In Slaughter-house Five Kurt Vonnegut's narrator presents a lengthy passage from a (fictional) monograph about America intended to help German officers in charge of American prisoners of war better understand those with whom they are dealing. In the passage Campbell explains that all peoples "believe many things that are obviously untrue," with the "most destructive" of the untruths that Americans believe "that it is very easy for any American to make money." Thinking this way they do "not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by," with the result that "those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves," a self-blame that "has been a treasure for the rich and powerful" of America which has permitted America's ruling class "to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any" of its counterparts "since, say Napoleonic times."
This passage is so often quoted because it has resonated with a great many readers as containing and lucidly expressing a good deal of truth not ordinarily acknowledged in American life--and I am certainly in agreement with that. Yes, the culture of "economic opportunity" and self-help and Horatio Alger and the rest does promulgate the lie that "it is . . . very easy to make money," and when Americans discover the lie--when, to borrow another phrase relevant to this syndrome, the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" realizes their embarrassment is not at all temporary--many (not all, but probably at least enough to make for a difference) blame themselves bitterly, which has left the poor with less sense of dignity and less able to love themselves than they have been elsewhere, and less of the social solidarity that has contained the potential for social change.
However, there also seems much that Vonnegut overlooks. He tells us of the "untruth," but does not say where it comes from, and reading the passage one can easily get the impression that this delusion just sprang up among its sufferers--the more in as Vonnegut's characterization of this as "a treasure for the rich and powerful" makes it seem as if it were something they just happened upon, discovered as if they had stumbled upon a pirate's chest while walking down a beach.
Indeed, he can seem to be blaming the victims of the delusion for their own troubles.
Upton Sinclair was sounder when he characterized the public as, rather, the victims of the propaganda of the rich and powerful--who built up that treasure rather than stumbling upon it. Indeed, quite mainstream historians--an Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. or Louis Hartz, for example--have pretty well documented this process. This can be summed up as a matter of America's conservative elite in the country's early days ("Hamiltonians," "Federalists," "Whigs"), initially hoping to create a society where the franchise was confined to a property-holding elite failed to get popular acquiescence in this vision; and turned from simply demanding lower-class deference to neutralizing lower-class opposition in subtler ways. Critical to this was the idea that social class was nonexistent or trivial in America--in part on the basis of claims about the interests of rich and poor being one and the same, about the poor lead happier lives than the possession-burdened rich, about class mobility and "economic opportunity" permitting today's working man to be tomorrow's capitalist. All clichés of American discussion of class for nearly two centuries now, they have most definitely derived from, represented, advanced an Agenda so ever-present in contemporary politics, education, culture that many do not even notice that it is there--and fewer in Vonnegut's day than in Sinclair's, when social vision had not yet been driven from the public square by Modernism, postmodernism and cultural Cold War.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Of Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires and Fish Growing into Pikes
John Steinbeck's remark that American working people tend to think of themselves as "temporarily embarrassed capitalists" has, in its slightly revised form as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires," become notorious as an explanation for what seems the slight response of America's working people to calls for social change.
As it happens, many years before Steinbeck published his remark, Upton Sinclair wrote something similar in Money Writes!. In his second chapter, "Fishes and Pike," Sinclair identifies the "most important single fact about American civilization" as "economic inequality," and remarks how in contrast with every past civilization in contemporary America, the magic of the media (from tabloids to picture-shows) constantly bringing the have-nots face to face with the luxury of the haves in what could seem a reckless provocation of the poor. However, this did "not lead to instant revolution" because of "the conviction, deeply rooted in the hearts of ninety-nine out of every hundred persons" in America is "that he or she is destined to climb out upon the faces of the other ninety-nine, and have a chance to spend money like those darlings of luxury" that they see on the movie screen or elsewhere. In the image that Sinclair attributes to the Swiss (Sinclair says Italian) educator Johann Pestalozzi, the little fish preyed upon by voracious pike are mollified with the promise that "every year thereafter two little fishes should be permitted to become pike," the mathematically slight chance to be predators at the top of the local food chain trumping the desire to advance the welfare of fish generally.
One may wonder if the influence of this idea is quite so strong, if the public is really quite so stupid, frankly (and indeed, just as leftists like Steinbeck and Sinclair have discussed this, leftists have also challenged the image). However, the point is that Sinclair did say it here--and in contrast with many of those who, when making the observation, do not seem to think much about where it comes from, or to treat it as a delusion that just "happened" to the working persons, Sinclair does point out that this was a matter of indoctrination; that "[i]t is what had been taught to the whole country from the beginnings of its life in grammar school, in high school, in church, in the newspapers, the movies . . . the political campaigns," if only implicitly in the rhetoric of a "land of opportunity" where "every child . . . has a chance to become president," and anyone questioning it is contemptuously dismissed as deficient in character or all too aware of a real inferiority (as a "grouch," a "sorehead," as someone overly negative), such that this "propaganda whereby ten million youths are kept contented with their lot" can be termed "the ethical code of a civilization."
Sinclair raises the matter here because it is inseparable from the content of American fiction, so heavy on the propaganda for this "ethical code" (in the country's fiction "you would find that fifty percent of all heroes are wealthy at the outset, and another forty-nine percent become so before the end of the story") that it seems "incense to Mammon," and the motives of so many of those who write or desire to write fiction, for whom the celebrity that will turn the fish into a pike is a major attraction.
As it happens, many years before Steinbeck published his remark, Upton Sinclair wrote something similar in Money Writes!. In his second chapter, "Fishes and Pike," Sinclair identifies the "most important single fact about American civilization" as "economic inequality," and remarks how in contrast with every past civilization in contemporary America, the magic of the media (from tabloids to picture-shows) constantly bringing the have-nots face to face with the luxury of the haves in what could seem a reckless provocation of the poor. However, this did "not lead to instant revolution" because of "the conviction, deeply rooted in the hearts of ninety-nine out of every hundred persons" in America is "that he or she is destined to climb out upon the faces of the other ninety-nine, and have a chance to spend money like those darlings of luxury" that they see on the movie screen or elsewhere. In the image that Sinclair attributes to the Swiss (Sinclair says Italian) educator Johann Pestalozzi, the little fish preyed upon by voracious pike are mollified with the promise that "every year thereafter two little fishes should be permitted to become pike," the mathematically slight chance to be predators at the top of the local food chain trumping the desire to advance the welfare of fish generally.
One may wonder if the influence of this idea is quite so strong, if the public is really quite so stupid, frankly (and indeed, just as leftists like Steinbeck and Sinclair have discussed this, leftists have also challenged the image). However, the point is that Sinclair did say it here--and in contrast with many of those who, when making the observation, do not seem to think much about where it comes from, or to treat it as a delusion that just "happened" to the working persons, Sinclair does point out that this was a matter of indoctrination; that "[i]t is what had been taught to the whole country from the beginnings of its life in grammar school, in high school, in church, in the newspapers, the movies . . . the political campaigns," if only implicitly in the rhetoric of a "land of opportunity" where "every child . . . has a chance to become president," and anyone questioning it is contemptuously dismissed as deficient in character or all too aware of a real inferiority (as a "grouch," a "sorehead," as someone overly negative), such that this "propaganda whereby ten million youths are kept contented with their lot" can be termed "the ethical code of a civilization."
Sinclair raises the matter here because it is inseparable from the content of American fiction, so heavy on the propaganda for this "ethical code" (in the country's fiction "you would find that fifty percent of all heroes are wealthy at the outset, and another forty-nine percent become so before the end of the story") that it seems "incense to Mammon," and the motives of so many of those who write or desire to write fiction, for whom the celebrity that will turn the fish into a pike is a major attraction.
The Doubts That Go with the Delusions in a Land of Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires
In summing up the delusions of what others have called "temporarily embarrassed millionairedom" Upton Sinclair in Money Writes! used Johann Pestalozzi's images of the fishes and the pike, in which "the little fishes" are told that "[f]or a million little fishes to be preyed upon by a hundred great pike is all right, because every little fish has an equal chance to become a pike," needing only "to grow sharp enough teeth, and eat enough of the other little fishes."
Of course, as Sinclair acknowledged, it may be that a great many of the fish were persuaded of this moral and practical insanity--but not all were, while even believers had doubts amid the inevitable "agonies of pain and fear" of a fish on the run from its life from ravenous pike. As a result they had to constantly reassure themselves and be reassured by others in the "faith that he or she will be a bit swifter or luckier than the others" and realize their "destiny for pikehood" in all its "glory," while those not so persuaded of the essential rightness of the arrangement are dismissed as "soreheads" and "grouches."
All this remains very much with us a century on, the delusions, the doubts, the dismissals of dissent, even as the vocabulary has changed, such that I think Sinclair would have an easy enough time understanding the use of terms like "beta" today.
Of course, as Sinclair acknowledged, it may be that a great many of the fish were persuaded of this moral and practical insanity--but not all were, while even believers had doubts amid the inevitable "agonies of pain and fear" of a fish on the run from its life from ravenous pike. As a result they had to constantly reassure themselves and be reassured by others in the "faith that he or she will be a bit swifter or luckier than the others" and realize their "destiny for pikehood" in all its "glory," while those not so persuaded of the essential rightness of the arrangement are dismissed as "soreheads" and "grouches."
All this remains very much with us a century on, the delusions, the doubts, the dismissals of dissent, even as the vocabulary has changed, such that I think Sinclair would have an easy enough time understanding the use of terms like "beta" today.
The Decline of the Sports Video Game Genre and the Age of Warcraft
Looking at the evidences of the decline of the sports game genre over the last few decades of video game history, my first thought was that it reflected the decline of interest in sports among younger age cohorts.
However, it may also be a matter of changes in what games could offer players, and what people look for in their video games changing along with it. In an age of simpler gaming technology a little distraction was what people expected of their games--and a sports game was as good a way of getting it as any. Meanwhile a good many other genres were new and fairly primitive, especially those that like the first-person shooter, the role-playing game, the adventure game that combined role-playing elements with action. But the latter got better--a lot better, the worlds larger, the features more numerous, the tasks more varied, the flow more intuitive, all as the enhancement of the graphics and sound gave them a sensational appeal. The result was that games increasingly had the potential to be immersive experiences--immersive experiences in another world often more attractive than the player's own world. Thus did it become a common joke among gamers that life is a badly designed video game, where you only get the one life, can't customize your character, can't choose the difficulty setting. Thus did observers like Edward Castronova argue that, if the medium through which we experienced it was technologically primitive compared to the promises, in a significant way the age of virtual reality was already here, and many people increasingly choosing the virtual over the real. In the process that experience, and the genres supplying it, seem to have become the foundation of hardcore gaming--and supplanted the lighter entertainments (the sports games, and the puzzlers, and even the Guitar Hero-type entertainments so popular in the '00s), certainly to go by the content of the bestseller lists.
However, it may also be a matter of changes in what games could offer players, and what people look for in their video games changing along with it. In an age of simpler gaming technology a little distraction was what people expected of their games--and a sports game was as good a way of getting it as any. Meanwhile a good many other genres were new and fairly primitive, especially those that like the first-person shooter, the role-playing game, the adventure game that combined role-playing elements with action. But the latter got better--a lot better, the worlds larger, the features more numerous, the tasks more varied, the flow more intuitive, all as the enhancement of the graphics and sound gave them a sensational appeal. The result was that games increasingly had the potential to be immersive experiences--immersive experiences in another world often more attractive than the player's own world. Thus did it become a common joke among gamers that life is a badly designed video game, where you only get the one life, can't customize your character, can't choose the difficulty setting. Thus did observers like Edward Castronova argue that, if the medium through which we experienced it was technologically primitive compared to the promises, in a significant way the age of virtual reality was already here, and many people increasingly choosing the virtual over the real. In the process that experience, and the genres supplying it, seem to have become the foundation of hardcore gaming--and supplanted the lighter entertainments (the sports games, and the puzzlers, and even the Guitar Hero-type entertainments so popular in the '00s), certainly to go by the content of the bestseller lists.
Teaching Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace"
In Mammonart Upton Sinclair memorably interprets Guy de Maupassant as an Emile Zola "without social vision and revolutionary hope." As a result what one ends up with is a technically brilliant "master of the short story, better able than anyone else" to "pack . . . meaning into a brief episode, to give you the whole life and import of a character in a couple of thousand words" . . . but absolutely nothing else, teaching the student of writing nothing but "the tricks of the trade." This had much to do with Maupassant being "one of the fighting art-for-art's-sakers, to whom the idea of morality in an art-work is an insult."
A very plausible interpretation indeed, I think, which has made me reflect on my experience using the story in the classroom. This was in the more advanced composition class at the college I taught at, which had a greater accent than the starter course on textual analysis, and used to that end a literary component as preparation for a general education course on literature the students had to take later.
The students almost invariably insisted that the story was a little homily about "Being grateful for what you have"--in that had Mathilde Loisel not borrowed what she thought was a diamond necklace to wear at the ball in the hopes of "not appearing poor in front of rich women," she would not have lost what little comfort she had in her life as she (and her husband) sacrificed all to replace what they mistakenly thought an exceedingly expensive piece of jewelry.
I do not deny that it is possible to read the story that way--especially if one is still callow enough to expect stories to all be centered on presenting a single, tidy, utterly conservative and conventional moral; if they think that "There is no such thing as society"; if they know nothing about French realism or naturalism, or Guy de Maupassant, and how cold-eyed this literary current can be as it presents characters in the grip of larger forces; as indeed they did not.
But what about when someone tries to explain to you all these things? Explain that literature, and life, can be more complicated than that, as this story is? After all, the reason to pick this story over many of the alternatives in the limited selection of the anthology was that, besides being brief and accessible (it was a composition class, after all, and one could give only so much time to the literary element), it seemed to me to offer a lot to talk about, and write about, when it was time to display the compositional skills the class taught by turning in a written essay. We had de Maupassant's sense of what a fragile, tenuous, thing life can be. ("How life is strange and changeful! How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!" the narrator remarks at one point.) We had here some hard realities of class, and class mobility; we had the celebration and glamorization of wealth and the illusions and deceptions that go with that; we had the anxieties and aspirations of the marginally middle class--all things that seemed to me to very "relatable" today. We had what it meant to be in debt in this earlier era, and how different that was from the present. And so on and so forth.
However, they brushed all this aside as they insisted on the simple, "moralistic" reading that would have appalled Maupassant.
It does not seem to me incidental that this let them moralize sanctimoniously about Mathilde's conduct--her being ungrateful for what she had, her "not knowing her place" and wanting more than life had given her.
How sanctimonious was evident at grading time. Far from being "grateful for what they have" and "knowing their place" they constantly showed themselves ungrateful as they came to demand of their instructor (usually in the most disrespectful manner) that anything they got that was less than an "A" be changed an "A" in the apparent belief that I was singlehandedly keeping them from their destiny to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company by giving them anything less than that "A."
Alas, the fictional portraits of the teaching profession rarely present those scenes--and how far from rewarding they are for practitioners of a profession whose members society at large expects to do the job out of convenient social virtue.
A very plausible interpretation indeed, I think, which has made me reflect on my experience using the story in the classroom. This was in the more advanced composition class at the college I taught at, which had a greater accent than the starter course on textual analysis, and used to that end a literary component as preparation for a general education course on literature the students had to take later.
The students almost invariably insisted that the story was a little homily about "Being grateful for what you have"--in that had Mathilde Loisel not borrowed what she thought was a diamond necklace to wear at the ball in the hopes of "not appearing poor in front of rich women," she would not have lost what little comfort she had in her life as she (and her husband) sacrificed all to replace what they mistakenly thought an exceedingly expensive piece of jewelry.
I do not deny that it is possible to read the story that way--especially if one is still callow enough to expect stories to all be centered on presenting a single, tidy, utterly conservative and conventional moral; if they think that "There is no such thing as society"; if they know nothing about French realism or naturalism, or Guy de Maupassant, and how cold-eyed this literary current can be as it presents characters in the grip of larger forces; as indeed they did not.
But what about when someone tries to explain to you all these things? Explain that literature, and life, can be more complicated than that, as this story is? After all, the reason to pick this story over many of the alternatives in the limited selection of the anthology was that, besides being brief and accessible (it was a composition class, after all, and one could give only so much time to the literary element), it seemed to me to offer a lot to talk about, and write about, when it was time to display the compositional skills the class taught by turning in a written essay. We had de Maupassant's sense of what a fragile, tenuous, thing life can be. ("How life is strange and changeful! How little a thing is needed for us to be lost or to be saved!" the narrator remarks at one point.) We had here some hard realities of class, and class mobility; we had the celebration and glamorization of wealth and the illusions and deceptions that go with that; we had the anxieties and aspirations of the marginally middle class--all things that seemed to me to very "relatable" today. We had what it meant to be in debt in this earlier era, and how different that was from the present. And so on and so forth.
However, they brushed all this aside as they insisted on the simple, "moralistic" reading that would have appalled Maupassant.
It does not seem to me incidental that this let them moralize sanctimoniously about Mathilde's conduct--her being ungrateful for what she had, her "not knowing her place" and wanting more than life had given her.
How sanctimonious was evident at grading time. Far from being "grateful for what they have" and "knowing their place" they constantly showed themselves ungrateful as they came to demand of their instructor (usually in the most disrespectful manner) that anything they got that was less than an "A" be changed an "A" in the apparent belief that I was singlehandedly keeping them from their destiny to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company by giving them anything less than that "A."
Alas, the fictional portraits of the teaching profession rarely present those scenes--and how far from rewarding they are for practitioners of a profession whose members society at large expects to do the job out of convenient social virtue.
Upton Sinclair on Guy de Maupassant
In the chapter of Mammonart that Upton Sinclair devotes to the career and work of Guy de Maupassant Sinclair pays tribute to de Maupassant's technical command of the short story--the French writer "master of the . . . form," for "No one has been able to pack more meaning into a brief episode, to give you the whole life and import of a character in a couple of thousand words." However, Sinclair also treats him as terribly limited in other ways, asking of the "young writers of short stories" who study his work to learn from that master "What has he to give them--aside from the tricks of the trade?" and answering, as he holds that de Maupassant himself would have answered, "Nothing." In spite of his "art for art's sake" views Maupassant has a "propaganda," a Message, just "as definite, as deeply felt, as persistently hammered home as that of a tub-thumper like John Bunyan or a prophet like Tolstoi," but alas, a worse than worthless one, namely "that life is a cheat and a snare," a view that Sinclair sees as not just leaving his work a body of brilliant technique and no more, but as having destroyed Maupassant himself (put him "in a strait-jacket at forty," and in his grave in Paris' Montparnasse Cemetery not very long after).
Where did Maupassant's come from? As it happens Sinclair significantly arranged his book so that the chapter on Maupassant came immediately after the chapter on Emile Zola and began with the question "What would Zola and his naturalism have been without social vision and revolutionary hope?" with de Maupassant's life and work the answer. Especially given what Sinclair has to say about artistic pessimism in his subsequent book, Money Writes!, there is a fairly obvious, if implicit, social criticism in that, namely that the writer taking the social world as it is, and accepting that this is all it can be, ever, can scarcely feel anything but pessimism--with, perhaps, the life-as-a-cheat-and-snare aspect of that pessimism saying something of capitalism specifically, or at least aspects of its essence that were to become clearer later and elsewhere than in the France of Maupassant's day. An economic system that lives on the basis of an individualistic aspirationalism that is endlessly exploited and endlessly disappointed, an advertising-consumer culture that ceaselessly cultivates intense desires for products that can never live up to expectations and whose satisfactions are designed to be disposable so as to keep the consumer on an endless treadmill of wanting and getting, can seem to very easily produce a "cheat and snare" view of life in a person without social vision, for which what is really just "society" is instead Life.
Where did Maupassant's come from? As it happens Sinclair significantly arranged his book so that the chapter on Maupassant came immediately after the chapter on Emile Zola and began with the question "What would Zola and his naturalism have been without social vision and revolutionary hope?" with de Maupassant's life and work the answer. Especially given what Sinclair has to say about artistic pessimism in his subsequent book, Money Writes!, there is a fairly obvious, if implicit, social criticism in that, namely that the writer taking the social world as it is, and accepting that this is all it can be, ever, can scarcely feel anything but pessimism--with, perhaps, the life-as-a-cheat-and-snare aspect of that pessimism saying something of capitalism specifically, or at least aspects of its essence that were to become clearer later and elsewhere than in the France of Maupassant's day. An economic system that lives on the basis of an individualistic aspirationalism that is endlessly exploited and endlessly disappointed, an advertising-consumer culture that ceaselessly cultivates intense desires for products that can never live up to expectations and whose satisfactions are designed to be disposable so as to keep the consumer on an endless treadmill of wanting and getting, can seem to very easily produce a "cheat and snare" view of life in a person without social vision, for which what is really just "society" is instead Life.
Is it "Life" That's Not Fair, or Just Society?
"There is no such thing" Margaret Thatcher famously said of society. She was, of course, wrong--in this as in
pretty much every other thing of which I am aware. Yet there is no denying that her perspective is the conventional one--which produces a good deal of muddle in the minds of the conventional. When people speak of "life" the truth is that they really mean the world as it exists around them at that very moment, which for the most part means the social arrangements of that moment, which in their unimaginativeness and ignorance they think of as eternal--as, indeed, simply "life." Society's failings thus become "life's" failings, and a society's unfairness "life's" unfairness, which authority figures, and other similarly callous and stupid persons, delight in tauntingly throwing in the faces of the victims of that unfairness, who are all too often the victims of the personal actions that society put those authority figures into a position to commit.
The Cynicism of the Phrase "Life's Not Fair"
Not long ago I remarked the phrase "Life's not fair."
Considering it my first thought was of the evasion of responsibility involved. An authority figure could help you, but refuses because they simply don't want to do so--and then tosses out that tired pseudo-observation, as if to say "It's not me, it's the universe that's like this!" when the universe has nothing to do with it.
However, one can also regard it as an exercise in that cheapest of philosophical stances, nihilism.
Instead of "It's not me, it's the universe that's like this!" they are saying "The universe isn't fair, so why do I have to be?"
Behind which is, "I have the power here, you don't, I'm going to do what I want, and you can [EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETEIVE DELETED]."
I'm not sure there's much to choose from the two. If the first rationale for "Life's not fair" is lazy, dishonest, cowardly, the second is brazen in its meanness. And I'm disinclined to strain to pick one out as better than the other. Instead it seems to me quite reasonable to just say that they are both disgusting attitudes to take toward others--and as commonplace as they are disgusting.
Considering it my first thought was of the evasion of responsibility involved. An authority figure could help you, but refuses because they simply don't want to do so--and then tosses out that tired pseudo-observation, as if to say "It's not me, it's the universe that's like this!" when the universe has nothing to do with it.
However, one can also regard it as an exercise in that cheapest of philosophical stances, nihilism.
Instead of "It's not me, it's the universe that's like this!" they are saying "The universe isn't fair, so why do I have to be?"
Behind which is, "I have the power here, you don't, I'm going to do what I want, and you can [EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETIVE DELETED, EXPLETEIVE DELETED]."
I'm not sure there's much to choose from the two. If the first rationale for "Life's not fair" is lazy, dishonest, cowardly, the second is brazen in its meanness. And I'm disinclined to strain to pick one out as better than the other. Instead it seems to me quite reasonable to just say that they are both disgusting attitudes to take toward others--and as commonplace as they are disgusting.
The Lameness of the Phrase "Life's Not Fair"
For as long as I can remember I have despised the phrase "Life's not fair."
This is not because every last conceivable usage of the phrase is entirely without truth. Ontologically speaking there certainly seems to be nothing in the structure of reality that guarantees fairness.
Rather the problem is that the statement is usually irrelevant to the situation at hand and insulting to the intelligence of the person to whom it is spoken.
Usually when people say "Life's not fair" the subject under discussion is not ontology. Rather we are far more likely to be seeing an authority figure defend the arbitrary exercise of their will. They could have opted to act fairly in this situation. But instead they opted to act unfairly, most often because this was convenient for them.
The issue in this case was not "Life," but their use--typically their indefensibly self-serving misuse and abuse--of their power. Trying to change the subject from practical, immediate, realities to the higher planes of philosophy, in this case as in so many others (as with those evading responsibility by hiding in epistemological ambiguity), is an unbelievably shabby move absolutely deserving of contempt.
This is not because every last conceivable usage of the phrase is entirely without truth. Ontologically speaking there certainly seems to be nothing in the structure of reality that guarantees fairness.
Rather the problem is that the statement is usually irrelevant to the situation at hand and insulting to the intelligence of the person to whom it is spoken.
Usually when people say "Life's not fair" the subject under discussion is not ontology. Rather we are far more likely to be seeing an authority figure defend the arbitrary exercise of their will. They could have opted to act fairly in this situation. But instead they opted to act unfairly, most often because this was convenient for them.
The issue in this case was not "Life," but their use--typically their indefensibly self-serving misuse and abuse--of their power. Trying to change the subject from practical, immediate, realities to the higher planes of philosophy, in this case as in so many others (as with those evading responsibility by hiding in epistemological ambiguity), is an unbelievably shabby move absolutely deserving of contempt.
Of Generalizations, Sweeping Generalizations, and the Idiots Who Refuse to Respect the Difference Between Them
The word "generalization" may be defined as "a general proposition about the world, typically obtained from observation of the world, and perhaps even rigorous induction.
A "sweeping generalization" is a generalization which admits of no exceptions.
One may put the difference between them this way--where a generalization may admit of exceptions, perhaps significant exceptions, as by saying some aspect of the world that "It is usually like this," or even just that "It is commonly like this," a sweeping generalization says, if only implicitly, "It is always like this, every single time."
This means that one may much more easily refute a sweeping generalization than a "mere" generalization, because all they have to do is come up with a single counter-example to prove a sweeping generalization wrong. By contrast, to refute a regular generalization allowing of exceptions a single counter-example may be so inadequate as to be meaningless. Rather they would have to be able to produce evidence that no, it is not usually like this, no it is not commonly like this.
In short, the bar for the would-be debunker of the claim is a lot higher.
But idiots do like shooting their mouths off, and telling people they are wrong, and--as they never hesitate to make a "straw man" out of the other side's argument--are prepared to misconstrue a generalization as a sweeping generalization just so that they can trot out their one counter-example, tell the other party they "blew their argument out of the water" or some other similarly obnoxious thing, and feel smug.
If you are one of those who actually care about fact and reason, avoid such persons if at all possible (admittedly, a thing easier said than done as they are so numerous and aggressive).
A "sweeping generalization" is a generalization which admits of no exceptions.
One may put the difference between them this way--where a generalization may admit of exceptions, perhaps significant exceptions, as by saying some aspect of the world that "It is usually like this," or even just that "It is commonly like this," a sweeping generalization says, if only implicitly, "It is always like this, every single time."
This means that one may much more easily refute a sweeping generalization than a "mere" generalization, because all they have to do is come up with a single counter-example to prove a sweeping generalization wrong. By contrast, to refute a regular generalization allowing of exceptions a single counter-example may be so inadequate as to be meaningless. Rather they would have to be able to produce evidence that no, it is not usually like this, no it is not commonly like this.
In short, the bar for the would-be debunker of the claim is a lot higher.
But idiots do like shooting their mouths off, and telling people they are wrong, and--as they never hesitate to make a "straw man" out of the other side's argument--are prepared to misconstrue a generalization as a sweeping generalization just so that they can trot out their one counter-example, tell the other party they "blew their argument out of the water" or some other similarly obnoxious thing, and feel smug.
If you are one of those who actually care about fact and reason, avoid such persons if at all possible (admittedly, a thing easier said than done as they are so numerous and aggressive).
The Phrase "Blow Out of the Water"
The use of the phrase "blow out of the water" has long annoyed me, because I associate it with fools who credit themselves with having "blown out of the water" someone else's position in an argument.
I suppose this is because it combines an obnoxious rhetorical bombast--something the stupid substitute for soundness of argument--with an equally obnoxious display of self-satisfaction; with a person arguing very badly, and then being very pleased with themselves for having argued badly as they give themselves the laurels of victory.
I suppose this is because it combines an obnoxious rhetorical bombast--something the stupid substitute for soundness of argument--with an equally obnoxious display of self-satisfaction; with a person arguing very badly, and then being very pleased with themselves for having argued badly as they give themselves the laurels of victory.
Have the First Shots Already Been Fired in This Culture War?
I recently wrote about how amid the continued metastasizing of America's culture wars we have seen much that recalled the rancor of Japan years or decades earlier--in particular that over young people and young men in particular "dropping out of life," and what it means for the economic and demographic base. So it seemed to me again as the matter of "virtual girlfriends" has become more topical amid advances in artificial intelligence, the first outbursts of moral panic over the matter already behind us--certainly as of Liberty Vittert's piece about the matter in The Hill last year in which she claimed that "AI Girlfriends Are Ruining an Entire Generation of Men" (this actually the title of the item). The "data scientist" backed up this claim with no evidence whatsoever apart from a few unsourced figures indicative of social disengagement among males 18-30 that include their greater singleness (without explaining how it is that 60 percent of women that age are in a relationship while only 30 percent of men that age are), and reference to the existence of some users for an AI bot by an "influencer" named Caryn. Far from establishing causation, she did not even do much to evidentiate correlation--but it was quite enough for her to plug it into the familiar moral panic-over-cyber-stuff narrative (cross out "video games," write in "AI girlfriends"), as she rushed to connect this with what some regard as a crisis in natality, and that in turn with the collapsing support ratios calling into question the viability of Social Security and Medicare (in a spirit of "just saying," I guess).
Of course, in a reminder (as if any were needed!) that technocrat credentials, personal platform and a willingness to say the "right" things count for infinitely more than saying anything actually worth hearing, here was her piece in this publication, and its receipt of respectful mention in publications running the gamut from CNN to Business Insider to the Guardian.
So far as I know it was only in TechDirt that we got a more critical stance toward Ms. Vittert's argument, Mike Masnick pretty much tearing it apart in every way that it could be, from showing up her questionable use of the data, to her use of familiar narratives bankrupt in the eyes of many, while even throwing in the obvious Futurama reference for good measure.
That was a reminder of how far off the beaten path one has to go to get some real perspective on such matters--with this unlikely to be the last time we need it on a subject about which we seem likely to hear a lot more in the years ahead.
Of course, in a reminder (as if any were needed!) that technocrat credentials, personal platform and a willingness to say the "right" things count for infinitely more than saying anything actually worth hearing, here was her piece in this publication, and its receipt of respectful mention in publications running the gamut from CNN to Business Insider to the Guardian.
So far as I know it was only in TechDirt that we got a more critical stance toward Ms. Vittert's argument, Mike Masnick pretty much tearing it apart in every way that it could be, from showing up her questionable use of the data, to her use of familiar narratives bankrupt in the eyes of many, while even throwing in the obvious Futurama reference for good measure.
That was a reminder of how far off the beaten path one has to go to get some real perspective on such matters--with this unlikely to be the last time we need it on a subject about which we seem likely to hear a lot more in the years ahead.
Virtual Girlfriends for a Generation Raised in a Virtual World
The idea of a "virtual girlfriend" is not new, the first having been introduced to the world at least two decades ago. Still, the concept has got more attention with the recent advances in generative artificial intelligence, because of its apparent potential to endow virtual characters with unprecedented verisimilitude.
Of course, this is a subject one cannot discuss without acknowledging the enormous baggage almost everyone brings to the idea, which makes a snicker seem obligatory for many--all as a good many anxieties swirl behind the irony, because even as they shame anyone who would find such an idea attractive, they know not everyone shares the feeling they affect, and dread the implications. "How can the process of starting and building and maintaining a real relationship with a real person, with their own needs and demands, and the resulting doubts and uncertainties and tensions and compromises and frustrations that go with it, compete with that?" they think--and know that all other things being equal, it can't.
But all other things are not equal, of course, with the most obvious answer to those worries the fact that virtual partners are non-corporeal (at least, given the state of the art in 2024). They can never actually be "there," with all that implies for the limits of their interaction. And my first thought was that this would limit their having any very significant appeal to only a very few.
However, considering that I realized that I was thinking in terms of the expectations and standards of a different era. After all, we live in an age in which young adults have never known life without a smart phone in their hand, and consider the demand that they turn their phone off for so much as a few minutes a profoundly unreasonable imposition. Meanwhile at this point even persons who are much older, who did know life in a pre-smart phone, even pre-Internet, world, have nonetheless been shaped by the newer world. They spend life with their noses stuck to their phones, as the bulk of their interaction with others occurs through this medium--even their interaction with people they know in person, with whom they share households. All by itself this suggests physical presence may not be quite so important to them as it would be for someone not so immersed in such experience of the world, even where this particular type of relationship is concerned. (After all, it may be that a non-negligible proportion of the population has already experienced "intimacy" through this medium--maybe much more than non-negligible, to go by how many high-profile figures, old enough to have known life before the web, have got themselves scandalized and divorced this way.)
Of course, the common retort to that is that the people they interact with electronically in these ways are at least "real" in the sense that they have a physical existence, and that even if they have never met them in person, could potentially do that. But when the interaction is exclusively, or even principally, through a screen, it seems plausible that this distinction will matter less to a great many persons, especially if they like what they see on that screen and hear through the device's speaker. Indeed, considering this I am put in mind of Edward Castronova's thoughts about the "virtual reality" of World of Warcraft. The technological media through which the user experienced "VR" was primitive next to the '90s-era hype about what it would be looked, but for all that people were immersed, hooked, so much so that Castronova was to shortly write of an "exodus to the virtual world" from this one.
Again, all this was two decades ago--and so far as I know nothing has come along to refute his expectation. Indeed, in a world where postmodernist epistemological nihilism has been thoroughly mainstream for as long as anyone can remember they can that much more easily answer "What's real anyway?" They can even answer, "Who cares?"--especially as this pertains to the personal, emotional, sphere, where the sorts of hard material facts that don't go away no matter how much you want them to simply do not intrude so much. History has seen many arguing for alluring illusions over reality, those "French poetry majors" that the STEM fetishists so love to bash likely to know something of the writing of Charles Baudelaire, and just which one of the human faculties was queen over the rest.
Quite in line with such expectations, in figures like Toru Honda the age of the virtual girlfriend would already seem to have a start on its philosophers, arguing for the validity of this course on the basis of Platonic idealism. His views will hardly convince the skeptical--but at the very least seem likely to hint at the shape of things to come. However much those who disapprove would like for that to go away.
Of course, this is a subject one cannot discuss without acknowledging the enormous baggage almost everyone brings to the idea, which makes a snicker seem obligatory for many--all as a good many anxieties swirl behind the irony, because even as they shame anyone who would find such an idea attractive, they know not everyone shares the feeling they affect, and dread the implications. "How can the process of starting and building and maintaining a real relationship with a real person, with their own needs and demands, and the resulting doubts and uncertainties and tensions and compromises and frustrations that go with it, compete with that?" they think--and know that all other things being equal, it can't.
But all other things are not equal, of course, with the most obvious answer to those worries the fact that virtual partners are non-corporeal (at least, given the state of the art in 2024). They can never actually be "there," with all that implies for the limits of their interaction. And my first thought was that this would limit their having any very significant appeal to only a very few.
However, considering that I realized that I was thinking in terms of the expectations and standards of a different era. After all, we live in an age in which young adults have never known life without a smart phone in their hand, and consider the demand that they turn their phone off for so much as a few minutes a profoundly unreasonable imposition. Meanwhile at this point even persons who are much older, who did know life in a pre-smart phone, even pre-Internet, world, have nonetheless been shaped by the newer world. They spend life with their noses stuck to their phones, as the bulk of their interaction with others occurs through this medium--even their interaction with people they know in person, with whom they share households. All by itself this suggests physical presence may not be quite so important to them as it would be for someone not so immersed in such experience of the world, even where this particular type of relationship is concerned. (After all, it may be that a non-negligible proportion of the population has already experienced "intimacy" through this medium--maybe much more than non-negligible, to go by how many high-profile figures, old enough to have known life before the web, have got themselves scandalized and divorced this way.)
Of course, the common retort to that is that the people they interact with electronically in these ways are at least "real" in the sense that they have a physical existence, and that even if they have never met them in person, could potentially do that. But when the interaction is exclusively, or even principally, through a screen, it seems plausible that this distinction will matter less to a great many persons, especially if they like what they see on that screen and hear through the device's speaker. Indeed, considering this I am put in mind of Edward Castronova's thoughts about the "virtual reality" of World of Warcraft. The technological media through which the user experienced "VR" was primitive next to the '90s-era hype about what it would be looked, but for all that people were immersed, hooked, so much so that Castronova was to shortly write of an "exodus to the virtual world" from this one.
Again, all this was two decades ago--and so far as I know nothing has come along to refute his expectation. Indeed, in a world where postmodernist epistemological nihilism has been thoroughly mainstream for as long as anyone can remember they can that much more easily answer "What's real anyway?" They can even answer, "Who cares?"--especially as this pertains to the personal, emotional, sphere, where the sorts of hard material facts that don't go away no matter how much you want them to simply do not intrude so much. History has seen many arguing for alluring illusions over reality, those "French poetry majors" that the STEM fetishists so love to bash likely to know something of the writing of Charles Baudelaire, and just which one of the human faculties was queen over the rest.
Quite in line with such expectations, in figures like Toru Honda the age of the virtual girlfriend would already seem to have a start on its philosophers, arguing for the validity of this course on the basis of Platonic idealism. His views will hardly convince the skeptical--but at the very least seem likely to hint at the shape of things to come. However much those who disapprove would like for that to go away.
Japan Yesterday, the World Tomorrow, and the Philosophy of Mr. Toru Honda
I have over the years remarked just how much developments in Japan seem to run a bit ahead of developments elsewhere in the world--Japan's today, or even yesterday, often importantly indicative of the tomorrow of the rest of the advanced industrialized world.
Consider what has happened in Japan since the 1980s. A bout of historic speculative frenzy, substantially connected with real estate, ended with a colossal crash that marked the beginning of a long period of economic stagnation (the "lost decade," which turned into "lost decades") that upended not only economic but also political, cultural, social life--with just one of the consequences a trend of young people who, amid diminished prospects in an ever more materialistic culture with an ever less attainable bar for "success," withdrew from social life (most notoriously, the hikikomori), and a sharp decline of marriage and birth rates, feeding the country's culture war, and helping make old-fashioned concern with natality a hot topic in the process.
So has it gone elsewhere in the advanced world, and beyond, with the crash of 2007 and its aftermath in the "Great Recession" doing for it generally what the crash of 1990 did for Japan, with America no exception, the country since discovering its own "hikikomori", in which a reported decline of marriage, falling birth rates and natalism have become major issues, all of which has fed into its own culture wars. Still, there have been differences between the situation of one country and another, with an interesting case Japanese cultural critic Toru Honda, who quickly emerged as a figure of sufficient note to get interviewed for the Asahi Shimbun (Japan's equivalent of the New York Times, or at least what the Times used to be) in the wake of the (within certain circles) controversy over the popularity of the Densha Otoko franchise. His position was that capitalism had done to romance what it had done to everything else, in the process devaluing much of the population such that it had no hope of getting anything by involvement in what may be called the "dating" or "marriage" market (just as many are unemployable in the labor market, and not incidentally thereby rendered hopeless in the dating/marriage market too), and that it was an entirely valid response to reject it--and indeed, to accept as a substitute for an unattainable love with a "3-D" human being one's emotional relation to a "2-D" character.
Just as in Japan the U.S., amid a deterioration of the economic situation, has seen young people become more critical of society's expectations of them, not least in as they interact with gender roles. There has even been some talk of people frustrated with an unpleasant contemporary reality preferring a virtual one to "Real Life" (Edward Castronova and Jane McGonigal, indeed, warning of the possibility of an "exodus" here). However, so far as I know no analysis to compare with Honda's has got a remotely similar level of attention--for reasons that seem quite telling. Much as American commentators smarmily speak of how "liberal" American society is relative to "conservative" East Asian cultures like that of Japan, in America, one may not speak of the prevailing economic system except to glorify it and abase oneself before it. Meanwhile the gender politics prevailing in the American mainstream mean that the expression of male grievance (which is how Mr. Honda's view is taken, even if what he says about the alienations of "love capitalism" and the viability of "2-D love" would go for women as for men) enjoys about as much mainstream tolerance as criticism of capitalism.
The result is that one only sees any criticism of the expectations regarding relationships of this kind from the alt-right, which is of course where criticism of capitalism is least tolerated. Indeed, where one might look at Honda's theorizing and plausibly see some hint of later alt-right thinking, one ought never to forget that in contrast with Honda they criticize feminism, not capitalism (absolutely ignoring or attacking any suggestion that it may have something to do with the situation they find untoward), while the alt-right does not prioritize individual happiness the same way. Rather it sets traditionalism, and natalism, above personal happiness, and tells men to "get out there and talk to a girl" (and brooks no excuse for failure) rather than retreat into a world of "2-D love," so that one would expect them to be dismissive of Honda's ideas. Still, given that neither the country's economic troubles, nor its fraught gender politics, seem likely to change anytime soon, all as "artificial intelligence" may be making "2-D love" more alluring for some. (Indeed, returning to Japan it seems notable that the maker of what may be the country's most popular "dating app," citing disinterest in dating among the young, launched a "virtual girlfriend" app that it thinks will be more appealing to many.) Amid all that it seems plausible, even probable, that we will hear more from those who think along the lines that Honda did two decades ago--and on this side of the Pacific Rim as well.
Consider what has happened in Japan since the 1980s. A bout of historic speculative frenzy, substantially connected with real estate, ended with a colossal crash that marked the beginning of a long period of economic stagnation (the "lost decade," which turned into "lost decades") that upended not only economic but also political, cultural, social life--with just one of the consequences a trend of young people who, amid diminished prospects in an ever more materialistic culture with an ever less attainable bar for "success," withdrew from social life (most notoriously, the hikikomori), and a sharp decline of marriage and birth rates, feeding the country's culture war, and helping make old-fashioned concern with natality a hot topic in the process.
So has it gone elsewhere in the advanced world, and beyond, with the crash of 2007 and its aftermath in the "Great Recession" doing for it generally what the crash of 1990 did for Japan, with America no exception, the country since discovering its own "hikikomori", in which a reported decline of marriage, falling birth rates and natalism have become major issues, all of which has fed into its own culture wars. Still, there have been differences between the situation of one country and another, with an interesting case Japanese cultural critic Toru Honda, who quickly emerged as a figure of sufficient note to get interviewed for the Asahi Shimbun (Japan's equivalent of the New York Times, or at least what the Times used to be) in the wake of the (within certain circles) controversy over the popularity of the Densha Otoko franchise. His position was that capitalism had done to romance what it had done to everything else, in the process devaluing much of the population such that it had no hope of getting anything by involvement in what may be called the "dating" or "marriage" market (just as many are unemployable in the labor market, and not incidentally thereby rendered hopeless in the dating/marriage market too), and that it was an entirely valid response to reject it--and indeed, to accept as a substitute for an unattainable love with a "3-D" human being one's emotional relation to a "2-D" character.
Just as in Japan the U.S., amid a deterioration of the economic situation, has seen young people become more critical of society's expectations of them, not least in as they interact with gender roles. There has even been some talk of people frustrated with an unpleasant contemporary reality preferring a virtual one to "Real Life" (Edward Castronova and Jane McGonigal, indeed, warning of the possibility of an "exodus" here). However, so far as I know no analysis to compare with Honda's has got a remotely similar level of attention--for reasons that seem quite telling. Much as American commentators smarmily speak of how "liberal" American society is relative to "conservative" East Asian cultures like that of Japan, in America, one may not speak of the prevailing economic system except to glorify it and abase oneself before it. Meanwhile the gender politics prevailing in the American mainstream mean that the expression of male grievance (which is how Mr. Honda's view is taken, even if what he says about the alienations of "love capitalism" and the viability of "2-D love" would go for women as for men) enjoys about as much mainstream tolerance as criticism of capitalism.
The result is that one only sees any criticism of the expectations regarding relationships of this kind from the alt-right, which is of course where criticism of capitalism is least tolerated. Indeed, where one might look at Honda's theorizing and plausibly see some hint of later alt-right thinking, one ought never to forget that in contrast with Honda they criticize feminism, not capitalism (absolutely ignoring or attacking any suggestion that it may have something to do with the situation they find untoward), while the alt-right does not prioritize individual happiness the same way. Rather it sets traditionalism, and natalism, above personal happiness, and tells men to "get out there and talk to a girl" (and brooks no excuse for failure) rather than retreat into a world of "2-D love," so that one would expect them to be dismissive of Honda's ideas. Still, given that neither the country's economic troubles, nor its fraught gender politics, seem likely to change anytime soon, all as "artificial intelligence" may be making "2-D love" more alluring for some. (Indeed, returning to Japan it seems notable that the maker of what may be the country's most popular "dating app," citing disinterest in dating among the young, launched a "virtual girlfriend" app that it thinks will be more appealing to many.) Amid all that it seems plausible, even probable, that we will hear more from those who think along the lines that Honda did two decades ago--and on this side of the Pacific Rim as well.
The Sanctimonious Self-Importance of the Press
If still fairly young when he began and not in the business for very long Theodore Dreiser still got a deeper understanding of that business than almost anyone will admit to in our day. As he tells us near the end of his recounting of the experience, A Book About Myself, he tells us that even at that early point in his life in which he was trying to make it as a journalist in New York he "knew about the subservience of newspapers to financial interests, their rat-like fear of religionists and moralists, their shameful betrayal of the ordinary man at every point at which he could possibly be betrayed"--and at the same time their "still having the power, by weight of lies and pretense and make-believe, to stir . . . up" that common man "to his own detriment and destruction," a power that they used to the full. Indeed, he confesses to having been "frightened by this very power, which in subsequent years I have come to look upon as the most deadly and forceful of all in nature: the power to masquerade and betray."
It would seem that that "power to masquerade and betray" was in part founded on the press' "air of assurance and righteousness and authority and superiority which overawed and frightened me."
So does all this remain the case today--the news media retaining its powers, and using it in the same irresponsible, corrupt, vicious way, while displaying the same "air of assurance and righteousness and authority and superiority," as we see whenever, in the wake of living down to the lowest expectations of them in the event of the most world-historic of crises, they pat themselves on the back for what a "good job" they did, and smugly brush off any criticism anyone would make of the "mainstream media," sure that the problem must lie with the critics and not such upstanding "adults in the room" as themselves in that self-satisfied centrist way displayed by rags like the New York Times in its degeneration.
One may wonder if these days more people are not sick of the subservience, the cowardice, the betrayal, of which Dresier wrote, and which his contemporaries were already analyzing in detail in ways that ring not just true but depressingly familiar today. After all, even the Establishment-coddling middle-of-the-roaders are looking like they have had enough of these days, to go by what Rebecca Solnit says.
Alas, in the face of the criticisms it seems that they have just gone on getting worse in every way rather than better as they go on congratulating themselves for what a good job they are still doing, and continue to insist that anyone who disagrees with their flattering self-assessment is stupid or deranged or otherwise less than a functional "adult."
It would seem that that "power to masquerade and betray" was in part founded on the press' "air of assurance and righteousness and authority and superiority which overawed and frightened me."
So does all this remain the case today--the news media retaining its powers, and using it in the same irresponsible, corrupt, vicious way, while displaying the same "air of assurance and righteousness and authority and superiority," as we see whenever, in the wake of living down to the lowest expectations of them in the event of the most world-historic of crises, they pat themselves on the back for what a "good job" they did, and smugly brush off any criticism anyone would make of the "mainstream media," sure that the problem must lie with the critics and not such upstanding "adults in the room" as themselves in that self-satisfied centrist way displayed by rags like the New York Times in its degeneration.
One may wonder if these days more people are not sick of the subservience, the cowardice, the betrayal, of which Dresier wrote, and which his contemporaries were already analyzing in detail in ways that ring not just true but depressingly familiar today. After all, even the Establishment-coddling middle-of-the-roaders are looking like they have had enough of these days, to go by what Rebecca Solnit says.
Alas, in the face of the criticisms it seems that they have just gone on getting worse in every way rather than better as they go on congratulating themselves for what a good job they are still doing, and continue to insist that anyone who disagrees with their flattering self-assessment is stupid or deranged or otherwise less than a functional "adult."
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