Mind of Moog

Individuals today, across the world, find themselves amid a globally disruptive event, the Covid-19 pandemic.   Global markets are experiencing extreme volatility, jobs are at risk, and lifestyles derailed by fear and uncertainty in the face of a disease that has hit the world like a tsunami.   As institutions struggle to calculate and adjust to the potential costs and dangers arising from this extreme disruption, individuals wrestle with the practical and existential implications of social distancing and lock downs, while limiting themselves to essential functions.   The initial absence of a strong and centralized Federal response to the Corona virus led to disparate bottom-up responses to the dynamically unfolding climate of social distancing, consumer hoarding, and a general climate of discomfort and withdrawal.   Private and public institutions have made coordinated efforts to flatten the curve and health providers around the world are working around the clock...

In April 2013, the story of Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s trip to Cuba was all over the news.  They had received a hard-to-get visa that permitted them to visit our controversial island neighbor (you know, the one with the missile crisis).  President Obama was taking heat for giving them special privileges and maybe the absurdity of this situation contributed to his subsequent decision to restore U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba and try to usher in a milder stance towards our isolated neighbor.  Regardless, I was there first.  I visited Cuba using a person-to-person exchange visa obtained for me by Washington University.  I was part of a trip led by my friend and mentor, Professor Schraibman (Pepe). Pepe had grown up in Old Havana, where a vibrant Jewish community used to exist.  This community essentially vanished after the Revolution, as Jews had been on the wrong side of too many revolutions and had learned to leave while one could under such circumstances....

My handwriting is unruly and frantic.   It crowds itself as it rushes towards the end of the line.   The congestion tightens as it closes in on this precipice and the last words begin to slip over the edge like a herd of buffalo until they are magically transported suddenly to another line like Pac Man.   When I take notes during meetings or class, it scampers after the speaker like a small dog.   It chases spastically and only catches up during lulls.   Inevitably, it falls behind and, like a child breaking into a sprint to reintegrate himself after straggling, moves into a bizarre shorthand and makes a break for it. When I write in solitude, I sometimes take the time to try and “pretty-up” my writing.   I am deliberate and careful and then my writing starts to smooth and spread out.   The words have room to breathe and they take advantage of this rare opportunity to stretch, like a man on a transcontinental flight getting up to move around the cabin ...

The Man of Sorrows: Ishmael and Melville’s Misericord He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. -Friedrich Nietzsche,  Beyond Good and Evil The autonomous individual does not treat his own conclusions and decisions as authoritative but chooses with his eyes open, and then keeps his eyes open.    He has the courage to admit that he may have been wrong even about matters of the greatest importance. -Walter Kaufmann,  Without Guilt and Justice              This paper will examine Melville’s democratic tragedy as a call for fellow feeling in the face of man’s insuperable longing for wholeness and universal suffering (Milder 23). Specifically, I will examine  Moby-Dick  in relation to the concept of misericord: a unique form of sympathy, associated with heartfelt commiseration, as well as mercy...

A Bar Too Far: Arthur Dimmesdale’s Near Evasion of Earthly Judgement ​ Hester Pyrnne and Arthur Dimmesdale committed adultery, sinned, transgressed, and violated the law together.  The veracity of these statements depends on one’s perspective; some of these claims are virtual   certaintie s  while others are less clear.  That they violated the law and committed adultery can be traced to the letter of the law and their adulterous progeny, respectively.  The nature  and degree  of their transgressions and sins are less clear .  Taken at face value, their society’s conflation of law and religion simplifies these issues greatly: transgression and sin become equivalent.   While the narrator is dismissive of the equation of law and religion, the story seems to affirm the necessity of this arrangement by constraining Hester within the iron mores of society.  Hester was doubly doomed: Chillingsworth had anticipated her escape attempt (had Arthur...