Author: bearing light

bearing lighthttps://leftwithballs.wordpress.com
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Our Cult of the Underdog.

In a modern-day America, a good modest origins story is as necessary an attribute of a public figure’s self-identity as a Birkin bag is a necessary attribute of an Upper East Side trophy wife. As political season heats up and the candidates elbow each other to ingratiate themselves with the little guy, we should ready ourselves for the bi-annual onslaught of personal hardship stories. But come to think of it, the underdog story is a permanent American staple, election season or not.

Election year, however, offers a great insight into the power of such narrative, where political candidates, most of whom were born to uninspiring circumstances ranging from middle-class families to political dynasties, compete for ‘the shittiest childhood’ spot. There’s a problem there, as the candidates, raised in the postwar, economically prosperous America weren’t exactly subjects to a Great Depression or a WWII level upheaval. Here, lacking a true personal hardship story, they pivot to the story of their immigrant parents and grandparents, as if the suffering of ancestors is somehow a proof of one’s own hard life. How was it hard? Was he a barefoot 12-year old forced to work in a coalmine to feed his family? On genetic level? Damn, if only one could buy a crappy childhood!

To admit privilege, to admit the possession of power or influence, is to put oneself into a weaker argumentative position and to invite criticism. The privileged know this even if on merely subconscious level – they never miss a chance to tell a self-deprecating story. This strategy kills many birds with one stone, it deflects the critics and endears the narrator to an economically struggling audience.

In real life we’ve all met manifestations of such underdog mindset when we heard a successful person boast about how hard he worked to get where he is (usually a soapy immigrant story), and then, without missing a beat, complain about how it’s tough to live in a world where his tax dollars support all kinds of riff-raff. You see the trick here? While he’s eager to convey his success story he’s careful to mask it in a certain degree of martyrdom.

Positioning oneself as an underdog is a low-risk, high-reward strategy. Kim Davis, a Kentucky public official who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples knows this. Her ostensible underdog bona fides, validated by the stint in jail, were cemented at the moment of her release, in a surreal but too delicious to watch spectacle. The visuals of the event – the Eye of the Tiger soundtrack, the politicians jockeying to insert themselves into a photo-op with a bunch of country bumpkins, the crosses, the main character’s triumphant posture, arms in the air, akin to a pastor about to deliver a sermon to her flock, her husband in denim overalls and the scarecrow hat – were just too awesome. A fiction writer would kill to conceive and write a scene like this. But the scene was real and unscripted and thus powerful – there was no hint of irony in the entire show. Clearly, Kim Davis fancies herself to be a scrappy Rocky Balboa defeating, in an uneven and bloody fight, an all-powerful Ivan Drago. And that gives her power. She would not have that power if she merely performed her governmental duties, because a government official cannot be an underdog. What’s also interesting here is that one doesn’t even have to put up any sort of a real fight to achieve the accolades. These days one can achieve the glory of David fighting Goliath, without doing all the work. You don’t have to defeat the Goliath, you just have to bait him, make yourself into an underdog and take a stand, and next thing you know there are TV cameras and politicians and a cult following. Whether you’re in her camp or not you watched that scene in awe. The genius of that scene is undeniable. It could not have been conceived and executed as preplanned. It was a sporadic, organic display delivered in the most dramatic fashion to the hungry, rapturous audience. Somewhere, Karl Rove is biting his nails in envy.

As much as this Kim Davis’s kind of underdoggery is entertaining and attention-drawing, it can’t do much harm. 6 months from now we won’t even remember who Kim Davis was, like we don’t remember the outrage surrounding Rachel Dolezal a few months back.

It is the low-profile underdogs that worry me. It is the true elites with power, pretending to have none, that can do real harm. The greatest cache of low-profile underdogs can be found on Wall Street or among the billionaire ranks. I would argue that, among these elites, a quest for a personal narrative is as strong a motivator as monetary rewards. A smart billionaire with politics and a gospel to spread knows that denial of power is a power in itself. Acknowledgment of being in privileged position, of possessing power, would then require some kind of stewardship, a responsibility. But denial of power frees one from responsibilities. What kind of stewardship and responsibility can we expect from the majority of Wall Street players and hedgies who, with multi-million dollar paychecks, with an army of lobbyists, with a direct line to and an ear of lawmakers, still insist on describing themselves as ‘scrappy kids from Brooklyn’ – a tired metaphor, sure, but still a dominant sentiment among the finance crowd, doggedly resistant to self-reflection?

Such resistance – to the acknowledgement of one’s membership in a power elite – reveals a deep desire to be free from responsibility, to remain a child in essence, to be an immanent, passive participant, who merely reacts to events unfolding before him. Again and again, in the aftermath of the crisis, we heard one bigwig after another, defend themselves with “I didn’t know nothing” and “beyond my control” fables. They knew that to be in charge is to be accountable. To be perceived as a winner, to be transcendent, is to invite all kinds of unwelcome scrutiny. But when you’re an underdog you can use it as a shield from critics and a niche from which to attack others. Folksiness and bootstraps stories are immune from attacks by nosy journalists and Vox.com eggheads. It’s a smart positioning. One has to be a Trump to revel in the spotlight and the “winning.” But Trump has a rare quality of not giving a fuck, unlike many self-conscious “winners” on Wall Street, who feign modesty and shroud themselves in ‘poor me’ stories. Is it any wonder then, that the public, correctly, perceives them as the biggest douchebags?

Limits of Professionalism

“Amateurs in any discipline are the best, if you can connect with them. Unlike dilettantes, career professionals are to knowledge what prostitutes are to love.” Nassim Taleb

 

When I first joined a now defunct investment bank as an analyst in the early 2000s, I became puzzled, in my yet uninitiated naiveté, with the idea of a structured bond. Common sense and a lack of experience – qualities that allow one to analyze a new concept from an unobstructed and unbiased 10,000-foot view – signaled to me that the risk in such a bond was not eliminated, no matter the fancy structure. “It’s spread out,” – someone, a professional, told me, and I did not pursue my inquiry further, as you don’t really have time to ponder things on the trading desk. Pretty soon I, too, became a professional and fell into that trap of thinking I knew more than those doubting philistines. My specialization became a great excuse to dismiss the pesky, pedestrian questions of the know-nothings.

Continue to read here.

Debt and The Little Guy

Why is it always the little guy who ends up holding the bag when it comes to contracts? A business contract, or any contract between the two parties is a building brick of liberal market-based democracy. The idea is that it can’t be altered midway and if it is, it has to abide by the agreement of the two parties involved. But somehow, the lesser party always gets the shaft. Just look at the bankruptcy laws: it is much harder for an average person to file for bankruptcy and thus extinguish the debt, than for a corporation or a country. On a geopolitical scale, if a country is considered third-world or insufficiently developed, tough luck: a more developed country will always have more leverage when it comes the delinquent country’s debt. A bunch of important looking suits from IMF or ECB will come in and explain to the indigenous how things are done in this world.

Take student debt for example. Why doesn’t one have an option to default on it – an option any corporation or a business take for granted? Default should be in a range of options for an individual, the same way it is for a business. Why such double standard? When corporation is about to default there will be all kinds of negotiations and debt restructuring, and haircuts. But no such luck exists for underwater homeowner. Somehow personal responsibility is only applied to poor schmucks; for others, more powerful, default is not a moral failure, but a sound business decision.

The question of morality, or “moral hazard” is especially poignant in the Greek crisis. OK, so Greeks lived profligate ways before 2009. No one payed taxes, people retired at 50 with generous pensions. That happened. Those who talk about moral hazard – that is rewarding bad behavior – always bring up lazy, coffee-drinking, tax-avoiding Greeks.

Yes, there’s moral hazard here, but it’s not coming from the deadbeat Greeks. The moral hazard is coming from lenders and especially bondholders of Greek debt – French and German banks that were made whole on that debt by those very loans from the troika. The message here is loud and clear: if you buy bonds from a dicey country you will be saved. The moral hazard is not that the riffraff will provide bad example to other riffraffs around the world who can’t pay their debt. The moral hazard is that the lenders and bondholders will always expect to be rescued.

Even more upsetting in this whole Greek mess is the position of Germans, whose own debt from WWII was forgiven in 1953. Why can’t they extend the same courtesy to Greeks now, if not out of magnanimity, then out of mere political expediency?

The prospect of moral hazard has a puzzling, mysterious spell over the large swaths of population. It’s like they collectively lost their minds. My entire Facebook feed, which is dominated by Russian-Jewish immigrants, is full of vitriol towards the spendthrift Greeks and praise of hard-working, prudent, morally upright Germans. Parallels with debt forgiveness don’t register. It’s like they’re more willing to forgive one nation the destruction of Europe and killings of millions (the ways Germany incurred those debts), rather than to forgive Greeks for merely being lazy. Think about the implications of this approach: laziness is a much bigger sin for those people than military aggression and murder of millions. I tried to think about why that is and the answer I keep coming up with is the professionalism. We admire professionals, even if they’re good at killing, and despise lazy fucks. To be good at nothing is an abomination, and the people who are good at nothing don’t deserve debt forgiveness.

When the strong are incapable of mercy they are not strong at all. They are vengeful, small-minded, petulant children.

 

WSOP

I just got back from playing at World Series of Poker in Vegas. I spent 2 weeks there and was hoping to stay longer, but I didn’t make it into the main event. I played a number of satellites, won some, lost some, but overall didn’t get enough lammers to pay for the main event buyin.

Poker changes you. Especially if you play non-stop for 2 weeks. When you’re in the middle of a tourney, only you and your chip stack exist. Even if the world was coming to an end, as it does, according to news, every few weeks or so, if you are at the table, still alive, with you chip stack intact, nothing outside that poker room matters.

Because poker is the game of luck and skill, you can’t really discount the luck factor. Most of my all-ins I was ahead. Most of them I lost. The game was very loose, so you can have someone to stay in the pot with you with, like, A8 off and flop an 8. Happened to me several times when I was ahead with AK, AQ, AJ vs a lesser A and the guy would flop or river a 3-outer. Very frustrating.

Even when I had a monster it wasn’t good enough. In the Little One For One Drop I get QQ. An old lady goes all-in in front of me. I snap call. I had less chips than her. Flop is Q7x. We table the cards. She has pocket 77. I begin to celebrate, but then the turn brings another 7, giving her quads. I’m out.

But I had some hands that I played perfectly. There was one hand that I’m especially proud of. I have AQ off. I raise, one caller. I’m out of position. Flop is 3 hearts, I have an Ace of hearts. I check, guy bets, I call. Turn is a blank. Check, check. River is another blank, I don’t even have a pair. Check, guy thinks for a while then bets pot-size. Now I’m thinking: On the flop I remember him looking back at his cards, as if looking for a heart. So he probably was on a one card flush draw, the same way I was. He missed, just like I did. But I have an ace. Maybe my ace is good. Maybe he’s just making a move, considering the bet size. So I call and show an ace. He mucks. Everyone at the table was like: “I wouldn’t be able to make that call.”

Another hand I decided to do what they call “floating”. I get 67 of diamonds. A guy raises preflop, I call. Flop 69T, one diamond. So I have a pair, a gutshot and a backdoor flush draw, a kind of hand perfect for floating. He bets, I call. Turn is 5 of diamonds. Now I have a flush draw. He bets small, I call. River is a 4 of diamonds. He checks, I bet big. He sits there and throws guesses out there, asking me if I got there. I mean there are straights and flushes on the board. I probably did. But he doesn’t believe me and he calls. I show my flush. He had KK.

Ironically most of the big pots I won I had some kind of shitty hand, like A high, or 67. And all the good hands got crushed. Well, that’s poker.

Freedom under Capitalism (Part 2)

If consumption was freedom then Upper East Side housewives would be the freest people on Earth.

So what is freedom if it’s not consumption? The next logical step here would be to look outward, not inward. We would not really be free if we lived alone on a deserted island. So freedom then would have something to do with others, with our social bonds. We can experience freedom only in relations to others. Freedom then would mean being or, more precisely, being able to be a good member of society, a good citizen. Sure there will be many who would not want to be good citizens. But the avenues to be a good citizen should be available and easily accessible to anyone who wants it. What are the available avenues for being a good citizen today? Voting, volunteering, charity? Yes. But these are supplementary not foundational. The economic foundation to be a good citizen is lacking. The current foundation is a barbell between cutthroat competition on one end and everyone else, the losers, on the other. One is made to oscillate between these two extremes without having a safe landing ground in the middle. One can’t be a good citizen if the available economic choices come down to either be a predator or to be a sucker. Such are current conditions. There’s no existing functioning framework where you can be neither. Even worse, we are required to suppress our good nature to meet the demands of the competitive framework.

What’s interesting to note here is that many of those who are winners in this game, those who rose through the ranks, went through this competitive hazing themselves. They became assholes, if you will, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Thus they are not inclined to allow others to have an easier path. The strong are the product of this environment. In a small-minded and petty way they expect others to replicate such moral degeneration in order to prove their worth. How can one be free under such social construct?

This is where the notion of nobility arises. The essence of nobility is in protection of those who can not protect themselves. Being noble in the olden times required risking one’s life on the battlefield. A lot more was expected of those of noble descent. If you were born into a noble family you were expected to protect your keep, to uphold some duties. Nassim Taleb actually touched on this theme in his book Antifragile. Today’s nobility is democratic, rarely hereditary. They won in the game of life, outsmarting others, fellow citizens, for self-benefit, but they act as if they slayed some great foreign enemy. They manifest their nobility, their elevated social position, not by courage on the battlefield (or, in our days, moral courage to call bullshit or to stop their own game), but by displays of status and one-upmanship. And at that point it doesn’t matter where you came from, it doesn’t matter how you got there.  In the current zeitgeist continuous self-promotion is the most logical thing to do. If, say, Jon Snow was living in a modern-day New York, he would’ve jumped at Stannis’s offer to help him run a hedge fund (to march on Winterfell and reclaim the North), rather than enroll with the Marines (stay behind and do his duty on the Wall).

Jon Snow, the one who stayed on the Wall, understands the now forgotten concept of duty, a concept that was originally inseparable from being noble. But today, duty is for suckers. Today, it’s all about black-tie events at Cipriani, filled with every Who’s Who of financial and political elite. Today it’s WHCD dinner, a grotesque event where journalists rub elbows, drink and laugh with the subjects they are supposed to rip apart. Who is there, aside from Taibbi and Bernie Sanders, to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted?

So in the current paradigm, since it’s almost impossible to do good and be good, what we can try to do is to be less evil. We should try, whenever possible, to advocate for and protect the weak. Try to, even on a small scale, call bullshit whenever you see it. Be respectful and polite to those below you on a social ladder: they wish they had your problems. I mean, literally, smile and say “Hello” and “Thank you” to a taxi driver or your cleaning lady. And if you can’t bear it anymore, make plans of escape and work towards them: downgrade your lifestyle, cash out your 401K, move to Mexico. Minimize the amount of small evil around you. When the critical mass of people unwilling to carry that torch grows big enough, when one by one we start breaking down that dehumanizing relay competition, then there’s some hope for us.

Freedom under Capitalism

I’ve been a frequent reader of Brainpickings.org – the best website to find the insights on life and human condition from great thinkers – poets, philosophers, writers. Most of my forays into the metaphysical in my own blog, are usually originated by reading something on Brainpickings and then ruminating and expanding on those ideas. One of the recent articles was on Adrienne Rich, an American poet, describing her thoughts about freedom under capitalism.

 

In the vocabulary kidnapped from liberatory politics, no word has been so pimped as freedom.

Capitalism presents itself as obedience to a law of nature, man’s “natural” and overwhelming predisposition toward activity that is competitive, aggressive, and acquisitive. Where capitalism invokes freedom, it means the freedom of capital. Where, in any mainstream public discourse, is this self-referential monologue put to the question?

Are we really free if our freedom requires us to take advantage of the others? Does capitalism promote freedom or undermine it? And to wade even further into heresy territory, do we embrace capitalism in its current form because we are afraid of true freedom? Ask us of our definition of freedom and we’ll tell you that freedom for us is to do what we like. Fair enough. But what do we like? Ask you friends what they like and you’ll hear answers like travel, shopping, movies, some extreme sports for the advanced. But that only means that consumption is freedom. Capitalism encourages that kind of freedom. Even your adrenaline-inducing adventures are marketed to you and paid for. You go to Cambodia and picture yourself to be hardened Captian Willard on a classified mission, but in reality you’re a spoiled tourist on a guided air-conditioned trip to a third world country to make yourself feel good.

You will rarely find writing or thinking on that list of ‘likes’. You may find art, but mostly consumption of it.

Consumption of art is still consumption, however, it can work as a catalyst to creating. Creating art moves one closer to freedom. It involves the bringing out of thoughts, the ability to express a nagging idea in your head in precise and simple way. Whether on paper or canvas or on the stage. Once you start doing it you learn what kind of person you are and it’s not a consumer you’ll find there. And you don’t have to be an egghead to do this. Just pick an art that speaks to you. I’m indifferent to most of the modern art, for example. Some old redneck Southern rock song gives me more food for thought than art by Warhol or Koons, which only causes puzzlement. I think most of modern art is a calculated effort with the marketability in mind, not a product of overwhelming emotions that come out bursting. I guess when it comes to art I’m a conservative – something I would not have realized if I did not sit down and examine it.

Thus, expression is freedom. It’s not that we’re completely oblivious to this notion. We try, in our own clumsy way, to express ourselves – on Facebook, on Twitter, etc. We are humans after all, we were blessed (or cursed) with tools to analyze our own human condition.

Such need of expression is manifested, genuinely but awkwardly, by some random postings of birds or sunset or nature pictures on your Facebook, in some quotes of those long dead, or pictures of self, walking on the beach or in a jumping jack pose (hands up, legs apart) over some magnificent geological or architectural backdrop.  But those moments of awe are rarely examined. We have neither time, no mental aptitude to dwell on it, to examine why we find it beautiful. We think that mere sharing will be sufficient. And because we can’t contemplate on it qualitatively, this need for expression perpetuates itself in quantity of pictures and drive-by postings. We are like a teenage girl, for whom every experience is “OMG, this is awesome!” even though there are, certainly, gradations of that awesomeness, which she is unable to articulate properly. For her, “OMG, this is awesome” can be equally applied to her first glimpse of Grand Canyon, a description of a boy band or a reaction to a friend’s Instagram. We can’t deny that at least in one of those cases she was in a state of genuine awe, perhaps even in a poetic mood but without the tools to express it adequately. So, in her quest to convey her feelings to the public, she resorts to quantity or images, not quality of thought. Such examination, itself a manifestation of our culture that is obsessed with consumption and acquisition, doesn’t take much effort – all it requires is a camera and a ticket to an exotic locale. Our methods of describing the beauty or speaking the unspeakable are handicapped by our culture which demands us to be, constantly and unquestionably, on the market economy treadmill. To build our thinking around the potential material or social (in a sense of social media) benefit of our actions. We define ourselves not with what we think, but where we went and what we saw and what we ate. Not a surprising outcome in a culture that is ever-ready to sell us another tool of pseudo-expression. In such a culture even protest is commodified. And we comply, we are eager to comply. We are suckers for fake excitement.

My personal cure for this ailment is writing.

 

If we are writers writing first of all from our own desire and need, if this is irresistible work for us, if in writing we experience certain kinds of power and freedom that may be unavailable to us in other ways — surely it would follow that we would want to make that kind of forming, shaping, naming, telling, accessible for anyone who can use it. It would seem only natural for writers to care passionately about literacy, public education, public libraries, public opportunities in all the arts. But more: if we care about the freedom of the word, about language as a liberatory current, if we care about the imagination, we will care about economic justice.

I guess that’s why I don’t call myself a ‘fiscal conservative’ anymore. Fiscal conservatism is like a polite society’s mitigator of one’s ‘socially liberal’ stance. It’s meant to parlay your “reasonableness” to a respectful audience. Like, see, he’s for gay marriage, but he also wants to cut taxes. That’s what I thought I was, until I started unspooling that and came to a conclusion that economic justice – that is economic protection of the weak, is impossible under the agenda of ‘fiscal conservatism.’

Profits vs. People

Eric Schneiderman, New York’s AG, is bringing a case against some retailers for their questionable employee-related practices. The power of businesses to cut their costs and their pursuit of efficiency has evolved into a grotesque practice of “on call shifts” where the employees don’t know whether or when they will be called to work, therefore making it impossible for them to make any plans or even to know whether or not they will be able to pay bills. I guess the cost-cutting business majors “geniuses” at those companies just made an assumption that if an employee is not called to come to work on Saturday at, say 2pm, he will then turn around and just find another hourly job that’s just sitting and waiting for him to turn to, at a moment’s notice. Or, that while tending a McDonald’s counter, he’s incessantly checking his Blackberry to see if the instructions came in to drop it and be at a Gap location in a half hour. I wonder how much more businesses can squeeze out of their employees, all in the name of efficiency? And when will we stop worship this kind of “entrepreneurship”? So, kudos to Schneiderman here.

I wanted to expand on this. The goal of businesses, which is profit, has reached such a revered and celebrated status, and we’re so captivated with this notion, that we’re unable to put things into perspective. What if a business can’t turn a profit without dehumanizing and shortchanging its workforce? What if it’s built in the very business model? Here we, as a society, tacitly acknowledge that profit is a more virtuous and legitimate pursuit than the welfare of employees and customers, or in other words, citizens. (Welfare in a sense of mutually beneficial outcome, not ‘government dependency’ as this word has evolved to represent over the years). So then what is the function of state in this case? To protect profits or to protect citizens? Let’s leave politics aside and look at it from a purely philosophical perspective. The existence of businesses is only as good as their contribution to the welfare of society, while also turning a profit. But profit should not be a sole defining and absolving factor of a business’ legitimacy: if it can’t turn a profit without shortchanging employees, without tricking its customers, without dumping shit on its neighbors, without undermining political processes then such a business’ moral dominance in the current zeitgeist (which is: businesses are more important than people because businesses give people jobs) should be questioned. “Don’t touch businesses” we’re told, “or they will take their toys and go home, leaving us all unemployed.” I say not necessarily. Because if a businessman’s choice is between earning a 6% margin by fucking his employees and earning 5% by giving them some breathing room, then he will take the latter option rather than closing up shop. (I mean, what he’s gonna do, put his money in a bank and sit on it? Haha!) And if his margins are so thin that giving his employees breathing room will put him in a negative territory then such business model is simply unsustainable and he has to find another line of business.

Netanyahu’s Speech to Congress.

Imagine one day you’re sitting at home, watching Schindler’s List, all red-faced and fighting back tears. Suddenly the door opens and Bibi Netanyahu comes in. He looks at you disapprovingly, shakes his head, clacks his tongue and then proceeds to lecture you on your inadequate understanding of the Jewish plight. Naturally, your first impulse would be to want to punch him in the face. How can someone, anyone claim to know the depth of your understanding, when the only measurement such arbiters usually accept as adequate is the unquestioned, unexamined, feverish adulation of Netanyahu and Israel. If you find flaws with Bibi or Israel policies you’re practically a Holocaust denier and you want nothing less than an annihilation of Israel.

The intensity of you loyalty will always be questioned by the likes of AIPAC and Sheldon Adelson wing of the GOP, even if you declare yourself, again and again, as Obama and Democrats did for years, as an unambiguous supporter of Israel. There’s nothing one can do, short of dropping a bomb on Iran or kissing Bibi’s ass on TV, that will be deemed acceptable behavior to avoid being labeled anti-Semitic.

Many supporters of Israel are so afraid of being labeled as insufficiently loyal by the self-appointed arbiters, are so afraid to lose their business or half of their Rolodex, that they chose to acquiesce and tow the party line, rather than to raise questions, however pertinent. I mean, freaking Rand Paul got into trouble for not clapping enthusiastically enough during the speech, and then had to go on Fox News to explain his unseemly behavior. God forbid Sheldon Adelson, a de-facto leader of the GOP, would be displeased. Soviet Politburo at the height of the Cold War could not have dreamed of such loyalty and discipline among its members.

So that describes two types of supporters of Israel: ones that want to punch Netanyahu in the face and the ones that are critical of him but are also mindful of their businesses and political connections. They find it less troublesome to simply say: “Yes, Mr. Netanyahu, perhaps I don’t understand it. But I really, really want to. What do you want me to do?” as they reach out for their checkbook.

The third group is, of course, a group resembling high-school girls at a Justin Bieber concert. “Wooh, baby! That was awesome!” an Indian Republican screamed after Netanyahu was done. Maybe it’s a good thing they’re incapable of passing any bills down in DC. One shudders to think of what they might put in there.

Who Is More Prescient, Orwell or Huxley?

If we, as society, oscillate between two extremes – total government control of media and thought, and a laissez-faire feel-good media-as-entertainment thought-killing culture, then which one of those extremes should we consider to be more detrimental to our way of life? Is it Orwellian totalitarianism of Huxleyan anything goes?

The book I’m reading now, “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman makes the compelling case that it is the latter. The author argues that in our current culture there’s no need for a total government control; we will voluntarily give up our citizenship by being immersed in entertainment and trivial pursuits. There’s no need for state machinery and thought control and Ministry of Truth – it would give us too much credit as citizens. The need for such institutions would imply that we are interested in politics on a deep level, that we know our history, that we can put current events into historical, cultural and philosophical context and that we can discuss matters using intelligence, reason and perspective. Thus they would seek to suppress it, or to give us false information. But the point is that there’s no need for that.

“What Orwell feared were those who ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned  in a sea of irrelevance…As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984 Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.”

Like the author, I’m similarly amused and puzzled by libertarians (especially ones from former Soviet Union) who see censorship and totalitarianism and Big Bad State creeping up on them and infringing on their rights. I guess they were conditioned to feel that way and they were deeply affected by reading 1984 in their youth. But no Soviet Politburo, no KGB goons, no Ministry of Culture could ever have dreamed of having such total control over the minds of the population as, say Fox News or Entertainment Tonight have in modern-day American democracy. People seem to want to be given distractions and gossip; they seem to want to be riled up one minute by a gruesome image, only to forget about it the very next minute, when the weather or sports news comes up.

What’s peculiar about this book is the fact that it was written long before the internet age, in 1985. The author laments the dumbing down of television and actually argues that it is the medium itself – TV as a transmitter of images – discourages discourse the way it used to exist in pre-TV era, in print form. In 19th century, at the height of the print culture, the public discourse was more intelligent and more involved with the issues of the day. This is because a reading populace was not distracted with images that fade from the screen and memory the next moment and because reading itself involved an act of thinking. This is because during a discussion there was ample time to make an argument, then to make a counterargument. Even presidential debates back then lasted for 5 to 7 hours and were attended to by a well-informed audience. Now imagine such a TV show, where a bunch of guys sit and talk for hours, uninterrupted by commercials and breaking news. No sane TV executive would ever green-light such a project.

So the book was written 30 years ago, and most of its ideas are still relevant today. But TV as the medium is on the decline as we now watch our movies on Netflix and get our news from the internet. Will we change with the medium, I wonder? And if yes, then for the better or for the worse?

A few more awesome and thought-provoking quotes from the book:

“The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining.”

“Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?”

“For all his perspicacity, George Orwell would have been stymied by this situation; there’s nothing “Orwellian” about it. The President does not have the press under his thumb. The New York Times and The Washington Post are not Pravda; the Associated Press is not Tass. And there is no Newspeak here. Lies have not been defined as truth nor truth as lies. All that has happened is that the public has adjusted to incoherence and been amused into indifference. Which is why Aldous Huxley would not in the least be surprised by the story. Indeed, he prophesied its coming. He believed that it is far more likely that the Western democracies will dance and dream themselves into oblivion than march into it, single file and manacled. Huxley grasped, as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcoticized by technological diversions.”

“The Constitution was composed at a time when most free men had access to their communities through a leaflet, a newspaper or the spoken word. They were quite well positioned to share their political ideas with each other on forms and contexts over which they had competent control. Therefore, their greatest worry was the possibility of government tyranny. The Bill of Rights is largely a prescription for preventing government from restricting the flow of information and ideas. But the Founding Fathers did not foresee that tyranny by government might be superseded by another sort of problem altogether, namely the corporate state, which through television now controls the flow of public discourse in America.”

 “In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”

 “Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture’s being drained by laughter?”

“And in this sense, all Americans are Marxists, for we believe nothing if not that history is moving us toward some preordained paradise and that technology is the force behind that movement.”