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Backstage Collapsed: Universal Recording and the Architecture of Courtship

A panelist on a recent broadcast conversation made the following argument. Young people across the wealthy world are not having children. Before they do not have children, they do not date. Before they do not date, they do not interact at the dances, the parties, the mixers their parents and grandparents used as the primary infrastructure for finding mates. Even when they show up at such gatherings, they hold the wall, not approaching, not asking, not risking the awkward overture that has been the entry-cost of human pairing for as long as human pairing has been formalized into ritual occasions. The panelist asked why, and answered himself. They are afraid of being recorded. They are afraid that any silly thing they say or any failed dance step or any drunk confession will be filmed and uploaded and used against them by people they cannot identify in advance. So they withdraw. The species, the panelist concluded, cannot continue under such conditions, and the only available remedy is to restrict the technology that produced those conditions.

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The Rehearsal State: When Governance Becomes Performance

There is a scene in every disaster movie where the official steps to the podium, adjusts the microphone, and assures the public that resources are being mobilized, plans are being activated, and the full weight of the institution is being brought to bear. The audience in the theater knows the official is lying or incompetent or both. The audience at home, watching the real version of the same press conference after the real hurricane or the real chemical spill, has no such certainty. They take the performance at face value. They go to bed believing the plan exists.

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The Risk of Erasing History with Ignorance

In the annals of time, history stands tall as an undying repository of deeds, triumphs, failures, and fables that have defined humanity’s trajectory. It is with a tinge of dismay, and a hint of alarming concern, that we discuss the burgeoning contempt for history against the people who dare not to know. We’re not just combating ignorance; we’re fighting an unfortunate relegation of the past to the inconsequential.

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Toss Aways

There have always always been disposable people in a limited-use society, but it’s worse now. We, as a nation of lonesome people found alone in a decaying world, have become much more than merely disposable. We have become the toss aways. We have lost our value. We have forfeited the way forward. We find ourselves teetering on the precipice between the living, and the dismayed, and the balance of the affair solely belongs to us — the us of us.

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Teddy Roosevelt and The Man in the Arena

On April 23, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt presented a spectacular speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

The title of his argument was — “Citizenship in a Republic” — and here is the famous “Man in The Arena” excerpt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

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No Dice When it Comes to Elevator Etiquette

How we behave in empty spaces — and then how we behave in those same spaces when others join us — has always been a fascination of mine.  There’s an “Elevator Dice Theory” arguing that people fill up that confined space in a predictable pattern that models a die face.  One person stands in the center.  Two people take opposing corners.  Three people stand in a diagonal row, and so on.

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TLC and their Little People Fetish

UPDATE:  March 1, 2010.  TLC did it again!  They added yet another “Little” show to their Fetish Agenda:  Our Little Lives.  Now this is getting out of hand!

TLC — The Learning Channel — is a strange place to watch stories about American lives.  TLC is infatuated with dysfunctional large families like “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” the Disgusting Duggars Family in “18 Kids and Counting” and their now litter of 19 children and, finally, “Table for 12.”  We can rightly dismiss TLC’s infatuation with big families because they are trying to recreate the fading revenue magic of the Jon and Kate misanthropy; but why is TLC fetishising on Little People?  How many Dwarf shows does one network need?  The answer appears to be:  Three.  The first, and most famous TLC Dwarf show, is “Little People Big World” starring the wacky Roloff family.

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Not Going with the Flow

I am one of those who refuse to “go with the flow” because — I have discovered over the arc of a long life — that “going with the flow” is actually a code phrase for having no schedule, and a cudgel of indecision against ambition, and a smothering blanket of malaise that excuses anyone “in the flow” from having any responsibility for getting anything done at all.

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Curse of the Beautiful People

Have you noticed how people born beautiful are actually cursed throughout their lifetimes — even though they may not know it?  There is a viciousness about The Beautiful that seeps from the inside out and changes their natural shine into an ethereal ugliness.

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Paranoid People and Physical Threats

Have ever been in an argument with someone — even to the point of ever-increasing voices and into shouting — only to have the person you are arguing with suddenly say something like, “Are you going to hit me, now?”  Instead of getting angrier, you are instead left dumbfounded as “hitting” your verbal opponent never crossed your mind.

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