dangerous ideas

Vegipus

2007-08-24T14:56:00.001-05:00

Bringing new meaning to the phrase "Dinner Theater."

misandry/misogyny

2007-04-20T20:37:00.000-05:00

Ever since I learned the word for hatred of men (misandry), I've wanted to know when it was entered into the English lexicon, and how it compared, historically, to misogyny. Today, thanks to dictionary.com, I found the answer:

Misogyny, the word for hatred of women, was entered into the lexicon sometime around 1650-1660.

Misandry, the word for hatred of men, was entered into the lexicon ~1945-1950. 300 years later, and (I think significantly) the same time the Rosies of WWII were displaced by men returning from the war.

What does this mean? Does it mean, as Carl Sagan and Ann Druyun suggest in Contact that the "male lexographers" couldn't imagine a use for the word, or does it mean that hatred of men is historically more likely to be ignored? There are at least a dozen other explanations I can think of off the top of my head, but first I'd like to know what you think. What accounts for the 300 year gap?

What Kids Can Teach Us

2007-04-06T09:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I came across this article via metafilter, and it is easily one of the most interesting pieces I've read in a very long time. In it, two teachers describe how their elementary school-aged after school kids went from playing with legos to deconstructing capitalism over the course of a school year.

Certainly, the ethics of teaching social justice in an elementary school classroom are up for debate, but I'd rather not focus on that here. Instead, what I found striking was the amount that these 8-year-olds were already a product of their environment. I think elementary school interactions socialize kids in broader ways than merely helping them form interpersonal relationships. These kids were clearly savvy to their societal environment. By the age of 8, many were already products of capitalism, completely accultured to the socioeconomic system in which they were growing up. Moreover, as I read further into the article, I realized that they were speaking in terms that were already defined by that system. For American schoolchildren, inequality is a natural way of life.

Back to the ethics of teaching social justice. In college I took a class on the Cold War in which we read a number of texts relating to propaganda. One of the texts discussed how social values are promulgated in small children. One of the most striking examples was how math texts are used to surreptitiously convey values to children. Look at an American high school or grade school math textbook. Look at the word problems. They almost always talk about buying things. Even when people buy them together, they rarely split the cost evenly. This isn't the case everywhere, and it certainly wasn't the case in Soviet Russia, where most math texts involved sharing or producing. So regardless of what teachers do in the classroom, children are constantly being instilled with social values in the classroom.

I am a BIG DORK

2007-03-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr. Abrams:

While I understand the allure of big-name stars, I wish to express my concerns with rumored casting decisions for Star Trek XI. The original casts of “Star Trek: The Original Series,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” and “Star Trek: Voyager” brought dynamism to the series and over the course of 7 years (5 in the case of TOS), the actors and actresses became synonymous with the characters themselves (sometimes to their dismay).

Part of the reason Nemesis failed (along with the short-lived “Star Trek: Enterprise”) was producer Rick Berman’s general weltanschauung when it comes to the series. No one can argue that Star Trek is a huge and enormously profitable franchise, but as with any business, producers like Berman and yourself must remember their audience. Star Trek’s audience is two-fold: self-professing geeks for whom the series represents fantasy, escape, and a world where technological and moral progress go hand-in-hand, and nostalgia fans who remember watching it at a time when the world was just beginning to explore the cosmos first-hand. Either way, Star Trek has become an oasis of idealism in an otherwise cynical world (evidence of this can be confirmed by looking at the launch dates of its most successful serials—at key points during the Cold War and shortly after the end of the first Gulf War), and for a Star Trek film to succeed, every aspect of it must live up to that image.

In addition, most of the Star Trek casts have had limited fame or television exposure prior to participating in a Star Trek series. Their status as relative unknowns (at least to the American TV audience) contributes to the completeness of their Star Trek personae. Their fame, once gained, is often a result, not a precursor, to their connection to Star Trek.

None of this is meant to suggest that you should cast acting novices, but you should consider the impact of the choices you are making. The rumor mill lists Matt Damon as the top choice for Kirk—a disastrous move that would alienate audiences. While Damon is a highly competent actor, his style is temperamental and fluid—two things Kirk (as played by William Shatner, at least) hasn’t been. Damon’s performances lack the magnetism to make him a convincing Star Trek captain.

Likewise, Adrian Brody’s performances are incredibly emotive, making them entirely inappropriate for a Vulcan. Even Spock, whose human side provides him with more emotional “give” than other Vulcan characters, is still at heart a logical being. Adrian Brody’s great for a film with waterworks, but Star Trek XI should not be that film. Rumor has it that Zachary Quinto has expressed an interest in this part. Please take him seriously. He is a fine actor with a history in series’ which share an audience with Star Trek.

That said, the other rumored casting choices—Gary Sinese as Bones and Daniel Dae Kim as Sulu—are both suitable. Kim has a history with Star Trek, and Gary Sinese shares the same wry sense of humor and mischievous nature as his Star Trek counterpart.

Please consider these requests from a long-time fan, fellow filmmaker, and critical theorist. Casting makes a huge difference in whether a film succeeds or fails. Any Star Trek fan will have a vested interest in seeing this film come to life. Don’t disappoint them by privileging mainstream fantasy over a loyal audience and fan base. Please, please don’t mess this up.

Heroes and WiR

2007-02-21T10:05:00.000-05:00

Sure enough, when confronted with the prospect of killing of a character, Heroes took the girlfriend route. Simone died this past Monday, conveniently ending the possibility of our heroes going public with their superpowers this early in the series.

Meanwhile (to the tune of a certain Christmas song), it's beginning to look a lot like X-Men. Heroes was, from the start, an X-Men dupe. Genetically mutated superhumans with powers that, to most, seem like magic. But now, Dr. Suresh is talking about potentially supressing the powers of various heroes. The twist is still the Magneto character, Sylar. In X-Men, Magneto controls the powers of various Mutants by persuading them to become part of his army. Sylar skips the intermediary bodies, and gains control over other heroes' powers by consuming them. The relationship with cannibalism and consumption is further emphasized by Sylar's inability to gain new powers without killing heroes.

Recently, we've seen several heroes struggle to control their powers. Sylar and Peter Petrelli are two sides of the same coin: Peter can't control the powers he absorbs once he gets them, and Sylar can't control his lust for new powers. I think it could be argued at this point (though this may change later) that Sylar's version of the control problem is his inability to absorb without destroying/consuming. Perhaps his native ability--absorbing the powers of others (like Peter)--can be controlled in such a way that he can gain powers without killing. This is all speculation. You can bet I'll be watching as the story unfolds.

Next week: Mr. Bennett's past, and Claire's adoption.

From the Creepy Inside Jokes Department

2007-02-06T15:24:00.000-05:00

Mini, the BMW subset devoted to mini-coopers, has gone a bit 1984. Much of advertising deals with the fine line between personalizing advertising (usually to a specific demographic), losing your audience by being boring or irrelevant, and losing your audience by being downright creepy. Billboards that talk specifically to you are kinda cute in an "L.A. Story" sort of way (as the blog I linked mentions), but not having a billboard identify me personally by name while I'm driving down the highway wouldn't make me feel like I was "missing out." It's basically just another form of spam, only this one allows someone to read your name, stalk you to wherever you're going, and pretend that they've known you for years.

Not to mention it's distracting.

Copyright/IP Law and Libraries

2007-02-02T12:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, while poring over the most recent New Yorker, I started down a path to the strange and quirky ins and outs of American Copyright law. Jeffrey Toobin wrote an article on the Google Books project and the strange role of publishers, and it got me thinking about libraries and copyright.

A little digging turned up a lot of information on "digital libraries," and more broadly, "libraries in the digital age," but the cases themselves were by far the most interesting part of my search.

Here's an excerpt from an ALA brief of Sony v. Universal Studios by Mary Hutchings:

"...The Court's holding below that "intrinsic" uses of copyrighted materials cannot be "fair" uses will profoundly affect the ability of librarians to serve their constituencies effectively. Libraries are the critical link in bringing new information technologies to the public at large. Libraries permit the masses to use such technologies otherwise available only to the rich. Thus, many libraries now, and in the future most libraries will, provide patrons with access to videorecorders for "in-library" use. An increasing number of libraries provide off-air tapes of news and other programs for in-library viewing for patrons who are unable to afford their own recorders, and who otherwise would be denied access to broadcast programming. If the decision of the Court of Appeals is not reversed, libraries could be accused of making, or of aiding and abetting, unfair "intrinsic" uses of copyrighted materials. Rapid technological change and the need to strike a reasonable balance between the interests of copyright owners and copyright users make an early national resolution of these issues a matter of great urgency.

And later:

"The effect of the Court of Appeals' holding is to create a dichotomy between entertainment and education which will restrict public access to information and constrict the judicially-recognized role of libraries as "a mighty resource in the free market place of ideas." Minarcini v. Strongville City School District, 541 F.2d 577, 582 (6th Cir. 1976).

I, for one, never knew either that libraries had a defined "judicially-recognized role" nor that library staff saw themselves as protectorates of the poor and redistributors of knowledge where wealth is not distributed evenly. Other library organizations echo these concerns. The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) has a manifesto pertaining to internet and information access. They say:

"Unhindered access to information is essential to freedom, equality, global understanding and peace.

and...

"The global Internet enables individuals and communities throughout the world, whether in the smallest and most remote villages or the largest cities, to have equality of access to information for personal development, education, stimulation, cultural enrichment, economic activity and informed participation in democracy. All can present their interests, knowledge and culture for the world to visit.

As these tracts suggest, disseminating information regardless of race, creed, sex, sexual preference, or class are vital elements not only to an American social agenda, but that are and ought to remain protected by US Copyright Law (Title 17). Seen in this light, Hutchings' concerns, as well as those laid out by Lawrence Lessig (quoted in the New Yorker article) are marked (the former moreso than the latter): while the rights of publishers and authors ought to be protected, stripping "the masses" of access to both information and new technologies goes against public rights protected by libraries.

My knowledge of law is limited, so feel free to chastise my interpretation fully.

Second Life

2007-01-23T22:03:00.000-05:00

I know everyone has written about Second Life and all of its many implications, but in an effort to do some actual media research, I've actually created an account. I spent most of the afternoon in an attempt to make myself some money from nothing. I made $20 by signing up to participate in the occasional market research group.

The weird thing about Second Life is that there are actual jobs, with actual time requirements. There's a huge market for designers and coders, both in and outside of the SL environment. There's also a huge market for pornography, stripping, and other "illicit" activities. That's right. Have your created avatar strip for video game money. In fact, because of the online nature of second life, I'd venture to say that activities that are illicit in our "First Lives" are less so in Second Life.

I spent my afternoon pulling together $20 (thanks to a survey) in Second Life and turning it into $50 in a casino. I was hit on twice ("good looking avatar"...I wish I was kidding), I danced by the money trees, and I flew around. The world is on overload, so the graphics are slooooow. I doubt I'll stick around long, but it was an interesting experiment.

This was the article that spawned my interest--suburbanalia invading virtual space. When I think of the idea of a "second life," to me it's about doing something with your life that you don't have the freedom to in your "first life." But Second Life is turning into a replica of real life, exaggeratedly normal. There are fewer inhibitions and more designers, but my experience so far is that little else is different.

EDIT: Just as I was wondering how the hell people actually created ENTIRE second lives, somebody decide it was satire time. Check it out here, and get your First Life NOW! ;)

Well that's just great

2007-01-18T08:38:00.000-05:00

When I first created this site, I added a forum for discussion. I didn't put in any censorship parameters because at the time, it was really just limited to me, my friends, and their friends. Then I forgot about it. Apparently, it turned into a giant repository for porn links. I have removed it, since that is not at all what I'd like to be associated with. I'm also planning to change over to blog software with which I can better monitor comments so this doesn't happen again (I found out because this blog was comment-spammed this morning). So if you see a few changes in the next few weeks, that's why.

In light of all this, I'd like to ask your opinion. Is censorship always bad? I don't like the idea of censoring people from communicating, but I realize that I am limiting people to "relevant topics" by ridding my site of spamvertising content. So is it bad?

Thanks!

Not your average internet education

2007-01-17T17:02:00.000-05:00

With Wikibooks and its peers came free, open-source education by and for the people. And now, with iTunes, comes the webcasted lecture. Prestigious universities like UC Berkeley and MIT (and previously Stanford, Oxford, and Yale with AllLearn) are offering webcasts--audio and sometimes video--of many of their courses, from physics to philosophy to art.

The way traditional "distance learning" courses for credit work is by combining readings and audio/video lectures with online communication through a chatroom or forum. Assignments are sent to the professor and assessed. Most of the courses available through Berkeley Webcasts and similar sites don't offer any meaningful interaction with the professor or other students, but some, like this environmental history course, provide all the salient details. The only difference from traditional DL courses is that you don't get your assignments graded.

It's not a free degree, but it IS free education as long as you have a computer, some kind of audio player, and speakers or headphones. This still excludes the poorest of the poor except through access via a library or other public internet location, but it's a pretty significant improvement in the quality of education you can get for free.

I'm doing PACS 164A: Introduction to Nonviolence right now. I'll tell you how it goes. In the meantime, educate yourselves.

Hawks, Doves, Jets, Sharks, what?

2007-01-11T12:11:00.000-05:00

Lanier forwarded me a great article in Foreign Policy entitled Why Hawks Win. It deals with our psychological biases and how they feed in to our conflict resolution processes, including our inability to separate behavior and motives in others and our assumption, nonetheless, that our own motives are clearly visible:

"Imagine, for example, that you have been placed in a room and asked to watch a series of student speeches on the policies of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. You’ve been told in advance that the students were assigned the task of either attacking or supporting Chávez and had no choice in the matter. Now, suppose that you are then asked to assess the political leanings of these students. Shrewd observers, of course, would factor in the context and adjust their assessments accordingly. A student who gave an enthusiastic pro-Chávez speech was merely doing what she was told, not revealing anything about her true attitudes. In fact, many experiments suggest that people would overwhelmingly rate the pro-Chávez speakers as more leftist. Even when alerted to context that should affect their judgment, people tend to ignore it. Instead, they attribute the behavior they see to the person’s nature, character, or persistent motives. This bias is so robust and common that social psychologists have given it a lofty title: They call it the fundamental attribution error.

The effect of this failure in conflict situations can be pernicious. A policymaker or diplomat involved in a tense exchange with a foreign government is likely to observe a great deal of hostile behavior by that country’s representatives. Some of that behavior may indeed be the result of deep hostility. But some of it is simply a response to the current situation as it is perceived by the other side. What is ironic is that individuals who attribute others’ behavior to deep hostility are quite likely to explain away their own behavior as a result of being “pushed into a corner” by an adversary. The tendency of both sides of a dispute to view themselves as reacting to the other’s provocative behavior is a familiar feature of marital quarrels, and it is found as well in international conflicts. During the run-up to World War I, the leaders of every one of the nations that would soon be at war perceived themselves as significantly less hostile than their adversaries.

When I read this passage, my mind jumped to the New York subway system. More than once I've seen someone step into the subway car and block passage for anyone else, and my reaction has always been the same: what is WITH him/her? The context itself is lost. Nonetheless, on our drive back from Vermont I had an altercation with a young woman over a door. She and her children were moving very slowly through the door at an inconsistent rate. I misestimated their speed, and practically tripped over her son. The woman immediately started tearing into me, and I became angry with her, assuming she must have realized how unpredictably she and her brood were moving and thus must understand that it was irrational to think I was thoughtlessly ploughing through them. After all, he practically tripped me by stopping so suddenly. Back in the car, I started to think that something was wrong about the whole situation, and now I can locate it. I expected her to recognize something in me--good intentions--that I refused to recognize in her.

Another article, published in the New York Times in July, also refers to fundamental attribution error. We perceive our own actions as less hostile and less violent than those of others, and they view us in the same light.

So what's the evolutionary advantage, if any, to fundamental attribution error? What makes escalation appealing on the scale of millenia? Does it actually help survival? Or is it the neuroscience equivalent of an appendix?

YouTube and the Iraq War

2007-01-11T00:13:00.000-05:00

A post in honor of Bush's plan to win in Iraq:

A veteran speaks out against the war, and the Navy takes a different approach.

No editorializing for today.

Babel babble

2007-01-03T13:58:00.000-05:00

Over the holidays I saw "Babel," a film that's sparked a lot of critical conversation--good and bad--since its release. Dana Stevens (of Slate.com) has it on her top ten list and calls it "virtuosic," while David Denby of the New Yorker calls it "hopeless," despite "fearless [acting] performances." The film's basic theme (although the review itself is far more superlative than necessary) is best summed up, I believe, by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone:

“The Bible says God was angry when man tried to reach heaven by building a tower (later named Babel); he stopped the work by devising different languages that made understanding impossible. Babel came to mean noise and miscommunication.
Some things never change. The gifted Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and his remarkable screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga - this film completes the brilliant trilogy they began with Amores Perros and 21 Grams - have applied the concept of Babel to the way we live now, in a world threatened by terrorism and divided by language, race, money and religion.

Visually, linguistically, physically, everything in "Babel" is about miscommunication, spoiled intentions, and missing pieces. Unlike other reviewers, what struck me about "Babel" was its ultimate optimism. Despite all the noise, individuals in "Babel" form deeply affectionate bonds. After their tour group strands them in a remote Moroccan town, Richard and Susan (played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett respectively) are forced to trust their caretakers despite their differences. Understanding, Inarritu tells us, is forged not by speaking, but by listening to what is fundamentally similar underneath all our linguistic differences.

Much has been said about Rinko Kikuchi's stunning performance as Chieko, a deaf-mute Japanese youth whose mother's suicide has forced her to move in with her distant father. Much of "Babel" surrounds familial relations as a method of uniting characters in common experiences. Inarritu even alludes to economic/post-colonial divides by creating hope for the American and Japanese players while destroying the lives of Amelia (the Mexican caretaker of Richard and Susan's children) and of Yussef (the young Moroccan boy who shoots Susan) and his family. "Babel" is heavy and even burdensome, well-crafted and stunningly directed and acted, heart-wrenching and beautiful. If you don't buy that, at least believe me that it's worth seeing.

Medical Econo-ethics

2006-12-27T19:56:00.000-05:00

Two recent articles got me thinking about the interplay of economics and ethics in the field of medical research. "The Right to a Trial" is a deeply moving discussion of the ethical problems involved with allowing or refusing to allow terminally ill patients to participate in clinical trials of new disease treatments and the regulatory issues at work in the debate. I found myself torn between my desire for improved access to medical treatment and my general belief in regulation of corporations to protect people.

The second article, written by Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz, concerns Intellectual Property rights when it comes to medical breakthroughs. Stiglitz proposes a medical "prize system" funded by industrial nations to encourage medical innovation while keeping the cost of vital pharmaceuticals low. It's not exactly a new idea, but Stiglitz provides some specifics as to how exactly the prizes would be funded and awarded.

Medical ethics is a particularly sticky field because it regularly concerns life-or-death situations. Our general desire to see hard work rewarded is tempered by our compassion for others. It seems impossibly unfair to say "medical researchers ought to make money off their innovations at the expense of human life when patients can't afford their treatments," but it is also difficult to imagine financially rewarding Pedro Almodovar for his cultural innovations while withholding those same rewards from scientists who make consistent breakthroughs in cancer research.

Back to "The Right to a Trial" for a moment. Imagine you're 31, you have two kids under age five, and you've been diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer. You've tried every traditional treatment to no avail, and because you are also diabetic, you are ineligible for Phase III clinical trials for a drug that had an 80% effectiveness rate in Phase II trials. You've been given a year to live, tops. If you were willing to take chances with an experimental drug because it had a good chance (or so it appeared) to save your life, wouldn't you have trouble understanding the importance of "regulation"? On the other hand, if you're a company that has produced a promising drug with the potential to seriously lower the fatality rate of an extremely deadly strain of cancer, would you really want to risk losing FDA approval because you had to list "pancreatic failure" as a possible side-effect? And would it be worth it for the thousands of other patients who could be helped?

Soap Operas and Online Art Galleries

2006-12-19T08:31:00.000-05:00

I'm on "vacation" for the next week, but I thought I'd share three tidbits from my readings over the last few days.

First, a shout-out to "All My Children." Yes, the soap opera. They've just written soap's first transgender character into the season, and ABC has announced that over the course of his tenure, Zarf will go from Mr. to Ms.

Secondly, the NY Times reports on the Saatchi Gallery online--an online gallery in the Chelsea sense of the term, where new artists can bring their work to the public and sell it.

Last but not least... RIP Joseph Barbera. You will be missed.

Bloggers responsible for their commenters?

2006-12-14T12:03:00.000-05:00

From MeFi:

|AMP|#8220;Senator John McCain (R. - AZ) has introduced legislation [PDF] that would hold blogs responsible for all activity in their comments sections and user profiles. Provisions of the proposed bill include: (1) commercial websites and personal blogs "would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000," (2) bloggers with comment sections may face "even stiffer penalties" than ISPs, and (3) any social-networking site must take "effective measures" to remove any Web page that's "associated" with a sex offender. "Because 'social-networking site' isn't defined, it could encompass far more than just MySpace.com, Friendster and similar sites." The list could include any site that allows comments, author [sic] and personal profiles. Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that this proposal may be based more "on fear or political considerations rather than on the facts." "McCain's [sic] legislation could deal a serious blow to the blogosphere. Lacking resources to police their sites, many individual blogs may have to shut down open discussion."*

Rut roh. Fining bloggers up to $300,000 for the comments they inspire? Write your congressmen and congresswomen, people!

We've seen a lot of legislative proposals in the last ten years seeking to regulate the internet. I don't have a problem with requiring bloggers (or anyone else) to remove copyrighted or illegal material from their blogs, or even from their comments. I do have a problem with making bloggers responsible for content that does not originate from them. The "easy" way to solve this problem, from the blogger's perspective, would be to screen all comments, but big blogs (like Wil Wheaton's, or community blogs like MeFi or Slashdot), that's pretty much a full-time job in and of itself. Perhaps more importantly, one of the great things about unscreened comments is that users know they aren't being censored, and neither is anyone else. Furthermore, isn't $300,000 a bit excessive for a personal blog? Yikes.

Then there's the social networking/sex offender issue. Many social networking sites tout business networking as their primary functions, and even the infamous MySpace has age restrictions. The ex-sex offender issue is particularly biting: sex offenders have served their debt to society, yet they ostensibly have a high rate of recidivism (although recent studies suggest that rates of recidivism are falling). My home state of California recently passed a bill requiring high-risk sex-offenders to wear a tracking device for their entire lives after release from prison. As Lanier pointed out when we were discussing the bill during the election, a state-sponsored optional program could actually benefit former offenders, because their whereabouts would be established at all times (so if they were falsely accused, they could potentially demonstrate their innocence) and because the positioning devices may serve as a deterrent. A mandatory program, on the other hand, has the effect of punishing people who have already been punished according to their crime by violating their right to privacy.

Beyond that, it's easy enough for someone to falsify personal information and obtain an account that would not immediately identify them as a sex offender if indeed they are. Holding social networking sites responsible for viewing literally every page on their sites and knowing the identities of all sex offenders well enough to determine if a page is "associated" with them, regardless of purported identity, is absurd.

Perhaps you disagree? Comments, as always, are welcome.

The Case of the Cranky Critic

2006-12-12T21:36:00.000-05:00

I just finished Everything Bad is Good For You by Steven Johnson. I had hoped Emergence would go further than it did, but overall, I liked the book. Everything Bad was a completely different experience.

Before I go on, I want to say that I agree with Johnson's main point: TV, video games, and other visual media aren't inherently bad for us, and they aren't growing worse with time. I concur that popular media can make you smarter, and that they have a significant effect on human sociocultural growth. In all fairness, Johnson addresses a few of my complaints in his Afterword. None of that changes the fact that reading it was like pulling teeth. Aside from the hit-you-over-the-head-until-you-like-it tone and the (I'm sure unintentionally) snarky intonations of "indeed," "to be sure," "no doubt," and "to be certain" (not to mention incessent "I think," "I suspect," and "I imagine" phrases), I have two major criticisms, and it seems I'm not alone. Dana Stevens, also known as Slate's "Surfergirl" of pop culture, said this of an excerpt printed in the New York Times before the book's release:

“Not only does Johnson fail to account for the impact of the 16 minutes' worth of commercials that interrupt any given episode of, say, 24 (a show he singles out as particularly "nutritional"), but he breezily dismisses recent controversies about that program's representation of Muslim terrorists or its implicit endorsement of torture, preferring to concentrate on how the show's formal structure teaches us to "pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships." Wait a minuteâ€”isn't a fictional program's connection to real-life political events like torture and racial profiling one of the "social relationships" we should be paying attention to? 24 is the perfect example of a TV show that challenges its audience's cognitive faculties with intricate plotlines and rapid-fire information while actively discouraging them from thinking too much about the vigilante ethic it portrays. It's really good at teaching you to think â€¦ about future episodes of 24.

Johnson certainly has a point, and I do think visual media have the ability to push our cognitive boundaries...but "smart" and "good" are hardly synonymous. Heck, bombs have gotten "smarter" in the last half century. "Smarter" isn't "better" unless there's an accompanying interest in using those newly improved problem-solving skills to solve, say, the immensely complex social and environmental problems facing our world.

I'm with Stevens on the second point, too: Visual media may encourage us to seek out new challenges, but that's not always a good thing. Challenging ourselves to regularly use our problem-solving skills is one thing, but the addiction Johnson associates with constant challenges in video games is, well, addiction, and like any other it has the potential to seriously disrupt an otherwise well-organized life. If you're bored to tears by menial tasks, you'll likely have trouble starting out in the workforce, especially if you're also very good at higher-level cognitive skills. It's good to have those skills, but I'm not so sure it's good to require mental exercise at all times, largely because menial chores will always be necessary for society to function.

So I'm sorry to "Heroes" and "Smallville" for taking my Johnson-inspired frustrations out on you. Each showcases social commentary in its own way. Whether that commentary is always forward-thinking or agreeable to this particular critic is a different issue which I'll happily discuss in-depth later.

Somebody Save Me

2006-12-12T05:09:00.000-05:00

I've been talking to my friend Gabe today while obsessing over "Smallville." Gabe's something of an expert on WWII-era superhero comics, so I asked him about the propensity of such comics to make social commentary. I knew from my dad that X-Men is a metaphor for racism, but I didn't know that much about Superman. According to Gabe, what makes Superman interesting, aside from the potential Moses/Jesus parallels, is his sense of global idealism rather than nationalistic idealism. Created at the end of the 1930s, while war was brewing in Europe, Superman intended to save the world. In fact, creators Siegel and Shuster show Superman ending World War II in an issue from 1940--before American involvement. You may even recognize a few themes pertinent to today.

Network TV currently has two superhero shows on the air, and both are blockbusters. "Smallville" chronicles Superman/Clark Kent's early life, and "Heroes" is a modern-day X-Men story where genetic mutations endow a few people from around the world with "superpowers." These powers often reflect something in the character of the hero him or herself--an invulnerable teenage cheerleader, a woman whose dueling personalities reflect the cycles of abuse perpetuated on her and her sister by their father, a helpless young woman who develops the ability to make anyone obey her, a young nurse in the shadow of his politician father and brother who can emulate the powers of any nearby hero, and a spacetime bending Japanese office-worker bored with his routine, to name a few. The supervillain of "Heroes" gains his superpowers only by killing other heroes and absorbing their strengths. At first, he seems stable. Once a researcher deems his mutation inferior, however, he embarks on a quest to destroy all the "Heroes." It is envy that leads him to destruction.

Lex Luthor of the Superman comics isn't all that different. Superman's origins are contested in various publications, but the general consensus is that a disaster (war, crazy planetary meltdown) on the planet Krypton forces scientist Jor-El and his wife Lara to send their only child, Kal-El, away. Scholars have speculated about the nature of Superman and his fathers' names in the series. Siegel and Shuster were both Jewish, and Jor-El and Kal-El are similar to Hebrew phrases meaning, respectively, "fear of God" and "voice of God." After he arrives on Earth, Kal-El is adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent of Smallville. The name "Clark" is Martha Kent's maiden name. While Clark is still a teenager, Lex Luthor moves to Smallville. After Lex saves Clark's life by moving a kryptonite meteor out of the danger zone, Clark helps him set up a scientific laboratory. In gratitude, Lex attempts to create an antidote to kryptonite when an accident sets his lab on fire. In the process of saving Lex, Superman (superboy?) destroys his research and renders him bald. Lex becomes convinced that Superman is jealous of his scientific prowess and attempts to first outdo his good deeds through science and then ultimately turns against both Superman and humanity when his experiments go awry.

"Smallville" takes a different approach, but the story is ultimately the same: Lex and Clark are friends until Lex's jealousy takes over and he becomes a vessel for evil. Clark's high school sweetheart Lana Lang is at the center of the rift between Clark and Lex.

The main difference between the superhero comics of yore and today's versions is that the latter are stripped of their social commentary. "Smallville" has episodes that touch on contemporary problems like, say, illegal immigration, but ultimately they say nothing (in the episode in question, a single child in reunited with his mother and labor abuses are stopped, but the rest of the worker-immigrants are returned without amnesty to their countries of origin with virtually no mention). "Smallville" shows Clark taking on individuals entirely in rural Kansas. Problems are localized to the Smallville/Metropolis area, and a larger global view is never presented.

"Heroes" goes global, including Japan and India, but so far the closest it's come to social commentary is that politicians shouldn't take dirty money and cheating on your wife gets you in trouble.

When Gabe and I started talking, our conversation was about apathy, not superheroes, but contemporary representations of heroics (in TV--there are still some new comics that deal with serious issues) show that same postmodern nihilism and disregard for context. Superheroes are still around, so clearly we still like the idea of "being saved" and "good vs. evil"...but who is saving us...and from what?

'Til next time.

Like Violent Video Games? Don't Move to Germany.

2006-12-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

A recent article from MSNBC reports that legislation is in the works in Bavaria and Lower Saxony to lock up creators, distributors, and even players of violent video games in the wake of a recent school shooting.

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I have serious reservations about media censorship. Germany both before and after reunification in 1989 has something of a history (though it is hardly unique) when it comes to censorship. While the official German constitution (taken from the West German constitution under post-WWII occupation) includes the right to free speech, it is subject to restrictions. Many of these restrictions, published in an index of "harmful materials" established by the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien or BPjM, are similar to American restrictions. Pornography may not be distributed to youth, and materials inciting violence or instructing people on how to commit crimes are heavily regulated. Materials provoking racial hatred are also regulated.

More notably, Germany regulates historical thought relating to its role and history in WWII strictly. The 2006 World Cup brought this regulation to the forefront of public view when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran announced his plan to attend games held in Germany (he did attend, with diplomatic immunity) and over 1000 people gathered in Nuremberg in protest.

Controversy has surrounded violent video games since their very inception; political leaders and special interest groups around the world have long sought their regulation and censorship. Germany is certainly no exception in this case, and current attempts to censor games in Germany mirror reactions in the United States after the Columbine High School shooting of 1999 where a group representing families of Columbine victims pressed charges against the creators of the video game Doom. The presiding Colorado judge dropped the case citing "social utility in expressive and imaginative forms of entertainment, even if they contain violence," but the gaming industry has long exercised a certain amount of self-censorship.

Recent studies have partially vindicated groups who claim violent video games exacerbate violent behavior. On November 28, 2006, researchers at Indiana University released a report finding that adolescents who played violent video games experienced increased emotional arousal and decreased self-control.

By the standards of the Colorado judge, the violent content and even effects of video games does not eradicate their social value. Nevertheless, many political states limit free speech when it incites violence. In my opinion, video games--even violent ones--do not intend to incite violence. Nevertheless, the Indiana U study and others like it demonstrate correlations between biological and psychological damage (not necessarily violence) and violent video games. Under Germany's "Youth Protection Law" (Jugendschutzgesetz) that seems reason enough to regulate or restrict their use, and Germany in fact already requires video games distributed within the country to be altered to limit their violent content (see the article listed in the first paragraph). But the legislation under review goes further than those restrictions to imprison players of violent video games.

The relation between violent video games and real-world violence is indirect, but it is not absent. Nevertheless, it seems absurd to imprison players on the off-chance that their game-play may cause them to commit an act of violence.

Thoughts are welcome.

The "din" of destruction

2006-12-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading this article from the NY Times about an AP report (and the clamor that followed it) claiming that six Sunni worshipers were doused in kerosene and lit on fire by a group of Shiite attackers in Iraq.

I have to admit that for all my zealous pacifism, I've had trouble following many of the news details coming out of Iraq in the past few months. This quote from the article might explain why:

“And finally, as horrible as the alleged events in Hurriyah were, caches of dumped dead bodies are turning up in neighborhoods almost weekly, car bombs rip through markets and waiting lines and the death toll for American soldiers is approaching 3,000. No one is disputing those accounts.
But then, that may be partly the point. It is important to find out if this really happened in order to separate the hyperbole from the merely horrible in Iraq, so that the horrible will still have meaning. Otherwise it will all become din.

Part of the general political apathy in our generation stems, I think, from over-saturation. I used to think that referred only to the availability (or inevitability) of news information and sources, but I think that even within single publications the amount of coverage a single issue gets is enormous, and from day-to-day, very little changes.

I think this is why I've taken to long-form news magazines like New Yorker. They save the intermediary steps by collecting and analyzing the "facts" over an extended period of time (at least a week, often more), and as a result the articles identify problems, potential solutions, themes, debates, and "sides" of the issue or events at hand accordingly. But are they better?

One of the problems with long-form journalism, or any reporting that emphasizes the analytical over the immediate "factual" is that important elements that deserve attention are often dropped if they don't support the article's overall point. About two months ago, the New Yorker printed an article on the debate over string theory in contemporary physics. For weeks to follow, letters were printed in defense of string theory and its proponents, and identifying related-but-overlooked forms of physics sectarianism.

Another potential problem is, of course, bias. All journalism has bias, but in long-form journalism it's basically a necessity. Generally, I find long-form bias less disconcerting than short-form because it's marketed as "news analysis" and not just plain "news," so readers are at least informed that there's more to a New Yorker article than "the facts." There's no disguise. It becomes a problem for me, however, when I realize that I get all of some types of my news from left-wing long-form publications. The New Yorker has a "financial page" in most issues, and it's the only place I get any kind of financial news that isn't directly related to media/culture. But sometimes, as a leftist reading a notably leftist long-form publication, I start to wonder if I'm doing myself a disservice. It's not that I don't want to hear other views, it's just that I happened to read the financial page of the New Yorker once (with no prior interest in real-world economics) and I got hooked on its bite-sized-yet-long-form style.

To return to the issue of Iraq: the war itself is in a dangerous and precarious position, politically. At this point, the Iraq more seems more a symbol than a real-life event and it's used that way by all sides. John Kerry's idiotic joke seems an example of this--Kerry seemed to forget long enough to open his mouth that soldiers are people. The political right can be equally blind, by (among other things) insisting that it is the only reason many republican congressmen and women were voted out of office in the midterms.

The plethora of angry attacks and defenses of the AP report tells me the din is already there. It's not an issue of separating truth from fiction so much as separating ideology from reality. Will any more evidence to support or to refute the kerosene incident really affect how people think about it? One side will win. My guess is the other side will just ignore the after-effects.

Antiseptic technology

2006-12-04T18:46:00.000-05:00

I'm reading Emergence by Steven Johnson right now, and it's set me thinking about how we sanitize the future. At the start of the book, Johnson talks about Jane Jacobs' theories of urban development and how neighborhoods form. But as the book progresses, he only briefly touches on demographics and associated issues of class and race. At first, I didn't think it was a problem. In fact, I barely noticed it. But as Johnson moves into what eventually starts to look like technophilia and the idealization of emergent software, some of his examples give me pause.

One of the central tenets at the heart of emergent behavior is the idea that acting locally produces global results. If enough people walking along the sidewalks of the Lower East Side interact, the sum of their interactions is a self-regulating system. What's missing from this analysis, aside from one chapter analyzing the history of how the "lower classes" have fit into theorists' understandings of emergence, is a set of social "mirror neurons"--as Johnson starts to discuss emerging emergent technologies (hee), Emergence loses a lot of its socioeconomic value and Johnson's argument gets sanitized. Johnson talks about every TV coming with TiVo (or something similar) and connecting to something like the internet to create TV "neighborhoods" based on individual and global user preferences. In the midst of this argument, he refutes the idea that TV and the internet contribute to user isolation based on the fact that the technology aids communal emergent behavior.

So what's the problem?

If you don't have money, you won't have a TiVo. The communities that could potentially form won't account for the impoverished, and entertainment will continue to alternately misrepresent, ignore, insult, and exclude the poor. While media may be tailored to certain "communities" through TiVo, the same groups who have traditionally been excluded by the top-down system of the networks will still be excluded by the bottom-up system because they won't have access to the technology required to form their own communities, and thus the impoverished (and possibly other groups, this is just the obvious one) lose what little grip they had on media solidarity.

I'm still enjoying Emergence, don't get me wrong. But I'm concerned about the blanket sanitization that today's zeitgeist chasers exhibit. Just talking about technology's potential to shape thought isn't enough. Neither new technology nor bottom-up self-organization is inherently ethical. It may be useful, but many of the social problems that were around before bottom-up technology will still exist during and after it. Focusing on the technology without moral discourse draws attention away from those problems.

Even my beloved Star Trek, which early on incorporated race, rarely explores issues of class and never concerns itself with sexual orientation. Looks to me like technology glosses over social problems rather than fixing them. Hmm.

EDIT: Here's something entertaining and mildly relevant! The blog software I use, greymatter, has quotes on just about every page you work with. In the "preview" page, this quote came up:

"The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create."—Leonard Sweet