Paul's Mental Workshop

How to argue. (1130 words)

There are good arguments & there are bad arguments, there are valid arguments & there are stupid arguments. The good or valid arguments lead to deeper knowledge & harmonious agreement, while the bad or stupid arguments lead to negative emotions & deeper disagreement.

Plato claimed truth was in the air all around us, the proof being that two men who are ignorant of a certain knowledge can, through correct dialogue, pluck that knowledge from the very air... the correct discourse referred to, defines all the terms used in their arguments. It can be tedious at times but it is surprising how much can be learned when defining to mutual satisfaction even the simplest of commonly used terms; how little there is left to 'argue' about, & finally, how magically the insight sprouts from barren ignorance.

In the orient, Confucius' ideas which became such a thoroughly pervasive influence, fought the negative confrontational aspect of argument with a strictly defined protocol in the allowed form of response. In a word: manners. With manners that make it impossible to cause one's opponent to 'lose face', all negatively charged emotional exchange is channelled instead into communication.

In the context of learning I think Socratic argument beats Confucian for sheer efficiency.

Personally I think Hegelian dialectics (with its roots in the pre-Socratic Greeks) where thesis & antithesis are reconciled in a synthesis can make for interesting dialogue but finds mutual conclusion with more difficulty; these & other thoughtful, reasonable, approaches to argument, however, are generally ignored by most people, indeed most arguments between friends & colleagues (not to mention enemies), even those whose disagreement has nothing to do with their cherished relationship, affect that relationship negatively. The reason for this is not that most people like the person they argue with less because of an opinion that is different to their own, but rather because they don't know how to argue. It is this process that demeans the friendship within which the argument plays out.

By arguing badly or stupidly, other considerations aside from the difference of opinion being discussed enter into the feelings they are being discussed with. Instead of being interested in each other's point of view & continuing to exhibit the respect each combatant has for the other (often a pre-requisite to the eventual heat the argument generates, not the opinion) they 'argue' through repetition & emphasis of their own standpoint while repeating with ever-greater force that the other person's perspective is wrong.

Personally, though I am not immune to the sting of pride: to the 'bad' feeling that something I believed in & argued for, turns out to be wrong, but that petty feeling is overwhelmed by the pleasure (when convinced by good argument that I am wrong) in having a new & better truth to believe in & argue for. Replacing the faulty truth with a new one means I won't be seen as wrong again in the future, as a point of pride that alone is reason to be grateful to the man who convinces me, through argument, of a fallacious belief.

Professor Beebe, PhD in philosophy, explains the simple rules of 'good' argument:

An argument is= a set of statements that include just two components-
a) A conclusion, which is the main point the argument is trying to establish.
b) The premises, which are reasons given in support of the conclusion.

There are two main requirements an argument must satisfy if it is going to qualify as a good argument:
1) The premises must be true.
2) The premises must support the conclusion.

One must be careful here because though the statement is simple the possible variations for the purposes of manipulating the logic of the argument (in order to confuse & mislead) are subtle & diverse. To start with it must be re-iterated that,
1- though the list of premises may be true, the conclusion drawn from them may not. (For various reasons we will examine)
2- though the list of premises may be false, the conclusion may still be true.

Professor Beebe points out some common forms of fallacious argument: (parenthetic examples & comments are mine)

A) Appeal to Inappropriate Authority = fallacy committed when a conclusion in one area of human inquiry is supported by appealing to the authority of someone whose authority or expertise lies in an independent and unrelated area of human inquiry.

B) False Dilemma = fallacy committed when:
(i) a decision is portrayed as being a choice between two (or more) options;
(ii) all but one of the options presented is obviously bad; but
(iii) there are, in fact, more options than are represented.

(A man giving a speech to a gathering about zoning a section of forest as protected habitat might say: Would you like to see this beautiful forest turned into a strip mall & parking lot? He hasn't said that it is the choice between his zoning suggestion & a shopping centre but the people gathered might come away with the impression that if they sign his petition they are indeed choosing the better option of the two)

C) Straw Man = the fallacy of attacking a position that one's opponent does not really hold and thinking that one has thereby attacked the opponent's position.

(When used well the opponent in question can sometimes even be induced to defend the irrelevant position thereby validating the criticism.)

D) Slippery Slope = fallacy committed when:
(i) someone argues against a certain proposal by claiming that it will set off a chain reaction that will ultimately end in disaster; but
(ii) there is no good reason to believe that such a chain reaction will (or is likely to) occur.

(That because hard drug users generally smoke, or have smoked, marijuana, smoking marijuana inevitably leads to hard drug use. That because violence on television is desensitising, kids who watch Popeye cartoons will exhibit violent behaviour)

E) Ad Hominem (latin- against the person) = fallacy committed when someone erroneously attacks the person giving an argument rather than the argument itself.

(A nutrition expert might have his statement about nutrition attacked because he is overweight. The connection might seem superficially accurate in an intuitive way, when in fact there may be many reasons aside from ignorance of the subject that causes him to be overweight. It might even be a reason the critic does not recognise though logically he should be able to accept it, such as that the nutrition expert feels he is more attractive when overweight & works hard to keep from losing those kilos.)

F) False Cause = fallacy committed when someone concludes that one event is caused by another simply because the one event follows the other.

(Every time I forget my umbrella it rains!)

Ivan said...

I certainly enjoyed this brilliant essay on How to Argue. I might, however, debate only the last line. For me, it never rains when I do carry my umbrella.

I appreciated your description of valid and stupid arguments. I thought of a third category of argument I am often guilty of engaging in, and wanted your opinion:

It is the argument we engage when we want to know the thoughts of the person we're debating with better... really a form of play where we try to expand on each others concepts.

Have you read a wonderful little book titled Finite and Infinite Games, by James P Carse? It's subtitled A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. He describes a finite game as one that will end when some one wins, while an infinite game is played without rules, boundaries or even winners, so as to involve an ever-expanding number of players.

I like that concept and thought perhaps, that is what you were thinking when you started this delightful blog. Bravo
10:23 PM

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On 'happiness', in answer to Ivan's comment. (370 words)

Ivan wrote:
Happiness, in itself is a silly, giddy thing. Rather it's the 'pursuit' of happiness that's of value. Imagine a life engaged in the pursuit of misery.
Ivan Sherman

Yes, I think that is a valid point Ivan, that a life in pursuit of happiness can be defined as more successful than one that becomes complacent upon accomplishing some pre-defined state of happiness. I think a good analogy to the concept among artists like you and I, is my belief that if an artist ever manages to define his inner vision perfectly on his canvas, it becomes time for him to do something other than paint. In other words: it is the element of experimentation, of striving for the indefinable aesthetic, that keeps an artist's work live. Making the opposite true, i.e.- an artist who knows precisely what his painting will look like before he begins produces- dead paintings.

Your idea reminds me of a quote by someone brilliant (who I can't place in my memory to attribute properly) who said: "The only true happiness a man may experience is in the contemplation of future happiness." This is proven by the fact that whenever we do achieve the object of our desire we immediately generate a new fantasy of future happiness.

I don't however, agree with the last part of your statement, "Imagine a life in the pursuit of misery" it might be difficult for men such as you & I to imagine a life such as that, but I think it is not so unusual for people to do just that, most, I think, without realising it.

It is interesting and valid to define the terms of our dialogue in this Socratic manner but I think nothing has been said about the term 'happiness' that conflicts with my statement that a successful life is not measured in quantity or even quality of happiness but rather, in the more mature ability to appreciate the drama offered by the range of emotional possibility our lives present. I will close by offering another quote from my book (Life is Good Even when it's Not) as an example: (when enough time has passed)- "...I know when I look back, that I cherish the memory of a broken heart alongside the joy I remember at seducing the woman who broke it. Both are examples of living deeply. It is about drama."

Thoughts on Happiness. (250 words)

In response to some of the comments posted to the essay - 'Happiness Versus Suffering' (below) I would like to offer this excerpt from my book: 'Life is Good Even When it's Not':

The idea of life as a project or series of projects may not be unusual, but the deeper significance is interesting: it has made my satisfaction with life tied largely to my level of productivity, rather than my volume of happiness.

Looking at a painting I did sometime in the past, I realized I couldn't remember how I felt when I painted it. Or perhaps I worked on the same painting--one day happy, the next, angry, and a third, melancholy--and all that was left of those moments was the painting. This made the painting of greater importance than how I felt, and I eventually developed the theory (or made the discovery) that the phrase, "man's inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness" in the U.S. Constitution, constitutes a basic flaw in cultural philosophy: a successful life cannot be measured according to the amount or even degree of happiness, but rather by appreciating the drama provided by the range of our emotional life.

The fact that it is possible to be miserable one's whole life does not change the fact it is impossible to always be happy. It probably has something to do with what Chekhov said about happiness being a thing defined in a subtle range of greys--no single one concrete, the same thing that makes you happy today (like someone's company) can make you sad or angry tomorrow--while unhappiness is easily defined in its negative quality as the absence of happiness.

The birth of Chiang Mai. (450 words)

To the Thai, a city is a living body that can get sad, angry, happy, bored, sick... it is a cooperation of its inhabitants akin to the collaboration of cells in a human body. After the kings of Lampun and Phayao came to the aid of Mangrai, the king of Chiang Rai to repel the invading Burmese, the three kings from Chiang Rai in the north, Phayao to the south, and Lampun in the east, decided to band together. They looked for a site between their kingdoms to build the Capitol of their new country.

The three kings were strong idealistic young men, each sovereign to kingdoms already old enough for pride in their traditions, in Lampun originated the beautiful celadon ceramics of delicate translucent green glazes whose roots are in China. Sukothai represents much of Thai culture known to the West, the folk dances, apparel and most importantly, the enamelled gold and incredibly intricate linked chain jewellery they still make today, while Chiang Rai makes beautiful women.

The Kings met bare-chested and gold crowned, along with their parasol wielding, fan waving entourages, in the verdant and fecund valley which is now the Rose of the North: Chiang Mai. At 300 metres above sea level it was cool and had water tumbling from the surrounding mountains into the Mae Ping, or Ping river. Here they agreed would be a sublime city representing a perfect friendship and the first unification of northern Thailand. They designed a the town within a square moat a little over one kilometre to a side with four fortified entrances each half-way between two corners. If a city is a living body, however, it must be conceived instead of simply built, and so, along with their soothsayers, the auspicious date was decided and on the 8th day of the waxing moon, the month of Visakha, the year of the monkey, or April 24 1296, at exactly four a.m. Chiang Mai was born.

At the northern wall its head, whose opening was called the White Elephant gate, a lucky symbol, through which good things like a visiting sovereign or a celebratory parade might enter the city. The southern entrance is the other end of the body out of which the bad like the dead, the exiled and the sewage are expelled. At this southern point also is the prison, while to the east, where the river runs outside the walls, the rising sun lights the mind with schools and library. To the west: workshops for jewellery, arms, furniture. All around the outside of the moat the rice paddies and finally, at its centre, its navel, spiritual and physical health, temples and grain storage.

Patcharapon Kanchanapongpaisal said...

I live in Thailand and I found your story of Chiang Mai's birth lovely! What you didn't mention, for the benefit of those unfamiliar, is that our lunar calendar is now in the year 2549 of our Lord Buddha, I have found most foreigners are unaware and surprised by the fact we live in a different year to them!
11:53 AM

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War Story (1400 words) (removed)

Happiness Versus Suffering. (410 words)

Christians are always talking about suffering & in the foremost Christian countries the whole religion has become a cult to suffering with the virgin mother as its centre (the Dolorosa) but all the saints are either crying or bleeding or at the very least in an anguished pose of ecstatic revelation (pain/pleasure of physical climax). Even the priest's celibacy is seen as sacrifice. The 33 years of life of the Christ himself, where he taught with surprising success, is portrayed in churches mostly through the 12 hours of the Passion & final crucifixion. The religion's symbol might have been a Jesus standing in the act of teaching, or perhaps forgiveness (arguably the main ideological difference introduced by his teachings to those of the old testament) but the church chose, & people worship instead, his mutilated body dying on a cross.

As men imagine the thorns thrust into their own scalps or nails into their feet, or the humiliation of the scourging in the street as reward for doing/being good, they can empathise & therefore worship Him for that sacrifice... that willingness to suffer instead of doing what most are taught to do, are taught is right: the pursuit of happiness & evasion of suffering. In the United States it is even written into the political infrastructure for Christ's sake!

But in-fact all religions deal with this question of suffering first, & then the three big questions (where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we destined?). In the Orient (beginning even in ancient Greece with the slave-philosopher Epictectus) they say: Want nothing & you will want for nothing, id est: avoid suffering. In the occident they say: life is suffering, but if you accept it you will get a reward after, like my mother used to say on my frequent childhood visits to doctors & dentists- if you don't cry I'll give you an ice cream after... the former denies passion, the latter, ecstasy, neither is satisfying, truthful or in tandem with human nature.

Now consider this: perhaps it is happiness & not suffering that is life's bane. Exactly like opium which turns life into a satisfyingly sweet dream just as it sucks one's vitality & passion. Maybe Happiness is the part of life we can barely stand & it is only the balm of suffering that relieves us of its burden. Perhaps without suffering we would be crushed by the weight of happiness.

Daragh said...
I wouldn't say that in our direct experience of happiness that we suffer, it is only through our experiencing happiness that we can experience the opposite; suffering.

To change the context of your words, to be crushed by the weight of happiness, I believe, would be to suffer the consequences of your happiness through being taken advantage of by others. If one is too happy, in the first instance just like you mentioned, we loose our vitality, and in the second others step over us in their own pursuit of happiness. This would all be ok if we were able to never loose the state of happiness, however inevitably, some one in our lives or some event will jolt us out of this state, and it is only then that we will realise our big mistake..

If everybody else were happy then there would be no problem, however when people meet someone who is very happy, and they are not happy themselves, they try to take it from them rather than give it back.

True happiness is the child like state of innocence, the state of being unaware of how the world and people really are!

Daragh
3:28 PM

Ivan said...: The way we create substance, when faced with a blank canvas, is to begin blocking in darks. In this act we begin to learn there is light, even within the dark.

This is probably the real joy behind making art, whether visual, or verbal. We create something where there was nothing and in the process celebrate contrasts. It's akin to being a God.
12:19 AM

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Cogitations upon observing the life of an ant, from its birth to its death by old age, while I lay in a bathtub. (1530 words)

Without being too scientifically punctilious we all know ants come in what can essentially be described as three sexes, the only female of a colony is the Queen ant, she mates once, storing the sperm for her entire lifetime in her own bloated body. She is doted on by worker ants that make it possible for her to dedicate her remarkably long life to egg production, fertilizing each with the stored sperm. In some species she might run this egg factory for dozens of years before dying, in the world of arthropods: an age, an epoch, a very long time indeed. The workers make the second sex of three; they are in-fact, sexless, incapable of sex since, like bees, evolution has turned their originally female genitalia to other purposes. They also can have very long lives, six, seven even eight years, though their life style often means they are squashed or eaten long before reaching old age. The third sex, of course, is the male—the example of the species I happened to be watching as I lay in the hot water of my tub. He flew out with apparent joy along with thousands of his brothers to hurriedly mate while flying frantically around any light source, its instincts telling it the artificial light must be the moon since up until recently the moon was the only light there was at night time. Whether or not their lives culminate in the climax of injecting their sperm into the queen, within thirty minutes of being born, their four wings fall off & their bodies shut down. Everywhere outside of my house the ground sparkles with discarded wings for days surrounding the ritual.

The feelings my observations anthropomorphically instigated were that, emerging from the pupal stage with wings & immediately aiming directly at the moon was a joyous moment. But when I considered a little further I recognised the impossibility of the sense of joy in an ant brain when in fact, they don't even have a brain, & must make do with a rudimentary bundle of nerves which allow them very little experience or sensation. I began to think about it & came to the conclusion that their design really only allowed two activities. They needn't feed themselves as the energy necessary for their short lives has been given them by workers since they were legless, sense-less larva. They don't have any means of defence & appear in-fact, at least to casual observation, to not even have the sense or capacity to try & evade their predators. So what are they capable of? Well, of moving from one place to another, locating the female & mating with her, nothing more. Despite the honour of having sex with the queen, it seems, in my judgement, a rather dull & uninspired existence.

But then I considered still further my summary appraisal & asked myself which quality was it exactly that allowed me this opinion of the male ant's life when compared to my own? What was the actual substance of the difference between the two versions of the experience we shared, the one we define as life? It is obvious to me that despite the importance that ant might have had to the hive, had he actually managed to find his queen circling another light source outside of my bathroom. Or even to the gecko that might have fed on him, why was his life insignificant while mine wasn't? Was it a question of longevity? Does the fact I may live seventy years compared to his thirty minutes define the difference between us? Well, though thirty minutes is a tiny multiple of seventy years, when viewed within the big picture, the age of our planet for instance, or even just the age of our species, the difference in longevity pales.

In this context one might even consider the fact that there are many more species of ants alone within their genera, than there are animals within the class of mammals, & most of them have been around much longer.

If we are to include longevity as a measure of significance, than what of the lichen that lives thousands of years without another living thing in sight of its frozen habitat, finding sustenance quite literally in the chemicals extracted from rocks. As successful at aging as lichen may be there seems, at least to the human mind, a complete, absolute & unmitigated lack of purpose & therefore significance to its life, & yet it seems to want to BE with a will at least equal to our own.

What's more, since physics has proven that time as a constant is a human concept with no real meaning outside of human perception, maybe that male ant experienced a human second as equivalent to what it takes a human a year to experience. In fact, when I stop to think about it, time is not even a human concept as I described it above, but rather a human invention, the proof being that without calendars & clocks to tick away the time in a constant manner, man would have no way of knowing how long a day was or how long he had lived. A cave dweller, who spends a hungry day stalking an animal to kill & eat, would later recall that day as much longer than the one that followed when he lay in the shade of a tree digesting it.

So if that difference, a blink of an eye in geological time, is negligible, what else might it be? Might it be the difference in intelligence? Well, if level of intelligence is a possible explanation for the difference in significance between the life of a male ant & my own life I suppose I would have to examine the purposes & uses of intelligence.

One example of the consummately astonishing results of human intelligence is that billions of people around the world, every second of every day, (with the tiny exception of a few hundred) decide to stop the ton of metal they are conducting at lethal speeds instead of smashing them into one another, simply because of a flashing red or green light. But then ants, which some say make up as much as 25% of the macro-animal bio-mass of the world (E. O. Wilson has estimated that there are 10,000 trillion individual ants alive at any given moment), sometimes live in colonies of millions of individuals with supremely intricate cooperation & they not only possess no intelligence as defined by humans but they do not even have brains... hmmnn... ok, shelter, weapons, care of the young, herding other species as food source, storing food for the future & a hundred other examples of human intelligence are equalled if not excelled by ant societies, but there is one aspect of intelligence that we beat them at: the consciousness we exist. In fact our intelligence in that context is so sophisticated we are even capable of believing we don't exist.

The first thing to consider when examining this concept is the obvious one that though each individual ant seems no more than a chemically programmed automaton, perhaps the ant colony is actually a highly couth & mature intelligence made up of unthinking individuals just as humans are made up of unthinking cells that don't know they form part of us. Indeed, the ant colony as a whole may be so far advanced in its intelligence & self-awareness that it cannot conceive of a manner functional enough in its crudity to communicate with us poor individual humans.

Putting aside the theoretical possibility of that supposition, the entire history of recorded human philosophy (& I refuse to give theology more respect or credence than this single parenthetic mention) consider human self-consciousness an indication of a higher level of evolution than any other living being, since we don't recognise it in any but our own species. This could be it! This might be the proof there is indeed some significance to my life that the ant, whose entire life I witnessed, lacked. How exciting! But we would have to define the purpose of life to prove or disprove whether self-awareness qualifies as a significant factor.

Proof is a far rarer thing in philosophy than is a disproof, a refutation. But I would argue thusly: if all of the estimated 30,000,000 living things on this planet have only one thing in common; without any exception, not one single other quality that all life shares, mustn't that be the most likely purpose of 'life' in the abstract?

As it happens there is one easily defined characteristic: reproduction, or when examined more closely, replication. If we can agree on that then the whole enigma quickly unravels to a simple & obvious solution, ergo—the life form of greatest objective significance is the one that is most successful at replication. The intelligence & self-awareness, that made me capable of the thoughts & ideas I have just written down, or that allowed you to read & understand them, are simply & entirely irrelevant. The list of most evolved 'life' would be topped by bacteria, followed quite a ways further down by ants & somewhere well below them by me lying in my bathtub considering it all.

Ivan said...

I think. Therefore, I think I am.

8:28 PM

Paul Herman said...

In fact your version of Descarte's maxim could be said to be more accurate. The philosophical criticism of the original statement being that the first 'I' of the statement presupposes the self's existence, but then I was told by a Frenchman that in the original French this is not true, that the first 'I' is more akin to 'it'...?

10:47 AM

Paul Herman said...

The original statement by Descartes in French is: "Je pense, donc je suis", which occurs in his Discourse on Method (1637). Which, in fact translates exactly to the English: I think therefore I am. In Latin: Cogito ergo sum, translates to: "I am thinking, therefore I exist", neither of which deal with the objection that the statement is fallacious due to the initial 'I' presupposing the existence of self.

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page 9

Mental Workshop- pg 1 | pg 2 | pg 3 | pg 4 | pg 5 | pg 6 | pg 7 | pg 8 | pg 9 |<previous

Links to post titles:

P'sMW- page 1

California, first impressions
India
Conspiracy theories
I love you; thanks’; you’re welcome
Errata
Fear
Egon & the other animals
A note about price:size ratio in paintings
Strange tales

P'sMW- page 2

Christ’s devil
Timelines
Life's funnel
Souvenirs
Moon Myth
How chaos was subdued in the Japanese genesis myth
Noah Lukeman & the murky world of today’s book publishing
Morality and religion
Music and Love
Temeris Mortis
The Dream
Peace
God's Tick
Old Man (short story)
Intuition
A Curious Fact

P'sMW- page 3

Why Humans prefer other Humans to be like themselves
A letter to painters
Why do people talk?
The Painter's Eye
I'bn al Alhí's treasure (short story)
Associative Personality Disorder
Love poems, death poems
The Golem
Elitism in Art
Theory of the Mind
Death Scenes
Politics II
Rock & Roll
Words II- more words
Words

P'MW- page 4

Confidence
How to steal from gullible artists
Priests behaving badly
How to make a painting
Oats & history
A note about signatures on paintings
Bob Dylan
Number of atheists among scientists
Theoretical physics & me
Faust & Mephistopheles
Children's reading habits
How to get good photos of firework
The 20th century
Further Dialogue on the 20th Century article (here) with comments by Bobby Porter
Love is
Civilisation
Martial Art as Sport
Blind Boy Fuller
Becoming an artist
Insomniac notes
Mind-brain
Age
José Tomás
Black Adder
This is not a Blog

P'sMW- page 5

Dammit! (final comments on the article Karma without metaphysics)
Laic morality (comments on Karma without Metaphysics)
Karma without metaphysics
Chivalric ethics
Shibumi
Shibumi: Comments by Bobby Porter
Oxford Project revisited
How to travel
How Wang-Fô was saved
Fish memory
The artist’s relationship to his work
Bobby's response to The artist’s relationship to his work
Egon
20,000+
Memories of my father II

P'sMW- page 6

Men & Women
Girls: come closer & I'll tell you a secret about men
Catholic Spain
Art is
Bad luck
Dogs are the Best People
Tough Love
Dense, intense and condensed: a short love story.
Cubans, Norwegians & me
From the Guggenheim to Santiago's tomb
Memories of my Father
Ecco il uomo
Divorce & maturity
Inspiration & process
Bulls & men

P'sMW- page 7

Truth & beauty
Bugs as food
What is art? part II- Is modern art, art?
A painter’s thoughts about self-portraits
The Piraha of the Amazon jungle
Thailand: stories

P'sMW- page 8

We'd be better off without Religion
East Meets West
Thoughts on Memory
Scared
Frank Zappa
Art & Dreams by Ilene Skeen
Indoctrination
Rush to change names in Isaan
The Artist & Emotion
The art critic
What is Art? Part I
Note of introduction added to the Masculine/feminine article
Rebuttal to Raymond S Kraft

P'sMW- page 9

I'm back!
Masculine versus feminine, Muslim versus Buddhist.
Driving with Muslims or Buddhists
Peter Feldstein & Stephen G Bloom's Oxford project
How to argue
On 'happiness', in answer to Ivan's comment.
Thoughts on Happiness
The birth of Chiang Mai
War Story
Happiness Versus Suffering
Cogitations upon observing the life of an ant, from its birth to its death by old age, while I lay in a bathtub.
June 10, 06

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Paul's Mental Workshop, pg 9 of 9
Search Herman Studios Last updated- 18th of November 2006

1984	Peter Feldstein moved to the tiny town of Oxford, (6-700 people) Iowa, 32 years ago to teach photography at the State university. In 1984 he set up his camera & took photographs of many of the town's natives. In 2005 he did the same thing. The resulting project is garnering increasing amounts of attention with articles in the NYTimes, television coverage & now, Peter informs me: a book deal. Why is this project so universally interesting? Well, I think the answer is obvious, it is a symbol of our own lives encapsulated. It brings to mind the last line of that strange film: 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' purportedly the true life of Chuck Barris the 1970's game show host who invented the 'Gong Show' & 'Dating Game'. In the book the film was based on, Mr Barris claimed his television persona was really just a cover for his real job as CIA assasin. In the last line of the film Mr Barris' character says, in a voice over, (paraphrasing from memory): Hey! I have an idea for a new television show: we get three old men on stage & give each of them a loaded .38. We then talk of the dreams & aspirations of their respective youths. The last one alive wins a refrigerator! The idea that most people's dashed dreams of glory would cause them to commit sucide upon looking back, holds enough truth in it to make it morbidly funny. The Oxford project offers something of the opposite- people whose dream's smallness are matched only by the tininess of their satisfactions or disappointments. I'm not sure I can find any humour in it but it is inarguably a fascinating look at the fellow humans whom I (as socially marginalised artist) at least, never get an opportunity to meet.	2005