"Memes" are the latest way our big-thinkers try to explain how important stuff gets passed down from generation to generation. Richard Dawkins -- the same scholar who dismissed belief in God "as something that gets passed on in some people's genes" -- offers that our social behaviors are like cultural genes that pass from one generation to the next. Memes therefore are cultural analogues to our physical genes in the way they self-replicate.
Sounds pretty scientific. It's our determined need-to-know HOW we become what we are, disinterestedly leaving it for others to work out WHAT we might best want to become. Which is fair enough, otherwise there would be no need for non-science folks like parents, teachers, clergy and poets. Who, in the final measure, will probably prove vastly more transformative for our lives than most big-thinkers.
But then come the mass media who kinda work their way into these physical & cultural passages...!
You know, Hollywood directors, network executives, and managing editors who step into the flow, re-shaping these passages into their own artistic and financial image. In effect, these are the guys -- not the scientists or those others -- who burn into the circuit-boards of our thoughts most of what we think.
Think about the impact of movies like "Pulp Fiction," "The Godfather" and "The Matrix." Or network series like "Law & Order," "The Sopranos," "Mad Men," and "Glee." And what about newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Along with talkers like Oprah and Limbaugh. Behold our national messengers and we their willing recipients. By and large, you and I are the last powerful message we just felt!
Genes, memes, or whatever, stuff does get passed on from one generation to the next. But upon closer examination, so much of it is actually so very familiar. Just think about it:
* We have reality shows to make us feel better about ourselves, just like our ancestors did when disdaining the unmarried aunts in the neighbor's attics, the geeks in the traveling carnivals, and who in their proud ignorance they called the town idiot!
* We have cop & doc shows to make us believe what we have always needed to believe -- that both the jungle and the grim reaper can be held at bay!
* We also have incessant commercials to make us believe that despite their silly babble, there is always an answer to every problem; even the problems we never realized we had!
* Finally, we have the various new "Housewives of --." A vulgar flurry of hit shows to help every husband in the land feel just a little happier he married the women he did!
This is the real story. Now pass it on...
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
RE-READING MY DIPLOMA
Another season for college graduations. For the diplomas which proudly attest to all the years and lessons required to reach this good day. One wonders, though, how many of the parents and grandparents in these summery audiences suspect they lost almost as much as they gained from their own years and lessons.
With each new book read and course passed, you gather unto yourself what our professors and our culture defined as knowledge and truth. Surely now "the truth shall make us free."
But here's the funny thing. There was a trade-off taking place. Think about it. The more knowledge and truth that fills your life, the less room there may be for what filled it before. In the case of our youthful ignorance, the trade-off is an immensely good one, because ignorance among the citizenry of a democracy is fertile grounds for lies, deceits, false gods and cunning tyrants.
However, there was another trade-off taking place. The more knowledge and truth that take root, the less room there may still be left for those young virtues of awe and wonder, mystery and belief, leprechauns and angels.
Let's be clear here. This is not a plea for eternal childhood. St Paul said it well: "Now that I am a man I have put away the things of a child..." Victor Herbert sang it well: "Childhood -- once you cross its borders, you can n'ere go back again..."
And yet, isn't there some genetic law that has us yearn more for what we have lost, the longer we are from the loss? The flippant accusations of "second childhood" and " silly sentimentality" come easily from teens and caregivers. The first don't understand; the second understand all too well. But there may be something deeper going on. That daunting dawning at the sunset of life that what was yours at the sunrise may have been your richest treasure.
Thus spoke Citizen Kane of his "Rosebud." Also Jesus: "Let the little children come to me and do not stop them; for it is to such as them that the kingdom of God belongs."
This bridge we call life extends over the pit of time from those first-walked-bricks all the way to these last-walked-stones. Yet it is all one bridge. The elders in these audiences have learned how life only makes sense looking backwards, but it has to be lived going forwards.
Which is perhaps why they embrace the eager young graduate so tightly. In that embrace, they may be trying to pass the experience of age on to the eagerness of youth. Just possibly the very best moment of the day...
With each new book read and course passed, you gather unto yourself what our professors and our culture defined as knowledge and truth. Surely now "the truth shall make us free."
But here's the funny thing. There was a trade-off taking place. Think about it. The more knowledge and truth that fills your life, the less room there may be for what filled it before. In the case of our youthful ignorance, the trade-off is an immensely good one, because ignorance among the citizenry of a democracy is fertile grounds for lies, deceits, false gods and cunning tyrants.
However, there was another trade-off taking place. The more knowledge and truth that take root, the less room there may still be left for those young virtues of awe and wonder, mystery and belief, leprechauns and angels.
Let's be clear here. This is not a plea for eternal childhood. St Paul said it well: "Now that I am a man I have put away the things of a child..." Victor Herbert sang it well: "Childhood -- once you cross its borders, you can n'ere go back again..."
And yet, isn't there some genetic law that has us yearn more for what we have lost, the longer we are from the loss? The flippant accusations of "second childhood" and " silly sentimentality" come easily from teens and caregivers. The first don't understand; the second understand all too well. But there may be something deeper going on. That daunting dawning at the sunset of life that what was yours at the sunrise may have been your richest treasure.
Thus spoke Citizen Kane of his "Rosebud." Also Jesus: "Let the little children come to me and do not stop them; for it is to such as them that the kingdom of God belongs."
This bridge we call life extends over the pit of time from those first-walked-bricks all the way to these last-walked-stones. Yet it is all one bridge. The elders in these audiences have learned how life only makes sense looking backwards, but it has to be lived going forwards.
Which is perhaps why they embrace the eager young graduate so tightly. In that embrace, they may be trying to pass the experience of age on to the eagerness of youth. Just possibly the very best moment of the day...
Sunday, May 29, 2011
WHAT'S SO GOOD ABOUT OUR GOOD WAR & OUR WONDER WIDGETS??
It has been written -- perhaps by our genes or simply by our historical habit -- the young will protest and the old will protect. Makes sense, because the old have survived long enough to have a heritage to protect, while the young are eager to start their own heritage.
Which may be why there has been a spate of new books by young historians like Norman Davies questioning just how good the Good War really was. And why young authors like Jonathan Franzen question just how good our wave of new electronic widgets really are.
They each register compelling arguments. Although reading them as someone much older than them, there may be a tug of war between what you need to know and what you need to feel. In the name of all we deem factual and scholarly, these current broadsides can't be dismissed. Davies is right to argue the Western Allies' own lack of courage allowed Hitler to happen, and then they fought him in the name of power not morality. Similarly, Franzen is right to argue that our love affair with our new hand-held screens is a study in the narcissism of virtual power at the expense of actual relations.
And yet, what are we to make of today's indefatigable anti-authors...?
Clearly, the tornado of their criticisms has left behind a wasteland of protest. We look around and perhaps realize how right they are to have swept away our self-serving propaganda along with our self-promoting consumerism. But now what? Just as the victims of tornadoes from the sky must decide, so must the readers of these tornadoes of criticism,
In the decimated cities of Indonesia, Japan, New Orleans and Missouri, many intuitively begin re-building. Others -- usually the more elderly -- see so little of what they once knew, they sadly drift away. Perhaps as many of these readers will do once they are convinced they've been living a lie. The lie that hailed their generation as the "greatest," and the lie that these new instruments of communication endowed them with late-in-life new power.
There's something to be said for clearing away the rubble of yesterday in order to begin re-building a more honest tomorrow. So Miyako and Joplin may rise new and fresher than before. And yet, clean coats of paint and bright new streets can only take place atop what was there before. The tears and sweat, the vision and vigor, of those who first believed these places were worth believing in.
Is it too repetitious to counsel the slayers of myths to wield the sword of their words with much greater respect than their first instinct for facts may dictate....?
Which may be why there has been a spate of new books by young historians like Norman Davies questioning just how good the Good War really was. And why young authors like Jonathan Franzen question just how good our wave of new electronic widgets really are.
They each register compelling arguments. Although reading them as someone much older than them, there may be a tug of war between what you need to know and what you need to feel. In the name of all we deem factual and scholarly, these current broadsides can't be dismissed. Davies is right to argue the Western Allies' own lack of courage allowed Hitler to happen, and then they fought him in the name of power not morality. Similarly, Franzen is right to argue that our love affair with our new hand-held screens is a study in the narcissism of virtual power at the expense of actual relations.
And yet, what are we to make of today's indefatigable anti-authors...?
Clearly, the tornado of their criticisms has left behind a wasteland of protest. We look around and perhaps realize how right they are to have swept away our self-serving propaganda along with our self-promoting consumerism. But now what? Just as the victims of tornadoes from the sky must decide, so must the readers of these tornadoes of criticism,
In the decimated cities of Indonesia, Japan, New Orleans and Missouri, many intuitively begin re-building. Others -- usually the more elderly -- see so little of what they once knew, they sadly drift away. Perhaps as many of these readers will do once they are convinced they've been living a lie. The lie that hailed their generation as the "greatest," and the lie that these new instruments of communication endowed them with late-in-life new power.
There's something to be said for clearing away the rubble of yesterday in order to begin re-building a more honest tomorrow. So Miyako and Joplin may rise new and fresher than before. And yet, clean coats of paint and bright new streets can only take place atop what was there before. The tears and sweat, the vision and vigor, of those who first believed these places were worth believing in.
Is it too repetitious to counsel the slayers of myths to wield the sword of their words with much greater respect than their first instinct for facts may dictate....?
Saturday, May 28, 2011
WHATTAYA DO WITH THE EXTRA CANDY?
History -- as it is so often prone to do -- repeated itself in France this week. The New York Times headlines the pledge of "billions for the Arab Spring by wealthiest nations." Not unlike the US did with its Marshall Plan after WWII. The motive in 1947 was to thwart the rise of Communism in Europe; the motive in 2011 is to thwart the rise of radical Islam in the Middle East.
But heck I learned this lesson growing up where our local candy store was owned by the father of one of the kids we played with. To help keep Jimmy popular with his bullying friends, pops occasionally passed out some of his extra penny-candy free. Jimmy came home with a lot fewer punched-out eyes.
You see how it works...? From candy store owners to rich nations, sometimes it's smart to give something away to the people who might threaten you. Not idealistic philanthropy. Just good, bare-knuckles politics.
For those who carry an ideological grudge against government handing out free-lunches (AKA, welfare programs), this is a lesson not to be ignored. Government welfare is not a giveaway as much as a takeaway. With it, society takes away some peace of mind that the hungry faces pressed against the world's candy store windows won't be driven someday to break through the glass!
Oh, and in case you're interested, it also has the moral advantage of being the right-thing-to-do. The Social Darwinian code I've-got-mine-because-I-earned-it works best in jungles, not in complex societies of teeming millions whose dads don't have free candy to pass out.
Something else for the comfortable Social Darwinians to think about. "Welfare" is serving them too. Consider the number of government programs which funnel money into corporate tax breaks...oil, gas, and corn subsidies...nationwide infrastructure, highways and flood controls....college grants and student loans ...not to mention the 24/7 regulations that protect our water, food, and air.
So no, the wealthy should not resent the wealthy nations sharing the wealth these days. After all, it's their -- and your -- investment in sleeping better in the nights to come. Besides, many of those recipients will probably become some of the artists, athletes, scholars and generals who you'll be applauding some day.
See why it's a takeaway more than a giveaway....?
But heck I learned this lesson growing up where our local candy store was owned by the father of one of the kids we played with. To help keep Jimmy popular with his bullying friends, pops occasionally passed out some of his extra penny-candy free. Jimmy came home with a lot fewer punched-out eyes.
You see how it works...? From candy store owners to rich nations, sometimes it's smart to give something away to the people who might threaten you. Not idealistic philanthropy. Just good, bare-knuckles politics.
For those who carry an ideological grudge against government handing out free-lunches (AKA, welfare programs), this is a lesson not to be ignored. Government welfare is not a giveaway as much as a takeaway. With it, society takes away some peace of mind that the hungry faces pressed against the world's candy store windows won't be driven someday to break through the glass!
Oh, and in case you're interested, it also has the moral advantage of being the right-thing-to-do. The Social Darwinian code I've-got-mine-because-I-earned-it works best in jungles, not in complex societies of teeming millions whose dads don't have free candy to pass out.
Something else for the comfortable Social Darwinians to think about. "Welfare" is serving them too. Consider the number of government programs which funnel money into corporate tax breaks...oil, gas, and corn subsidies...nationwide infrastructure, highways and flood controls....college grants and student loans ...not to mention the 24/7 regulations that protect our water, food, and air.
So no, the wealthy should not resent the wealthy nations sharing the wealth these days. After all, it's their -- and your -- investment in sleeping better in the nights to come. Besides, many of those recipients will probably become some of the artists, athletes, scholars and generals who you'll be applauding some day.
See why it's a takeaway more than a giveaway....?
Friday, May 27, 2011
WHAT WE'VE GOT HERE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
Critics decry today's lack of leaders and leadership. Especially from Washington. And while this is an easy and historically common complaint, it almost always comes from those who have never held a position of leadership. Like the beer-aroused fans in the bleachers snorting their advice on how to play the game.
Leadership -- either innate or rehearsed -- pretty much comes down to this: The ability to communicate some great ideas to a great many people to achieve some great goals. The operative word is "communicate." And it all starts with getting the people's attention.
In the 18th and 19th C, our political voices had a fairly clear shot at the public.There were just a few newspapers in the larger cities, only one in the smaller towns, and of course no radio-TV-Internet. So when Washington gave his Farewell Address and Lincoln his Gettysburg Address, their words didn't have instant-pundit analysis...a response-by-the-opposition...and a hundred gazillion blogs slicing and dicing each paragraph. Even in the 20th C, when FDR broadcast one of his Fireside Chats, virtually the entire adult population gathered around their radios. Not only to listen, but to believe.
Here in the 21st C, virtually no one believes! Anything, anytime, anywhere!
There's an exquisitely ironic pearl sealed inside this enormous national oyster. It's this. The very instruments of today's enhanced communication and leadership have somehow begun to confuse not clarify the messages. Pick a word -- over-load, glut, static -- any word will do. Or as the gang-chain boss in COOL HAND LUKE classically put it: "What we've got here is a failure to communicate..."
Democracy means many good things. Among them is its diversity. The ability of its diverse publics to be heard in the marketplace of ideas. But picture today's marketplace less like Plato's ancient Lyceum, and more like a Middle Eastern Bazaar. Less a thoughtful clash among enlightened thinkers, more a brawling competition of hawking pitchmen.
When "American Idol," "Oprah," and "The Housewives of New Jersey" can arouse bigger audiences than presidents, democracy has itself a challenge the Constitution never quite anticipated. When any small angry mind can shout "you lie" from a Congressional audience or get a million instant "hits" to their undocumented conspiracy rant or fill the Washington Mall with their pitch to our darker side, democracy's greatest promise has just bumped into a whole new breed of abductors.
Democracy -- compared to thousands of years of pharaohs, emperors, and kings -- is the new kid on the block. To prevail, it'll have to work harder to make sure its diversity doesn't spell its demise...
Leadership -- either innate or rehearsed -- pretty much comes down to this: The ability to communicate some great ideas to a great many people to achieve some great goals. The operative word is "communicate." And it all starts with getting the people's attention.
In the 18th and 19th C, our political voices had a fairly clear shot at the public.There were just a few newspapers in the larger cities, only one in the smaller towns, and of course no radio-TV-Internet. So when Washington gave his Farewell Address and Lincoln his Gettysburg Address, their words didn't have instant-pundit analysis...a response-by-the-opposition...and a hundred gazillion blogs slicing and dicing each paragraph. Even in the 20th C, when FDR broadcast one of his Fireside Chats, virtually the entire adult population gathered around their radios. Not only to listen, but to believe.
Here in the 21st C, virtually no one believes! Anything, anytime, anywhere!
There's an exquisitely ironic pearl sealed inside this enormous national oyster. It's this. The very instruments of today's enhanced communication and leadership have somehow begun to confuse not clarify the messages. Pick a word -- over-load, glut, static -- any word will do. Or as the gang-chain boss in COOL HAND LUKE classically put it: "What we've got here is a failure to communicate..."
Democracy means many good things. Among them is its diversity. The ability of its diverse publics to be heard in the marketplace of ideas. But picture today's marketplace less like Plato's ancient Lyceum, and more like a Middle Eastern Bazaar. Less a thoughtful clash among enlightened thinkers, more a brawling competition of hawking pitchmen.
When "American Idol," "Oprah," and "The Housewives of New Jersey" can arouse bigger audiences than presidents, democracy has itself a challenge the Constitution never quite anticipated. When any small angry mind can shout "you lie" from a Congressional audience or get a million instant "hits" to their undocumented conspiracy rant or fill the Washington Mall with their pitch to our darker side, democracy's greatest promise has just bumped into a whole new breed of abductors.
Democracy -- compared to thousands of years of pharaohs, emperors, and kings -- is the new kid on the block. To prevail, it'll have to work harder to make sure its diversity doesn't spell its demise...
Thursday, May 26, 2011
THE GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME
When Johnny Cash sings Curly's Putman's classic 1965 country-western THE GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME, he is telling a universal story. In just a few bars, a story about the life, longing, and demise of one of the world's lost souls. And because all stories are true -- especially those that happened -- this narrative lives on in the pantheon of American music.
Music, even more than literature and theatre, has this gifted way of reaching and strumming the deepest chords of our being. It's instant...it's gut-deep...it barely takes any detour through the brain for analysis. So when Johnny Cash ends, our own feelings are just beginning to swell. Like what happens in ball parks when we sing the national anthem or every time we watch the classic moment in CASABLANCA when the Frenchmen in Bogart's Nazi-controlled cafe stand and sing The Marseilles.
Good music is indigenous to the culture in which it has been birthed; great music is indigenous to humanity itself; wherever there are ears to hear and hearts to swell. Now wouldn't it be a splendid idea if some someone were to write an anthem for the world itself!
The Medieval Church tried with its Gregorian Chants...Beethoven with his 9th Symphony Ode to Joy... the Communists with their Internationale... 20th Century Fox still tries with that explosive film fanfare before each movie....even Coca Cola took a shot with their 1971 mountain-top commercial I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke.
Here's the point.
Music possesses a potential in the life of humanity entirely unique. It's a power lent to us by the gods, to be used with great respect. Tribes have followed it into deserts...armies into battles...martyrs into death ...hippies into Woodstock...angry audiences into rappers. The leap from Beethoven to Rap is a pretty imposing one, and yet that's usually for each private soul to decide.
That decision, of course, can get complicated. Because our feet start tapping and our passions start crackling long before our brain can catch up. So before following that latest music down that new highway, it's usually a good idea to first listen to the lyrics. Especially with any flashy "music man" that suddenly appears on the stage of our lives....
Music, even more than literature and theatre, has this gifted way of reaching and strumming the deepest chords of our being. It's instant...it's gut-deep...it barely takes any detour through the brain for analysis. So when Johnny Cash ends, our own feelings are just beginning to swell. Like what happens in ball parks when we sing the national anthem or every time we watch the classic moment in CASABLANCA when the Frenchmen in Bogart's Nazi-controlled cafe stand and sing The Marseilles.
Good music is indigenous to the culture in which it has been birthed; great music is indigenous to humanity itself; wherever there are ears to hear and hearts to swell. Now wouldn't it be a splendid idea if some someone were to write an anthem for the world itself!
The Medieval Church tried with its Gregorian Chants...Beethoven with his 9th Symphony Ode to Joy... the Communists with their Internationale... 20th Century Fox still tries with that explosive film fanfare before each movie....even Coca Cola took a shot with their 1971 mountain-top commercial I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke.
Here's the point.
Music possesses a potential in the life of humanity entirely unique. It's a power lent to us by the gods, to be used with great respect. Tribes have followed it into deserts...armies into battles...martyrs into death ...hippies into Woodstock...angry audiences into rappers. The leap from Beethoven to Rap is a pretty imposing one, and yet that's usually for each private soul to decide.
That decision, of course, can get complicated. Because our feet start tapping and our passions start crackling long before our brain can catch up. So before following that latest music down that new highway, it's usually a good idea to first listen to the lyrics. Especially with any flashy "music man" that suddenly appears on the stage of our lives....
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
COSMIC WISDOM FOR UNDER $20
You can travel to a mountaintop guru or spend time in a hillside monastery, but one of life's greatest wisdoms can more easily be found by simply playing a CD of one of Broadway's classic musicals. Here the concentration required of you is not on things above, just on those spectacular tenors and sopranos hitting the big notes in those smashing musical numbers.
They are uncredited on the album and certainly weren't featured in the theater's lobby photos. But listen again and it's clear how their soaring voices make those numbers work. Sustain the flow of the show.
Now here's the lesson.
The show is closed...the run is over...the cast has dispersed... these few nameless faceless voices from heaven are back on the streets auditioning for their next job. Not only the way of show business, it's the way of the world. From headliners to chorus liners, the marquee lights may blaze only once in a lifetime.
However, this doesn't have to be grieved over. It's just the way life is. Learning this is smart. Adjusting to this is wisdom. Remembering that you once made a difference, that's serenity.
They are uncredited on the album and certainly weren't featured in the theater's lobby photos. But listen again and it's clear how their soaring voices make those numbers work. Sustain the flow of the show.
Now here's the lesson.
The show is closed...the run is over...the cast has dispersed... these few nameless faceless voices from heaven are back on the streets auditioning for their next job. Not only the way of show business, it's the way of the world. From headliners to chorus liners, the marquee lights may blaze only once in a lifetime.
However, this doesn't have to be grieved over. It's just the way life is. Learning this is smart. Adjusting to this is wisdom. Remembering that you once made a difference, that's serenity.
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