Selling a Story

   After talking about how School House Rock is telling a Story of America and that it was bought by Disney, it brought me to the great irony of the Disney Company.
   Based on one of America's father figures, almost any documentary that you see on television will be quick to speak of his pioneering attitude, his imaginative ideas, and his Fatherlike respect for all children of America.
   He was also a white supremacist, outspoken anti-Semite, and was a large patron of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, also known as the German Nazi Party.  Admittedly he did stop contributing money after WWII broke out, but he was nonetheless a man who was certainly not what we remember him as. Don't get me started on the Disney Princess idea.
   When I think of Walt Disney I think of him smiling riding around on the train in his back yard.  I don't think of a man who would today be considered part of a fringe group.
   Look at the 1946 Disney Film, Song of The South.  No longer sold, as a means of telling the Disney myth, this film has some of the most racist depictions of African-Americans you will probably ever see. 
   I think that we should alter our image of Walt Disney.  He was a great man who inspired all children to be whatever they wanted to be.*

*Not applicable if you are Black, Jewish, Native American, gay, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Indian, Communist, or any not aforementioned non-white.

A Word Delegate...?

   I was recently made aware that America has a Poet Laureate.  If you are as oblivious as me, your first question was probably, what is a poet Laureate?
   Well a Poet Laureate is a government appointed official, usually also a poet, who composes poems for state events and such.  I still don’t really understand it.
   America doesn’t have a bureaucrat for most arts, so why do we have an official poet.  I think that the fact that there is an “official” poet in the US says a lot about this (arguably dying) art form.  Its standards are too rigid.  That was why I was glad to learn that the newest Laureate, Kay Ryan, doesn’t adhere to classic poetic standards.  He argued that nearly every well thought  word choice is a poem.  Therefore, add slogans are poetry, so are music lyrics.
   I couldn’t agree with him more.  I think of so many beautiful songs that could be read as poetry.  I see so many beautiful words that are near poetic.  As we row down the North Shore Channel, we come across a wide array of graffiti, one memorable one says in large red letters, “MONEY P****Y WEED.”  The word is not censored on the side of the bridge. I don’t see any reason why this isn’t poetry.  I can't help but think, if the simple, yet complicated word choice of “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a poem, the above statement isn’t.  They are both a  series of words chosen with the express intent to mean more than simply the what is written.

Is The Internet Making us Stoopid

   In my recent post, The Murder of Discourse, I fear I may have been too hard on the plethora of options that Americans have when choosing different media outlets. We have many public forums of the internet, whether it is Wikipedia or a blog or Twitter or the “MyFace.”
   Like the Atlantic article, is Google making us Stoopid, says, the internet is changing the way we process information. I’m not sure if it is for the worst. I think it is important that people take a step back and think, “Am I adding positively to this debate, or subtracting from it.” If you find yourself, on either side of the political spectrum, rioting and yelling blasphemous claims, it is probably time to take a break and really ask yourself what you are fighting for.
   I love to argue and debate my position. I don’t like to argue for the sake of solely changing the view of others, but also because I enjoy exploring my own views. Yesterday, while struggling to understand the ideas of social constructs and their relation to morals in America I found myself arguing with a friend on the way to rowing practice. Despite the fact that I was perturbing him, I continued to argue my point because the more I argued, the more I understood and honed my vision and theory of the topic. I think if more people could calm down and realize that their arguments are useful to themselves as much as others, and that as Americans we are all working to make the nation better, we could create a powerful and compelling national dialogue on this great new interweb.

The Face of Evil

   For Jewish confirmation class (much the same as a Christian confirmation) we read a book called The Sunflower.  This “true” story takes place in the middle of WWII and the author, Simon Wiesenthal, is a Jew in a concentration camp in Poland.  He is approached by a nurse.  The nurse brings him to a Nazi guard who wishes to apologize.  I’m not going to say what happened as the book is a really great 98 page read.
   As we talked through the complexities of the story, I found that I was the only one who would forgive the Nazi.  I couldn’t help but notice that, almost every story of the holocaust painted Nazis as monsters and Jews as helpless creatures.  I have no argument that the Jews were helpless creatures, the atrocities committed on them were horrible.  Bare with me, I believe a large number of The Nazis were equally as helpless.
   I couldn’t help but think that 95% of the people I was discussing this book would have joined the Nazi party had they been in the same position as the now expiring Nazi guard.  I know it seems taboo and terribly disrespectful to all the people who were brutally slaughtered, but I feel terrible for all the helpless children who were talked into the Holocaust.

   Before you judge me or my views, take a look at the sociological implications and basis for my response to the book, maybe look at the famous Zimbardo Prison Experiment in a Stanford University basement, pictured to the left.

The Murder of Discourse...?

   A Few Days ago, a posted a blog entitled The Death of Discourse.  I felt that I had left the story only half told, as I never truly explained where I believe this social problem came from.
   People seem to think that Modern technology, namely the internet along with the mediums that it has presented us with are a positive addition to the many ways that us Homo-Sapiens  communicate.
   Unfortunately, as the (mildly inappropriate)  Infomania clip below portrays, Blogs and twitter have a habit of taking complex issues and oversimplifying and even degrading them; there is a reason why pundits are on TV and not normal people; they know what they are talking about.






   Not only are Nancy Pelosi’s sexual organs irrelevant to her ability to work as a successful Speaker of the House, but it is also extremely degrading to intelligent, professional woman to hold them to criticism that a professional man that was disagreed with would never be held accountable to.
   So people without any real training voice their unfiltered rage on the internet.  Where, though, does this rage come from.  No, its not CIA implants in our brains.
   It’s the 24 hour news cycle.  In order to keep viewers, 24 hour news cycles need stories that are constantly enthralling and emotionally rousing.  This means playing to people’s hatred and fear and turning it into ratings.   Its much easier to watch MSNBC and hate the republican party in every way.  As I’ve said in my earlier post, The O’reilly Question, is this really what is best for our country?
   Furthermore, are we Americans really that thick and used that we will pander to the opinions of "our" news mediums.  
   My opinions are mixed throughout the irrelevant political spectrum.  I don't believe waterboarding is torture.  Without a doubt it is immoral but that doesn't void the fact that Americans have been SIMULATING torture for years.  Real torture is what the Japanese of WWII did.  I also believe that abortion before the baby grows itsa own heart is moral.  By looking through the simplified fog of modern politics, we can see a much more copmplex series of questions in a clearer, yet more difficult light.
   Let's be honest though, we'll stay polarized because simple groups are much easier for politicians to handle and much easier for the new to exploit, can you imagine if there were hundreds of different visions of America, hundreds of different MSNBCs and FNCs, the market share to vast for any one news station to handle.  So, it appears, we will have to choose a party, and get our yelling voices ready.

The Death Of Discourse?

   A lot of people point to Kanye West's breakdown at whatever award show when he said whatever idiotic thing he said as proof of the degradation of discourse in the US.  Really!?  This is the best example you can think of. 
   I think that the death of discourse has been upon us for a long time and been evident in social events much more pertinent than a man who wears sunshade glasses' actions.  Lets start with what I mean by death of discourse.  I mean that Americans don't know how to argue politely anyomre.  We only see people we agree with and therefore we never know the proper way to act around those that don't agree with us, as seen in a documentary that I saw recently, called Split: A divide in America.  It speaks of how America's voting habits have become more and more polarizing between the blue and red.
   One doesn't have to look at voting patterns to see that American arguments have degraded into ridiculous caricatures that in no way further an argument.  A friend of mine likes to wear his Obama is a socialist.  When I ask him to explain any reason for the shirt and its message, he simply says that he doesn't want to start an argument.  Why would anyone where such a controversial shirt without being prepared to back it up with some sort of logical argument.  Furthermore, whats the point of holding an opinion whilst being to lazy to voice it.

A Great Man.

   We all affect each other.  That goes without saying.  A question that came to me as I listened to the sermon of High holiday services was how much do we affect each other. 
   I was listening to arguably one of the most influential men of the civil rights movement and undoubtedly the most powerful Jew of the civil rights movement;  Rabbi Robert Marx. Watch a short documentary of him here.
   Besides having been a collaborator of many chicago marches, Marx was a friend of Martin Luther King.  A man who undoubtedly had a huge affect on every American's life.
   Rabbi Marx, the founder of my congregation, has a rather famous story about his involvement in the march on Washington.  He was invited to stand next to King at the speech, and that was his plan until about five minutes before he arrived. On the walk between his hotel and the mall, he saw a man crying on the street.  Marx asked him what the problem was.  The man responded that he had lost all of his money, his family and his friends.  He lamented that there was nothing left to live for.
   Marx treated the man to breakfast as they listened to the I Have A Dream Speech speech on the radio.
   I'm willing to bet that Rabbi Marx had a greater affect on this one man than he would have had o anyone had he been on the stage that day.  This brings me to my point, everyone always says that everyone can make a difference.  If this is true, why don't we all.  Surely the Martin Luther King's are important, but I would choose a good friend over a great man any day.

An American Soundtrack

    Last weekend I attended a Styx concert with some friends.  Held at a county fair in Wisconsin,  yards from prized pigs and hens waiting to be judged, I couldn't help but think what is more USA than this.
    Of course there was a lot of ridiculously fun 70's moments, power stances and rotating keyboards were used liberally. What I found odd was that I can't think of any band in modern pop culture that I can say represents America. 
    I didn't have to look through my iPod before the name popped into my head: Joe Pug.  He has a similar quality to Styx; he is inexplicably yet undeniably American.  He only has two EP's out but on his first, the song Nation Of Heat seems to reflect his
views and his ideas of America so well.
     Not only is his music catchy, but the lyrics are great.  I really don't want to explicate lyrics for you, so I will just list off some lines that really spoke to me.

"I cook my dinner on the blacktop street, I come from the nation of heat"
"We got the loudest explosions you ever heard.  We got two dollar soldiers and ten dollar words."
"If I didn't own boots I wouldn't need feet, I come from the nation of heat." 
"So swift and so vicious are the carnival rides, and the carnival barker yell your name for a bribe."
"We got billboards for love and Japanese cars.  It ain't rare to hear the street lights call themselves stars.  The more that I learn, The more that I cheat.  I come from the nation of heat."
"Blacken borders with smiles, our immigrant sons, we measure loneliness in miles and misery in tons.  There's a straw-hatted man rowin' away from the shore, who says its a shame they don't let you have slaves here anymore."
 
   On top of his very American lyrics tunes, he represents a new culture in America.  He's one of those new artists who has gained a following on the "myface."  The fan created music video below really sums up not just the Patriotism behind his music, but also the new America that he represents.



    I'm a big believer that one can never fully appreciate a song unless heard three times, so don't be afraid to replay the video.  If you like his music I can assure you that all his songs are this good.  Just ask for a copy of his EP in class and I will be more than happy to burn it.

Do I Make Decisions?

   Today in class we talked about what makes a person, where there personality comes from and what makes them themselves.

   Freud would describe a personality as the combination of the Id, the basic impulses or drives of the brain and human organism, the ego, which seeks the goals of the id with a long term perspective, and the super-ego, which is a self regulator, a conscience.  He would look at the way that the three interact and then say, there you have a person as a whole.  He would probably also blame a patients mother for something, but that's beyond the point.
   However, In class today, what came to mind was not Civilization and its Discontents, but rather a very different psychological study.  About a year ago, I read an article about a man who, after suffering from seizures had his corpus callosum severed as a cure.  The corpus callosum is the tissue that connects the left and right hemispheres and a seizure is basically a domino effect of too many chemicals receptors being set off in the brain, cutting the hemispheres prevents the chemical overflow from spreading.
   Most people know that the left and right hemisphere can do different things.  The left, for instance, works well with speaking, while the right hemisphere works well with pictures.
   What is more important about this distinction is how it allows researchers to look into the workers of decision making.  For example, a subject with a cut corpus callosum was shown the word music to his speaking left hemisphere and the word bell to his non speaking, but pictorial right hemisphere.  After this, a screen displayed a church with a steeple and bell, a music note, a guitar, and a drum set.  The subject was told to point to the word he had just seen.  He pointed at the church tower and said, "Music."  When asked why he chose the church as apposed to another one of the more music related objects, he said that the last music he could remember was a church bell.
What this proves is that the brain is merely taking in chemical stimuli and responding to them.  Then, your brain convinces you that you actually made the decision.  In an MRI, it becomes apparent that the reasoning section of the brain actually lights up milliseconds after the decision making section of the brain.
   After I read this article, it changed my life, made me depressed and existential.  I read some Camus and sulked.  Then I realized that it doesn't make a difference if I actually choose anything in my life. 
I may know, or at least strongly believe, that free will doesn't exist.  I do, however, believe that people should be held accountable for their actions, if we don't society would collapse.
   However, these findings lead me to believe that Freud was partially correct. He said the the super-ego was created from a fear of a loss of love, i.e. you wont hit your mother because she will become angry.  Humans are pack animals and, if you believe in evolution, it makes sense that those who had a chemical disposition to this fear of losing love would survive.  We are chemically predisposed to be afraid of losing the approval of the group, society, and we explain this as the human desire to analyze our actions and act morally.  Truthfully, it is the human ability to think we are thinking.
   This explains hereditary mental disorders as well; they aren't "disorders" but ill-formed super-egos.  Maybe I should feel bad for a psychopath the same way I do for someone born with a crippling illness.  They were just unlucky enough to get the short end of the gene pool.