I am writing this letter with a feeling of genuine sympathy for you, concerning the difficulties you are facing in the campaign. Let me be clear: I am a supporter of Barack Obama. But this letter is not written to score political points or with tongue in cheek; I truly wish to convey my respect and sympathies.
I also want to try to explain to you what is happening in New Hampshire at the voting booths and all around the country in the polls.
I know that you have dedicated much of your life to the advancement of your political goals -- including health care reform, education and preschool programs, and a more progressive tax structure. You worked closely with your husband during your years as First Lady both in Arkansas and Washington D.C.. You led many initiatives and commissions into many important policy areas in those years. And then in your subsequent career you delved deeply into the minutia of legislation addressing all manner of economic, military and social needs and endured the endless wrangling in the Senate. Many of your colleages -- Republican as well as Democratic -- have attested to your civility, your thoughtfulness, your obvious intelligence, your fortitude. You won them over, just as you have won over the voters in New York.
But Democratic voters all around the country are now going in a different direction. You and your campaign, by all reports, are reeling.
Why are voters -- particurly young voters -- turning to Obama in droves? Why does experience seem a liability these days? Why do people constantly reference the "likability" factor when contrasting your candidacy to Obama's?
There are many explanations of course. For one, there is Obama himself. We could also speak of "Clinton fatigue," gender stereotypes, the Republican noise machine and its villification of you over the 15 years, demographic shifts, celebrity culture, your fateful vote to authorize the war in Iraq, your personal style of self-restraint, the infinite power of Oprah, and on and on. But I want to focus on just one of these many explanations, the one which I think is (other than Obama himself) the fundamental one:
Hillary, the nature of public discourse is changing.
People are getting savvy. They recognize what people in public life are doing, behind the masks. They know how to read motives. We are, each one of us, saturated with images of other people in the media. And we have become, each one of us, highly advanced critics, expert detectors of duplicity, pretense, hypocrisy, inauthenticity, ambivalence. Microexpressions have macro-consequences.
I believe that you are truly dedicated to your political goals. The charges -- the Sean Hannity/Rush Limbaugh line of talk -- that you are driven by avarice, revenge, or ambition are silly and hurtful. But in your long time in the public eye you have developed a habit of speaking which hides more than it reveals.
You purse your lips into a half smile. You focus-group your hair style (I am assuming that it has at least been discussed, for its political import, in your inner circle). You speak in measured cadences with a subtext which consistently advances your agenda, be it tactical or strategic.
This is no longer suitable in the media-driven culture. People see too much.
This change first began to have consequences in the 2000 election. Voters judged Gore and Bush on the basis of their personal style, regardless of the content of their speeches. While Gore -- dear, brilliant, sincere Gore -- spoke in his slightly condescending, calculated way to the voters, George W. Bush spoke from his heart. He has, over a lifetime, developed a consistent, down-home Texas-style delivery, which relies on the talismanic power of short, simple words (You're a "good man"; people want "freedom" -- see my earlier post on Bush's... unique way of speaking). Voters responded to this. Whatever his policies, whatever his values even, they recognized a person speaking to them without artiface.
When I say that George W. speaks without artiface, I know that you and many others may reflexively disagree. Of course he is a blue-blooded New Englander who is pretending to be a Texan. There is a certain artiface in his whole persona. But the important point is that he has genuinely adopted it as his own. So he may recite the cues given to him by Karl Rove, and he may have invented his down-home style back in his childhood, but he believes it now. Gore, on the other hand, is famously different with his friends in private -- cutting, sharp-witted, even irreverent -- than he is in public, where he is serious, self-deprecating, and yawn-inducing. (Though I have to admit I still love the guy, even when he drives me crazy.)
My point about you, Hillary, is that you have a double self. So do I for that matter, when I present myself to the world. I hide my goofy side and get very serious (not unlike Gore, I'm proud to say!). There is nothing wrong with this traditional style of self-presentation, this double self, on the face of it. But it is a serious liability in today's politics.
Voters today -- especially the young -- want someone who is a fully portable package, and someone who allows any voter, anyone watching on TV, to inspect the contents held within. The age of secrecy is over. Love him or hate him, George W. makes no bones about who he is and where he stands. Love him, Barack Obama does the same.
Again, my sympathies are with you. You are a gifted person, and you have done and will no doubt continue to do much good. But the culture has shifted, Hillary.
In your emotionally revealing moment yesterday, your voice broke when you spoke of how hard it is sometimes to continue on with the campaign, and why you do it. Let's forget the supposed risk of crying, considering our country's hang-ups about "showing weakness." I was with you as I watched it. For a moment, you seemed to drop your mask and let us see the contents within. But then, before our very eyes, you put the mask back on. You transitioned, almost effortlessly (I only saw your eyes drop for a moment as you made the switch), into a political speech about how "some of us are right and some of us are wrong... some of us are ready, and some of us are not."
It broke my heart to see you do that. For I knew then, that this dual awareness, this calculation of the words you speak for their effect instead of their capacity to represent your inner reality, is your default position. You cannot help it. You cannot break the habit. And for this, voters cannot forgive you.
I will vote for Barack Obama on February 5 in California. But I will think of you too, Hillary, and I will wish you well in your continuing career as a Senator from New York. There are many of us who struggle with this new era, which demands exposure to all of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, all the time.
Best wishes and be proud of all you have done,
DemocratDad
Update: Clinton won New Hampshire! Congratulations, Senator Clinton. This will certainly be an interesting month ahead.
The world is changing. Faster than any of us can track. And one of the ways it is changing is to make us far more accurate at assessing the multiple sources of information demanding our attention every day.
We have to be more accurate. We have to be more selective. If not, we would be swamped with a time-wasting, distracting, confusing barrage of information, and we would go to sleep at night wondering what the hell that was all about.
(Well, okay, sometimes I go to sleep at night wondering what the hell that was all about anyway, but usually there is a specific cause -- say, I happened to land on Fox News for too long before clicking the TV off. It's not a general state of mind...)
We've learned to be choosy about what we let into our heads.
One reason we've had to do this is that our culture is becoming an audiovisual one -- instead of one based on the written word.
This is somewhat threatening to those of us who value the old culture -- those of us who still read for pleasure. An article in the New Yorker last week terrified me on this topic of our changing culture.
The article, Twilight of the Books, discusses the rise of a post-literate culture -- a so-called "secondary orality." The author, Caleb Crain, lists some of the findings of research into the ways in which an oral culture -- one without reliance on the written word -- functions. These findings happen to match up almost exactly with our emerging 21st century culture in the U.S.
Here's the most hair-raising passage from the article:
"[T]he best way to preserve ideas in the absence of writing is to 'think memorable thoughts,' whose zing insures their transmission. In an oral culture, cliche and stereotype are valued, as accumulations of wisdom, and analysis is frowned upon, for putting those accumulations at risk. There's no such concept as plagiarism, and redundancy is an asset that helps an audience follow a complex argument. Opponents in struggle are more memorable than calm and abstract investigations, so bards revel in name-calling and in 'enthusiastic description of physical violence.' Since there's no way to erase a mistake invisibly, as one may in writing, speakers tend not to correct themselves at all. Words have their present meanings but no older ones, and if the past seems to tell a story with values different from current ones, it is either forgotten or silently adjusted...[I]t is only in a literate culture that the past's inconsistencies have to be accounted for, a process that encourages skepticism and forces history to diverge from myth."
Doesn't that describe our current political and popular cultures with eerie accuracy?
I brooded about this for a week, until I realized that this culture of "secondary orality" will generate new skills, new adaptive behaviors, new talents, in the coming years. My children will have abilities far beyond mine to selectively choose what goes into their heads, and what new synthesis they make of it all.
And that brings me to the youth vote.
As is becoming increasingly apparent from the floundering of Clinton and Romney, young people don't buy the old schtick of politicians. When they start with the rhetoric, or dwell too long on their resumes, young people turn their attention away. This is the secret behind the popularity of the satire on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, or the Colbert Report, or the Onion. The old written-word style of communication, mimicked by habit even in the speech of older politicians, has become a joke.
Elevated language, and the unreflective role playing that goes along with it (message: "I speak in this self-important manner because I am an important leader of men!"), simply don't translate well into an audiovisual culture.
This is why Obama and Huckabee have a special magic for young people. They may be readers themselves, but they belong -- in every syllable they utter, in every casual, natural smile they flash -- to the new culture. They are authentic, finite, recognizable. And most importantly, they are hearable and watchable.
So the candidates on both sides have released their "Christmas" videos (I say "Christmas," because it is more accurate, although some campaigns hedge and call them "Seasonal" or "Holiday" videos).
Twinkling lights, bright sweaters, warm smiles, knitted stockings and, whenever possible, adorable children, are all featured, as you might expect.
There's been a lot of chatter in the blogs about Huckabee's assertion that "what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ," or Barack and Michelle Obama's inclusion of their girls in the fireside scene, or Hillary Clinton's assortment of policy proposals for the American people...
But let's get away from the politics for a moment. I think it's high time for a critique of these videos, not for their content, but for their use of the medium.
As a filmmaker myself, I consider myself obligated to bear down and watch these babies.
What are the aesthetics of these videos?
In other words, what message do they convey, behind the words. It's a visual medium; we have to remember that what these videos are actually doing is showing something.
Let's start with my favorite candidate, so we can get my own agenda out of the way:
Barack Obama
The first thing I noticed is the tense body language, despite the warm atmosphere.
I believe that this family is genuinely close, so I'm assuming that this is the 5th or 6th -- or 22nd! -- take, and they have grown increasingly tense as the minutes turned to an hour. I've seen it happen.
Perhaps technical issues (sound, lighting, framing) dragged the taping out. Perhaps the girls got restless, or had an argument about who got to sit on their dad's lap.
Whatever the facts, the result is that Michelle and Barack talk in a friendly, but curiously exacting way. Listen to the way Michelle's voice bounces rhythmically with the words of the opening: "We'd-like-to-take-a-moment to thank YOU and your FAMILY for the WARMTH and friendship that you've shown ouuurs." That sounds like someone who has grown weary of saying the same thing.
One visual element also immediately stands out to me: those spooky shadows of stockings on the wall above the fireplace. They are definitely intentional -- I would guess to convey the warmth of candlelight, and to add some texture to the background. But they hang behind this family in such a way as to evoke the aesthetics of film noir. Touch of Evil and Double Indemnity are usually not the best sources of inspiration for campaign videos
The books on the table in front of them suggest upper middle-class coffee table art books -- signaling a home of broad intellectual curiosity. The Christmas tree is discreet -- and notably designed instead of ad hoc (the red and amber theme stands out).
This is a house well under control. No holiday madness here.
As for Obama, he speaks in the same overly exacting way that Michelle does. Worse, it looks as if he gestures too closely to his daughter Malia's face a few times. I know it is an optical illusion (when zoomed in -- which creates a nice tight focus on the subjects with a blurry background -- the distance between objects can seem shorter than it really is), and I know that Obama often gestures this way to make a point, but it made me nervous the first time I watched it.
Then there's the telling moment. The parents have finished speaking and it's time for the girls to add their "Merry Christmas" and "Happy holidays." Watch how Barack and Michelle anticipate the girls' lines -- after all, it is hard not to after multiple takes. They both turn sharply just before their daughters speak. By doing this, they confirm for us -- it hits our subconscious, the eyes miss nothing -- that these are canned lines. It does, however avoid what would be worse: if the parents feigned surprise when their daughters spoke.
The overall effect of the video is actually a grudging one, which is -- and here, perhaps, my agenda is showing -- what I think makes it work. I get the sense, watching this video, that the Obamas are not at all comfortable with the megalomaniacal charm required to pull of a warm Christmas message to the entire nation. A tension fills the air, and it is the tension of a real family being asked -- for political purposes -- to do something patently ridiculous: wish 300 million Americans Merry Christmas.
Okay, let's turn to a Republican:
Rudy Giuliani
Like the Obamas, he sits in front of a Christmas tree. But -- it leaps out at you -- where is his family? Of course we know the answer to that question (reminding voters of Judith -- his divorce, their affair, the puppies -- is not helpful, and his kids are, well, a little distant, shall we say).
Instead of surrounding himself with progeny, Rudy dons a red sweater vest and a red tie. With his glasses and this combo he comes off looking like your friendly neighborhood pharmacist, all decked out for the holidays. It's actually quite winsome. And he can refill your Lipitor prescription if you need that too!
When he says he may get a fruitcake for America, someone off-camera questions him: "A fruitcake?" And Giuliani leans forward with his peculiar, aggressive charisma to someone whom we never see. This is a very post-modern move -- breaking the frame of the film. He can thank Goddard and the French New Wave (although I don't think that would be to his advantage in South Carolina). The effect is funny -- and surprising.
Interestingly, Giuliani is often called "insane," or some other nutty confection, by his critics. And the video of him in drag, kissing Donald Trump, is, one would guess, a political liability. So this mention of wanting to get America a "fruitcake" is a good double-fake move. If he were really a fruitcake he wouldn't be so comfortable talking about them.
The only false note is the Hillaryesque laugh, apropo of nothing, at the end when he says "Happy Holidays."
Giuliani has another ad too, with Santa laughing at his wish that the candidates all just get along. Rudy's wearing the same red and white sweater vest. This video suggests visually that he may be working for Santa Clause -- or at least on the same team. You can watch it here.
Okay, let's go to Hillary Clinton:
Immediately you notice the much-ballyhooed "professionalism" of the Clinton campaign. The video is edited snappily to the music soundtrack. The images -- close-ups of wrapping, cutting with scissors, etc. -- are framed tightly, which is the current standard for Hollywood shot selection. The lighting has that big budget studio gloss to it -- warm and muted all at once, as if this video is an outtake from, oh I don't know, Seabiscuit. The sound design is detailed (listen for that crinkling sound as the cards are placed under the bows -- all added in post). We see a tilt on "Universal Health Care," a pan on "Alternative Energy," a rack focus on "Bring the Troops Home."
And then the music pauses on the reveal of Hillary herself. The room is light...
INT. LIVING ROOM -- DAY
A woman sits comfortably on a couch, wrapping presents.
This scene, complete with throw pillows, captures those private, unnoteworthy moments that women share, taking care of the wrapping of presents, completing a project, preparing something wonderful for the family. The point is that Hillary seems to be enjoying it. Message: she is one of us.
Only there is a slight scratch in the record, so to speak. It comes just at the end. As Hillary exclaims, "Oh!" we are to understand that she has just located the present which matches the card "Universal Pre-K" -- good so far. But then she commits a beginner's acting mistake. She repeats the exclamation as she grabs the present: "Ah!" It rings false. We know that she already had her discovery moment. So what is this second "ah"?
Just like the entire Hillary Clinton for President campaign, this second "ah" suggests that Hillary knew where she was going all along. The double discovery shows that there never was a discovery. Everything has been orchestrated to reveal "discoveries" to us -- the voters -- when they are useful. Hillary is even prepared to experience those discoveries a second or third time (e.g. President Bush cannot be trusted!) when this may score additional political points.
And please, someone in the Clinton video production unit tell me why they froze that awkward frame at the end, with her smile half open, and zoomed in slowly, as she says, "I approve this message." It looks as if she has been caught red-handed, and we have a photograph to show it.
Onward to the Repubicans!
Mike Huckabee:
A red sweater, a white collar. Like Giuliani, Huckabee apparently works with Santa.
Otherwise, it couldn't be more different. There is no French New Wave or cinema of alienation here. The borders are not porous. There is just a straightforward point made: what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Jesus -- oh, and that you can count on Mike Huckabee to say that without apologies or unease of any kind.
Huckabee does everything that the Obamas resisted. He turns on the charm, the eyebrow-lifting, shoulder-shrugging charm of the best kind of salesman, the kind that means it, as he wishes an entire nation to have a "magnificent" Christmas.
Yes, yes, and there is a giant white cross over his right shoulder. Your point?
This video has all the simplicity and folksy charm of the best propaganda. It knows what it is selling (just as its subject does) and it goes about selling it. Its best analog is an Ipod ad on TV -- you always see the iPod up front and center, and there's always music playing on it. Well for Huckabee, Christianity is his music, and bass-player that he is, he knows how to keep a tune.
What about John Edwards:
We see the same Christmas tree hovering over the right shoulder. But this time the candidate is in a black suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie. Sober, unflashy, dedicated to the cause.
The implication of this dress code is that Edwards will be working for you, even during the holidays. He's that dedicated.
The music is unremarkable: a gathering-moment piano piece. But it does raise the stakes emotionally. It seems to be building to something. And Edwards talks directly to us, as Huckabee did. He means it.
There's the problem of his stuffed-up nose, adding a nasally quality to his voice. But otherwise we focus on him and him alone for the duration of the video.
The background does not suggest anything fancy at all. The tree is nondescript, the wood-framed picture on the wall, the wood paneling -- everything suggests a middle-class living room, or even a modest hotel room.
I think this is a strong video. It highlights Edwards' most endearing trait -- his commitment to making things better. Edwards' appeal is emotional (unlike Obama's, which like JFK's is more cerebral). And this ad does all the right things to create a sense of stirring emotion, held back only by the sobriety required to get the job done.
Back to the Republican side:
Mitt Romney
Okay, this is not technically a Christmas video like the others. This is a video of Mitt Romney and his family sledding together. It was posted by the campaign on December 17 -- so it must have been last weekend?
It's a relief to see a video that looks as if it documents a real-life event. Of course it is partly staged for the camera operator, but you do get the sense that there did take place an actual afternoon of sledding at some undisclosed location, with actual members of the Romney family (and their dogs) in attendance.
The video has a documentary feel, but like all good documentaries it tells a story. The story is that Mitt is a man who is different from his sons. They may be more self-aware and willing to open up to strangers (two of them admit to being "lazy"; another says he is "in awe" of his dad). They may be more socially at ease (we see them lounging on the couch without a clear mandate; Mitt is conspicuously absent).
But they never forget that he is their hero.
He is a tireless worker (we see him shoveling snow). He is caring (he reassures a youngster -- his son? -- that he will "do his best" not to let him "hit the pole"). He is frugal (he prefers the gloves from last year with duct tape holding them together). He hates waste of any kind ("Go leave the water running and see how quickly that will last," comments one of his boys).
The story it tells is that of Mitt overcoming whatever obstacles his family meets (snow, poles, failing gear, running faucets). He may not be the most accessible guy, but it is only because he is so busy doing stuff. If you knew him like we know him, he would be your hero too.
It's effective. I wish more political ads took this raw-footage, shooting from the hip documentary form. The distortion is still there, but it's in the editing not the performance of the candidate -- you get glimpses of the real person behind the mask.
Finally, the only other viable candidate in the race:
John McCain
A prisoner of war story. A black and white photo of McCain as a young man. The older McCain's calm voice recounting it. He tells a heartwarming story of a guard easing his misery. And then the image:
A cross drawn in the ground with a stick.
This video has the starkness of a documentary, but the iconographic power of a religious story. It matches Huckabee's white, glowing, "coincidental" cross (formed by the sections of a bookcase) with a genuine, intentional cross, infused with meaning and history.
For my part, I think it is a powerful rejoinder to Huckabee. But the lasting impression of the video is not its image of the cross. The lasting impression is the one left by the black and white images and the unaffected tone in McCain's voice: suffering, hard-earned wisdom, sadness, quiet resolve. Those may be important and moving aspects of his experience, but I don't think they draw votes.
The McCain ad is a Christmas video done in the Ken Burns' style -- elegiac and cold.
*
Well, that completes my round-up critique of the candidates' videos. In then end I would rank them in two ways. Once for my personal preference:
Near the end of their two hour talk about the future of religion, Harris urged nonbelievers to admit that there is something not quite right with our free-wheeling contemporary culture: it's all about money-making, tawdriness, celebrity-worshiping -- you know the litany of complaints.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Harris' larger point was that those of us who stand outside of religious traditions should work to develop a "spiritual" language of our own (except with "no bullshit," as the soft-spoken Harris surprisingly said). Harris hopes that such a language could express our longings for experiences which are distinct from the daily effluvia of our lives.
With that point I agree. We need to talk about the profound experiences we have which give us new perspectives and sometimes overwhelm us with emotion, our visions and inspirations, what is sometimes called the "oceanic feeling." These are important experiences to us, and they will continue to be -- with or without religion. They reach beyond the everyday.
But Harris' casual dismissal of contemporary culture (and the ready assent of the other three to this dismissal) struck me.
The more I thought about it, I realized that many of us have a conflicted view of contemporary culture. In any given moment we may consider it to be: a) the most dazzling display of symbol-generating, meme-producing, endlessly morphing, gloriously nobrow, creative flourishing that the world has ever known; or b) an ever-shifting representation of the broken lives and misplaced hopes of countless lonely, lost human beings, cynically repackaged by some of those same in order to make a buck.
Well, which is it?
This, it occurs to me, is a threshold question for those of us who would urge our fellow-citizens to free themselves from the grip of the ancient texts of religions and the creaky belief-systems of centuries past. It is also a threhold question for parents as they introduce their children to the larger culture around them.
Do we like contemporary culture? If not, then what are we doing immersed in it?
Or to put it more directly: Can we all come together now and celebrate Paris Hilton?
Whatever you think of her personally (in my case, I pretty much draw a blank), I say we can and should.
That doesn't mean you need to read about her in the supermarket tabloids or watch her on TV. It doesn't even mean you need ever to mention her name to your spouse or your children. The great thing about being alive today is: You can pick and choose which parts of the culture you want to enage.
But make no mistake. I am saying it without apologies. I am saying it with pride: The effluvia is the culture. There is no sacred truth buried underneath. There are experiences which stand apart from the effluvia, but they are profoundly personal and do not point to some metaphysical realm which we could reach if only we were more pure of mind.
Yes, you have to do some navigating through the morass of other people's interests and hang-ups and diversions, but what is the alternative? Do you want someone else to screen out the Paris Hiltons of the world for you?
In that case, you might never be able to enjoy the gifts of another "it girl" of her day, who was discovered on the streets of New York for her looks alone but turned out to be immensely talented: Chloe Sevigny. It takes work this way, but you get the rewards of diversity and feedback loops and rare discoveries.
And the world would be a more barren place without the Chloe Sevignys and the Paris Hiltons.
As every parent knows, children hit. And push. And kick. And bite.
"No hitting!" you say in a stern voice. Your child looks at you impassively... and then clobbers you again, knocking your glasses clear off your face.
"NO!" you say, and put him or her down.
At which point, the floor presents itself to your child's fists. And it takes a beating which, much to your surprise (didn't everybody always tell you that parenting would be full of surprises?), makes you feel sorry for the floor.
Where does this violence come from? You haven't ever hit your child. As far as you know, he or she has never even seen anyone hit anyone else.
But it seems to come naturally.
And when it comes it does so with an army of other aggressive behaviors. In our house they range from shouting the single word "Mine!" in a short, clipped manner (regardless of whether the information conveyed remains relevant) to getting into viscious, winner-take-all tug-of-war matches over permanant marker pens. Certain among us (who will go unnamed) have even been known to throw driveway gravel directly at the faces of our younger brother... just to see what would result.
The list goes on. This army of violent and aggressive behaviors within each of us is, apparently, a standing army. We seem to establish it, by some trick of neurological development, sometime in our first year, and we then proceed to fund it throughout our lives. (Apparently the brain is not so different from the majority Democratic Congress when it comes to authorizing spending on the army!)
So what is the best way to channel this potential for violence in our children? How do we deal with it as parents? Do we try to suppress it? Ignore it? How do we want our kids to feel about violence? How do we feel about it?
I have realized that this whole debate boils down to a single question:
Is violence ever funny?
I raise this issue because, like many parents, ever since my first-born arrived I have been desperately trying shield him, and then my other two children, from exposure to violence. Which... I find hard to do.
Recently I searched for "Popeye the Sailor Man" on YouTube with my boys, and I quickly became uneasy when I saw the casually sadistic way that he does damage to Brutus. So much for my happy memories of Popeye and his spinich.
Even Tintin finds himself obligated to draw a gun on occasion.
And let's not even talk about the acrobatic thrashing that Batman and Robin give to Catwoman's henchmen "the Kittens" (shield your kid's eyes, and let's watch it instead):
Of course it is so much worse than these examples suggest. Some critics of popular culture trace the trend back to Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, just as the Vietnam War began to infect the national psyche. Many people noticed a new style of giddy, extreme violence with the arrival of Quentin Tarantino's Resevoir Dogs in 1992. ("Cinema as fast-food," quipped Anthony Lane.) Now there seems to be a new genre of violence launched every spring in the film festivals, with the most recent going by the name "torture porn."
Controversies have erupted in the news media too, as regards the use of photographs of dead people, or images containing or encouraging violent acts (most recently in the case of NBC's decision to air the videotaped messages of the Virginia Tech student who killed 32 people).
On the one side, we all acknowledge that popular culture in this country is rife with violence. On the other side, it is our intention as parents to limit our children's exposure to it.
Something's got to give.
Again, I ask: Is violence ever funny?
In trying to work out where I stand on this urgent question in terms of my children, I believe that I have to start with my own relationship to violence. I simply have to get clear myself.
Okay. Here goes... See if you can relate.
I certainly value experiences -- and works of entertainment or art -- which avoid violence more than I do those which include it. When I see a film such as The Wind Will Carry Us by Abbas Kiarostami, set in a small village in Iran, dealing with issues of small human foibles and confusion, I feel more enriched, and yes, happier, than when I see a film such as -- to name an action film at random -- The Bourne Supremacy. Likewise, when I get back from a walk with my children, and we spent an hour watching leaves race down the rainwater along the sides of streets, I feel qualitatively better than when I have, for example, just poured vinegar on a trail of ants in the kitchen.
But then, do I want to banish all representations of violence from my life? That seems absurd. We obviously learn from watching violence, and sometimes it seems fun to watch. After all, I do watch movies like those in the Bourne series. And I do sometimes thrill, if not at the violence itself, then at the craft with which it is presented (the color, the movement, the alternations of suspense and relief).
So my own relationship with violence seems frought with ambivalance. I don't like it so much. But I choose to watch it sometimes. It is part of my life, and I keep it that way intentionally.
Okay, now let's turn to the question at hand.
Is it funny? More broadly, does it entertain?
My answer, which surprises me by its directness, is no.
If I really think about it, the only reason why I watch acts of violence in films or other media is because of a sense that I may be learning from them. I get no pleasure from the violence itself. I would happily watch movies and read books where, as in Greek tragedy, the violence occurs ob-scene, that is, off-stage.
Even when my beloved Chaplin is hit by a frying pan, although I enjoy the odd, twitchy dance that it provokes, I think I would enjoy it more if it were provoked by some other occurance (chasing a butterfly or something?).
I know I'm in a minority in American culture here. I'm out on a limb. But that's my true preference if I'm really honest about it. Call me squeamish.
So if I dig down a bit further here, then I have to conclude that I don't get any entertainment value out of watching violence -- only educational value. It is never funny. The circumstances around it may be, but not the act itself.
And this gives me a starting-point for dealing with the omnipresence of violence in our culture when it comes to my kids.
I am not going to get fanatical about blocking all images of violence from them. That would: a) be impossible; b) cause them to conclude that Dad was hiding something, which must be interesting, and c) deprive them of important facts about the world.
But I am going to resist the pressure in our society to (pretend to?) enjoy violence. I will, without being too worried about overprotectiveness, express my opinion that this image or that TV show or that book is depressing, and sometimes even insist that we do something else. I will stand my ground on things like shoot-em-up video games -- sorry, not allowed in our home. And I will never laugh at a violent act, no matter what the studio audience and supplemental laugh track does.
Last Friday I offered to you a post which drew attention to parallels between the values expressed in the Thomas the Tank Engine series and the values espoused by the Nazi party in 1930s Germany. (See "Thomas the Tank Engine, Anti-Semitism, and the Sex Pistols" if you missed it.)
You will recall that, upon closer examination, Sir Topham Hatt (the Chairman of the Railway in the Thomas series) shares with adherents to Nazi ideology a deep distrust for self-expression ("degenerate art"!) and any non-"useful" (nonconformist or otherwise nonmajoritarian) behavior.
Is Thomas the Tank Engine actually anti-Semitic? No. But I hope you agreed that the values which this innocuous-seeming TV program expresses are worth considering -- and counteracting with other kinds of stories.
Well, it doesn't stop with Thomas, once you get thinking... If you've ever watched Teletubbies, enjoy:
A friend told me a few months ago that she won't let her son read Thomas the Tank Engine stories -- or watch the TV series -- because of the anti-semitism contained within them.
That caught my attention.
I had been watching Thomas and Friends on TV for over a year (maybe once every two weeks or so) with George first, and now Cole too. I had found the episodes mildly entertaining. They mostly functioned as an opportunity for me to get up and do the dishes while the boys stayed on the couch.
Sure, I had noticed that irritating catch-phrase, "You are a really useful engine!"
And come to think of it, certain values -- industriousness, respect for authority, devotion to duty -- seemed to underlie the stories.
And, well, now that you mention it, Sir Topham Hatt, the bald, black-top-hat-wearing Chairman of the Railway, has a kind of obsessive, ruddy-faced concern for the status quo...
But what of it?
For a few months I scoffed at the idea that the series is "anti-semitic." My friend's comment seemed in line with the regrettable tendency for political pundits, when cornered, to compare their adversaries to Hitler. But her comment continued to nag at me.
So I started thinking about the show in its particulars.
Written by an Anglican minister, the Reverand W. V. Awdry, beginning in 1943, for his son Christopher, these stories have a modest, typically English concern for the trivial concerns of everyday life. (Orwell wrote marvelously about how the English character, molded by the familiar details of small town life, resists the dangerous lure of abstraction, in his essay, England Your England.)
But everyday life in the world of Thomas the Tank Engine comes with a difference. It is hyperclean, without regrets, unreal. Watching the episodes of the TV series "Thomas and Friends" you will notice immediately a kind of utopian dream in the clouds and greenery that introduce the Island of Sodor. We enter an idealized place, where everything can and will be resolved within the span of a single episode.
Bridges may need repairing, helicopters may threaten the trains' self-image, Cranky the Crane may dump a crate of fish on a newly-washed train (usually James). But everything is manageable. It's all good for a laugh.
There's certainly something clean-as-a-whistle and safely conformist about this island and its inhabitants.
Then too: the lines of authority on Sodor are unmistakable. Sir Topham Hatt's word is supreme. The trains are encouraged to run on time, avoid risks, help others, and most of all, obey.
Vanity proves wasteful. Paranoia proves unfounded (rest assured, that red hot-air balloon will not take business from the trains after all; it will merely provide another attraction on the island!).
Kafka would have a lot to say here. The Kafka of Sodor would grapple with all those sticky, ugly little concerns which are otherwise pushed under the oncoming trains. But Sodor has no Kafka. It has no subversive current running through it at all.
You start to realize that if only these primary-colored engines (Thomas, Percy, James... the whole gang) could just repress any vestige of unique personality, they would show themselves to be, at last, once and for all, "really useful engines."
On the surface all of this is harmless. And I don't worry about any damage I may have inflicted on George and Cole's psyches.
But it got me thinking: "Wouldn't it be great if just once a rainbow-colored, feather-bedecked engine came whistling down the track?" "Wouldn't it be great if this engine didn't have to justify itself by proving its usefulness?"
Which brings me back to the anti-semitic charge my friend made.
No, I'm not saying that Jewish people have a proclivity towards rainbows and feathers (though a visit to the open-air stalls on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley on any given Saturday may suggest this surprising connection). But let's revist the arguments in 1930s Germany directed against the Jewish population of Europe.
Anti-semitism has always used the language of "usefulness." Relegated to minority status, and in most cases restricted from owning property, Jews throughout Europe developed roles outside of the traditional agrarian ones. They charged interest (gasp!) for money-lending, and their religion's reliance on the word of the Talmud led many Jews to find work in journalism, academic pursuits, literature and the arts.
Degenerative Art. "The Non-productive few." Pseudo-scientific concerns about hygiene (in the amazing documentary on the Holocaust, Shoah, the Nazis who are interviewed reveal their disgust for the dirt and disease of those in the ghettos -- which they mistake for a cause, instead of an effect, of their actions). It would all seem perfectly natural in the world of Sir Topham Hatt.
I don't mean to say that Sir Topham Hatt is a closet Nazi. I don't mean even to say that the Thomas the Tank Engine series is overtly anti-semitic. Or that W. V. Awdry was a Nazi sympathizer while writing children's stories for his son during the aerial bombardment of his country by the Nazis.
But the parallels are there. The conformist outlook in the series does match that of regimes (throughout history) which favor social control and work to restrict, or even criminalize, individualism.
What kind of values do I want my children to internalize? I would prefer individualism, thank you.
In the end, we kept our Thomas books around. I still read them to the boys some nights. But my dishwashing innocence is gone. I am now more aware of the need to balance out the conventional values of the Thomas books with the downright weirdness of my bedtime stories.
Less trains meeting their schedules.
More pirate ships which sprout orange trees from the mast...
only to be eaten in one gulp by a giant squid...
which then spits the orange seeds out, along with the rum-drunk pirates...
until they land, in a heap, orange seeds, eye-patches and all, on the shore... making an orange-flavored pirate rum cake.
Something like that anyway.
Let weirdness prevail in all of your bedtime stories.
For a taste of Thomas the Tank Engine (fittingly, an episode called "Escape"), see below.
For a taste of the subversive current running through England ("God Save the Queen / the Fascist Regime / That made you a Moron / Potential H-Bomb..." etc.), see here.
Watching the Republican Debate tonight on CNBC, I was struck most of all by the production values, and what they say about how our media distorts our lived experience, even in this supposedly "unfiltered" setting of a live debate.
Just as in every TV debate I can remember, the candidates were placed against a red, white and blue, luminous backdrop. Patriotic design elements (stars, stripes, etc.) appeared to dance around their heads.
The faces of these older white men looked well-tanned (read: made-up), and their eyes flashed pleasingly in the lights. The graphics that introduced them to the viewers were swift and expressive. The snatches of music that led into advertisements -- and grabbed us again after breaks -- were, frankly, invigorating.
The candidates' answers, of course, were uniformly banal, just as the Democrats' answers are in their debates.
What is going on?
Well, here's what I think. What we are seeing is something profound: a picture, if you will, of our society's blinkered values, presented in flashing lights and smiling faces.
We have grown accustomed to a picture of the world, as presented on TV, that is protected from suffering. This picture does not show garbage loosely strewn across the floor. It does not show skin cells that are infected and pink, or lacerations on cheeks, or stubbed toes with cracked nails. It rarely shows tears, or if it does they are stylized (Paris Hilton shielding her tender face from paparazzi). They are not the snotty tears, the snorting gasps and choked-off shouts that we experience in our private lives.
Where on that stage could possibly fit anything recognizable from daily life? Where would we indicate -- in that spare, "patriotic" design -- the odd mix of cultures which we now see in most American cities, large and small?
We're so used to it that it is easy not to see anything is amiss. But while Romney and Thompson share a laugh over whether the debate seems like an episode of "Law & Order" (ha ha!), the country's homes are filled with people who actually don't have health care, who actually smoke marijuana, who (some of them) actually talk in languages other than English, who actually can't pay for a new transmission for the car and so will have to take the bus to work for the foreseeable future.
I don't mean to sound righteous at all. I live in that privileged world which the media does represent on our TV screens -- the "high-protein land" (as the band Pavement once memorably put it). I drink cafe lattes, never question paying utility bills, call friends long distance, worry only occasionally and indulgently about financial ruin.
But without sounding righteous, I can say that I do recognize my world as uncommon, an anomaly. A fraction of us (including most of the people in the national media) live like proverbial royalty, while the rest of the country has a far more immediate sensory experience of poverty, filfth, unwanted noise.
To look at the Republicans debate is to know where they stand. And the same goes for the Democrats (perhaps Gravel excepted, since every time he speaks he angrily attacks the frame). The politicians, as presented by our media, are just as "clean" as Senator Biden controversially described Obama. They stand in opposition to darkness, smelliness, toughness, dryness -- in short, the world as lived by most of the people in it.
How do we teach ourselves and our children to break through this shimmering barrier of media and see behind it? It seems to me that we must actively seek media alternatives. I welcome suggestions.
My children are only 3, 2 and 5 months, so I have not yet had the opportunity to discuss religion with them at length -- or really, at all. So how do I talk to them about the monks making news in Burma?
As someone who believes that the major monotheistic (read "sky-god") religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are dangerous and lamentable -- yes, I am with Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and the "New Atheists" here -- I have a certain amount of reluctance about broaching the subject of religion with my children. When I do talk religion with them, I hope that we will be able to discuss these Iron Age fairy tales (with various embellishments and borrowings), blood-soaked as they are, with a view to their decidedly mixed history.
It seems too complicated a topic to open up just yet. They have enough to worry about when it comes to Lex Luther and monsters in the closet. I would like to wait.
But how do I talk about the monks?
Can I describe them neutrally? Or does it open a floodgate of supernatural thinking to discuss even this distant religious tradition with my children at this early age? Should I just dodge the subject altogether?
Of course I don't want to dodge anything when it comes to my children. I want to answer their questions in the most appropriate way I can. So here goes:
Let's imagine that my oldest, George, catching sight of a report on Burma tonight on TV, asks: "Who are those funny orange guys, Daddy?"
I believe that, for now, I would avoid the dogma of Buddhism. It's too early to get into enlightenment and reaching nirvana. Instead I would focus on the tradition in that country for young men to choose a life of quiet and contemplation, where they can dedicate themselves to being attentive to the details of their existence: a bowl or rice, a ceremony, a gesture... I would tell him that they live together in monastaries, where they do all the work and sit still for long periods. In efffect I would secularize what they do.
Some religious people may criticize my approach to talking to my children. They would ask me to acknowledge the courage, the love for humanity, and the steadfastness which the monks' Buddhism -- their form of religiosity -- gives them. Is this not evidence of a benefit from religious devotion? Doesn't it at least support the idea that religion is a spur to social transformation?
I hear these arguments, but I am not convinced of this link. And therefore I think it would be too blunt a message, as well as misleading for a child of his age, to tell him about their religious status as monks.
I know that in Burma today (and in the U.S., say, during the civil rights movement of the 1960s) acts of unbelievable courage are taken with a religious pretext. And the language of religion certainly expresses many of the longings of those on the front-lines of change. Yet I would argue that this religious aspect to these movements is not inextricable to it. It is the legacy of millenia of religious tradition, based in ancient texts and superstitions, whether in Burma or here. It may provide the symbols and language of the movement, but without these symbols and language the movement would stand on even stronger footing.
Replace the saffron robes -- or the clerical collars -- with a group of diversely dressed people with flushed faces, and you get the same result: a picture of human beings banding together to do something greater than themselves.
I am in awe of the Burmese monks who walked the streets of Rangoon and now find themselves in mortal danger. They have done something great -- I will never forget it. In saying this, I do not believe that I also need to feel awe for their religious commitments, ceremonies, and stories. These may have aesthetic value (I'm sure they do, as do temple, church and mosque services in our more familar traditions), but that does not translate to something important that I must tell my child at this early point in his development.
As my children get older, of course we will talk about the attractions of religion, as well as the distractions and delusions it causes in otherwise kind and forthright people. But now is not the time.
The religious side of the Burma situation is secondary. The people are primary.
This blog will explore the intersection of politics and parenting. I invite other dads, moms, or anyone else who is interested, to contribute to the conversation. My intention is to write every day on some issue which connects politics with parenting.
Why "Democrat Dad"?
I am a citizen and a Democrat, and I believe that these are not mere labels. They are important aspects of myself.
Why is my political identity so important that I feel compelled to write a blog about it? Well, I believe that we all have a responsibility to take politics seriously.
Those of us worried or enraged or disillusioned about our country cannot simply escape, drop out, or (romantic as it sounds) "drop off the grid," without losing much of what we cherish about ourselves.
I agree with Aristotle here (see his Politics) that human beings, choosing to exist outside of their community, are abdicating part of themselves. They are living as either "god or beast" -- the lives of monks or hermits, but not something that is recognizable to me.
My values are informed by the opinions of others; and this is not a point of shame. We are social creatures. We respond to praise and blame. Our participation in society is a pre-condition of language and a basis for morality.
I am enamored of our country and its laws. When I think of it... when I picture the whole whirring, clicking machine going like crazy on any given day... I am inspired to believe the best of my fellow-citizens and our future, all over again.
Through multiple decisions at many municipal, state and federal levels, through checks and balances of the different branches of government, through experments in legislation taking place concurrently in the states and in Washington D.C., through elections for offices ranging from a seat on the local school board to the Presidency of the United States -- through all of this never-ceasing activitiy -- our system of law provides what I like to think of as a perfect fit.
Think of it as a complex, ever-adjusting, digital map of the analog curve of our collective needs. And it is all thanks to the best "software" ever designed for the organizing of human beings and their diverse interests: the Constitution.
I am a citizen of this country, and proud of it. And politically, I am a member of the Democratic Party.
Hence, Democrat Dad.
Please join me. I look forward to thinking through parenting from a political perspective -- with you as my fellow-parents and fellow-citizens. Fellow Democrats of course are invited. Republican Dads and Moms too! Let's get started!
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