Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

Cheating the System

When I was in middle school, I was (and this will not exactly take you by surprise) a bit of a nerd, not exactly popular in social circles. My best friend was three grade levels older than me, and also not exactly the most socially mobile. We partook of the sorts of things that you might guess, perhaps stereotypically, would interest us…Dungeons and Dragons, chess, fantasy and science fiction novels, and all of the imaginative escapism that went along with them. The issue was that, being older and more experienced at things, my friend nearly always won every game that we played, and I was still immature enough that this really bothered me.

Our families were both heavily involved in the same faith community, and that was the beginning of the age in which the youth group was a heavily prioritized aspect of church culture. I remember one evening in which some church function was occurring, and we were the oldest youth group members present. While the adults had dinner and talked about…boring adult things…and the younger children played games appropriate to their ages, my friend and I were playing a board game. I couldn’t tell you which one (although we were particularly given to Axis and Allies at the time). I was losing, and so I took the opportunity to alter the odds in my favor when my friend wasn’t looking. I just wanted a chance, after all, and was quite tired of losing. He, of course, noticed immediately upon returning his attention to the game, and things erupted into a quarrel.

I only remember two other incidents in which I cheated on something, both involving quizzes and spread between my late middle school and early high school careers. The point is, the older I became, the less palatable cheating became to me. The same faith in which I was participating the night that I cheated on that board game necessitates that truth is more important, that cheating is (as much as this would frustrate my friends ascribing to a philosophical post-modernism) wrong.

Our daughter is old enough that she is beginning to grasp board games more effectively. On the evening that I write this, she and I were playing a simple game involving spinning an arrow and placing plastic acorns into cardboard tree stumps…you get the idea. Of course, one of the options that the arrow can land on with each spin is the “you lose all of your acorns” option. I was the first recipient of this unfortunate spin, and used the opportunity to show good sportsmanship by giving away all of my acorns. Then she landed on the same option a turn or two later, and was significantly more reluctant to give away her acorns.

So, I compromised. She gave up half.

This actually worked, because, the next time she landed on the harbinger of acorn loss, she hesitated, but gave them all away, working on copying my sportsmanship. This was great until she landed on it again. And then again. That was too much.

So, I compromised. I nudged the arrow to the next option over, much to her satisfaction. Then, a few turns later, I did it again.

So, I suppose I cheated.

I’m not entirely certain whether this will have a negative impact on how our daughter views games or competition or any of the other developmental processes associated with these sorts of activities. Or, perhaps the event will be inconsequential for her, lost in the mists of memory. For me, though, I’m quite taken with the amusing fact that I cheated.

What’s different is the motivation. When I was young, on those three occasions, I cheated to further myself, to compensate for self-esteem issues, to look better in the eyes of others. When I cheated tonight, there was no self-serving incentive behind the act. Rather, the impulse was to protect my daughter from a cold fact that she shouldn’t have to experience quite yet, the fact that life can, indeed, be that unfair.

I cheated because she doesn’t need to know that yet, because she doesn’t understand the concept of cheating yet, and because maybe at least her first exposure to it, if remembered at all, will be a positive one.

I cheated in a good way, if that’s even possible.

I’ll try to do better in the future.

Selfie Abandonment

Earlier this week, I updated the operating system on my phone. Karen always says that I should block off two hours for such an event, because I like playing with shiny new things. She’s not altogether wrong (although I think that two hours might be stretching it a bit). In browsing through some of the changes that this particular update brought about, I landed upon something unsettling.

There’s a new album in my photos. It’s called “Selfies.”

I feel a bit…ill.

Because the selfie isn’t something that I do, nor will I ever, it’s interesting to see what this “intelligent” album is including…candid photos of me in a funny hat, for example, that Karen took with my phone one day while we were shopping for something. I mean, if it includes only my own face, then it must meet the definition of a selfie, at least by the software’s calculations, right?

Except I’ve seen this thing in the wild, and this isn’t it.

A few weeks ago, we were visiting family in a different state and were out to dinner. It was Sunday afternoon, and the restaurant was a bit busy. Another family sat in the booth just to the left of us, grandparents and a teenage grand-daughter if appearances were accurate. During a break in our conversation, my attention drifted over to them. Their conversation was still moving along, and I noticed the grand-daughter slip her phone from her purse, smile into it, snap a photo of her face (it was a phone the size of a tablet, so it was difficult to miss what had happened), and begin typing whatever message that was to accompany its posting to whichever medium she was choosing.

https://twitter.com/truthscribe722/status/648196662125547520

What was disturbing about this to me was the alienation, however momentary, of the people with whom she was sharing this moment, in order to, it would seem, take the opportunity to propagate her likeness to people with whom she was not in “real” contact. I struggle with having to keep my back to television screens when I’m in a restaurant so that I can focus on those with whom I’m eating. I don’t need to distract myself further by even considering what my Twitter followers might think of where I am, or whether or not I’m smiling while I eat my food, or whatever. I’m there with people, interacting interpersonally. Isn’t that a larger priority?

Fast forward a couple of weeks, when Karen and I were eating with our daughter during a Saturday afternoon shopping excursion, and I saw a group of teenage girls outside the restaurant window pausing at a set of steps in the mall to snap a quick selfie, taking time to compose the photo just right. That day was the first time I actually saw the “selfie stick” phenomenon in use.

I was equally disturbed.

Now, I know the literature and opinions that claim that the selfie is simply a controlled form of expression of one’s image. There’s actually some research that claims that this is a healthy expression, a way to take back control of one’s image within one’s social circles in a way that one can choose, that one can control, that is not objectifying and is thus empowering. I’m afraid I must disagree. The selfie is the height of narcissism, and it’s distasteful to me not even because I don’t (and don’t think anyone should, in the interest of good health) love myself nearly that much, but because I believe that we should love those around us more.

I see the selfie, however, not as a surprising cultural event, but rather as the natural result of a market-driven society, a society reduces everything and everyone to being a “brand.” Acceptable, perhaps, when marketing a product. Dehumanizing, however, when applied to our interpersonal…and intrapersonal…existences. The selfie is something flat, something one-dimensional, something lacking substance, because it is focusing on image-management, presenting a crafted representation of how the individual wishes they were. I suspect that this gives the person the escapist ability to avoid considering their true condition, to dance around the existential questions that we all grow as human beings for asking.

My goal is not to sound curmudgeonly. I don’t wish everyone to go through life examining their every flaw with no joy or escapist outlets whatsoever. I’m human, and I’m as escapist as anyone else. I’m concerned, though, at the painfully inward, selfish focus that our culture not only permits, but rewards. The less we know…or care about…our neighbor, the further we sink as a people. The less concern with others that we permit ourselves, the less human we become.

I complained on the night that I wrote this that I didn’t get to buy something that I had wanted because we needed to spend the money on our daughter’s educational supplies. I groaned that I feel I don’t get what I want because others need what they need worse.

The more inwardly focused I become, the more miserable I become.

I don’t really want to be miserable while masking it under the guise of a well-planned photo of myself in various surroundings.

I don’t want to be miserable at all.

I certainly don’t want to fake it, either.

Image attribution: Yasmeen under Creative Commons.

Artificial Intelligence

In Brian Michael Bendis‘ story arc for Marvel’s 2013 graphic novel Age of Ultron, we are presented with an unexpected present that one would initially guess to be an alternate future. The artificial intelligence run amok known as Ultron has succeeded in destroying most of humanity. The handful of people who have survived in the world’s major cities have an even smaller handful of heroes among them, hiding underground and attempting to form a strategy to overcome Ultron. While Bendis deals with many themes in these pages, one of the most prominent is the need for what we view as progress. Bendis makes us privy to the internal dialogue of Hank Pym, the Avenger known as Ant-Man and the creator of Ultron, as he wrestles with the potential to benefit humanity that he sees in the concept of the Ultron artificial intelligence. The reader is left feeling…skeptical…of what Pym wants to achieve, understanding that his hopes are mis-placed. However, his motivations are clearly pure. He wants to help.

When faced with this extinction of humanity, Wolverine makes a more difficult choice. He wrestles with the decision of whether or not to travel back in time and end Pym’s life before he can create Ultron. The reader is even more dubious of these intentions, but Wolverine sees no other real alternative. The choice between one life or millions of lives is clear to him in that moment.

In the 2015 cinematic version of Age of Ultron, Tony Stark encourages Bruce Banner to assist in exploring the artificial intelligence that will become Ultron. He presses Banner to accept that this is who they are, the “mad scientists,” and must do what they do.

That is the intelligence that I would find artificial.

C.S. Lewis points out a sound philosophical truth: just because we can do something, doesn’t necessarily mean that we should. Yet, the logical fallacy that “can” must necessarily lead to “do” drives much of what we view today as progress. Humans as a race are always pressing forward, always confronted with our own mortality, seeking to make life more palatable not only for ourselves, but for our successors, our children. Once we discover that we are capable of something that we perceive as good, we feel an overwhelming drive to do that thing, hang the consequences.

Part of the tragedy of the character of the mad genius is that s/he works in isolation much of the time, experiencing an absence of feedback from other people about their plans. No one can see all of the failings of their own plans…everyone needs another party to hear their ideas, to proofread their work, as it were.

I think that our decisions, sometimes very important decisions, are becoming rushed. A desire to help others is a noble thing, but not every wonderful idea to better mankind turns out to be such a wonderful idea. In short, innovation must be checked by wisdom, and that wisdom is in short supply when crowd mentalities rush to gather around what is popular, without giving careful thought to what it is that they might be supporting.

I’ve been accused of being a futurist, because I become excited about the potential of what new discoveries and technologies can offer us. I see the problems that they solve, and dream of how much simpler life might be with that problem solved. Then I have to pause, I have to step back and examine whether or not my excitement is equivalent to Pym’s excitement as he dreams of Ultron. Sometimes I continue to see minimal negatives, and sometimes I feel uneasy, a misgiving that gives pause, and is usually justified when I think the issue through carefully. I’m no inventor…I don’t build exciting new things. I’m certainly no entrepreneur…while I dream of new stories and worlds, I don’t formulate new strategies to change the world as we know it. So, granted, I’m not in a position to truly understand many of these things. I am, however, a critical thinker. I believe in examining things through a lens of close observation. I think of what great science fiction writers have written, warning us of the potential outcomes of some of our innovations, and I recall Tillich’s observation that artists are the prophets of our time, warning of dangers before the rest of us can see them.

And I wonder about the dangers, unseen in the excitement over the good.

I wonder.

Photo, by Pascal, is public domain.

Superhero Role Models and Censorship

When I was in elementary school, society was in the era of “don’t do drugs.” Each generation seems to have its own popular message that all school children must hear, and this was ours. Drugs symbolized all that were evil, and, like all important cultural messages, we entrusted this to our fictional role models to reinforce. I remember the day well. We were in my 5th grade classroom, and the teacher passed out the anti-drug-use comic books. They featured the New Teen Titans. Many of the kids in this classroom hadn’t heard of these characters, as they weren’t what one would really consider mainstream superheroes at the time. Having already developed my passion for the mythology, though, I thought that this was the perfect group to tell us the story that we needed to hear. I wasn’t in any sort of risk group to abuse substances, but eagerly dug into the pages to see how these heroes dealt with the problem.

Comic books provide us with a snapshot of where we are as a culture at any given point. They give us insight into ourselves, both our self-perception as well as our perception of others. They show us that to which we can aspire, an image of a larger truth, something outside of ourselves that is good, something in which we can believe. This is why superhero mythology is so powerful, why it has been so powerful long before the current trend in popular films, and will remain so when this trend has passed.

We need to believe in good. We want to believe in someone good who will defend us from the evil that we cannot overcome ourselves. We need a symbol of a light in our darkness. This is especially true of certain groups and populations that are a bit more deprived of strong, hopeful role models than others.

Because I believe that this is bigger than just pop culture, and gives us a window into that hope…that it contains a theological insight that will only serve to spark positive discussions lasting far beyond mere entertainment value if it is truly engaged…that I become so frustrated when some treat this as a trivial thing, as a problem, as something subject to censorship.

Because I believe this, my shock and frustration are beyond words at the ignorant and narrow-minded reaction of an elementary school who considered a girl’s Wonder Woman lunchbox a dress code violation. I would think that the public education institution…an institution in which I increasingly lose faith (a reaction only strengthened by news such as this)…would choose to engage this, to discuss it, to help students begin to formulate their own reactions and thoughts to the mythology at whatever level they are capable. Obviously, if a student is recognizing Wonder Woman as a strong female role model, which is an excellent choice, then she is already engaging the subject and identifying with positive aspects of the character. I would think that this sort of critical thinking would be encouraged early in education. Obviously I’m mistaken.

And, while I’m particularly frustrated with this situation because I hold superhero mythology so closely, I would have this reaction to the censorship of any fictional character.

Wonder Woman is known historically for her bracelets which defend from attack, and her Lasso of Truth…neither of which are offensive weapons. Captain America’s symbol is a shield, something that stands between evil and it’s victims. Superman, arguably the most well-recognized superhero, is an upright symbol of strength, having no aggressive imagery about him. Batman abhors firearms and refuses to use them. Blanket policies and so-called “zero-tolerance” mentalities, being void of critical thinking themselves, only serve as a barrier to developing critical thinking in an educational setting. In this case, defining (arbitrarily, it seems) all superheroes as violent characters simply ignores too much evidence to the contrary in the literature, to say nothing of examples specific to educational settings.

Certainly, superheroes engage in violent actions. They take extreme actions to handle situations that cannot be handled otherwise. The actions of superheroes would place them on the wrong side of many viewpoints in our modern culture, as a well-respected comics author points out.

Would the gun advocates mock Batman's position? Would liberals decry the existence of the JLA or Avengers? I think they would.

— Gail Simone 💙💛 (@GailSimone) September 2, 2015

The value in this is the healthy ideas and discussions that come from engaging in the material, from thinking it through. None of this can occur when we prohibit our children from engaging their role models.

It seems that the public education system would have larger priorities.

Image of the actual lunchbox, from Imgur.

A Review of “Fantastic Four”

I’ll confess that I didn’t know what to think when I saw the trailer for Fantastic Four a few months ago. My initial reaction was one that I’ve had more than once previously…something to the effect of, “Didn’t we just do that?” At the same time, it seemed to hold some promise…a darker take on the story of Marvel’s First Family could help to balance out the campy side of more recent attempts to place these heroes on film. Of course, darker can be a problem, because it seems that the trendy way to make super-heroes relevant again…as in Man of Steel…is to make them…darker. Nothing like some gloom, shadows, angst and avoidance of primary colors to achieve relevance, or so it would seem.

And so, I played the flirtatious game of cautious hope that I’ve played with many super-hero films. I became excited when I saw images of the Thing for the first time, I read the interviews explaining the very non-canonical choice to cast the Human Torch as African-American (which worked quite well, I think). The lengthier the trailers as we neared release, however, the more concerned that I became. Mr. Fantastic looked to be about sixteen (a suspicion that turned out to be not far from accurate), and the overall pacing of the trailer left me concerned. There was much, it seemed, that could go very wrong with this.

I was pleasantly surprised recently after having similar suspicions about another movie. I was hoping that this would be the case again. Alas…

Josh Trank can do better, and, because he contributed to the writing as well as directing this film, I think that the blame rests there. I liked Chronicle, but Chronicle was a YA story. And, while I will fully admit that I don’t particularly like YA, I do respect it as a genre. It’s just that the Fantastic Four has no business being YA. Reed Richards is a respected and published scientific authority…that is, an adult. His character, at least post-acquisition of his powers, just doesn’t work as a teenager, no matter how you write it.

What I think Trank missed entirely in the film conceptually is the family aspect that makes the Fantastic Four so different from every other super-hero story arc. While there is a (forced and completely unrealistic) attempt to develop Reed and Ben’s childhood history together, the relationship between Reed and Sue never develops, and is reduced a brief scene of laughter as the two work together in the lab. Connections between Johnny and Reed are passing and rushed, and none exists between Ben and anyone other than Reed. Robbing the story of these relationships reduces it to a one-dimensional trope of people given extraordinary powers. The compelling through-line to the Fantastic Four is the worldview that their family relationships brings, the manner in which it leads them to interact with the crises that they face. Before they are heroes, they are husband and wife, brother and sister, best friends. Fighting to keep their family intact is often the more triumphant battle than those with Dr. Doom of any of their other rogues’ gallery.

Should the writer manage to keep these family relationships intact, then a lot can be done, but he didn’t, and so everything else fell apart. Instead of traveling to space and experiencing the accident that gives the group their powers, they travel to another dimension. This can be accepted as artistic license, and likely could have worked, except that Doom accompanies the group instead of Sue, and they all go…drunk. Their transformations in no way parallel Sue’s, leaving a strong female character as an afterthought. If there is a more egregious mistreatment of the story than weakening a strong female character, it is making the villain flat, unconvincing, rushed, and generally without substance. I guess I don’t have to say anything further about Dr. Doom. His character would be funny were this movie intended as a farce.

The story is rushed, lost in its mis-guided attempts to re-invent an origin story, leaving no room for the group to develop as heroes. This is especially true given the very non-canonical twist of the group being drafted into military service so as to have their powers weaponized. This couldn’t be more out of character for the team as they are written in the literature, but those original characters obviously aren’t of concern here. We’re working with a group of unknown kids with the same names and powers as the team well-known to comics readers, but not the team itself.

Apparently, that’s okay, though, as long as we make it dark and moody.

The climactic fight between the “heroes” and “Doom” is rushed and poorly scripted, the visual effects lackluster and bordering on cliche. The rare moment of brightness in the film is that some of the actors, specifically Kate Mara and Jamie Bell, give solid performances, managing to wring some life out of a script that felt as though it were thrown together in a weekend.

The logo of the “4” never appears on the costumes of the characters, and that is appropriate, because whatever this is…a group of unlikely geeks and misfits banding together through fate in good YA fashion…it is not the Fantastic Four. It seems that every Marvel film coming from Fox is destined to be a tragedy lately. The Fantastic Four is no exception. If you haven’t seen this, don’t bother. Go read some of the comics instead.

Image attribution: Day Donaldson under Creative Commons.