Can Artists And Engineers Get Along?

On the largely computer professional forum that is the Internet, I have encounted many anti-artistic attitudes. As someone who's been both a computer professional and an artist, I know for a fact that one does not need to have an anti-artistic attitude in order to be an adequate engineer.

In 1920s, technology and art coexisted side by side. There were Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Nikolai Tesla; there were also Louis Armstrong, Scott Fitzgerald and Edna St. Vincent-Millay. In 1920s America became the undisputed leader of the world. It did so by tapping into genius both artistic and engineering.

In recent times the attitudes were less favorable. In 1960s there was respect for the arts, but also lots of anti-capitalist agitation. In 1980s and 1990s there was a technological boom but no value for the arts. Both were half-right. It is right to affirm both arts and technology and wrong to attack either.

So I seek to bring back the attitudes of 1920s on this matter. Once again, there is value for both arts and technology. Not only do both constitute a contribution to the civilization, but they can also work together. 1920s produced beautiful architecture such as the Chrysler Building and magnificent machinery such as the Packard. In both cases there was art and engineering involved.

Can artists and engineers get along? If they can co-exist in the same pursuit, then there is no reason why they would not be able to work with one another. The problem is the belief held by many in engineering that art is impractical, even narcissistic. In fact there is nothing at all impractical about the arts. Arts find practical implications in many things, such as once again architecture and machinery as well as interior decoration. As for narcissism, that is ridiculous. The artists that I have known were more, not less, compassionate than the average person, and I've also seen in them much greater humility that we see in people who think that only their pursuit – engineering – matters and that everyone else is a fool, a lunatic or a bum.

So I advocate better relations between artists and engineers. Both contribute, and in the best cases both contribute together. Let artists and engineers work together to produce beautiful architecture and machinery. And save some time for poetry, good music and classical painting at that.

Optimism And Pessimism

I have extensive background both as a Russian and as an American; and one issue on which the two populations have historically clashed has been outlook. Russians are pessimistic, and Americans are optimistic. I've had the influence of both.

I have come to the conclusion that there are both virtues and flaws with each. Optimism gives you the positive attitude that you need to make things happen; it also overlooks critical information and makes foolish mistakes. Pessimism correctly anticipates possible problems, but it lacks the drive and the attitude to solve them. The correct solution is a mix of the two. Have optimism to make things happen while being careful and anticipating what can go wrong.

Sometimes ideologies come to pander to moods. We have the New Agers claiming that positive thinking is the solution to everything. It is no such thing. Positive thinking by itself causes more problems than it solves. You think positive, you fail to anticipate problems, you do foolish things. It is valid to encourage the attitude that one is up to life's challenges, not valid to encourage carelessness or shut away legitimate criticism of one's actions.

Similarly we have people who have no use for spirituality whatever. Also wrong. I have had many experiences with less than a billionth chance of happening whose only possible explanations are spiritual, and I am far from the only one. Some people with such beliefs consider themselves the only sane and rational people on the planet. I can think of no greater hubris than that.

One conflict that is hard to resolve is that of what goes on at different levels. Some think that thoughts affect things at the quantum level; and of course if that is true then your state of mind matters. However it does not mean that you are creating your reality with your thoughts, and it most certainly does not mean that positive thinking is good and negative thinking is evil. However positive you get, if you cut down the rainforest it has been cut down, and no amount of positivity will change that outcome. Paying attention to such things is not being negative or whining or blaming. It is called having a conscience. There is what you do with your thoughts; there is also what you do with your actions. And, as we see with the rainforest situation, they clearly talk louder than thoughts. However positive the Japanese Buddhists get, when a reactor blows up they have to tell what had happened. Anything else is not enlightenment, it is lying.

If, as some believe, positive attitude creates winners and negative attitude creates losers, then there was no way that Soviet Union could have credibly rivalled America for leadership of the world. They should have been complete losers; instead they became a superpower. Positive attitude can be attractive to other people and as such improve one's prospects; but in no way is it a prerequisite for success.

On the other side is the attitude that positive thinkers are nitwits, or that being negative is an intelligent attitude in face of what we know of reality. Some people think that we are on an entropy express, and that we can only lose. That too is incorrect. Some things about the world are depressing, but there are many things that are good in the world, and many people have done valuable things in the world. Being depressed is not the same thing as being intelligent. The cause for happiness in the world is this: Man's will. And that means man's ability to solve problems or come up with new and valuable things.

So let's keep what's right in each and discard what is wrong in each. With optimism, keep the can-do attitude while discarding the carelessness. And with pessimism, keep being cognizant of possible problems while discarding the helplessness and negativity. And then become a force for actually solving whatever challenges we have to face without either denying them or thinking them too big for us to solve.

Refuting Verbal Poison

I have heard it stated repeatedly by people experiencing both physical and verbal abuse that verbal abuse is worse. I have never had serious violence in my life, but I have been subjected to poison from many people. The wrong things that people say stay in my head until I find ways to refute them. In the meanwhile they confuse me and also provide a let-in for nasty types to use against me.

I do not know if this is the case for everyone. In my case it does not always work for the worse. I pick up on wrong things that people believe; I examine them further; then I understand their mindset. And then I can look at the whole mindset and see just where it has gone wrong.

So there have been people pushing on me Sigmund Freud, so I found ways to deconstruct him (https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatwritings/psychology). Then there have been people pushing on me Adler and his idea of “adequacy,” so I took that apart as well (https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought/the-evil-concept-of-adequacy). And then there have been people claiming my attitude to be based in “narcissism.” It is based in no such thing. It is perfectly rational and realistic in light of the statements I've heard from my teachers and a number of others.

I've also done this with various statements that had nothing to do with me personally. When I read screed of anti-semites, I refute it, as I well should. I put in a lot of mental and emotional effort into what I do. It is not easy. It is quite unpleasant to have in your head the mindsets of people who hate you or the people who are aggressive and obnoxious, but maybe fighting things such as anti-semitism is worth the bother.

Now physical violence is illegal, but I do not think that it will ever be possible to outlaw verbal violence. It is protected as free speech. The solution then becomes figuring out rightful ways to deal with it. My method, once again, is deconstruction. Refute it. And if you cannot refute it, find out if is true. Not all negative things that people say are without merit. However do not admit poison into your structure, and do not allow people to drag you into the dirt.

The biggest problem with this kind of poison is, once again, that it stays in one's head. That is a source of confusion and vulnerability. In many cases it causes wrongful decisions to be made. It is crearly a worse problem than physical violence, except in situations that the physical violence is severe. Once again, I see no way that such a thing can be handled legally. It can however be handled mentally, and I hope that people capable of such things reach out to those who need their attention and help them to see through whatever poison they have been dealt.

I heard a lot about “wounded healers”; but probably the best healers are people who have worked through their problems and understand how to help others with similar problems. In my case, I can help people see through the ugliness that they have been told, and I have seen the same capability in a number of others. Once again, I do not see how it would be possible to deal with such things legally. They can however be dealt with mentally. And then many others stand to benefit from one's work.

Jews And Feminists

For a long time, the liberal types supported the Jews because of their history of persecution. Now many of these same people hate the Jews because of the behavior of the Israelis. The oppressed became oppressors themselves, and they lost the sympathy of the people who are against oppression.

We are seeing similar things with the feminist movement. For a long time the liberal types supported the women's cause because here was a group that behaved well, being oppressed by a group that behaved badly. But when women themselves behave in hideous ways, that loses their support. So now there is a strong movement against feminism and in some cases against women as such. And the feminists, having through their vicious behavior alienated the very kind of people who were most likely to support them, are faced with a very strong backlash that they may or may not be able to withstand.

If women choose to be harpies, then people who want the world to be a better place will not support them. A person driven by fairness or kindness or wanting the world to be a better place will be most likely to see them the same way in which many liberals see the Israelis. They are a formerly oppressed population that has in many cases met and exceeded the patriarchy in viciousness; and there is no reason at all to fight alongside them. When Stalin is fighting Hitler, the solution is not to side with either one.

So we have feminists claiming that not liking a woman – any woman – means being misogynistic. Meanwhile they are themselves hateful to many men and many women. And we have women claiming that men are “assholes who deserve to die” when they like them better thin than fat, even as they attack men who are in a bad mental shape and crack on to men in good one. We have people claiming physical beauty to be incompatible with strength or intelligence or spirituality and other good traits, and claiming their nastiness and their hatefulness to be strength, intelligence and spirituality. And we have women in female-run organizations attacking in their employees beauty, intelligence and willingness to work hard, then complaining about the glass ceiling. Sorry. If you are attacking winning qualities in your people, you will only lose.

This having been stated, as much as possible should be done to fight domestic violence. This is not something that only affects the guilty; it also is a hideous problem for many people who are innocent. Most women living in such situations are not harpies. Many of them are good enough human beings. And it is rightful that they get all the support that they can get.

So what is the rightful solution to all this? It is the rational solution. It is to see everything capable of choice as being capable of both good choice and bad choice. Pursuant that consideration, it is to support and reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. This is the case both with women and with men.

Right now we see the opposite happening. On one side of town, violent and truly misogynistic men brutally abuse women who for the most part are better people than they are. On the other side of town, hideous harpies viciously attack the men who are the least likely to be misogynistic – men near liberal centers of culture and education. In both cases the bad guys win and the good guys lose. And this teaches everyone that it pays to be a jerk and that being good will get you mistreated. At the societal level, it creates an incentive toward wrongful conduct, resulting in there being more of it.

Coming from that, I advocate what I call the economic solution. Support a large cross-cultural flux for intermarriage. Let women from first side of town get together with men from second side of town. Let women who are willing to be good to men and men who are willing to be good to women get with one another and form good relationships. And exercise an incentive upon the offending gender in each situation to improve their treatment of the other gender – or else see the other gender leave in large numbers to be with people who are willing to be good to them.

I was in support of women's rights ever since I was three. But I have been slandered as a misogynist or worse. To these people: I refuse to be your punching bag. You want to fight misogynists, fight real ones. And believe me there are plenty of them, and they do not like me one bit.

So if the feminists choose to be vicious, they will lose the support of people coming from the consideration of fairness or kindness or what makes the world a better place. And then they will have to fight real misogyny by themselves, without many others supporting them. Let them fight their own battles if they think that they are strong, smart and independent and that nobody else is. They don't need some supposed misogynist supporting them if that is their attitude.

Right now there are many women who are choosing social conservatism willingly, and the people who claim unelected leadership over women are losing influence. This will continue to happen until they start thinking straight and realize what it requires for them to get the support that they need. I do not deserve as a man to be treated as if I was Ted Bundy. And my former wife did not deserve the abuse that she got while working for a woman-run organization.

For feminism to regain the support that it needs, it will have to change its character. It will have to move away from viciousness and misandry and become a movement that seeks women's betterment without seeking men's ill. It will have to stop abusing compassion and goodwill to force an equivalent of totalitarianism. And it will have to behave rightfully both toward women and toward men while supporting rightful behavior on the part of both.