Psychopaths, Poetry.

Went to two completely different speaker events today.

1) Exploring the Brains of Psychopaths -- Dr. Kent Kiehl
(Sponsored by the Kenan Institute for Ethics, DIBS, the Philosophy Department)

Crazy economic analysis + fMRI data + diagnostic behaviors + anecdotes about serial killers. Apparently some treatments designed to instill empathy in prison inmates actually increase the likelihood of recidivism for psychopaths, because they learn how to fake empathy and therefore how to better commit crimes. Apparently psychopathy costs the U.S. $250-$400 billion/year due to prison costs, etc. (Crime costs $2.3 trillion/year?!) Apparently there is such a thing as a "vanilla in-mate," i.e. a non-psychopath, i.e. someone without the criminal versatility and sadism of a psychopath. Apparently psychopaths barely use their paralimbic systems, which Kiehl discovered after collecting data on 1000+ in-mates using his mobile fMRI trailer contraption (He plans to go to Alabama soon to collect more data. Difficult not to laugh at that).

2) Reading & Talk -- Dorianne Laux
(Sponsored by the 2010 Archive Literary Festival)

Poetry -- the rhythm of it. Laux has memorized tons of poetry and she recites it on command, to elucidates her points. Never have I thought of poetry so seriously. It was always an instinct, but I guess now I see how it could be a craft, how it could almost be a trickery of sorts -- a mastery of rhythmic effect and imagery.

A poem she recited for us, to illustrate the importance of syllables:

One Heart
Li-Young Lee

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

Sexuality.

Here we go. I've spent outrageous amounts of time talking about sexuality these past few days. People come home from college with stories about random hook-ups, or random friends with random hook-ups.

It bothers me to no end that I'm bothered by these tales, that I get squeamish when close friends give me detailed accounts of their sexual exploits, even though (or especially because?) I ask them for all the grimy specifics. It feels illicit somehow, to sit in a park where I've attended high school English class--to sit there and discuss such obviously "grown-up" things. I push myself to reveal information that I know I would have taken to my grave a year ago. The words seem strange coming out of my mouth, I feign nonchalance, I grit my teeth and tell myself it's important to shed such moral pretensions.

This is related, I guess, to D.H. Lawrence's conception of pornography and obscenity as "the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it" (quoted from his 1929 essay on the topic--always a good read, and very telling of Lawrence's general outlook). Anything "dirty" is only so because of the way we approach it, because we want to hate it and hide it behind closed doors. It's shameful only because we're ashamed, because we force an element of impropriety onto it, not because it's inherently disgraceful.

Definitely, of course, in high school, sexuality was a horrible, horrible desire that we avoided in discussion. Or rather, we avoided discussing it until the lights were out and we were in someone's bedroom telling secrets. In the dark, we could say things we wouldn't have said during the day -- but isn't that what Lawrence was talking about? Hiding, secrecy, not admitting to certain parts of ourselves. . . . Now it all seems so sadly tragic, the fact that we were too repressed to recognize our own dishonesty.

Anyway, we're all older now, more "liberated," staunch about our acceptance of physical desires. And yet I still find myself cringing when I realize how incredibly fast these "mature" relationships move. I can't help but have a very visceral reaction to promiscuity. Why, why, why? How could my socially-imposed morality have become such an instinct? --How do I make it go away? Ideally, I would actually be casual about all of it; realistically, part of me still wonders if maybe I wasn't better off innocent and prepubescent. It's cognitive dissonance at its best, I guess. I just wish I didn't feel so awkward about both perspectives.

Starting.

A few scattered, initial thoughts:

1. The confinement of Victorian morality vs. the eeriness of Victorian depravity (Charlotte Bronte's madwoman in the attic, Browning's homicidal male protagonists, the Havishams in Dickens' Great Expectations).
2. Visual art and its blending with literature?
3. The meaningfulness or meaninglessness of vagueness.
4. Social dynamics and the inevitable crumbling of cordiality.