People will always be suspicious towards the things they don’t understand.

If you share yourself completely with the world, what is there left for yourself?

What is there left of myself? Oscar Wilde wrote a beautiful little story where the wise man finds liberation only after giving away every single scrap of wisdom he ever had. Likewise, by completely sharing myself with the world I too can become free and infinite.

And Brian, if everything is open and known it can also be understood, so there will be no suspicion, no fear of the unknown.

If I tried to give away all my ‘wisdom’, I’d be left with no teeth and a bloody nose.

Dudes!

Think: isn’t this what we’ve always WANTED from our politicians? That is, don’t we usually criticize politicians for being plastic, superficial, and callous? I think Tudor’s approach is actually quite refreshing. If someone is representing me politically, I don’t want them to be afraid of relating to me their innermost views. This smacks of insecurty. I mean, doesn’t it?

“This smacks of insecurty…”

It does though, doesn’t it?

There is a great difference between giving away every scrap of wisdom you ever had and posting a list of the kind you did, filled with your hopes and dreams, memories and schemes. Maybe it was an interesting experiment for you. But human memory is fallacious and vulnerable to the edits and erasures of time. To truly know you, I’d be more interested in the 100 memories you’ve blocked, the desires you won’t or can’t talk about, the nightmares, and the dreams gone awry. Post that list, and maybe you’ll convince me that I’m really glimpsing the innermost sinews of your soul.

Well Man of Little Wisdom, you’re clearly forgetting that texts are always open to interpretation, and if you just bother to look beneath the literal surface you can always find that unconscious mind you’re looking for. I’m not trying to convince you that you can see my soul — indeed, I doubt I have one, but the word is so conveniently poetic I have to use it.

On a theoretical level, all I am saying is that blogs as narrative forms often limit themselves to the mundane: few people use them to express anything meaningful about themselves. In cyberspace people perceive the need to draw boundaries around the things they talk about.

Thus, I’m trying to push this narrative form to the limits and see the sort of results I get. Now, all narrative forms are limited: they never tell you everything you want to know. That’s why it becomes crucial to interpret a text, to go beyond the literal.

And Jeff, thanks for understanding man!

I don’t know what to think of this. On the surface I agree with Jeff, that it would be nice to have honest politicians, but then again, I’m not sure how much I want to know about people. I don’t think full disclosure of everything is necessary for you to know someone, but that’s just me.

From a political standpoint, I think that projecting anything less than stability and competence translates into voters treating a candidate like a joke. Not everyone sees things like the people on CL or blogs, and where we see ‘difference’ they see weird.

Oh well, just my opinion.

“Jeff, thanks for understanding man!”

Typical. Ignore all the legitimate arguments because you can’t stand for anyone or anything Tudor. You’re just an attention whore, and if you can’t learn to control these emotional outbursts then you’re no better than the apathetic students you despise.

“isn’t this what we’ve always WANTED from our politicians?”

No. We wanted our politicians to know the issues and work for their constituents. No one asked Tudor to “push the limits of free speech” in an attempt to garner responses.

You can’t just divide the political and personal into separate webpages. Perception is important, and how people perceive you is far more important to winning than your actions or platform.

If you want to transform yourself into a Goth, go ahead. But don’t expect the majority of students to be able to identify with you and then go out and vote for you.

The shackles that are about to hold you back are self-imposed.

Mike, I agree with you that projecting “stability and competence” is a good thing, and I certainly want people to take me seriously. But at the same time, I don’t see how my blog entries could be construed as incompetence. If anything, I think I’m projecting a fairly consistent image of myself: someone who is NOT afraid of challenges or openness.

The reason I wrote this entry is because I am struggling with all sorts of ideas: should I actively repress things I want to say? Should I present an artificial and “plastic” image of myself? This discussion is good because it can help clarify some things.

For instance, “knowing the issues and properly representing students” is separate from having a life outside of your office. If an openly gay candidate ran for office nobody would dare say that he cannot know the issues or properly represent students because of his lifestyle. And I see the two situations as analogous: people’s lifestyles and their public performance should be seen as separate things.

So this is what this discussion boils down to: what sort of expectations are placed on candidates, and what duty do candidates have to meet those expectations and re-affirm stereotypes (“plastic, superficial, and callous”)? I’m not sure what the answer is …

And Brian, this is not about a loss of emotional control, and I take your accusation that “I can’t stand for anyone or anything” rather personally. In fact, I’ve been able to stand up even to my closest friends for what I believe. And trust me, it takes a lot of control to talk about your emotions in an open and coherent manner.

I think Brian brings up the important subject of identity. No one should have to have seperate identities (i.e. cool, callous, plastic and emotional, raw, etc.). I really believe that the personal and the political are inseperable (btw, not to be confused with the personal and professional), and to have two different identities isn’t healthy, but the one identity you DO choose has to be either broad enough to be widely accepted, or you have to realize that perception (like Brian said) is everything.

When I was talking to April at the Cord for the interview in this week’s cord, I talked about identities, and how WLUSU very badly wants someone’s WLUSU identity to be primary because perception is everything. For me, I wanted them to respect the intersections of identity that I (or Rishi, or Pish) had. I don’t want to be identified as a Director, or a Senator, or an activist, or Borrelli, or Michael (like my family and close friends might see) but an amalgam of everything.

Nicole says I’m a very high self-monitor, that is I adapt my behaviour to different situations and people, and that could be construed as seperating identities, but if that is the case, then I try very hard to retain some consistency between identities. I view these as intersections, not as distinct identities. But like Brian is suggesting, a blog and a professional identity highlight the percieved gap between your identities (or intersections). This percieved gap makes people nervous I think.

In relation to this situation, the way I see it as not as trying to reconcile the identities or close the gap, but the reconstruction of an identity that is very open, personal, etc. but does not acknowledge the characteristics of professional/public life that people want to see (i.e. when I go to the dentist I don’t want him crying about his wife as he’s pulling a tooth, and I don’t want to think of my elected official in the same way, no matter how close-minded and petty that sounds).

Ugh, I dont’ know if that made sense.

Also, I keep thinking of how this relates to the Dionysian and Appolonian characters that Nietzshe wrote about. The Dionysian side of personality is very frightening. In a culture born on instrumental rationality, anything that flaunts the paradigm is frightening.

“Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay it’s price.”—Sun Tzu

Tudor, I find it interesting that you took my comments as negative criticism, when, in fact, I meant them as something for you to simply consider. In that regard, they were neutral. But that’s good. Because it’s in the little things, like calling me “Man of Little Wisdom” (OK, I may have asked for it with my user name, but you didn’t have to deliver) and in your resistance to criticism that tell me more about who you are than something like when and how you had your first orgasm. I wonder: will you be this defensive when you are in office? Will you rely on the luxury of “interpretation” whenever someone criticizes you? Don’t you think there is a line between what people need to know and what should be kept private? Your revealing look at yourself truly is revealing: it’s just not revealing the things you want it to. Like you said: texts are always open to interpretation.

I personally believe that you should be who you are, and not hide parts of yourself to please others if it is your inclination to share them. I appreciate everyone for who they are, always. We are all unique and have many aspects to our personalities. If those aspects are known, I believe it is not right to focus on only one part of a person. Instead, I let others be themselves and accept them for that.

I may not agree with them, the ideas they may have, or things they may do, but I respect them for being themselves.

I realize that not everyone sees things the way I do, but it’s something to consider.

I like how we always go about reading and misreading each other, Wisdom Fellow. What you see as my “resistance to criticism” was in fact an invitation for you to look behind to literal text to find the “unconscious” you wanted. I was truly aware that by inviting you to interpret the text you may come up with interpretations that I may personally disagree with: but that’s your right and duty as a reader.

It’s curious that whenever you write something you make it sound as though you’re trying to outsmart me, even though we’re both ultimately saying the same thing.

“Don’t you think there is a line between what people need to know and what should be kept private?”

Trust me, I’ve been asking myself the same question since I first started the blog. But where do you draw a line? And why? If I can disclose my first orgasm, why can I not disclose my other orgasms as other people do?

Mike, I think I am picking up part of what you’re trying to say (it is a complex message and I’m trying to wrap my mind around it). You are saying that I should project a personality that is “very open, personal” but still one dimensional (a dimension that people are comfortable with). That still seems a bit phoney to me.

Do you think people are not able to separate a serious, political discourse from a personal discourse? How much should I trust my readers? I mean, clearly that Wisdom Fellow is frightfully cleaver, but is everybody willing to misread me in the same way he does?

The thing is your wider political audience won’t apprciate the subtext that some of your blog audience normally does. Personally it doesn’t really bother me to know about your orgasms, but I view myself as pretty open-minded. But can others?

To answer your question bluntly: No, I do not think that people can separate serious political discourse from personal discourse. They will only see one dimension: The politician. They don’t have time to appreciate both dimensions. The best you can try to do is subtly make reference to another dimension (i.e. Dalton McGuinty kissing his wife, or Stockwell Day as the sporty guy), but ultimately it’s the politician that people are voting for. Trying to merge a radically open identity and a political one is dangerous because you can’t frame the interpretations properly.

Let me offer you an example, using you (this is hypthetical, so don’t pick apart the details: People want to vote for a president, one that is a prudent administrator, and someone they can rely on to further their agendas. You are dealing with thousands of people with very diverse agendas etc. You have a few courses of action in how you can ‘run’ as a candidate:

1) You can be one dimensional Tudor Costache, prudent adminstrator and representative supreme: Smart, connected, good negotiator, aware of student issues.

2) You can be dual or multi-dimensional Tudor Costache, prudent administrator and open honest human being. This opens up a whole new interpretation of your political identity because you are not only a prudent adminstrator, good rep, etc., but also emotionally pornographic, quick to react to criticism (just using Wisdom’s comment), a sexual pervert (who knows…we have many conservatives on campus)…

Anyway, what the point that I’m trying to say here is that you cannot control those interpretations through brutal honesty. I know it might sound bad to ‘control’ interpretations, but perception is everything, and if you can’t direct the sign through context, then you’ll be swept away in the unpredicatable currents of polysemy. This sounds bad, but since there is no ‘objective’ interpretation, it’s the sad truth.

Finally, you have 2b) You can be multi-dimensional Tudor, but you can frame your non-political identities so that they reflect back on to your political one. So I’m Joe Laurier, why is this fucking pervert telling me about spurting his cum on a keyboard? Just for the fuck of it? Well no, he’s doing it because he believes in open, honest, and transparent government…OH! That’s cool!

I wish it was that easy, but you get the idea. The personal as political. The identities are no different, just intersecting…but it takes a good job of framing. Some people appreciate subtlety, but others need a message bashed into their skull with a jackhammer. *I* know you, I can interpret your identities in a manner that you would be able to accept, but not all people have that context, and that’s what brutal, open honesty needs: Context, frames, (to use the not-nice term: Spin).

You’ll have to defend yourself, your character, your identities at some point or another, whether that be in an open forum where you’re unprepared (like Myles Wilson) or beforehand through a good job of framing, it won’t matter, but people want to be able to relate to their candidates. It’s easier for me to relate to your election/erection campaign after knowing the context of the experiment, but for Joe Laurier, you’re a fucking sicko-commie-pervert-joke.

It sucks, but that’s politics I guess. Radical change through a radical candidate is possible, you just need to understand your audience before they can understand you.

If my interpretation of the purpose of your list of 100 things doesn’t match your intention, am I “misreading” that, too?

What I see in your exhibitionism — and face it, that’s what it is — is a struggle for identity and purpose. While like a good headline it’s attention grabbing and may have the added benefit of being cathartic for you, in and of itself, it’s not something that I view as helpful to a proposed public career. The Internet has a long memory. It archives itself regularly, and what it doesn’t, there are people out there who gladly do. And most people won’t look for that second layer, Tudor. To them, you’ll have painted yourself as a sexually obsessed, nihilistic, conflicted, insanity-seeking, self-reality-imposing, goal-unoriented, cult-starting, pornography-writing, cum-flinging, self-proclaimed holy man with a death wish — not an easy sell to the masses.

“It’s curious that whenever you write something you make it sound as though you’re trying to outsmart me, even though we’re both ultimately saying the same thing.”

I admire most of your writing and some of your photography and your overall envelope pushing, but I felt you went too far with “100 Things” and wanted to point out that, for me, it had an effect opposite to the one I think you intended. Personally, it made me cringe. And PS: There is no need to outsmart you. I know how smart you are and I respect your mind.

*Don’t you think there is a line between what people need to know and what should be kept private?*

“Trust me, I’ve been asking myself the same question since I first started the blog. But where do you draw a line? And why? If I can disclose my first orgasm, why can I not disclose my other orgasms as other people do?”

I don’t know if your questions are rhetorical, but I’ll take a stab at answering them anyway. If I were considering a public life, I would draw the line at revealing information that could damage my credibility. I would be very careful about baring *too much* of my past, particularly if it contained things that could be misinterpreted. Because while I don’t believe your past can destroy you, it can certainly lay the groundwork. My sexual life is nobody’s business but mine and my partner’s. Tendencies toward criminality — real or imagined — would never find their way into my public disclosures. Fanciful notions such as “I want to go mad” would never enter the language I used to describe myself. And revealing the circumstances and timing of your first orgasm, while OK in a memoir, has no place in the rhetoric of someone considering a life in public office. It paints them as, well, frivolous. If you want to talk about your orgasms, Tudor, write erotica. Not everyone wants to hear about when, why, and how you cum, at least not in a public venue.

Having said all that, I do see some value in your list: it strikes me as a good therapeutic exercise. Especially for a writer. Or someone trying to articulate an identity. And it did help me have a clearer view of you. Whether or not I’d vote for you…remains to be seen.

Virtue of the mean, dude. Virtue of the mean.

Hey Tudor, 3 things:

1) The conversation you based this blog on was supposed to remain private.

2) You’ve misquoted and mis-represented my intentions in several places.

3) It is hypocritical of you to claim that you will represent the needs of students when you’ve ignored the feelings and suggestions of some of the people closest to you.

I don’t see why you can’t offer up a re-traction and an apology the way I did to Sherry McKever, so that is what I will ask for in this situation.

your opponents will look to discredit you at any chance they get. though at the same time your honesty has a certain shock value and appeal that makes you that much more REAL and interesting- more visible to the public. honesty is a double-edged sword; wield it well. good luck, T, don’t be discouraged by the critics.

I should write erotica? That’s number 86 on my 100 things list ;).

But seriously, I love all of you people for the input you’ve given me. Good points were made all around and you’ve certainly given me a lot to think about.

But the one thing that does bother me is that both Mike and the Wise Fellow see the voters as a mass of undistinguished stupidity. “The masses” are fairly incompetent in this scenario: they are just passively absorbing propaganda and refuse to look beneath the surface.

But I always respect my readers and the people out there. That’s why I try to reach out to them and tell them something about myself. The responses received so far show me that some of my readers are intelligent, articulate, and lovely people. Thus, on a fundamental level I don’t agree with the idea that my potential voters are dummies: I believe they too have compelling lives and a fair amount of intelligence.

My campaign will not be truly revolutionary unless I see people as people, not just as an undistinquished mass that generates votes. And that’s why I will continue to trust my readers, and I will try, as much as possible, not to censor some of the things that are important to me.

But as Mike said, context matters. He made me aware that I must provide a frame for my thoughts: otherwise I’m not truly telling the full story. So it will be interesting to see if I can frame the narrative of my life and so keep everyone happy.

One last note:
“Not everyone wants to hear about when, why, and how you cum, at least not in a public venue.”

If people don’t want to read personal details on my personal blog, they can fuck right off. Perhaps it wasn’t immediately apparent, but this is my site on my own personal webspace. Nobody is forcing people to read this: they make a deliberate choice to come to this site. Because this is my space (and NOT a public venue) I think I can take some freedoms with this rather personal medium even if it makes people cringe (nobody forced you to read that ;).

Tudor, just to clarify: I don’t think all people are stupid, I just don’t think they all care as much as other. And secondly, the “nobody wants to hear about when…” comment I think is still valid even in light of your designation of this site as a personal space. People will stumble upon it and read it, and whether this site is your personal site or not, it’s readily available to be perused like a public venue. Whether people come by out of curiousity of your campaign, or because their don told them one of the candidates is a sicko and they could get a laugh out of it, people are going to read your personal details, but still may not want to acknowledge them. A ‘this is my personal space, come on in’ disclaimer won’t stop this.

I think bogging raises a very interesting concept: “This is my personal space.”

My interpretation of “personal space” doesn’t involve the broadcasting of messages through an open-ended medium to an infinite number of possible readers. Ultimately something posted in a public blog on the Internet becomes public material. Consequently the messages will be interpreted by readers however they wish to interpret them.

Since subtlety is a personality trait of mine that is sometimes overused, I’ll say this bluntly: the personal space argument is bullshit.

This space I would feel comfortable calling “creative space” because you do create its contents, and it is true that those contents are personal. However, they are certainly not private. A “private personal space” would be, say, writing in an email you send to a few friends, password protecting access to your entries or locking yourself in a mountain shack and leaving all your insane scribblings there.

Bascially what I am saying here is that I tend to agree with Mike’s analysis of the situation.

Also, on another note, I don’t think that constructing a public persona is necessarily a bad thing, nor do I think it necessarily means that “the masses” cannot be trusted to make their own judgements. I for one have faith in democracy at its most basic philosophical level.

Why does this matter? Well consider this: if you want to hire a firefighter you ask how good he or she is at fighting fires, when you hire a teacher you ask how well a candidate can teach. Pretty simple, right? Well, when you hire an elected official you should ask how well he or she can perform the duties of an elected official. If you are a candidate it is your responsibility to communicate your ideas clearly and in a straight forward manner -no voter should have to solve a Rubik’s Cube to figure your platform out.

If the message you send is confused or confusing you are doing the voter a disservice. You could be saying to the voter “I don’t know what my platform is” or “I know what my platform is and you don’t -vote for me based on blind faith”. A voter who wouldn’t vote for you based on either of those messages is essentially doing what makes sense: if you don’t tell them what your ideas/policies are, they shouldn’t be expected to vote for you.

Furthermore if the message is muddles you are also saying that your communications with others -faculty, staff, volunteers, administrators, the public, students- while in a this public role will also be muddled. In that case you would basically not be competent and again, shouldn’t be elected.

Can you expect “the masses” to look beneath the surface? Certainly you can. But don’t think that that means their critical thinking will involve looking for everything that is good, pure, sweet and deep which lies beneath the surface; expect them to focus their energies on finding what is bad, corrupt, bitter and shallow. That is what can ultimately cause them harm, and that is therefore what they should ultimately focus on.

Thanks for your reply Sean. Yes, I do appreciate the idea of clarity, economy, and force when communicating a political message. But what I’ve been arguing so far is that this blog is not the space I want to use to present my political platform: this blog should simply be a narration of my life.

I certainly don’t want to confuse the public or muddle the issues, but I am trying to present an honest narration of my life that’s separate from my political intentions. As I said above, I will create a separate space for my political discourse and I will devote a lot of attention to ensure people understand my political ideas.

The question still remains: can I be open about my life and about my politics at the same time? As long as I’m able to clearly articulate my political stands, and show that I can capably implement my ideas, I’m not sure why I should actively hide things about my life. Seems rather dishonest, doesn’t it?

But as Mike said, I do have to be careful about context. While I may be able to differentiate the personal and the political aspects, I should clarify the difference for my readers.

For instance, I clearly expect my readers to understand that this is not a “public venue.” My blog is certainly not private, but it is intensely personal: the content, the ownership of space and content make this space personal. A blog only becomes a broadcasting network when the two-way communication between the author and the readers is no longer possible. As long as I’m still able to fully interact with my readers the blog remains an intimate, personal conversation.

So the question remains: should candidates not be open about their personal lives even if they make every effort to present a serious and realistic political platform? Shouldn’t the public understand the difference between politics and personal narratives, especially when these are highlighted?

Despite my comments I actually don’t think that you should self-censor on this blog. That being said, I do think this is still public space… once you post something on the Internet which is available for public consumption it should be clear that it may very easily be consumed publically (this includes the blog and other forums, like clublaurier for example).

My expectation, having gone through 4 WLUSU elections, is that your blog will probably be read mainly by those you know; I believe very few students will go to the minor trouble of doing a Google-search on your name as research. Generally speaking, most student elections are fought in accodance with the ideas candidates themselves present.

That being said, my only concern is that there are often unscrupulous types who will be willing to take what you have said out of context and spin it in a way which could hurt you. In essence, anything you post publicially can easily become someone else’s message.

I don’t think you should stop writing however you wish, I just think that it is important to go into these things with your eyes wide open. There is potential for anything you say here to be used as a weapon against you, which will simply make your job more difficult. Defending yourself is tiring and takes away from the clarity and consistency of any message you try to present.

“Shouldn’t the public understand the difference between politics and personal narratives, especially when these are highlighted?”
They probably should, but that doesn’t mean they always do. Ultimately you have to communicate to the people that are there, not the ones you wish were there.

Okay, first I’d like to respond to the “your statements can be used as a weapon against you” argument.

So what? Tudor shouldn’t have to compensate artistic merit for the benefit of some political career. Personally, I think that reading the blog will ALSO interest a lot of people and give Tudor a unique edge. The blog is obscene at times, but the obscenity is eclipsed by a larger artistic experession. People who focus on choice comments and phrases and take them out of context, yes— but that doesn’t seem to me to be anything to lose sleep over. What I’m saying is that I don’t think Tudor needs to be schooled on what his blog content might mean for him politically. He has made a choice, and that’s that.

Tudor’s blog might cost him the campaign. If that’s what you guys are saying, I agree. But Tudor’s approach is enviable, I think. That is why I will vote for him, and why I do not care about “public consensus”.

There might be a trade-off between artistry and a political career. So what? Well, if your intention is to have a political career than it matters. Again, I think it is a matter of going in with your eyes open; recognizing the dilemma doesn’t mean that I am saying “shut the fuck up”, it means that you have to recognize that your choices have consequences. It is as simple as that.

I’m fully aware that there’s a risk associated with any action. Running in a student election, writing something publicly, or doing anything interesting or beautiful opens you up to enormous risks.

However, in this case I think the risk is worth taking. I’ll certainly try to minimize the risk, and you all have given me a lot of perspective on this. I’m aware of the possibility that some of the stuff I write could come back to haunt me (see #69 in my 100 things list ;), but I’m willing and able to defend my actions if it comes down to that.

Sean,

You have a lot more experience with these matters, so I don’t doubt that you know what you’re talking about. And, yes, I think that having to fend off misled allegations and misunderstandings can be draining.

I guess I just think that the “watch what you say” mentality subtre’s out a lot of people I would like to represent me politically. The reason: who wants to put up with that kind of self censorship? Also, WLUSU hasn’t had a lot of progressive student politicians, and I think it’s fair to say that a very progressive approach will not be met with open arms. However, to me, that’s all the more reason to appreciate the nature of the campaign itself—it’s that it’s there, not necessarily that it wins.

Imagine our surprise when we found trackbacks from your site to ours! Anyway, here’s hoping you got your quandary resolved.

At some point in my longwinded comments I mentioned how good it is to blog about mindblowing orgasms, so I naturally had to make some reference to sweetness follows ;).

Thanks for the concern over my quandary … everything is slowly being resolved :).