Some time ago I had occasion to write about "narcissism." What seemed to me to distinguish narcissism from milder forms of selfishness and self-absorption is that the narcissist does not only put themselves first, but expects others to put them first as well at all times.
This is, of course, an unreasonable attitude for anyone to take toward others. However, as with much that is unreasonable in this endlessly moralizing society we live in with its double and triple and quintuple standards, it is treated as perfectly acceptable in those of high status, whose narcissism is given free rein, while any self-love at all in the less privileged might be unfairly accused of being narcissism of this kind.
As I have remarked, we see narcissism indulged in this way in royalty--every stupid detail of their life given breathless treatment by an unhinged media which treats anyone who finds this foolish as a low and unworthy person, and by no means in just those particular royals' countries. (As Joseph Scalice quipped, Elizabeth Windsor was monarch of Britain, "[b]ut anyone watching TV or reading a newspaper could be forgiven for thinking she was . . . queen of the world" from the attention accorded her in the United States.)
However, there are other sorts of "royalty," as figures from the entertainment world, for example, never cease to remind us. ("I'm still the King!" rants one unhinged example of the type on the track "King" from his latest album.) Their insanity may be less widely and deeply supported than that of crowned heads of state--but it nonetheless finds a measure of backing such as would be inconceivable for even far slighter self-assertion on the part of a "nobody." And in that, I suppose, one can find a measure by which to judge whether or not a person who has for some reason or other ceased to be obscure can really be regarded as a celebrity--the extent to which the media Establishment is prepared to indulge, even to promote, insane narcissism on their part.
Friday, April 19, 2024
Who is Allowed to Love Themselves?
Kurt Vonnegut's classic Slaughter-house Five is a tale (or, given its postmodernist character, anti-tale) about the bombing of Dresden and the relation of time, space, causality and volition--as revealed to its protagonist by the extraterrestrials from Tralfamador who abduct him for display in their zoo. However, it may well be that the most oft-quoted passage in the book has to do not with these but rather Americans' attitude toward wealth and its possession, and particularly the attitude of those who do not have wealth toward themselves as a result of the lack. Believing the "destructive untruth that it is very easy for any American to make money" those Americans who have not done so "blame and blame and blame themselves," and end up loving neither themselves nor each other--an attitude of course urged on them relentlessly, not least by the "rich and powerful" for whom such "inward blame has been a treasure," letting them "do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class" in centuries.
The passage, which has clearly struck a chord with many in the half century since Vonnegut published it (and perhaps done so with more people as the years went by, given the turn of America's political culture), is a reminder that society--hierarchical, exploitative, unequal--does not treat "self-love" as equally the right of all its members, and never lets them forget it. Rather self-love is a privilege of the privileged, with the most extreme example of this monarchy--whose claimed prerogatives the ever-quotable Thorstein Veblen summed up as "inferiority complex with benefit of clergy." Those occupying such strata of privilege are treated not only as having the right to love themselves, but to narcissistically demand the love of everyone.
Quite naturally those of the less privileged strata who violate this rule by simply loving themselves are attacked for it. They are accused of "acting entitled," and should they give evidences of thinking that, in line with their love for themselves, they have not been treated as they think they ought to have been treated, they are accused of the grave sin and crime of "self-pity."
Those who fling about such accusations may think they are upholding morality. Instead they are likely doing the opposite, engaging in the highly immoral practice of moralizing. For after all, those quick to harangue others for their supposed failings in the manner described here tend to be too conventional, too conformist and too cowardly to ever accuse those whose behavior is truly entitled, truly a display of privilege, truly self-pitying, and in feeling so far more likely to be dangerous and harmful to others, because the feeling is combined with power and so inimical to the responsibility supposed to go with it.
The passage, which has clearly struck a chord with many in the half century since Vonnegut published it (and perhaps done so with more people as the years went by, given the turn of America's political culture), is a reminder that society--hierarchical, exploitative, unequal--does not treat "self-love" as equally the right of all its members, and never lets them forget it. Rather self-love is a privilege of the privileged, with the most extreme example of this monarchy--whose claimed prerogatives the ever-quotable Thorstein Veblen summed up as "inferiority complex with benefit of clergy." Those occupying such strata of privilege are treated not only as having the right to love themselves, but to narcissistically demand the love of everyone.
Quite naturally those of the less privileged strata who violate this rule by simply loving themselves are attacked for it. They are accused of "acting entitled," and should they give evidences of thinking that, in line with their love for themselves, they have not been treated as they think they ought to have been treated, they are accused of the grave sin and crime of "self-pity."
Those who fling about such accusations may think they are upholding morality. Instead they are likely doing the opposite, engaging in the highly immoral practice of moralizing. For after all, those quick to harangue others for their supposed failings in the manner described here tend to be too conventional, too conformist and too cowardly to ever accuse those whose behavior is truly entitled, truly a display of privilege, truly self-pitying, and in feeling so far more likely to be dangerous and harmful to others, because the feeling is combined with power and so inimical to the responsibility supposed to go with it.
On "Self-Pity," Again
As I remarked not long ago contemporary English is saturated with expressions for conveying one's indifference, or outright contempt, for other people in a way that seems none too flattering of the historical moment in which we have found ourselves.
Many such words and phrases are actually words repurposed from their original meanings--with reflective of this the way we have turned a vocabulary of moral criticism into a vocabulary of moralizing, with exemplary of this the use of the word "self-pity." As I have stated before I do not deny the validity of the concept--that people do indeed feel self-pity--but society being what it is people make the accusation far more lightly than they ought; and usually against those least deserving, precisely because of their cowardice in the face of those who really do feel self-pity, and really do hurt others through it; and that it is often more about those speaking than those spoken to.
Think of it this way: if I accuse you of self-pity, I give myself permission to not only not care about your problem, but tell you so to your face as you sit there suffering. I give myself an excuse to be callous.
Not exactly uplifting, that--but in a society always offering excuses for "tough love," people of conventional mind eat it up.
Many such words and phrases are actually words repurposed from their original meanings--with reflective of this the way we have turned a vocabulary of moral criticism into a vocabulary of moralizing, with exemplary of this the use of the word "self-pity." As I have stated before I do not deny the validity of the concept--that people do indeed feel self-pity--but society being what it is people make the accusation far more lightly than they ought; and usually against those least deserving, precisely because of their cowardice in the face of those who really do feel self-pity, and really do hurt others through it; and that it is often more about those speaking than those spoken to.
Think of it this way: if I accuse you of self-pity, I give myself permission to not only not care about your problem, but tell you so to your face as you sit there suffering. I give myself an excuse to be callous.
Not exactly uplifting, that--but in a society always offering excuses for "tough love," people of conventional mind eat it up.
Of Moralizing
In hearing the word "moralizing" I suppose most unfamiliar with the term fixate on the root word "moral" and think that moralizing must be an essentially moral thing to do. However, a closer look at that calls the assumption into question. As the Oxford Languages definition of the term indicates, one does not merely make a judgment, but makes it with an "unfounded air of superiority" as they set about being "overly critical" of the object of their judgment (emphasis added).
The combination of unfounded superiority and excessiveness of criticism makes clear that something beyond calling out a genuine and genuinely troubling moral failing is usually going on. In practice I tend to find that those who moralize at others are interested mainly in suppressing them, and specifically suppressing their protests over something unfair or exploitative.
Considering this John Kenneth Galbraith's concept of "convenient social virtue" comes to mind. The moralizer tends to demand such virtue from others--either obliviously failing, or cynically refusing, to distinguish what is merely convenient for them and people like them from what is actually virtuous in others, and treating a just objection to their own unvirtuous attitude as a want of virtue in that other person. In the process their moralizing proves not a moral judgment but a perverse inversion of morality for what are typically very immoral ends.
The combination of unfounded superiority and excessiveness of criticism makes clear that something beyond calling out a genuine and genuinely troubling moral failing is usually going on. In practice I tend to find that those who moralize at others are interested mainly in suppressing them, and specifically suppressing their protests over something unfair or exploitative.
Considering this John Kenneth Galbraith's concept of "convenient social virtue" comes to mind. The moralizer tends to demand such virtue from others--either obliviously failing, or cynically refusing, to distinguish what is merely convenient for them and people like them from what is actually virtuous in others, and treating a just objection to their own unvirtuous attitude as a want of virtue in that other person. In the process their moralizing proves not a moral judgment but a perverse inversion of morality for what are typically very immoral ends.
The Wearisomeness of Advice About "Your Health"
Looking at the bestseller lists is a dreary experience--a reminder of how, in an age in which reading may be so uncommon that anyone who reads any sort of book at all may be thought at least a cut about the rest intellectually, even those who read have an exceedingly limited, narrow, range of interest, and a susceptibility to old scams. This goes for nonfiction as well as fiction, where books purporting to offer advice about improving one's health are always evident.
It is entirely right that people be interested in the subject. But for a long time it has been rare indeed that the books available justified their interest in their specific content.
In spite of the impression we are always given that medical researchers are "making new discoveries every day," the reality seems to be that the vast bulk of the research is garbage, and what discoveries they make are not being translated into actionable advice that people can hypothetically apply in their own lives. Comparative minutiae apart (during which the medical community frustratingly goes back and forth, as they have recently done in regard to red wine, in a manner all but designed to feed the impulse to medical nihilism), the medical professionals who write these books give the same advice over and over again.
Exercise. Get your sleep. Don't smoke. Don't drink, or if you do drink drink very little. Avoid stress, and manage what you can't avoid.
And of course, "Abandon all hope of culinary pleasure ye who enter here." (Because no matter how many times they tell you otherwise a carrot stick is just not as satisfying a snack as a potato chip or a candy bar.)
Much of the advice isn't particularly pleasant. Not exercising and eating what you actually want is a lot more fun than the other way around, and there is no doubt that people are sick of being told to do the opposite.
And anyway, the really hard part is actually implementing it in an active, harried life with many demands and limited means. The plain and simple fact is that few have much control over their lives, and a very limited range of options with regard to any changes in their lives (with the fact that they have tried and failed to do what they ought, perhaps repeatedly, making the prescriptions the more depressing). Indeed, writing in The Road to Wigan Pier it seems to me that the non-doctor George Orwell displayed a better understanding of what we might today think of as the problem of obesity than a hundred of our health book writers put together--precisely because he was not so remote from the realities of the daily lives of the general public as they, fixated as they are on their Platonic images of unwell persons ready to make a new beginning, like sinners who have been born again.
It is entirely right that people be interested in the subject. But for a long time it has been rare indeed that the books available justified their interest in their specific content.
In spite of the impression we are always given that medical researchers are "making new discoveries every day," the reality seems to be that the vast bulk of the research is garbage, and what discoveries they make are not being translated into actionable advice that people can hypothetically apply in their own lives. Comparative minutiae apart (during which the medical community frustratingly goes back and forth, as they have recently done in regard to red wine, in a manner all but designed to feed the impulse to medical nihilism), the medical professionals who write these books give the same advice over and over again.
Exercise. Get your sleep. Don't smoke. Don't drink, or if you do drink drink very little. Avoid stress, and manage what you can't avoid.
And of course, "Abandon all hope of culinary pleasure ye who enter here." (Because no matter how many times they tell you otherwise a carrot stick is just not as satisfying a snack as a potato chip or a candy bar.)
Much of the advice isn't particularly pleasant. Not exercising and eating what you actually want is a lot more fun than the other way around, and there is no doubt that people are sick of being told to do the opposite.
And anyway, the really hard part is actually implementing it in an active, harried life with many demands and limited means. The plain and simple fact is that few have much control over their lives, and a very limited range of options with regard to any changes in their lives (with the fact that they have tried and failed to do what they ought, perhaps repeatedly, making the prescriptions the more depressing). Indeed, writing in The Road to Wigan Pier it seems to me that the non-doctor George Orwell displayed a better understanding of what we might today think of as the problem of obesity than a hundred of our health book writers put together--precisely because he was not so remote from the realities of the daily lives of the general public as they, fixated as they are on their Platonic images of unwell persons ready to make a new beginning, like sinners who have been born again.
The Las Vegas Story: A Few Thoughts
The 1952 Howard Hughes-produced, Robert Stevenson-directed RKO production The Las Vegas Story was apparently not much regarded at the time of the release, and subsequently slipped into obscurity rather than gaining esteem with time. This is not wholly without reason, the film a far cry from what such noir is like at the crafted, gritty, taut, biting best an Orson Welles, for example, could deliver.
Still, The Last Vegas Story (whose behind-the-camera goings-on really do assure it a place in cinematic history by way of its place in the ugly history of the Hollywood blacklist) does have its points of interest as a movie. Among them is the titular setting--Las Vegas in its early days, for which the film would seem an ad years before Ocean's Eleven came along (1960) (Hughes, who would be so famously identified with the city in later years, having already taken an interest in the place years before).
Likely reflecting another Hughes interest, aviation, there is an ahead-of-its-time and still quite effective set piece involving the then-novelty of a helicopter in a chase through the desert at the story's climax. Seemingly reflective of the slowness of critics to catch on to the use of such set pieces as anything other than slapstick, Bosley Crowther called it "Keystone"--while the more general audience proved more responsive to the kinds of thrills they offered. (Or French audiences were, at least. In his own review of the film soon-to-be-legendary filmmaker Francois Truffaut remarked that "[e]veryone in Paris" was "talking about" the chase scene, to his apparent annoyance.)
And of course there is the film's cast, above all longtime Hughes star Jane Russell, as memorable a presence as ever in a film in which one is reminded of the many reasons why old-fashioned cinematic stardom no longer exists. Not the least of these is that movies have to have room for a movie and its star to breathe for that to happen, something films that were even less than perfectly crafted back then, but which is a lot less likely to be found in our high concept era with its relentless, frenzied, cutting among close shots that are so often its only kind. ( As Andrew Sarris put it "There was always a technical floor under movies . . . a kind of restraint," which vanished in that "blind worship of 'energy" that has "[a]lmost any old movie look[ing] classical today.")
Notable too in a very, very different way there is a bit part for Hoagy Carmichael, playing piano in a hotel lobby.
I suspect no one then imagined that Carmichael's would be the face accorded the character who was to become the most famous of fictional secret agents when Ian Fleming started cranking out a novel also set in a town notable principally for its casino scarcely a year after the film's release. ("He reminds me of Hoagy Carmichael" the Vesper Lynd of the novel said in a line that, of course, was like a great deal else not part of the 2006 film version of Casino Royale.) Did this movie play any part in that? Perhaps not. Still, Vegas did feature prominently in Fleming's fourth James Bond novel, Diamonds Are Forever (just the beginning of a long tendency to associate Bond and Bond-type spies generally with that town and its casinos), while the same book not incidentally featured a set piece involving a helicopter as its big action finale . . .
Still, The Last Vegas Story (whose behind-the-camera goings-on really do assure it a place in cinematic history by way of its place in the ugly history of the Hollywood blacklist) does have its points of interest as a movie. Among them is the titular setting--Las Vegas in its early days, for which the film would seem an ad years before Ocean's Eleven came along (1960) (Hughes, who would be so famously identified with the city in later years, having already taken an interest in the place years before).
And of course there is the film's cast, above all longtime Hughes star Jane Russell, as memorable a presence as ever in a film in which one is reminded of the many reasons why old-fashioned cinematic stardom no longer exists. Not the least of these is that movies have to have room for a movie and its star to breathe for that to happen, something films that were even less than perfectly crafted back then, but which is a lot less likely to be found in our high concept era with its relentless, frenzied, cutting among close shots that are so often its only kind. ( As Andrew Sarris put it "There was always a technical floor under movies . . . a kind of restraint," which vanished in that "blind worship of 'energy" that has "[a]lmost any old movie look[ing] classical today.")
Notable too in a very, very different way there is a bit part for Hoagy Carmichael, playing piano in a hotel lobby.
I suspect no one then imagined that Carmichael's would be the face accorded the character who was to become the most famous of fictional secret agents when Ian Fleming started cranking out a novel also set in a town notable principally for its casino scarcely a year after the film's release. ("He reminds me of Hoagy Carmichael" the Vesper Lynd of the novel said in a line that, of course, was like a great deal else not part of the 2006 film version of Casino Royale.) Did this movie play any part in that? Perhaps not. Still, Vegas did feature prominently in Fleming's fourth James Bond novel, Diamonds Are Forever (just the beginning of a long tendency to associate Bond and Bond-type spies generally with that town and its casinos), while the same book not incidentally featured a set piece involving a helicopter as its big action finale . . .
What TV Show Gets Referenced Most in Our Online Discussion Today?
If I had to guess I would say The Simpsons, with Seinfeld perhaps in second place.
That may seem odd, given the age of both shows, but I think it has to do with their arriving at the right time--their being around, and indeed at their peak, just before television viewership began to fragment, but after the dawn of the Internet, while going on to have a good long life through the earlier years of the Web's development by way of fond memories sustained by intensive reruns.
By contrast shows like Bewitched, MASH and even Cheers (the last episode of which aired in early 1993) were already receding into the past by that point--all as later shows such as The Office arrived in that more thoroughly web-connected but pop culturally fragmented world. (Some 76 million people watched the finale of Seinfeld, over a quarter of the country. By contrast about 5.7 million people watched the last episode of The Office--not quite 2 percent of the country's population at the time.) And of course later, non-network, prestige TV, with its streaming and cable outlets, its tendency to short runs, and toward idiosyncrasy and pretension rather than broad appeal and certainly the kind of light entertainment appeal that makes a show easy to watch over and over and over again, has been even less promising that way. The result is that if some of the content of these shows has proven memeworthy, none of them compare with those giants of '90s pop culture for plain and simple ubiquity.
That may seem odd, given the age of both shows, but I think it has to do with their arriving at the right time--their being around, and indeed at their peak, just before television viewership began to fragment, but after the dawn of the Internet, while going on to have a good long life through the earlier years of the Web's development by way of fond memories sustained by intensive reruns.
By contrast shows like Bewitched, MASH and even Cheers (the last episode of which aired in early 1993) were already receding into the past by that point--all as later shows such as The Office arrived in that more thoroughly web-connected but pop culturally fragmented world. (Some 76 million people watched the finale of Seinfeld, over a quarter of the country. By contrast about 5.7 million people watched the last episode of The Office--not quite 2 percent of the country's population at the time.) And of course later, non-network, prestige TV, with its streaming and cable outlets, its tendency to short runs, and toward idiosyncrasy and pretension rather than broad appeal and certainly the kind of light entertainment appeal that makes a show easy to watch over and over and over again, has been even less promising that way. The result is that if some of the content of these shows has proven memeworthy, none of them compare with those giants of '90s pop culture for plain and simple ubiquity.
Why is "The End of Science Fiction" Such a Tough Idea for People to Grasp?
There are many reasons for that. After all, what fan of something wants to hear that the thing they enjoy is in some kind of terminal decline? And certainly those whose living is in some way tied up with the health of a genre (like writers and editors) have no desire to hear such a claim either--indeed, the attitude of far too many of these a boosterism as intolerant as it is self-satisfied and vulgar. Indeed, those dubious about such talk can and do quite easily claim that it is a matter of someone simply not liking the "new stuff."
Yet there is also what it takes to even evaluate such an argument. One would have to think about what the term "genre" means, and how a genre develops--of genres as bodies of work united by shared themes and elements and techniques, by the familiarity of the creators and consumers of work in that genre with particular "classics" that serve as touchstones for them, by the tradition and discourse and community that all of this produces. They would have to be able to think about how a genre is not a constant thing over time, and how particular works and artists fit into that constancy and inconstancy. They would also have to be able to think about the difference between what is merely new, and what is original in a genre. And as all this implies, to get any use from the concepts discussed here they would have to know a good deal of the facts of the genre's history--the works that appeared over time, what was innovative at a certain point and what was not, how people reacted to it, and so forth.
In short, they would have to set aside the view of genre as a mere "commercial category," and simplistic, individualistic images of how artists work, and instead think theoretically, historically, systematically within a broad and deep knowledge of their genre.
The ability to think theoretically, historically, systematically, is not exactly something many people get from even an exceptionally advanced education--as the "elite" constantly demonstrates. Much of this is just too subtle for them, while only those who have been old, longtime, fans of exceptional alertness, and those who deliberately sought out such knowledge, are likely to amass the kind of knowledge of a genre that lets them weigh a genre's history according to such a standard. They are fewer still. The more open-minded may confess that such discussion is a bit above their heads--but the more common, conventional, attitude is to simply dismiss the argument as not worth the consideration they are incapable of offering it even if they could.
On the Strange Afterlife of the Superhero Comic
Writing about the last I argued that by the 1980s the genre had passed into its third and last generation, where its boundaries are established, its potentials already largely exploited, its canon pretty well completed, whatever contribution it was going to make to the larger culture not just issued but assimilated, and continued activity in it apt to treat the form as an "inside joke . . . treasured family story . . . or a set of exercises in which to display virtuosity." (Consider, for instance, how well-known it has all been for so long, how the list of heroes we would consider really "A-list" has not seen any additions for a long time, how the work that was really interesting in the form tended to be metafictional and subversive--as with Alan Moore's contributions, or Warren Ellis' Planetary, while even at its lightest a good deal of other Wildstorm material squarely fell into the "treasured family story" category, and how in the years since there just has not seemed to be anywhere for the genre to go in their original medium.)
All these decades later it does not seem unreasonable to say (and I did say) that we are past the genre's third generation--that life has passed into what Barnes called "afterlife," with the genre's course pretty much run, even if it has not departed, continuing less as living than "undead." But I think it has appeared to be less undead than it really is, even beyond the fact that few people think in the kinds of terms in which Barnes discussed such things. For explanation of this strange state of things one can look to the way the superhero movie boom emerged in that third generation, making superhero comics look more relevant (and popular) than they have really been--even though this was mainly a matter of superhero stories conveniently fitting in with particular demands of the studios (namely brand name, easily digestable sci-fi spectacle for the big screen). However, related to this fixation has been the lack of new, living, growing genres--genres which, by capturing attention, would allow attention to the undead to fade away, the undead holding the ground for lack of challenge by the living.
"You Can't Win an Argument With an Idiot"
I'm not sure who said this one first, but it's certainly true--you can't win an argument with an idiot.
After all, what makes a personal reveal themselves as an idiot in the course of argument? They show themselves such through an incapacity to distinguish between fact and opinion--and especially their own opinions and the facts, because of other lacks, like the slightest ability to reason, leaving them incapable of judging among claims and the arguments for them, something they have little inclination to try and do anyway. Because, after all, their attention spans are exceedingly limited, what attention span they do have they are unwilling to deploy because they are incapable of respect for, or even civility toward, other people, and they think all this is just fine--they think nothing needs to be longer than a six-paragraph blog post--as they "know what they know," and nothing anyone else has to say matters.
Alas, some of us find ourselves surrounded by nothing but idiots, with some of them people we are forced to deal with because they have the power in some situation.
Could it be that the world mostly consists of idiots?
Perhaps. But it also seems to me that the cultural moment, the political moment, we are in is all but designed to encourage idiocy. A society that, while denigrating intelligence and learning, worships mean and stupid self-assertiveness, and finds endless excuses for the worst sort of behavior, cannot be otherwise. It is also the case that, contrary to the stupid faith of the conformist that the world is a meritocracy idiots pursue position and power very successfully, the more in as, being idiots, they see in power not responsibility but only sources of satisfaction to themselves. And because, as David Graeber observed, power, especially when sanctified by "authority," makes people who were not necessarily idiots before into idiots.
Perhaps the best we can do is to choose those occasions when we do argue with care, avoiding argument whenever we can.
That most certainly includes not getting sucked into arguments with online strangers who may actually be bots.
After all, what makes a personal reveal themselves as an idiot in the course of argument? They show themselves such through an incapacity to distinguish between fact and opinion--and especially their own opinions and the facts, because of other lacks, like the slightest ability to reason, leaving them incapable of judging among claims and the arguments for them, something they have little inclination to try and do anyway. Because, after all, their attention spans are exceedingly limited, what attention span they do have they are unwilling to deploy because they are incapable of respect for, or even civility toward, other people, and they think all this is just fine--they think nothing needs to be longer than a six-paragraph blog post--as they "know what they know," and nothing anyone else has to say matters.
Alas, some of us find ourselves surrounded by nothing but idiots, with some of them people we are forced to deal with because they have the power in some situation.
Could it be that the world mostly consists of idiots?
Perhaps. But it also seems to me that the cultural moment, the political moment, we are in is all but designed to encourage idiocy. A society that, while denigrating intelligence and learning, worships mean and stupid self-assertiveness, and finds endless excuses for the worst sort of behavior, cannot be otherwise. It is also the case that, contrary to the stupid faith of the conformist that the world is a meritocracy idiots pursue position and power very successfully, the more in as, being idiots, they see in power not responsibility but only sources of satisfaction to themselves. And because, as David Graeber observed, power, especially when sanctified by "authority," makes people who were not necessarily idiots before into idiots.
Perhaps the best we can do is to choose those occasions when we do argue with care, avoiding argument whenever we can.
That most certainly includes not getting sucked into arguments with online strangers who may actually be bots.
Revisiting the Question of a Film Version of The Honourable Schoolboy
Back then I concluded that the odds of a feature film sequel were not great--because the material, much more than any other Smiley novel, would require a fairly big budget for faithful conveyance of the story's content, a bigger one than the first film's success justified, while I suspected that given the film's content it would not play in China, a thing which back then was increasingly important in film backers' calculations. (Alfredson's Tinker notably relocated an important piece of the story's action from Hong Kong to Istanbul for this reason--but anything like that with Honourable is simply not feasible.)
Today, more than a dozen years after the film's release, one would think that anyone taking on this part of the Smiley saga would be thinking "reboot" rather than a sequel, perhaps attempting to do Tinker over again before getting on with Honourable--while as if that were not trouble enough, there is the post-pandemic reality of the film business. The big blockbusters are less sure-fire than they used to be--but at the same time the serious dramas have only gone on getting riskier. Indeed, as Bryan Wizemann said in an interview a couple of years ago, every filmmaker he knew started "trying to figure out how to break [their scripts] into 10 longer pieces because that seemed to be what was getting made" as drama largely shifted over from theatrical release to streaming--while the big studios, belatedly realizing that the profits to be made in this area were not boundless, have been cutting back sharply on for-streaming content, to the point of being ready to bury films that they already made (with Netflix just adding to the list of such canceled projects a Halle Berry science fiction movie).
The possibility that a proper Smiley vs. Karla saga will find a home on streaming in the circumstances thus looks no greater than its being realized on the big screen these days barring some extraordinary spike of interest in it that seems to me very unlikely--what we watch less and less likely to have any relation to what we read, precisely because so few do.
The Cinematic Book Adaptation in an Era in Which People Don't Read
Back in 2022 Where the Crawdads Sing brought in $90 million domestically, and a little over half that internationally--which in the end actually allowed it to be one of the year's more profitable films. (If no billion-dollar blockbuster, it also did not have a billion-dollar blockbuster budget.) Still, one might have imagined it being a bigger hit given howpopular the book was, even with the critics less than enthusiastic about the movie. And I have wondered since (especially after the weak response to another film based on a hugely successful book, Killers of the Flower Moon), whether this is not in its way suggestive of the trend of things with regard to publishing--fewer people reading, with a reflection of that how even bestsellers not moving so many copies as before and meaning less even to the people who do read them, such that fewer of them will come out for the movie. Even just in this century movies based on the works of J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, Suzanne Collins and E.L. James made for some of its biggest cinematic hits--but from here on out success on that scale is probably going to be an increasing longshot for any book not already established as a multimedia franchise, one likely so established that way that their origin in a book is practically irrelevant to their pop cultural cachet, even when the franchise-runners spend a great deal of time reminding everyone about it (as they do with James Bond).
"Why Don't More Students Get Engineering Degrees?" Again
Recently writing about the reality of American higher education I have found myself debunking the myth of a labor market awash in holders of "useless" degrees amid a shortage of trained STEM workers. The reality is that more Americans are going for STEM degrees, and especially the engineering training for which STEM can seem a euphemism, as the production of humanities graduates collapses--while those recently graduated STEM degree holders, even amid the tight labor market officially prevailing, face significant risk of underemployment and a rapid decline on whatever wage premium their degrees afford them as their skills, in their employers' eyes at least, obsolesce.
Still, it does seem worth admitting that the percentage of students who go for arts degrees of various kinds is high--higher than many observers of the scene would like, thinking it better that they go for engineering degrees, quantitative business degrees, and the like instead. The plain and simple answer is that, apart from the hopes of many that they will be the one to beat the odds to become a superstar (far more widespread, I think, than is usually admitted), and in many cases thinking that if they have to "fall back" there is always teaching (certainly I have made my case that this keeps English departments in low-cost adjunct labor), there is the matter of their loving what they do. Contrary to those who ceaselessly rant and rave about young people's choices (in either ignorance or bad faith) few will get an engineering degree if they do not expect it to pay and pay well soon (indeed, pay better than the publicity may be making them think it does). However, where art is concerned more are willing to take their chances.
Still, it does seem worth admitting that the percentage of students who go for arts degrees of various kinds is high--higher than many observers of the scene would like, thinking it better that they go for engineering degrees, quantitative business degrees, and the like instead. The plain and simple answer is that, apart from the hopes of many that they will be the one to beat the odds to become a superstar (far more widespread, I think, than is usually admitted), and in many cases thinking that if they have to "fall back" there is always teaching (certainly I have made my case that this keeps English departments in low-cost adjunct labor), there is the matter of their loving what they do. Contrary to those who ceaselessly rant and rave about young people's choices (in either ignorance or bad faith) few will get an engineering degree if they do not expect it to pay and pay well soon (indeed, pay better than the publicity may be making them think it does). However, where art is concerned more are willing to take their chances.
"Why Don't More Students Get Engineering Degrees?"
I have always felt that in the discussion of American deindustrialization the talk of education has been a red herring. America did not deindustrialize because American college students picked "soft majors." (Indeed, it is worth noting that between 1975 and the late '10s the number of engineering graduates in the U.S. tripled, with the last part of that period seeing a particular surge among American-born students.) Rather the issue was that the end of the post-war boom, the stiffening of international competition, the falling profitability of manufacturing, the opportunities opened up by deregulation, led investors to favor financial maneuvers, real estates, offshoring, over domestic production--and they have never looked back since.
Still, it does seem worth admitting that American youth may be less inclined than their foreign counterparts to this particular major. However, it seems to me that this is traceable to the paths they are encouraged to follow in their own self-interest.
Consider the stereotypical intelligent, ambitious young person who heeds the advice of their elders. Conventionally they are going for careers in medicine or law. If they want to bet on making really big money they are directed toward finance. If their inclinations are technical they are directed toward computing. If they simply do not know what to do with themselves they are directed toward generic business degrees. Meanwhile even the strident chant of STEM, STEM, STEM factors into this--by obscuring the fact that what the STEM-mongers really want is not more astrophysicists or theoretical mathematicians or professors of biology but engineers providing American industry with a larger pool of skilled labor by instead making them think that "basic" science degree-holders have more opportunity than is really the case (all as lots of college departments confuse things further by getting themselves reclassed as STEM to get a crack at the money held out for those participating in the campaign).
The young responded accordingly, going where they were told the rewards were--and their elders responded with their usual stupid outrage, in line with the prevailing view that while it is fair and right that business follow their self-interest as they understand it best it is somehow unfair and wrong, mean and shabby, that workers do the same, as though they should instead think only of "public service" when picking their majors.
Were engineering to be perceived as being as rewarding in terms of pay and prestige as medicine and law and finance one would see still more young people heading into it than is already the case. However, the reality is quite different--even before one considers the underappreciated facts about STEM major underemployment and how quickly the wage premium on a STEM degree fades even for those who do get jobs in their line soon after graduation, soon leaving the worker doing no better even if they had not departed for a job they could have done without such a degree.
Still, it does seem worth admitting that American youth may be less inclined than their foreign counterparts to this particular major. However, it seems to me that this is traceable to the paths they are encouraged to follow in their own self-interest.
Consider the stereotypical intelligent, ambitious young person who heeds the advice of their elders. Conventionally they are going for careers in medicine or law. If they want to bet on making really big money they are directed toward finance. If their inclinations are technical they are directed toward computing. If they simply do not know what to do with themselves they are directed toward generic business degrees. Meanwhile even the strident chant of STEM, STEM, STEM factors into this--by obscuring the fact that what the STEM-mongers really want is not more astrophysicists or theoretical mathematicians or professors of biology but engineers providing American industry with a larger pool of skilled labor by instead making them think that "basic" science degree-holders have more opportunity than is really the case (all as lots of college departments confuse things further by getting themselves reclassed as STEM to get a crack at the money held out for those participating in the campaign).
The young responded accordingly, going where they were told the rewards were--and their elders responded with their usual stupid outrage, in line with the prevailing view that while it is fair and right that business follow their self-interest as they understand it best it is somehow unfair and wrong, mean and shabby, that workers do the same, as though they should instead think only of "public service" when picking their majors.
Were engineering to be perceived as being as rewarding in terms of pay and prestige as medicine and law and finance one would see still more young people heading into it than is already the case. However, the reality is quite different--even before one considers the underappreciated facts about STEM major underemployment and how quickly the wage premium on a STEM degree fades even for those who do get jobs in their line soon after graduation, soon leaving the worker doing no better even if they had not departed for a job they could have done without such a degree.
Who Ends Up Teaching Composition at Our Colleges?
It is a truism that, as Harold Coyle once quipped, "necessary and important but unpleasant duties" are, within large organizations, customarily "given to the most junior" member, with this "passed off as being part of [their] development," when "in fact it is nothing more than passing off a dirty chore to someone else."*
Certainly this has applied to college teaching, with the "necessary and important but unpleasant" duty so passed commonly including the teaching of first-year, general-education courses (because few want to deal with inexperienced students often resentfully satisfying general-education requirements they see as merely an obstacle to getting the credits they really need to get so that they can get the job they are after), especially insofar as they are particularly tedious or laborious (for instance, because the subject matter is dry and the burden of grading heavy).
English composition famously fits that profile--with the result that in universities with graduate programs the job is handed off to graduate "teaching assistants" (unlikely to get to do any assisting, or apprenticing, before they are put in charge of a classroom), while everywhere it falls disproportionately to adjuncts.
What this means, of course, is that instruction in composition, already afflicted with problems ranging from the gap between quite logical college requirements and the actual preparation K-12 instruction provides; and some badly flawed thinking about just how instructors could go about providing what corrective one or two 15-week courses plausibly can (like the Karate Kid nonsense I have discussed in the past); one sees those people teaching the course drawn from either the least-prepared and experienced of the potential instructors, and more generally those who are most overworked and distracted. This, too, takes its toll on the quality of the result.
* The remark is to be found in his novel Sword Point.
Certainly this has applied to college teaching, with the "necessary and important but unpleasant" duty so passed commonly including the teaching of first-year, general-education courses (because few want to deal with inexperienced students often resentfully satisfying general-education requirements they see as merely an obstacle to getting the credits they really need to get so that they can get the job they are after), especially insofar as they are particularly tedious or laborious (for instance, because the subject matter is dry and the burden of grading heavy).
English composition famously fits that profile--with the result that in universities with graduate programs the job is handed off to graduate "teaching assistants" (unlikely to get to do any assisting, or apprenticing, before they are put in charge of a classroom), while everywhere it falls disproportionately to adjuncts.
* The remark is to be found in his novel Sword Point.
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