MY COLLECTION OF STEELY DAN ALBUM COVERS - - - These truly exquisite artworks faithfully reflect the incomparable musicianship and unique creativity of the dynamic duo who pioneered the genre of jazz rock in 1972.

FAMOUS QUOTES BY FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

On God

1. "God is dead."

2. "What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?"

3. "There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He."

4. "Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob." 

5  "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."  

On Life

6. "For believe me: the secret to harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is - to live dangerously."

7. "To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity."

8. "What does not kill me, makes me stronger."

9. "Art is the proper task of life." 

10. "Life without music would be a mistake." 

11. "The lie is a condition of life."

On Death

12. "To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there."

On Man

13. "Man is the cruelest animal."

14. "Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one."

On Love

15. "What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil."

16. "When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory." 

17. "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." 

On Truth

18. "There are no facts, only interpretations."

19. "It is my ambition to say in ten sentences; what others say in a whole book." 

20. "He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how."
21. "Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies." 

22. "All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking."

23. "Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good." 

24. "One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

25. "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." 

26. "Man's maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play."

27. "Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."  

On Morality

28. "Morality is herd instinct in the individual."

29. "What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness."  

On success

30. "Success has always been a great liar."

BOOK SUMMARY - THE GENIUS IN ALL OF US:  Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ is Wrong by David Shenk (2010)

What have we been told?

In the 1850s and '60s, Gregor Mendel did his famous pea-plant experiments and demonstrated the presence of genes.  Early 20th Century geneticists interpreted his findings to mean that genes alone determined the essence of who we are. Genes set specific lower and upper limits of each person's potential abilities and determine our physical and character traits.  Genes lay the foundation to what we can become.  The environmental influences only come later.

In 1994, psychologist Richard Herrnstein and policy analyst Charles Murray wrote a book called "The Bell Curve".  In it, they warned that we live in an increasingly stratified world whereby those with the best genes, the cognitive elite, will become more and more isolated from those who are not as genetically well-endowed, the cognitive/genetic underclass. This will lead to a genetic partitioning of society.

Why are these ideas wrong?

First, in the emerging science of epigenetics, interactionists study how the environment modifies the way genes are expressed.  They found that we have been mistaken all along. Genes do not determine physical and character traits on their own. Rather, there is a continuous and dynamic process whereby genes interact with the environment to produce and refine an individual.  Genes and the environment are not two independent factors, but they interact continuously to produce a phenotypic trait like intelligence.


Secondly, research investigating the nature and development of exceptional ability in some individuals indicates that superior talent is not a rare and mysterious gift bestowed on a few lucky people, but the result of highly concentrated and exceptional effort on the part of these subjects.

So, what are the far-reaching and paradigm-shifting implications?


We should no longer view the gene as an autonomous unit of DNA, always producing the same effect. Whether, what, where or when it produces anything may depend on other DNA sequences and on the environment.  Genes should now be seen as buttons, knobs and switches constantly reacting and interacting with environmental factors like nutrition, hormones, sensory input, physical and intellectual activity; and also with each other. These interactions go on every moment of our lives, not only during our growing years but up till our last breath.

The equation is no longer "genes vs environment = intelligence" nor "genes + environment = intelligence". The new equation is "genes X environment = intelligence"! So, our genetic expressions and the environmental factors that affect us are inextricably tied. Influence our environment and our intelligence is altered exponentially. It's not that we are talented; but we become talented. If we have no talents, it's alright - we can acquire them! The playing field is really much more level than we realize.

What, then, are the practical consequences?

We must realize that intelligence is not innate nor inborn, but is a process that can be improved.  Gifted-ness as a concept no longer holds water.  Conversely, few people are really biologically restricted from attaining greatness.  In fact, the abundance of latent talent can be released by providing motivation.  Self-criticism should be encouraged, failure should be tolerated and served as a platform for improvement, self-blame should be avoided, limitations should be ignored and heroes and mentors can be identified to serve as inspiration for further effort.  Responsible parents and teachers should support and believe in the persistence of their striving charges. Society-at-large should foster a culture of excellence by encouraging competition and rivalry among its members. 

In short, education will no longer be seen as a winnowing process of identifying and labeling the talented, but as a continuous enhancing process to improve the intelligence of everyone!

DEMOCRACY - ITS ESSENCE AND DESIRABILITY

The pervasiveness of democracy

In modern times, it is almost impossible to discuss politics without mentioning the word "democracy".  It is taken for granted that for a modern society to be well-governed and fully accountable to its electorate, a democratic system is the desirable ideal.

In the early part of the 20th Century, its pre-modern enemies of centralized monarchy, hereditary aristocracy and oligarchy were banished as legitimate forms of government.  The two great World Wars turned us away from the grips of fascism and Nazism.  The collapse of the Berlin Wall marked the end of Euro-communism which was soon followed by the implosion of Soviet communism.  Military dictatorships around the world have largely failed except for stubborn isolated pockets in Latin America and South-East and East Asia.  Even the Chinese behemoth cannot escape having its totalitarian system tainted by the seductions of the free market, a constant companion of democracy.

What is democracy?

From its Athenian beginnings, where 'demokratia' clearly meant 'rule by the people', the modern use of the word had been pretty much muddied by claims of ownership from all quarters.  Democracy as a label has gained so much prestige that almost every regime, including the most undemocratic and extreme dictators, claims to be democratic!  As its concept had been interpreted in different ways in different places and by different people at different times, there is a danger that democracy has become a word without a precise meaning.

So, it'll be useful now to establish clear criteria for what constitutes democracy.  Robert A Dahl, the Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University defined that for a political system to be called democratic, it must provide opportunities for:

1. Effective participation for all.
2. Equality in voting.
3. The people to gain enlightened political understanding.
4. The people to exercise final control over the political agenda.
5. Inclusion of all adults

Why is a democratic system better than non-democratic ones?

According to Dahl, it has the following advantages:

1. Democracy helps to prevent government by cruel and vicious autocrats.
2. Democracy guarantees its citizens a number of fundamental rights that non-democratic systems do not, and cannot, grant.
3. Democracy insures its citizens a broader range of personal freedom than any feasible alternative to it.
4. Democracy helps people to protect their own fundamental interests.
5. Only a democratic government can provide a maximum opportunity for persons to exercise freedom of self-determination, that is, to live under laws of their own choosing.
6. Only a democratic government can provide a maximum opportunity for exercising moral responsibility.
7. Democracy fosters human development more fully than any feasible alternative.
8. Only a democratic government can foster a relatively high degree of political equality.
9. Modern representative democracies do not fight wars with one another.
10. Countries with democratic governments tend to be more prosperous than countries with non-democratic governments.

Any drawbacks?

Democracy, if unmodified and unrestrained, has a danger of quickly degenerating into a tyranny of the majority.  There must be provisions to safeguard the interests of the minority.

It must be realized that democracy is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for good government.  It must incorporate the ideas of the rule of law and of human rights to allow its citizens to live as free and happy human beings.

MY COLLECTION OF CUBIST PAINTINGS

Cubism was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque independently in 1907; the former having created his iconic painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon which depicted human figures from several different viewpoints, and the latter studying Cezanne's technique of representing three dimensions from several perspectives. No doubt, their inclination was inspired by the late 19th Century "fourth dimension" artistic zeitgeist of speculating into the possibility of discerning all sides of a three-dimensional object simultaneously.

Though they collaborated in the development of this new 20th Century art movement, they each have their own distinctive style.  Braque emphasized facets in his paintings to dissect and reconstruct the essence of his subjects, whereas Picasso had more abstract leanings.

This first phase of Cubism between 1907 and 1911 called Analytic Cubism is largely a French development consisting of unemotional subjects fragmented and reconstructed to produce a crystallized geometry with intersecting and transparent planes.

The movement spread beyond France from 1911 to 1919 in a second phase termed Synthetic Cubism which featured smaller fragmentations of less formal subjects.

Cubism was Picasso's most and last true innovation in the art of painting.  Though his own Cubist period ended in 1915, he inspired later painters like Mondrian who linearized cubism in 1912 and went go on to develop pure abstract art from 1914 onwards.  Here lies cubism's unique place in art history - at the philosophical turning point from viewing art as an imitation of life to valuing art as an end in itself. 

I think they are the coolest kind of art paintings ever!  I particularly like its emphasis on viewing an object or subject from multiple angles at the same time, a prescient artistic equivalent to postmodernism and the current global inclination towards multiculturalism, pluralism and the celebration of diversity.  Its trademark feature of fragmentation and reconstruction of a subject to bring out its essence also points to an analytic approach worthy of imitation in other spheres of problem-solving outside the art world!