On a pedestal

Someone said recently that he thinks I put him on a pedestal and I can't stop thinking about it. I suppose, in regard to some things, it's true. I do put him on a pedestal a little sometimes. There are several reasons for that, good ones, but the primary reason is that he challenges me, sometimes making me feel like the most boring, daft, idiot in the world but mostly making me think, and feel, and laugh, and push the limits of my intelligence and humor. I haven't met anyone in a long time, maybe ever, that challenges me to quite this extent. It impresses me and I'm not a person who can easily hide, or who bothers trying to hide, when I'm impressed with someone.

I'm not a person who generally bothers trying to hide much of anything actually, but I especially don't try to hide it when I think someone is amazing. First of all, I don't know that I could hide it even if I tried, secondly I don't see a reason to. Perhaps there are those who would feel like they don't live up to my high estimation but that is a confidence issue really and if someone impresses me I feel like they ought to have a huge amount of confidence. Not so much as to be considered arrogant but nearly that much. If they are humble, at all really, I feel like I ought to build them up.

I'm impressed by intelligence and sense of humor which can be fairly subjective qualities but one of the other things that really impresses me is decisiveness which is a pretty concrete thing. The ability to figure out what you want and make it happen amazes me. It's not so much the making it happen that impresses me because that I'm pretty good at once I finally decide what I want, but making those decisions is difficult and anyone who can do it well is deserving of praise in my opinion.

The menchy thing to do

The last couple of days I've been watching movies, in the hopes of improving my German. I watched Munich yesterday and today I watched Das Leben Die Anderen. I admit I watched Munich with subtitles (that is in English with German subtitles) but Das Leben Die Anderen didn't have language options or subtitles so I watched it in German with no titles which means I understood, maybe, half of the dialogue. However, viewing both movies brought up interesting things about the language for me. One thing which I noticed before, because of a conversation I overheard in a cafe here in Munich, is the word Der Mench. Der Mench means man in the global sense, more like human being and it's the base for a bunch of other words. Menchheit: mankind or humanity, Menchenfreund: philanthropist, Menchenkraft: human power, menchenmoeglich: humanly possible, and most notably menchlich: humane. The irony of the word "humane" (in English) and "menchlich" (auf Deutsch) is probably not lost on a lot of people. It's easy to look around at some of the hideous things human beings are capable of and wonder how humane came to mean what it does as human beings are often decidedly inhumane.

The word "mench" has a slightly different meaning in Yiddish. In Yiddish it is a great compliment and the word has carried over into English speaking pop culture so most (English speaking) people are at least peripherally familiar with it's Yiddish meaning. It's what you call a kind, generous, charitable person, someone who does the right and honorable thing. In Yiddish it doesn't just mean a man it means a good man, the best kind of man. Yiddish and German share a lot of things in common, so many, in fact, that someone who didn't understand either (as I have been and still sort of am) could easily mistake one for the other when hearing them spoken. Linguistically speaking Yiddish is a "Germanic" language. Presumably, it started out as a Jewish dialect of German and elements of Hebrew were incorporated and bits and pieces of other languages mixed with it and it evolved like all languages do so now it is distinct.

What I'm getting at here is where the idea comes from that to do the right thing is "humane" or "menchlich". These variants on the word "human" (or Der Mench) and the meaning for "mench" gained by its evolution from German to Yiddish indicate a general faith in humanity. A belief that men are basically good. Now that these languages (German, English and Yiddish) are all well established, and the study of linguistics abounds, we can look at these words and see irony there, but when people were first ascribing meaning to sounds there had to be a general belief that the human race is essentially good or the words wouldn't have the meanings they do. I wonder where we lost that belief (and I'm using the global we here because I personally have, obviously, not lost it)? There's a theory about the power of positive thinking (and of course the inverse, the power of negative thinking), simply put, that if you expect a positive result then a positive result is more likely (and if you expect a negative result then a negative result is more likely). Maybe the more we expect men not to be basically good then the less good they are.

So, when you hear someone say that something was humane (or inhumane), or when you hear someone call another man a mench, or if you're watching Sports Night and Dan says that something is "the menchy thing to do", just keep in mind the roots of those words, where they take their meaning from, that being from humanity.

As long as I've brought up Sports Night, Dan, Yiddish, and menchiness, and because everything, and I do mean everything can be illustrated with an example from Sports Night, I'll leave you with this quote from the Passover episode:

"It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less of each other and I'd like to be the first to start bucking that trend" - Dan (Sports Night)

Politics vs. Government: Getting Things Done

President Bush says that we shouldn't pull troops out of Iraq because it would endanger our security here at home. I find that a totally bizarre statement. It's odd for me to find myself agreeing with the president about anything but at least I find myself agreeing with him while still thinking he's a moron. Seriously? It might endanger our security? Sure, that, or it might leave Iraq in a civil war the likes of which the world hasn't seen in a long time, maybe ever.

I appreciate that the president is, kind of, admitting a horrible mistake that he made which has cost our country billions of dollars and cost many of our troops their lives, not to mention cost many innocent Iraqi lives and cost the Iraqi people most of their infrastructure (electricity, water, etc) which have still not totally been rebuilt. Can't he just say he was wrong and that we can't leave now because we have to clean up his mistake. That, honestly, would be the best way to spin it, I think. I assume the party thinks that their chances in the next election cycle will be better if they strike fear in our hearts and maybe that's true. I hope not though.

I like the question David Brooks posed in his column a couple weeks ago. He said, "I wonder if 2008 will be the election in which voters put aside dreams of finding somebody pure and good, and select somebody they think will be wily and effective". While I do consider myself an "issues voter" the first thing I think about when I'm about to cast my ballot is whether or not the person I'm voting for can get the job done. I like to consider myself idealistic but I understand that the only way to achieve ideals is through compromise. It's the reason you can't vote for someone like Ralph Nader. Forget what people say about how voting for Nader cost (or will cost) the Democrats an election by taking away from their base. The real reason not to vote for Nader (or someone like him) is because he won't be able to get anything done. He's too attached to his principles, to his ideals. I know it sounds odd to criticize someone for being too principled, but seriously, think about what it takes to keep the wheels moving on an entire country. Compromise. I don't like to compromise my principles, ideals or morals, which is why I could never be an effective legislator and why I leave government to people who can.