this aspect of discourse, Aristotle was trying to account for how so many arguments seem "rational" and mysterious at the same time.

Aristotle's observations extend to other areas of discourse. Humor, for instance, is deeply enthymematic. Puns are funny because they depend on our previous knowledge of what the misused word should be. Observational humor is funny because quips about human experience depend on our common understanding of human existence. And so on.

But just as enythmemes explain why we should find something funny, they also show why we don't find something funny—or why something that is funny to someone can be offensive to another. Enthymemes work because, by definition, they presuppose a level of agreement between the speaker and the audience. If we don't share the language, we miss the puns. If we come from different social backgrounds or cultural expectations, we miss the joke. In controversial issues—particularly issues of race, sex, religion, and politics—the background of shared opinions and beliefs that humorous enthymemes assume is uncertain, and so would-be comedians need to take care in framing their jokes. That's the challenge and risk of being funny, and why high-profile comedians make the big bucks.

Which brings up the curious case of this week's cover of The New Yorker, which attempts to poke fun at the myths surrounding Barack Obama and his wife:



The cover created a firestorm of controversy, including denunciations by both candidates and a petition drive condemning the cover. In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd thinks that this firestorm means that Obama can't take a joke, but something bigger than Obama's purported humorlessness may be in play.

Simply put, the folks at The New Yorker forgot to take enthymemes into account. They obviously don’t take those myths seriously—and I wouldn’t expect them to—but their New York parochialism perhaps led them to assume that no one takes those myths seriously. The "humor” of the cover depends on that assumption.

But the editors guessed wrong. The reaction from both the Obama and McCain camps suggests that those myths are far more serious and the assumptions that the white American public has about Obama are far more unsettled than the art editors at The New Yorker think. Indeed, Obama's race remains an issue for many white Americans, who are still confused as to whether or not Obama is a Christian or is or is not the anti-Christ. Rhetorically, that is the issue with the cover. As Aristotle would have reminded The New Yorker, it's all about the enthymemes.

You'll still know nothing 'bout me

In the most recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Jeffrey Goldberg writes about having a recreational MRI to see how his brain was "mapped" or "wired." With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, he writes of his concerns about having his reactions to various pictures recorded:

What if the sight of Golda Meir provoked feelings of sexual arousal? What if the sight of David Ben-Gurion provoked feelings of sexual arousal? What if it turned out that I actually feel disgust at the sight of Bruce Springsteen? To think of all the money I’ve wasted on concert tickets and T-shirts. Most worrisome, of course, was the matter of my wife. Inappropriate activations could have lasting consequences.

Goldberg doesn't much to worry about, because it turns out that the findings of his little exercise are far from clear. While some results seem more obvious than others, the "facts" don't speak for themselves. Rather, they require interpretative intervention to become meaningful. A person has to insert himself or herself into the facts to explain what those facts mean, to transform the results from "data" to "knowledge." For instance, a picture of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad creates an unexplainably dramatic reaction, requiring a psychiatrist to search for an explanation.

“Perhaps you believe that the Israelis or the Americans have the situation under control and so you’re anticipating the day that he’s brought down.” He asked me some questions about my view of Jewish history, and then said: “You seem to believe that the Jewish people endure, that people who try to hurt the Jewish people ultimately fail. Therefore, you derive pleasure from believing that Ahmadinejad will also eventually fail. It’s very similar to the experiment with the monkey and the grape. It’s been shown that the monkey feels maximal reward not when he eats the grape but at the moment he’s sure it’s in his possession, ready to eat. That could explain your response to Ahmadinejad.”

Or whatever. The insertion of a person into the process instantly compromises it, because we're no longer talking about data in isolation but data that has become embedded in a web of human biases and understandings. Of course, the biases and understandings in question are those of an expert relying on a body of peer-reviewed scientific research, but they are still problematic because they are still mediated by human thought. In a nutshell, the lesson of Goldberg's experiment is that our thoughts and motivations are far less open to "impartial" scientific observation than one may think. In today's New York Times, David Brooks notes recent genetic research suggesting that there aren't DNA "triggers" for such things as happiness or aggression.

For a time, it seemed as if we were about to use the bright beam of science to illuminate the murky world of human action. Instead, as Turkheimer writes in his chapter in the book, “Wrestling With Behavioral Genetics,” science finds itself enmeshed with social science and the humanities in what researchers call the Gloomy Prospect, the ineffable mystery of why people do what they do.

I think Sting said it best:

Lay my head on the surgeon's table
Take my fingerprints if you are able
Pick my brains, pick my pockets
Steal my eyeballs and come back for the sockets
Run every kind of test from A to Z
And you'll still know nothing 'bout me

Run my name though your computer
Mention me in passing to your college tutor
Check my records, check my facts
Check if I paid my income tax
Pore over everything in my C.V.
But you'll still know nothing 'bout me
You'll still know nothing 'bout me

Fish's sense of intellectual wonder

This year marks four centuries since the birth of John Milton, writer of Paradise Lost (synopsis; entire), and Stanley Fish, Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University and one of the most highly regarded Milton scholars in the world, still can't get enough of the poet whose work has been a constant source of intellectual wonder.

All of this was predicted in 1674 by Samuel Barrow who said to the future readers of the poem, “You who read “Paradise Lost”… what do you read but everything? This book contains all things and the origins of all things, and their destinies and final ends.” How did the world begin? Why were men and women created in the first place? How did evil come into the world? What were the causes of Adam’s and Eve’s Fall? If they could fall, were they not already fallen and isn’t God the cause? If God is the cause, and we are the heirs of the original sin, are we not absolved of the responsibility for the sins we commit? Can there be free will in a world presided over by an omniscient creator? Is the moral deck stacked? Is Satan a hero? A rebel? An apostate? An instrument of a Machiavellian and manipulative deity? Are women weaker and more vulnerable than men? Is Adam right to prefer Eve to God? What would you have done in his place? Wherever you step in the poetry, you will meet with something that asks you to take a stand, and when you do (you can’t help it) you will be enmeshed in the issues that are being dramatized.

In an academic world that is often driven by political posturing, rampant tenure-track careerism, and cynicism, Fish reminds us that wonder should be driving the pursuit of knowledge and higher education. Scholarship isn't about answers. It's about questions, questions that constantly ask us to see and hear in new ways.