The dialectic of elections

“Today only [stereotyped] thinking is left. People still vote, but only between totalities. The anti-Semitic psychology has largely been replaced by mere acceptance of the whole fascist ticket, which is an inventory of the slogans of belligerent big business. Just as, on the ballot paper of the mass party, voters are presented with the names of people remote from their experience for whom they can only vote en bloc, the central ideological concepts have been codified into a small number of lists. One has to opt for one of them en bloc if one’s own position is not to seem as futile as splinter votes on polling day in face of the statistical mammoths.” – Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, from “Elements of Anti-Semitism: Limits of Enlightenment” in The Dialectic of Enlightenment

Adorno and Horkheimer were writing in the long shadow of Hitler’s Germany, from which they fled along with almost all of their colleagues in the years leading up to the Second World War. The book from which the above quote is excerpted is a critique of the prevailing philosophy of civilization, one that, in the view of the authors, divides society into individuals (who worship at the altar of individuality), then forces conformity upon them (the better to control them as a collective mass). In the context of the chapter from which that quote is taken, Adorno and Horkheimer argue that anti-Semitism is essentially a symptom of the larger disease, not the cancer itself. Anti-Semitism is an expression of a cultural phenomenon that could be filled by virtually any other attitude that projects fear and self-loathing onto Difference.

What struck me about this particular passage is how uncannily — minus the period-specific references to anti-Semitism and fascism (which was, please remember, considered to be a viable and progressive political philosophy in the early 20th century) — it describes the election politics of the United States in the 21st century. One of the central themes of The Dialectic of Enlightenment is how sameness and conformity preserve the power structure of society by offering the illusion of choice to the average joe. This applies as equally to brands of soup as it does political parties. You don’t have to be a Marxist to appreciate just how much capital (cultural, economic, psychological) has been concentrated in the hands of America’s two biggest parties, and the myriad ways in which that power is wielded by both the parties’ gamesmanship and the sheer inertia of the system against the interests of the individual voters.

By dividing America in twain, the Democrats and Republicans haven’t offered choices to its citizens; they’ve categorized them as being One or the Other. If you are merely One or the Other, then you have little choice but to vote accordingly, which amounts to no choice at all. Whatever the differences between the two parties, consider that they and they alone have — together — monopolized the political establishment of this country for more than 150 years. In their theatrical struggle for power, they have exonerated the use of power itself as a political means. This is why you can hear each party claiming to “Take back America!” as if it had been stolen overnight from its crib.

Despite the changes in cultural values and their respective platforms, both parties have remained. Only those with money can gain entrance to the machine, and only those willing to perpetuate the false (that is, fraudulent) dichotomy as The Real Choice are permitted to stay. Every election is The Most Important Election in Our Lifetime. Only by giving a Mandate to Our Party can Real Change begin. The Others want to Destroy Your Country. Only We are Fighting to Preserve the Real America. Each is defined in opposition to the other, but it’s not a real contest: it’s two bullies dividing the class’s lunch money evenly between them, then flipping for that last quarter. The beauty of it is that they’ve convinced the rest of us that we actually have a stake in whether it lands heads or tails.

I’m not a Adorno/Horkheimer acolyte. But the pessimism exemplified in that quote articulates very well the frustration I feel regarding Decision 2012. It’s not a decision; it’s a coin toss. Worse than that, I know that the machine has won. Instead of seeing elections as an opportunity to direct their own political fate, the American people continue to treat election for political office as a beauty pageant. Good thing, too. We all know that the most valuable quality in an administrator is how often we’d like to have him over for a beer. The personal touch has been mechanized and commodified. In an age when the voice and image of a single person can be disseminated across thousands of miles to thousands of people via wires and electric pulses, it must be reassuring that it’s so easy to believe that, hey, I could easily imagine myself being that guy’s friend! He doesn’t even need to threaten me for my lunch money: I’ll hand it over gladly, because maybe he’ll see me for who I really am. I think he gets me, man. He really cares.

Why else would partisans work the phones on behalf of “Mitt” or “Barack”?

One more riposte from H & A. Substitute “industry” for “the two parties” and “customers and employees” for “voters and campaign volunteers.”

“Industry is interested in human beings only as its customers and employees and has in fact reduced humanity as a whole, like each of its elements, to this exhaustive formula. [...] As employees people are reminded of the rational organization and must fit into it as common sense requires. As customers they are regaled, whether on the screen or in the press, with human interest stories demonstrating freedom of choice and the charm of not belonging to the system. In both cases they remain objects.” – Horkheimer and Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” from The Dialectic of Enlightenment

Yep, they care, all right. You’d look just darling up on the shelf with their collectible Furbies.☕

Quote of the week: Move over, Chuck Norris.

Gary Johnson took a roundhouse kick to the face while sparring with Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris’s leg will heal in 4-6 months.

Though it hasn’t been updated since October, the Gary Johnson Facts Twitter feed has quite a few gems.  Looks like the GOP unwittingly lost a Nietzchean ubermensch when they let Johnson defect to the Libertarians.  Can you imagine anybody saying something like this about Mitt Romney?

Gary Johnson vetoed more bills than the other 49 governors combined. He also took them all on in hand-to-hand combat simultaneously and won.

You know how people say things like, “Politics is like one big cage match”?  If that weren’t a simile, chances are that Gary Johnson would currently be ruling the world.  On a throne fashioned from the bones of his opponents.

Quote of the Week: Bad reviews and how (not) to write them

Now, I understand that most one-star Amazon reviews are not actually reviews. They’re rants. Someone reads a bad book and they’re angry. They’re hurting and they want to lash out. They want the world to share their pain, and so they unleash a couple paragraphs of mouth-foaming invective and consider it a public service. I get it.

However, as a writer, I’d like to know why someone hates my work — not colorful, over-the-top descriptions of how much they hate it.

The above quote is courtesy of the sagacious Dan Swensen at Surly Muse.  Included in the post is a hilarious rundown of common “criticisms” that are actually barely-disguised exercises of bilious intellectual ineptitude.  I’ve been guilty of the things he lambastes, but he’s right on the money with all of it.  And even though he’s specifically talking books, we now have a virtual checklist of what not to do when writing reviews of pretty much anything.  Huzzah!

And don’t apologize for that Stigmata review, Dan.  Perhaps you recall my oh-so-well-modulated tirades about Secretary.  We all have our regrets.  Mine is that I didn’t have the excuse of being drunk.

During the movie.  (Inyaface!)

Quotes of the Week: God, games, and player failure

Having just reviewed an anime series where the main character is a self-identified gaming god, and having just decried Roger Ebert’s argument that video games can never be art, I thought I’d do a trifecta by highlighting a few articles touching on the theological implications of video games.  The first quote is from an article by Neil Sorens at Gamasutra, in which he considers the failings of God as a game designer:

With the ability to design both the players and the game, God should have been able to create a paradigm full of synergy and free of buzzwords.  Instead, for many dissatisfied players, it is only hardcoded compulsion that has kept the player base intact.  In fact, many players leave for significant periods of time and turn instead to games with far smaller budgets and ambitions and far less powerful designers to find enjoyment.

The comments on Sorens’s post are equally provocative and entertaining, as various people debate the merits of the thesis that our Creator buggered the job.  “Larry Charles” is confused:

He designed and built an entire Universe… filled with worlds which he did all of the environment art for, populated it with fully functioning, self sustaining and self regulating ecosystems, where just one world in particular, Earth, currently hosts 6,000,000,000 plus users who are always online, in 6 days…

And you wont hire him for your next MMO project?

“Douglas Baker” presents delayed gratification as a transcendental experience:

When we forsake short term pleasure for long term goals, especially ones that are us undefined as “an eternity in heaven” we are forsaking our own default state. We become more than the flesh we are born into, we become closer to God.

In game terms–we level up.

I’d like to quote the article that brought Sorens’s piece to my attention in the first place.  Over at Christ and Pop Culture, G. Christopher Williams has penned a thoughtful response to Sorens, in which the design flaws are reframed in terms of the designer’s artistic goal:

There is a certain kind of courage that an author has that is able to hand over his creation for others to play with, to take some authority over it, or, very simply put, to screw it up. At once, it seems a very bad idea. However, it also suggests that participation with the creation is important, that interaction with a world is desirable to its creator despite the potential for “failure” on the part of the participant, as if there is an interest in the creator in not merely dictating some script of his own design but to see what others will do with it and how they choose to enjoy it or abuse it.

In other words, it’s the nature of the medium that interactivity necessitates some form of player failure.  Again, the comments for that article as equally as worth reading as the piece itself.  Stephen Newport argues that perhaps the metaphor of “God as game designer” is apropos, but not in a good way:

[T]his player [was n]ever asked if he wanted to play the game in the first place! He is never given an option to simply “get off the ride” or merely not exist anymore. No, this designer has created a reality where there are two options: Find the key or be burnt alive! This is neither free will, nor a game where the player matters. Free will would give an option to not take part at all.

So maybe we’re not the players after all; maybe we’re the NPCs.

Let me posit just one more thought experiment.  It is fairly easy to posit God as the ultimate game designer.  But that restricts God to but one role, far removed from the game experience: the celestial clockmaker who winds up his cosmic watch and just lets events unfold as they may, allowing his Creation to rust and wind down, as if the universe were created simply so He would know when to take afternoon tea.  What if God is more immanent than a mere designer?  For the sake of rumination, let’s consider the metaphor of God as the game itself.  In a way, this would make God the code, rather than the coder (although, being God, I suppose he might be the code, the coder, and the NPC visual representations of the code).  Any metaphor we can devise for God will be both inadequate to expressing what exactly he is or how he functions, but every metaphor is an apt expression of the limited terms in which humans can imagine God as a concept.  All I am proposing is that besides the function of Creator, we also consider the function of Sustainer.  Theological problems will still be present, of course, as always.  I’d just like to explore moving a bit beyond quibbling over the flaws of the game design(er) itself and focus on what the game means, how it functions, and how best to play.  Isn’t that one of the highest functions of art in the first place? ☕

Quote of the week: Vincent Gallo hides it under a bushel (“No!”)

His greatness continues to elude you. Yes: you, specifically.

Danny Leigh, writing at the Guardian‘s film blog, relays the news that Vincent Gallo has elected not to screen his latest film, Promises Written in Water, for anyone ever again.  That’s right: the brand new film has only been seen by a handful of people, liked by about half of them, and it will never be seen again, because Gallo doesn’t want the misunderstanding audience’s “dark energies” hurting his cinematic baby.  Says Leigh:

[A]ll this may elicit a weary roll of the eye of the kind routinely made by Morrissey fans. We are, after all, talking about a man forever caught between open-mouthed awe at the scale of his own talent, and disgust at the world’s ongoing failure to make him King of it. But still, I think it’s worth noting this particular de facto retirement, and not only because it’s being presented as a drastic punishment in which we should all use this time to think seriously about what we’ve done.

Quotes of the Week: Scott, Dargis, and Rowling

Giant Army Robots: destroying Chicago to save it!

In the New York Times on Friday, the paper’s chief film critics, A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, discussed Michael Bay and popcorn movies.  Scott had the best line, in response to a citation Dargis made of a U.S. Army rep who had commented on our military’s collaboration with the film’s production:

The tastiest info-bit, though, comes from Lt. Col. Paul Sinor, an Army public affairs officer with the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs. “ ‘Transformers’ is science fiction,” Colonel Sinor explains. “The Army has never fought giant robots, but if we did, this is probably how we’d do it.”

To which Scott replied:

Wait, the Army wouldn’t have its own team of giant robots? They would send a half-dozen outgunned commandos into a city under siege to take it back? Where is my tax money going?