Rant

More on Consumerism

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Earlier, in response to an article on elitism and bottled water, I wrote about my perspective on mass consumerism. Shortly after, I ran into this exhibit by Chris Jordan of Seattle. He basically tries to put the statistics of American consumption into photos which demonstrate the scale of our consumption. For example, the photo at left is of plastic bottles: every 5 minutes, we in the US consume 5 million such bottles. Even more amazing to me is that every day we discard nearly half a million cell phones. That means that roughly every two years, every person in the US gets a new cell phone. Amazing!

I personally think that some of this is intentionally encouraged by companies. The more disposable their products are, the more we will buy. I don’t think there is any reason to go through so many cell phones. But, there are two factors that encourage us to do so: first, they break (their lifetime is limited) and second, new features are introduced that make us want to upgrade.

You would think that the first is natural. After all, things break. But, my wife’s cell phone, a flip phone, was cracking near the hinge area. We took it in asking if we could get it replaced. Of course, we couldn’t because our contract wasn’t up yet and we hadn’t purchased insurance. But we told the guy behind the counter that she wasn’t doing anything extraordinary, that it was just wearing down from regular use. He said that it was “planned obsolesence”. This means that the company is intentionally designing the cell phone with a shorter lifetime than is really necessary. They could design a better and longer lasting product. They intentionally design a poorer product so that it will break after too long, so that we will have to buy a new one.

The second is a bit more subtle. I think often new features are added only to get us to buy a new model. It isn’t that we need the new features. But I think it plays into our psychology. Especially if someone else buys the fancy new model, then we want it. There was a study I read about recently that posed the following question to a bunch of people: if the price of everything were the same in these two scenarios, which would you prefer: to make $50K while everyone else makes $25K, or to make $100K while everyone else makes $200K. The second one is better in an absolute sense, while the first is better in a relative sense. Most people pick the first scenario. Their view of wealth isn’t based on how much they have, but how much they have relative to everyone else. I think the fancy new features in new products connects to the same human psychology.

I think our disposable colture is a large part of why we have so much waste. If things were designed and built to be more durable, companies might make less money, but the impact of our consumerism on our environment would be significantly less. I guess that would require a significant change in how our economy works, but I think it is a change worth thinking about.

In any case, check out Chris’ website and get a little bit better perspective on how much we consume.

Rant

Can They Be That Different?

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One thing that confuses me about the whole same-sex marriage debate is the supposition that homosexuals are so different than heterosexuals. I don’t mean from the point of view that their sexual preferences are different. Rather, it is the view that homosexuality is a choice and that is the reason it is so “bad” that I don’t understand.

(Let me say that I don’t think that homosexuality is wrong regardless of whether it is a choice or not. I think people should be able to do what they wish as long as they don’t infringe on my right and ability to do what I wish.)

What I mean is that to view homosexuals as having a choice in their orientation is to some how think that their brain works completely differently than heterosexuals. And I mean differently in the sense that, as a heterosexual, I don’t feel I have a choice as to what gender I am attracted to. I am attracted to women, plain and simple. I didn’t choose to be attracted to women. That’s just the way I’m “wired”. However, it seems that the anti-same-sex marriage people believe that homosexuals are completely different and do have a choice. They aren’t wired to be attracted to the same sex, they choose to be.

It is this double standard I find confusing. And I don’t quite see why the gay community doesn’t point this out. It might be that they feel that it shouldn’t matter if it is a choice or not, they should have the rights to live the way they wish. And I can respect that.

But, I think that most people who are “anti-gay” are that way mostly because they fear things they do not understand, things that don’t make sense to them. When couched in this way, that their preferences are hard wired to some extent (just like mine are), I think some people at least would drop their opposition. It might not be for the right reasons, in some sense, but it might make things a little bit easier.

I personally believe that it won’t be long until it is definitely demonstrated that sexual orientation is very strongly genetic and that we have little “choice” in the matter. But, I am also of the camp that most of our personality is determined by genetics. There was a very interesting article in the last Scientific American about how our level of happiness is at due in part (about 50%) to genetics. I think that we will find that much of who each of us is comes to a great extent from our genes.

Life, Science

Is God the Answer?

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Anthony Gottlieb has a very interesting article on the New Yorker website.  His article, Atheists with Attitude, is about the recent “flood” of books that defend an atheist view of the world, some being fairly hostile to religion.  (I tried to begin Richard Dawkin’s book The Selfish Gene, which is one of his most famous books, and had a hard time getting past his hostile attitude, even though I’m not a very religious person.)

But, it isn’t so much his review of this series of books that I found so interesting.  Rather, it was his paraphrasing of David Hume I found so intriguing:   God is merely the answer that you get if you do not ask enough questions.

When I was younger, I found solice in this view of the world.  Believing in God meant that everything had an answer.  Why does the universe exist?  God created it.  Why are we here?  God put us here.  Why didn’t I get a hit in that game?  God willed it so.  Believing in God meant that there was an answer to every question, every question but one: where did God come from?

I guess that is a question that isn’t supposed to be asked.  But, when I did ask it, I realized that, in not having an answer, it meant I didn’t have a real answer to any of my other questions.  Why does the universe exist?  God created it.  But who created God?  Where did God come from?  In the end, the answer I took so much comfort in didn’t really answer anything for me.

I find that the scientific method is much more fullfilling for me, intellectually and “spiritually”.  I hesitate to use that word, as it isn’t so much a spiritual thing, but rather it just feels better to me.  Science doesn’t have all the answers and there is no scientist that would claim it does.  But, what science does offer is an approach to search for the answers to the questions we pose.  Why does the universe exist?  Well, we don’t know, but science keeps getting a little closer to understanding the earliest moments of the universe.  Why are we here?  It might be just a random bit of luck that life was right on Earth to lead to our existence.  Why didn’t I get a hit in that game?  I just suck at baseball.

Seriously, many more questions go unanswered for me now.  But, I also know that by investigating the questions, I will have a better understanding of the world around me than if I just ascribed everything to God.  I might “know” less than if I relied upon God as the answer for everything, but I definitely understand more.

Books, Comics

The Amazing Aventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

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Started reading: ~09/01/01
Finished reading: 10/26/01
Notes written: 10/26/01

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Warning! Spoilers follow!

The story in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is about two cousins – Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier – both of whom are Jewish. Sammy was born and raised in NY, Joe in Prague. The book starts off in World War II, and Joe has escaped from a Prague that is about to come under the control of Hitler. He is the only one of his family who escapes. The rest of his family is first interned and then each dies, first his father, then his brother (in an attempt to sail across the Atlantic to freedom) and his mother and grandfather as well. Joe escapes by travelling in a box with the Golem of Prague. He makes his way to NY, where he meets his cousin Sammy.

Sammy is a comic book fan and Joe is an artist, so they create a comic book character, the Escapist. They sell it to Sammy’s boss and it becomes hugely successful. During the time of working on the Escapist, Sammy meets Tracy Bacon, who plays the Escapist on the radio, and Joe meets Rosa Saks. They both fall in love. Sammy eventually develops a relationship with Tracy and they are later busted in a party of several homosexual couples, after which Sammy is forced to service an FBI agent in order to avoid being charged. At the same time, Rosa has become pregnant with Joe’s child. Joe learns that his brother, Tommy, has died on the boat that was supposed to bring him to America and he joins the navy to help fight the Germans, leaving Rosa alone and not telling anyone that he has gone. Sammy wants to avoid a life of being a homosexual, he doesn’t want the stigma. Rosa thinks of having an abortion, but they decide that the best thing is to get married and raise Joe’s child together. They name him Tommy, after Joe’s brother.

Meanwhile, Joe is in Antartica, where he has many travails (his entire company dies, except for one, he nearly goes mad, he finally finds a German base and he and the other man go to kill the lone German there. Joe gets there, after his companion has died, and he accidentally kills the German.) Eventually, Joe is found and he makes it back to NY, but doesn’t reveal himself to his family, not until Tommy sees him once and Joe recognizes him. Joe reveals himself to Tommy and they become friends. Eventually, Tommy gets Joe to reveal himself to the rest of the family, where his feelings for Rosa surface again.

The final main event of the story is Sammy’s testimony before a Senate committee dealing with the delinquent effects of comics on kids. Sammy’s past creations, often boy side-kicks to male heroes, is brought to light, and the inference that he has done so because of his own homosexuality is made. Sammy decides that he is now finally free of his secret, of his life of lies, and he goes to LA.

The book is very complex, with many levels and many investigations of Sammy, Rosa and Joe and their feelings and how they deal with their situations. I don’t think I’ve digested the book on all levels and I’m sure that I would have to reread it several times to get everything in there. There is much about the building of Golems, of superheroes, of escaping from reality. Joe escaped from war, from death, but lost his entire family in the process. Sammy escaped from a life of what he felt would be shame, but had to live a lie in order to do so. Joe then escaped from his second family, ran from them, because he couldn’t bear being with them. Joe both couldn’t give up hope that his first family might return, but couldn’t believe that they would.

The role of comics is central to the story, in that they symbolize the need for escape from reality that most of us have. Sammy’s life was not as bad as Joe’s during the war, but his life before was worse. He didn’t have a father that was there for him, he didn’t have a complete home. He didn’t have the opportunities to learn and to explore that Joe did: music, magic, escapism. He didn’t have the full family life that Joe did. Sammy was also lame, and he needed to escape from his life, more than Joe did. Joe needed to fight back, but Sammy needed to escape, needed to escape almost all aspects of his life, even later on, when he was an adult. He felt he had to escape his natural feelings, his homosexuality, because it was not viewed well by the public. He had to hide everything, and sacraficed his only chance for love to do so.

All of the characters are strong and well developed. I connected with all of them. The book had a little of everything, even a little bit of sex. The story felt like we were growing with these characters, learning with them, there with them as they experienced life. It felt like maybe I was learning something about life as they did. That I experienced things that I would never have experienced myself. Sammy’s homosexuality felt like a natural thing for him. You could tell that he was scared and nervous about exploring this side of himself. He never fully let himself experience it, never fully let himself love Tracy. And, he regretted it forever.

I think that this book will be the kind that I get more out of with each successive rereading. I feel that, right now, I haven’t gotten much more than just the plot and the things that Chabon directly tells us. There is a lot more levels, I think, that I’m not fully digesting, not fully realizing. Chabon does try to tell us directly the main points of his message, by having the characters realize certain things for themselves.

It is interesting that Sammy’s homosexuality is revealed because of his habit of teaming heroes with boy side kicks, but, as he points out, the heroes are playing more of a father role than a corrupting role, much as he is to Tommy. Tommy is his ward, just as Robin is to Batman and so forth. Sammy never felt more than as a father to Tommy, and it is interesting that the same kind of relationship in his comic book characters is what brings his homosexuality to light.

I will definitely have to reread this book and think about it more to try to get more understanding of the book. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

Books

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

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Read: April 28, 2007

One of my favorite authors as a kid was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, though I have to admit, I only read his Sherlock Holmes work (which might have come as a bit of a disappointment to Doyle, as he wanted to be known for something besides Holmes). So, when I first learned of Michael Chabon’s novel featuring Sherlock Holmes, The Final Solution, I was definitely intrigued.

The story is short: it took me only maybe 2 to 3 hours to read it. While it is well written, it uses grammatical constructions that were, at least for me, sometimes hard to get around. But, in the end, it was a very pleasant story that I greatly enjoyed. The mystery, while not overly complex, is enough to keep the book moving.

The real story, though, is not about the mystery that the old man finds himself drawn into. Rather, it is about the old man himself in his later years, when his body has failed him and his mind is beginning to as well. This is his last case and, while not as taxing as many he found himself dealing with as a younger man, considering his physical condition, it is about all he can handle. As such, it isn’t a traditional Sherlock Holmes story in that sense. It isn’t a Sherlock Holmes mystery, but rather a story about Sherlock Holmes the man. And, as such, I rather enjoyed it. But, as a Sherlock Holmes mystery, it wasn’t quite what I had hoped.

The mystery involves a murder and a missing parrot. It is the old man’s task to find the parrot and, in doing so, the murderer. The biggest disappointment for me is that the solution of the mystery doesn’t really involve any great insight into the case by the old man, the kind of piercing insight that is the hallmark of Sherlock Holmes. It is rather the help of a little boy that leads to the solution. The one time when the old man offers some great insight into the case (dealing with the motivations of one of the suspects), it comes entirely out of the blue. There is no reason for him to know what he does. He attributes it to his bees. But, unless he has a network of “spies” in the town, which is unlikely given his living arrangement, I don’t see how he would have that insight, unless it was a blind guess. And the Holmes I remember didn’t do blind guesswork.

So, as a Holmes mystery, I was disappointed in the story. But, as a story about Holmes in his final years, it was very enjoyable. Seeing the old man’s reactions to his difficulty to move around was very interesting. And his fear, not of death, but of an ignoble death — of dying with his face in his porridge — seemed to me to be in character.

One thing that struck me as odd and out of place. One chapter is from the point of view of the parrot. I found this particularly odd in a Holmes story, as nothing of the sort ever occurs in Doyle’s tales. I’m also always perplexed by these sorts of approaches since it seems we have no idea how a parrot looks at the world. How can anyone know how to write anything from a parrot’s point of view.

Finally, we never learn the true value of the parrot. There is obviously great interest in him, but we never learn why. A number of reasons are put forth, but no definitive one is stated. I’m sure this is intentional, but I would have liked to know something about what the meaning of the bird’s ramblings really was.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel, just not so much as a Holmes story. For someone expecting a mystery in the Doyle style, this isn’t that story. But, as a story about the man himself, it is very good and I highly recommend it.

Blah, blah, blah… I've got the blahs.