Category Archives: Culture

Watching TV Makes you Smarter?

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Yep.  At least that’s what Steve Johnson claims in his 2005 New York Times Magazine article with that title.  And…it’s an argument worth considering, especially given our penchant for dissing Americans in matters of intelligence. (Consider, for starters, Susan Jacoby’s recent book The Age of American Unreason, former Vice-President Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason, and Richard Shenkman’s new book Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth About the American Voter.)  H.L. Mencken wasn’t mistaken when he once said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

So, maybe it’s worth overestimating the intelligence of the American public, or at least reconsidering some of our criticisms.

Here’s the gist of Johnson’s argument:  a number of contemporary television shows, including The Sopranos, 24, The West Wing, and ER (keep in mind this was published in 2005) are actually demanding of some of our mental faculties.  The mental faculties he’s referring to include attention, retention, the parsing of complex narrative threads, and the deciphering of quick dialogue filled with information most viewers won’t understand.

He uses The Sopranos to illustrate his point about complex narratives.  In one episode, the viewer has to untangle at least 3 different narrative threads with layered plots in just one scene.  And, he says, the narratives build from previous episodes and continue on in future episodes.  ER is an example of a show full of quick dialogue packed with complex terms and a vocabulary unfamiliar to most that the audience must wade through to follow the story.

All of this, Johnson argues, requires the audience to focus–exercising the parts of the brain that map social networks, work to fill in missing information, and help make sense of complex narrative threads.  What Johnson’s crediting here is the structure and design of the shows…not the content.  The content, he acknowledges, is probably more immoral and sensational than ever.  But that’s not the point in this examination.

So, is this a valid point?  Do others agree?  What shows on TV right now might be comparable to the ones Johnson cites to make his argument?

meant to be?

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As I push and shove (or, rather, swing and duck) my way through my dissertation, I’ve been thinking lately about the topic I once promised myself I’d write my dissertation on: the rhetoric of fate in American culture. You see, there was a time in my life about six or seven years ago that I had a major philosophical shift in my thinking. Previously, I had been a faithful believer in fate and predestination. Everything was, of course, predestined—where I’d go to college, who I’d meet, what career I’d have, whom I’d marry, if I’d marry, etc. After some pretty heated discussions with several people I respect and admire, I toyed with the idea that maybe everything wasn’t based on fate, or wasn’t predestined.

To make a long story short (or, to spare you a personal story more interesting to me than to others, I’m sure), I’ll cut to the chase. In the process of shifting my thinking, I asked anyone and everyone what they believed about fate. Did they, too, believe that everything was predestined? What did people mean by fate? Predestination? Most profound to me, and pertinent to Harlot, is the contradiction I found over and over in what people believed about fate, and in what they said about it. Most didn’t really believe in fate, but I could easily catch them speaking as if they did.

For example, my mother firmly stated that she didn’t believe our lives were predestined—that we had independent thought and choice in what we did. She did, however, routinely utter such comforting statements as, “Don’t worry, Kelly, it wasn’t meant to be,” or “If it’s meant to be, it’ll work out.” My best friend confirmed that she, also, did not believe that our lives were predestined. However, she would often ask the question, “Where is Mr. Right?” “I guess I’m not meant to find him yet?”

What I’m still curious about is why many of us (not to mention popular culture) often speak as if things are meant to or not meant to happen if we don’t really believe it. Do we really believe, on some level, that things will work out? Do we need to believe that? Is it all just rhetoric we’ve heard and repeat out of habit?

Obviously, I, at least, wasn’t predestined to write that dissertation. Long way from there…

Analyze That Melody

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I’ve been thinking quite a bit about music these days. And its role in rhetoric. I don’t know. It just seems like as much as we try to keep the disciplines apart, they keep strolling down lovers’ lane hand in hand.

Music is so integral to most societies worldwide–whether they define it as “music” or no. For instance:

1. My boss not too long ago criticized a coworker for having rap on her ipod and then promptly handed the scissor sisters for her to listen to. What happens if the under-person does not accept the higher-ups version of what is “good” or “acceptable/respectable music?” Does their relationship change in some way? Does their dynamic dampen because they don’t cherish the things that the other person does?

2. I will be driving some coworkers (of a different job) on a 2/3 hour trip. Trust me, they will be forced to listen to my music and the things I like. Now, I will try to be sympathetic and stay away from some of the most polarizing kind of stuff (ie Linkin Park–you’ll either love ’em or hate ’em), but I don’t think they’d want to hear my Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada either. Which I guess will make us stick with something that most everybody likes (The Temptations it is–or Clapton, no one can “no” to Clapton) or just not play anything at all. Does this mean that we might actually have to talk to each other!?

3. Abstract music intrigues me. What’s it trying to say exactly? Hmm, I think it is trying to communicate, even to persuade in some way, but what is it that it’s trying to communicate to me? For example, from Opsound,  a piece called “sailing.” I mean, how exactly is this “sailing” and how does it connect to the overarching message of the piece?

I guess, I just think it’s there. It’s worth exploring and delving into the many, many facets that music encompasses–from social connections to identity to what the music does itself. Seriously. The musician (in most times) very intentionally choose a minor key over a major key for a specific reason and that reason is trying to communicate with its audience. It’s just another form of persuasion.

The interdisciplinary ideals make me salivate.

Photo from [nati] of Flickr.

cards on the table

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I am so tried of hearing the phrase “playing the race card.” First of all, exactly what game (not to mention teams, rules, and trophies) are we talking about? As far as I can tell, the “race card” is generally treated like an underhanded and potentially unethical strategy (not simply an acknowledgement of identity politics) that someone who is “raced” (Obama) can turn to in a pinch — but not what someone who is white, which apparently translates to “non-raced” (McCain), can ever be accused of.

The problem with that, of course, is that it perpetuates the invisibility of whiteness, the privelege and power that come not just with being “dominant” or in the “majority” but with the refusal to acknowledge the artifical nature of this position. Because if white people are not raced (what does that make them?), then race is not really their concern — it can remain always the concern of the other, a special interest issue rather than a complex web of historical, social, and cultural constructions that impacts all of us.

This simplisitic version of reality is what Steven Colbert satirizes with his insistence that he is “color blind” — as if white men/white media can “solve” the racial tensions in the U.S. and beyond by simply refusing to see them. Willful blindness at the expense of critical consciousness is the name of that game.

And this is exactly what McCain’s team is banking on — that American audiences are too blind to see the white power he exploits and exemplifies. Now, I’m not calling McCain a white supremacist. But I am pointing out that his own race card has already been and will continue to be played — by cynical, opportunistic campaign managers, racist voters, fearful Christians, and everyday, well-meaning citizens who unconsciously support what they are familiar with… and/or who rely (blindly) on counterproductive binaries perpetuated by the bear-baiting circus we call “the news.”

Thoughts?

Who Am I Wearing?

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Oh, I know what you’re thinking. However did you get your fabulous fashion sense, Miss Kaitlin? Well, it’s called pulling whatever is clean out of the drawer and putting it on. But for everyone else, they might learn from a little show called “What Not to Wear” on TLC.Now, this particular show is supposed to take people who have been nominated as, well, less than polished dressers and teach them how to present their best assets by changing their style. What I personally find fascinating are all the tactics that the two hosts, Stacey London and Clinton Kelly, must go through in order to convince their nominees of particular items of clothing. Like the nominees say so well themselves, the way they dress expresses who they are.

ie. Christina…

Or even Marcy…

And that’s where I’m both perplexed and fascinated. If someone is a jeans and t-shirt person and that’s how they choose to represent themselves, which means that that’s how they choose to form their identity, does changing their dress change their identity? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it changes who they are, per se, but perhaps it changes who they will be.

Or what about this thought. If these hosts truly are bringing out the nominees’ most attractive qualities, then maybe the nominees are actually finding their true identities and their true selves.

Well, I think that’s my more optimistic side coming through, because I then can’t help but question what or who gets to decide what constitutes their best attributes or what their best self would be.

And to think, we used to merely wear clothes for the warmth. How misguided we were.

Photograph from Moriza of Flickr.

Public vs. Private

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Shocking! According to an Associated Press article, “Israeli newspaper publishes Obama’s private prayer,” a prayer Obama reportedly left at Jerusalem’s Western Wall has been published in an Israeli newspaper.

Sure, we often shake our heads and say “nothing’s sacred anymore,” but I’m honestly surprised at this newspaper’s decision – and at the student of religion who retrieved it in the first place. Although the prayer is not confirmed as having belonged to Obama, the penmanship seems to match his hand from a note written earlier this week.

I’m a bit torn about writing on this story. Since the text of the prayer has been offered for public consumption, I can’t help but read it as a rhetorical artifact. And yet as I was writing a line-by-line analysis of the prayer, I slowly began to realize I was becoming more and more uncomfortable with my actions. The act of writing this post and giving the story more attention makes me complicit in publicizing an issue that should be ignored out of respect for an individual who just happens to be running for president, but my act of analyzing it would be even worse: It’s beyond the acts of, say, staring and shaking my head at celebrity gossip rags while standing in line at the grocery store and more like actually buying them. I hope my restraint here is adequate.

So I’ll skip the analysis and pose questions instead, which are based on my assumption that most people will believe Obama wrote the prayer: What will religious and non-religious people in the U.S. and abroad think of the prayer’s emphasis on the personal and familial for a person who hopes to oversee the wellbeing of an entire country and by extension other countries of the world as well? Does it help him that the whole world sees him asking for wisdom and for aid in remaining strong in the face of “pride and despair?” Or do such requests make him appear weak? What do they think of him asking to be an “instrument” in a time when many acts – both good and horrific – are performed in the name of religion?

I also wonder – again, assuming Obama is the author – how much of the prayer would have been composed with a larger readership in mind. I know it’s bad of me to ask such a question, but can a person in Obama’s position compose anything private and assume it will actually remain so?

I’m bound to libel you

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CNN.com posted an article not too long ago about what is considered libel in Bloggers learn to avoid lawsuits. Also note the EFF’s Online Defamation Law.

But, seriously now. Where’s the line between opinion and slander? According to the EFF, I could call someone a bitch or a skank, but not accuse them of being a prostitute. Too bad. That was my main go-to insult. Okay, not really, but it’d be nice to have the option.

I’m just thinking . . . in order for something to be considered defamation, then there must be a real intent to do harm. To publicly humiliate another person. And at a certain point, it’s all semantics.

But, oh, law lives and breaths based on semantics. You can lose some serious money based on a semicolon. And I guess this is the thing. In my Idealist World, you could see someone’s intentions very easily and determine a course of action based on those intentions, but this isn’t that world. And people lie.

We don’t always know that when So-And-So accused What’s-Their-Face of being a prostitute, that So-And-So really meant that they thought What’s-Their-Face was a huge slut.

This all becomes problematic when we come to something like a blog.

Now, no doubt there are great pluses to blogs and blogging and interaction between users and presenters, but I guess this whole situation with suing bloggers has made me call the practice into question. Where’s the line between sharing ideas freely and openly to just bashing someone because you thought they were an asshole?

Should there be proper Blogger etiquette? Or has it really come down to Teach Me How to Not Get Sued?

the art of the folksy persuasion

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So, I’m troubled…still.  Troubled by the attachment of intellectualism with elitism, and how it plays out in American politics.  Let me be more specific.  It seems that American politicians continue to back away from their privileged educations and shine the spotlight on their “folksy” characteristics (simulated or not) in order to win the American public’s vote.

We’ve all heard/read/talked/laughed about references to Bush and his distance from intellectualism.  The President of Barnard College, Judith Shapiro, just wrote/spoke about this topic, in reference to the Clinton/Obama battle:

“Here we had two candidates vying to run for President who had been educated at institutions that are among the most distinguished in our country: Wellesley, Yale, Columbia and Harvard.  Both candidates were obviously highly intelligent and knowledgeable.  Yet both felt the need to play down their claims to intellectuality–and the winner may still feel that need in the general election.  Hillary Clinton chugalugged beer and sought to attach the dread lable of ‘elitist’ to her rival.  And Barack Obama felt compelled to follow one of the most honest and sophisticated political speeches in recent memory with strenuous displays of folksiness” (“Staying Smart in Dumbed-Down Times”).

I guess I’m concerned by and wondering what others think about the need for political candidates–presidential candidates–to market themselves this way.  I’m all for candidates with balance: an intellectual drive and sophistication alongside a strong sense of humor, silliness…say, folksiness.  But how dangerous is a public association of intellect with elitism, and the consequent backing away from such characteristics?  And, what does it mean when the art of persuasion for political candidates rests on playing down”intellectuality”?

omg j/k

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I found this game on Sporcle about supposedly common chat acronyms. What I think is interesting is that if you go through the game and then click to see the most missed, only 2.6% got all 30 acronyms correct. In fact, the least correctly guessed term was TAFN (that’s all for now) at 10.9%.  At that point, would you even say that these are “common?” And on what scale–to who? Common to the mass general public or to the more select computer geeks who use terms like “n00b?” I certainly didn’t know them all; nor do I want to align myself with that particular kind of type/speech anyway.

Plus, terms like NIMBY (not in my backyard)–what’re they being used for within chat? My understanding of it is for more urban development reasons than any kind of chat usage. Can something like that transfer over to the virtual environment with virtual places to “protect?”

Slap a yellow magnet on the old bumper

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So, I’m driving this morning and notice that the SUV in front of me sports 2 texts (beyond, you know, the messages sent by things like car make). One is a “My husband is serving: US Army” sticker and the other is a yellow ribbon ribbon magnet inscribed with “Keep Daddy Safe.”

Holy pathos, batman! But oh, the irony — because my emotions were immediately touched as I consider with sadness and sympathy the idea that what would  their daddy safe (and make them feel safe) is not, logically speaking, supporting or maintaining the war that puts him in danger. I assumed, of course, that the ribbon was meant to elicit protective patriotism.

But THEN, I started to think that it’s possible, after all, that for those kids (and perhaps their parents), the yellow ribbon symbolizes their wish to have daddy come home, not to have people equate support of the troops with support of the war and therefore to unquestioningly accept the government’s actions. In this light, then, the ribbon could be read as pleading for the adequate health care (from armor to counseling) the government has not seen fit to provide their daddy. Or even the simpler implication: “bring him home.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch up with her to ask about intentions.  But I love it when these kinds of moments make us realize the messy way that messages are designed, sent, received, rejected, reconsidered…