Love Wins – a cultural commentary

An early anecdote recorded in Rob Bell’s controversial book, Love Wins, is of an art exhibit hosted at Bell’s church. A member of the church made a painting that incorporated quotes by Gandhi that as moving to other members of the church. Bell really appreciated it, but he didn’t appreciate that later on another church member affixed a note reading, “Too bad he’s going to burn in Hell.” Bell’s book is a response to people who praise the exclusivity of heaven and make it a point to judge people openly.

And in reflecting on this, I realize that the book isn’t just about how poorly behaved some Christians can be. This is a commentary on our culture in general.

Grand Rapids pastor Rob Bell has Christians debating new book | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Grand Rapids pastor Rob Bell has Christians debating new book | Detroit Free Press | freep.com.

I don’t talk about religion here, just as I try to avoid politics. In American culture, they are made out to be uncomfortably polarizing topics that are difficult to discuss objectively. This is not an objective journalistic blog, but these are topics I don’t like to throw around because I’m not interested in turning anyone away because of how I view things. It’s easier to talk about multimedia. The more mature the individual, the easier it is to disagree but locate valid points. Of course, multimedia is easily taken as subjective experience. Religion and politics? Not so much.

The Public Domain

It is not uncommon these days to be curious about copyright laws and how they became the creature they are today. Not a month goes by without the mention of another lawsuit about someone breaking copyright law, either by copious downloading of material on the internet or by direct reference in something recorded and published. Copyright appears to be this limiting force that somehow costs people thousands of dollars. Honestly, that is all I really knew of copyrights – aside from the obvious “I own the rights to the work, so profits for original sales should go to me.”

Then I discovered James Boyle’s The Public Domain, which he has fittingly offered up for free download. The book is not the complete history of copyright law that I sought. Instead it was an overall easy read about the idea of copyright as well as its evolution to what it is today. It is also a commentary on what it should be.

Modern Mythology

As of late I have been on an interesting journey into what can be called modern mythology. A friend of mine is teaching a college English course, and she wants the students to consider looking at comic books and other articles of pop culture interest as the modern mythology of our lives. Since she has a lesser understanding of comic books than I do, she asked me for suggestions about what characters and books would be considered a modern mythology. Right now I have her working on a definition of modern mythology before we delve into things. From another direction, a friend of mine commented to me directly about my post about Jackpot, explaining to me that the vigilante archetype has been a member of the American monomyth for quite some time – and then she gave me book recommendations. I am currently waiting for the library to deliver those books, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The American Monomyth, so that I can really get into what it all is. However, a few months ago I picked up a book by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers called The Power of Myth, which is a collection of conversations between the two scholars about the meaning of symbols and the workings of Campbell’s mind months before his death.

"Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with the experience of being alive. It tells you what the experience is."

From the Consumerist: Does Walmart Segregate Its Books By Race? – The Consumerist

Does Walmart Segregate Its Books By Race? – The Consumerist.

I worked at a bookstore in a suburb of Detroit for two years of my high school life, and something that always stood out to me was the presence of the African-American section. It took up roughly two shelving bays on the wall of the relatively small B. Dalton, but its presence by the magazines and by the Science Fiction/Fantasy section made it stick out all the more to me. Why did there have to be a separate section for black literature?

Obviously, my being in a predominantly African-American city near Detroit made the idea of such a section more than suitable. Residents could walk into the store, go straight to the section, and find books relevant to their background. The practice makes sense on a certain level.

On another level it seems to promote an Us and Them mentality. This is not the African-American section. This is our section. The rest are books we do not have to read. And the people reading those books would never read our books.

That is one possibility. The other possible result is that many African-American classics would then be removed from the Literature sections, implying that they are somehow not literature. A fan of literature will not simply stumble upon the novels in the usual section because the color of the author suggests it belongs elsewhere. Not to mention that some African-American readers will not find themselves motivated to branch out beyond the section and read other great books. It is a losing situation all around.

While written by a white woman, this is no doubt considered African-American literature. So, does this get removed from the Literature section or what?

I always figured that genre separations were enough. Other classifications that somehow supersede genre confuses and may even do harm. Not unless you want to walk into a bookstore to find the section labeled Midwest American Fantasy written by Mixed Authors to find the latest hit.

“Let me put down my frappuccino and talk about genre”

Let Me In director reveals what he kept and what he cut from the vampire classic.

The above link is to an io9 interview with the director of Let Me In, the American remake of Let the Right One In. The article is fine and makes me look even more forward to the film. I enjoyed the original, and there was little chance I would not see it. It is a vampire romance with kids in a depressing setting. What can go wrong?

The Copycat Effect

I don’t plan on commenting on every single book that I read, but we will call this two in a row for now. I recently read through Loren Coleman’s The Copycat Effect. The book left me unfulfilled. I picked it up some time ago thinking that it would be a discussion of the information age and the proliferation of individuals copying what they see in the media. Instead the book was largely a collection of historic suicides, mass murders, and murder-suicides and similar ones that occurred shortly thereafter (or annually, in some cases). What the book lacked was actual discussion of a trigger or specific psychological precedents in individuals who display this copycat effect. The author instead points a finger, and the blame, at the media itself for showing and discussing these horrors.

The author’s conclusion contains a list of 7 suggestions to the media in order to reduce the copycat effect. I will reproduce the suggestions below, in what may be the closest I come to a severe copyright violation, and provide my own (non-expert/unprofessional) commentary.

1.) The media must be more aware of the power of their words. Using language like "successful" sniper attacks, suicides, and bridge jumpers, and "failed" murder-suicides, for example, clearly suggest to viewers and readers that someone should keep trying again until they "succeed". We may wish to "succeed" in relationships, sports, and jobs, but we do not want rampage or serial killers, architects of murder-suicide, and suicide bombers to make further attempts after "failing". Words are important. Even the use of suicide or rampage in headlines, news alerts, and breaking bulletins should be reconsidered.

In other words, this means the media should censor itself. Speaking of failures and successes in suicides and such is actually proper terminology. We discussed that at length in my grad level classes. The word the author uses throughout the book is “completed” in order to describe a successful attempt. What that suggests is that attempts that don’t get finished are therefore incomplete, and we live in a culture that speaks poorly of people who leave things unfinished. I’m not sure if that’s good wording. Of course, one has to ask what else there is to say? And what words other than rampage or serial killers? The new words would mean the same thing, and what you would create then is a rotating list of words to describe the same thing. The ultimate solution, sadly, is to leave the news unreported.

2.) The media must drop their clichéd stories about the "nice boy next door" or the "lone nut". The copycat violent individual is neither mysterious nor healthy, or usually an overachiever. They are often a fatal combination of despondency, depression, and mental illness. School shooters are suicidal youth that slipped through the cracks, but it is a complex issue, nevertheless. People are not simple. The formulaic stories are too often too simplistic.

I waited through the entire book for this, characteristics of copycat individuals. Instead of suggesting an intervention, though, the author says that the media should take responsibility. What about the schools? What about the parents? It’s ironic that it’s stated that people are not simple and the stories shouldn’t be presented as simple but the solution itself oversimplifies.

3.) The media must cease its graphic and sensationalized wall-to-wall commentary and coverage of violent acts and the details of the actual methods and places where they occur. Photographs of murder victims, tapes of people jumping off bridges, and live shots of things like car chases ending in deadly crashes, for example, merely glamorize those deaths, and create models for others–down to the method, the place, the timing, and the type of individual involved. Even fictional entertainment, such as the screening of The Deer Hunter, provides vivid copycatting stimuli for vulnerable, unstable, angry, and depressed individuals.

There’s a case to be made for these vulnerable individuals’ latching onto anything in this situation. If not the sensationalized and graphic, then the implied yet disturbing. This is another suggestion for censorship. I can’t get behind that. It’s another situation in which I suggest interventions over censorship.

4.) The media should show more details about the grief of the survivors and victims (without glorifying the death), highlight the alternatives to the violent acts, and mention the relevant background traits that may have brought this event to this deathly end. They should also avoid setting up the incident as a logical or reasonable way to solve a problem.

I can’t disagree with this. Detailing the grief of survivors and victims is a great way to bring light to the situation without dwelling on the methodology, but highlighting alternatives doesn’t make enough sense to me. The world is full of alternatives. The problem may be that the individual sees the horrid act as the last resort, ignoring all other suggestions. I can’t stress this enough, but maybe we should be publicizing interventions along with those relevant background traits.

5.) The media must avoid ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural stereotypes in portraying the victims or the perpetrators. Why set up situations that like-minded individuals (e.g., neo-Nazis) can use as a road map for future rampages against similar victims?

Chances are that like-minded individuals such as neo-Nazis already have in mind who they want to hurt. Ethnic, racial, religious and cultural information might be helpful information, especially in terms of studying what has happened and why. This then turns into another case of censoring the news. That’s not helpful.

6.) The media should never publish a report on suicide or murder-suicide without adding the protective factors, such as the contact information for hotlines, help lines, soft lines, and other available community resources, including e-mail addresses, websites, and phone numbers. To run a story on suicide or a gangland murder without thinking about the damage the story can do is simply not responsible. It’s like giving a child a loaded gun. The media should try to balance such stories with some concern and consideration for those who may use it to imitate the act described.

I agree that protective factors should be provided, but it’s not the responsibility of the news to provide it. I say it would be the goodwill of the news to provide it. As for comparing the information provided by the news to giving a child a loaded gun, that’s disgustingly extreme. You know what’s more like giving a child a loaded gun? Giving a child a loaded gun! Hasn’t anyone ever read a story about a child committing an act of violence or self-harm and then asked, “Hey, how did that kid get the weapon(s) in the first place?”

7.) And finally, the media should reflect more on their role in creating our increasingly perceived violent society. Honest reporting on the positive nature of being alive in the twenty-first century may actually decrease the negative outcomes of the copycat effect, and create a wave of self-awareness that this life is rather good after all. Most of our lives are mundane, safe, and uneventful. This is something that an alien watching television news from outer space, as they say, would never know. The media should "get real" and try to use their influence and the copycat effect to spread a little peace rather than mayhem.

As it stands, the book merely makes the case for the copycat effect, but it’s not a scientifically proven theory. Given that information, it hasn’t been tested. How do we know that the copycat effect can lead to positive behavior? Sounds like an idea for a follow-up book, but I have a feeling that won’t be written. (Which leads one to wonder if the Mr. Coleman is hypocritically cashing in on the sensationalization of death and murder himself.) An idea on a whim like that makes for a poor suggestion, although I do like the idea of reporting on more positive news stories.

Obviously, I don’t like blaming the media for people’s ills. It will likely contribute in various ways, no doubt, but it’s hardly the source or the place to implement the solution. And let me be clear, censorship is not the solution. Education and awareness make for better solutions, but they’re often ignored because they’re far from simple.

There was a time when educational system included more mindful subjects like philosophy, or we could call it critical thinking. If more individuals were brought up with a better understanding of how to interpret the media, there would be fewer problems with it. If our educational system also included classes on being more inclusive and understanding of people, even better. If we could ultimately find a way to help foster more benevolent feelings and provide individuals with solid social support structures, we’d be many steps closer to utopia. I realize fully that the last one is a stretch and a nigh impossibility, but one can dream. After all, we provide individuals of autism with lessons about the importance of empathy and reinforce it for years. Why not for individuals on the more normative spectrum?

Loren Coleman’s book is ultimately successful in arguing for the prevalence of the copycat effect in American (and Japanese) society, but the fault of the book is that the individuals reading it already agree. The book’s lack of discussion on triggers and precedents makes the whole thing come across weak, and at times it literally reads like a list of unfortunate incidents. The inclusion of a list of suggestions by a man whose field of study doesn’t even involve the effects of the media (he’s got a Master’s in Social Work but he’s primarily, I kid you not, a cryptozoologist) is completely understood and good natured but also of little merit. However, just as I was easily able to pick at his suggestions, I expect my responses will be just as easily dissected and dismissed. The book, much like this entry, may be best regarded as the ice breaker for a larger discussion about the role the media plays in our lives and the responsibilities the individuals on both sides of the transmissions.

“Missing the Mark” or “Through the Eyes of a Child”

It is pretty apparent that one thing I look at and comment on in this blog is video games.  This is no surprise to people who know me because this is my intended focus in the psychology field, once I get back to school.  I grew up with multimedia, and video games were the “new media” with which I grew up in the 80’s.  They’re still relatively new, and the world doesn’t quite seem to have a grasp of it yet.  Waste of time?  Danger to society?  Or is it a storytelling medium and learning tool that we still have yet to fully utilize?

I place it pretty much on the same level as movies, television, music, and novels (literally, every other medium).  The problem isn’t the medium but how it’s used.  The people who make video games are eternally caught up in their own adolescence, not to mention that of their largest fanbase.  The comic book industry is caught up in the same issue, if you think about it.  There are outliers for both, of course, but they’re called outliers for a reason.

It amazes me how many studies there are out there about the negative effects of video games.  This would not be such a bother if not for my knowing for a fact that at least one of the biggest names in video games research is using a top-down methodology due to a major loss in his life that he wants to pin to the media as opposed to the fact that unfortunate things happen in life.  (I hesitate to use his name because I plan to apply to his program.)  The fact that a few positives pop out here and there is nice, but the overwhelming majority of what is shared with the media are the reports by myopic old timers who feel the need to attack something they don’t quite grasp.  And is it really fair to attack a whole medium when the focus should be on certain kinds of games and the fear of the users making an odd disconnect that extends the violence of the game to the real world (meaning they are ignoring the context of the game and cannot grasp the difference between fiction and reality)?

My goal is to look at games from a more objective paradigm, but I realize that isn’t entirely possible.  Everything about us produces a bias.  I subscribe to the deconstructionalist philosophy of psychology, but that was trashed years before I even knew what research was.  I guess my goal is not to disprove their research but to provide a balance.  Show that the medium just needs some maturing, but at its base level it is a fine tool that just has to be better utilized.  I don’t see how novels and film can help culture new ideas and ways of thinking for readers but video games are treated as if they cannot, especially when in the medium they can help produce outside-of-the-box thinking and application.

What’s funny is that my reason for writing up this post isn’t due to the academic side of things.  No, games have been on my mind because of my current part-time job with a set of 8 year-old autistic twins.  They love video games, although their intake is limited to their V-Smile console and over-the-shoulder viewing of other systems due to their destructive tendencies.  There’s something in their eyes – and not just theirs but children in general – that is enviable to see during video games.  There’s a sense of wonder that dies out when you get older.  I mean, creators and players are clamoring for more realism, academics are searching for the meaning within playing, and researchers and I are looking at effects.

And kids just go, “Wow!”

The most unfortunate thing about aging is the death of wonder and the growth of what may even only be a passive cynicism.  Sure, we’re intellectual.  Everything can mean something, but is that the only thing we see?  It’s not just video games but all other media.  It’s great that so many of us want to make this an intellectual society, but it does start to become pretentious and it hurts that part of us that still wants to be amazed.  I’m not imploring people to dumb down and look at things less critically, but maybe we can start repurposing our brains to accept the wonder and still look into deeper meaning.  Honestly, I don’t feel like you’re properly growing up if you simply repress or sublimate the wonder and awe you had as a child due to feelings that it’s “not adult” by societal standards.  If you’re an adult, you can make the decision for yourself.

"Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" [book review]

I’ve been waiting for years to get my hands on this book. Now that I have, I can say that it’s everything that I expected it to be. It’s a frank discourse about race relations in the USA today (or 12 years ago, since it was published in ’97) and an excellent starting point for further discussion. All that’s good about the book speaks for itself. I don’t need to go into that. After all, how do you review racial discussions? Well, small critiques, I suppose.

Shamelessly lifted from Amazon.com’s site

There’s one thing that seriously bothers me about Dr. Tatum’s racial discussion. I believe in the same chapter that she states how harmful it is for people to only have labels attributed to them, she says that, by a definition of her machination, only those in power – white people – are capable of being racist. Racism is only possible for those in power. I don’t agree. Racism, by definition, is the result of racial preference or discrimination. Everyone can discriminate. It’s technically racist to write in one’s own book, where one has the power, that only another group is worthy of such a heinous label. It creates an unnecessary “us vs. them” divide that the culture wars do not need.

This wasn’t the first time I came across that alternative definition for racism, but I’m sure it was the source. Many of my friends as well as myself are graduates of the University of Michigan, and Dr. Tatum received her license in clinical psychology from the M. Naturally, this book had to have been used in a course or few on campus. I was confronted once with, “No, only white people can be racist,” and I was told I was clearly missing the point when I stated that it was wrong by definition. I’m sure that it’s meant to be empowering to take the use of the word away from the oppressors, but all it does is result in an unnecessary racial snottiness. I can’t be racist because you people are the racists. Way to go, Dr. Tatum.

But her strong opinions are certainly to be admired. She writes about a time she was set to go on stage at a school, and right before it a breakfast meeting for just the African Americans was announced. After she spoke to the group, a white member of the audience, clearly agitated by what had happened earlier, asked how she would have felt had she witnessed a breakfast meeting for just the white people. Tatum’s response: “I would say it was a good idea.” It takes a lot of character to say that. I think what she proposes from there is great. Groups that support African Americans should encourage their white members to act independently in their support, not to mention discover their own identities as white/European Americans. This implicates that the goal isn’t just to the move African Americans forward but to help us all grow and move forward together. I just wish she had blatantly stated that, as cheesy as it is.

Then there was her section on developing an identity in a multiracial context. It naturally focused on the black-white mix, about which I know all too much. What I didn’t like was the fact that she initially rolled that in with one’s development as an African American. I think that oversimplifies things, so I’m glad she also stated that she wasn’t as qualified as other social scientists to discuss the situation. Regardless, she wrote a whole chapter and supported the idea that the racial identity of a person can be left as context-sensitive, and that in some contexts one can champion the black identity and in other contexts the mixed identity. The white side, being the side of power, requires not support. Since I’m very proud of both sides of my family, I have a bone to pick with that.

Well, I think I might have a bone to pick with the author. She seems to have such a level of racial pride that I think it has created a certain level of spite for the majority race in the country. Not only are whites not to be bolstered in the identity of a mixed race person, and not only are white people the only ones who can be racist, but she states in an almost proud manner toward the beginning of the book that she can recall all of her black friends from college but not a single white one. In the epilogue she wrote for the new edition of the book, she responded to criticisms of that by saying that the crowds they were in were fairly segregated, so she spent less time with them. The statement’s inclusion in the first place, though, was quite unnecessary.

The book is great, however. Friends have complained that the title is quite long, but it does get one’s attention. Despite the hang-ups I have with what can be gleamed of the author, the book has a place as a conversation piece and teaching tool. Also, anyone who might be interested in looking more seriously into the media and its portrayal of minorities could do worse than to start with this book to help develop an appropriately discerning paradigm.

I once read a mystery, and it was a gas; till the deconstruction by City of Glass

I don’t do nearly enough reading, and that has certainly started to bug me. When you live in the internet culture, and I certainly do believe I exist within the internet sometimes, there’s so much reading going on that one might be hesitant to do any offline reading. It sometimes feels like that’s the issue – text fatigue. Why deal with more words when I’ve turned away from my monitor?

Fortunately for those of us more than wrapped up in the world wide web, there are a multitude of sources we might be able to stumble across for suggestions in regard to offline reading. The internet is a fascinating plus full of academics and non-academics who want to prove to you how smart they are by making connections between academic and non-academic materials, or simply prove that they do more than just fill the internet with self-indulgent text. One of my favorite sites for that sort of thing is TVTropes.org, a wiki site about how everything you’ve seen on TV is exactly like everything else you’ve seen on TV, in books, in video games, etc. I’m not at all opposed to a cliché database – but I am opposed to the self-indulgence of some of the people posting on there. Is it really necessary for personal anecdotes from people I don’t even know?

In reading the entry on Metal Gear Solid 2, one of my favorite games despite its place in history as being a confusing mess of a science fiction fantasy wherein the main character of the series was abruptly removed from player control despite the advertisements all focusing on the assumed star, I came across an indirect book suggestion that was too tempting not to take. Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy series of books sounded like an interesting exercise in trying to figure out narrative versus authorship and a number of interesting things that might have been incorporated in Metal Gear Solid 2‘s narrative structure.

[This image is unabashedly ripped from Amazon.com]

It’s probably inappropriate to discuss the entirety of the trilogy right now because, honestly, I’ve only completed the first book of the set. City of Glass is a really short and simple read, and that seems to enhance its brilliance. Of course, I can’t say much because I don’t normally read mystery novels. Despite what I sometimes want to think, Encyclopedia Brown doesn’t count.

City of Glass is a detective novel about a man named Daniel Quinn, a mystery novelist who finds himself in the role of a real-life gumshoe. A wrong number connects a woman in need of protection for her husband and herself to Quinn. Her husband is the son of a man who was twisted with some obsession about the Tower of Babylon and the various myths surrounding it. The man has threatened the life of his son before and is currently set for release from prison. The son, meanwhile, is basically crazy. Were this a work by David Lynch, everything the grown son said in one chapter – and his speech took up an entire chapter of the novel – would have some sort of deep meaning. I didn’t find one, but I haven’t re-read it. So Quinn is asked to protect the family from the evil genius who is about to be released from prison. Simple story, right?

The interesting part is that she called in order to get a hold of a private detective named Paul Auster. After multiple calls explaining that he’s not Auster, Quinn decides to assume that identity. But later in the novel he actually meets Auster, and hes’ not a detective either – he’s also a writer. Auster, in what can be considered a self-insertion cameo, doesn’t play a huge role in the story but brings up an interesting point about the possible authorship of Don Quixote and ultimately why the novel might have been written. Something about to show the dangers of being a man bewitched by books…

I doubt this tells too much about the story, but it’s something to keep in mind as you complete the book. It helped to convince me that this is more an anti-detective story than a proper mystery novel. Most of the time when we come across the mystery story in its various forms, it’s a very romanticized view of what it would be like to follow a case. The gumshoe pretty much always comes out on top, even if there’s a slight twist to taint the victory in the end. (The movie Brick immediately comes to mind. Come to think of it, that deserves its own entry someday.) This isn’t one of those stories. This story has actually convinced me that the life of a private detective is not one for me. I can be certain it’s not one for you either.

The more academic will surely say that this is a nice deconstruction of the gumshoe myth. What if we transplanted that sort of story into a more realistic world? It is true. I just prefer the description of its being an anti-detective story because it gets the point across without sounding pretentious. It’s a worthwhile read because of this. Anyone can pick it up and feel the same kind of disappointment in the end, wishing that things had turned out the way they would have in another novel. It’s also worth noting that this book could show the dangers of being bewitched by your books – either the ones that you obsessively read or the ones that you author yourself in a half-assed and poorly planned sort of way. Then there’s that bit I touched on earlier on that makes the book an easy candidate for a post-modern novel.

I’ll let you know how the other took books in the trilogy are.