There is a joke made in a novel by author Jasper Fforde regarding novel (you see what I did there) ideas; it is that Flatland, by Edwin Abbot, was the last original idea for a book. This is, again, a joke. Even assuming this were true, and from the late 1800s onwards every book could be described as the plot of another book, we've hardly seen a subsequent death of interesting ideas; here's one and here's another (note the medium). There are less of them, true, but they're still out there.
I wouldn’t say that the glut of sequels currently flooding Hollywood today represent a malaise in the creative classes. I suspect the reason that there are so many sequels out is one of simple economics, and the way technology has changed how people view entertainment. Films, television and even novels are far less profitable than they were in the days of double features, Must-See TV, and so on. There was once a time when a dime-store novel literally meant that. But today, with the internet providing so many ways to obtain entertainment, let us say, democratically, less people are going to see films in the theater or TV on their TV because of all the options avaliable. It's a catch-22; there are few films out "worth" a $10.50 ticket, so nobody goes to the theater, and then theaters charge even more to make up the difference. Even taking inflation into account, in 1979 I could easily take a chance on some weird sci-fi horror movie nobody knew anything about because, at the absolute worst, I'd be out $4; the average cost of a ticket 30 years ago was $2.50. Less people are going to bother watching a TV show right when it airs, since they could record it on their DVR and skip all the commercials-- commercials, ironically, that give that TV show the funding it needs to stay on the air.
I think Stanek's right that there's a growing tide of laziness. I don't think it's through the creative class, however, but rather it's seeping through the producers and executives that greenlight films. There's always been a struggle between the financial side of making a film and the creative side, but it appears, by the sort of films that are getting a lot of advertising dollars, that nobody wants to take a chance on a film bombing. So nobody wants to try doing something new that audiences might like because the studio literally cannot afford it. This doesn't mean that nobody's coming up with new ideas, but merely that it's much harder for new ideas to get heard. Let The Right One In, for instance, is a recent Swedish film about a young boy who befriends a not-so-young vampire. It's been getting a lot of buzz, and audiences and critics who've seen it seem to enjoy it. Well, guess what some Hollywood producer's instinct is, upon hearing of this foreign film being successful in America? An American remake with the guy who did Cloverfield, of course! To, I quote, "make it a little bit more thrilling", because of course the problem with a vampire suspense film is that it isn't thrilling enough.
Why the film needs to be remade at all, only the studio making it could say. Perhaps they think that nobody'll see a subtitled film, because reading subtitles is Hard, or that Americans couldn't possibly be interested in seeing a film made outside of the American industry. Studios, finding themselves making less money, decide to go for the "sure thing" of a sequel to a blockbuster, even if the film isn't that good. On the whole, big stupid films (or even small, depressingly simple ones) draw in people who feel like seeing something where they know what they're getting. We should also note that August is usually the graveyard for blockbusters, and all the more "original" films are usually released during the latter months of the year as Oscar bait, also to get more people to see the film. (Whether this works is up for debate.)
Anyway, the idea that everything that could be thought has already been thought seems to me like a bit of a fallacy. Perhaps literally original thoughts, the sort of thing George Carlin was talking about, will become ever more rarer. But there will always be variations on a theme to provide a potential spur for new ideas; to me the Final New Idea is a bit like one of Xeno's paradoxes. A piano, as the saying goes, only has 88 keys, yet millions of different combinations can be made to create millions of different types of melodies, even excluding songs that are "technically" different. A lot of new ideas can stem from, for instance, combining two vastly different ideas that nobody had thought to combine before, for instance. We'll probably see the days of true geniuses grow even fewer than they already are, but I think the creative spark is strong enough that humanity will still come up with some truly original ideas. Probably not intentionally, though.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Is Humanity Running Out of Ideas?--Stanek
Here is something that no one has ever heard, ever. . .ever: “As soon as I put this hot poker in my ass, I’m going to chop my dick off.” Do you know why you never heard that? Right! No one ever said that! Which to me is a more amazing thing, no one ever thought to say that before tonight. I’m the first person in the world to put those words together in that particular order. – George Carlin
Sometimes I wonder how big the universe of original ideas really is. It does not seem inconceivable that someday the sum total of all the individual thought bubbles of every human being who has ever lived will fill most of, if not all of, that universe. How many truly novel thoughts can be triggered by the whisperings of the Muses, falling upon the ears of the roughly 100 billion human beings who have ever existed? Let's start with a look at movies.
The trend over the past decade or so seems to be to
Moviemakers are not the only victims of these creative lapses. The television networks weathered the storm of the 2007-08 WGA Writers' Strike by relying even more heavily on a barrage of unscripted—and uninteresting—reality television shows. Newspapers and magazines push the same tired narratives, oblivious to their dwindling circulations as they scurry about, busily fitting their square pegs into round holes. Internet surfers hoping to find a famous scene from one of their favorite movies on YouTube will quickly find themselves wading through pages of posers dutifully re-enacting the scene.
The political sphere is no stranger to a lack of truly innovative ideas. The hottest and most contentious pieces of legislation in the current Congress are, in large part, a series of visits from the Ghost of Policy Past. The infamous health care reform bill is based on broad principles of universal health insurance tracing back to Bismarck’s German Empire in the 1880s. Such principles have been lurking in the United States at least since their inclusion in the 1912 platform of Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party; strong pushes for universal health care were made in the late 1940s, the 1970s, and the early 1990s. Even the “socialized medicine” label used to attack universal health care dates back to the 1920s in an obvious attempt to stir up the resentments fostered during the then-recent Red Scare. The much-vilified Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill to fight climate change and curb growing carbon emissions relies on ideas first fleshed out in the late 1960s. The Employee Free Choice Act, an effort to empower workers by making it more difficult for employers to delay or otherwise impede unionization, seeks to restore the so-called Joy Silk Doctrine, which dominated between 1949 and 1966.
Even physics suffers from a stifling lack of fresh ideas. Thinkers on the edge of the field have been chasing the same dragon since 1968. While the prudent scientist would be wise to put wax in his ears and affix himself firmly to the mast of falsifiability, these pioneers have allowed themselves to be lured by the sweet siren song of superstrings onto the rocks of not-even-wrongery. Some of the ideas they have employed along the way are quite old indeed. Competitors to string theory, like loop quantum gravity, do exist but they have been less successful both at assimilating large numbers of university faculty members and at soaking into the popular consciousness.
I don’t mean to give the impression that I object to revisiting existing ideas. These sorts of reevaluation can help weaken the intellectual constraints of path dependence, the simple yet profound fact that where we go from here often depends on how we got here. Certainly the fact that expanded access to health care is a very old policy idea does not mean it should not (finally) be implemented in the United States. Despite my affection for Tim Burton’s two Batman films—but not the two atrocious sequels—I believe that the reboots, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, are simply much, much better. But this whole trend is becoming more than a mere dalliance with the ideas of yesteryear. I don’t know if a surge in movie remakes of ‘70s and ‘80s television series indicates a growing laziness spreading through the creative class or whether the wells of inspiration are starting to dry up.
Historically, all suggestions that the horizons of some corner of human knowledge or experience were finally within reach proved incorrect: the horizons always continued to retreat and the illusion quickly dissolved. Books like The End of Science and The End of History seem premature even if they do raise good questions about how far we can go as scientists or as capitalist democrats (or as artists or writers, for that matter). When do our homages and artful adherence to archetypes become the pseudo-plagiaristic fumblings of mentally exhausted thinkers? I recognize that there is a give-and-take that must occur with the existing body of creative works--this post is probably 85% references to other things! But will we eventually reach a point where we just run of steam? Where every thought we have, every piece of writing we produce, every story we tell has, in essence, already been done by somebody else? Or, in South Park shorthand, "Simpsons Did It!"
The development of writing over six millenia ago ensured that, barring sloppy record-keeping, ideas, once thought, would never disappear. And so the stories, the poems, the philosophies of generation after generation piled up, never so fast as over the last century. The vast amount of material makes it impossible to be familiar with anything but a sliver of the total body of work of humanity, though tools like Google and Wikipedia make it marginally easier. Who hasn't suffered the disappointment of finding that an original insight or idea he's had is already in the books somewhere?* It may be that at some point in the future (perhaps not too far off) everything that can be thought will have been thought, at least under the paradigms that currently provide conceptual guidance to us. Maybe when that day comes it will be time to tear it all down and start again.
*I once found, tucked away in the original paper on the topic, what I thought was a potentially wonderful physical insight I'd had --the author had beat me to it by about thirty-five years.
Monday, July 27, 2009
What, If Any, Responsibility Does An Artist Have?--Stanek's Comment
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. – John F. Kennedy, mythical American character
An audience can be a dangerous thing. As Teshale hinted, audiences can distort, misinterpret, or misrepresent any message that they encounter. Knowing the frailties of her audience, is an artist responsible for taking them into account? One way—far from the only way—to explore the audience-artist relationship is to ask how much control the artist should exert over her audience. In many ways, the artist has a key role in the production of reality. Certainly there exist verifiable facts but a collection of facts does not a reality make. The linkages between facts, the interpretations, the meanings assigned to facts are at least as important—perhaps more so—as the facts themselves. I assume one of the goals of an artist is to convince her audience to see something in a different light or otherwise influence perceptions of reality. These manipulations (what a cold description for such a beautiful gift!) are part of any purposeful human interaction, not simply cultural exchanges.
History is replete with examples of art (broadly defined) altering or shaping public perceptions. Novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Jungle helped to turn public opinion against barbaric status quos. Famous photographs of Florence Owens Thompson and Phan Thị Kim Phúc put a face on an economic depression and a war, respectively, and brought home the suffering of millions. A series of four oil paintings helped convince and remind a nation of the righteousness of its cause during one of the great military struggles in human history. These feats were not accomplished by accident: the artists responsible for these works designed them to shape popular perceptions of reality. South Park, with its blatant moralizing and politicizing, often has purpose lurking beneath its jokes. Whether it be to expose the ridiculousness infusing the Terri Schiavo fiasco or the silliness of prejudice—against gingers or otherwise—South Park ‘s writers have a way of seeing the world that they want to share with you.
The same is true of all artists, whatever their particular craft may be. The subject need not be political: sometimes people paint fruit bowls or smeary, scribbly
For every piece of art that arguably changed the world for the better, we can find examples of art that made the world a darker place. Nazi propaganda films are the easiest culprits to identify but there are other examples that are equally damaging but less viscerally offensive. Good or bad, ultimately creative or destructive, artwork often helps to create or perpetuate the myths that JFK found so dangerous. To clarify, lest someone think I am attributing too much power to artwork, a specific piece of art contributes to the construction of a broader mythos. It paints a picture—sometimes literally, sometimes in a more figurative sense—of the world that the audience can choose to reject or accept, integrating it into their conception of the world.
How a person interacts with that picture of the world is largely their responsibility. As a prophet once said, “I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” In the end, we choose the myths we embrace; or, since I suppose there is probably a strong subconscious component to the process, they choose us. The artist is responsible only for striving to get her message across in the best way she knows how (and if her purposes be nefarious, she is responsible for that). Audiences that wish to distort the picture and see things that are not there will do so no matter how careful the artist is. Where some viewers will see simple propaganda, others will see a subject or message for which they have a deep ideological affinity. An artist can attempt to fight ignorance but it is a losing battle. Art is better suited for advancing personal truths or myths than educating the ignorant with facts.
Indeed, if the 35th president is to be believed, art can be the great enemy of the truth. Certainly we can analyze the content of art with our minds (some might say we should) but often we are impacted by art on a more primitive level: we are moved emotionally. Rockwell's painting of the lone dissenter exercising his freedom of speech is capable of stirring all of the patriot's impulses of pride and affection for his nation's history, premise, character, and people. That is a nice feeling--especially useful in the middle of a long and demanding war--but that mythical picture can and should be challenged when necessary. Too often it is not questioned. Is Rockwell responsible for the actions of Americans who are pushed to hubris and jingoism? No, he did not light the fires even if he (perhaps inadvertently) stoked the flames. The mythos to which Rockwell contributed existed before he ever put paint to canvas and it would have been perverted if he had never expressed it in his artwork. The picture of reality that he created may or may not contain "truth" but it serves a purpose--a purpose that in JFK's opinion makes it an enemy of truth. But people make their own truth. The artist can help them along in the process but ultimately the individual is responsible for the shape her truth takes and the message she chooses to retain from artwork. Artists, in their capacities as audiences and individuals, are in turn responsible for the personal truths they choose to accept and put into their artwork. Your life and your choices are in your own hands; your failings are yours and belong to no one else.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
What, If Any, Responsibility Does An Artist Have? Teshale
KATURIAN: [...] A great man once said "The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story," and I believe in that wholeheartedly, "The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story." Or was it, "The only duty of a storyteller is to tell a story"? Yeah, it might have been "The only duty of a storyteller is to tell a story." I can't remember, but anyway, that's what I do, I tell stories.
That excerpt is from a play called The Pillowman, which I read the other day and found absolutely stunning. It is, on the surface, a murder mystery; a man (the Katurian mentioned) who writes gruesome fairy tales in which children are maimed or killed is questioned by totalitarian police regarding recent murders that bear a resemblance to his stories. But it's about a lot of other things besides that-- about what makes a good story, about what makes a storyteller, about censorship, and other stuff besides. It might be the kind of play that is only interesting to people who think about that kind of thing, like me, but I still thought it was a remarkable play and I suggest you read it; the less you know about it, the better.
The distinction made in the quote is a very significant one; I suggest there is no such thing, really, as a story or a piece of art that has no point. There is no such thing as a story that is only a story. Art is a method of expressing oneself, of expressing one's feelings in some way; the point of any kind of art is to, at the very least, communicate how the artist feels at the time. And to express something, you need someone to express it to. Otherwise, there's no point of creating the art in the first place. That's not to say that art is always created specificially for other people, but rather to say that the creation of a piece of art automatically implies the existence of an audience it's for, even if that audience is "myself."
Various people-- who, I don't really remember, but it's not important, probably some professors or something-- have claimed that we're now living in an age of post-modernism and meaninglessness. (I think this is a short-sighted way of looking at it, and that the Lost Generation would probably be more justified in claiming that life is meaningless, but that's unrelated.) There's a lot of satire out and about today, but then again there has been for thousands of years. South Park's an easy one to talk about, and though it's probably a little less high profile than it used to be, it's still got things to say. It is a good illustration of the issue, I think, because it concerns offensiveness, and the purpose of that offensiveness.
People have bitched about South Park being offensive for 10 years, although I think more than anything it just doesn't pull its punches. But people will pretty much get offended by anything. I, for instance, am only really offended by Ethiopian jokes*. Someone who's gay, however, might not care that much about Ethiopian jokes but get annoyed when a gay relationship is played for laughs in a television show. Someone who's got an autistic sibling would probably get angry at the ease with which young people throw around the word "retard." The argument I've heard is that you're always going to offend somebody, so you can't spend all your time trying to be flawlessly Politically Correct. The best satire is often the kind that makes you a bit uncomfortable, right?
But I think a question that people rarely pause to stop and ask themselves why the people are getting offended over these jokes. I can't speak for others, but I can say the reason I get angry at any sort of Ethiopian joke is not because I think the person actually believes it. It's because it seems like nobody ever seems to actually know more about Ethiopia past the stereotype of starving people in a desert with huge eyes and matchstick limbs, and more precisely nobody seems to care enough to find out anything more, and I'm sick and tired of it. (This, by the way, seems to be part of a general ignorance most people display towards Africa; I find a lot of people who have seen Coming to America, for instance, don't realize that the scene where Eddie Murphy goes for a walk, and giraffes and elephants are randomly wandering around in his backyard, is not a scene merely designed to show how opulent Murphy's character is, but a scene making fun of what people think Africa is actually like.)
I'll use a South Park analogy. A couple of years ago there was a very Swiftian episode about "The Gingers", i.e. red-headed people; how Cartman believed they're a danger to society, shouldn't be allowed to marry, were destroying America's foundation, etc., etc. I think most everybody understood that Cartman was simply spouting ludicrous bigotry, as he usually does, and the humor came from the level of vitriol aimed towards an innocuous genetic trait. What I don't think as many people know is that in in the UK at least it's something of a stigma to have red hair, at least if you're a kid, because of an old belief that a red-headed person is devilish or unlucky in the same way that being left-handed is supposed to be unlucky. Nobody really believes that if you've got red hair you're a demon, or that gingers have no soul. But it seems it's more of a thing that gets you mocked there than it is here in the US. I think the South Park creators were aware of this belief, because "gingers" is a very British thing to say; maybe they thought it was so ridiculous that they'd put it in.
Anyway, this episode is simply a way of poking fun at prejudices, by showing how ridiculous it is that red hair (or black skin, or sexual orientation) suddenly = bad in someone's eyes. It's like that brown eyes/blue eyes video you might've watched in elementary school. But the issue that concerns me here is not of European traditions, but of audience. Despite whatever V-Chip the parent has installed, you inevitably have an 7th grader or whatever watching a South Park episode because it's the "cool" thing to do. He sees this episode, and he thinks it's funny, but he has no idea why. He just thinks it's funny to say "gingers have no soul, they can't be pirates" for instance, and the next day at school he makes fun of his friend by saying the same thing to him, or picking on him and giving a reason he knows sounds absurd (you're a ginger), to telegraph to his friend: It's A Joke, I'm Not Being Serious. Because, as we all know, if someone is making a joke, you have to laugh, that's what people do when they hear jokes, isn't it, stop being so serious. Now I doubt very much that this kid will develop a prejudice towards red-haired kids. But it's very easy to use the excuse of "it's a joke" as an excuse to justify saying (or doing) unpleasant things you feel like saying (or doing), instead of using unpleasant things to try and make a significant point.
I don't advocate censorship, because there are always going to be people who aren't really into that whole "thought" thing. I'm not saying that if something could possibly be misunderstood, such as morbid stories or ridiculous statements about redheads, then it should be censored For The Children, because then obviously everything would be censored. Plus, it seems more often than not anything that is censored is censored because it makes the censor uncomfortable, not out of any particular concern for others. I'm just proposing that an artist should take into account who he or she is trying to reach with their work, consider the consequences of what's being made and most importantly not be surprised if those consequences surface.
The purpose of satire, especially really uncomfortable, cutting satire, is generally to throw stones at those who are more powerful, to cut them down to size, and to make people think. The purpose of art, I would say, is to challenge someone's way of thinking about the world, too, even if that someone is yourself. If that is true, then, I propose that the artist does have a responsibility when creating art. But it's just one. That responsibility is to know his or her audience, and proceed while keeping that in mind. Nothing is created in a vacuum, and it's foolish and short-sighted to think that because you never considered something could be taken a certain way, that someone else is wrong for pointing out the interpretation. if you read The Pillowman (and again, I strongly suggest you do, though it's very dark)-- you'll see that the storyteller claims he only ever intended to tell a story, no more no less, but he accidentally did a lot more than that.
That seems like a pretty simple responsibility on the outset, but it is, I think, a very challenging one. Artists should of course stay true to what they wanted to convey with their art. But they should at the same time realize that they have a very powerful tool at their disposal, one that can be used to monstrous effect or great effect.
*note that the South Park episode concerning this was not really a "lol, starving people are SO funny" episode so much as one making fun of the Bob Geldofs and Angelina Jolies of the world, and of people who do just think of third world countries as full of indistinguishably wide-eyed, shoeless children. Ironically, that seems to be most people.
That excerpt is from a play called The Pillowman, which I read the other day and found absolutely stunning. It is, on the surface, a murder mystery; a man (the Katurian mentioned) who writes gruesome fairy tales in which children are maimed or killed is questioned by totalitarian police regarding recent murders that bear a resemblance to his stories. But it's about a lot of other things besides that-- about what makes a good story, about what makes a storyteller, about censorship, and other stuff besides. It might be the kind of play that is only interesting to people who think about that kind of thing, like me, but I still thought it was a remarkable play and I suggest you read it; the less you know about it, the better.
The distinction made in the quote is a very significant one; I suggest there is no such thing, really, as a story or a piece of art that has no point. There is no such thing as a story that is only a story. Art is a method of expressing oneself, of expressing one's feelings in some way; the point of any kind of art is to, at the very least, communicate how the artist feels at the time. And to express something, you need someone to express it to. Otherwise, there's no point of creating the art in the first place. That's not to say that art is always created specificially for other people, but rather to say that the creation of a piece of art automatically implies the existence of an audience it's for, even if that audience is "myself."
Various people-- who, I don't really remember, but it's not important, probably some professors or something-- have claimed that we're now living in an age of post-modernism and meaninglessness. (I think this is a short-sighted way of looking at it, and that the Lost Generation would probably be more justified in claiming that life is meaningless, but that's unrelated.) There's a lot of satire out and about today, but then again there has been for thousands of years. South Park's an easy one to talk about, and though it's probably a little less high profile than it used to be, it's still got things to say. It is a good illustration of the issue, I think, because it concerns offensiveness, and the purpose of that offensiveness.
People have bitched about South Park being offensive for 10 years, although I think more than anything it just doesn't pull its punches. But people will pretty much get offended by anything. I, for instance, am only really offended by Ethiopian jokes*. Someone who's gay, however, might not care that much about Ethiopian jokes but get annoyed when a gay relationship is played for laughs in a television show. Someone who's got an autistic sibling would probably get angry at the ease with which young people throw around the word "retard." The argument I've heard is that you're always going to offend somebody, so you can't spend all your time trying to be flawlessly Politically Correct. The best satire is often the kind that makes you a bit uncomfortable, right?
But I think a question that people rarely pause to stop and ask themselves why the people are getting offended over these jokes. I can't speak for others, but I can say the reason I get angry at any sort of Ethiopian joke is not because I think the person actually believes it. It's because it seems like nobody ever seems to actually know more about Ethiopia past the stereotype of starving people in a desert with huge eyes and matchstick limbs, and more precisely nobody seems to care enough to find out anything more, and I'm sick and tired of it. (This, by the way, seems to be part of a general ignorance most people display towards Africa; I find a lot of people who have seen Coming to America, for instance, don't realize that the scene where Eddie Murphy goes for a walk, and giraffes and elephants are randomly wandering around in his backyard, is not a scene merely designed to show how opulent Murphy's character is, but a scene making fun of what people think Africa is actually like.)
I'll use a South Park analogy. A couple of years ago there was a very Swiftian episode about "The Gingers", i.e. red-headed people; how Cartman believed they're a danger to society, shouldn't be allowed to marry, were destroying America's foundation, etc., etc. I think most everybody understood that Cartman was simply spouting ludicrous bigotry, as he usually does, and the humor came from the level of vitriol aimed towards an innocuous genetic trait. What I don't think as many people know is that in in the UK at least it's something of a stigma to have red hair, at least if you're a kid, because of an old belief that a red-headed person is devilish or unlucky in the same way that being left-handed is supposed to be unlucky. Nobody really believes that if you've got red hair you're a demon, or that gingers have no soul. But it seems it's more of a thing that gets you mocked there than it is here in the US. I think the South Park creators were aware of this belief, because "gingers" is a very British thing to say; maybe they thought it was so ridiculous that they'd put it in.
Anyway, this episode is simply a way of poking fun at prejudices, by showing how ridiculous it is that red hair (or black skin, or sexual orientation) suddenly = bad in someone's eyes. It's like that brown eyes/blue eyes video you might've watched in elementary school. But the issue that concerns me here is not of European traditions, but of audience. Despite whatever V-Chip the parent has installed, you inevitably have an 7th grader or whatever watching a South Park episode because it's the "cool" thing to do. He sees this episode, and he thinks it's funny, but he has no idea why. He just thinks it's funny to say "gingers have no soul, they can't be pirates" for instance, and the next day at school he makes fun of his friend by saying the same thing to him, or picking on him and giving a reason he knows sounds absurd (you're a ginger), to telegraph to his friend: It's A Joke, I'm Not Being Serious. Because, as we all know, if someone is making a joke, you have to laugh, that's what people do when they hear jokes, isn't it, stop being so serious. Now I doubt very much that this kid will develop a prejudice towards red-haired kids. But it's very easy to use the excuse of "it's a joke" as an excuse to justify saying (or doing) unpleasant things you feel like saying (or doing), instead of using unpleasant things to try and make a significant point.
I don't advocate censorship, because there are always going to be people who aren't really into that whole "thought" thing. I'm not saying that if something could possibly be misunderstood, such as morbid stories or ridiculous statements about redheads, then it should be censored For The Children, because then obviously everything would be censored. Plus, it seems more often than not anything that is censored is censored because it makes the censor uncomfortable, not out of any particular concern for others. I'm just proposing that an artist should take into account who he or she is trying to reach with their work, consider the consequences of what's being made and most importantly not be surprised if those consequences surface.
The purpose of satire, especially really uncomfortable, cutting satire, is generally to throw stones at those who are more powerful, to cut them down to size, and to make people think. The purpose of art, I would say, is to challenge someone's way of thinking about the world, too, even if that someone is yourself. If that is true, then, I propose that the artist does have a responsibility when creating art. But it's just one. That responsibility is to know his or her audience, and proceed while keeping that in mind. Nothing is created in a vacuum, and it's foolish and short-sighted to think that because you never considered something could be taken a certain way, that someone else is wrong for pointing out the interpretation. if you read The Pillowman (and again, I strongly suggest you do, though it's very dark)-- you'll see that the storyteller claims he only ever intended to tell a story, no more no less, but he accidentally did a lot more than that.
That seems like a pretty simple responsibility on the outset, but it is, I think, a very challenging one. Artists should of course stay true to what they wanted to convey with their art. But they should at the same time realize that they have a very powerful tool at their disposal, one that can be used to monstrous effect or great effect.
*note that the South Park episode concerning this was not really a "lol, starving people are SO funny" episode so much as one making fun of the Bob Geldofs and Angelina Jolies of the world, and of people who do just think of third world countries as full of indistinguishably wide-eyed, shoeless children. Ironically, that seems to be most people.
Monday, July 20, 2009
How Justified Is Anti-Government Lunacy? - Teshale's Comment
Cast your mind back, dear reader, to middle school or high school for a moment. You were probably at some point asked to do a group project, the value of which ranged from “not that important” to “worth 50% of your grade.” Let’s assume for now that we’re at the latter end of that spectrum.
If you were lucky, you could choose the group you worked with, but if not, you were probably assigned to people you didn’t know well, specifically because you didn’t know them that well, and the teacher felt like some sort of Breakfast Club-style understanding might blossom from the result of your all working together. Now, you all need to figure out how to get this project completed to a suitable level, with the least amount of work possible. There was probably someone who never showed up to the meetings, or someone who didn’t really care either way but didn’t want to fail, and usually there was someone who ended up doing the bulk of the work because he or she was an overachiever. You would have to coordinate meetings, and figure out who should do what, while stepping on as few toes as possible, because you’d have to work with these people in order to not fail, and you’d have to do whatever your part was in addition to the other thousand little things that make up a student’s life.
Now, imagine all of this, times a thousand, and imagine that you can’t tell anyone about it or let them find out. This is what I imagine a really good, Roswell-style conspiracy is like to coordinate, except it doesn’t ever finish. You are always covering it up, you are always making sure someone doesn’t find The Truth. You are always thinking about that cutthroat guy who knows how to keep people quiet, and wondering if he’s going to betray you. Frankly, I doubt there’s anyone, good or bad, who has the energy to maintain such a conspiracy successfully. Most people in the business of forcibly asserting themselves over large groups of other people (to put it in a roundabout way) are quite up front about it. I would imagine that anyone involved in pretending to be someone else for much of one's life would have other things to deal with.
I suspect that those in the Western world who believe in such conspiracies as Roswell, or that 9/11 was planned by the American government, put a lot more faith in their government than I ever really could. It’s not that I don’t believe people in government could do secret, crazy-sounding things on a large scale if they wanted to—if I’d been a physics student at UChicago circa 1942 instead of 2009, and somehow stumbled upon the beginnings of the Manhattan Project, it would sound nuts to me, but it would still be true. I just think that people who were that much more powerful wouldn’t bother hiding their power from me for that long.
Most of the conspiracies that we’ve eventually found out about – something like Tuskegee, for instance, or Nixon—are just your general, garden-variety petty types of cruelty. I suspect that what conspiracy theorists really want is to believe, on some unconscious level, that there could be someone who was that badass and that evil in the world—and that they were clever enough to figure it all out. An evil, powerful, intelligent boogeyman is ultimately a lot more exciting than the truth; that there are quite a lot of people out there who are just stupid, selfish, or both. In a way, you know where you stand with Hans Gruber. But what is there to say about someone who uses his power for something as boring as covering up his infidelity, or being a total douchebag? These are depressingly normal crimes. Being a 9-months-out-of-the-year-citizen of beautiful Chicago, I am now pleasantly surprised whenever a politician hasn’t done something sketchy. (This is, of course, discounting Rahm. Ah, Rahm. You are the only person I could imagine carrying out an evil government-wide conspiracy, but somehow… I don’t think I could bring myself to mind if you did. You have too much chutzpah to do something small-scale. Plus, when I ctrl+f “conspiracy” on your Wiki, there is only one result, and it’s to do with your friend Bill. You know what he’s like.)
I could never really summon an interest in politics because it seems, to me, to require a kind of cognitive dissonance—to understand that a politician is probably going to end up lying to you at some point, no matter how good their intentions are, and still believe that they’ll do the sort of things they want you to do because they agree with you on X number of issues. I mean, when people on TV shows do this,I we yell at the screen “You idiot! He will turn on you! That is what he does!" I get annoyed if someone tells me they’ll do something and then gives me reasons they can’t do it, which is basically what politics consists of. That isn’t to say that I don’t believe change is possible through politics; of course it is. I just don’t have the temperament to enjoy it or succeed in it. So I agree with Stanek that blanket paranoia is ultimately useless—politics appears to be reasonably effective, in a lurching, long-term sort of way, and I am very glad that there are people who do not share my lack of interest. I just think people give more credit to politicians than they really ought to, good or bad, and then end up being disappointed.
I will make sure to watch out for that military-industrial complex, though.
If you were lucky, you could choose the group you worked with, but if not, you were probably assigned to people you didn’t know well, specifically because you didn’t know them that well, and the teacher felt like some sort of Breakfast Club-style understanding might blossom from the result of your all working together. Now, you all need to figure out how to get this project completed to a suitable level, with the least amount of work possible. There was probably someone who never showed up to the meetings, or someone who didn’t really care either way but didn’t want to fail, and usually there was someone who ended up doing the bulk of the work because he or she was an overachiever. You would have to coordinate meetings, and figure out who should do what, while stepping on as few toes as possible, because you’d have to work with these people in order to not fail, and you’d have to do whatever your part was in addition to the other thousand little things that make up a student’s life.
Now, imagine all of this, times a thousand, and imagine that you can’t tell anyone about it or let them find out. This is what I imagine a really good, Roswell-style conspiracy is like to coordinate, except it doesn’t ever finish. You are always covering it up, you are always making sure someone doesn’t find The Truth. You are always thinking about that cutthroat guy who knows how to keep people quiet, and wondering if he’s going to betray you. Frankly, I doubt there’s anyone, good or bad, who has the energy to maintain such a conspiracy successfully. Most people in the business of forcibly asserting themselves over large groups of other people (to put it in a roundabout way) are quite up front about it. I would imagine that anyone involved in pretending to be someone else for much of one's life would have other things to deal with.
I suspect that those in the Western world who believe in such conspiracies as Roswell, or that 9/11 was planned by the American government, put a lot more faith in their government than I ever really could. It’s not that I don’t believe people in government could do secret, crazy-sounding things on a large scale if they wanted to—if I’d been a physics student at UChicago circa 1942 instead of 2009, and somehow stumbled upon the beginnings of the Manhattan Project, it would sound nuts to me, but it would still be true. I just think that people who were that much more powerful wouldn’t bother hiding their power from me for that long.
Most of the conspiracies that we’ve eventually found out about – something like Tuskegee, for instance, or Nixon—are just your general, garden-variety petty types of cruelty. I suspect that what conspiracy theorists really want is to believe, on some unconscious level, that there could be someone who was that badass and that evil in the world—and that they were clever enough to figure it all out. An evil, powerful, intelligent boogeyman is ultimately a lot more exciting than the truth; that there are quite a lot of people out there who are just stupid, selfish, or both. In a way, you know where you stand with Hans Gruber. But what is there to say about someone who uses his power for something as boring as covering up his infidelity, or being a total douchebag? These are depressingly normal crimes. Being a 9-months-out-of-the-year-citizen of beautiful Chicago, I am now pleasantly surprised whenever a politician hasn’t done something sketchy. (This is, of course, discounting Rahm. Ah, Rahm. You are the only person I could imagine carrying out an evil government-wide conspiracy, but somehow… I don’t think I could bring myself to mind if you did. You have too much chutzpah to do something small-scale. Plus, when I ctrl+f “conspiracy” on your Wiki, there is only one result, and it’s to do with your friend Bill. You know what he’s like.)
I could never really summon an interest in politics because it seems, to me, to require a kind of cognitive dissonance—to understand that a politician is probably going to end up lying to you at some point, no matter how good their intentions are, and still believe that they’ll do the sort of things they want you to do because they agree with you on X number of issues. I mean, when people on TV shows do this,
I will make sure to watch out for that military-industrial complex, though.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
How Justified Is Anti-Government Lunacy?--Stanek
Forty years ago this weekend a former test pilot from Ohio took a small step and made one of the largest leaps in human history. The historic voyage that brought him and two companions to their destination—currently being reconstructed in real time in painstaking, minute-by-minute detail by the Kennedy presidential library—surely ranks as the longest, most dangerous, and most ambitious ever undertaken. Braving computer overloads that forced an unplanned manual component to their landing and a broken circuit breaker that threatened to make ascent impossible, these travelers set foot on another celestial body and returned safely to the Earth.
Only a few years later, distrust of the American government led to the formation of a small cult of lunar landing hoax believers that has persisted to the present day. Not content to merely believe that CIA-backed-anti-Castro-Cuban-exile-Soviet mafiosos killed Kennedy, that the Federal Reserve exists to fund the New World Order, and that Men In Black is a true story, these diehards believe that one of the seminal events of the twentieth century played out on a government soundstage somewhere. Yesterday NASA released pictures taken a few days ago by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showing for the first time the landing sites of several Apollo missions. It’s like looking at pristine snow ruined by human trudging and a meadow spoiled by junk left by inconsiderate campers, all at once. But this is hardly convincing to the conspiracy theorist. These images were released by the government, right?
Of course, suspicion of the government might have been warranted. The 1971 leak of the Pentagon Papers proved that a president and his government had misled—if not outright lied to—a nation about key aspects of a disastrous war. Three years later the nation learned that this president’s successor was, despite protestations to the contrary, a crook. Incidents throughout recent history, ranging from the Tuskegee Experiments to the Iran-Contra scandal to the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program (the extent of which still remains unknown) easily refute any notions of the U.S. government, hazily defined, as a strictly benevolent and trustworthy organization. Deception for political gain is hardly a novel concept. Certainly the success of the Apollo program was a public relations gift to the Nixon administration and NASA itself. But how far can we stretch our wariness of relying on the integrity of government officials?
There are gun "enthusiasts" who believe that all efforts to regulate firearms are government attempts to achieve a docile and defenseless population; libertarian-minded observers who believe that anti-poverty measures are a government conspiracy to enslave an increasingly--and purposefully--dependent segment of the population; and, of course, some kooks that think the current president is a secret, foreign-born Muslim whose loyalties do not lie with the United States. Anti-government paranoia reaches far beyond the moon landing deniers. The line between the absurd and the plausible is a thin one. I find the X-files picture of a secret cabal controlling the highest levels of the government to be silly, yet I am sympathetic to Elite theory. I scoff at the notion that the CIA could play a role in the assassination of a sitting president, yet accept the findings of the Church commission (including reports of bizarre CIA mind-control experiments and the active suppression of democratic organization). I find claims that the government would or could willingly fake a lunar expedition for political gain to be ridiculous, yet I don't doubt that convenient incidents or distorted bits of intelligence have been used as flimsy pre-texts for full-scale wars multiple times in recent history (One, Two, Three).
As we have discussed previously, we live in an age where technology both democratizes the spread of information and presents opportunities for nefarious powerbrokers to control it. Should we fear that the government may do this? Though I've used it several times now, I am uncomfortable with a label as vague as "the government." The government is a massive institution with numerous factions and individuals that rarely, if ever, function as a unit. It doesn't lie to you, individuals in it do. Some officials, as with any large sample of people, will be unsavory characters and may opt to advance agendas in questionable ways. That does not justify living in a state of extreme paranoia or deciding to arm yourself and live off the land in Montana. The old adage "Trust but verify" seems appropriate here. Numerous facts--as well as the photographs released today--verify the reality of the Apollo 11 landing. Many other theories of the evils of "the government" remain unverified. We cannot always assume the worst simply because men are flawed. If our view of government ever degenerates to that point, we might as well call the whole thing off.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Can You Really Be a Fan of a Sports Team That Isn’t Based In Your Town? –- Stanek’s Comment
There is a tradition in Cleveland sports of using a very simple recipe for naming our most famous sports plays: “The [game- (and usually title-) losing event]”. In a 1987 AFC Championship game against the Denver Broncos, the Browns gave up 98 yards in the final five minutes, allowing the Broncos to tie the game and eventually win in overtime (The Drive). A year later, in yet another AFC Championship game against the Broncos, the Browns’ running back fumbled the ball on his way to scoring the game-winning touchdown with less than a minute left in the game (The Fumble). In the deciding game of the first round of the 1989 NBA playoffs, Michael Jordan made a buzzer-beating jumper over his defender, upsetting the Cleveland Cavaliers who had been favored to win the series (The Shot). With one out in the bottom of the ninth inning and the Indians up 2-1 over the Marlins in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, the Indians brought in a relief pitcher who gave up a run, eventually leading to an Indians loss in the eleventh inning (The Error). Unfortunately the list could go on and on.
Several cities have myths about curses that affect a certain sport or certain team of theirs. Cleveland is the only city I know of whose fans believe its entire sports industry—every single team—is cursed. The Indians have not won a World Series since 1948. The Browns last won an NFL championship in 1964; they have yet to play in a Super Bowl. The Cavaliers appeared in the NBA Finals for the first time in 2007 but did not win a single game. Cleveland is a town where fans ache for a victory but rarely expect it. (As I write this, the Indians are down 5-0 against the Detroit Tigers in the 5th inning.)
I don’t believe that I have ever met someone from outside the Cleveland area who identifies as a Cleveland sports fan (indeed, I’m struck by the virulence often leveled against our current best team, the Cavs). I know of Yankees fans with no New York connections and Lakers fans who have never been to Los Angeles. The reason Cleveland has few or no adopted fans is that no one would choose to put themselves through the agony Cleveland fans experience every year. In the last year alone we witnessed the epic collapse of the Browns, Orlando’s three-point freak show that sank the Cavs, and a current Indians season that can best be summed up by noting that the 5-0 lead the Tigers had one paragraph ago has grown to 8-0. We need not worry about fair-weather fans because there is no fair weather in Cleveland sports.
So why not pick new teams out of a hat? Why not become a “fan” of more successful franchises? Because, put simply, sports are not mere entertainment. Granted, we all enjoy good athletes and good teams putting on a good show. That’s why I watch championship games after my teams have been knocked out of contention. But Cleveland teams—particularly the Browns, as Cleveland is primarily, I believe, a football town—are a reflection of the city. In the first half of the twentieth century, Cleveland was an industrial powerhouse, a progressive hotbed, and one of the five largest cities in the country. It had even produced a U. S. president. During this time, its sports teams were feared in a manner becoming of a respected metropolis. The Browns won several championships and even the Indians had two World Series wins under their belts.
No Cleveland team has won anything since 1964. That decade also marked the city’s slide in prestige as racial unrest, deindustrialization, and environmental embarrassments began to take their toll. The story of its sport franchises since 1964 has been the story of the city itself: uncertain stumbling between periods of hope and despair, promise and regress. As each new season dawns and Cleveland teams begin anew the quixotic quest to bring a title to Cleveland they are merely reflecting the city’s larger search for redemption, its bid to earn again the respect that’s been lost, and its hopes of finally finding an escape from “The Mistake on the Lake.” So I would vigorously disagree that a national team represents a country better than a local team represents a city.
The composition of the team is not the key; it does not matter that most players are not from the city they represent. It is nice that Lebron James is from Akron but it is not essential. To illustrate this, I want to step back to the darkest day in Browns history. In late 1995, the owner of the Browns, Art Modell, announced that he was moving the team to Baltimore. A great deal of litigation followed but in the end:
They took the team's infrastructure, players and all, to Baltimore and called it the Ravens. For three years, the city of Cleveland had no active football team. But what ultimately was important was that the Ravens are not called the Baltimore Browns. The team is ours; it belongs to our city. Its name, its history, its colors are us. Modell could take all of our players and personnel but he couldn’t take our team.
The point here is not that someone can’t root for a team that hails from another city or that one can only truly enjoy a game if it happens to involve the home team. Rather, I’m positing that the home team fandom is in a league of its own. Admiring the technical prowess of a team or liking the players of a particular team on a personal level can never match the sheer emotional content, the deep personal significance of cheering for your city. Sports may seem like a diversion from everyday life but they are really a shift in focus from our individual lives to the life of the city. I doubt adopted fans would ever spend 45 win-less years behind several unsuccessful teams, through the lows and the lower lows, bearing the agony, depression, and anger every season of the year. That’s why Cleveland fans are among the best in the world (and the rowdiest).
Final Score: Detroit Tigers 10, Cleveland Indians 1
Several cities have myths about curses that affect a certain sport or certain team of theirs. Cleveland is the only city I know of whose fans believe its entire sports industry—every single team—is cursed. The Indians have not won a World Series since 1948. The Browns last won an NFL championship in 1964; they have yet to play in a Super Bowl. The Cavaliers appeared in the NBA Finals for the first time in 2007 but did not win a single game. Cleveland is a town where fans ache for a victory but rarely expect it. (As I write this, the Indians are down 5-0 against the Detroit Tigers in the 5th inning.)
I don’t believe that I have ever met someone from outside the Cleveland area who identifies as a Cleveland sports fan (indeed, I’m struck by the virulence often leveled against our current best team, the Cavs). I know of Yankees fans with no New York connections and Lakers fans who have never been to Los Angeles. The reason Cleveland has few or no adopted fans is that no one would choose to put themselves through the agony Cleveland fans experience every year. In the last year alone we witnessed the epic collapse of the Browns, Orlando’s three-point freak show that sank the Cavs, and a current Indians season that can best be summed up by noting that the 5-0 lead the Tigers had one paragraph ago has grown to 8-0. We need not worry about fair-weather fans because there is no fair weather in Cleveland sports.
So why not pick new teams out of a hat? Why not become a “fan” of more successful franchises? Because, put simply, sports are not mere entertainment. Granted, we all enjoy good athletes and good teams putting on a good show. That’s why I watch championship games after my teams have been knocked out of contention. But Cleveland teams—particularly the Browns, as Cleveland is primarily, I believe, a football town—are a reflection of the city. In the first half of the twentieth century, Cleveland was an industrial powerhouse, a progressive hotbed, and one of the five largest cities in the country. It had even produced a U. S. president. During this time, its sports teams were feared in a manner becoming of a respected metropolis. The Browns won several championships and even the Indians had two World Series wins under their belts.
No Cleveland team has won anything since 1964. That decade also marked the city’s slide in prestige as racial unrest, deindustrialization, and environmental embarrassments began to take their toll. The story of its sport franchises since 1964 has been the story of the city itself: uncertain stumbling between periods of hope and despair, promise and regress. As each new season dawns and Cleveland teams begin anew the quixotic quest to bring a title to Cleveland they are merely reflecting the city’s larger search for redemption, its bid to earn again the respect that’s been lost, and its hopes of finally finding an escape from “The Mistake on the Lake.” So I would vigorously disagree that a national team represents a country better than a local team represents a city.The composition of the team is not the key; it does not matter that most players are not from the city they represent. It is nice that Lebron James is from Akron but it is not essential. To illustrate this, I want to step back to the darkest day in Browns history. In late 1995, the owner of the Browns, Art Modell, announced that he was moving the team to Baltimore. A great deal of litigation followed but in the end:
. . .Cleveland accepted a legal settlement that would keep the Browns legacy in Cleveland. . . Modell would in turn be granted a new franchise (the 31st NFL franchise), for Baltimore, retaining the current contracts of players and personnel. There would be a reactivated team for Cleveland, where the Browns' name, colors, history, records, awards and archives would remain in Cleveland.
They took the team's infrastructure, players and all, to Baltimore and called it the Ravens. For three years, the city of Cleveland had no active football team. But what ultimately was important was that the Ravens are not called the Baltimore Browns. The team is ours; it belongs to our city. Its name, its history, its colors are us. Modell could take all of our players and personnel but he couldn’t take our team.
The point here is not that someone can’t root for a team that hails from another city or that one can only truly enjoy a game if it happens to involve the home team. Rather, I’m positing that the home team fandom is in a league of its own. Admiring the technical prowess of a team or liking the players of a particular team on a personal level can never match the sheer emotional content, the deep personal significance of cheering for your city. Sports may seem like a diversion from everyday life but they are really a shift in focus from our individual lives to the life of the city. I doubt adopted fans would ever spend 45 win-less years behind several unsuccessful teams, through the lows and the lower lows, bearing the agony, depression, and anger every season of the year. That’s why Cleveland fans are among the best in the world (and the rowdiest).
Final Score: Detroit Tigers 10, Cleveland Indians 1
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Can You Really Be A Fan Of A Sports Team That Isn't Based In Your Town? Teshale
Recently the soccer* world was stunned shocked mildly to moderately surprised by the news that striker Michael Owen had signed a deal to play for Manchester United, a team so evil that they actually have a devil on their crest.
The shock of the signing is twofold. First, Owen is a product of Manchester United’s most high-profile rival, Liverpool FC. From his introduction to the first team in 1997 at age 18, until his controversial move to Real Madrid in 2004, Owen (along with Liverpool idol Steven Gerrard) had been a rising star in a then-average Liverpool team. Many Liverpool fans still harbor residual anger over the nature of Owen’s transfer to Real, the chief reason being that Owen ran down his contract so that Real could buy him for far less than he was actually worth at the time, effectively stifling Liverpool out of extra funds for other transfers.
Second, Owen’s fortunes have taken a decidedly downward turn since his move to Madrid. The year he left Liverpool, they won their first European Cup since 1984, and their fifth total, in a historic campaign, and since then have competed regularly in the Champions League along with challenging for the Premier League.** Owen, on the other hand, was constantly benched at Real, hampered by knee injuries. He lasted only a year before moving to Newcastle FC back in England, a team whose luck was even worse than his own.
This past season Newcastle was relegated to the second division of English football for the first time since 1993, and Owen found himself a free agent. Eager to revive his career, 29 years old (quite old for someone who often relied on pace), and finding an opportunity to join a team that’s been winning leagues since 1992, from Owen’s point of view it seems a perfect job opportunity.
So, Owen is joining Manchester United. To get a sense of how some Liverpool fans feel about this, imagine being a Red Sox fan and hearing David Ortiz saying these things regarding a move to the Yankees, or a Cavs fan (ahem, Stanek) hearing Lebron James saying said things about moving to the Celtics. Mind you, these comparisons are not quite accurate; Michael Owen has always been something of a journeyman, and in his heyday he was an extremely good player but not one of the greats; deeply admired, perhaps, but not necessarily loved.
Anyway, it appears that Owen’s main concern is not for any particular club, but for gaining a permanent spot in England’s national team, a desire that has managed to make others indifferent at best and infuriated at worst. Michael Owen’s first concern is how well he as a footballer and as a person will do; it is his job, which is a reasonable enough take on it for a professional.
This brings us, finally, to the subject of support. Most sport fans accept that, in a broad sense, the players on a team are doing a job. An amazing job, of course, but at the end of the day a job where they show up, work hard, and then go home again. Sure, they’ll talk about how all they ever wanted to do was play [insert sport here] and how it’s an honor to play for [insert team here] and that’s probably true. But I would posit that it’s rare, in this day an age, for an athlete not to move teams at least once in his career. Sure you have your Kobes, your 1990s-era Brett Favres, your Jeters. But in the end, a player is there to play a sport as a career, not play a sport for X team and X team only as a career. We would like to think that they are superfans just like the rest of us, but to be frank, they’re generally not. They’re going to go to whatever team offers them the best chance for them to grow as a player. They have a pretty good reason to switch loyalties to whatever team they’re playing for, I’d say, because it’s literally their life.
So? You may ask. What does this have to do with supporting a team?
Simple. A fan has none of the above obligations. It doesn’t matter whether or not I support the Blazers or the Lakers or the Knicks or whatever, because sports are entertainment. Sports are a way to unwind after a hard day at work/school/whatever. They are not my job; I have no obligations past, perhaps, social ones to support any team. I don’t even have to like sports at all! It doesn’t matter either way. So why would I bother supporting a team at all, if I didn’t legitimately like doing so? The only enjoyment I may get out of faking a love/like for a team is making people think I’m cool, somehow, or fitting in with a group, but that’s a lot of effort— especially when they find out that I’m only doing it to impress them and I don’t actually know much about the team, and then it’s definitely Uncool.
I posit that it is, in fact, possible to be a fan of a team—not necessarily a fan with the same relationship as a local, but a legitimate fan nonetheless—without being fair-weather. I have had this discussion with my fellow blogger Stanek, chiefly because I follow Liverpool FC despite having no familial ties to the city, and he follows the Cavs because they’re his local team.
So why bother supporting a team that doesn’t represent my city in any way?*** Because, although sports teams represent the city they’re based in, I argue that they above all represent certain values that are not necessarily specific to that city. The city may well embody these values, and often they do—but what I’m saying is that these values are universal, as illustrated in the fact that often much of a team is composed of people who aren’t local. Heck, sometimes the team is even moved—looking at you, Sonics.
I don’t even know who on the Blazers is from Portland and who isn’t, but what I do know is that they, like any team, approach winning with a specific philosophy—one that you don’t have to be a Portlander, or an Oregonian, or even an American, to appreciate and subscribe to. If this is true for a bunch of people who need to get behind the team in order to make a good livelihood, then why isn’t it also true for people who watch the team, who have no relationship with it past one they feel on their own part, strange as it may be? I’ll definitely accept that, were I a Red Sox fan, I wouldn’t understand the culture of being a Bostonian and a Sox fan as well as Mark Wahlberg or someone—but does this mean that my appreciation for the team is shallow on the whole? I say no. Living in Chicago wouldn’t make me a more legitimate fan of, say, the White Sox, than someone who’s never been to Chicago if I bandwagonned after 2005, would it?
It’s perfectly possible and perfectly fine to like a team for a myriad number of reasons, but to me, a proper team fan is someone who supports the team—not the player—whether or not they’re winning, and has a reason for doing so. It’s common to start liking a team because a certain player plays for them, and that’s completely fine—the whole point of sports is to have fun—but again, that doesn’t necessarily make you a fan of the team.
For me what is more problematic is supporting a national team that isn’t your own. National teams are, by definition, representations of your country—you can’t be on the team unless you’re from there, or one of your parents is. I don’t want to get into the complications of deciding which NT you want to play for if one (or both!) of your parents is (are) foreign, but the point is that you have to have at least some birth connection with the country to play for its national team. This is a situation where I would suggest that people who support national teams that aren’t their own are in this case bandwagon fans in the most literal sense. There are a lot of Americans who might say, “Oh, I want Spain to win, their passing game is amazing,” or “Oh, I want Argentina to win the World Cup, Messi is brilliant” and this is textbook bandwagoning. I’d argue that national teams represent national culture far more accurately than city teams represent city culture, simply because you have so much more diversity in a city team than a national one. You already have an inbuilt connection to everyone on your national team, and that’s not something that can be traded or taken away. If the US were to get kicked out of the World Cup early, I might say I’d like Spain or Argentina or Brazil or Holland to win. But I’m not from any of those places, so I don’t really care and it doesn’t affect me either way, and I wouldn’t understand why someone who didn’t have ties to those countries would care.
A city team, on the other hand, is more of an amalgamation of ideas and styles—its identity can change, depending on who’s coming in and who’s leaving—so I could see why, for example, someone not from New York could come to follow the Giants.
Alternatively, this could all be an elaborate rationalization of why I care, irrationally, about the triumphs and heartbreaks of a team over 2000 miles away that I have no physical connection with.
But then again, sports are dumb.
*hereafter referred to as “football”
**They haven't actually won it for 19 years, but the reasons for Liverpool still being considered a contender for the league despite this are far too involved to address here, and rather boring anyway.
*** I should add that I do like the Portland Timbers, and if forced to choose, my allegiance would fall with them—in this case, I agree with Stanek, one’s city’s reputation is at stake. The point is moot, though, as Liverpool and the Timbers play in completely different leagues and countries and would never meet except, perhaps, in a friendly.
The shock of the signing is twofold. First, Owen is a product of Manchester United’s most high-profile rival, Liverpool FC. From his introduction to the first team in 1997 at age 18, until his controversial move to Real Madrid in 2004, Owen (along with Liverpool idol Steven Gerrard) had been a rising star in a then-average Liverpool team. Many Liverpool fans still harbor residual anger over the nature of Owen’s transfer to Real, the chief reason being that Owen ran down his contract so that Real could buy him for far less than he was actually worth at the time, effectively stifling Liverpool out of extra funds for other transfers.
Second, Owen’s fortunes have taken a decidedly downward turn since his move to Madrid. The year he left Liverpool, they won their first European Cup since 1984, and their fifth total, in a historic campaign, and since then have competed regularly in the Champions League along with challenging for the Premier League.** Owen, on the other hand, was constantly benched at Real, hampered by knee injuries. He lasted only a year before moving to Newcastle FC back in England, a team whose luck was even worse than his own.
This past season Newcastle was relegated to the second division of English football for the first time since 1993, and Owen found himself a free agent. Eager to revive his career, 29 years old (quite old for someone who often relied on pace), and finding an opportunity to join a team that’s been winning leagues since 1992, from Owen’s point of view it seems a perfect job opportunity.
So, Owen is joining Manchester United. To get a sense of how some Liverpool fans feel about this, imagine being a Red Sox fan and hearing David Ortiz saying these things regarding a move to the Yankees, or a Cavs fan (ahem, Stanek) hearing Lebron James saying said things about moving to the Celtics. Mind you, these comparisons are not quite accurate; Michael Owen has always been something of a journeyman, and in his heyday he was an extremely good player but not one of the greats; deeply admired, perhaps, but not necessarily loved.
Anyway, it appears that Owen’s main concern is not for any particular club, but for gaining a permanent spot in England’s national team, a desire that has managed to make others indifferent at best and infuriated at worst. Michael Owen’s first concern is how well he as a footballer and as a person will do; it is his job, which is a reasonable enough take on it for a professional.
This brings us, finally, to the subject of support. Most sport fans accept that, in a broad sense, the players on a team are doing a job. An amazing job, of course, but at the end of the day a job where they show up, work hard, and then go home again. Sure, they’ll talk about how all they ever wanted to do was play [insert sport here] and how it’s an honor to play for [insert team here] and that’s probably true. But I would posit that it’s rare, in this day an age, for an athlete not to move teams at least once in his career. Sure you have your Kobes, your 1990s-era Brett Favres, your Jeters. But in the end, a player is there to play a sport as a career, not play a sport for X team and X team only as a career. We would like to think that they are superfans just like the rest of us, but to be frank, they’re generally not. They’re going to go to whatever team offers them the best chance for them to grow as a player. They have a pretty good reason to switch loyalties to whatever team they’re playing for, I’d say, because it’s literally their life.
So? You may ask. What does this have to do with supporting a team?
Simple. A fan has none of the above obligations. It doesn’t matter whether or not I support the Blazers or the Lakers or the Knicks or whatever, because sports are entertainment. Sports are a way to unwind after a hard day at work/school/whatever. They are not my job; I have no obligations past, perhaps, social ones to support any team. I don’t even have to like sports at all! It doesn’t matter either way. So why would I bother supporting a team at all, if I didn’t legitimately like doing so? The only enjoyment I may get out of faking a love/like for a team is making people think I’m cool, somehow, or fitting in with a group, but that’s a lot of effort— especially when they find out that I’m only doing it to impress them and I don’t actually know much about the team, and then it’s definitely Uncool.
I posit that it is, in fact, possible to be a fan of a team—not necessarily a fan with the same relationship as a local, but a legitimate fan nonetheless—without being fair-weather. I have had this discussion with my fellow blogger Stanek, chiefly because I follow Liverpool FC despite having no familial ties to the city, and he follows the Cavs because they’re his local team.
So why bother supporting a team that doesn’t represent my city in any way?*** Because, although sports teams represent the city they’re based in, I argue that they above all represent certain values that are not necessarily specific to that city. The city may well embody these values, and often they do—but what I’m saying is that these values are universal, as illustrated in the fact that often much of a team is composed of people who aren’t local. Heck, sometimes the team is even moved—looking at you, Sonics.
I don’t even know who on the Blazers is from Portland and who isn’t, but what I do know is that they, like any team, approach winning with a specific philosophy—one that you don’t have to be a Portlander, or an Oregonian, or even an American, to appreciate and subscribe to. If this is true for a bunch of people who need to get behind the team in order to make a good livelihood, then why isn’t it also true for people who watch the team, who have no relationship with it past one they feel on their own part, strange as it may be? I’ll definitely accept that, were I a Red Sox fan, I wouldn’t understand the culture of being a Bostonian and a Sox fan as well as Mark Wahlberg or someone—but does this mean that my appreciation for the team is shallow on the whole? I say no. Living in Chicago wouldn’t make me a more legitimate fan of, say, the White Sox, than someone who’s never been to Chicago if I bandwagonned after 2005, would it?
It’s perfectly possible and perfectly fine to like a team for a myriad number of reasons, but to me, a proper team fan is someone who supports the team—not the player—whether or not they’re winning, and has a reason for doing so. It’s common to start liking a team because a certain player plays for them, and that’s completely fine—the whole point of sports is to have fun—but again, that doesn’t necessarily make you a fan of the team.
For me what is more problematic is supporting a national team that isn’t your own. National teams are, by definition, representations of your country—you can’t be on the team unless you’re from there, or one of your parents is. I don’t want to get into the complications of deciding which NT you want to play for if one (or both!) of your parents is (are) foreign, but the point is that you have to have at least some birth connection with the country to play for its national team. This is a situation where I would suggest that people who support national teams that aren’t their own are in this case bandwagon fans in the most literal sense. There are a lot of Americans who might say, “Oh, I want Spain to win, their passing game is amazing,” or “Oh, I want Argentina to win the World Cup, Messi is brilliant” and this is textbook bandwagoning. I’d argue that national teams represent national culture far more accurately than city teams represent city culture, simply because you have so much more diversity in a city team than a national one. You already have an inbuilt connection to everyone on your national team, and that’s not something that can be traded or taken away. If the US were to get kicked out of the World Cup early, I might say I’d like Spain or Argentina or Brazil or Holland to win. But I’m not from any of those places, so I don’t really care and it doesn’t affect me either way, and I wouldn’t understand why someone who didn’t have ties to those countries would care.
A city team, on the other hand, is more of an amalgamation of ideas and styles—its identity can change, depending on who’s coming in and who’s leaving—so I could see why, for example, someone not from New York could come to follow the Giants.
Alternatively, this could all be an elaborate rationalization of why I care, irrationally, about the triumphs and heartbreaks of a team over 2000 miles away that I have no physical connection with.
But then again, sports are dumb.
*hereafter referred to as “football”
**They haven't actually won it for 19 years, but the reasons for Liverpool still being considered a contender for the league despite this are far too involved to address here, and rather boring anyway.
*** I should add that I do like the Portland Timbers, and if forced to choose, my allegiance would fall with them—in this case, I agree with Stanek, one’s city’s reputation is at stake. The point is moot, though, as Liverpool and the Timbers play in completely different leagues and countries and would never meet except, perhaps, in a friendly.
And So We're Back!
Well hello there! I’d like to say hello and welcome back to the Stanek-Teshale Blog, which appears to be seasonal according to my, Salom’s, admittedly strange tastes. We’ll be blogging every week on the issues that concern us, and possibly you, in an informative and gently amusing manner. Thanks for reading!
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