In Need of a Name

Your most recent experience of metacognition -- that is, a moment when you sense or feel that you know something without being able to recall precisely what it is that you know -- was probably an instance of what psycholinguists refer to as the "tip-of-tongue" phenomenon. Right now, for example, we're pretty sure that we know a more elegant, single word denoting the "tip-of-tongue phenomenon," but it's right on the tip of our fucking tongue and we can't recall it. Nonetheless, somewhere and somehow deep in our brain, we know that we know this.

What we're pretty sure we don't know is a word to describe a similar state of metacognition, wherein we are unable to produce not a single word, but rather an idea. "Tip-of-the-hypothalamus" doesn't really roll off the tongue, "conceptual retardation" is inelegant and and "stupidity" seems imprecise.

Whatever the phrase, there are several bits of informational flotsam that have been bouncing around our head for the past several days, which we know are connected. Sadly, the precise form and significance of the connection eludes us, so for a moment we'll get all Walter Benjaminian on your asses and let you figure it out for your own damn selves.

I

Novelist Günter Grass admits he served in the Nazi SS during WWII. Some folks suggest that he return his Nobel Prize, or at least his honorary citizenship in the Polish city of Gdansk (see Here and Hier).

Factors to consider: Grass was a teenager, and it's not as if he carpet-bombed Cambodia or became Pope. Still, you know, he might have mentioned it.

II

The New York Times admits that it publicly mischaracterized (euphemism alert) the length of time that the paper sat on the NSA Wiretap story. Said mischaracterization prevented readers from knowing that the story was purposely withheld so as not to affect the 2004 presidential election (see Here).

Factors to consider: Just when you have reason to consider lifting your boycott of the Grimalkin, you're unsurprised to learn that yet another Times semi-culpa comes -- in the words of Günter Grass' biographer -- "a little bit late."

III

A poll conducted by "the world's most visited Christian Website" concludes that 50% of Christian men and 20% of Christian women are addicted to pornography. 60% of Christian women reported "problems with lust" (by which we infer that the other 40% found that being married to a Christian took the desire right out of them).

Factors to consider: They're the kind of Christians who define "addiction" as "regular use," so you can imagine the rigor of their statistical analysis. Respondents might well believe that the Academy-Award winning film adaptation of The Tin Drum actually is pornography.

IV

A report in the American Journal of Public Health concludes that "Adolescents who initiate sexual activity are likely to recant virginity pledges, whereas those who take pledges are likely to recant their sexual histories. Thus, evaluations of sexual abstinence programs are vulnerable to unreliable data. In addition, virginity pledgers may incorrectly assess the sexually transmitted disease risks associated with their prepledge sexual behavior."

Factors to consider: The White House's budget for the 2007 fiscal year includes $204 million dollars for abstinence-only education. The Society for Adolescent Medicine has shown that abstinence-only education is not only ineffective, but counterproductive to its own stated goals. We once had sex in the small chapel of a small college, and it was really awesome (we're not sure how this affects the conceptual work, we don't believe in suppressing events from our past, and also we just like telling people about it).

*****

That's all we have right now, friends. Consider these tidbits not merely as a group, but as a constellation -- a cluster, if you will -- and report any of your speculations directly. We need to know what to call these developments, even if the name we give won't be used by anybody else.