JOLLY DAYS, an artist's journal

David Brooks was on Charlie Rose last night. As usual, it is worthwhile considering his ideas.

David Brooks is good provocative. He is not interested in provoking for the cheap thrill of a partisan’s toxic smirk. Brooks is interested in ideas. His presentation is very easy to take. Like an old style liberal, who is understanding and open to discussion and modest presentation. Current proxies for liberalism are understanding only as regards certain religions, ethnicities, social classes or a particular gender. Not liberal at all. Liberalism can be said to be societal morality, but a morality that discriminates using such filters has no moral standing. Be understanding towards all or be a bigot.

Brooks’ appearance on Charlie Rose was provocative in the good way. He is writing a book on the brain, so he has applied recent findings to his interest in political matters. It sounds as though the filter he is using is behavioral economics.

As I understand it, this discipline confirms what you know intuitively. We are not exactly rational creatures. The current Cult of Rationalism, a religion of sorts, asserts we can understand everything. Little likelihood our species will ever even come close. The fear is of encroaching irrationality and the madness that ensues. People are rationally mad though. Lots of educated fools out there.

Brooks was positive about Obama; Brooks described himself as 30 degrees to the Right of Obama. He is clearly aware that Obama is drifting, but places this drift in the context of an intelligent man who is cautiously trying to make the correct decision. Whether that is truly Obama, or a projection of Brooks himself, isn’t really clear, but it is reassuring to think that about Obama.

As an aside, Brooks was wrong that “we like broccoli for emotional reasons”. Recent studies have shown some people have receptors in their tongues which register a bitterness others do not. It’s machinery: DNA, not brain function centered in emotions. Brooks is also probably wrong that brain research will give us much of an answer to public policy disputes. He said such research settles certain disputes: are we rational creatures?, for example. But those are academic, sophomoric discussions and don’t really touch the public. Ivory tower stuff. The counter argument is that the black swan phenomenon is based on just such human-as-rational-player assumptions. So maybe something useful will result from this research. I still doubt it.

The arts have always known, and even better, expressed, that we are emotional, irrational creatures; often act against our own best interests and are subject to the most pesky of character flaws that result in death, destruction, unhappiness, and all sorts of pandemonium. Brooks reminds me of the recent apotheosis of DNA and the “key to life”, we got the answer celebrations; it is one thing to understand the workings of the machinery of evolution, or of the crown jewel, the brain, but being able to draw any pragmatic benefits from that knowledge posits an enormously optimistic leap.

As Obama drifts the extreme Left is getting frantic. Obama doesn’t seem to have clear convictions or the ability to get anything done. He has trusted advisors who tell him he is charismatic and a great orator. But he can’t even convince Pelosi. A health care bill could have been passed if he saw that an election in Massachusetts might subvert things, and so push his allies to get it done NOW. Internationally, the world and the problems America faces are intractable and no media constructed tin god is going to convince anyone on the international stage to disown their interests.

The (disastrous) advice Obama is being offered (reportedly widely disseminated in media circles),

Set up a Team B with diverse political and national security observers like Tom Daschle, John Podesta, Brent Scowcroft, Arianna Huffington, Fareed Zakaria, Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Harris, James Fallows, Chuck Hagel, Strobe Talbott, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and others to give you a no-nonsense picture of what is going on…Otherwise, the Obama brand will be totally bust in the very near term.

That is from his supporters.

Some are speculating Obama is a loser. It is way to easy to say that, and too early to know. But the disturbing band of recommended advisors would, if embraced, wreck Obama’s chances. Could you believe Arianna Huffington and Zbigniew Brzezinski as advisors? (Of the whole list, only Fallows seems a reasonable and thoughtful addition.)

Obama has no feel for the public — a lack of empathy, or the common touch as some would say. That is characteristic of the self-absorbed. He can’t convince because he can’t connect. His goals weren’t bad, but like Bush, he is poor in implementation and surprisingly poor in communication — you have to have content at some point. Obama is reassuringly boring, not a bad fit for disconcerting times, but now he needs to believe in something other than himself and take the public along and the pols “will follow”.

If Obama took the advice offered in that quote, that is, go extreme Left, or as the partisan would say, “give you a no-nonsense picture of what is going on” (this is funny), he will destroy his presidency. He needs to govern from the center, pressure the bad guys internationally, and fully support the good guys, like India. Focus on benefits to the middle class of health care reform. Reassure the public that he gets the deficit issue is a big one, but not let himself be controlled by it. Not let the lobbyists win out; he enabled those lobbyists by throwing out campaign finance reform when he had lots of dough in the campaign, even though that was his sole “issue” — he is due some scrutiny about that, but you aren’t going to hear Katie Couric or The News Hour prodding…

This is an interesting moment for Obama and a dire one for the country. “He’s tried that and it didn’t work”, was said by many commentators after his failed ingratiating international visits. Obama, inexperienced and self-referencing, needs to find a deeper self. He seems like a decent sort. Maybe he can do it.

A nurse reports a doctor :

But it was beyond her conception that she would be indicted and threatened with 10 years in prison for doing what she knew a nurse must: inform state regulators that a doctor at her rural hospital was practicing bad medicine.

Maybe I’m misreading consensus opinion, but whistleblowers often seem vilified like prison snitches.

“It has derailed our careers, and we’re probably not going to be able to get them back on track again,” said Mrs. Galle, 54, a grandmother who is depicted around town as the soft-spoken Thelma to Mrs. Mitchell’s straight-shooting Louise. “We’re just in disbelief that you could be arrested for doing something you had been told your whole career was an obligation.” …Mrs. Mitchell said all she saw at the hospital was delay…“The medical staff needed to make a decision on him…You don’t get a second chance to save somebody’s life.”

Whistleblowers risk their livelihoods and reputations by going against consensus opinion — the powers that be. Many times the whistleblowers are performing good samaritan service at great risk and no benefit to themselves. Personal vendettas and falsehoods could be found out and punished, if that is the case. Why aren’t there laws to protect whistleblowers? Why aren’t there awards for their righteous acts?

What a great game. I was pulling for New Orleans so it turned out the way I had wanted. That always helps. But two great teams, two great quarterbacks, only one big mistake — by Manning. You could hardly fault anyone — it could have been anyone’s game.

Amazingly well-played . Well-coached. One of the few great Super Bowl games. Balanced in all ways: running to passing; defense and offense of both teams sterling. The onside kick, the straining two point conversion — memorable moments for the Saints.

The game was almost too exciting. Brees was so much snappier after half-time. What did they feed the guy? Great quarterback.

Every time I heard Pierre Garcon’s name I thought of Jean-Paul Jean-Paul from Seinfeld.

Commercials: Way. Too. Many.

…liked the Google ad…sleepwalker on the veldt probably the best (Coke)…even the census ad was funny. Speaking of ads, did they promote Katie Couric enough? Katie has to decide: does she want to be a “news director”, just like Brian? If so, walk the walk — at least attempt to be serious; the woman seems to want to be on Entertainment Tonight…a hint Katie: if a politician says he “enjoyed talking with you” it isn’t a bouquet warranting a beaming smile — it means you were played; what happened to “gotcha” Katie?…thought Obama did quite well in the interview though, if, as usual, unconvincing and detached…really don’t care for the talking baby and Jack In The Box ad franchises…the commercials in general were trying too hard: special effects and jokes and live action…it became a jumble with many of them — they should tell a story…like the Budweiser horse and his “buddy” — well-done.

The obvious:
America the Beautiful or God Bless America should be the national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner is such an awkward, tuneless contrivance…too many ads (may have said that)…

Supernatural and Modern Family are the two best shows on TV. Just needed to be said.

The expression of psychological conflict is woven into normative behavior in a society. Even behavior that is damaging can be shuttled into its expressing itself in certain ways, based on consensus expectations.

“In some epochs, convulsions, the sudden inability to speak or terrible leg pain may loom prominently in the repertoire. In other epochs patients may draw chiefly upon such symptoms as abdominal pain, false estimates of body weight and enervating weakness as metaphors for conveying psychic stress.”

This article suggests that America is exporting its concept of mental illness to the rest of the world and that the world is the worse off for it.

Although the article itself seems mediated by its own cultural bias, the side stories are fascinating:

In Zanzibar, schizophrenics are believed to be suffering from intermittent bouts of spirit possession. …this belief affects those around them, especially family members, which affects how they treat the individual with the condition: …It turns out that interaction patterns with a person possessed by spirits are actually healthier than those of family members in the West who believe the individual has a ‘mental illness.’ In fact, with US families, the more they try to ‘care’ for the schizophrenic family member, the more they fall into an unproductive interaction pattern with the individual with the illness. The issue is not just the belief, but the emotional quality of family interaction with a suffering individual; treat them one way, and it’s not just that you believe they’re different — the individual actually becomes different.

There are fashions in approaching mental illness: In the 1960s outlier psychiatrists would sentimentalize schizophrenia. What are they telling us? They have a right to their reality…that sort of interpretive bias. It was meant as sympathy and respect. But they were ignoring the pain of the victims of these afflictions and affecting a morally superior, self-congratulatory stance.

There is probably a subset of emotional issues that are culture bound but American imperialism isn’t responsible for the interplanetary insane asylum known as Planet Earth.

According to this NYT article scientists have discovered evidence of the actual color of the plumage of the theropods — the bipedal ancestors of birds. Scientists examined the feathers, which “contain pigment-loaded sacs called melanosomes.”

It turns out they look like chickens:

Anchiornis had a crown of reddish feathers surrounding dark gray ones, and its face was mottled with reddish and black spots. Its body was dark gray, but its limbfeathers were white with black tips.

Goodbye to the sepia haze of the imagined past.

You think Lost might be a little plot heavy? And a wee bit character thin. You think?

Lost does have lots of characters though and they are all emoting like a herd of constipated rhinos. Watching the actors strain at their assigned roles is like watching someone groan and grunt as they try to push a pea across the room with their nose. Not much excitement, nothing you care much about, but it is diverting — and honorable of them to try so hard.

I kept thinking of the indulged producers of this show. Wealthy out of all proportion to the value of what they do. Going into high end stores and saying, “I’ll have that and that, and that over there, I want that too.” Price is no object. They are rolling in dough.

So that is how they produce shows. I’ll do this, I’ll do that, say the producers: jerk the audience around for their own amusement. The only thing the script left out was an A-bomb. Correction: they have that too. They leave the actors bereft of plot and script and language. It will all work out — the audience will find meaning in it, because people want something to entertain — so they’ll make up the connective tissue and imagine logic. Earning the audience’s emotional involvement is too much of an effort — it’s Lost.

The only bright spot is Evangeline Lilly. She is like a pool of light in a fog — the camera loves her.

How does a show like this get on the air? Lost: The Mystery.

The appalling workings of the popular culture has regurgitated two stories of interest: the Leno / Conan story and the John Edwards saga. The human interest angle trumps the careerist aspect; the insight into consensus reaction is fascinating.

Leno almost appeared human in his appearance with Oprah. Leno could not be anyone’s favorite stand-up comic, but he is being excoriated for…taking a job? According to polls, many feel that Conan lost his job because of Leno. You have to hold your nose in saying it, but Leno is being treated unfairly in public perception.

Conan’s support boils down to his being likable. This is an unusual trait in a comedian — most are smart-asses. Conan presents as an authentically decent guy. Consonant with this idea, Conan fought to get his staff a nice slice of a rich pie in his parting with NBC. Loyalty counts for a lot. (Cynically, Leno represented his concern for his staff on Oprah, after seeing it as a useful tactic. It wasn’t a tactic for Conan, but it is for Leno. Leno also attempted to affect victim status, saying how hurt he was at being let go by NBC, with watery eyes too-easily marshaled for the occasion.)

If NBC had not hired Leno to replace Conan, they would have hired someone else. It is all about money. Conan was not doing well. Pop Culture=Money. They were going to fire Conan so The Tonight Show didn’t lose money for the first time in its history under any circumstances.

If NBC had let Conan go and replaced him with an array of revolving hosts while they “thought about it”, and then, at some date in the future, said, well, believe it or not, we think Jay would be good back at his old slot, the two events, of Conan going and Leno coming back, would have been separated in time and association.

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The Edwards’ case almost made you feel dirty. The cynicism, grasping for power and status mongering of the players had a wanton quality. There is probably something of that in all who seek office (and those who surround them). Politics is a dirty game — it corrupts even the well-meaning. Edwards and his wife seem particularly redolent with the costs of unbounding ambition. There was something sad underneath it. People running after they know not what.

Louis Menand’s book about education, “The Marketplace Of Ideas,” is under review at the NYT. Menand is a subtle writer and fine-grained thinker, so it is worthwhile paying attention, especially given the serious subject matter, and the  useful summary provided by a credible reviewer.

Menand shows that general education curriculums have been criticized since their inception less for being too broad in focus than for being too narrow in intent, more invested in making education socially “relevant” than in encouraging the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The earliest exponents of general education — John Erskine, Jacques Barzun, Lionel Trilling, Mortimer Adler — believed in teaching students the wisdom of the ages to prepare them to confront the pressing issues of the day…

The reviewer indicates that Menand does not usefully confront the glaring, obvious distortions in contemporary education — partisanship has poisoned the landscape. A lack of overview is denied students, cultural survey courses intimidated by politically correct directives.

[Menand] … does not explain, say, why Democrats outnumber Republicans 10 to 1 in departments of physics.

Some might say, “What’s the diff?” After all, it is physicists, and their charge is fact. Fact is slippery, is the answer. And the colored glasses worn outside of a discipline can make any judgment toxic. It is the way of thinking that poisons. This seems obvious, but for Menand, perhaps, being part of the club makes one reluctant to make a hard won membership precarious in criticism.

The reviewer suggests in conclusion that a more robust look at academic prejudice might be worthwhile.

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”

—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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The overflowing energy in art is love. This is true no matter how dark the work. The need for creative expression, as primary as any human need, if successful, instantiates love.

“Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream.”

—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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The dream of creative expression is an experience of the whole — the blooming, buzzing chaos yielding its inner harmony, and thus its meaning, miraculously. It is non-verbal, felt, and mysteriously embracing. It is being fully human.

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Mozart’s birthday was yesterday. His work came, as he describes, fully formed, leaping from him as a unity. The other paradigm of creation, that of Beethoven, has it that the work aggregates from smaller insights; Beethoven’s work habits are as cogent a model as that of Mozart. There are no rules in creating.