Before I got involved in this whole architecture thing, I got a BA in psychology. Because I was drinking at the time I forget almost everything I learned. I remember some of the perceptual illusions and the stress-performance inverted U. Mostly I remember the freak cases.
Every once in a while a person will suffer a completely bizarre brain injury - and the psychologists of the world go bat shit probing and prodding them. The one I remember best was a person who had part of their brain severed in a car crash. It was still in their head (the damaged part of their brain) and still working fine but it wasn't attached to anything else. Like a computer without a modem. The particular portion of the brain that was isolated from all the rest was responsible for emotional reactions (or generating emotions or dealing with the output of the emotions part, I forget which). The point is that person effectively lost the ability to emote. He became like the perfect Vulcan.
He could still perform all the manual tasks he had mastered before the accident. And his performance on cognitive tasks wasn't much reduced. It suffered a bit because the victim didn't have any desire to solve cognitive problems and was almost impossible to motivate. The researchers would ask him to do something and either he did it (compliance as a vestigial learned behaviour) or he ignored them.
What makes the case so bizarre is the effect the injury had on the victim's life. You might imagine he'd become like Spock, a clear thinking, logical mofo. But he didn't. He lost the ability to do almost everything - including simple tasks like feeding himself - with any reliability. Think about it, how do you decide what to eat? You ask yourself what you want, or how much effort you want to put into feeding yourself. You make decisions based on priorities and those priorities are not established cognitively (as the car crash victim proved). They are established emotionally.
Mr. Car Crash Victim is a perfect example of a thing we learn that makes us so uncomfortable we all agree to pretend we never learned it. A more famous example of this is G. G. Berry's paradox - "least integer not describable
using less than nineteen syllables" - doesn't seem like a big deal but Russell ignored it when he wrote Principia Mathematica. What Mr. C. C. Victim demonstrates is humans think much less than we'd like to think we do. Most of what we do is not the result of logic, training, behavioural conditioning, or reasoning. It is motivated by emotion. "I think therefore I am" is much less accurate than "I emote therefore I am."
So what's the big deal? Why should we care about this? What difference can it possibly make?
Reflect honestly for just a few minutes on the nature of human emotions and the answer should become clear.
People say shit like, "Kids are so cruel" because the fat kid gets picked on. I'm not saying that's ok. But I will say it isn't cruel. It's mean. Kids get angry and because they don't really understand it, that anger tends to splash around a lot. If you're near an angry kid, you're going to get some of it. But it's just anger. As they get older they learn dominance and submission. That's when they flirt with cruelty. But they aren't socialized enough to react against that socialization. They are recreating what they see in the adult world - hierarchy based on power. That's the limit of their cruelty; as soon as the hierarchy is established they go back to being normal. Kids don't have hate in the pure savage way adults do. I don't know when they learn that.
Adults are savage as fuck. We all possess some element of monstrosity within us. We do all we can to ignore it, to pretend it doesn't exist but it is there. Everything awful that we can imagine in others exists in some part in you and in me.
Why focus on the most savage aspects of humanity when we are capable of great dignity and compassion? I think the reason I keep thinking about this shit lately is there is an expectation (an unbelievably naive one) that people will behave well. That we want to do the right thing and protect the environment and stop sweat shop labour and make a fairer society. I believe we do want those things (so long as they don't conflict with stronger and more immediate desires) but the expectation is dangerous. Because we also want to watch the world burn.
This is going to lead me back to zombies and vampires. I'll save that for another post.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Saturday, March 23, 2013
On Slavoj Zizek II (or is it III?)
I'm watching a video of Slavoj Zizek and Cornel West on YouTube. I don't know how it ends - Cornel hasn't had his mic time yet. Obviously I'm watching because I'm fascinated with Zizek, you know this from earlier posts. But I'm also fascinated by West. I love the way he talks. One of the items on my bucket list (yes, it's a little early for one of those but I believe in being prepared) is to have Dr. West call me "Brother". He makes it sound so great, being his brother. And I think I have a chance because he even called Newt Gingrich "Brother Newt". If you know Dr. West and he has a free minute or two (maybe next time he's on Democracy Watch) could you ask him for me? It would be great if he can slip in a shout out to Brother Sean. It doesn't have to be anything important - he might even be talking about another Sean, maybe Sean Connery or Sean Penn. I don't care. I just want to hear those three syllables before I die.
Anyway, back to the point. Zizek starts with an interesting observation about belief based, as so much of his commentary is, on a pop culture reference. The classic Marx Brothers' joke, "Sure, he acts like an idiot. He looks like an idiot. But don't let that fool you, he really is an idiot." Zizek uses this as his starting point for a discussion about religion and atheism. In Zizek's experience, most of the really big names in post-modern theory (people who are almost professional atheists) confess to a private unwillingness to actually believe there is no higher power out there. In the same way, his catholic friends were shocked when Pope Benedict was elevated to the Papacy because it was well known Cardinal Ratzinger actually believed Catholic dogma.
Professed belief, in this argument, is something that disguises a persons actual beliefs. Zizek is assuring us that while we might look and talk like idiots, we aren't really idiots.
Then some other stuff happens - not relevant for my point here.
Then Zizek moves to Capitalism. He is approaching it as a question of belief because of the illusory nature of modern capital. Zizek's claim is Capitalism functions as a religion. This is not merely to say it is an ideology. That is obvious. As a religion, it's adherents are similar to Zizek's Catholic friends; Capitalists could never believe Capitalist dogma. And Capitalism could not operate if it's own dogma was actually true. For example, the idea Capitalism is essentially meritocratic. Zizek argues (and I think he's is correct here) Capitalism would have destroyed the world long ago if could be demonstrated and known to be truly meritocratic. What makes poverty bearable, he argues, is the belief that the market is unfair. If those who do not succeed in a Capitalist system did not have clear grounds to believe that the success of others is largely the result of luck (whether in the form of contingent events or the birth lottery) they would be forced to accept they were unsuccessful because they are not smart enough, talented enough, etc. Further, they would be forced to accept those who were successful were actually better than they are. At this point, Zizek argues, the logic of envy would take over. He offers a Slovenian parable to illustrate the logic of envy: some mystical force offers a peasant farmer a deal. It will either give the peasant one cow (but give his neighbour two cows) or take one of the peasants cows (but take two of his neighbours cows). The peasant always chooses the second option.
This is an aspect of Capitalism that had never occurred to me before. It makes all the arguments about the blatant unfairness of Capitalist systems moot. Very intelligent people have spent an enormous amount of time documenting the unjustness of Capitalist, it's manifest unfairness. These are not arguments against the system but are essential to its survival.
I think these segments, seemingly disparate, come together in the figure of Zizek himself. He looks like a Communist, talks like a Communist, but don't worry, he isn't really a Communist. He is a Capitalist. And, very strangely, a Capitalist who actually believes Capitalist dogma. When his books sell, when people pay his appearance fees, as he watches his celebrity grow, it validates the belief he earned it by being smarter, more interesting, more talented.
I offer the next of Zizek's little parables as argument. A man is convinced he is not a man but a kernel of corn. He is taken to an asylum where the doctors convince him his is not, in fact, a kernel of corn but a man. He is released but immediately returns, terrified because he has seen a chicken. The doctors reassure him he is not a kernel of corn and he replies, "Of course I know that but does the chicken know it?" The point is the doctors had to argue against the man's unconscious, his chicken.
Zizek is a Communist. Everyone knows that. He looks like one, talks like one, thinks like one, argues like one, etc etc. He just happens to be doing very well. It's totally contingent tho. Just a strange aberration created by the massive unfairness of this Capitalist system. We shouldn't apply his discussion of the relationship between protests of belief and actual belief to Zizek himself. That would be unfair.
I'm going to watch the rest of the video now. I want to hear Cornel West's take on all this. I have a feeling he's just going to throw soft balls and call him Brother Slavoj - nothing against Dr. West, the discussion is happening at Princeton so he's kind of obligated to play nice.
Anyway, back to the point. Zizek starts with an interesting observation about belief based, as so much of his commentary is, on a pop culture reference. The classic Marx Brothers' joke, "Sure, he acts like an idiot. He looks like an idiot. But don't let that fool you, he really is an idiot." Zizek uses this as his starting point for a discussion about religion and atheism. In Zizek's experience, most of the really big names in post-modern theory (people who are almost professional atheists) confess to a private unwillingness to actually believe there is no higher power out there. In the same way, his catholic friends were shocked when Pope Benedict was elevated to the Papacy because it was well known Cardinal Ratzinger actually believed Catholic dogma.
Professed belief, in this argument, is something that disguises a persons actual beliefs. Zizek is assuring us that while we might look and talk like idiots, we aren't really idiots.
Then some other stuff happens - not relevant for my point here.
Then Zizek moves to Capitalism. He is approaching it as a question of belief because of the illusory nature of modern capital. Zizek's claim is Capitalism functions as a religion. This is not merely to say it is an ideology. That is obvious. As a religion, it's adherents are similar to Zizek's Catholic friends; Capitalists could never believe Capitalist dogma. And Capitalism could not operate if it's own dogma was actually true. For example, the idea Capitalism is essentially meritocratic. Zizek argues (and I think he's is correct here) Capitalism would have destroyed the world long ago if could be demonstrated and known to be truly meritocratic. What makes poverty bearable, he argues, is the belief that the market is unfair. If those who do not succeed in a Capitalist system did not have clear grounds to believe that the success of others is largely the result of luck (whether in the form of contingent events or the birth lottery) they would be forced to accept they were unsuccessful because they are not smart enough, talented enough, etc. Further, they would be forced to accept those who were successful were actually better than they are. At this point, Zizek argues, the logic of envy would take over. He offers a Slovenian parable to illustrate the logic of envy: some mystical force offers a peasant farmer a deal. It will either give the peasant one cow (but give his neighbour two cows) or take one of the peasants cows (but take two of his neighbours cows). The peasant always chooses the second option.
This is an aspect of Capitalism that had never occurred to me before. It makes all the arguments about the blatant unfairness of Capitalist systems moot. Very intelligent people have spent an enormous amount of time documenting the unjustness of Capitalist, it's manifest unfairness. These are not arguments against the system but are essential to its survival.
I think these segments, seemingly disparate, come together in the figure of Zizek himself. He looks like a Communist, talks like a Communist, but don't worry, he isn't really a Communist. He is a Capitalist. And, very strangely, a Capitalist who actually believes Capitalist dogma. When his books sell, when people pay his appearance fees, as he watches his celebrity grow, it validates the belief he earned it by being smarter, more interesting, more talented.
I offer the next of Zizek's little parables as argument. A man is convinced he is not a man but a kernel of corn. He is taken to an asylum where the doctors convince him his is not, in fact, a kernel of corn but a man. He is released but immediately returns, terrified because he has seen a chicken. The doctors reassure him he is not a kernel of corn and he replies, "Of course I know that but does the chicken know it?" The point is the doctors had to argue against the man's unconscious, his chicken.
Zizek is a Communist. Everyone knows that. He looks like one, talks like one, thinks like one, argues like one, etc etc. He just happens to be doing very well. It's totally contingent tho. Just a strange aberration created by the massive unfairness of this Capitalist system. We shouldn't apply his discussion of the relationship between protests of belief and actual belief to Zizek himself. That would be unfair.
I'm going to watch the rest of the video now. I want to hear Cornel West's take on all this. I have a feeling he's just going to throw soft balls and call him Brother Slavoj - nothing against Dr. West, the discussion is happening at Princeton so he's kind of obligated to play nice.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Why Burn Books When You Can Burn the Librarians?
This story is almost too bizarre to be true. Stephen Harper's government has created a Code of Conduct for librarians and archivists which forces them to clear all personal and (potentially) public comments with their supervisors. It also creates a snitch line so anyone who makes a personal comment that can be taken as critical of the Harper government can be identified and disciplined.
Here is an article about the new measures. To be more specific, and this adds insult to the injury, the Harper government made the LAC come up with its own Code following the Governments instructions. It's more humiliating when you have to do it to yourself.
I'd like to express my sympathy to all the librarians and archivists employed by the Canadian government. I wouldn't want to work for Stephen Harper. And if I did, even in a peripheral and disputable way (disputable since they are employed by the government of Canada as an institution not by any particular government of Canada), I would like to retain the freedom of speech guaranteed me by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to criticize him. He is an asshole. I can say it, you should be able to as well.
I'd also like to remind all the librarians and archivists -SNITCHES GET STITCHES!
First the Harper government broke up and sold off priceless pieces of Canadian history to private collectors and now it wants to read the librarians' Facebook pages. It's obscene.
This is just the latest move in Stephen Harper's drive to limit Canadian democracy. It's one that I take personally. I love books. I love libraries. And I have a thing for librarians but that's not the point. Conservative politics is always anti-intellectual, one of the reasons I think the term "Right wing think tank" is so funny. Let's take a minute to list the ways this new Code of Conduct is offensive and possibly illegal.
- The government has no right to prevent free speech, no matter who is talking.
- The government has no right to demand party loyalty from government employees. The next government might be Liberal - public employees are expected to serve regardless of party affiliation. Party affiliations and personal politics are irrelevant to job performance.
- The group affected by this Code of Conduct was created for the purpose of disseminating information. And it has been doing a very good job - from helping individuals with genealogies to talking to school kids about organizing and presenting information. No wonder the Government is afraid; who could stop a coalition of genealogists and school kids?
- The government cannot prevent anyone from entering debate in a democratic society. Debate is the basis of a democratic society.
- Picking on librarians and archivists is lame. It reveals the extent to which this government are nothing more than school yard bullies. Soldiers "owe a duty of loyalty to the government" but the Harper government isn't trying to prevent them from Tweeting, blogging, or Facebooking. Soldiers are scarier than librarians.
- What possible purpose could this Code of Conduct have that the people of Canada shouldn't be worried about? It's not like the librarians are giving away state secrets. They are educated people whose professional lives are dedicated to the preservation of culture. And yet. Harper's government is hyper-sensitive to criticism of any kind.
- A "snitch line" is despicable. This is particularly true about a government with a notoriously poor record when it comes to actual whistle blowers. If any skilled hacker(s) read this, I think it would be a wonderful idea to open the contents of the snitch line (including names and addresses of the snitches) to the public.
- The Code identifies certain activities (speaking in public and blogging for example) as "high risk". High risk to whom? In what conceivable way is a librarian talking to a grade three class "high risk"? They might get interested in book lernin and that would be terrible.
Stephen Harper is a sneaky, sweater wearing, mean spirited jack ass. I'm not going to call him a fascist but he's a fascist. Fucking with the personal lives of some of the most useful and harmless people in society is a shitty thing to do. Of course, they Government obviously thinks they are not harmless. And that makes me wonder (even more) about the Government.
I'm trying to think of a really deadly insult to end this with. I know there has got to be a real killer sentence that shows precisely how absurd and subversive this Code of Conduct is and I know someone else will think of it before me and that will make me mad. But all I can think of, the most cutting thing I can say to Prime Minister Harper is this:
Mr. Prime Minister, my mom doesn't like you.
Here is an article about the new measures. To be more specific, and this adds insult to the injury, the Harper government made the LAC come up with its own Code following the Governments instructions. It's more humiliating when you have to do it to yourself.
I'd like to express my sympathy to all the librarians and archivists employed by the Canadian government. I wouldn't want to work for Stephen Harper. And if I did, even in a peripheral and disputable way (disputable since they are employed by the government of Canada as an institution not by any particular government of Canada), I would like to retain the freedom of speech guaranteed me by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to criticize him. He is an asshole. I can say it, you should be able to as well.
I'd also like to remind all the librarians and archivists -SNITCHES GET STITCHES!
First the Harper government broke up and sold off priceless pieces of Canadian history to private collectors and now it wants to read the librarians' Facebook pages. It's obscene.
This is just the latest move in Stephen Harper's drive to limit Canadian democracy. It's one that I take personally. I love books. I love libraries. And I have a thing for librarians but that's not the point. Conservative politics is always anti-intellectual, one of the reasons I think the term "Right wing think tank" is so funny. Let's take a minute to list the ways this new Code of Conduct is offensive and possibly illegal.
- The government has no right to prevent free speech, no matter who is talking.
- The government has no right to demand party loyalty from government employees. The next government might be Liberal - public employees are expected to serve regardless of party affiliation. Party affiliations and personal politics are irrelevant to job performance.
- The group affected by this Code of Conduct was created for the purpose of disseminating information. And it has been doing a very good job - from helping individuals with genealogies to talking to school kids about organizing and presenting information. No wonder the Government is afraid; who could stop a coalition of genealogists and school kids?
- The government cannot prevent anyone from entering debate in a democratic society. Debate is the basis of a democratic society.
- Picking on librarians and archivists is lame. It reveals the extent to which this government are nothing more than school yard bullies. Soldiers "owe a duty of loyalty to the government" but the Harper government isn't trying to prevent them from Tweeting, blogging, or Facebooking. Soldiers are scarier than librarians.
- What possible purpose could this Code of Conduct have that the people of Canada shouldn't be worried about? It's not like the librarians are giving away state secrets. They are educated people whose professional lives are dedicated to the preservation of culture. And yet. Harper's government is hyper-sensitive to criticism of any kind.
- A "snitch line" is despicable. This is particularly true about a government with a notoriously poor record when it comes to actual whistle blowers. If any skilled hacker(s) read this, I think it would be a wonderful idea to open the contents of the snitch line (including names and addresses of the snitches) to the public.
- The Code identifies certain activities (speaking in public and blogging for example) as "high risk". High risk to whom? In what conceivable way is a librarian talking to a grade three class "high risk"? They might get interested in book lernin and that would be terrible.
Stephen Harper is a sneaky, sweater wearing, mean spirited jack ass. I'm not going to call him a fascist but he's a fascist. Fucking with the personal lives of some of the most useful and harmless people in society is a shitty thing to do. Of course, they Government obviously thinks they are not harmless. And that makes me wonder (even more) about the Government.
I'm trying to think of a really deadly insult to end this with. I know there has got to be a real killer sentence that shows precisely how absurd and subversive this Code of Conduct is and I know someone else will think of it before me and that will make me mad. But all I can think of, the most cutting thing I can say to Prime Minister Harper is this:
Mr. Prime Minister, my mom doesn't like you.
On Don DeLillo
First, according to my best information his name is pronounced (duh-LEE-lo). Let me check the internets and see if I can get a 100% positive on that. Wait patiently please, I'll be right back. Sorry, according to a 1997 radio interview, it's pronounced (duh LIL oh).
In a recent post about how to fix the massive up-fucks architects are prone to when writing, I encouraged everyone to avoid poetry as if it was a mental image of your parents having sex. That's how awful the prospect of poetry should be to you. Unless you are Don DeLillo. If you are him it is a big part of what you do.
I read of book of collected interviews with DeLillo. That's how big a fan I am. It was a scholarly treatise on DeLillo's writing process and other amazingly boring topics. I wanted, I suppose, to hear him speak. Or, better put, to find out if he speaks and writes with the same voice. The answer is sort of. He describes the joy of his work as trying to make words do what they can. And in interviews you can almost hear him struggling to speak with the same uncanny precision with which he writes.
I started reading DeLillo because so many people I trusted had such a high opinion of White Noise. Then I went on to Underworld, back to Libra, and then just decided I would read everything he wrote. There are themes and motifs that recur in DeLillo's work - the desert, pop culture, the hidden processes behind the world we see. I'm not going to write about those because you can find, with very little effort, much better than I would be capable of producing. I'm going to offer a simple warning from my own experience.
There are some writers best left alone when your world lacks solidity. DeLillo is definitely one. Murakami is another. If you are in the middle of a major change - getting married or divorced, changing jobs, moving to another city - leave DeLillo on the shelf. His relentless picking at the assumptions which keep the world a safe place to live, his investigation and inhabitation of the in-between spaces is dangerous and unwelcome when your own life begins to lose coherency. I never try DeLillo when my circumstances are uncertain. It's too risky. He is, however, a very great author.
I am tempted to think this warning is some measure of his greatness. His ability to unnerve is unbearable in those already partially unnerved. That is a tribute. I don't fear any author as much as I fear Don DeLillo. And I can't think of any author who is as good in both the large and small - where the large is all that the book contains and the small is the magic of the language, the craft of each sentence.
If you haven't read anything by him, I suggest Pafko at the Wall if you can get it in a first edition. Not just because it is fantastic and fully demonstrates what DeLillo can do when he puts his back into it, but also because it is almost impossible to find any of his other works in first editions - and when you do they are prohibitively expensive.
In a recent post about how to fix the massive up-fucks architects are prone to when writing, I encouraged everyone to avoid poetry as if it was a mental image of your parents having sex. That's how awful the prospect of poetry should be to you. Unless you are Don DeLillo. If you are him it is a big part of what you do.
I read of book of collected interviews with DeLillo. That's how big a fan I am. It was a scholarly treatise on DeLillo's writing process and other amazingly boring topics. I wanted, I suppose, to hear him speak. Or, better put, to find out if he speaks and writes with the same voice. The answer is sort of. He describes the joy of his work as trying to make words do what they can. And in interviews you can almost hear him struggling to speak with the same uncanny precision with which he writes.
I started reading DeLillo because so many people I trusted had such a high opinion of White Noise. Then I went on to Underworld, back to Libra, and then just decided I would read everything he wrote. There are themes and motifs that recur in DeLillo's work - the desert, pop culture, the hidden processes behind the world we see. I'm not going to write about those because you can find, with very little effort, much better than I would be capable of producing. I'm going to offer a simple warning from my own experience.
There are some writers best left alone when your world lacks solidity. DeLillo is definitely one. Murakami is another. If you are in the middle of a major change - getting married or divorced, changing jobs, moving to another city - leave DeLillo on the shelf. His relentless picking at the assumptions which keep the world a safe place to live, his investigation and inhabitation of the in-between spaces is dangerous and unwelcome when your own life begins to lose coherency. I never try DeLillo when my circumstances are uncertain. It's too risky. He is, however, a very great author.
I am tempted to think this warning is some measure of his greatness. His ability to unnerve is unbearable in those already partially unnerved. That is a tribute. I don't fear any author as much as I fear Don DeLillo. And I can't think of any author who is as good in both the large and small - where the large is all that the book contains and the small is the magic of the language, the craft of each sentence.
If you haven't read anything by him, I suggest Pafko at the Wall if you can get it in a first edition. Not just because it is fantastic and fully demonstrates what DeLillo can do when he puts his back into it, but also because it is almost impossible to find any of his other works in first editions - and when you do they are prohibitively expensive.
On Santa Claus
I don't know if I covered this before. I get confused by writing things I don't publish. I could easily check by reading my previous posts but I'm not in the mood.
I got on the topic of consensual fiction in the last post about Wall Street and the financial system. I want to plump the topic a little more. Perhaps the best example of consensual fictions I have heard was from the always entertaining Slavoj Zizek.
In Zizek's example, you ask a parent if he or she believes in Santa Claus. They say, "Of course not! I'm not crazy." But they write "From Santa" on the presents they bought themselves. You ask a kid if he or she believes in Santa. They say, "Of course not! I'm not an idiot." But they pretend to believe because the parents are pretending to believe. This isn't just an interesting illustration of family dynamics, it is an example of belief as a agent - independent of those who claim to believe (or not).
Zizek's other example is the scientist Niels Bohr. He hung a horse shoe over the door of his cottage. When a friend asked how he, as a scientist, could actually believe in the efficacy of a lucky charm Bohr replied, "I don't. But I'm told it works even if you don't believe."
Again, belief is an independent agent. I should explain what I mean by agent. An agent is someone or something capable of action. It changes events and / or creates change in the world. You are an agent. The limits of your agency are the limits of your ability to create change - or resist it. Agency also works in the negative. If the world was about to change and you stopped it, that's agency too. If we evaluate belief as an agent, the most illustrative example is religion. Easy to see the changes religion has caused.
Belief is one of the factors of our daily lives so present, so constant it is very hard for us to see clearly. We behave how we believe others expect us to behave. We don't have to believe that is the right way to behave, or how we want to behave. It is enough for us to believe that is what is expected. But we don't know, do we? We only believe. And we are behaving in what we think is an expected way while the others we are around are behaving in the we they believe we believe they should behave. And everyone is judging everyone else based on beliefs no one might actually believe. It makes as much sense as Santa Claus but it is what we do.
I consider the financial system with all its intricate and archaic religiosity the most pernicious aspect of this kind of belief. There are many others. Every aspect of your life is filled with things that, to reuse Bohr's words "work even if you don't believe."
I got on the topic of consensual fiction in the last post about Wall Street and the financial system. I want to plump the topic a little more. Perhaps the best example of consensual fictions I have heard was from the always entertaining Slavoj Zizek.
In Zizek's example, you ask a parent if he or she believes in Santa Claus. They say, "Of course not! I'm not crazy." But they write "From Santa" on the presents they bought themselves. You ask a kid if he or she believes in Santa. They say, "Of course not! I'm not an idiot." But they pretend to believe because the parents are pretending to believe. This isn't just an interesting illustration of family dynamics, it is an example of belief as a agent - independent of those who claim to believe (or not).
Zizek's other example is the scientist Niels Bohr. He hung a horse shoe over the door of his cottage. When a friend asked how he, as a scientist, could actually believe in the efficacy of a lucky charm Bohr replied, "I don't. But I'm told it works even if you don't believe."
Again, belief is an independent agent. I should explain what I mean by agent. An agent is someone or something capable of action. It changes events and / or creates change in the world. You are an agent. The limits of your agency are the limits of your ability to create change - or resist it. Agency also works in the negative. If the world was about to change and you stopped it, that's agency too. If we evaluate belief as an agent, the most illustrative example is religion. Easy to see the changes religion has caused.
Belief is one of the factors of our daily lives so present, so constant it is very hard for us to see clearly. We behave how we believe others expect us to behave. We don't have to believe that is the right way to behave, or how we want to behave. It is enough for us to believe that is what is expected. But we don't know, do we? We only believe. And we are behaving in what we think is an expected way while the others we are around are behaving in the we they believe we believe they should behave. And everyone is judging everyone else based on beliefs no one might actually believe. It makes as much sense as Santa Claus but it is what we do.
I consider the financial system with all its intricate and archaic religiosity the most pernicious aspect of this kind of belief. There are many others. Every aspect of your life is filled with things that, to reuse Bohr's words "work even if you don't believe."
Prosecuting Wall Street
Here is a documentary by PBS's Frontline about the failure of the Department of Justice to prosecute Wall Street executives in the wake of the 2007 financial catastrophe. The best bits are at the end but if you aren't up on the material, watch the whole thing.
The conclusion, stated by the DOJs frontman in this fight, is the DOJ didn't prosecute because of concerns about a "ripple effect" in the banking system. When I first watched it I thought about a prosecutor failing to press charges against a rapist because of concern for the rapist's family. Yes, they probably would feel bad. And there would be a "ripple effect" - their neighbours would be less friendly, etc. Yet rapists occasionally get prosecuted.
Here's what is actually happening. There is a massive concern in Washington, New York, and around the world that if Big Money is prosecuted the result will be a downturn, a deepening of the Great Recession. That big number, the US GNP, keeps spinning in these peoples' minds. It's totally imaginary, it doesn't mean anything but it freaks people out.
There is a reason you here "The economy grew by 0.3% last quarter" or some such nonsense when you turn on your television or your radio. It's an indication of the stability of the consensual fiction we all take part in. We agree to believe these numbers are important, we continue to allow criminal activity by many people to make the number grow based on the belief that so long as it continues growing things will be better for us. It's complete bullshit but it is very complicated bullshit because we all agree to believe it.
Our financial system is an intricate fiction. It only works because we continue to believe in it. Stop believing and it all falls apart. You can see this at the most basic element of our financial fiction - money. Not the statistical money financial reporters are so concerned with but real money, the kind you have in your pocket.
Money is worth something because we agree it is. If we stop believing it has value, if even a small percentage of people start to doubt money will "work" then it will stop working. It's a consensual fiction.
The same is true of the entire financial system. The economy for "fictional vehicles", products you can buy and sell that represent precisely nothing in the real world (the price of wheat in 2015 for example) is ten times the economy of real things that exist in the world. It works because we believe and that's the only reason.
But I call bullshit. If the top executives of all the Wall Street institutions were dragged off in chains tomorrow, you know what would happen? Nothing. They would be replaced. The guy below them on the ladder would be the one holding the doors open for the cops. He would love to slap those chains on himself. If the chairman of Goldman Sachs was put up against a wall and shot, the result would be a collective exhalation of (what, satisfaction? blood lust?) from most of the population and his replacement would be sitting pretty in his office before the corpse was cold.
I'm not advocating shooting the Chairman of Goldman - I think that lets the rest of them off too easy.
There is also an ideological component to this - aside from the ideological belief in our financial system which, being imaginary, requires ideology - and that is the fear investigations and prosecutions might lead to government regulation. The PBS documentary shows how an independent film maker was able to find more evidence of criminal activity on Wall Street in his spare time than the DOJ was able to with the backing and authority of the entire US government. I think this is because the independent film maker wants to be an independent film maker - sure he's like to be richer and more famous but he is doing what he hopes to continue doing. The lawyers at DOJ are in a very serious competition for positions at firms that pay 10 or 15 times what the DOJ does. And those firms work for Wall Street banks.
So, in essence, the rapist's father is the owner of the biggest law firm in the world and that's the "ripple effect" the prosecutor is worried about. As Leonard Cohen tells us, "Everybody knows the fight is fixed. The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. That's how it goes and everybody knows."
The conclusion, stated by the DOJs frontman in this fight, is the DOJ didn't prosecute because of concerns about a "ripple effect" in the banking system. When I first watched it I thought about a prosecutor failing to press charges against a rapist because of concern for the rapist's family. Yes, they probably would feel bad. And there would be a "ripple effect" - their neighbours would be less friendly, etc. Yet rapists occasionally get prosecuted.
Here's what is actually happening. There is a massive concern in Washington, New York, and around the world that if Big Money is prosecuted the result will be a downturn, a deepening of the Great Recession. That big number, the US GNP, keeps spinning in these peoples' minds. It's totally imaginary, it doesn't mean anything but it freaks people out.
There is a reason you here "The economy grew by 0.3% last quarter" or some such nonsense when you turn on your television or your radio. It's an indication of the stability of the consensual fiction we all take part in. We agree to believe these numbers are important, we continue to allow criminal activity by many people to make the number grow based on the belief that so long as it continues growing things will be better for us. It's complete bullshit but it is very complicated bullshit because we all agree to believe it.
Our financial system is an intricate fiction. It only works because we continue to believe in it. Stop believing and it all falls apart. You can see this at the most basic element of our financial fiction - money. Not the statistical money financial reporters are so concerned with but real money, the kind you have in your pocket.
Money is worth something because we agree it is. If we stop believing it has value, if even a small percentage of people start to doubt money will "work" then it will stop working. It's a consensual fiction.
The same is true of the entire financial system. The economy for "fictional vehicles", products you can buy and sell that represent precisely nothing in the real world (the price of wheat in 2015 for example) is ten times the economy of real things that exist in the world. It works because we believe and that's the only reason.
But I call bullshit. If the top executives of all the Wall Street institutions were dragged off in chains tomorrow, you know what would happen? Nothing. They would be replaced. The guy below them on the ladder would be the one holding the doors open for the cops. He would love to slap those chains on himself. If the chairman of Goldman Sachs was put up against a wall and shot, the result would be a collective exhalation of (what, satisfaction? blood lust?) from most of the population and his replacement would be sitting pretty in his office before the corpse was cold.
I'm not advocating shooting the Chairman of Goldman - I think that lets the rest of them off too easy.
There is also an ideological component to this - aside from the ideological belief in our financial system which, being imaginary, requires ideology - and that is the fear investigations and prosecutions might lead to government regulation. The PBS documentary shows how an independent film maker was able to find more evidence of criminal activity on Wall Street in his spare time than the DOJ was able to with the backing and authority of the entire US government. I think this is because the independent film maker wants to be an independent film maker - sure he's like to be richer and more famous but he is doing what he hopes to continue doing. The lawyers at DOJ are in a very serious competition for positions at firms that pay 10 or 15 times what the DOJ does. And those firms work for Wall Street banks.
So, in essence, the rapist's father is the owner of the biggest law firm in the world and that's the "ripple effect" the prosecutor is worried about. As Leonard Cohen tells us, "Everybody knows the fight is fixed. The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. That's how it goes and everybody knows."
Monday, March 18, 2013
The Public Intellectual
I have a problem with YouTube. I watch it all the time. Two things that caught my attention as I was watching today. One, Janeane Garofalo is sexy as hell even with all her faux-prison style tattoos. She is smart and articulate and seems to have spent a good deal of the time since 1994's Reality Bites reading about politics. Ok that was unkind. She was very good on The West Wing. Two, most of the serious debate you can find on the internet on subjects like America's involvement in Iraq is comedians and celebrities talking. Here for example is David Letterman getting seriously pissed at Bill O'Reilly.
This is a surreal aspect of celebrity culture; even the most important events of the day, some of the most important events of our lifetime, are only relevant when discussed by celebrities. O'Reilly and his loathsome ilk are celebrities created specifically for this kind of commentary. Why, one might reasonably ask, is anyone like O'Reilly necessary when we have universities filled with people who study these issues professionally.
Being on tv isn't as easy as it looks. There is a knack to appearing as if you were not on camera that only a few people have. Anyone without this strange (and useless for 99.999% of our life as a species) talent is not much fun to watch. And yet, when we are discussing spending billions of tax dollars or killing tens of thousands of people we ought rise above our irritation at such limitations.
O'Reilly and the rest of Fox are partisan hacks. As are the less successful, but equally annoying, hacks at MSNBC - I make an exception for Rachel Maddow, not because she isn't a partisan but because I think she is hot. Yes, I have strange tastes.
Celebrity commentators don't know very much. The limit of their ability to comment is set by the information they possess and they just don't have it. This is what allows the phenomenon Stephen Colbert coined "truthiness", when something feels true regardless of the factual record. It allows commentators to make up facts, just pull them out of their ass. To stick with O'Reilly, the infamous statement no bankers had been arrested after the 2007 crash because no crimes had been committed come to mind.
Limiting debate is seen as necessary because the audience is seen as stupid. This is self-stroking. So long as the audience as treated to entertainment requiring no intelligence, there is no need for the audience to become critical thinkers. Raise the bar and the audience will raise itself.
Until then Noam Chomsky is stuck on PBS and Matt Taibbi will remain the closest thing we have to a public intellectual.
This is a surreal aspect of celebrity culture; even the most important events of the day, some of the most important events of our lifetime, are only relevant when discussed by celebrities. O'Reilly and his loathsome ilk are celebrities created specifically for this kind of commentary. Why, one might reasonably ask, is anyone like O'Reilly necessary when we have universities filled with people who study these issues professionally.
Being on tv isn't as easy as it looks. There is a knack to appearing as if you were not on camera that only a few people have. Anyone without this strange (and useless for 99.999% of our life as a species) talent is not much fun to watch. And yet, when we are discussing spending billions of tax dollars or killing tens of thousands of people we ought rise above our irritation at such limitations.
O'Reilly and the rest of Fox are partisan hacks. As are the less successful, but equally annoying, hacks at MSNBC - I make an exception for Rachel Maddow, not because she isn't a partisan but because I think she is hot. Yes, I have strange tastes.
Celebrity commentators don't know very much. The limit of their ability to comment is set by the information they possess and they just don't have it. This is what allows the phenomenon Stephen Colbert coined "truthiness", when something feels true regardless of the factual record. It allows commentators to make up facts, just pull them out of their ass. To stick with O'Reilly, the infamous statement no bankers had been arrested after the 2007 crash because no crimes had been committed come to mind.
Limiting debate is seen as necessary because the audience is seen as stupid. This is self-stroking. So long as the audience as treated to entertainment requiring no intelligence, there is no need for the audience to become critical thinkers. Raise the bar and the audience will raise itself.
Until then Noam Chomsky is stuck on PBS and Matt Taibbi will remain the closest thing we have to a public intellectual.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)