Once again, PBS Frontline is pushing the journalistic envelope in order to provide pioneering coverage of the war in Afghanistan. Their most recent contribution, entitled "Behind Taliban Lines", is a rare documentation of insurgent life and an ominous snapshot of global jihad. Afghani journalist Najibullah Quraishi spent an unprecedented 10 days within the ranks of an elusive militant cell operating in the north country. It is a rare and unsettling opportunity to follow the footsteps of these men as they travel from guesthouse to guesthouse attempting to plot and execute acts of sabotage on Allied vehicles. Theirs is a makeshift but implacable resistance. Each is prepared for martyrdom and devoutly committed to eliminating the "unbelievers". It should be said, the film does little to alleviate the foreboding sense of futility that continues to haunt this 9-year-old conflict. It is pretty sobering stuff. It is also infuriating.
This posse of self-righteous guerillas seems to traverse the frontier with relative impunity. They live off the local charity of some and prey on the fears of others- it is often hard to distinguish between the two. Sadly, they seem to represent only one tiny head of the large, slippery, seething Hydra that plagues our efforts in the region. Decapitation only feeds the beast. It would seem that the task before us is no less daunting than those of Greek mythology.....but I would not want to attach a false narrative.
There is probably no sight more evocative and mysterious than the human face. In a matter of milliseconds, each peculiar visage supplies our brain with a unique cognitive gestalt that is inundated with cryptic information. A slight tilt of the mouth, a furrow over the eyes, a crook in the nose, or a bump on the chin- every subtle detail, every faint gesture is a precious insight into an elusive foreign psyche.
Taken by Russian photographer Gleb Kosorukov, these images of modern-day Ukrainian coal miners demonstrate the rare power of the portrait to stimulate and engross the subconscious. What exactly do we "see" when we look at such photos? What mental imagery gets churned up each time our gaze falls on another? Perhaps, if we can come to understand how one brief snapshot of reality calls on our cache of memory and emotion, we may begin to unlock some of the latent complexities of our own thought. With extraordinary images such as these, sometimes it is both fun and instructive to explore the mystery further.
First off, the most striking aspect of this image has to be the dramatic irony. Amazingly, it seems totally conceivable that the same shot could have been captured almost 150 years ago with little to no alteration. It invades the mind like a relic from a bygone Age of Man.... an era of titanic industrial might and mass human drudgery. As your eye follows the coal-creased contours, it's hard not to choke on the festering plumes of particulate matter, to hear the metallic whine & clank of primitive manufacturing, or to sense the plight of a back-broken proletariat. Our plucky subject seems to know the bleak prohpecy of Orwell all to well: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on the human face- forever."
Yet despite his grim circumstance, his expression projects an unmistakable brand of cheeky bravado- the origins of which we can only hazard a feeble guess. Is it the smirk of Faust after having double-crossed the devil, or just the puckish grin of a coal-cloaked Chesire cat on a long-awaited smoke break? Is he really mining coal, or is he piloting Death back and forth across the river Styx? Is he resurfacing after six-hours work or resurrecting from six-feet under?
For me, the real poignancy lies in a bizarre paradox: as tangibly close as I may feel to this near caricature of blue-collar, black-lung man, and no matter how psychologically suggestive and empathy-encouraging this portrait may be, it embodies a world of experience that I could not be further removed from... and one which I will never approach. Perhaps this is what he's grinning about......
This is a timely new documentary from PBS FRONTLINE entitled Digital Nation. In a nutshell, it explores the vast breadth and depth of the human interaction with cutting-edge media technology and raises some pointed questions about the inevitable (but often elusive) social implications. Just to name a few, some points of interest include 1) the myth of media multi-tasking, 2) gaming and internet "rescue camps" in South Korea, 3) the erosion of memory & literacy 4) the bizarro "World of Warcraft", 5) telecommuting in "Second Life", and 6) the murky ethics of Predator drones and US Army recruitment "arcades".
If anything, the film is a sobering portrait of the present state of the hyperreal. As the speed of such technology is only accerlating, it is with extreme vigilance and introspection that we should engage such titanic, life-altering advances.
Once again, Stewart and O'Reilly sit down for a jovial and gentlemanly conversation. If there's anyone on the "left" who needs to teach a clinic on managing O'Reilly's on-camera persona, it's Jon Stewart. The only problem is that it's not really a talent one can impart to others. Without question, he is the undisputed master of sword-and-shield debate. In his case, exploiting the unique power of humor to placate and disarm an adversary before delivering shrewd points of argument. O'Reilly needs to feel in constant control of the conversation, and Stewart dances back-and-forth over this requirement like James Brown in a third encore.
As it is a favorite topic of this blog, I also love to see Stewart press the issue of narrative.
Here's the full, unedited interview which, of course, was only made available online:
For an excellent discussion of the recent Supreme Court case, I highly suggest listening to this Bill Moyers interview. He sits down with the attorneys from both sides for an intelligent and civil debate. (Part II also includes good back and forth between both sides)
If you waited patiently until the 45th min of the President’s speech last night, you were privileged to catch a glimpse of the pathetically cavalier attitude with which Washington regards campaign finance reform. The paragraph of lip service Obama allotted to the Court’s recent landmark decision expressed the same sense of gravity and urgency one would exhibit in taking a late afternoon nap. Let’s just hit the snooze button and hope we don’t sleep through dinner. Personally, I think the occasion called for more William Jennings Bryan and less Rip Van Winkle.
But so it goes....the Supreme Court’s ruling is just another contentious round in the age-old grudge-match between Liberty & Equality. And once again, the all-seducing narcotic of "freedom" has foiled reasonable measures to ensure a semblance of fairness in the political process. Under the guise of protecting free speech, the majority opinion was an unmistakable victory for the well-financed establishment. My only question is: why the public outrage?? Shouldn’t the average citizen expect a windfall of "trickle-down" democratic justice? Isn't what's good for the plutocracy good for everyone? I’m pretty sure that Monsanto and Exxon will have my best interest in mind when they start planning their election season propaganda campaign. I’m also quite sure that progressive candidates don’t need to fear crippling media reprisals should they take policy stances in conflict with business.
In all seriousness, it was only a matter of time before corporate henchmen were able to dismantle the modest gains of campaign finance reformers. The ugly marriage between money and politics is far too co-dependent for any lasting partition. The principled few who are brave (or crazy) enough to stand in the way of this grotesque confluence risk suffering the following education of Network's Howard Beale:
The bottom line is that this trend is nothing new. This Court's ruling is just the most recent application of "laissez-faire" political philosophy- but it's clear the contagion is spreading beyond the sphere of economics. It's another manifestation of the epic quest to undo every rational constraint on the corrupting potential of highly concentrated wealth. According to our esteemed judiciary, multi-national corporations do not have enough political voice. Forget their legions of lobbyists. Forget the fact that their ad dollars underwrite (and therefore unduly influence) most outlets of mass communication. Let's tip the scales a bit more.
This is not to imply that the American business community is either monolithic or inherently evil in their political posture. Of course, they're not. However, they are all unified in at least one respect: their unending pursuit for profit. What's wrong with a tidy profit? Absolutely nothing, in and of itself. The problem begins when the institutional constructs that maintain a logical distance between commercial and social life are completely eroded; when quarterly earnings are exalted above all other social and democratic considerations; when behemoth conglomerates entirely removed from the long term welfare of citizen and country are allowed to penetrate and overwhelm every facet of human life. It is the moment where we forfeit our collective humanity and become faceless, interchangeable consumers conditioned to worship our wants over our needs. We become a culture awash in hollow, commodified diversions where the illusion of "freedom" and fulfillment are promised, but only a gilded poverty is delivered:
(This ad is brilliant.)
It sounds like an Orwellian farce, but is it that much further from the present? Just how far down the rabbit hole are we? We already live in a media-saturated world funded almost entirely through corporate patronage- where news is sold as entertainment and politics is presented as sport or scandal. Should we really expect progress when we're trapped in a perverse paradigm that breeds ignorance and compromises truth for the sake of ratings???..... Welcome to the Society of the Spectacle.
Given the rising tide of American political ennui, these videos should come in extremely handy. In fact, the wunderkinder over at "The Onion" placed this one in their "Most Vital" category. Genius, as always.
By the way, the male anchor in their "Today Now!" series is scary good.
I saw "The Lives of Others" over the weekend, and would highly recommend it to those interested in a disturbingly good vignette of East German life under the Stazi. In particular, it portrays the all-consuming anxiety (and absurdity) associated with intellectual life in pre-1989 Eastern Europe. Although most cinema offers the audience a modicum of guilty, voyeuristic pleasure, this film turns up the pathos by allowing the viewer to watch the watchers. It doesn't surprise me that it won the Oscar for best foreign language film a few years back.
As westerners, it's nigh impossible for us to imagine (or empathize with) the acute mental stress that besieged those who dwelt in the wall's shadow, but this film will certainly join the canon of work dedicated to facilitating a bona fide attempt. The film's protagonist, Georg Dreyman, evinces many of the crises of conscience (and psychoses) described by Nobel Prize-winning author Czeslaw Milosz in his essential work The Captive Mind. In the following passage, Milosz describes his notion of "aesthetic ketman" or a certain form of psychological resistance to the will of authority:
"Aesthetic ketman is born of the disparity between man's longings and the sense-satisfactions the "New Faith" (Revolutionary Marxism) offers. A man of taste cannot approve the results of official pressure in the realm of culture no matter how much he applauds the latest verses, how many flattering reviews he writes of current art expositions, nor how studiously he pretends that the gloomy new buildings coincide with his personal preferences in architecture. He changes completely within the four walls of his home. There one finds (if he is a well-situated intellectual) reproductions of works of art officially condemned as bourgeois, records of modern music, and a rich collection of ancient authors in various languages. The luxury of splendid isolation is pardoned him so long as his creative work is effective propaganda. To protect his position and his apartment (which he has by the grace of the State), the intellectual is prepared to make any sacrifice or compromise; for the value of privacy in a society that affords little if any isolation is greater than saying "my home is my castle" can lead to one to surmise." (pg. 65)
The film deals with the intricate destruction of this "splendid isolation". Here is the trailer:
Building on the point of false narratives (below), this is Scott Ritter's sweeping indictment of the "WOT" narrative. Pretty compelling stuff. The full article is definitely worth a read, but here's a snapshot:
"The “war on terror” into which Obama seems to have thrust himself (the most recent manifestation being Yemen) remains the largest obstacle for any rational resolution of America’s problems in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Simply put, so long as the United States seeks an enemy that does not exist, it will always be looking for an enemy in its stead. The “war on terror” has the United States combing the world in search of enemies, and because American policymakers are responsive not to the reality that exists in the world today, but rather the perceptions of an American people largely ignorant of the world in which they live, and paralyzed by the fear such ignorance generates, there will always be countries and causes America will anoint as foe."
... the solution to these problems rests not in defining new parameters for action, but rather in the definition of the basic problems faced. From an overarching perspective, the United States needs to realize that there is no “war on terror,” and as such no “enemy” for us to close with and destroy. The human condition has always produced those who would seek to do harm to society. Norms and standards have been adopted, in almost universal fashion, that define how humans, organized into communities and nations, should interact in dealing with such deviations. This body of rules and regulations is collectively “the rule of law,” the principle of which defines modern society.
Deviations from the “rule of law” are best dealt with in collective fashion by those who share not only common values but also a common interest in such a resolution. Giving a criminal element, whether in the form of al-Qaida or a drug lord, the status of community or nation by waging “war” against it represents a failure to define the problem properly, leading inevitably to solutions that solve nothing. The answer to 9/11 is not war, but rather the “rule of law.” Until this underlying premise is recognized and adopted by U.S. policymakers, the psychosis of war will continue to corrupt American policy, and with it American society."
His solution in a nutshell: drop the WOT BS and deal with Palestine and Kashmir- the real issues.
I'd like to start off the new year by taking a moment to pause and reflect on one of the most powerful weapons in the media arsenal (and a prime obsession of mine): the notion of narrative. This entry is a bit longer than most, but I hope you'll indulge me because it's a rather important topic- and I hope you'll find it interesting. Please note: this treatment is FAR from exhaustive. Those interested in further reading should consult the work of Berkeley Professor George Lakoff particularly Metaphors We Live By and The Political Mind.
If media perform any principal task, it is the construction of narratives- or basic storytelling. The diversity of facts and details the world has to offer is boundless, but the amount of meaningful narratives is relatively finite. (Think why so many Hollywood films seem to utilize the same plotlines.) Without the framework of some type of narrative, the human mind sputters to extract any meaning from media messages. Without a perceived narrative context, information floats like an indiscernible morass of minutiae. This is so much the case that if message producers do not provide a credible narrative to frame the facts, our brains will instinctively scour our memory for the most salient, ready-made narratives to fill this critical void.
The point is that narratives are what provide meaning in our lives- they organize the chaos of sensory data into convenient frames of time and space so that we may better understand how to orient our lives in an incredibly complex world. In fact, we are conditioned to recognize the traditional catalogue of narratives from a very early age (Walt Disney created an empire on this fact). We learn the hero is inherently good and the villain is evil incarnate; we know the grammar of the hero's quest instinctually and we know how we will feel at any given point in the story whether it's a "rags-to-riches" or "boy meets girl" tale. These emotions are not arbitrary, but are organized to promote specific moral principles passed down from one generation to the next. From Homer's Odyssey to Lucas' Star Wars, we repeatedly encounter these "deep narratives" via media representation. As a result of this diligent indoctrination, most of us come to interpret our own lives through these essential epics- after all, what is our own life if not a story with us as the protagonist.
From a psychological perspective, narratives constitute a valuable cognitive expedient. There is no physical way our brains can digest and compute every single fluttering detail the lived world has to offer- we have to sacrifice a great deal of earthly complexity in order to make informed generalizations based on our "best" judgment. Therefore, we are often less attentive to isolated features than we are to patterns of features. This is to say that our brains think metaphorically because it provides the best economy in cognition. It's the patterns that provide us with the most meaning not the details. Details are important, but only in so far as they help us recognize a pattern. Similarly, facts are important, but only in so far as they help us construct a credible narrative.
The problem is that once we recognize and apply a given pattern/narrative in our thinking, we are more likely to try to apply this same pattern in other circumstances where there may only be a vague resemblance. It's been scientifically proven that narratives are self-reinforcing (in the cognitive sense)- our brains become biased towards seeing these old patterns versus seeing something new or "out of the ordinary". In our cognitive scramble for meaning, we tend to eschew or ignore the critical details that may render our favorite narratives obsolete or erroneous. (This phenomenon is the same for cultural stereotypes.) To put it another way, we tend to see what we are inclined to see. (Was Saddam Hussein really part of the "War on Terror" narrative?) Our deep narratives form the primary lens through which we try to see the world- we compartmentalize the facts into the finite set of frameworks that we can understand. Unfortunately, reality should not be treated as a pliable substance.
As far as media manipulation goes, the problem is threefold. The first is referenced above: our brains have evolved to over-rely on pattern recognition- we instinctually seek to apply a certain narrative whether the actual facts warrant this or not. In other words, narratives enable and encourage a certain degree of cognitive laziness. We love our narratives, and we want to employ them all the time. Rather than parse through the tedious facts and arrive at a truly enlightened picture, we want the "executive summary" so we can understand the gist of an event and quickly move on. Media producers (especially the unscrupulous vendors of partisan media) are highly aware of this and exploit it by framing the facts to fit a narrative that promotes their objectives. They don't so much provide the breadth of clinical facts as much as they sell a prepackaged narrative with a selection of facts couched to fit the framework. (Watch John Stewart nail this.)
This leads into the second vulnerability: narratives are never neutral, especially when it comes to news. Narratives are heavily-laden with rigid value judgments. The hero is always good; the villain is always despised. If you can believably frame the narrative in your favor, the desired effects are almost guaranteed. And finally, the third (and most important) vulnerability we have as media consumers is the instinctive and often unconscious nature of this cognitive process. We do not consciously decide to feel this way or that way about a certain narrative or representation of facts, it happens automatically. We may consciously feel the emotions attached to the narrative, but we have little control over whether they are elicited or not. Therefore, we may think we are making a "rational" political decision based on a certain objective set of facts, but in reality we are being manipulated at the subconcious level.
In sum: news media use narrative device to provide an essential degree of context in the presentation of world events. However, narrative is often used by less scrupulous actors as a mechanism to prey on the psychological vulnerabilities inherent in the cognitive process. We must be vigilant of this practice. Our narratives should only serve as rough guides to aid our understanding- especially when it comes to our domestic and foreign policy choices. They should be held loosely and abandoned readily. Whether you subscribe to the so-called "War on Terror" narrative or not, we should all be wary of those who seek to apply such frames dogmatically to every international event. Clearly, this is evidence of an agenda. The world is much too complex for such facile frameworks however tempting they are. We must resist the siren call of false narratives and strive for a genuine, impartial pursuit of truth.
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