Month: August 2013

Syria Is Not Your Moral Playground

by Brendan James

BRITAIN-SYRIA-CONFLICT-DEMO

Sean Lee, a blogger living in Lebanon who’s skeptical of intervention, delivers a sharp message to fellow leftists:

[I]f your opinion of Syria is actually an opinion about the United States, I have no interest in hearing it, and it’s probably safe to say that most Syrians (or at least all of the ones I know) who are faced with the business end of the regime’s ordinance don’t either. I can’t think of a single Syrian who’s willing to get killed so you can flaunt your anti-imperialist street cred from the comfort of your local coffee shop.

Ramah Kudaimi is even more direct:

I think taking a position of the US should not get involved through a military intervention is fine. DON’T put it as “Hands off Syria” implying this is some kind of American conspiracy. DON’T argue this is about US not having a right to taking sides in a civil war. DON’T make it all about money for home since we do want more humanitarian aid. DO frame it as what will help bring the suffering of Syrians to an end.

We’re used to hearing the charge of abstract moralism leveled at advocates of intervention: those puffy Western pundits and armchair generals who convert every instance of mass atrocity into a simple moral quiz best answered with cruise missiles. And it’s true: there’s usually an inverse relationship between the level of a commentator’s self-righteousness and their knowledge of the country they intend to throttle. Tiny, wretched countries like Iraq and Syria suddenly echo the threat of European fascists on the march. There’s been no shortage of this posturing among those making the case for intervention in Syria.

But Lee and Kudaimi, like anyone outside of the interventionist bubble, are often forced to interact with a different crowd that, through either ideology or exhaustion, is equally guilty. Just as misguided liberals or delusional neocons perceive militarism as a sign of ethical yet  “hardheaded” foreign policy, many on the left and the Paulite right wear their anti-interventionism as a badge of honor, using a horror like Syria as a test of personal strength: it proves they’re not fooled by Washington’s propaganda or vulnerable to humanitarian appeals. And so arguments are reverse-engineered from a general attitude about the United States, global capitalism and waning empire.

For a taste, here’s self-appointed spokesman for the Arab world Robert Fisk, today:

If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida. Quite an alliance! Was it not the Three Musketeers who shouted “All for one and one for all” each time they sought combat? This really should be the new battle cry if – or when – the statesmen of the Western world go to war against Bashar al-Assad.

The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered almost exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron, Hollande and the rest of the miniature warlords.

If you find it odd that this is the first thing Fisk has to say about a potential strike, you’ll begin to see Lee’s point above. When you’re rolling on a cocktail of sanctimony and snark, there’s neither time nor need for genuine analysis, as Lee points out:

It is the flip side of the rhetoric that was so evident in the run-up to war in Iraq that equated any opposition to an idiotic war with support for Saddam Hussein. Well, guess what? There are lots of perfectly fine opinions that might put you on the same side as al-Qa’ida. Just to name one: if you’re against drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, as I am, then you’re also “on the same side as al-Qa’ida” according to this logic.

In short: don’t pretend your moral pageant has anything to do with what’s right for Syrians. The months and months of chatter over this war have been a fine reminder that moralism, from the left and right, is utterly useless in writing about the conflict. With little time left before the US makes a final decision whether to strike, anyone serious about Syrian (or Lebanese, or Iraqi, or Israeli) lives can drop the indignation and the piety. An honest observer’s thoughts look a lot less like this or this, and a lot more like this.

(Photo: Demonstrators hold up placards during a protest against potential British military involvement in Syria at a gathering outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on August 29, 2013. By Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images)

Expletives Deleted

by Tracy R. Walsh

Maria Bustillos traces the history of the bleep. Bustillos prefers it to the “dump button delay”, which “is different from bleeping in that the edit is concealed completely from the audience“:

The dump button provides a relatively insidious, more censorship-like form of editing, because its alteration of the original broadcast has been actively concealed. If we are to have disagreements about what constitutes acceptable media for a civilized general audience — and we should — they should be aired in every possible way. Through a very loud bleep, for example. And through litigation, and yes, complaints to the FCC. Through arguments at dinner tables and letters to the editor.

A bleep is honest, immediate, noisy. It’s the cultural superego in motion, calling attention to a difference of opinion regarding the offensiveness of the bleeped material. Here is this questionable thing; think about it for yourself, investigate if you like. In this way, the bleep is a literal demonstration of First Amendment principles: the 1KHz-sound of a community actively engaged in the process of establishing standards, and struggling to understand itself.

When Childhood Classics Aren’t Innocent, Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

A reader takes the thread into the 21st century:

I thought I’d add to the discussion a bafflingly homophobic portrayal in a far more recent film: School of Rock. The “gay” (well, gender non-conforming) kid in that movie was ridiculed and undermined at every turn. His love of Liza Minelli – an extremely lazy joke – was presented as a mark of bad taste by Jack Black’s character, the hero of the film. All the other kids “get” rock, while the sad gay kid doesn’t. In the end, the costumes he creates (because naturally, right?) are summarily ditched in favor of the school uniforms. The kid is the only one in the movie who is not redeemed or transformed by his experience in the band.

I remember coming out of that movie thinking the filmmakers would be embarrassed by this portrayal in a decade or so. I hope they are.

Another circles back:

Your reader who recalled Billy Crystal’s Sammy Davis, Jr. impression may have forgotten that Crystal reprised the role when he hosted the Oscars in 2012. Did he get away with it? That depends who you ask: there were certainly many who expressed offense. On the other hand, Davis’ daughter defended Crystal. I think it’s plausible to argue that there’s a reasonable distinction to be made between blackface that is a generalized portrayal of a race and by definition insulting, and the portrayal of a specific person by a person who isn’t of the same ethnicity (or gender – was Will Farrell’s Janet Reno out-of-bounds?).

Anyway, as a fan of old movies who has been occasionally floored by the horrifyingly casual racism often found in them (the already mentioned Breakfast at Tiffany’s being the best example of this in my experience), I’ve enjoyed following this thread.

Another adds, “The reader who brought up Billy Crystal playing Sammy Davis Jr. 30 years ago probably hasn’t seen Robert Downey Jr. in the 2008 movie Tropic Thunder“:

Another:

Your reader is incorrect in writing that Billy Crystal wearing black makeup to play Sammy Davis, Jr. would never get away with it today. Fred Armisen wore black makeup to play Senator and then President Obama on Saturday Night Live from 2008 through the 2012-13 season.  After some initial criticism, which was largely based on a why an African-American actor was not playing Obama, no one seemed to care.

Another returns to the theme of childhood classics:

Having grown up in Wisconsin, I read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic series to my young daughter and discovered numerous passages that challenged me to stop reading, skip over, or explain. First, and astonishingly, Pa and Ma built the “Little House on the Prairie” in Indian Territory with the explicit intent of forcing the U.S. Army at Fort Gibson and Fort Dodge to expel the natives in favor of the white settlers. Then there is Ma’s constant racism and hatred of the Indians. And a schoolteacher whipping a child, Willie Oleson. And a fire-and-brimstone sermon threatening all with everlasting torture. And, in what must be one of the most amazing passages in children’s literature, Pa’s blackface minstrel show presented to the fulsome delight of the town and his family, singing:

Oh talk about your Mulligan Guards!
These darkies can’t be beat!
We march in time and cut a shine!
Just watch these darkies’ feet!

Throughout all this, I decided to read the text as written and answer any questions as they came. These episodes are offset by the deathly sick Ingalls family being saved by a black doctor, by Laura’s laughter at the sermon, by the individual and collective dignity of the Indians, and by the matter-of-fact truthfulness that all this was really a part of Laura’s world. But I drew the line at showing this illustration of Pa in blackface:

image (3)

One more reader:

I’d like to offer a limited defense of Dumbo’s crows. No one should dismiss genuine hurt, even if the filmmakers achieve it by ignorance and carelessness rather than malice. Privileged white filmmakers, particularly those working for Walt Disney, do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

But I do think the depiction of the crows in Dumbo is more complicated. These are highly sympathetic characters. They are smart – much smarter than the childish Dumbo, smarter than the “bad” elephants and circus-master, and even smarter than wisecracking Timothy J. Mouse. It is the crows after all who devise the “magic feather” that allows Dumbo to realize his potential. It is not at all a coincidence that Dumbo, who has been judged by his appearance, consistently terrorized and humiliated, and separated from his only source of genuine love can only find true allies at society’s margins – these put-upon black crows understand his plight all too well. At the film’s finale Dumbo is flying triumphantly with these crows – his friends and most trusted supporters.

They are of course explicitly coded as African-American. It is painfully clumsy at times (but no clumsier than the revered “Porgy and Bess”). Their musical number is not minstrelsy but a fairly faithful song in the style of popular black acts like The Mills Brothers. The singers are African-American – Hall Johnson’s Chorus – and they perform earnestly, not mocking the style. The crows are a bit silly during the song (it is a children’s film) but none of the humor has any racial logic like the awful Native-American sequence in Peter Pan. The worst aspect is the dialect, which is clearly written by writers unfamiliar (or uninterested) with the way black people actually speak.

I think parents showing this film to kids need to spotlight the depiction and explain how it misses the mark. But I think we deprive today’s kids by censoring the film outright. A film ultimately about love and understanding of those who look different than us is too rare to abandon.

Replicas Are Getting More Realistic

by Patrick Appel

Van Gogh 3D

For example:

The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam has developed high-quality 3D reproductions of some of its finest paintings, with what it describes as the most advanced copying technique ever seen. Axel Rüger, the museum’s director, said: “It really is the next generation of reproductions because they go into the third dimension. If you’re a layman, they are pretty indistinguishable [from the originals]. Of course, if you’re a connoisseur and you look more closely, you can see the difference.”

Izabella Kaminska believes that, eventually, “it is highly likely that the naked eye will no longer be able to differentiate between reproductions and originals, and that the only way to know for sure which is which will be to carbon date or test the materials microscopically”:

Value then becomes entirely an eye of the beholder thing. In logical terms the value of the Mona Lisa should collapse, especially so if the clue to authenticity is lost or diluted entirely. If the painting stays valued it’s because a narrative, myth of belief system has been attached to that particular version of the object — much as happens with sacred relics or superstitious charms.

Felix Salmon counters:

When paintings become worth millions of dollars, it’s not because of some intrinsic aesthetic value.

If it was, then known fakes would be valuable, rather than worthless, and outfits like Artisoo would be serious operations, rather than laughingstocks. We value certain objects because they are handmade; because of whose hand made them; and because they are historically important. This is the unique actual painting that Vincent Van Gogh painted in a certain month in 1890, these are his actual brushstrokes, his actual paint; this is a key part of the oeuvre which changed the course of (art) history. There is only one of this painting, it exists in a certain museum, and if you want, you can do the pilgrimage: get on a plane, and fly to Amsterdam, and visit the museum. Kaminska sneers at “sacred relics”, but the financial and sociological and art historical value in these paintings makes them much closer to being sacred relics than they are to being purely decorative works, admired just for what they look like.

(Image: A detail from a 3D printed painting. Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam.)

Measuring The Spirit Of Capitalism

by Brendan James

Josh Keating finds a study claiming the Protestant work ethic is scientifically verifiable:

Using data from the European and World Values Surveys—global studies in which people are asked to describe their economic circumstances and subjectively assess their own well-being—they examined a sample of 150,000 individuals from 82 societies to see how people felt about unemployment. They found that while unemployment reduces well-being regardless of religious denomination, “it has an additional negative effect for Protestants of about 40 percent the size of the original effect.” In other words, “the individual level unemployment hurts Protestants much more than it does non-Protestants.”

The effect also applies for people living in predominantly Protestant societies, even if they are not Protestant themselves. When they examined self-reported happiness ratings, as opposed to well-being as a whole, they found the “negative effect of unemployment … to be twice as strong for Protestants compared to non-Protestants.”

Faces Of The Day

by Chris Bodenner

Baltimore Orioles Vs. Boston Red Sox At Fenway Park

Fans wear many different looks as a first-inning foul ball heads their way. The Boston Red Sox hosted the Baltimore Orioles in an MLB regular season game at Fenway Park on August 28, 2013. By Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images. A reader flagged it:

Whether or not you’re a baseball fan, you have to love this image.

Building A Coalition To Flight Climate Change

by Patrick Appel

Roberts wants more attention paid to the political consequences of climate policies:

If there are limits to how much a public is willing to pay in carbon taxes — and there obviously are, though they will vary from country to country and circumstance to circumstance — then it is important to think about what kinds of policies either increase willingness to pay or reduce the cost of carbon reductions. “Does this policy reduce carbon?” is not the only question. We must also ask, “does this policy create constituencies for further political action?” It is not only a policy’s effect on the economy that matters, but also its effect on political economy. (Jesse Jenkins wrote a great post about this, which you should read.)

He continues:

A real policy, no matter how kludged and compromised, is always more efficacious than a theoretical policy. A carbon tax is the best (and only necessary) climate policy only on a blackboard or in a spreadsheet. In the real world, power and interests matter and anything that alters them in the right direction is desirable. Just as a carbon target means nothing until the policies and capabilities are in place, a carbon tax will only ever be as high as political economy allows.

Bonding With Bots

by Brendan James

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Jessica Love wonders what it will be like “when our daily conversations are as likely to take place with computers as with humans”:

Just this month, the New York Times’s Ian Urbina reported on the increasing ubiquity of socialbots: robotic programs designed to lure actual humans into virtual conversations, and then, more often than not, convince them to do something: buy stock, adopt a political stance, even fall in love. (And who better to fall for than a Nigerian Prince?) “Within two years,” Urbina writes, “about 10 percent of the activity occurring on social online networks will be masquerading bots, according to technology researchers.”

Make no mistake: these bots will get good. As will Siri and Google Search and any number of algorithms programmed—for reasons insidious or otherwise—to behave as humanly as possible. I find it very probable that, in my lifetime, I’ll be able to have entire conversations without ever quite knowing whom or what I’m talking to.

Previous Dish on our future robot companions here and here.

Justice For Revenge Porn?

by Brendan James

Maureen O’Connor profiles a victim of “revenge porn” in New Jersey, the only state where the sick practice is illegal:

[Anonymous victim “A”] remembers shooing her young cousins away during a back-to-school shopping trip at Target, when an older man approached to compliment “your pictures.” Another time, printouts of her nude photos were left outside her front door.

A’s story is remarkable not because of the personal betrayal it involved or the public humiliation of having an X-rated digital doppelgänger. Those things happen to countless victims of “revenge porn,” the term for sexually explicit images distributed without the subject’s consent, whether by an ex-boyfriend or anonymous hackers. What’s truly remarkable is that the legal system took interest in A at all.

For victims elsewhere, the legal system provides few options:

At the heart of a burgeoning movement to change that is End Revenge Porn, the advocacy group that A began volunteering for in the wake of her nightmare experience. It’s the brainchild of Florida resident Holly Jacobs, who went public last spring with her five-year battle against a pornographic attack so pervasive it led her to change her name. She has since built a network of around 50 victims and legal experts advocating for laws banning revenge porn, and she’s now spinning End Revenge Porn into a nonprofit called the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. She works with lawyers, academics, and legislators — including California state senator Anthony Cannella, who has sponsored a California bill to make revenge porn a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail for a first offense; the popular bill is under consideration right now.

But Lux Alptraum argues new legislation is misguided:

[R]evenge porn is already illegal. Distributing pornographic content without maintaining an extensive database conforming to the specifics of 18 USC 2257 records keeping requirements is a criminal offense. So are harassment and stalking, which could be interpreted to include revenge porn. If it’s already on the books as illegal, why do we need more laws to specifically call it out as illegal? And, more pressingly, if the existing laws aren’t enough to deter and punish the distributors of revenge porn, how can we genuinely believe that one more law is going to fix the problem?