Seth Godin is a perfect exemplar of how capitalism sells its collapse as a great opportunity for workers to strike it rich. Why resist or revise a corrupt system when you can "disrupt" it.
He is fond of detailing the death of traditional structures, be they in media, manufacturing, or whatever else. The traditional employer-employee relationship is gone--you can't look to any kind of institutional framework to support you as you attempt to raise a family, buy a home, and save for college.
Now, because of new, smart technologies, workers can be entrepreneurs. Before, in the bad old days when there were stable structures that could help writers have careers, you had to gain entry to a publishing house to sell your book. Now if you want to write a book, self-publish! Before, if you wanted to have a singing career, you needed to be accepted by a label--now you can just record a song on your phone and put it on SoundCloud! So much better, OMG!
This doubling down on capitalist individualism, in the face of the collapse of capitalism caused by an excessively individualistic outlook, is of course absurd. The cure for the evils of capitalism is not a new breed of hypercapitalist, hyper-individualism. It is socialism.
Capital is lucky to have a spokesman like Godin, who can persuade huge numbers of people that the collapse of the capitalist system is just an opportunity to take advantage of the changing structures. Exploit the crisis of capitalism for your own individual gain. That is the only kind of change that makes sense to sophists like Godin.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Monday, June 8, 2015
Fake Jobs, Long-Term Unemployment, and the Future
Today in unprecedentedly dire signs that the world economy is in a permanent post-employment phase comes a story from the New York Times about Potemkin companies.
That's right, there are over one hundred totally fake companies in France designed to give the long-term unemployed (or long-term underemployed) confidence and skills training in administrative and other office positions. There are literally over one hundred companies that do not make or sell anything, or conduct any actual business in the economy, but have lots of desperate people come in to play-act at having a job.
These are mainly administrative, coordinator, and data entry jobs that will be almost entirely automated within about the next decade and a half. We're creating fake companies to provide fake jobs to people, because those jobs are so scarce and valuable and to get one you need to be ready to do impeccable work because there are thousands of people desperate to take even the crappiest office job, and these jobs won't even exist in a few years.
The article is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how the Times, in true Times fashion, reports the story as if the rise of fake companies designed to give the millions of permanently unemployed/underemployed some kind of daily dignity is a vaguely quirky, interesting, positive thing, rather than the clear death knell of our traditional economic reality.
This trend of Potemkin companies is also mostly presented in the article as an odd tick of those whacky Europeans, saddled with the irresponsible and damaging economies of Greece and other southern nations of the Eurozone. It is made clear that such a thing won't catch on in the prosperous United States, since our long-term unemployment situation is much rosier than Europe's: "By contrast, the share of the long-term unemployed in the United States — defined as people looking for work for at least six months — is falling as a recovery takes hold. Last year it was 31.6 percent, down from a record 45.1 percent in 2010, according to the Labor Department. The share of those unemployed for a year or more was 22.6 percent in 2014."
Of course, since this is the New York Times, the actual direness of the economic situation cannot be even hinted at. The reason, the obvious, clear reason, that the long-term unemployment number in the U.S. has been "dropping" steadily since its record high is that you only count as part of the long-term unemployed if you are eligible for unemployment benefits, meaning that you are actively seeking employment. The prospect of finding a job, any job, let alone that rarest thing, a full time career type of job with wild, exotic things fit for only the luckiest dukes and lords of the land, like health and dental benefits, are so bleak that millions have dropped out of the labor force entirely.
The long-term unemployed are the most likely, the next in line, to just drop out of the labor force altogether--it's one rung up from totally giving up and checking out. People in this group are face to face with the hopeless reality that these wealthy economists and journalists write about so blithely. So as the official long-term unemployed numbers in this country "drop," this is not a sign of some sort of phantom recovery--which should be obvious seeing as how a recovery shouldn't be jobless! The drop in long-term unemployment is simply the byproduct of the labor force participation rate shrinking.
These brilliant status quo economists and journalists will keep telling us how great our economic recovery has been, as millions more keep giving up participating in the economy entirely. It's unclear how monstrously high the real unemployment rate has to get before the well-paid, highly educated, comfortable mainstream economists and journalists begin to acknowledge the reality staring everyone right in the face. If you factor in underemployment with the official unemployment rate, you get something close to 12.6%, and add that to the 37% of the population not participating in the labor force at all, you're right about at 50% of the total population.
It will be interesting to see how much higher than 50% we can go before the reality of the post-employment economy, and the need for a universal basic income, are acknowledged.
There is some cause for hope to be found in this despicable article about this disgusting practice of creating fake office environments for sad human beings to salvage some sort of self-respect.
It signals how this way of doing things must be close to its end. First and foremost, it shows how completely out of ideas we are for what makes a human life valuable and worthwhile. We have all leaned on the idea that work is what gives a life meaning and value, that when the need for work has so clearly and beyond all dispute dried up, we create fake work environments for people.
How insane is that? Are we really so unimaginative as a species that we are creating living museums of a crumbled socioeconomic system for people to while away their lives in? Can we really think of nothing else that a human being might do? If this isn't the tipping point of the absurdity of our situation, I don't know what will be.
That's right, there are over one hundred totally fake companies in France designed to give the long-term unemployed (or long-term underemployed) confidence and skills training in administrative and other office positions. There are literally over one hundred companies that do not make or sell anything, or conduct any actual business in the economy, but have lots of desperate people come in to play-act at having a job.
These are mainly administrative, coordinator, and data entry jobs that will be almost entirely automated within about the next decade and a half. We're creating fake companies to provide fake jobs to people, because those jobs are so scarce and valuable and to get one you need to be ready to do impeccable work because there are thousands of people desperate to take even the crappiest office job, and these jobs won't even exist in a few years.
The article is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how the Times, in true Times fashion, reports the story as if the rise of fake companies designed to give the millions of permanently unemployed/underemployed some kind of daily dignity is a vaguely quirky, interesting, positive thing, rather than the clear death knell of our traditional economic reality.
This trend of Potemkin companies is also mostly presented in the article as an odd tick of those whacky Europeans, saddled with the irresponsible and damaging economies of Greece and other southern nations of the Eurozone. It is made clear that such a thing won't catch on in the prosperous United States, since our long-term unemployment situation is much rosier than Europe's: "By contrast, the share of the long-term unemployed in the United States — defined as people looking for work for at least six months — is falling as a recovery takes hold. Last year it was 31.6 percent, down from a record 45.1 percent in 2010, according to the Labor Department. The share of those unemployed for a year or more was 22.6 percent in 2014."
Of course, since this is the New York Times, the actual direness of the economic situation cannot be even hinted at. The reason, the obvious, clear reason, that the long-term unemployment number in the U.S. has been "dropping" steadily since its record high is that you only count as part of the long-term unemployed if you are eligible for unemployment benefits, meaning that you are actively seeking employment. The prospect of finding a job, any job, let alone that rarest thing, a full time career type of job with wild, exotic things fit for only the luckiest dukes and lords of the land, like health and dental benefits, are so bleak that millions have dropped out of the labor force entirely.
The long-term unemployed are the most likely, the next in line, to just drop out of the labor force altogether--it's one rung up from totally giving up and checking out. People in this group are face to face with the hopeless reality that these wealthy economists and journalists write about so blithely. So as the official long-term unemployed numbers in this country "drop," this is not a sign of some sort of phantom recovery--which should be obvious seeing as how a recovery shouldn't be jobless! The drop in long-term unemployment is simply the byproduct of the labor force participation rate shrinking.
These brilliant status quo economists and journalists will keep telling us how great our economic recovery has been, as millions more keep giving up participating in the economy entirely. It's unclear how monstrously high the real unemployment rate has to get before the well-paid, highly educated, comfortable mainstream economists and journalists begin to acknowledge the reality staring everyone right in the face. If you factor in underemployment with the official unemployment rate, you get something close to 12.6%, and add that to the 37% of the population not participating in the labor force at all, you're right about at 50% of the total population.
It will be interesting to see how much higher than 50% we can go before the reality of the post-employment economy, and the need for a universal basic income, are acknowledged.
There is some cause for hope to be found in this despicable article about this disgusting practice of creating fake office environments for sad human beings to salvage some sort of self-respect.
It signals how this way of doing things must be close to its end. First and foremost, it shows how completely out of ideas we are for what makes a human life valuable and worthwhile. We have all leaned on the idea that work is what gives a life meaning and value, that when the need for work has so clearly and beyond all dispute dried up, we create fake work environments for people.
How insane is that? Are we really so unimaginative as a species that we are creating living museums of a crumbled socioeconomic system for people to while away their lives in? Can we really think of nothing else that a human being might do? If this isn't the tipping point of the absurdity of our situation, I don't know what will be.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Brooklyn Botanic Garden: A Review
If you live anywhere near the 2/3 line in Brooklyn and don't have a membership to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, you should probably consider reevaluating things.
If you are over, say, 23 years old and have developed a moderate sensitivity to the most pressing type of pollution in New York City--noise pollution--you will immediately love the place for being an outdoor oasis where noise is drastically reduced. Sure, Prospect Park is right next to the Garden, but if you go to parks to sit peacefully to think or read, moments that approach actual quiet are far too fleeting in Prospect Park.
Individual admission to the BBG is $12, and yearly membership is $50, so it's one of the best deals in a city with precious few of them. It pays for itself in about four visits. The quiet alone is well worth the price, but the plants, ponds, turtles, fish and birds are impressive too.
There are some issues though, of course, since this is New York City and no experience can be totally free of jarring unpleasantness. Since the entire world is just an open playground for obnoxious children to run and scream in now, and adults have no place in the world, the BBG is of course rife with screaming, running children. This is just the cost of living in New York.
Most days the child groups are tolerably sparse, but some days seemingly every school in Brooklyn has taken a field trip to the BBG. If you visit and this seems to be the case, you're better off just leaving entirely and trying your luck a different day.
A seemingly more controllable issue is the noise generated by the nearly constant lawn and plant maintenance by the dozens upon dozens of staff. Between the hordes of screaming children and the menacing industrial roar of mowers and trimmers, moments of actual quiet are fleeting--not as fleeting as in a public park, but so much so that it is all but impossible to sit outside and think without being interrupted for any meaningful stretch of time.
This need not be the case. There are plenty of products available for even domestic use that operate close to noiselessly. The maintenance equipment used by the industrious staff at the BBG seemingly haven't been updated in decades--they rival the overhead airplanes in noise pollution.
A final issue is the striking disjunction in energies between tourists and members. Tourists, often in somewhat large groups, rush through the place crunching their maps, talking loudly, and generally storming around. They paid $12 a pop to get in, so they are damn well going to march around to every crevice of the place to pose for cell phone pictures in front of every moderately intriguing item. They are damn well going to treat it like an open air museum in which they have vowed to extract every last ounce of gawking value, rather than a serene, green outdoor space where moments of sanity-nurturing quiet may be greedily horded.
Not to sound like an elitist, but there should be a members only space to the BBG, where people who come multiple times a week for the peace it provides can retreat. The difference in energy between people who are treating it like a purchase they want to extract maximal value from, and people who treat it like a home away from home, is simply too stark to be permitted.
The BBG has all the makings of a truly invaluable oasis in an evil city lousy with noise pollution, but it fails in a variety of ways to make good on its tantalizing promise.
If you are over, say, 23 years old and have developed a moderate sensitivity to the most pressing type of pollution in New York City--noise pollution--you will immediately love the place for being an outdoor oasis where noise is drastically reduced. Sure, Prospect Park is right next to the Garden, but if you go to parks to sit peacefully to think or read, moments that approach actual quiet are far too fleeting in Prospect Park.
Individual admission to the BBG is $12, and yearly membership is $50, so it's one of the best deals in a city with precious few of them. It pays for itself in about four visits. The quiet alone is well worth the price, but the plants, ponds, turtles, fish and birds are impressive too.
There are some issues though, of course, since this is New York City and no experience can be totally free of jarring unpleasantness. Since the entire world is just an open playground for obnoxious children to run and scream in now, and adults have no place in the world, the BBG is of course rife with screaming, running children. This is just the cost of living in New York.
Most days the child groups are tolerably sparse, but some days seemingly every school in Brooklyn has taken a field trip to the BBG. If you visit and this seems to be the case, you're better off just leaving entirely and trying your luck a different day.
A seemingly more controllable issue is the noise generated by the nearly constant lawn and plant maintenance by the dozens upon dozens of staff. Between the hordes of screaming children and the menacing industrial roar of mowers and trimmers, moments of actual quiet are fleeting--not as fleeting as in a public park, but so much so that it is all but impossible to sit outside and think without being interrupted for any meaningful stretch of time.
This need not be the case. There are plenty of products available for even domestic use that operate close to noiselessly. The maintenance equipment used by the industrious staff at the BBG seemingly haven't been updated in decades--they rival the overhead airplanes in noise pollution.
A final issue is the striking disjunction in energies between tourists and members. Tourists, often in somewhat large groups, rush through the place crunching their maps, talking loudly, and generally storming around. They paid $12 a pop to get in, so they are damn well going to march around to every crevice of the place to pose for cell phone pictures in front of every moderately intriguing item. They are damn well going to treat it like an open air museum in which they have vowed to extract every last ounce of gawking value, rather than a serene, green outdoor space where moments of sanity-nurturing quiet may be greedily horded.
Not to sound like an elitist, but there should be a members only space to the BBG, where people who come multiple times a week for the peace it provides can retreat. The difference in energy between people who are treating it like a purchase they want to extract maximal value from, and people who treat it like a home away from home, is simply too stark to be permitted.
The BBG has all the makings of a truly invaluable oasis in an evil city lousy with noise pollution, but it fails in a variety of ways to make good on its tantalizing promise.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
What the Fight for $15 Campaign Means
It looks like the once seemingly quixotic campaign for fast food workers to get something close to $15 per hour will continue to pick up steam, and maybe even be successful. Since this is America, and this story is about allowing more people to live better lives, there is a whole lot of opposition to it of course.
Opponents of the "Fight for $15" movement claim that such jobs are meant to be temporary shelters for people who are trying to find their way into more respectable, gainful employment. Such conservative opponents argue that fast food jobs should not be legitimized as a decent, permanent occupation by paying living wages--they think these workers should suffer and scrape by so that they will be properly motivated to win access to better jobs.
What these conservative opponents fail to realize is that those "better jobs" don't exist anymore, and they haven't for some time now. As it becomes increasingly impossible to secure any employment at all, regardless of training and educational background, fast food jobs represent a life raft to millions who would otherwise be penniless.
Opponents of this campaign are stuck in the mindset of forty years ago, when anyone with half a brain and moderate ambition could make enough money to buy a house, a car, and send three kids to college, all on a single income too. In the past, you really did have to be somewhat lazy to be among the long-term unemployed. Now, you have to be highly trained, highly skilled, highly intelligent, superhumanly persistent and incredibly lucky just to scrape by.
The new reality is that working at a fast food joint is the best that the majority of graduates from even moderately good high schools can hope for. Even colleges too. The average age of a fast food worker today is 25. It's no longer a summer job for students or for ex-cons or recovering drug addicts trying to reintegrate into society. There's no stable society capable of absorbing these people. The support system has become the system.
What was once considered a safety net for marginal characters is now an irreplaceable resource for millions of people with families trying to be decent citizens. They have little to no hope of clawing out anything better.
Of course, giving fast food workers a decent hourly wage is a temporary Band-Aid on the festering, mortal wound of automated corporate capitalism. Machines are already nearing the market that can obviate fast food workers entirely.
Making fast food jobs into decent middle class jobs is no way to build a sustainable middle class of people with sufficient purchasing power to drive a robust market economy for generations. It is rather a way to incentivize capitalists to double down on automation as rapidly as possible, to remove labor from the equation entirely.
The solution is so obvious and sensible that it will of course meet with immense challenges before being accepted. Every citizen must be guaranteed a minimum, basic level of annual income by the government. This solution requires fostering a genuine, vivid appreciation for the human spirit and mind, reconfiguring our attitude towards fellow citizens from one of constant annoyance to something approaching fraternity and empathy. It requires finding value in human beings beyond their work output. It means divorcing the concept of an income from the concept of working. It means rediscovering what humans are really worth, beyond their productive capacity.
Opponents of the "Fight for $15" movement claim that such jobs are meant to be temporary shelters for people who are trying to find their way into more respectable, gainful employment. Such conservative opponents argue that fast food jobs should not be legitimized as a decent, permanent occupation by paying living wages--they think these workers should suffer and scrape by so that they will be properly motivated to win access to better jobs.
What these conservative opponents fail to realize is that those "better jobs" don't exist anymore, and they haven't for some time now. As it becomes increasingly impossible to secure any employment at all, regardless of training and educational background, fast food jobs represent a life raft to millions who would otherwise be penniless.
Opponents of this campaign are stuck in the mindset of forty years ago, when anyone with half a brain and moderate ambition could make enough money to buy a house, a car, and send three kids to college, all on a single income too. In the past, you really did have to be somewhat lazy to be among the long-term unemployed. Now, you have to be highly trained, highly skilled, highly intelligent, superhumanly persistent and incredibly lucky just to scrape by.
The new reality is that working at a fast food joint is the best that the majority of graduates from even moderately good high schools can hope for. Even colleges too. The average age of a fast food worker today is 25. It's no longer a summer job for students or for ex-cons or recovering drug addicts trying to reintegrate into society. There's no stable society capable of absorbing these people. The support system has become the system.
What was once considered a safety net for marginal characters is now an irreplaceable resource for millions of people with families trying to be decent citizens. They have little to no hope of clawing out anything better.
Of course, giving fast food workers a decent hourly wage is a temporary Band-Aid on the festering, mortal wound of automated corporate capitalism. Machines are already nearing the market that can obviate fast food workers entirely.
Making fast food jobs into decent middle class jobs is no way to build a sustainable middle class of people with sufficient purchasing power to drive a robust market economy for generations. It is rather a way to incentivize capitalists to double down on automation as rapidly as possible, to remove labor from the equation entirely.
The solution is so obvious and sensible that it will of course meet with immense challenges before being accepted. Every citizen must be guaranteed a minimum, basic level of annual income by the government. This solution requires fostering a genuine, vivid appreciation for the human spirit and mind, reconfiguring our attitude towards fellow citizens from one of constant annoyance to something approaching fraternity and empathy. It requires finding value in human beings beyond their work output. It means divorcing the concept of an income from the concept of working. It means rediscovering what humans are really worth, beyond their productive capacity.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
So Long, David Letterman and the Middle Class
This week was David Letterman's last on TV, after being on it nonstop since about 1982. It's also the first week I ever paid any real attention to him. In 1996, when I was ten, I saw Independence Day, and President Bill Pullman's daughter tattles on her dad to her mom, saying "Daddy let me watch Letterman." I didn't know who Letterman was, but if he was name-checked in Independence Day, which at that time for me was the coolest movie that could every possibly exist, he must be important.
I think I tried to stay up and watch some of this mysterious Letterman person shortly after, but either couldn't stay awake late enough, or found him to just be an average adult man, who looked like a teacher, in a suit saying things I didn't care about.
In high school and college, I religiously watched Conan O'Brien, who, I would later realize, did exactly what Letterman did with that same show--innovated and pushed the envelope as hard as he could. Conan carried the legacy of what Letterman did with the Late Night franchise as well as it could be carried. But this was the late nineties/early oughties, when envelopes had been pushed for a while. Letterman was Conan starting in 1982, doing things on TV that no one had ever seen before.
Awash in nostalgia as we all have been recently, I went back and watched some clips of Late Night era Letterman. I was only dimly aware until recently that he started the show currently helmed by Seth Myers until 1993, when he got his current show, Late Show on CBS. The only Letterman I've ever known has been a tired, slightly bored, stiff, cranky old man who seemed way more beloved than his show-to-show performance seemed to merit. But watching YouTube clips of his NBC show from the late 80s was revelatory.
The first thing that leapt out was how fast his mind worked, and how his guests seemed genuinely excited to try to keep up with him. He exuded energy in a way that seems light years away from the guy I've seen for the past ten or even fifteen years. Generally I don't like energetic comedic personas, from Dane Cook to Kevin Hart to Jimmy Fallon. But where Dane Cook's energy is (was?) fratty, and Jimmy Fallon's is saccharinely ingratiating and designedly viral, Letterman's seemed to come from a genuine overabundance of comic mania, of critical intelligence. He had a lot to say and a lot of entertaining ideas to communicate, and wanted to make sure it all got out there.
Watching the montage that ended the series as the Foo Fighters played "Everlong" brought out just how different his show was from the current crop. It truly is from a different era. There are so many tactile experiences in the highlights, so many things happening, so many spectacles, events, real, tangible things taking place out in the world. If Jimmy Fallon does the Tonight Show for another thirty years, I have a hard time picturing him producing a clip package with this much real, out in the world stuff happening. People are much more detached and isolated now. It was striking to see how engaged and part of the world Letterman and his show were through these images.
In my sampling of 80s/early 90s era Letterman clips, I also noticed how many regular people he had on. One episode he had on the entire population of a tiny town in Iowa that had recently been removed from the map because they were too small. He had two very old ladies on to talk about their town, giving them plenty of air time and not rushing them at all. He would have bag boys on and other people from regular jobs, and not exactly mock them but share them as being part of the fun world he created.
I see no real tactile engagement with the world from the current crop of late night hosts, and certainly no dialogue with the middle class. In a way it's appropriate that Letterman is retiring now, since the middle class doesn't exist anymore either. His audience is gone, and now so is he.
I think I tried to stay up and watch some of this mysterious Letterman person shortly after, but either couldn't stay awake late enough, or found him to just be an average adult man, who looked like a teacher, in a suit saying things I didn't care about.
In high school and college, I religiously watched Conan O'Brien, who, I would later realize, did exactly what Letterman did with that same show--innovated and pushed the envelope as hard as he could. Conan carried the legacy of what Letterman did with the Late Night franchise as well as it could be carried. But this was the late nineties/early oughties, when envelopes had been pushed for a while. Letterman was Conan starting in 1982, doing things on TV that no one had ever seen before.
Awash in nostalgia as we all have been recently, I went back and watched some clips of Late Night era Letterman. I was only dimly aware until recently that he started the show currently helmed by Seth Myers until 1993, when he got his current show, Late Show on CBS. The only Letterman I've ever known has been a tired, slightly bored, stiff, cranky old man who seemed way more beloved than his show-to-show performance seemed to merit. But watching YouTube clips of his NBC show from the late 80s was revelatory.
The first thing that leapt out was how fast his mind worked, and how his guests seemed genuinely excited to try to keep up with him. He exuded energy in a way that seems light years away from the guy I've seen for the past ten or even fifteen years. Generally I don't like energetic comedic personas, from Dane Cook to Kevin Hart to Jimmy Fallon. But where Dane Cook's energy is (was?) fratty, and Jimmy Fallon's is saccharinely ingratiating and designedly viral, Letterman's seemed to come from a genuine overabundance of comic mania, of critical intelligence. He had a lot to say and a lot of entertaining ideas to communicate, and wanted to make sure it all got out there.
Watching the montage that ended the series as the Foo Fighters played "Everlong" brought out just how different his show was from the current crop. It truly is from a different era. There are so many tactile experiences in the highlights, so many things happening, so many spectacles, events, real, tangible things taking place out in the world. If Jimmy Fallon does the Tonight Show for another thirty years, I have a hard time picturing him producing a clip package with this much real, out in the world stuff happening. People are much more detached and isolated now. It was striking to see how engaged and part of the world Letterman and his show were through these images.
In my sampling of 80s/early 90s era Letterman clips, I also noticed how many regular people he had on. One episode he had on the entire population of a tiny town in Iowa that had recently been removed from the map because they were too small. He had two very old ladies on to talk about their town, giving them plenty of air time and not rushing them at all. He would have bag boys on and other people from regular jobs, and not exactly mock them but share them as being part of the fun world he created.
I see no real tactile engagement with the world from the current crop of late night hosts, and certainly no dialogue with the middle class. In a way it's appropriate that Letterman is retiring now, since the middle class doesn't exist anymore either. His audience is gone, and now so is he.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Post-Employment Reality Tentatively Acknowledged by Mainstream Press
In this week's Sunday New York Times, the economic realities that have been glaringly obvious for years and years were, albeit in the most halting and qualified of general academic fashions, acknowledged. The piece, Signs of a Shakier New Normal, didn't appear in the influential Sunday Review section, where something like this belongs, but in the Sunday Business section. Still, this is a highly unusual breach in the armor of neoliberal propaganda, and worth exploring.
In true mainstream conciliatory fashion, as it is written by a full professor at a good university, and so a person who both has things to lose (rare these days), and hasn't been personally effected by the permanent post-employment economy that has been staring us in the face for a while now, the baseline thesis is that of course the economy will "reset" to normal, pre-Recession levels. Of course there is an underlying normality, which will allow the vanishing middle class to return, and people under 35 will be able to start families, buy cars and homes in great numbers or at the very least not have to live with their parents any more. Of course this will happen--it's so obvious, because it always has in the past.
But what differentiates this piece from the usual Panglossian neoliberal economic tripe, is that there is the very merest of allowances that maybe, just maybe, our post-employment economy is permanent. The closing sentence of the piece: "No one knows whether or how much of a reset may be underway. Yet I can't help but wonder which features of current data might prove to be harbingers of larger, more permanent changes to come." This is classic neoliberal economist thinking--you need to know fully and for sure before making a claim. All thinking must at every possible point be supported by as much data as is conceivably possible. Thought may not begin until data is as close to 100% complete and accurate as possible, until peak, optimal sufficiency is reached. But since data is never sufficient, and can always be bolstered and refined, thinking never starts. And so we end up being led by "experts" who think that our obviously permanent post-employment economy is almost certainly just a passing phase before the salvific Grand Reset.
For these economists, trends are merely passively commented on, data is fetishized, and distance is kept. But the "data" in these economic musings represent years of life for an entire generation in which their confidence is sapped, their experiences constricted, their outlooks permanently and irrecoverably dampened. The "larger, more permanent changes to come" Cowen's allows himself to mention at the very end of this scandalously realistic article are where the piece should begin, since they are already here. What the passage of time will do is allow them to become undeniable. Then once there has been a solid decade in which these larger, more permanent changes can be studied as fully formed data points, Cowen and his ilk will tell us how it all came to pass.
Judging by his picture, the author, Tyler Cowen, seems to be in his early fifties, and came of age in a time when young people could find entry level, $35,000/year jobs without feeling like they won the lottery. In his day, you probably didn't have to be a "rock star" to make 35k. Now you do. Ten years from now, you'll have to be a rock star to make $11/hr.
Though Cowen's piece is rare in that it dares to even begin acknowledging the bald-faced realities that have been a part of daily life for millions of people in their twenties for years and years and years, it is still drenched with the requisite neoliberal self-deception that is the price of admission into mainstream thought. Consider these lines: "One consequence is that young people are living at home longer and receiving more aid from their parents. They also seem to be less interested in buying their own homes." It's rare that neoliberal capitalist self-deception is so baldly stated--of course millions of people in their twenties aren't interested in buying homes. It's not that they desperately want to but regard that as a pipe dream, even if they have degrees in good fields from good schools. It's that they think having a home is totally lame!
There's a similar, equally grotesque, bit of such ideological contortion in this piece by the grating Kyle Chaka, who valorizes the perilous, schizophrenic post-employment vista as an invigorating, freedom-increasing entrepreneurial wonderland. The lengths that intelligent people will go to to defend the rationality of an obviously broken system are astounding.
In true mainstream conciliatory fashion, as it is written by a full professor at a good university, and so a person who both has things to lose (rare these days), and hasn't been personally effected by the permanent post-employment economy that has been staring us in the face for a while now, the baseline thesis is that of course the economy will "reset" to normal, pre-Recession levels. Of course there is an underlying normality, which will allow the vanishing middle class to return, and people under 35 will be able to start families, buy cars and homes in great numbers or at the very least not have to live with their parents any more. Of course this will happen--it's so obvious, because it always has in the past.
But what differentiates this piece from the usual Panglossian neoliberal economic tripe, is that there is the very merest of allowances that maybe, just maybe, our post-employment economy is permanent. The closing sentence of the piece: "No one knows whether or how much of a reset may be underway. Yet I can't help but wonder which features of current data might prove to be harbingers of larger, more permanent changes to come." This is classic neoliberal economist thinking--you need to know fully and for sure before making a claim. All thinking must at every possible point be supported by as much data as is conceivably possible. Thought may not begin until data is as close to 100% complete and accurate as possible, until peak, optimal sufficiency is reached. But since data is never sufficient, and can always be bolstered and refined, thinking never starts. And so we end up being led by "experts" who think that our obviously permanent post-employment economy is almost certainly just a passing phase before the salvific Grand Reset.
For these economists, trends are merely passively commented on, data is fetishized, and distance is kept. But the "data" in these economic musings represent years of life for an entire generation in which their confidence is sapped, their experiences constricted, their outlooks permanently and irrecoverably dampened. The "larger, more permanent changes to come" Cowen's allows himself to mention at the very end of this scandalously realistic article are where the piece should begin, since they are already here. What the passage of time will do is allow them to become undeniable. Then once there has been a solid decade in which these larger, more permanent changes can be studied as fully formed data points, Cowen and his ilk will tell us how it all came to pass.
Judging by his picture, the author, Tyler Cowen, seems to be in his early fifties, and came of age in a time when young people could find entry level, $35,000/year jobs without feeling like they won the lottery. In his day, you probably didn't have to be a "rock star" to make 35k. Now you do. Ten years from now, you'll have to be a rock star to make $11/hr.
Though Cowen's piece is rare in that it dares to even begin acknowledging the bald-faced realities that have been a part of daily life for millions of people in their twenties for years and years and years, it is still drenched with the requisite neoliberal self-deception that is the price of admission into mainstream thought. Consider these lines: "One consequence is that young people are living at home longer and receiving more aid from their parents. They also seem to be less interested in buying their own homes." It's rare that neoliberal capitalist self-deception is so baldly stated--of course millions of people in their twenties aren't interested in buying homes. It's not that they desperately want to but regard that as a pipe dream, even if they have degrees in good fields from good schools. It's that they think having a home is totally lame!
There's a similar, equally grotesque, bit of such ideological contortion in this piece by the grating Kyle Chaka, who valorizes the perilous, schizophrenic post-employment vista as an invigorating, freedom-increasing entrepreneurial wonderland. The lengths that intelligent people will go to to defend the rationality of an obviously broken system are astounding.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
My Other Vehicle is Going to Pluto
This feels like something of a new golden age for NASA, and for space enthusiasm in general. In two months and one day exactly, the New Horizons spacecraft at 32,600 mph the fastest ever built, will reach Pluto. Even at that incredible speed, it will end up taking a full nine years to reach Pluto. Right now it's about 50 million miles away, roughly half the distance between Earth and the Sun. But perhaps even more intriguingly, in three years, the James Webb Space Telescope, many times more powerful than Hubble, will go into orbit, offering up images of what light looked like only 300,000 years after the Big Bang. To tide us over, we'll have to make due with knowing more about Pluto than ever before.
Since its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto has been an object of keen interest, as it was the only planet added to the previous eight discovered in the twentieth century. Pluto represented the limitless horizons of discovery in our own time, the grand possibility of major new findings in our own celestial backyard. But we've made precious little progress in learning about it since it first appeared to human eyes.
The conditions of its discovery, and its tiny size and extreme distance from the Sun, also make it one of the quirkiest planets. Its tragic demotion at the callous hands of Mike Brown, self-proclaimed Pluto killer, only made it more endearing.
Tombaugh was an unlikely planetary discoverer--he didn't attend college, and lived on his family's farm in Kansas. Working almost entirely by his own will and ingenuity, he built an extremely powerful telescope, and discovered Pluto. Pluto got its name from an unusually bright eleven year old schoolgirl named Venetia Burney.
But Tombaugh didn't just discover Pluto--he discovered the first Kuiper Belt Object, a chaotic region at the outermost limits of our solar system which we now know is home to hundreds of dwarf planets and moons. Pluto is actually the second largest object in the region, next to the dwarf planet Eris, but it is number one in fascination and folkloric value.
Since its discovery 85 years ago, humanity has only seen the blurriest images of Pluto--this image, hard-won though it was, is the best we've gotten, and it isn't great. With the cameras on the New Horizons, scientists will be able to see structures about the size of a small city block.
The New Horizons mission, launched in 2006, traveling 36,000 miles per hour, has traveled 2, 550,000,000 miles, and is currently only 50 million miles away from Pluto. And since this is beloved Pluto we're talking about, the spacecraft carries more homages to Pluto's discovery than any other spacecraft. NASA engineers actually figured out a way to install a portion of Tombaugh's cremated remains onboard. Tombaugh saw further than anyone in life, and now has actually, albeit in substantially altered form, traveled further than anyone.
Perhaps the best example of New Horizons embodying the spirit of Pluto's origins is in its homage to Venetia Burney. The Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (VBSDC) is the first ever student-designed scientific instrument to be sent into deep space. Its main aim is to analyze the immense dust streaming off of the Kuiper Belt--more than six tons every second! The Voyager spacecraft passed through the Kuiper Belt decades ago, but it had 1970s technology, and could not analyze its properties properly.
The VBSDC will provide pioneering data about the chemical composition of Kuiper Belt dust, giving us insight into how the Solar System formed, and why it looks the way it does. Though the student designers of the VBSDC were highly skilled and trained, they were to some extent amateurs--just like Tombaugh.
Since its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto has been an object of keen interest, as it was the only planet added to the previous eight discovered in the twentieth century. Pluto represented the limitless horizons of discovery in our own time, the grand possibility of major new findings in our own celestial backyard. But we've made precious little progress in learning about it since it first appeared to human eyes.
The conditions of its discovery, and its tiny size and extreme distance from the Sun, also make it one of the quirkiest planets. Its tragic demotion at the callous hands of Mike Brown, self-proclaimed Pluto killer, only made it more endearing.
Tombaugh was an unlikely planetary discoverer--he didn't attend college, and lived on his family's farm in Kansas. Working almost entirely by his own will and ingenuity, he built an extremely powerful telescope, and discovered Pluto. Pluto got its name from an unusually bright eleven year old schoolgirl named Venetia Burney.
But Tombaugh didn't just discover Pluto--he discovered the first Kuiper Belt Object, a chaotic region at the outermost limits of our solar system which we now know is home to hundreds of dwarf planets and moons. Pluto is actually the second largest object in the region, next to the dwarf planet Eris, but it is number one in fascination and folkloric value.
Since its discovery 85 years ago, humanity has only seen the blurriest images of Pluto--this image, hard-won though it was, is the best we've gotten, and it isn't great. With the cameras on the New Horizons, scientists will be able to see structures about the size of a small city block.
The New Horizons mission, launched in 2006, traveling 36,000 miles per hour, has traveled 2, 550,000,000 miles, and is currently only 50 million miles away from Pluto. And since this is beloved Pluto we're talking about, the spacecraft carries more homages to Pluto's discovery than any other spacecraft. NASA engineers actually figured out a way to install a portion of Tombaugh's cremated remains onboard. Tombaugh saw further than anyone in life, and now has actually, albeit in substantially altered form, traveled further than anyone.
Perhaps the best example of New Horizons embodying the spirit of Pluto's origins is in its homage to Venetia Burney. The Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (VBSDC) is the first ever student-designed scientific instrument to be sent into deep space. Its main aim is to analyze the immense dust streaming off of the Kuiper Belt--more than six tons every second! The Voyager spacecraft passed through the Kuiper Belt decades ago, but it had 1970s technology, and could not analyze its properties properly.
The VBSDC will provide pioneering data about the chemical composition of Kuiper Belt dust, giving us insight into how the Solar System formed, and why it looks the way it does. Though the student designers of the VBSDC were highly skilled and trained, they were to some extent amateurs--just like Tombaugh.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
This is such a fantastic podcast. World War One has always been a bit of an odd historical phenomenon--its importance is so obvious, but so removed and murky. Kind of like John Updike's status in the literary readership community--everyone respects/is aware of him, most haven't read him, though they feel they should.
Carlin does a great job of putting WW1 in its context of military history. The German forces sweeping through Belgium in the summer of 1914 had flanks that were themselves as large as the totality of Napoleon's Grand Army. Such enormous numbers of soldiers had never been organized and deployed, and Germany's meticulous plan for this mobilization is one of the most unprecedented achievements in human history.
Germany's villainy is examined, confirmed, and set in somewhat of a tragic tone--Germany was so focused on showing how great it was, it didn't realize that the rest of the world would think they were complete dicks. Its behavior in its steamroll through Belgium was so shockingly callous, evil, rape-like and overpowering, that they were instantly and lastingly branded villains. German weapons killed 27,000 French soldiers in a single short battle early in the war, a number which would have been high for an entire month of casualties in Napoleonic times.
World War One is also kind of the last mythological war, that has some kind of begrudging grandeur to it. Excellence in warfare itself used to be considered a somewhat refined, gentlemanly pursuit, like chemistry or linguistics. The idea of limited war still had some life left in it, but was pulverized in a merciless hail of flying steel. French soldiers would charge headlong against German machine guns, driven by an outdated sense of heroism that little in the new world.
The death of the 19th century, the beginning of a totally insane mechanized warscape. It was pretty easy for everyone to except the ubiquity of Predator drones in US military operations. After the appearance of the Paris Gun, whose shells were the first manmade objects to make it to the stratosphere, anything was possible. Flying pilotless missile shooting vehicles? Sure why not.
Carlin does what the best history always does--bring alive the consciousness of the past, making it understandable and compelling to our dim eyes and ears. As the best teachers do, Carlin makes it clear that he is trying to work things out for himself, to develop a fuller, clearer, more dexterous grasp of the ideas in question, and related ones that might be hit upon at any time. It isn't lecturing, its opening a window onto your own thinking.
Carlin does a great job of putting WW1 in its context of military history. The German forces sweeping through Belgium in the summer of 1914 had flanks that were themselves as large as the totality of Napoleon's Grand Army. Such enormous numbers of soldiers had never been organized and deployed, and Germany's meticulous plan for this mobilization is one of the most unprecedented achievements in human history.
Germany's villainy is examined, confirmed, and set in somewhat of a tragic tone--Germany was so focused on showing how great it was, it didn't realize that the rest of the world would think they were complete dicks. Its behavior in its steamroll through Belgium was so shockingly callous, evil, rape-like and overpowering, that they were instantly and lastingly branded villains. German weapons killed 27,000 French soldiers in a single short battle early in the war, a number which would have been high for an entire month of casualties in Napoleonic times.
World War One is also kind of the last mythological war, that has some kind of begrudging grandeur to it. Excellence in warfare itself used to be considered a somewhat refined, gentlemanly pursuit, like chemistry or linguistics. The idea of limited war still had some life left in it, but was pulverized in a merciless hail of flying steel. French soldiers would charge headlong against German machine guns, driven by an outdated sense of heroism that little in the new world.
The death of the 19th century, the beginning of a totally insane mechanized warscape. It was pretty easy for everyone to except the ubiquity of Predator drones in US military operations. After the appearance of the Paris Gun, whose shells were the first manmade objects to make it to the stratosphere, anything was possible. Flying pilotless missile shooting vehicles? Sure why not.
Carlin does what the best history always does--bring alive the consciousness of the past, making it understandable and compelling to our dim eyes and ears. As the best teachers do, Carlin makes it clear that he is trying to work things out for himself, to develop a fuller, clearer, more dexterous grasp of the ideas in question, and related ones that might be hit upon at any time. It isn't lecturing, its opening a window onto your own thinking.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Why's the participation rate so low?
In a shocking departure from historical precedent, a sitting American president acknowledged one of the major issues actually facing real American citizens. In a conversation with David Simon, creator of HBO's The Wire, President Obama mentioned that the economy has rebounded and many new jobs are being added. Standard stuff, but then he actually referenced the historically bad labor force participation rate, according to which, 37.2% of eligible American citizens are not in the labor force.
Obama and Simon seemed to agree the reason so many people aren't in the labor force is because so many millions of nonviolent offenders have criminal records making it all but impossible to get a job. This was all in the context of Simon pleading for a less insane drug enforcement policy, using the low labor force participation rate as exhibit A of the unintended negative effects of the draconian war on drugs.
This certainly has some impact on the unprecedentedly, disastrously bad labor force participation rate. But even with a reduction in the number of people given criminal records for nonviolent, marijuana related crimes, that 37.2% would likely still be in the high 20s. There is a deeper problem. And even if these people could get the newly added jobs Obama boasts of in our rebounding economy, they aren't jobs that anyone would want. They aren't good jobs, and the reasonable response of these people would be returning to whatever "deviance" got them in trouble in the first place.
But there is of course a much deeper problem. The insidious, entrenched issue is that even college educated citizens with no criminal records and every possible advantage to have a shot at starting a reasonably respectable career are met with rejection at every turn. It is all but impossible for someone with good grades from a good school to get a job in a career that they are interested in. The reasonable response to spending years and years sending out thousands of resumes, many of which are paired with personalized, painstakingly craftedplaintive pleas to be able to start a life cover letters is to give up. At a certain point, being discouraged is not only merited, but the only reasonable thing to do.
Getting your resume past the robotic gatekeepers is only the first step, and most people will not even be able to do this. Being rejected after a few seconds of consideration from an actual human hiring manager is considered a victory. Being rejected after being invited in for an actual in-person interview is an amazing, kingly coup. Actually getting a decent job and joining the middle class is an absurd, rock-star scenario reserved for only the luckiest and most exceptional.
Withdrawing from the labor force, as so very many millions have done, is a vote of no confidence in a system that could not possibly have made it any clearer that it is completely closed off from you. It has nothing to do with the excessive criminalization of drug-related activities. It has everything to do with people who do everything right and are ready, willing, able, and qualified to work, with very pricey degrees and certifications, having absolutely no chance to do so.
Obama and Simon seemed to agree the reason so many people aren't in the labor force is because so many millions of nonviolent offenders have criminal records making it all but impossible to get a job. This was all in the context of Simon pleading for a less insane drug enforcement policy, using the low labor force participation rate as exhibit A of the unintended negative effects of the draconian war on drugs.
This certainly has some impact on the unprecedentedly, disastrously bad labor force participation rate. But even with a reduction in the number of people given criminal records for nonviolent, marijuana related crimes, that 37.2% would likely still be in the high 20s. There is a deeper problem. And even if these people could get the newly added jobs Obama boasts of in our rebounding economy, they aren't jobs that anyone would want. They aren't good jobs, and the reasonable response of these people would be returning to whatever "deviance" got them in trouble in the first place.
But there is of course a much deeper problem. The insidious, entrenched issue is that even college educated citizens with no criminal records and every possible advantage to have a shot at starting a reasonably respectable career are met with rejection at every turn. It is all but impossible for someone with good grades from a good school to get a job in a career that they are interested in. The reasonable response to spending years and years sending out thousands of resumes, many of which are paired with personalized, painstakingly crafted
Getting your resume past the robotic gatekeepers is only the first step, and most people will not even be able to do this. Being rejected after a few seconds of consideration from an actual human hiring manager is considered a victory. Being rejected after being invited in for an actual in-person interview is an amazing, kingly coup. Actually getting a decent job and joining the middle class is an absurd, rock-star scenario reserved for only the luckiest and most exceptional.
Withdrawing from the labor force, as so very many millions have done, is a vote of no confidence in a system that could not possibly have made it any clearer that it is completely closed off from you. It has nothing to do with the excessive criminalization of drug-related activities. It has everything to do with people who do everything right and are ready, willing, able, and qualified to work, with very pricey degrees and certifications, having absolutely no chance to do so.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Seven. Se7en. 2e7en? S373N?
Seven has always been one of my favorite movies. I hadn't seen it in about ten years, and always nodded approvingly when I saw it pop up on Netflix, but never even so much as added it to my list, let alone watch it again.
I just felt like my history with it was complete. It was a great movie that I saw a long time ago, and that was that. But when I saw that it was due to be taken off Netflix on March 1, I decided to give it a watch, because it would probably never be easier to watch it than it was on Netflix right then.
My first thought was just why is this movie so rare and singular? Has there been a movie that's even remotely comparable? It doesn't seem like that much to ask to have psychological thriller/crime drama/horror movies of this quality and pedigree every few years, does it? Shouldn't this be the kind of thing that Hollywood can produce with some regularity?
I had thought this came out in the later 90s, '97 or '98, but it was actually '95. So this was Brad Pitt right on the verge of becoming the huge star he is today. He was only three films removed from being Floyd, and those films were Legends of the Fall and Interview with the Vampire. Big productions both, sure, but neither of them were real beloved films. Seven was the start of a monster streak that hasn't really ended. Morgan Freeman was one year removed from The Shawshank Redemption, right at the start of his belated prime.
This was David Fincher before he became one of the most famed and admired directors of the era. It was his first film after the harrowing experience of making Alien 3, a production so negative he foreswore filmmaking for a few years after. So Seven had a lot going for it, and was a unique product of a lot of different factors. But it still doesn't seem like it should've been so hard to if not duplicate, at least approach. I can't think of a single film in the crime/horror genre that has approached it since. It was much appreciated in its time, but it wasn't really regarded as the unicorn it turns out it was, since those sorts of movies (think The Silence of the Lambs) came along every so often in the nineties.
So Seven was a great confluence of star acting and directing talent being caught right at the best moment, and a great script, and a combination of genres (psychological thriller/crime drama/horror) that are related, but not usually meshed together so intensely. What's stopping this from happening today?
Modestly budgeted (Seven was made for a tiny $30 million, ending up making over $300 million worldwide box office), deeply impactful and memorable genre mashups with top quality talent. Why aren't these movies being made? As has been commented often, this is the sort of mid-level production that doesn't get funding anymore, as everything has to either be an enormous multi-hundreds of millions of dollars production with a surefire intellectual property backing it, or a tiny little indie.
The problem is tiny little indies, the province of original, compelling, potentially dark ideas, can't maximize their potential without the world-building assistance of a mid-range budget. And huge $100 million and beyond productions can't take the same kinds of risks that make films truly memorable.
Everyone knows that this sort of mid-level, adult production has shifted over to prestige serialized TV dramas. Breaking Bad, True Detective, Fargo, on and on. But the mere fact that it takes dozens of hours for these shows to pack the same punch that works like Seven and The Silence of the Lambs did in two shows how diluted the effect is. The ultimate quantitative effect of watching Breaking Bad may be the same as watching Seven, but if I want to experience it again, I can just set aside two hours to watch Seven and get it all again. I can't re-watch all of Breaking Bad.
I just felt like my history with it was complete. It was a great movie that I saw a long time ago, and that was that. But when I saw that it was due to be taken off Netflix on March 1, I decided to give it a watch, because it would probably never be easier to watch it than it was on Netflix right then.
My first thought was just why is this movie so rare and singular? Has there been a movie that's even remotely comparable? It doesn't seem like that much to ask to have psychological thriller/crime drama/horror movies of this quality and pedigree every few years, does it? Shouldn't this be the kind of thing that Hollywood can produce with some regularity?
I had thought this came out in the later 90s, '97 or '98, but it was actually '95. So this was Brad Pitt right on the verge of becoming the huge star he is today. He was only three films removed from being Floyd, and those films were Legends of the Fall and Interview with the Vampire. Big productions both, sure, but neither of them were real beloved films. Seven was the start of a monster streak that hasn't really ended. Morgan Freeman was one year removed from The Shawshank Redemption, right at the start of his belated prime.
This was David Fincher before he became one of the most famed and admired directors of the era. It was his first film after the harrowing experience of making Alien 3, a production so negative he foreswore filmmaking for a few years after. So Seven had a lot going for it, and was a unique product of a lot of different factors. But it still doesn't seem like it should've been so hard to if not duplicate, at least approach. I can't think of a single film in the crime/horror genre that has approached it since. It was much appreciated in its time, but it wasn't really regarded as the unicorn it turns out it was, since those sorts of movies (think The Silence of the Lambs) came along every so often in the nineties.
So Seven was a great confluence of star acting and directing talent being caught right at the best moment, and a great script, and a combination of genres (psychological thriller/crime drama/horror) that are related, but not usually meshed together so intensely. What's stopping this from happening today?
Modestly budgeted (Seven was made for a tiny $30 million, ending up making over $300 million worldwide box office), deeply impactful and memorable genre mashups with top quality talent. Why aren't these movies being made? As has been commented often, this is the sort of mid-level production that doesn't get funding anymore, as everything has to either be an enormous multi-hundreds of millions of dollars production with a surefire intellectual property backing it, or a tiny little indie.
The problem is tiny little indies, the province of original, compelling, potentially dark ideas, can't maximize their potential without the world-building assistance of a mid-range budget. And huge $100 million and beyond productions can't take the same kinds of risks that make films truly memorable.
Everyone knows that this sort of mid-level, adult production has shifted over to prestige serialized TV dramas. Breaking Bad, True Detective, Fargo, on and on. But the mere fact that it takes dozens of hours for these shows to pack the same punch that works like Seven and The Silence of the Lambs did in two shows how diluted the effect is. The ultimate quantitative effect of watching Breaking Bad may be the same as watching Seven, but if I want to experience it again, I can just set aside two hours to watch Seven and get it all again. I can't re-watch all of Breaking Bad.
Friday, February 13, 2015
The Oddly Good "The Frozen Ground"
I'd had the Nicolas Cage and John Cusack crime drama The Frozen Ground in my Netflix queue for quite a while, but only recently was I bored and bereft enough of things to watch on my iPad in bed as I fell asleep to start it. Of course, most Netflix movies you start and lose interest in after ten minutes, because most of them are things that you really very much almost want to see. But to my surprise I watched this one the whole way through.
Everyone knows that Cage will do just about any project that offers him a paycheck, so it's no surprise that he brings his usual workmanlike presence to this movie. Outside of a few odd rejuvenated bits of inspired mania every few years, that's all he has left in him. But with this movie, it weirdly kind of works.
It's about real life serial killer Robert Hansen, who killed 17 women in Alaska in the 1970s. Cusack plays Hansen as a workmanlike serial killer, carrying out his compulsions like mandatory tasks, and not really enjoying any of it. We get no idea of why he does what he does. Cusack just seems glad to be playing a bad guy, and so doesn't really make an effort to understand who Hansen is, beyond a guy who mechanically goes about his grim duty of killing young women.
Beyond the two (former) A-list leads, the rest of the cast is far stronger than it has any right to be. Breaking Bad's Dean Norris and classic That Guy Kevin Dunn play cops who help Cage track down the killer; Radha Mitchell plays his wife; and Vanessa Hudgens plays the young prostitute who got away from Hansen and eventually helps to bring him down.
In her desire to jumpstart professional adulthood and seriousness, leaving behind the Disney stain, she's taken on a slew of prostitute, party girl, stripper and uglied up roles. What do you do when playing these extreme roles runs its course? What's the next step?
The plot is mainly about Cage's quest to get enough evidence to convince the District Attorney, played by yet another classic That Guy Kurt Fuller, to give him a search warrant for Hansen's house, since Cage is convinced he is the killer. It's all about paperwork, navigating bureaucratic processes, and keeping your own suspicions and agendas concealed in favor of going by the book.
Which is all to say that The Frozen Ground is among the most boring serial killer movies ever made. But there's something that just clicks about how the workmanlike attitude of the actors in the movie toward the project, the plot of navigating the labyrinths of bureaucracy, and the oddly begrudgingly committed nature of the killings themselves all sync up. Rarely do you find such a synchronicity between the motivations of the hero and the villain, not to mention the actual actors playing them, and the real life story itself. I sort of loved it.
Everyone knows that Cage will do just about any project that offers him a paycheck, so it's no surprise that he brings his usual workmanlike presence to this movie. Outside of a few odd rejuvenated bits of inspired mania every few years, that's all he has left in him. But with this movie, it weirdly kind of works.
It's about real life serial killer Robert Hansen, who killed 17 women in Alaska in the 1970s. Cusack plays Hansen as a workmanlike serial killer, carrying out his compulsions like mandatory tasks, and not really enjoying any of it. We get no idea of why he does what he does. Cusack just seems glad to be playing a bad guy, and so doesn't really make an effort to understand who Hansen is, beyond a guy who mechanically goes about his grim duty of killing young women.
Beyond the two (former) A-list leads, the rest of the cast is far stronger than it has any right to be. Breaking Bad's Dean Norris and classic That Guy Kevin Dunn play cops who help Cage track down the killer; Radha Mitchell plays his wife; and Vanessa Hudgens plays the young prostitute who got away from Hansen and eventually helps to bring him down.
In her desire to jumpstart professional adulthood and seriousness, leaving behind the Disney stain, she's taken on a slew of prostitute, party girl, stripper and uglied up roles. What do you do when playing these extreme roles runs its course? What's the next step?
The plot is mainly about Cage's quest to get enough evidence to convince the District Attorney, played by yet another classic That Guy Kurt Fuller, to give him a search warrant for Hansen's house, since Cage is convinced he is the killer. It's all about paperwork, navigating bureaucratic processes, and keeping your own suspicions and agendas concealed in favor of going by the book.
Which is all to say that The Frozen Ground is among the most boring serial killer movies ever made. But there's something that just clicks about how the workmanlike attitude of the actors in the movie toward the project, the plot of navigating the labyrinths of bureaucracy, and the oddly begrudgingly committed nature of the killings themselves all sync up. Rarely do you find such a synchronicity between the motivations of the hero and the villain, not to mention the actual actors playing them, and the real life story itself. I sort of loved it.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Against Gratitude: A Manifesto
Gratitude is the watchword of the era, the value that has risen to the top in a time when there are few values, or rather, when the context in which values might have some meaning has been systematically degraded. It is the firm ground upon which people can proudly stand, secure in that moment, at least, that they do have a true north after all.
Our age is of course so monstrously corrupt and beyond redemption that any value with any sort of unilateral support must be a viciously insidious thing. The top value of a corrupt age serves primarily to enable bad people to rationalize their behavior. So what is gratitude, really? What evilness does it permit to be perpetuated with a cleaner conscience? In what ways does it enable bad people to keep doing the bad things necessary to become successful in a bad place?
Gratitude is the condition of being happy with what you have, being thankful for the things that have entered your life. It is realizing that what you have is much more than you might think. We have a psychological tendency to dismiss the positive things in our lives and take them for granted, while focusing on something we want but don't have, and assigning overinflated value and merit to this missing aspect.
We are certain that the experience of having our void filled is more valuable than the, if modest, experiences of wholeness we walk around with every day. We are more whole, more fulfilled, luckier, and fortunate than our brains allow us to perceive. We tend to walk around in states of destructively reductive mania, treating good things like shit. Gratitude corrects this.
So why does gratitude take such concerted effort and practice to incorporate as an active value? Because whatever we have, whatever has been there for us reliably, means little to us. Attaining anything is typically insignificant. What we have means little to us because what we have begins as what we wanted, and we can generally only want stupid things.
Our society would cease functioning if people weren't conditioned to maniacally want things, and the persistent malaise and drift of our society is caused by the perpetual realization upon attaining the objects of desire that having them changes little, and means less. Valorizing gratitude is necessary when desire reveals its hollowness--if wanting and having were less hollow, were in fact fulfilling, nutritive, sustaining, then we wouldn't need to overtly train ourselves to appreciate what we have.
One would think that all the time and effort that goes into achieving something would generate enough meaning to ward off the habit of viewing what you've attained with dismissiveness, or even contempt. Capitalism encourages long, intense working effort devoid of meaning or logic--you can work away at a career for decades and then have a midlife crisis in which everything you've labored for day in and day out appears absurd and meaningless. Capitalism discourages us from even asking, let alone living in accordance with, the most important question of all: what am I doing, and what do I mean by doing it?
Imagine a being completely alien to the American capitalist laborer: someone who understands the meaning of his labor. Such an exotic, alien figure would have deep logic underlying the majority of his daily tasks, and an appreciation for the assets his labors have allowed him to accrue. At no point would such an alien being require a boot camp in gratitude--he would simply have worked for things that were important to him, and would have enough time and a logically supportive environment to have a chance to understand what was important to him. He would not work unless he had a reason to, and if he could not find a reason to work, he would not work, but would be supported by the state.
In our society, we are expected to work before having any inkling of why we work. This pattern holds fast for nearly everyone, since the only way to get a decent job is to become pre-professional and hyper-organized in your outlook from about your first high school report card.
The sooner you can become an adult in training the less likely it is that you will be shut out from the hallowed ground of respectable, gainful employment in your actual adult years. So of course there is no time to instill sense into your actions. It is an absurd thing to expect to understand why you undertake labors every day--you should just be ravenously obsessed with working as much as possible, end of story.
A society which places gratitude on the high altar of virtues is a society in which human beings have no idea why they do the things they do, and yet cannot be permitted to stop, or even slow down long enough to insert some kind of logic into their maniacal activities. Gratitude is a superficial bandage on a deep wound. The fact that we praise a superficial bandage shows how deeply sunk into ideological muck we are, and will continue being.
Our age is of course so monstrously corrupt and beyond redemption that any value with any sort of unilateral support must be a viciously insidious thing. The top value of a corrupt age serves primarily to enable bad people to rationalize their behavior. So what is gratitude, really? What evilness does it permit to be perpetuated with a cleaner conscience? In what ways does it enable bad people to keep doing the bad things necessary to become successful in a bad place?
Gratitude is the condition of being happy with what you have, being thankful for the things that have entered your life. It is realizing that what you have is much more than you might think. We have a psychological tendency to dismiss the positive things in our lives and take them for granted, while focusing on something we want but don't have, and assigning overinflated value and merit to this missing aspect.
We are certain that the experience of having our void filled is more valuable than the, if modest, experiences of wholeness we walk around with every day. We are more whole, more fulfilled, luckier, and fortunate than our brains allow us to perceive. We tend to walk around in states of destructively reductive mania, treating good things like shit. Gratitude corrects this.
So why does gratitude take such concerted effort and practice to incorporate as an active value? Because whatever we have, whatever has been there for us reliably, means little to us. Attaining anything is typically insignificant. What we have means little to us because what we have begins as what we wanted, and we can generally only want stupid things.
Our society would cease functioning if people weren't conditioned to maniacally want things, and the persistent malaise and drift of our society is caused by the perpetual realization upon attaining the objects of desire that having them changes little, and means less. Valorizing gratitude is necessary when desire reveals its hollowness--if wanting and having were less hollow, were in fact fulfilling, nutritive, sustaining, then we wouldn't need to overtly train ourselves to appreciate what we have.
One would think that all the time and effort that goes into achieving something would generate enough meaning to ward off the habit of viewing what you've attained with dismissiveness, or even contempt. Capitalism encourages long, intense working effort devoid of meaning or logic--you can work away at a career for decades and then have a midlife crisis in which everything you've labored for day in and day out appears absurd and meaningless. Capitalism discourages us from even asking, let alone living in accordance with, the most important question of all: what am I doing, and what do I mean by doing it?
Imagine a being completely alien to the American capitalist laborer: someone who understands the meaning of his labor. Such an exotic, alien figure would have deep logic underlying the majority of his daily tasks, and an appreciation for the assets his labors have allowed him to accrue. At no point would such an alien being require a boot camp in gratitude--he would simply have worked for things that were important to him, and would have enough time and a logically supportive environment to have a chance to understand what was important to him. He would not work unless he had a reason to, and if he could not find a reason to work, he would not work, but would be supported by the state.
In our society, we are expected to work before having any inkling of why we work. This pattern holds fast for nearly everyone, since the only way to get a decent job is to become pre-professional and hyper-organized in your outlook from about your first high school report card.
The sooner you can become an adult in training the less likely it is that you will be shut out from the hallowed ground of respectable, gainful employment in your actual adult years. So of course there is no time to instill sense into your actions. It is an absurd thing to expect to understand why you undertake labors every day--you should just be ravenously obsessed with working as much as possible, end of story.
A society which places gratitude on the high altar of virtues is a society in which human beings have no idea why they do the things they do, and yet cannot be permitted to stop, or even slow down long enough to insert some kind of logic into their maniacal activities. Gratitude is a superficial bandage on a deep wound. The fact that we praise a superficial bandage shows how deeply sunk into ideological muck we are, and will continue being.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Narrative in Journalism
You can't read a nonfiction piece these days without wading through some hokey narrative context in the first few paragraphs. I blame Malcolm Gladwell's enormous success for the popularization of this trend--he made millions by writing pop psychology books whose chapters began by telling you about how Joe the Farmer always got up at the same time to check on his chickens and so forth, as a way of illustrating some larger point.
Purveyors of all forms of creative nonfiction think their readers want, or even need, to be "told a story." Is this not just a bit condescending? The presumption seems to be that readers are so resistant to receiving any ideas at all, that they need to be gently brought into the orbit of ideas through relating to an everyday character embroiled in some everyday situation. Is this really the case?
There are too many examples to list, but here's a quick one from a baseball Hall of Fame story yesterday on Grantland. I was excited to read it, but that excitement dissipated after the very first sentence: "Charles Bronfman was desperate." Oh no. Was he? I look forward to eventually learning how this obscure person from history's desperation fractionally elucidates the thesis of this piece of writing.
A reason I've stopped reading much fiction is because I don't really care about imaginary worlds--the real world is interesting enough, dense enough to parse. I don't care about characters--I care about ideas, which should be the province of creative nonfiction. But too often the creative part of nonfiction is interpreted to mean storytelling, or setting some traditional narrative context with colorful characters and charming settings.
Storytelling is a neat way to blend the creative with the nonfiction, since the story is based on a real event, but can include any quirky, minor, offbeat aspect of the character's biography. It also follows the bogus rule that writing should show rather than tell, which makes the journalist feel like he is doing the right thing.
But too often it seems like the narrative is a stand-in for the writer's own grasp of the ideas, or at least serves to pad out a thin idea over greater word counts. A story may more "vividly" (though probably not) illustrate an idea than simply describing the idea itself on its own terms, but not more trenchantly or subtly. If you can find a real life character who can be tied to an idea in some minimal way, you don't have to work to understand the idea as much, and you don't have to develop a narrative context of ideas into which it fits--instead you just shove it into the readymade context of the character's life.
Purveyors of all forms of creative nonfiction think their readers want, or even need, to be "told a story." Is this not just a bit condescending? The presumption seems to be that readers are so resistant to receiving any ideas at all, that they need to be gently brought into the orbit of ideas through relating to an everyday character embroiled in some everyday situation. Is this really the case?
There are too many examples to list, but here's a quick one from a baseball Hall of Fame story yesterday on Grantland. I was excited to read it, but that excitement dissipated after the very first sentence: "Charles Bronfman was desperate." Oh no. Was he? I look forward to eventually learning how this obscure person from history's desperation fractionally elucidates the thesis of this piece of writing.
A reason I've stopped reading much fiction is because I don't really care about imaginary worlds--the real world is interesting enough, dense enough to parse. I don't care about characters--I care about ideas, which should be the province of creative nonfiction. But too often the creative part of nonfiction is interpreted to mean storytelling, or setting some traditional narrative context with colorful characters and charming settings.
Storytelling is a neat way to blend the creative with the nonfiction, since the story is based on a real event, but can include any quirky, minor, offbeat aspect of the character's biography. It also follows the bogus rule that writing should show rather than tell, which makes the journalist feel like he is doing the right thing.
But too often it seems like the narrative is a stand-in for the writer's own grasp of the ideas, or at least serves to pad out a thin idea over greater word counts. A story may more "vividly" (though probably not) illustrate an idea than simply describing the idea itself on its own terms, but not more trenchantly or subtly. If you can find a real life character who can be tied to an idea in some minimal way, you don't have to work to understand the idea as much, and you don't have to develop a narrative context of ideas into which it fits--instead you just shove it into the readymade context of the character's life.
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