Conceptual movie making, and beyond

I was looking the other day at some raving comments on Spring Breakers  by English professor and cultural critic Steven Shivaro. He says he found the movie “utterly ravishing” – “so gorgeous as to negate or suspend the uneasiness” he felt about some dubious ideological messages embedded in it. Prof. confesses he was “helplessly & successfully disarmed by Harmony Korine’s relentless audiovisual seduction: the sunsets, the colors, the slow-motion, the breasts, the throbbing but sublimated yearning of the electro score, the intellectual montage that layers Britney over thuggery, and gorgeous beaches over willful stupidity, the heartfelt spirituality of Selena Gomez’s voiceovers.” He takes in “all this as an almost didactic demonstration of the way that, in our neoliberal culture, there is no distinction whatsoever between hedonism and self-help, or between transgression and hypernormativity.”

Long live debauchery!

Caroline Kitchener describes on the Atlantic web site the gross hazing rituals many female students submit to in order to join the “frattiest eating club” at Princeton (““There Is No Pressure for a Girl to be a Girl”). The club is known for the heavy drinking, and all the accompanying (often naked) shenanigans it encourages; and Ms. Kitchener (herself a Princeton student) says women already outnumber men among the aspiring applicants. What do all these exceptional young women pursue as they apply for membership in a club with somewhat questionable reputation? Apparently, they now want to “join for the debauchery, not in spite of it”; and few look back with any regret. So, why would this kind of debauchery be so attractive, even to stellar female students at Princeton?

The pursuit of meaningless happiness

Emily Esfahani Smith describes – and interprets – on the Atlantic web site a recent study according to which “people who are happy but have little-to-no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity” (“Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness”). The researchers term this kind of physiologically suboptimal, proinflamatory kind of happiness “hedonic,” as it is related mostly to pleasurable self-gratification; and they distinguish it from “eudaimonic well-being,” a more “meaningful” form of happiness derived mostly from being a worthy member of a community and contributing to the well-being of other. All this is nice and kind of inspiring – even if it comes from a designated “conservative” contributor (or content generator) at The Atlantic Monthly. But I am left wondering – is excessive self-indulgence really compatible with the “eudaimonic” happiness posited by positive psychologists?

The end of shame, among other things

Over the weekend, Peter Foster, US editor for The Telegraph, made an anguished pronouncement: “This was the week that the concept of shame finally seemed to die in American public life – as if the basic filters that everyone had assumed separated what is acceptable from unacceptable, had suddenly been removed.” What provoked this striking conclusion? In Mr. Foster’s words, “the low point in the lowest of weeks came when Mr. Weiner dragged his wife in front of the cameras to confess that he'd still been up to his creepy old ‘sexting’ tricks for months after he resigned from Congress in June 2011 vowing ‘never again.’ “

Post-materialist values

My wife took me the other day to see Sophia Coppola’s latest movie, The Bling Ring. As everyone knows by now, it depicts – in a partly fictionalized and, according to the director, non-judgmental way, the daring exploits of a group of real high-school students (several young women and one young man) from the LA suburbs. Coming from well-off or outright rich families, a few years ago they achieved instant fame as they basked in streams of reflected Hollywood glitter. More specifically, they had walked into the lavish homes of celebrity actors and self-impersonators around Hollywood Hills while the proud owners were on business trips; and walked away carrying designer clothes and accessories valued at around 3 million dollars. Surprise, surprise – the gang were arrested after some of them were captured on surveillance cameras, and somebody (perhaps one of the many schoolmates who had heard them brag about their exploits and seen them flaunt many of the stolen goods) tipped off the police.

A life lesson from Nelson Mandela

Once in a while something striking and tremendously significant happens, and the major news outlets are utterly and totally preoccupied with it, neglecting scores of less interesting topic. To Al Jazeera’s credit, the last time this happened – with the birth of the royal baby the other day – they did make a valiant effort to address some issues which would undoubtedly evoke less burning interest – like Nelson Mandela’s legacy. A few days ago I accidentally caught two minutes from a conversation between a blond South African woman and a dark-haired man, both middle-aged and apparently some sort of experts or pundits. They were discussing Mandela as he seemed to be approaching the point when it is time for him to depart peacefully from the world he fought so hard to make a better place for everyone.

Business aesthetics

This is a small bank office on a major street in a well-off part of Sofia. The vigorous plants in front are, indeed, weeds. They were not cut off by anyone hired by the municipality, and nobody seems to care. This could, perhaps, be seen as a metaphor for a deeper collective action problem in Bulgarian society – which, I am afraid, won’t be solved by removing from power the current “political class.” 

Coming Out as a Porn Addict

This is the title of a piece by Isaac Abel on The Atlantic  web site. In the competition for clicks, The Atlantic seems to have done quite well by providing a steady stream of such provocative material. The article itself offers a mix of disarming self-revelation and quasi-scientific cliché (the latter reminiscent of Philip Zimbardo’s much discussed TED talk and accompanying ebook on the descent of young men). Abel’s chief concern, though, seems to be the shame internet porn addiction still seems to carry – a somewhat refreshing worry in our anything-goes day and age.

Noble lies, take two?

Boston Magazine has a profile of psychology professor Lisa Barrett. She is billed as the most prominent psychologist who has sought to challenge Paul Ekman’s long-standing “finding” that people around the world identify (and perhaps experience) a few “basic emotions” in roughly the same way. Like Barrett, I have always found Ekman’s theory of the universality of basic human emotions (which has propelled him into academic and consulting stardom) implausible and “cartoonish.” My intuition is that individuals in different cultures tend to have different patterns of emotional reactivity and concepts. To Barrett, though, this view would also be too constraining.

Noble lies (kind of) for the 21st century?

Sometimes you read a piece by an intellectual you admire, and you feel like you have uncovered a hidden vice in someone you considered a soul mate. This is more or less how I felt when I came upon Christine Rosen’s Commentary column “In Praise of Sheryl Sandberg.” What does Rosen praise Mark Zuckerberg’s second-in-command for? For recognizing that women have mostly themselves to blame for their collective inability to climb the corporate ladder, so they should stop whining about male oppression and crippling stereotypes (even if Sandberg herself recognizes that some stereotypes do persist).

Overanalyze this

The NYT carried recently a decent article on the continuing protests against the Socialist-backed government in Bulgaria (“After Political Appointment in Bulgaria, Rage Boils Over”). Of course, it had the obligatory quotes from participants and analysts. One participant stated the obvious: “If you read the biography of Peevski, [the political appointee from the title, who at 21 was once made head of Bulgaria’s biggest port, and a few weeks ago at 32 was put in charge of Bulgaria’s state security agency] he personifies all the problems of Bulgaria” – summed up by an anti-corruption expert as “state capture by oligarchs.” But Haralan Alexandrov, a social anthropologists who has labored tirelessly to legitimize Bulgaria’s noveau riche elite and to present them as victims of largely unjustified public bias, offered a different theory. In his view, an important factor explaining the public antipathy against Peevski is his physical resemblance to the caricatured “exploiter capitalists” presented once in communist-era propaganda.

The Obama Campaign’s Digital Masterminds Cash In

This is the subtitle of a NYT article describing a new marketing company set up by several senior data analysts who helped President Obama win reelection. What is their sales pitch? “To deliver to commercial advertisers some of the Obama campaign’s secret, technologically advanced formulas for reaching voters.” Some companies apparently find this innovative sales strategy persuasive. The first client of the new marketing venture is a casino in Las Vegas which wants its customers to keep returning to it as opposed to sampling rival venues; and others will surely follow.

“The wall belongs to history”

This is what President Obama proclaimed in Berlin earlier today. But, judging from the spooky televised images from his speech, bulletproof glass, and police cordons and snipers very much belong to the present – and probably to the foreseeable future; to say nothing of the big data state he has midwifed. Ironically, the fact that "the wall," indeed, belongs to the past, may partly account for this unfortunate turn of events...

Can fanciful fashion become a force for good?

This is the opening question in a NYT article covering a recent high-profile “music event” dubbed “Sound of Change Live.” The concert “was organized by the Chime for Change women’s campaign and underwritten by Gucci, once known as a brand of soft shoes and hard partying but now aiming to bring attention to women’s rights to education, justice and health.” The event was promoted by Salma Hayek, “whose husband, François-Henri Pinault, has made it a mission for his luxury group, formerly PPR, but now named ‘Kering,’ to support best practices in his own empire — and to support Chime for Change, a women’s empowerment initiative.”

Up: How a Positive Outlook Can Improve Your Life

This is the title of the latest book, this one by Dr. Hilary Tindle, pointing to the alleged health benefits and life-prolonging effect of chronic upbeatness. Since the “positive outlook” Dr. Tindle evokes is completely and utterly foreign to me, I envision a nightmarish scenario for the true optimist she wants everyone to be.

A super sad true book lover’s story

A famous professor of law and humanities once had a large – and cherished – personal library. When he finally retired, he decided to move from his house to a much smaller apartment. To do this, it seemed he needed to get rid of most of his books. So he sold off almost his entire collection, holding onto only a few items he knew for sure he would need in the immediate future. All this is quite understandable, and part of the road many retiring academics have taken. But here is the spooky part.

The riot will be monetized

So the inevitable has happened. The balaclava, or ski mask – a key element of the Pussy Riot look – was initially borrowed by a few performing celebrities as a sign of solidarity with the young Russian women (Madonna) or of their own complete lack of judgment (Justin Bieber). Now the provocative clothing accessory has been adopted by several fashion designers presenting their fall collections.

Hannah Arendt, the movie

Margarethe von Trotta has, no doubt, tried to present the famous political un-philosopher as both 1) intellectually brilliant, and 2) sensitive, compassionate, and loving. As we all know, this is an exceedingly rare combination. And, occasionally, the movie does provides some hints that Arendt was somewhat emotionally detached: she hears the news that the man she loves is in hospital after collapsing with a brain aneurism, and her impulse is to go back into the classroom to finish her class; she intimidates over the phone the New Yorker editor who dares to most diplomatically remind her of her deadline; she is at a loss when a close friend turns his back on her as he is lying in his deathbed…

Temple Grandin’s “Happy Aspies”

The NYRB carries a very sympathetic review of Temple Grandin’s latest book, The Autistic Brain. Towards the end, the article includes some quotes from the book in which Grandin argues that if “Aspies” receive appropriate support and opportunities to develop their specific strengths, they can make unique contributions to society (and perhaps receive proper recognition for these). As a prime example, she cites “all the undiagnosed Asperger’s cases in Silicon Valley” whom she calls “Happy Aspies.”

The joys of high blood pressure

A new study has found that “teenagers with high blood pressure appear to have better psychological adjustment and enjoy higher quality of life than those with normal blood pressure.” These results were a bit counterintuitive, so the researchers tried to come up with plausible explanations. Some of these are psychological, but one is mostly physiological in nature – they speculate that “high blood pressure may actually act to dampen negative emotions.”

Jane Austen, Game Theorist

Michael Chwe, himself a game theorist/political scientist, has a new book out under this title. As the befittingly straightforward heading suggest, he argues that the English dame was the unacknowledged founder of the academic field in which he studiously labors. How did he make this discovery? As he was watching “Clueless,” a romantic comedy from the 1990s loosely based on “Emma,” he was struck by all the interpersonal manipulation and strategizing he saw unfolding on the screen.

The queen of happiness

A profile of Sonia Lyubomirsky in the NYT (“Happiness Inc.”) quotes another psychologist referring to her as just that – the “queen of happiness.” She has a new book on the subject, in which she argues that we all have a “set point” of happiness – a level to which we tend to return after pleasant or unpleasant experiences as we become habituated to these. So she is a bit skeptical of the longer-term happiness-inducing effects of counting one’s blessings, expressing gratitude, helping others, and other evidence-based prescriptions given by positive psychologists. She no longer even considers her a member of the “positive psychology” movement. Needless to say, she doesn’t believe material acquisitions are very promising either. All this raises an all-important question – can you, then, raise your happiness set point?

Rudeness as self-empowerment

There has bee some fretting lately about the apparent increase of rude and inconsiderate behavior in all sorts of settings. I guess must be seen as yet another alarmist campaign targeting an which practically begs for a positive spin. And this is provided quite nicely by NYT humorist Joyce Wadler. She describes how she found herself suddenly transformed from being a ridiculously polite and courteous person to someone who would blurt out rude rebuttals, rebukes, turndowns, putdowns, etc. at unsuspecting strangers. At first she was a bit annoyed at her newly found verbal disinhibition. But then she discovered something amazing – it turned out this new mode of speaking up held a big promise.

Don’t worry – ever

Hanna Rosin has another programmatic article out in The Atlantic, “The Touch-Screen Generation.” It’s partly based on Rosin’s observation of her own kids growing up, and one could expect her to be slightly worried about all that touch-screening going on. This would only demonstrate, though, that you don’t know her. Rosin has opted to impose no limits on the use of touch-screen devices by her children. The younger one, her 4-year-ol son, is practically growing up with the technology, and she is happy that the tablet eventually became just a regular part of his toy rotation. Is Rosin’s blasé attitude evidence-based, a reflection of credible scientific research into the effects of touch-screen gadgets on the minds and brains of the young? Perhaps, since she quotes several researchers sounding progressively unconcerned as the article unfolds. I have a hunch, though, that her laissez faire attitude stems from something else – Rosin’s apparent inability to cringe from anything.