A Place in Space: October 2008 Archives

The Fulbright Commission celebrated sixty years in Belgium and Luxembourg with a prestigious academic panel at the Palais de Academie in Bruxelles. I got to tag along with the more recent Schumann-Fulbright program that sponsors study of European Union institutions.

Professor Francis Balace complemented the education I gleaned a few days earlier at the Atomium's fiftieth anniversary exhibition by describing the dearth of practical knowledge about the U.S. that most Belgians had until after the second world war when, he repeated several times, Belgium was "a good pupil" by negotiating specific policies regarding education in order to be included in the Marshall Plan. Two comments in particular caught my attention, both in the nature of an aside: one regarding the linguistic divide and another about war graves.

In the heat of WWII, and on the basis of prior history, no Belgians expected to be rescued by Americans; it was an article of faith that the British would prevail against the Nazis on Belgian soil. For whatever military and political reasons, part of Belgium was eventually freed by the U.S. and the line distinguishing those parts rescued by Britain and those by the U.S. "corresponds exactly," Professor Balace emphasized., "with the Belgian linguistic division" of today. This is a matter of curiosity to me, as are the reasons why the Flemish Deaf Community dispensed with an umbrella label for all regional varieties of sign languages in Belgium that were once recognized as distinct from Dutch Sign Language, now describing a (supposedly) distinct Flemish Sign Language. Are the language politics of signed language communities being dictated by the language conflicts of spoken language communities? I do not know enough except to express sadness if this is the case. (See the last two paragraphs of this brief history by an external, non-deaf researcher.)

Someone in the audience felt it necessary, during the question-and-answer session, to expound upon Belgian reverence at U.S. military cemeteries - a theme that has been repeated at every official event I've attended since arriving here last month. The discussion that followed introduced some nuances, such as differences in memory and sentiment according to generation. The historical tidbit Professor Balace contributed was the fact of the United States government's purchase (near the close of WWII) of "an extra five hundred graves in preparation for the next war." This confirms the critique I offered of the U.S. Embassy film, An Invisible Bridge, of an underlying attitude of nationalistic preparation for institutional violence that might also be fed by the pomp of standing for both country's national anthems. I did stand, of course, but uneasily. Such ceremonial prelude for an academic session felt awkward. (I find it similarly so at U.S. domestic sporting events.)

Professor Luc Reychler's topic echoed Minister of State Herman de Croo's introductory veneration of "fundamental connections" generated by the vision of J. William Fulbright, whose scholarships have enabled academics to reach high levels of influence in diverse communities across the globe. Professor Reychler described the network of 600,000 Fulbright scholars as an international brain trust, whose collective wisdom is needed to extract us from "the media crisis," which, among other faults, promotes a counterproductive division between politicians and academics. The basis of Professor Reychler's presentation concerning the present was a critique of the "unadaptive responses" of the U.S. government to a series of shocks since 2000. (9/11, evidence of our rich lifestyles adversely affecting the rest of the world, and the "inconvenient truth" of climate change - no doubt he used that phrase deliberately.) He summarized the cumulative effect as a "negative synergy" but sought to counter the inevitable gloominess of current global dynamics as "an unprecedented challenge" which can be successfully engaged.

Professor Reychler's basic prescription includes a number of specific initiatives aimed collectively at improving relations and collaboration between academics and politicians. The usual dichotomy cannot be allowed to persist, regardless of whatever seeds of truth there may be in politician's accusation that academics lack practical experience and academics tendency to cloister in the realms of teaching and research. (Just for the record, I'm adding a bit of emphasis to this critique of the academy, probably because I am operating right at that wall Professor Reychler described as the "talk about" transdisciplinary research and the effort to achieve it.)

Specifically, Professor Reychler described the 85:1 ratio of investment in military research versus peace-oriented research. Eighty-five to one! "Peace building," he explained, "requires a combination of multiple, coordinated initiatives." Not unincidentally, Professor Reychler noted declines in academic freedom, a trend that is apparently not even being tracked. (Although it is certainly a topic of conversation in my graduate program and others, where graduate students are coached to adapt our actual interests to the narrow parameters established by funders in their attempt to guarantee that research results generate profitability and/or contribute adequately to their own predetermined purposes.)

The final panelist, Professor Alison Woodward, spoke with an eye toward the future, describing the juxtaposition of migration with our so-historically-recent ability to maintain intimate connections with family and friends in geographically distant places. Drawing upon work in the sociology of intimacy, Professor Woodward noted how emotions are entering the realm of political discourse: even in the formal academic setting of this talk (attended by U.S. Ambassador Sam Fox) "love" had already been mentioned. This "rediscovery of the personal" is interwoven and interactive with the new age of migration that is in radical contrast with migrations of the past in which intimate ties were necessarily cut.

Others are also showing ways in which communication networks challenge international politics, matters of citizenship, and "the larger political economy of design," simply put by Saskia Sassen as "the work of making". Professor Woodward argues,

- among families in particular, and (I would add) between friends. What so many feel as a threat of interdependency need not be perceived as an ill, rather, the increasing ability to keep bonds and forge bridges (the two types of interpersonal networks that compose society, as defined by Robert Putnam) bodes well for international relations.

The first question of the open Q-and-A session concerned the problem of dragging publics into policies before they understand them. The speaker was critical of European organization, describing it (presumedly the EU) as "weak and disorganized," with "the European population 20-30 years behind events," a condition which forces progress to be made "ad hoc without popular support." I would characterize the phenomenon of knowledge lag as, at least partially, an element of the media crisis that Professor Reychler named. I am not a technological utopianist (however much I tend to come across as one), and there are problems with blaming social ills on the media, however the rituals we engage concerning what is produced, seen, heard, and distributed - whether as entertainment, advertising, infotainment, documentary, or incisive fact-based and contextualized journalism - are problematic. Surely we can do better than we are.

Barbara Capogrosso-Sansone defended her dissertation this summer, and I was lucky enough to wangle an invitation. What follows are the thoughts of a wannabe social scientist/activist who imagines significant connections between the languages of math (especially quantum physics) and human words as they are spoken and written in intentional conversation with one another. You may decide that the t-shirt John wore for the event describes me perfectly:

On the off chance that I might be on to something, well, you'll read what a mishmash I've made of Barbara's quantum Monte Carlo study of ultracold bosons in optical lattices. My attention was captured immediately because she's working with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Some folks have suggested that something like a BEC might be responsible for consciousness. (It can't be an actual BEC, because our brains - let alone the rest of our rather incredible bodies - cannot live at the supercold temperature involved.)

The general thing that I'm thinking, as I mentioned to Don in my exuberance that day, is that we are all really talking about the same thing, we're just using different languages to do the talking. "We" who? What "same thing"? Ah. I can't quite answer that, yet. The "what" is something along the lines of spirit - but it goes by many, many names: energy, power, life, creativity, inspiration, vision, to name those that leap to mind today. Perhaps it is the answer E.O. Wilson seeks, a theory of consilience. Perhaps it is the miracle Wendell Berry argues can never, ever, be captured by any equation humans are able to devise. Berry, btw, is also a fantastic resource on living in the presence of fear.

As to the "we" - I've got a rather broad criteria that includes anyone/everyone trying to find solutions to the challenges that face humanity today. Specifically, though, I aim to include the people I've met at UMass Amherst, in all our varied fields and disparate ambitions. In the midst of Barbara's exegesis on the dipole interaction and quantum phase transitions, she said there's something intriguing occurring in these optical lattices:

Mathematicians (perhaps more than any other kind of physical scientist?) deal with the observable, the measurable, the essentially reliable. Social scientists, on the other hand, strive for the predictable but are constantly having to engage the sheer diversity of actual human responses to living, i.e., the social implies the unbounded. There may be parameters to the "hopping" we can do, but the rules that determine these parameters are not yet known.

Honestly, I'm not sure I want those parameters defined too accurately, but I do think we (humanity) need to figure out the forces that can be used to alter the realities we live in, largely because the current conditions are frightening to those of us with relative privilege and still totally suck for the majority of the world's population. My basic thesis is that language is the tool.

The secondary thesis (if you'll just go along with the first one for awhile), technically an hypothesis, is that language is energy - quantum energy, in fact, full of potential that can be experientially realized. The energy is in the transformations created through the assignment of meaning - both to things said and to things perceived but unsaid. Barbara spoke of the Bose-Hubbard model (1989), and mentioned a kinetic energy term, "hopping matrix element" ("t"). Does it work as an analogy? Language operates within fields of understanding and mis- or non-understanding. We in the West, especially) tend to privilege "understanding," but misunderstanding is a potent space in-and-of-itself (see Chang).

Listening carefully to the language of math (especially by teachers of math and scientists using math), I hear metaphors of social interaction: "onsite repulsion" (e.g., prejudice?) "localized atoms" (e.g., jargon, culturally-specific terminology?), "zero compressibility" (no range of possible interpretation?), superfluid state (meanings in flux?) "Each line," Barbara explained a graph, "represents a particle, [these are] world-lines." Sounds like discourse trajectories to me! There are "hopping events" and "periodic boundary conditions in time." Could these be akin to particular complexities in conflict negotiation and other difficult forms of problem-solving?

What I find most instructive concerning the language of math that I think social scientists could learn from, is that when mathematicians come up against a dilemma, they invent a way to deal with it. Tell me the truth, what is the correlate in real life of imaginary numbers? Barbara's work goes even further than imaginary numbers, she is working with imaginary time.* Her atoms, somehow inversed in temperature, move in imaginary time, then hop to their nearest neighbor even though they could go somewhere else. Now, I do not know the significance of this in terms of physics, but if I extrapolate to the ways that discourse works, I would say something is indicated to the effect that simply reversing the conditions leads to a similar effect. Am I interpreting accurately enough? Flip the dynamics of oppression, it's still an equation of privilege/disadvantage. I know I am reaching here, so some of you that KNOW the math might explain how well the analogy does or doesn't hold. Basically, (it seems) some attractive force remains at work and effectively reduces the range of possibility to only that which is closest, even though more distant positions are possible (and, socially at least, probably more desirable).

Ok, I admit I'm straining a bit since so much time has passed since the event. My thoughts now are based on interpreting my notes, rather than recalling what excited me in the actual moment. Still, Barbara is working with mechanisms (a worm algorithm, winding numbers, superfluid stiffness) that enable the sampling of topologically different configurations, generating "a mass in order to calculate superfluid stateness." Again, it seems there is a calculation occurring across time and space that allows the identification of relativistic behavior, specifically, particle-hole symmetry.

Let me return to language, meaning, understanding and its opposite. What I say (these words I type) could be imagined as "particles"; they can only be understood if a suitable "hole" exists for reception. Gaps are crucial, of course, and low energy levels always seem a good idea (especially as we enter the age of conservation). Which means, as Barbara says,

If I wasn't excited before (i.e., driven to a higher energy state!), I got moreso as Barbara continued. Because even though the work begins in imaginary time, "the system of effective action" is translated into real time. Keep in mind that I am not making an atom-person comparison, but an atom-language comparison. "The transition," continues Barbara, "is driven by adding or subtracting a small number of particles...[This is a] different physics - quantum fluctuations, at some point it becomes more favorable for the system to delocalize." In other words (I think!), it becomes possible for atoms not to choose their nearest neighbor, but to behave in a truly alternative fashion. Amazing transformations then occur, such as the velocity of sound replacing the speed of light!

A bunch of people had questions at this point in the presentation; which was only (!) laying the groundwork for the discussion of results. Somehow along the way Barbara established a three-dimensional description of ground state properties, coming up with a phase diagram, information about strong coupling expansion, and a surprising finding concerning the critical region - which was bigger than predicted. What happens is a special kind of symmetry - based on the numbers (visible by graphing) and the relativistic behavior of sound itself. The symmetry is the crux (if I've got this right) of the transition from the mathematical world of the imaginary to the real, physical world.

WHAT IS INTERESTING?

The math and physics proper implications are far beyond me, but the pieces I grasp for language involve the importance of temperature (emotion may serve as the social science equivalent?), the changes from a homogenous to non-homogenous system (monocultural to mixed/multicultural?), and this discovery: "two bosons cannot occupy the same site." Again, a reach, but no two words - even the same word - can never occupy the precise same spacetime with exactly equivalent momentum. "This model," Barbara concludes, "is different than before, [which was] hard-core = only one (_____?) per site, and the interaction is long ranged." The gist I took away from the presentation is that added dimensionality matters. The parameters of various electric fields (imagine the matrix of social/cultural factors that generate belonging or identity or community) can be tuned independently, via this knowledge about the hopping matrix element, such that "there is only a three-body repulsion.... [in this] system, meanfield predictions show the system undergoes a solid-superfluid quantum phase transition, [which effects the]
• Charge density wave, and the
• Bond order."

Stick with me - or rip me to shreds! We're witnessing (and probably participating in) huge "charges" of social density in waves (dare I say) of anti-Palinism (to give the most prominent current example). A transition resulting from this wave would be most welcome, would it not? (Well, if it goes the way we desire - I'm not sure the model provides the tools to predict which way a wave may break, yet.) But such a transformation will alter the social order - the relational bonds that tie us into certain elemental states will be disrupted, allowing the possibility for new and different bonds to form.

A Footnote:

*Stephen Hawking describes imaginary time as a "kind of time in the vertical direction," which is "not the kind of time we normally experience. But in a sense, it is just as real, as what we call real time." The Beginning of Time, a public lecture by Dr. Stephen Hawking.

The gathering was splendid.

The U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Brussels is large, impressive, and immaculately tended. We arrived a few minutes early but were immediately ushered in to mingle in the hallways and anterooms, sipping wine, juice or water and munching delicious appetizers from trays replenished regularly by the constantly circulating staff. Conversation with the delightful company was light and entertaining; it was me being there that edged on the surreal. :-)

I did not get to shake hands with Ambassador Fox, although we had a prolonged moment of eye contact just as he was being summoned to introduce a short film on Belgian-U.S. relations. An Invisible Bridge is a well-crafted summary of a unique international relationship between two peoples - or, rather between the idea of two nationalities with a special bond. Susceptible as I am to musically-produced emotional tweakery, I teared up at the presentation of NATO's heroic mission "to secure the future of Europe", noticing that a Belgian acquaintance next to me was also surreptitiously wiping tears away. When I asked her, post-film, she confessed. Her emotion stemmed from grief at unity lost - the togetherness of a single nation being ripped at its seams along a language divide.

Ambassador Fox is quite proud of the film and the interest it has generated across Belgium. I understand why: the ethos of the film appeals to a human need to belong, to know one is connected with others, a part of something larger than ourselves. The desire for a group identification is, at core, tribal; its modern form is the nation.

I am not advocating an end to the nation (not necessarily, for sure not yet). We need better institutional structures and mechanisms for balancing out economic disparities, and the state is still the best tool for experimenting with various possibilities. My problem with the film is along the lines articulated by a friend who rejected its glorification of war. For me, I can't say that I saw "glorification" per se. War is a tragedy, and its effects are still viscerally and personally real for many people in Europe: both those who lived through WWII (while so many died) and the children of people who lived/died during or because of the war. The tragedy of war is also etched in the beings of the millions of immigrants to Europe from regions of the world still swamped under the reign of violence.

What I witnessed in the film was an acknowledgment of war's horrors, and gratitude to those who made attempts to alleviate suffering. The problematic implication for me was the implicit assumption that war is a human inevitability. The film makes no statement about ending war; indeed, by shoring up the borders of nationality the film cultivates the exclusive attitude of distinction that makes war possible.

Still, I appreciate what I learned:

• Peter Minuit "bought Manhattan from the Indians" circa 1626. (The history obliterated by the neutral statement of fact nonetheless remains.)


• Father Pierre-Jean De Smet helped negotiate "peace" (my quotation marks) with Sitting Bull


• the Red Star Line carried millions of Eastern Europeans to the U.S. at the end of the 19th century


• the WWI Belgian Relief program organized by President Herbert Hoover, Ernest Solvay, and other prominent Belgians.


• rebuilding of the Library at the University of Leuven after its destruction during WWI


• the organized escape routes, known as the Comet Line, created during WWII for Allied soldiers


• the Battle of the Bulge occurred here, in the Ardennes mountain range

Here's a testimonial of a US veteran of the Bulge returning in 1994:

The most memorable part of our tour to Belgium was the warmth and gratitude expressed to us by the people of Houffalize and Bastogne. As Ken Aran expressed it, "our localized reception was more like a family. It was an experience I shall always cherish." One of many examples of Belgian warmth for us veterans was the parade at Bastogne in which the not-so-young veterans marched the length of Bastogne's main street to the McAuliffe Square. As we march along down the Rue Savlon, many school children hurried out to grasp a veteran's hand and marched along before approving and politely applauding crowds that lined the sidewalks. There were not always enough veterans' hands to go around, but some children then clasped hands with kids who were already joined with veterans.

There is a huge emphasis on the sentiment of Belgians' appreciation for the US military's role in freeing Belgium from the occupation of the Nazi's. Obviously this is a triumph and a matter of pride for soldiers and civilians who fought and won that war. There is no doubt that the gratitude of the persons and families affected is genuine; nor is there doubt that that war had to be fought. Because humanity (as a sociobiological species) is still riding a plateau of violence (war is collective, cooperative behavior), no doubt there will continue to be some wars that remain necessary. But not as many as we have, and certainly not the wars predicated on a competitive economic fight over the planet's resources.

We can do better than that. So I am disappointed on an ideological level with An Invisible Bridge. The economic ties between Belgium and the US are substantive: 900 US companies in Belgium, 500 Belgian companies in the US.

Let not the ties between the peoples of these nations be based on pillars of war or greed, and neither motivated by fear.