JFK, the good, the bad, and the end of the ugly in modern politics

I always find Andrew Marr's programmes excellent, and JFK, the making of modern history was no exception. The focus of the programme was how Kennedy's election campaign marked a change in US (and world) political campaigning, and was perhaps the start of the dominance of spin in elections, where the marketing became as important, if not more so, than the message.

While I don't have too much detailed knowledge of JFK, overall I have a favourable impression of him, based on my understanding that he was an inspiring leader (his speeches are famous to this day), and the fact that while I don't think of him having being particularly successful in the domestic arena (no progress on civil rights I think), I know he definitely had some achievements in foreign affairs; in fact given the severity and complexity of things like the Cuban missile crisis, this alone would make him one of the more important presidents.

What I didn't realise though, was how thin on substance he seems to have been before coming to that office, or how much his 'celebrity' style played a part in winning it for him, and the consequences of this road to success. Furthermore he might not have even been the most suitable option the democrats had at the time. Since generally only the final two opposing combatants in a US election are remembered by the world at large, what is often forgotten is the fight within each party to choose its single representative. Since the elections themselves are often a grand battle between left and right for a swinging middle, they are probably less nuanced than the primary contests that precede them, in which different types of characters compete for the right to represent the same overall message, but in different ways. Indeed, if the general mood in a country is a major (if not dominant) force as to which way (leftish or rightish) it swings in that particular year, then what is also telling, or at least not unimportant, is how these primaries were resolved. For example if the democrats were well placed anyway to regain power, then what is more at issue is not that a democrat becomes president, but what kind of democrat, since he/she would shape their political message and destiny for the near future.

So it was fascinating to learn that Kennedy's main rival for the candidacy (Hubert Humphrey) was a very respected and principled politician, and that he was in effect steamrolled out of the way by the wealth and resources of the Kennedy machine.  Kennedy relied more on style than substance, wowing the electorate with his rock star like charisma and panache, while in parallel the cynical usage of smears, dirty tricks, manipulation helped to wipe out a solid, decent politician. None of this sounds surprising, since such dynamics and tactics are (regrettably) assumed to be part and parcel of campaigning, until it becomes clear that this was probably the first election in which they really played a major, and transformational, role.
Indeed it wasn't only Humphrey who was caught unawares by this approach, it also worked effectively against the republican candidate, Nixon, illustrated perfectly by the TV debate fiasco, which was thought of as a win for the radiant Kennedy by people who had seen Nixon's sweaty and (literally) sickly appearance  on TV, even though those who had only listened on radio thought Nixon had performed much better.

Here was known principles (Humphreys) and experience (Nixon, current vice-president) being shunned in favour of a captivating image, something which is even more striking given that this was a time when cold war was heating up, and the possibility of global annihilation was a real threat, and one would have thought serious times called for a serious candidate.

But maybe it was precisely such a sombre time of doom and gloom that was actually most suited to the positive qualities that Kennedy brought to politics. He wasn't presenting deeds and policies, he was offering a lifestyle, an inspirational soaring dream to aspire too, and maybe this is what was really needed (within reason of course on the final pragmatic political front!). It is no coincidence that this era, the 60s was also a time of growing movements which struggled to shrug off the boring (and worse) shackles of life in the 50s, the hippie movement, civil rights, and above all, consumerism.  Kennedy probably was both a beneficiary and a driver of this changing, more active, worldview, and it does have some things to be said for it. Above all, he got people interested in politics, and even inspired them to be involved in their country. After the world war it is understandable that people relied on stable politicans, or even ex-generals, but now times were moving on, and it was important that they the people were once more involved, and Kennedy's soaring rhetoric, and indeed his style, helped with that.

But, it can't be denied that there is a dark underbelly. Even Kennedy himself was not only disingenuous in his campaign (criticizing the administration for letting the US fall behind in the arms race with the Soviet Union when he himself had seen classified information that this was not true) but even lied outright (about his health, denying he was suffering from a disease which records show he actually had); and unfortunately while it is of course a great thing to get more people involved in an election, the sad reality is that the manner in which that interest is whipped up means many, if not most, of them are likely to be more swayed by the propaganda than the programme. If it's all in the packaging, the more expensive wrapping paper wins the day, and this opens the door to well resourced, connected, and funded interests to gain control.

But is there any other choice? It's all very well to point out the dangers of an uninformed 'mob', but at the end of the day democracy is just exactly what is wanted by the biggest mob, informed or not. The only benign alternative is patronising elitism, which is also susceptible to manipulation by those with resources.  At least in the former case, where everyone is involved, then everything is out in the open, and even if things go wrong temporarily, this transparency allows for self-correction, something which can't happen if the business of politics is handled only by those 'who know best'. You can't fool all of the people all of the time, and tt is this openness, feedback and ability for correction which makes democracy the best of a bad lot. It's not perfect, but it can improve, and this is what matters most.

So, Kennedy's legacy is a double edged sword; he ushered in a new era of politics whereby style mattered as much as substance, but it was this style which brought passion and enthusiasm back in. What is (as always) needed is a system of checks and balances, such that no one surge of style can completely derail the overall project. A charismatic leader is good, but only in conjunction with a solid parlimentary system where the people at the day to day level feel connected to politics, even if the head of the chain is a celebrity removed almost from the real world. Unfortunately I'm not sure the role of the US president, especially with his/her discretion when it comes to foreign policy, fully fits that description. However, it must be said that it is rare that the situation is as serious as it was when JFK took power, and he did ok, so it seems even being a celebrity is not a barrier to being a politician as well.

Did George Lucas rape our childhood?

Far from just being of interest to children of Star Wars like myself, the documentary "The People Vs. George Lucas"  (youtube trailer here) raised some interesting questions about the ownership and identity of art, once it becomes part of popular culture.

The original Star Wars movies, especially the first, are widely acknowledged as an important part of modern culture, informing the dreams and dispositions of a significant segment of a generation. Even though not everyone might have been as awestruck and adoring as some were (including myself) the sheer fact that so many were affected in this way shows their iconic nature. More than just mere entertainment, the affection the saga inspires in all that experience it, and the fanatical devotion it elicits in some, shows that it qualifies as a modern 'myth', more a vision than just a story, a worldview which resonates deeply with a culture. Story telling is a fundamental part of human nature and history, and the most important stories have long been the means by which societies passed their heritage down through the ages; furthermore, these stories often capture a morality, an outlook,which makes them more than mere entertainment, and this is something which has can result in a deep emotional connection; indeed it is probably no coincidence that most major religions have some form of narrative tale at their core, since this is the way to captivate mankind's heart. This is how art can become entwined with culture, and the way Star Wars became thus entwined, makes it I think, indeed a real kind of art.

However, there was a problem. The original movies, although groundbreaking technologically for their time, were still restrained by what was actually possible, both financially and technically, and it seems that Lucas felt he had only realized part of what his full vision was. This part was however enough to blow the minds of a generation, and falling in love with it, they loved it as true love should, for what it actually was, not for what it might also be.

Unfortunately the very thing that made Star Wars great, its use of special effects and post production processing, and the fact that it consisted of unreal elements, meant that as technology improved, these effects and elements were open to further seamless manipulation; what is not real, can be easily replaced. Thus Lucas released new, digitally remastered versions of the movies, with various modifications which were in his view improvements, and which made it, as he says, as it should have been. If these new versions were merely extra interpretations (as for example one can watch various versions of Blade Runner, or even ET) it would be one thing, but Lucas took advantage of the fact that movies were transitioning to new media - DVD - to actually replace the old versions, even going so far as to claim that the original prints were damaged during the updates, and no longer existed. It's almost reminiscent of the Stalin's airbrushing of Trotsky from history, but when we feel the wave of indignant emotion were are forced to admit how different the situation is. Stalin was trying to rewrite the history of what others had done, Lucas was only trying to adjust what he had created, and surely that was his right?

The problem was, so many people had taken the originals to heart, his creations now part of their cherished childhood memories, and through their formative influence, even in a way, part of them. And suddenly they found these memories, these references, these parts of their selves, being changed, and it is not surprising they didn't like it. This is why some even go as far to claim (albeit tongue in cheek) that George Lucas 'raped' their childhood - in trying to rewrite something so integral to their youth, he was in a way abusing and violating it. They wanted to be able to relive, re-experience what they loved, but now it was all different. Of course most normal people might not notice the changes, a scene cut here , a new alien waddling in the background there, but the people who really cared, and there were a lot of them, did notice. I guess it would be like returning to a wood where one played as a child, to find an old beloved tree house renovated and modernized. It might be 'better', but it would be different, and what it was somehow destroyed, and that at some level really matters.

But is the anger justified? Does the artist always retain ultimate ownership? I think not, and for two different kinds of reasons. Firstly and most basically, he only had the resources to continue making the movies, and ironically remake them, because of the support of the fans. So while he doesn't strictly owe them anything as such ( they were free to pay for the merchandise) one could argue that it would at the very least be antisocial to take back what he had given them, once he has gained out of it. Secondly, it is a fact that the movies became bigger than what they were when he created them; they took on a life of their own in popular culture, and this is again down to the fans, not to him. He provided the spark, but others piled on the fuel, and the resulting fire became part of the culture, and hence he loses the right to extinguish it. The point here is that he seems to be trying to replace the originals, not just rework them into something new. This is the fundamental problem. While fans might take issue with what he is doing in his new movies and be horrified at the prequels that followed, they really don't have the right to complain about this if it is just new work. They are disappointed to see what they love not grow as they would have liked, but they are the fools to have fallen in love in such an expectant manner. This is one sided infatuation, and they have no right to dictate to their beloved. But their relationship with the originals were two sided, a partnership between art and culture, and Lucas has I think no moral right to destroy this. He gave his dream to the world, and it dreamed it with him, and he should not be allowed to take it back.

There is also another interesting facet to this argument, where the question becomes not just whether an artist be allowed to later improve his art, but whether he or she can also retract it.  In the Star Wars controversy there is particularly heated debate about the modification of one scene, and the argument can be labelled 'Han shot first'. Even in the original 3 movies the character of Han Solo developed significantly, from a selfish smuggler,  to opportunistic mercenary, and finally to a fully signed up member of the rebellion. In a movie dealing so much with concepts of good and evil, he is still a very neutral character initially, not 'bad' as such, but living on the edge of the law, and doing what needs to be done. This is nicely captured in his first scene in the saga, when he encounters a bounty hunter who wants to deliver him to what sounds like a nasty end. The conversation shows that the wrath he faces is unjustified (it's not like he ripped anyone off) so it is perfectly fitting that with a gun being waved in his face, he shoots the bounty hunter, albeit before walking nonchalantly off. Strangely, in the later movies, Lucas has (rather clumsily) manipulated the scene to have the bounty hunter shoot first. Apart from the ludicrous nature of the result, a trained bounty hunter misses a target from point blank range, the purpose of the change is clear, Solo only fires back in response to an immediate attempt on his life. Lucas here is obviously not just trying to represent the themes more vividly, but change the themes, by changing the morality, the nature, of the characters.

This raises the fascinating question - can an artist do this? Obviously this is more than just creating what he always wanted, but wanting later to create something else. Maybe the Lucas of the 1990s is more mature than that of the 1970s, maybe more sensitive, and maybe now finds his original idea too brutal. Maybe now as a father, he wants to sanitize the rougher vision of the world that he had when he was young. But should an artist be allowed do this? I think not, at least not in so far as to wipe out the original, and not just produce additions to it. Think of a philosopher who writes an influential treatise, and then tries to have it erased, removing books from libraries and changing later editions. In a way of course this always happened, but the point is in the modern digital age this can be done so much more effectively. In his book 'Delete' Victor Mayer-Schoenberger worries that the growth of digital memory will conflict with our own biological recollections, and here is a wonderful example of that, and a disturbing one, since it involves the changing of those memories.

Again,while one may be inclined to accord ultimate ownership to the artist, I think this ignores an important fact - that creating art inherently involves giving it away; if an artist never reveals his painting, or a writer never publishes her book, then maybe they retain this ownership (though an interesting argument could be had over private notes left behind), but if they actually present that work to the world, and ask it to look, to judge, to react, then through this they relinquish some rights. The world for its part however needs also to remember not to define the artist by what he or she has done, to allow them to do something else, to allow them to change if they want. The deal however must be, we won't deny artists their future, but they must not deny us our past.

So while George Lucas certainly didn't rape our childhood, he is messing with it, and he shouldn't. He has to accept that it is part of life that even though we may regret our actions, we cannot deny them. Even if we shot first.

angry young man

It's been years since I listened to Bill Hicks, so had forgotten about him until I saw a recent movie about his life :   American - the Bill Hicks story.  Having said recently (in my post on L. Frank Baum) that I generally don't find biographies interesting, I'm now repeatedly being proved wrong. Maybe I'll become a 'people person' someday after all!

What was interesting about this particular documentary was that it was made as (what I've googled and found out to be called) a 'photo-animated' feature. Basically to illustrate events without the aid of video footage, the producers overlaid cutouts from photographs onto appropriate scenes and animations. So for a story about how as kids Bill and his buddies had driven into town in a camper van, there was an animation of said van burning along a road, with the cutout faces of the boys leaning out the windows. It may sound a bit tacky and Monty Pythonish, but it actually worked very well, not only providing a nice visual backdrop to the narration, but also allowing for underlying themes to be brought out via the drawings.

Probably because I listened to his stuff last when I was young and fired up myself, I remembered Hicks's comedy mainly for its acerbic wit and unconventialism. He was stuck in my mind as an angry rebel, not least because of his frank admission of drug and alcohol abuse, and this tapped into my mood at the time -  impatient to find answers in the world, and scornful of the accepted ones. Knowing that he had had his vices, and also had died young, I admit I had an image of him which was too dominated by these facts, not least that I assumed they were related. This seemed to be confirmed as the story got to his dark phase, showing not just how he had dived headlong into the wild and rough life, but how it had seemed to prove beneficially catharthic for him, allowing him to really break completely free from convention and find what was to be his unique groove. Being under the impression that this was the final stage of his life, and that he had simply self combusted in a blaze of fame and pharmaceuticals like so many before him, I have to admit at this point while I still was impressed with the guy, I was slightly scornufl. I guess my thoughts were that its all well and good having this crazy phase, but no one can live like that forever, and what I'm always interested in is how great people handle the mundane times, as well as the mad ones; to be able to say something about real life, they have to live it too. But soon I realised I had wronged him, as the movie went on to detail not only how he had kicked his worst habits, but also how he had realised (and gone on to prove with his continued success) that although they might have once been what was needed to liberate him, he no longer needed them and in fact they were holding him back. Given his formative relationship with these things, and how young he still was, this I found a very impressive insight. Often it's so easy for such young talent to be too entwined with this kind of lifestyle, and its rare to see it truly break free, probably because it so often kills them before they even have the chance, (and we never do find out which is the dancer, and which the dance).

But with all due respect, Hicks didn't follow this path, and manage to keep his style, without the substances. Which makes it then so tragically ironic that he died young anyway, snuffed out by pancreatic cancer, something which, no matter how prejudiced one might be inclined to be, I don't think can be linked to his lifestyle (it's an odd coincidence that the day after I watched this Steve Jobs, died of the same condition).

There were two other things that hit me from this movie. One was from seeing the clips of his early teenage sketches juxtaposed with his later adult stage work; you could see the same look in those eyes, the same expressions, albeit padded out with age, and it was thought provoking to see the same person show through despite the long duration. There's a way in which we die many times in our lives, as our former selves fall by the wayside, so it's good to see examples of how the underlying personality can still live on.  The other was how he seemed to always have a healthy and strong bond to his family, despite using them a source of comedy, and being notably different from them (they seemed to be quite fundamentalist, but in way seemed almost to treat it like Woody Allen sometimes protrayed being Jewish : it was a cultural lifestyle rather than an actual belief; religion first, and meh, maybe God later). He was a bit of a rebel, but he was kicking against the world, not against them as such, and his abrasive wit wasn't an outpouring of bitterness or resentment, it was just taking no shit from this world, nothing personal. This 'normal' side of him was brought into extreme focus in how he ended his life, spending his last days alone with his family and friends. A long way from a bathtub in Paris which is the sort of final scene I had always had in my head. This normality I think imbues him I think with a seriousness that would otherwise have been lacking; with it in mind, he can't be dismissed or ignored as some simple maverick outside the fold. He was very much in society, and acknowledged and appreciated its better parts, even as he castigated the rest.

But even still, he did die young, and it is worth wondering how his style would have developed. Would he have continued, do any of them? I think I read once that mathematicians peak in their early 30s, and wonder if the Hicks style of comedy, would also have followed such an arc. It's hard to push the envelope for ever, since one can only be surprised with the world when one hasn't been in it that long.

Is that really the case? Does habituation settle in as we settle down? Is it just the young who are angry with the absurdity of the world? Is it only the young, like Hicks was, who can produce such vivacious vitriol, and, on the otherside of the lights or screen, only we when we're young who have the stomach to consume it? What happens us when we get older? Did we find the answers we were shouting for? Or have we just given up looking?  I guess roles and responsibilities come to dominate our lives, and there's just less time to tut and think about how the world should be, since we're so busy dealing with how it actually is. Would Hicks have mellowed out if he'd lived to an older age? It's an interesting question, and one I have to wonder about when I realise I'm older now than he ever reached. 

At the very least, watching this documentary about a man who broke the mould in many ways,reminds me how easy it is to become stuck in the 'feathered rut' . We need to occasionally pinch and remind ourselves that we don't need to placidly accept the world as it is, become inured to its what's bad in man or good in nature, or the absurdity of both. Not that that the settled mature life isn't fine place to be, but it's always good to remember that even if not in the gutter, we still should keep on looking at the stars. And shake our fist at them the odd time too.  And be grateful for the likes of Bill Hicks, who even when gone from this world, can jolt us out of it.

What I watched : The wizard behind the wizard

Being very much not a 'people person', I normally am not particularly interested in biodocumentaries about famous people. I have to admit I generally care relatively little about the lives lived by others, except in so far as light can be shed on actual tangible events (e.g. in documentaries on the movers and shakers of history); however, I can also acknowledge that this is probably less to do with being hard-nosedly attuned to what really matters, and likely more to do with a paucity of imagination, since when I do watch or read about people and their times, I often find it not only enjoyable, but informative as well. It's probably this same prejudice at work in my half-joking claim that I rarely read fiction because there's barely enough time in life to read about the real things let alone for stuff that's been made up. The point I'm missing of course being that while hard facts may seem to be perferable, often it is the soft information that yields true insight, especially in the human domain, where objective truths are so hard to come by.

So I was pleasantly surprised with the BBC4 program "The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz: The True Story" which detailed the life of the author, L. Frank Baum.

Given the repeated rise and fall of his fortunes and his seemingly unquenchable optimism and entrepeneurship, Baum's story was engaging enough in its own right (even to a people-phobe like me), but what I found most interesting and thought provoking was how the story of the Wizard of Oz (only written when he turned to being a novelist after a string of other careers, from theatre manager to poultry breeder) went from being 'merely' a wildly popular children's book to encapsulating the hopes of the world many decades later, when the clouds of war were gathering. And like so many other famous childrens' tales which we take for granted, even at its time was more than just a simple fairytale, but was woven of important themes of the moment.

Written at the turn of the century, it became an instant hit, captivating a generation of children. While its story of adventures in a fantastical land may seem standard enough to us, what passes us by is how unique it was to have a strong female lead in such a story. Depictions of women in American children's literature were apparently up till then at best of the resilient silent type, but here was a girl, a little girl, powering her way through a strange land, full of determination and demands, not just challenging the power structures (in the case of denouncing the wizard when revealed a fraud) but even destroying them (putting paid to not one but two wicked witches). When this is pointed out, then even I am interested by the background fact that Baum's wifewas an ardent feminist, which reminds us that at the time of writing, when there were few rights and no votes for women, feminism was a much more tangible struggle than it is in the modern day. I don't want to downplay modern feminism out of hand with this, rather to point out how much more unique and symbolic the character of Dorothy is in light of this.

But it was with the terror of the thirties that the story of Oz seemed to come into its own. The movie with Judy Garland was released as WWII was beginning, and despite its success being for sure in part due to its cinematic appeal, this alone could not explain its worldwide popularity. At a time when dark forces of change were on the march, and the lights were going out over Europe, it is easy now to understand how a tale of a quest to get back to normality (even if normal Kanas) struck a chord. The movie was also a perfect merging of story, vision and sound, a combination not probably much known before, and which doubtless made its emotional message more resonant; there is something hauntingly about the plaintive song 'over the rainbow' that will always stir feelings of hard to reach dreams and hopes, even without those dreams and hopes being threatened by the horror of war.

So I found it very poignant to hear that when the Australian troops were marching into battle, they would sing the other famous song from the movie 'we're off to see the wizard'. Here were young men heading off to certain hell, and probable death, and yet still able to keep tounge in cheek. The fact that that song, from that movie, was used in this way, feeds back into how it captured the spirit of the free world at that time. We weren't in Kansas anymore, but we would keep our spirits high in the quest back.

The pleasant surprise of learning something novel about a story I thought I knew well this documentary about a story, and suddenly seeing it in a new light, was also another reminder that the best known childrens' stories, are often more than just 'stories'. For example I was recently surprised to read how in Alice in Wonderland there hides beneath its surface a satirical take on complex mathematics and theories of reality that were being developed at the time, an absurd world representing absurd, yet real ideas.

Indeed it's well possible that it's because such famous stories do have so much depth to them, that they are carried down through the ages, and remain famous. Maybe we repeatedly tell them to our children because they subconciously resonate with current preoccupations, and maybe the children register this importance, dimly sensing it in the world about them, take the stories more to heart.

Unfortunately sometimes the discoveries, while no less thought provoking, are more unsettling, when the background fact shows the fiction in a new and disturbing light. One particularly unnerving instance for me was finding out first about the concept of psychogenic dwarfism, whereby a child's growth can be physically stunted by extreme emotional neglect, and then find out that the author of Peter Pan, JM Barrie, suffered from it. Here was the ultimate story about the boy who didn't grow up, didn't want to, written by a little boy who didn't. It seems Barrie's older brother died, and from this time on his mother not only neglected him emotionally, but even made him seem less wanted than her other lost son. Here was what seemed like an everyman tale dealing with the not wanting to grow up, and how we must, but written by someone who probably did want to, but couldn't. Suddenly the story is turned on its head and cast into negative, and it is hard to separate it from Barrie's condition, which being so tragicially abnormal inhibits us from viewing the story as a universal comment. But despite this unsettling feeling, it probably still is, but just in a more subtle and complex way. Indeed, it even goes to explain better things like Michael Jackson's obsession with childhood as exemplefied by his personal playpark, named of course Neverland. Rather than being a recreation of childhood which he longed to escape to, it represented the prison of a person who loses their childhood. Paradoxically it would indicate that a lost stage in development doesn't mean one skips it and moves on to the next, it means one never moves past it.

"All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end."-J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan"

I see now a new element in this paragraph. Before I would have thought of it just as a lament to how youth fades, and how we might want to retain it forever. But it is the adult, Mrs. Darling who is dismayed by it, Wendy, the child, knows what is natural and needed. It might be the beginning of the end, but we need to go the end. But for some tragic people, they never could.

Delete? How could I?

Viktor Mayer-Shoenberger's book raises a fascinating topic - the impact of ever more powerful and pervasive digital memory on our psychology and society. But while his concerns are thought provoking and merit further discussion, his proposed medicine is for me worse than the disease.

Given the foreboding message of the book, namely an impending upheaval of the mental  landscape that humans have inhabited, and been shaped by, for millenia, there is a reassuring calmness in Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger's discussion of the issue. This is no futurist's fantastical rant about how the machines are about to take control, but a cool and collected presentation of what he sees as a real threat to our cognitive environment, one with tangible negative consequences for our society.

The basic premise of the book is that although mankind has always striven to remember more efficiently and completely, reliable records were always more the exception than the norm, and this is something being inverted by modern technology, resulting in a paradigm shift which neither our communities nor our minds are prepared for.  The first point is something we are all aware of : throughout history new mechanisms have constantly been developed to better preserve information, first via oral traditions, then with writing (inscription and printing), and finally with modern media for sound and image. Indeed the speed with which such a new technology spreads is clear evidence of how this is an important drive within humans; photographs, video recorders, hard discs etc., all have caught on like wildfire as soon as they became available. What was always the case until very recently however, was that this always involved some extra effort or cost. Of course the 20th century marked a fundamental change to previous ones in which such recording was only even an option for a wealthy elite, but, to take the example of photography,  even when cameras and film became commonplace in the 80s and 90s, every roll of film had a non-negligible cost, as well as the time and effort required to get the pictures developed. It was, quite simply, always easier to forget than to remember. But now this has all changed. Digital cameras have no tangible running costs, nor is there any cumulative work involved in obtaining and viewing the resulting pictures. Indeed, as Mayer-Schoenberger points out, even the cost of storing each picture data file has come down so much, that if calculated using the minimum wage, it is actually less than the value of the time required to actively choose and delete those pictures. Hence preservation has become the default, and deleting requires effort, which is a complete reversal of how things have been until now. And it is not just in the domain of photography that this applies; the content explosion of the internet, with online archives and social networks, means that vast swathes of our lives are documented and preserved, from the largest news event to the birthday wishes we email a friend. Furthermore, a lot of this is being done without our knowledge, by everyone from health services to Amazon.  

Of course one major, and well known, problem with this mass of retained information, is the issue of privacy. Digital data can be maintained indefinitely, anything stored for one purpose, personal or official, may at a later time be misused for another, and due to the unique ease with which computer information can be copied and distributed, such leakage from one domain into another is much more likely than ever before. Mayer-Schoenberger discusses this privacy consequence at length, and it is practically the most tangible issue raised by the book, but it's not actually the one I want to focus on here. While it is a complicated and important issue, it is one that is already being discussed at various levels.

What I find more interesting is his suggestion that beyond the misuse of information, the sheer quantity and quality of that information poses problems even for its correct usage. While having a better memory has always been regarded as a good and desirable thing, he points out how perfect recall can actually be more a curse than a blessing. One cultural warning to this effect is Borges' story "Funes the memorious" , where the protagonist, although having perfect memory, seems to lack basic understanding; being snowed under by the massive amount of trivial detail, he is blinded by the particular and cannot grasp the general, which is of course what is needed to truly know something. The point is that facts are not knowledge, no matter how many of them there are. He even presents a real world example, a woman known in the literature as AJ, but who revealed herself as Jill Price,  who despite her amazing memory powers obtains no great advantage from them, and in fact finds this powerful memory causes her to 'spend an unusual amount of time immersed in the past rather than enjoying the present'.

What these examples highlight is that information is highly dependent on context, and is worthless on its own. Mayer-Schoenberger points out that this feature is intrinsically linked to the way our human memory normally operates. Far from being a dry database of information, it is a network of relationships, and further more something which is dynamic rather than static. New information gets linked to old, influencing the surrounding context of both, and changing what was there before. Even recalling something is not a simple retrieval, but a reconstruction, a piecing together that is also heavily influenced by the mind's current state. This is of course massively different from the error free duplication of digital memory, and he points out that the more this digital variant becomes prevalent, the more it might conflict with our own biological memories. This might not have been so psychologically relevant when the amount and type of information being stored was limited, and confined to areas such as dates and events, or just to do with official or government business, but with the advent of personal electronic communication and social networking, this will now apply to personal and emotional areas as well. Mayer-Schoenberger illustrates this with a hypothetical example, that of two friends, Jane and John, who have been out of contact for a considerable time, but having bumped into each other by chance, arrange to meet again. Jane thinks it would be nice to go again to a cafe they used frequent, but in searching her email for the name of it, stumbles upon an angry message from John which she had forgotten about. Suddenly her present opinion of John is poisoned by this blast from the past. Her biological memory had filtered out this single event, and instead had preserved a more holistic conception of him, an aggregated sum of all his actions., but now this is thrown into conflict with perfect digital memory, which forces this single incident to the fore, without any subtle modification for its original context or its overall relevance.  The point is our minds and feelings have evolved to be adapted to imperfect memory,  it is an important element in how we handle our social relations, and digital memory disrupts this.
And of course this can apply to the rational as well as the emotional domain,as Mayer-Schoenberger shows with an other example, that of his friend who wanted to maintain a library of only 200 'best' books. What his friend did not realise is that his subjective judgement varied with time, and hence his library was constantly changing, as his values and priorities changed. There was no objective external 'best 200' which could be achieved, only the best 200 relative to any particular phase of his life, This is something inherently human and very distinct from machine organized information, and we need to bear this in mind when lured by the digital dream of perfect, objective, memory.  Unfortunately,  the long search for better external memory means we are culturally disposed to value it more highly, blinded by its error free perfection, and hence we are normally not aware that its remembered facts lack context and are qualitatively different from our own.

Mayer-Schoenberger discusses various options for dealing with this new state of affairs. Most of them again relate to controlling information abuse, and the problems of  'information privacy'. There are some very interesting ideas, from a kind of Digital Rights Data Management for personal information to the idea to allow people to declare 'Social Bankruptcy', so they can wipe their online slate clean. Mayer-Schoenberger's own proposal, adding 'expiry dates' to data, is interesting, and apart from its privacy potential in restricting how data can be endlessly passed on and hence misused, it has relevance also in the psychological domain which I am focusing on here.

The basic idea behind 'expiry date' is that when creating a file, or recording data, users need also to select (if only from a drop down range of options) a date after which the information is no longer valid, and should be automatically removed from a system. Whatever the practical problems, it does at least also try to help with what is perhaps the most important problem, our lack of awareness of the durability of data, and the related consequences. While I fear even a few extra clicks in any process might easily be viewed as too much effort, and prevent it from catching on, even the very fact that one should choose, or even can choose, the expected relevance time for information would make us think about it. The windows message "do you want to discard the changes to this file?", may in the future be followed by another pop up, "are you also sure you want to save them?"

Unfortunately considering how we might choose, reveals I think the fundamental problem, which is ironically related to the very contextual nature of human memory that it is supposed to support.  Whenever we are throwing something away, the first thing we ask ourselves is whether we will need it sometime in the future, and we will automatically compare the cost (or effort) to keep something, to the potential loss if we actually need it in the future. With cheap and easy digital memory the cost is minute, and so it would be irrational to throw something away, since it would just be for the sake of it. Even if setting the deletion date in advance re-balances the effort between keeping and destroying, having the option at all will always result in such an cost-benefit analysis, and there is only one rational solution : keep keep keep.

Furthermore, one could easily re-write the John and Jane story in various ways in which it is beneficial that she finds an old email. Maybe she was conned by John in the past, and being reminded of it saves her from falling for him again. Or, she might have broken off contact with John due to a misunderstanding, maybe she had been confused or angry for other reasons, and in re-reading the emails in a new light could see her mistake, and now make things right. This I think captures a point that Mayer-Schoenberger misses, that given variations in human reasoning at any time, the influence of mood and situation, change of context can also be a good thing. The problem is one can argue with plenty of examples either way, however my own personal opinion is that if one has to decide, then surely it is better to leave open the option for change in the future, rather than close down all opportunity. To do otherwise is to assume a kind of supertemporal ominpotence, that what we know and think now will always be valid, and I for one am not self-confident (or arrogant) enough to believe that. Mayer-Schoenberger ironically uses this point in his argument against perservation, people can and do change, and deletion might allow a second chance with the slate wiped clean, but old facts in new contexts can help as well as hinder this.

Another interesting idea of his would be to implement what he calls 'digital rusting' , a mechanism where by information and data randomly degrades, in a process mirroring our own memory. But again a cost-benefit analysis has to be applied if we were to allow such a thing, and again I would be of the opinion that better some unwanted facts are retained then some wanted ones are lost. Why I feel this way, and I think it is normal to do so, probably has something to do with the natural difference in how we morally judge actions versus omissions, and doing wrong versus failing to do good (in both cases the former being judged more harshly). Allowing data to decay would be an action, since we choose the mechanism, and it is I think consistent that we would feel worse having caused harm through destroying data, then having failed to ensure some good by keeping it.

But perhaps the biggest obstacle preventing such solutions from succeeding is we wouldn't want them to. Mayer-Schoenberger himself claims that one reason for our constant drive for better and better memory is the notion that it somehow brings a kind of immortality. I think I agree with this, especially if it is put the other way, that to destroy our past is to kill off a part of ourselves for ever. Despite that fact that ultimately as Woody Allen put it, we can't really achieve immortality through our works, only through 'not dying', emotionally there is something in the idea of living on through what we did, or created. We can picture these things outlasting us, and since we identify them with our selves, we thus can view, or more importantly feel, it as a kind of survival. And it is the attempted satisfaction of this desire that I think , at least in my case, would be hardest to overcome.

But even if this kind of endurance beyond our lifespan is an illusion, there is another way in which our past selves can live on, in our current and future lives. Mayer-Schoenberger remarks rather dismissively on how odd it is to read an old diary entry, implying that since it can feel like written by someone else, it is somehow now longer relevant. My opinion would rather be that in precisely this way it can bring an old forgetten self back to life.
For example just recently when searching my email I stumbled  upon some old correspondence and found a passage I had written and which, on re-reading now, I found both insightful and relevant, indeed probably more so than the original recipient had. Encountering the viewpoint of a previous 'me'  can be like bumping into an old friend, re-awakening memories for enjoyment, as well as reminding me of points I once knew but had now forgotten. This for me is the great thing about digital memory, that in its scope and durability our actions and thoughts can resonate across time, and far from being only relevant to their original contexts, they can often transcend them. And this is something wonderful, since to me always one of the saddest descriptions of a person or an idea is that they or it were  'before their time'. There is something poignant about the wasted chances this implies, but external memory helps to overcome this. It is only through recording and later discovery can ignored and missed ideas or thoughts perhaps sometime find life, and the current expansion in the types of digital memory extends the domains in which this can happen.

The point is that destruction destroys more the thing itself, it also wipes out the potential, the opportunity, that leads from it; the possibility that it might some day be relevant. In other areas of life physical restraints (basement size and tolerance of our wives!) prevent unlimited hoarding, in digital technology we are creating a space without such restrictioons. So let's make use of it.  Before people asked God to save them, now with a click of a button, we can do it ourselves.

not seeing with euro-vision...

Yes, time for the yearly cringe fest that is the Eurovision. Of course never actually watch it myself, but like the recent royal wedding that doesn't mean one can escape it...or that one is above paying it just enough attention to ridicule it that bit more effectively.

And like the royal wedding, the gigantic viewing figures that were reported simply beggar belief, if not in the accuracy of the stats, then in there being any hope for the future of mankind whatsoever. Could 120 million sentient beings really want to spend 4 hours of their bitterly short lives watching what is in essence an international contest between groups not good enough to ever normally perform at the international level. Like it or not, music and 'pop stars' are a major element in our cultures, but the very fact that it is such a dynamic and competitive arena which demands a high level of relevant (relative) qualities to get anywhere at all, makes it all the more puzzling why a competition between also, or even never, rans, gets such attention.

Maybe it's just for historical reasons - it was a big thing once, and now is a yearly tradition which is a big event every year, because it was a big event every other year. But how did it ever get started? I was at first tempted by the 'attractive beacon for world peace in the bad old cold war days' thesis, but I'm not sure how trying to get the better of other countries by building up a back scratching alliance of voting favour swaps really would have done anything but remind people of the geopolitics of the day. Except maybe for the fact that the US wasn't involved, which might be it - maybe it was Europe harking back to the 19th century days when it's little regional groupings actually mattered...

Anyway, whatever the history, and whatever it was previously, for as long as I've been aware of it was at most something to take the piss out of. And I have to admit, it was sometimes so good at living up to this role that I often seriously wondered if maybe that was the actual point of it, like a gigantic game of cultural self-mockery. But alas I think it would be too much to hope that any country could lavish such resources on a practical joke of that scale, let alone a group of them take turns in paying for it. And coming from Ireland, it's definitely not a case of sour grapes, given that we won it so many times and, judging by some of our entries, had to go to extra effort to lose the damn thing and not have to fork out to hold it again.

Maybe it was just kept going by all the countries who didn't win thinking that if they did it would make a difference, and they weren't going to let it fizzle out until they had.

While every country produced some joke of an act at some stage, cultural ignorance meant the less well known places were the best bets for a laugh. The problem is most of them didn't grasp that what might have them jumping in the aisles back home, would have their neighbours rolling in them, especially if involved some traditional dress hyped up with the latest local fashion, or some bizarre and unplayable ritual instrument. Though I guess the funniest thing was the sight of them performing in this ridiculous contest with an air of complete sincerity - like someone who turns up to your door in a clown costume and then tries seriously to sell you life insurance.

Though from what I gather, it's all changed since my day (being the 24 hours sometime in the 80s when i went from not knowing what it was to wishing I still didn't). I know there was a step change when the Eastern European countries poured in, but at least they had a legitimate claim to be there (the clue's in the name), not like Israel whose presence I still to this day can't understand.

I think about this time the voting system also went from the straightforward one-country-one-jury system to a more byzantine cross collection of sms voting, which while laudably getting rid of the elitist element (again a joke given the farcical nature of the whole thing) brought in a host of new problems in the form of expat and border communities. These groups risked upsetting what I consider the 2nd point of the whole thing, for an international airing of gripes and grudges..."Ireland, can we have your votes...United Kingdom, nuls points"! In fact, it couldn't really be beaten as a primer on european international relations - watch one eurovision and you soon knew which countries hated which others on a nice handy 12 point scale!

I guess it did contribute the derisatory phrase 'nuls points' to the non-French speaking world, but that was another thing which confused me mightily : why did everything have to be said in 2 languages? Why pander to 2 of the 12 or so countries and not just 1? Logical would be rotating with which ever country was hosting it, but having French and English didn't make sense in any contest since people used line up politely in a field with their muskets before trying to slaughter each other.

I suppose the fact it still gets to me means it's something I love to hate. But from what I briefly saw (failed to not see) of it this year it seems to have even lost it's mirth inducing ridiculousness. Rather than having some entertainment factor through sheer preposterousness, now it seems to be just plain bad. The acts are all trying to emulate the latest chart phenomenon, and really seem to be taking it all quite seriously. Hmmm....or maybe the joke has just been made that bit more subtle...

it could be you, but not me

Despite agreeing with the notion that it's not much more than a tax on the stupid (or at least on those who don't understand probability) I have to admit there is something fascinating about the lottery. It's one of the few, if not the only , instantaneous life changing events that can be for the good rather than the bad. There are a million and one ways in which disaster or upset can strike us out of the blue - death, illness, unemployment, bank crashes - but only a one in a million (or rather one in about 70 million) way in which the same magnitude of sudden positive affect can occur. Of course there are many ways we can be lucky, and our lives improve, but most need some foundation or groundwork - even the hit novelist had to work on the book long before success came knocking. So while I refuse to play the lottery out of principle, it is perhaps nice that there is this phenomenon out there - even if not being in, I can't win.

Well actually, I put my chance of winning without playing only fractionally less than winning through playing! If the odds of winning are 77,000,000 to 1, then surely that's a similar level of improbability to suddenly finding the cash accidentally transferred to my account, or buying a painting at a flea market and it turning out to be a Van Gogh?!

But I do have to admit the attraction, and it shows again how terrible we humans are when it comes to probability. Indeed, given how so much of our lives are based on reaction to risk, then it's surprising there isn't more focus on educating us, or at least the young, more on the topic. A fundamental goal for society is proper use of its resources, but it always amazes me how we can pour resources into combating the miniscule risk of terrorist blowing up our plane, when we're far more likely to kill ourselves or each other in the drive to the airport.

I guess such nightmares are the corollary of keeping the dream of instant luck alive. But it's a question whether it's a dream worth keeping, given evidence such as the fact that people are likely to spend more on a lottery, the poorer they feel themselves to be (and hence the less they can afford the gamble).

Personally I think given that I know the odds, and how irrational it is to play, it's an act of principle to abstain. But that's not to say i'm tempted, though being honest i have no problem with never winning the lottery - as long as none of the people I criticize for playing it do - they'd never let me live it down!

Anyway, as I said, I still find it an interesting topic, which is why I watched the Cutting Edge program on Lottery winners. I really like Cutting Edge, since I think it's reality TV as it should be - interesting insights into the lives of others in our society. But such television needs to be actually instructive, not just voyeurism or freak show. I guess one useful rule should be that reality TV should only be about people who don't particularly want to be in it! That's why the endless torrent of talent or big brother type shows get to me - these aren't telling us a real narrative, they are providing an outlet for someone to project an image, and normally a pretty obnoxious one at that (the sort of person arrogant or vain enough to want to be on TV is not the sort of person I want on it!).

As a second rule, the filming itself should try to be as unbiased and unmanipulative as possible. If there's one thing that gets my blood boiling it's emotive sound tracks to 'real life' stories, or even, most vexing and disgusting of all - slow motion shots. The sad thing is, in some cases there might actually be a nugget of worth in the tale being told, but given such shameless and obvious attempt to whip it into something more, then whatever good is long buried in nauseating fakery. And it's not just annoying, I think it's downright destructive to our society. Despite the regular cries that hollywood fools us into thinking life is something it isn't , at least in movies and tv series it's pretty obviously a work of fiction. But real life TV tries to have its cake and eat it - portaying itself as 'real' and hence valuable, but relying on the tricks of the makebelieve trade. Given how successful the manufactured 'pop star'morons (alas the moron bit is the only genuine part) can be (at least for their creators) then there is a frighteningly large amount of people who buy into it...and what that means for their general world view I shudder to think. One only has to look at how real tragedies, which need no slow mo or heart wrenching music to convince us of their importance, have started to also need a similar treatment on the news, or in charity appeals, to see how corrosive this can be. For some, it ain't real, unless it's at half speed.

BUT - cutting edge I'm glad to say isn't like that. It's interesting, informative, and I have to say genuinely heartwarming in how it sometimes portrays the best in 'ordinary' people. Nothing special, nothing 'superstar'- just examples of decency and solid character in everyday humans. Though admittedly this episode wasn't really about everyday humans - given they'd all had windfalls of several million pounds. But even still, they were still plainly very ordinary, despite their extraordinary circumstances. There was of course some examples of stereotypical lottery winner brashness, the guy with the multiple Aston Martins or the ridiculously large houses, but they weren't dwelled upon and the tone of the program definitely wasn't a 'wow look at them living it up' type thing. But in fact, it seemed the win had changed the people they new, more than it had changed them. The tales of envy and jealousy one could expect, but more relevant to the human condition was how when generosity was shown to friends and relations, it was sometimes never enough. And this I think was the most interesting point - that the perception what it's like to win the lottery, is sometimes worlds apart from the reality. I think the common notion is if you win you're setup for life, with no cares in the world. And of course most don't have real financial woes after - but only those who win mega amounts. A million pounds might be a lot, but it's a couple of houses, or a decent salary every year for the rest of your life - but you're not exactly Bill Gates. Of course it's much better than not, but the small shared wins don't necessarily mean you won't ever have to work again. For many, it's not infinite cash, but the problem is everyone thinks of it as such.

Of course some do win ridiculous amounts, 10, 20, 30 million...and they really are 'millionaires' (by which I mean can spend a million, not are worth one). But not all winners are - and the dream they get isn't what everyone dreams it is.

And of course with any thing dealing with such astronomical odds, there's going to be the freakishly unlucky as well. The poor guy who did win, and was officially recognized as having done so, but lost the ticket and hence couldn't collect. How much worse that is in bad luck, than actually winning is in good. The dream that slipped away is so much more appealing than the one which is forever ahead of you....

Which is another reason why I can't ever play the lottery, because if I did, I'd have to always play, with the same numbers, since I while I can discard the chance of winning, I couldn't bear the risk of almost winning.

If you're not in you can't win, but you also never lose.

social networks on the silver screen

While of course it happened at different rates in different places, think the last year or so was the time when social networking moved from simply being everywhere, to being downright default. Many people were on Facebook before, but now it has become almost expected, like having a phone number. And of course it means that it's probably used in both more various, and also mundane ways than before. So on the one hand you have the explosion of commerical 'profiles' (every shop or company has a facebook page) and on the other you have another large amount of people using it not to check out (or check in) what's going on, but simply to use it like a simple unified mailbox, which is there if needed.

Anyway - surely there can be no more reliable sign that something has become default and de rigeuer, than for Hollywood to suddenly make a batch of films about it. Recently watched two quite good ones on the Facebook theme - Catfish (about a guy tracking down a facebook 'girlfriend' who turns out to be a middle aged mom) andThe Social Network, an enjoyable, but probably quite unreliable tale of Facebook itself.

Without going into a full review of either, there were a couple of nice themes which stood out for me. What I liked about Catfish was it went beyond just being a simple story about a spoof, and captured an underlying emotion and confusion that could so easily have been discarded. Rather than revelling in the exposure of the poor woman who had set up the hoax, it avoided the temptation to depict her as just 'nuts', and instead showed elements to her story that showed how complicated life can be, even online. She didn't come across as a whacko, and yet had set up a ridiculous fraudulent fantasy world. She wasn't a loner desperate for company - she had a husband and family who she seemed devoted to. And in fact, in her caring for the handicapped sons of her husbands previous marriage, she revealed a self sacrifice beyond many of us. Even if it wasn't true (it could be, but I presume it isn't) it showed at two levels how one again can't judge a book by its cover, and not even it's first pages. The girl the guy met online, wasn't really a girl, but beyond that it just wasn't as simple as labelling the woman behind it as a simple fraud. One would assume whoever did this to be deserving of condemnation or at least pity, but in some ways she was even more deserving of respect - being a good mother, and a pretty inventive one as well! Of course she pretended to be someone she wasn't - but how different is it to do it on facebook, then in an online multiplayer roleplaying game like Word of Warcraft or something? A large part of the web is about avatars and other selves, and just because the likes of facebook is supposedly based on the 'real' world, doesn't mean that element of web culture isn't going to infect it.

And it highlighted how our normal reactions to things on the web need to be more nuanced as well. With its and raging blogs, short anonymous comments and even shorter attention spans, the web is not a place renowned for deep considered thought. One is exposed to many people's views and opinions, but only for a limited time or in a limited context. Who they really are isn't available, so I suppose it is inevitable the tendency is to snap judgments. So when it became clear it was all a hoax, the first gut reaction was of the 'sad loser fake' variety, and then a desire to see this fraud cruelly exposed. But then we saw the handicapped kids, and the hard working mother, and it became clear how complicated things really were, and reminded us there's always a face behind the mask, even online.

The Social Network also tried to portray some human foibles behind even one of the most successful creations ever, at least if counted in terms of membership. While there was a distinct sound of grinding axes in the background, it was an interesting thesis that the man who built an empire on the concept of 'friends', mightn't have had a lot of them to start or end with. And honestly said, that probably isn't too unlikely given the amount of dedication, or rather obsession, required to create and control such a venture. But there were some positive things to take away from it too - the image of the lonely coder, slogging away on his personal project, is an inspiration to seize the day and create something. Of course for every Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, there are many many more unsung failures, but it might well be the case that pursuing the dream is the reward - otherwise why would either Gates or Zuckerberg persist for so long after they had already succeeded by any measure? And, paradoxically, there is on the other hand a sense of satisfaction to be had if one actually isn't so driven, and can just enjoy and live one's life as it is, unlike these guys, who are their own slave-drivers. It's good to have goals and follow them, but it's even better to have something else beside.

Which I guess applies to facebook itself as well, nice to have, and cool if everyone's in, but at the end of the day, it's even better that one can just turn it off and go outside. The perfect setup is when being off is just as good as being on.