Theory

This entry was originally posted on 5 February 2004 at 5:29 p.m.

In the sciences--physical and social alike--the purpose of any theory is to tentatively explain some naturally-occurring phenomenon. In this framework, theories are things that are meant to be tested and either accepted or rejected (as in the physical sciences) or accepted to varying degrees (as in the social sciences). To scientists, theories are useful. They present a context by which one can understand something, and the best ones are used as the basis for furthering the field in question.

This is why i don't understand literary theory. It can't be tested. You don't hear professors in English departments exchanging statistical methods, talking about the latest Chi-square test or Pearson's r or ANOVA results for data from Shakespeare's Hamlet. The thought is at once absurd and disturbing.

So how in the hell can they call what they do "literary theory"? Why not call it "critical framework" or something equally--and more appropriately--descriptive? Are they seeking some sort of validation? Or are they just trying to make storytelling a more rarefied pursuit?

And why the hell can't they just let us read?

The case for therapy

This entry was originally posted on 5 February 2004 at 9:42 a.m.

According to this article over at Wired, "about three in every 1,000 American preschoolers were on antidepressants in 1995." I'm stunned and saddened by this.

I don't understand our culture sometimes. Over the past ten years we've medicated more and more of our population without really understanding the effects of the medication. We've allowed ourselves to become a society of victims--claiming that we are completely out of control and therefore must give our lives over to things like medication and "higher powers."

Now, i can't argue the effectiveness of this strategy in cases where it's appropriate. And there certainly are 3-year-old children who display the symptoms of some debilitating mental illnesses. But does it make sense to medicate a child for something like anxiety or depression or selective mutism when there are less intrusive, more empowering options (certain forms of psychotherapy) that are available?

I think it's high time the FDA or the Department of Health reconsider the impact of these kinds of drugs on children and teenagers, and begin regulating therapy.

As it stands, just about anyone can hang a shingle and "practice" therapy because it isn't regulated the way medicine is. Consequently, many people discount the power and effectiveness of therapy--in fact, most people don't realize that there's more out there than the stereotypical Freudian psychoanalysis (trust me, there is more, and it's far more effective than that Freud). If therapy were regulated so that practitioners would have to have either a doctorate in psychology or specific certificate training for certain forms of therapy, and if the media were willing to show the results of scientific studies proving that certain forms of therapy are just as effective as medication, we might find ourselves less a society of vicitms and more a society of informed, thoughtful people.

Then again, that would mean that we'd have far fewer melodramatic stories for 60 Minutes and 20/20 and the Lifetime channel, wouldn't it? *tsk* Tragedy.

Subtlety, or why Haruki Murakami is a genius

This entry was originally posted on 29 January 2004 at 12:31 p.m.

A couple of days ago, i saw someone complain that Haruki Murakami's writing style is too "flat," as though his characters are just going through the motions. Although i disagree with the sentiment, i thought it was a very interesting criticism, as it highlights a tendency among some contemporary authors that i cannot stand: the use of "loaded" phrases and imagery, and a tendency to make every word drip with "meaning."

Stories have parts to them. Some parts are supposed to be laden with purpose: pivotal moments, realizations, resolution to significant conflicts, significant conflicts themselves. It makes sense for the action to slow down in these places, for characters to think things through, to feel things, to be overwhelmed or noticeably underwhelmed. These are the moments that make a story what it is.

There are other parts of stories that are meant to be functional or utilitarian, that set the scene, or get a character from one place to another, or introduce something new. These parts aren't necessarily trite or prosaic or pedestrian; they are often meaningful by nature, especially if their presence is necessary for some reason. A conversation, a prop, an image--all of these things can advance a story and be meaningful without being loaded. For example, think of the basic setup for a knock-knock joke:

"Knock-knock!"
"Who's there?"

These phrases aren't dripping with heart-rending significance; they're there to set up and advance the joke--in fact, they're necessary for the joke to exist, much less progress.

There are other parts that lie somewhere in the middle. They provide information that might be important within some later context, they inform the reader of the character's state of mind or motive, they provide details that make an image more powerful, or they set the mood for a scene. These kinds of things are neither significant nor necessary, but they add a certain amount of flesh and subtlety to the story.

Many contemporary writers tend to rely far too heavily on the first category--the pivotal moments, realizations, and so on, that drive the plot. As a result, their prose becomes melodramatic, their words scream and wail like the characters in a soap opera. Their characters might be even-keeled, but the prose careens moans and generally makes itself far more obtrusive than it should--to the point where the story becomes lost.

What's worse is that this tendency to write stories where every phrase resounds with emotion lessens the impact of the moments that are supposed to be significant or important or pivotal. If every word drips with meaning, the parts that matter become invisible, even anticlimactic.

Murakami writes in a way that emphasizes the second and third categories: movement conveyed by phrases of necessity, and details that provide flesh or fodder for later scenes. His characters reflect this quality: emotionally, they are often spare, quiet, and observant. When the pivotal moments arrive, there is no need for him to add much to his prose, because the scenes he has painted have been so subtle that even the barest hint of significance is enough to move the reader.

Many contemporary writers seem to believe that their job involves creating images that stand out, garish creations made of primary colors and heavy black lines. Their work can be read and understood easily; their images are similar to those of a television show, where everything is provided for the reader. Murakami offers images that fade into one another, transitions gentle enough to leave the reader wondering where they occurred. His work is not always easy to read--it often requires an eye that can distinguish the faintest shades of gray. He feels no need to overwhelm his readers with emotion; he assumes that they are sensitive enough to see the colors for what they are.

It's no wonder that so many readers feel underwhelmed by his books--they've lost their ability to distinguish the more delicate hues from having been barraged by the clunky cacaphony loved by so many contemporary writers.

Manifesto (for plus-sized women)

This entry was originally posted on 31 December 2003 at 12:17 p.m.

I'm a plus sized woman. I have been for my entire adult life. There's really no way around it: with my frame, if i were in perfect shape and rid of any unwanted pounds (hey, you try taking an SSRI for five years without gaining at least thirty pounds), i'd probably still be a size 18.

This doesn't bother me. I've always been stocky. Yeah, i could lose some weight, but much of what i carry around is muscle (fieldwork does that to a person). In school, i was always stronger than all of my female classmates--and most of my male ones. Back when i lifted weights, i was leg-pressing over 400 pounds. And that was in high school.

I've also always been something of a tomboy. It just turned out that way. At age three, i wanted to be a boxer; at four i was pretending to be the Incredible Hulk; at ten i was playing with G.I. Joe figurines. Never liked Barbie. Never cared for baby dolls. Always wore jeans and tee-shirts (even on this job), and anytime i've needed to dress up, it's almost always been in a suit. (You will hear rumors of a prom dress. Ignore those rumors.)

So that's me in a nutshell: typical soft butch (though i don't play softball; i prefer the martial arts). This is who i am, take it or leave it. This is what i look like.

Unfortunately, this leaves me with very few clothing options.

Walk into JC Penny's or Sears or Boscov's or Kohl's (since Old Navy doesn't make anything in a 22) and look at the clothing in the women's section. Not the petites or the juniors or the misses, but the women's section, the plus sizes. Take a good, close look at the kinds of clothes you see there. Then go back to the regular sizes and look.

Notice the difference?

Clothing in the women's section is almost always dressy. It's feminine. Classy, pretty, nice clothes. Sure, you'll find some jeans (usually Lee or Arizona), but you never find cargo pants, tee-shirts, or casual button-down shirts. Everything is frilly--the entire section is like an explosion of femininity. But the thing is, you don't see this in the regular sections. Sure, the other sections have dressy clothes, but they also carry casual stuff that isn't disgustingly feminine.

What are they trying to say about us, ladies?

I figure there's one of two things going on. One possibility is that the designers of plus-sized women's clothes think that because we're not tiny little petite things, we fear we aren't feminine enough. In their minds, they're doing us a favor by creating clothes that bring out our inner Stepfordness. Personally, i find this possibility laughable. We know damn well who we are. If we're feminine, we don't need our clothes to proclaim it to the world in a pathetic attempt to make us seem dantier than we are. Femininity is revealed first and foremost in disposition and manners--regardless of whether our clothes reflect this.

The other possibility is that the designers of plus-sized women's clothes fear us. In their eyes, our size makes us less feminine. We don't fit the standards of human sexual dimorphism (and it does exist), so perhaps we don't fit the standards of femininity either. This is frightening, a challenge to long-held traditions of the sexual order of our species--and they sense this. They sense the threat we pose that is implicit in our size to their sex-based social dominance. In response, they design our clothes with a sense of desperation, a sense of hope that by enveloping us in feminine trappings, they divest us of the intimidation--and power--that comes with our size.

This possibility is equally laughable, but i have to stop and think about it: should i be taking advantage of my Amazonian build to threaten the structure of the patriarchy? Should i make my size--small as it is among plus sizes--a political issue?

I won't answer these questions, though i will say this: i am who i am. I will find the clothes that suit me in comfort, style, and functionality. And i will not compromise my taste for my size, regardless of what the social order of this country thinks of me.

Language barrier

This entry was originally posted on 19 December 2003 at 12:45 p.m.

Will it ever get to the point where i feel at home somewhere? Will it ever get to the point where i can walk down the street and run into people i've met and feel like i actually know them?

I was 17 when my dad retired from the military and took a job in the defense industry. Seventeen. Certainly, i've moved less than many people i know--no question about that. But...there's something about attending six schools before college when most people attend three that just makes me feel as though i've got less of a claim in this country than they do.

You'd think it would be the opposite, right? That i'd seen enough of this country that all of it felt like home.... But it doesn't work that way.

A story, then, from childhood, since that seems to be the theme this week:

My first school was an ugly brick Department of Defense school in Mainz, Germany. We lived on Benjamin Franklin Strasse (yes, the sign actually said "Strasse" rather than "Street") in Martin Luther King Village (yes, it was really called that, but as always with the military, there was an acronym: MLKV).

It was a military housing area, separate from the places where our parents actually worked. We had a PX, a commissary, a few playgrounds, a tennis court, and even the infamous Pizza Barn. We had a movie theatre, where, before every film we had to stand up for the national anthem. (When we moved back to the States, in 1983, my brother, sister, and i went to see Return of the Jedi. Before the movie started, my brother turned to me and explained that they weren't going to play the national anthem and that we weren't supposed to stand.) Our village was separated from the rest of Germany by a chain-link fence.

We weren't restricted to life in the housing area. We spent many a weekend in Mainz-Kastel: street artists drawing the Virgin in chalk, beggars hoping someone might toss them a few pfennigs, produce stands, cover bands playing on trailers in the plaza, Legoland. All around us, the sounds of the German language. I didn't know any different: this was home as much as Fort Ord, or San Antonio, or Fort Sheridan, or Latham.

I started school in Germany--kindergarten (how apropos), first, and second grades. Our classes were in English, but we learned German. We spoke it in the halls, our teachers occasionally spoke it to us, we used the odd phrase on the playground. We were accustomed to hearing it. Our field trips took us to German castles on German hillsides and taught us about German history.

During the summer between second and third grades, we moved to Tacoma, Washington. My father had been transferred to Fort Lewis. I was to start third grade at Whittier Elementary in September. It was exciting: we had our own house (no more apartment complex!) with a deck and a garage in a suburban neighborhood. We had our own yard with a big boulder in the front that i could climb if i were brave enough. It wasn't so different from Germany in some ways: towering pines, same latitude, similar climate.

Different school.

I'd never been to an American public school before. It wasn't so different in many ways, but it was strange for me because i'd never known anything other than my little DOD school.

It took me a few hours to realize that no one spoke German. I'm sure i must have greeted a few teachers the way i'd been taught, with a "Guten Tag" or "Guten Morgen." I'm certain they must have looked bemusedly at me.

I don't think i'd cried so hard since the day before my fourth birthday when i realized i wouldn't be three anymore. My parents, as always, were astounded to see me crying. What could possibly be so horrible about my new school?

Maybe it was just culture shock. Maybe it was just the shock of moving when i was finally old enough to begin to understand what it meant. Maybe it was that the realization that i was a military kid, that i was different, was finally setting in. But i will never forget the day when i cried because no one at my school spoke German.

The Fraternal Order of Youth

This entry was originally posted on 17 December 2003 at 12:29 p.m.

Childhood is a secret society. I was indoctrinated somewhere around fourth grade. It all began with an origami throwing star--the fault of either Aaron Urschel or a kid named Chad whose last name i forget.

You might think of our group as a culture distinct from that of adults, but really we were more of a secret subculture. We shared our own games, rites, beliefs, and codes. We had our own words for some things, words that described things that didn't exist for anyone outside our group. We had shared stories that we created and embellished together, invisible landscapes that we imposed upon the geography of our school, tests and quests to prove ourselves.

I can't reveal the specifics, you must understand. These are secrets that must be kept in the heart for fear of guttering and dying in a shapeless pool of wax.

I haven't seen Aaron or Chad (or Gable, Aaron's sidekick) since 1986, but i think of them often. I wonder whether they remember the way i do.

Histories (a fictionalized account)

This entry was originally posted on 16 December 2003 at 12:23 p.m.

We were in Delaware County, but nowhere near the state of Delaware. The town that was our destination was named for a city in India, though its inhabitants had probably never left the United States.

We had come to gather the remains of her belongings. I don't know how long it had been since she was last there, but i suspect it had been years at best. For some reason, i was nervous about it.

I don't remember what the outside of the house looked like, but i suspect it was unremarkable, maybe even ramshackle. It was the kind of house people don't bother to renovate, situated in a town that people do their best to leave.

The lady of the house welcomed us, her voice restrained, hiding a number of emotions so muddled that it was impossible to identify any of them. She led us in.

What was this place? I was surrounded by secrets, by histories never told, by words unspoken for so long that even their echoes had yellowed and begun to crumble. What was this place?

In a chair in a dusty old living room sat a man in an easy chair, smoking a cigarette before an ancient television. He looked as though he never stood.

None of the windows were open. In the stillness of the air, the smoke of a thousand cigarettes had risen and separated itself into distinct layers, each one thicker than the next, until a complete stratigraphy had formed. I wondered just how long he had been there, smoking away, unmoving, leaving the layers--his one true history--undisturbed.

Who were these people?

Without a word, we ascended the stairs until we came to a room: boxes, crates. Her old treasures, remnants from college, gathered together for her to pick through and take home. She offered me any items of interest. I selected a book. I wondered whether the friend whose parents had so graciously stored her belongings still remembered her, whether they still spoke. I wondered what had happened to bring their histories, once shared, to this point: old notebooks in milk crates, old books in cardboard boxes, mementi and detritus from an era left to memory.

And in the end i didn't ask. We brought down her things, loaded them into her blazer and drove away. The drive home revolved around other things: gas, dinner, small talk. Anything but history.

I still have the book.

Tribal life

This entry was originally posted on 8 December 2003 at 12:00 p.m. Outdated links have been updated and changed.

We recently started getting the National Geographic Channel on our cable system. It's a nifty little channel--there are at least two excellent programs that are shown exclusively on it. There's Taboo, which examines interesting rituals across cultures with topics like witchcraft, tattoo, pain, bloodsports, and so on. The other one is called Worlds Apart. It's a series that documents what happens when an American family is sent to a remote village in a third-world country for 11 days.

I'm fascinated by these programs.

On a recent episode of Worlds Apart, they took this uber-white family from New Jersey and dropped them in Kenya. Keep in mind, the American families are typically whiter-than-white, upper-middle to lower-upper class suburbanites whose greatest fear is that their lawn might look shabby. Typically, the Americans are very unhappy with their new surroundings because they tend to lack things like electricity, indoor plumbing, insulation, and all that good stuff. Many of the Americans go to these countries with the idea that they're superior because they have such comforts readily available, because they come from one of the richest countries in the world, or because they are university-educated.

Few of them stop to think about what they could learn from their excursion. For example, on that recent episode--with the family from New Jersey that visits a village in Kenya--as they showed the family boarding the little twin-prop plane that would fly them back to "civilization," the mother of the family said something like this: "I never understood the concept of a third-world country until I came to Kenya....but what do you do with this knowledge? Do you just take it home with you, or do you try to do something to help them?" (Not an exact quote, but pretty close.)

It astounded me that this woman was just as superior in her departure as she was in her arrival.

The message was not lost on her children, however: the night before they left, the children--these white, affluent, American kids who had been unhappy about living in a place with no plumbing and no air conditioning and no television, these children--who had probably never known a day of hard work in their lives until they went to Kenya--wept. Their tears came not from happiness that they'd be returning shortly to their beautiful house in its temperate climate, but from the deepest reaches of sadness.

Where did this sadness come from? Why cry when you're leaving a third-world country for your first-world paradise? Because what they learned out there was that 21st century America isn't paradise. They learned what it's like to live in a tribe, a real community of the kind that is no longer seen in this country--a place where people don't commute to work in office buildings with people they never see beyond their Monday-to-Friday 9-to-5 existence, where instead, people work together toward survival.

These kids were crying because they'd never seen a real community before. And now, after just eleven days of living in one, they had to leave it behind for the familiar nightmare of affluent isolation, where people are bombarded with advertising that tells them they're not good enough unless they look like actor/actress X, or they're not cool enough unless they own Product Y; where people buy and dispose rather than make and reuse; where people do not really know their neighbors.

One of the kids said it best: "I learned that you only need three things in life. Food, water, and shelter. And friends and family, too" (again, not exact, but close). He also remarked that people in the village came together in a way that people in America do not need to.

I'm beginning to think that humans were never meant to live in American-style suburban affluence--that maybe, after all, we are best adapted to live in tribes, to live lives where people are not part of discrete family units, but of communities that require them to be responsible for their actions.

What astounds me the most is that the adults never stop to think of this.

About that pendulum...

This entry was originally posted on 8 October 2003 at 1:58 p.m.

The irrepressible Scott posted this in my guestbook:

"It probably happened a long time ago, in some transition that was so gradual that people barely noticed which way the pendulum was beginning to swing." I think maybe you've nailed your own question. Perhaps using a swinging pendulum as a model for human relations was the thing that kicked off our use of machine metaphor in human life?

I think he might be right.

Metaphors are important. They allow us to talk about abstract concepts in concrete ways without spending too much time on capturing the unique essence of a given situation¹. And what is more concrete than mechanical or physical processes? Okay, so they're not always tangible, but they are immutable: everyone who has seen a pendulum in action knows exactly how it acts and what its motion looks like.

So this might explain why we so easily adapt things like computers--whose odd behaviors and errors are already quantified and qualified, and whose workings and interfaces are common to many people worldwide--for use in metaphor. Because of this, a phrase like, "he doesn't multitask well" makes perfect sense².

But the fact still remains: we also use human behavior as a metaphor for computer behavior. For example, one might say that a certain CD-ROM drive is "finicky" or that a certain program "doesn't like" some action (presumably, one that produces the kind of error that causes the machine to crash). It isn't uncommon for someone to complain that his or her computer is stubborn, pissy, or otherwise displays some commonly human behavior or emotion.

It isn't unusual for humans to anthropomorphize inanimate objects. We've been talking about cars in human terms for decades now--but computers are different. We interact with them in more abstract and complex ways than we do with cars. Driving is complex, but we don't expect cars to learn from their interactions with us the way we expect Microsoft Word to automatically turn certain features on or off based on our habitual actions. The entire concept of artificial intelligence demonstrates that we expect something more of a computer than we do of a car--and that we're more willing to place responsibility for error on a computer than we would for a car (unless some component of the car fails or is defective).

And so the question: given the amount of crossover between human and computer metaphors, given the context in which we engage computers, and given our drive to make computers emulate humanity, will we someday begin to emulate computers? Or have we already?

Footnotes:
1. That uniqueness is suspect anyway; i have this theory that our experiences largely fall into classes, or perhaps resemble recipes composed of interchangeable subjective qualia--but that's another entry.

2. The link leads to Dictionary.com's definition of the word "multitask"--which comes straight from computers. Apropos, farther down the page, it mentions how this is often used in a human context.

Chicken and egg

This entry was originally posted on 3 October 2003 at 10:33 a.m.

When did we stop using human metaphors for computers and start using computer metaphors for humans? It probably happened a long time ago, in some transition that was so gradual that people barely noticed which way the pendulum was beginning to swing. Maybe one or two people noted it with some sense of irony at the time. Maybe a handful of people encouraged it because they found it amusing. But suddenly it's everywhere, and i sometimes have to wonder whether we are in fact changing what it means to be human based on our interactions with machines.

At the same time, we're twisting the machines to resemble us more and more--something that probably goes back to Vaucanson's automata. In the not so distant future, computers will be both tiny and ubiquitous, and they'll probably carry very humanlike personas.

In the end, will we have switched places?

Science fiction, speculative fiction, and literature

This entry was originally posted on 9 September 2003 at 4:49 p.m.

There's a message board that i've been lurking on for a few weeks now that recently produced a couple of snippets that got the literature/fiction gears to turn in my mind once again.

The first one is a quote from Margaret Atwood about her latest book, Oryx and Crake (which i admittedly have not read)--she claims that, rather than science fiction, the book is speculative fiction, and that "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen" (see Robert Potts' review in The Guardian).

The second is a quote from a review of the same book: "I am going to stick my neck out and just say it: science fiction will never be Literature with a capital ''L,'' and this is because it inevitably proceeds from premise rather than character. It sacrifices moral and psychological nuance in favor of more conceptual matters, and elevates scenario over sensibility. Some will ask, of course, whether there still is such a thing as ''Literature with a capital 'L.' '' I proceed on the faith that there is. Are there exceptions to my categorical pronouncement? Probably, but I don't think enough of them to overturn it" (from Sven Birkerts' review in Locus Online).

The first seems to make the assumption that fiction must be realistic in order to be useful, or at least worthwhile. I find this assumption disturbing--since when is realism necessary for a clear and moving examination of the human condition?

The second bothers me even more--it dismisses science fiction (or the broader realm of speculative fiction) as completely devoid of literary value. Since when must science fiction be unliterary? And by what definition of literature is he working? By my definition, there's plenty of literary science fiction out there.

I bet Kurt Vonnegut would have something pointed to say to both of them.

Literature and fiction

This entry was originally posted on 02 September 2003 at 1:33 p.m.

I think i've figured it out--what, in my mind, constitutes "literary" writing--as opposed to mere fiction.

It's something that's been plaguing me for months, the kind of thing that makes me scratch my head and ask, "Why is it that Italo Calvino wrote literature, but Isaac Asimov wrote fiction?" And i think i've finally determined the difference.

I don't know whether anyone will agree with this assessment, but i hope it's a less subjective criterion than simply saying, "Well, Shakespeare is literature because he wrote great, classic works."

It's this: literary authors, or literary works, are those in which the author has clearly made the use of language as great (or sometimes, greater) a priority as the story itself.

That is, you can have someone who tells great stories but doesn't care about the nuances of language (Michael Crichton), and someone who tells boring or pointless stories but understands and plays with language (George Perec). The former is fiction, the latter is literature.

The beauty of this distinction is that it doesn't assume that all literature is good and all fiction is bad. There's some excellent fiction out there--and literature that you couldn't pay me enough to read.

It's not a perfect distinction, but i think it works. And i like it.

Rugged individualism?

This entry was originally posted on 20 August 2003 at 12:25 p.m.

The United States, as a country, has a long history of individualism and rebellion. It was founded in the spirit of anti-imperialism; the revolution itself, in retrospect, seems much like a thumbing of the nose at the British Empire.

There are countless examples of this American style of individualism. Our history and folktales abound with heroes who fought the status quo and proved themselves stronger, or who struck out on their own to brave the wilderness: John Henry, Susan B. Anthony, Johnny Appleseed, Harriett Tubman, Billy the Kid, Teddy Roosevelt.

The Hoover administration was known for using the term "rugged individualism"--the phrase that, combined with the dream of going from rags to riches, probably best describes the nature of the "American spirit." These were the values, for better or for worse, on which this country was founded, and these were the values that people were expected to instill in their children.

And yet have we? Or have these values--noble in so many ways but for their lack of subtlety--somehow shifted?

It seems as though they have, and not for the better. Now, instead of learning from their mistakes, it seems as though people have a tendency to place blame--and to make sure that it lies well outside themselves. Instead of and taking responsibility for themselves, it seems people would rather file lawsuits. In many ways, we have gone from a country of pioneers to a country of victims.

Lewis and Clark probably weren't expected to sign waivers absolving the government from any blame should they fall to harm. But these days, might they have been?

What has happened to us? What happened to character-building experiences? What happened to taking a few scrapes and bruises, getting up and walking away, that much wiser for the fall? Where did we go wrong? What caused the shift from self-reliance to self-righteousness? How is it that we've become this sniveling, simpering, litigious mass?

How could we have walked away from one of the central tenets of individualism--that we alone are responsible for our actions?

Maladaptive behavior?

This entry was originally posted on 22 July 2003 at 12:54 p.m.

Yesterday one of my coworkers and i were upstairs in the CJ department, delivering new computers to a couple of our PIs. On the way back down to our office, i noticed several book covers posted on a bulletin board in the main hallway. One of the covers was for Acting Out: Maladaptive Behavior in Confinement.

I haven't read the book, and most of what i know about it is based on a small handful of reviews and descriptions i've found on the web, so i really can't comment on the content. What struck me, then, was the assumption made in the title alone: that violent and noncompliant behaviors in prison are somehow maladaptive.

From some standpoints, this makes sense. After all, we put thousands of convicted criminals behind bars on a daily basis in the hope that eventually their prison time will transform them into upstanding citizens of this country by the time they are released.

It's a twisted, illogical, and downright absurd assumption.

Just to clarify things for layman and academic alike: prisons fail as reformatory institutions. They are structurally, socially, and psychologically incapable of transforming anyone into an upstanding citizen. The age-old idea of prison as penitentiary is long outdated. No one pays penance in prison. People in prison are simply removed from society, stripped of their rights, treated as less than human--and are yet expected to miraculously change their ways, as though punishment and incarceration will convince them that they really are good people beneath it all, that they really are able to conform to societal rules.

This logic works on the principle that treating a person badly will cause them to change their behavior, rather than reinforce it. It's a standard behaviorist line, which is fine--except that true behaviorism requires immediate punishment, not a year or two waiting for trial. The justice system in this country is simply not fast enough to employ behaviorist techniques. By the time the trial takes place and the sentence determined, it's too late: the punishment is no longer a response to the crime.

Prisons don't reform people. A convicted criminal sitting in prison is no more paying his "debt to society" than he is contributing to the country's economy--how can one truly give anything back to a society from which he is completely removed? Furthermore, the prison environment is so different from society as we know it that when a convict is released, he no longer understands how he's supposed to behave. The prison system has done plenty to show him what he's done wrong, but absolutely nothing to teach him how to change his behavior to match what society expects of any normal citizen. All prison does is incarcerate and punish--and it does a fairly miserable job of punishing (since the punishment rarely comes swiftly enough to be effective).

And yet we expect prison inmates to respond in nonviolent, conformist ways to their captors.

Look at it from an evolutionary perspective. You've got an organism (inmate) in an extremely harsh environment (prison). Conditions are such that the organism's survival is in question on a daily basis (threat from other inmates, guards, etc.), and that survival is ensured by being proactively or preemptively violent, or by doing things that boost one's "street cred" (granted, this is a simplified picture, but i think it's accurate enough for the purposes of this rant). From this perspective, violent and noncompliant behaviors are adaptive rather than maladaptive. The original assumption now sounds a bit like throwing a person into a lion's den and expecting them to hug the lion, doesn't it? Makes just about as much sense, too.

Once again, i can but shake my head at the unbelievable assumptions we academics make on a daily basis.

Rain, books, mysteries, maps

This entry was originally posted on 18 July 2003 at 11:03 a.m.

Outside, the air is cool; each breath brings with it the scent of rain on the horizon. Clouds threatening thunder hang in the sky, but have yet to unleash their arsenal. I love days like these. Magical days, perfect for scouring ancient libraries for obscure books full of secrets.

Sometimes when i walk into a library or a bookstore, i'm overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. Millions of words, hundreds of thousands of ideas--at the very least. It's as though all the secrets of the universe are somehow hidden within the pages...and finding the right combination of books will unlock them all.

The ultimate puzzle.

I know i've said all of this before, in an earlier entry. But it all seems to bear repeating, especially on days that just feel sacred. These are the kinds of days when great mysteries reveal themselves on the first order: that they exist, and that they are mysterious. And sometimes, these are the kinds of days when great mysteries reveal themselves on the second order: that they can be understood by the seeker, and that they are fundamental.

These are the kinds of days when i realize that i haven't completely removed myself from all spiritual paths--that maybe i'm just mapping the beaten paths before heading into territory hitherto unknown to me.

Aesop revised by Circus

This entry was originally posted on 7 July 2003 at 11:15 a.m.

Once upon a time, Hare challenged Tortoise to a race. See, Hare was an arrogant egomaniac who owned a new car that was very shiny and very fast, while Tortoise was a humble and down-to-earth type who owned an old car that was very sensible and not quite so fast. Hare knew this about Tortoise so he figured the race was in the bag...if Tortoise accepted.

Tortoise, who was an easy-going fellow, agreed to the race, knowing in his heart that there was no way he'd win. He figured it might be fun just to get out on the highway for a little while. Hare was thrilled.

On the morning of the race they met at a rest stop on the interstate and shook hands. Hare's eyes gleamed with the confident anticipation of a shark, but Tortoise's smile was easy and unfazed. They climbed into their respective cars (Hare had washed and waxed his for the occasion), and started their engines. Hare let Tortoise lead them down the on-ramp, and off they went!

As soon as their tires were on the interstate, Hare zipped out to the passing lane and floored it. He was sure he was going to beat that sucker, Tortise. Hare dodged in and out of traffic, making liberal use of his middle finger. Meanwhile, Tortoise shook his head, maintaining his speed (about five miles an hour over the speed limit), and found a good radio station that played music he could sing along to for the duration of the race. He was content as his tires hummed along the asphalt, even though he knew he'd never beat Hare.

But we already know that's not quite true.

Hare, who had just passed someone on the right and cut across two lanes of traffic to get back to the passing lane, and who was driving about 85 miles an hour, didn't see the State Trooper positioned along the highway. The next thing he knew, there were flashing red and blue lights behind him--he'd been caught red-handed! He thought about outrunning the police officer, but he already had a few points on his license and he didn't want to take the chance of having it revoked altogether, so he pulled over instead.

The State Trooper, who was pleased that he had now filled his quota for the month, called up Hare's driving record on his computer--and what a record it was! There was no way he was going to let Hare off with a mere warning. No, this warranted a nice, juicy ticket with a stern warning that Hare was treading dangerously close to losing his license.

Neither Hare nor the State Trooper saw Tortoise drive by them, but he was waiting at the meeting spot they had chosen--near the off-ramp just off the interstate--when Hare arrived.

The moral? Aesop's Fables are much more fun when they involve State Troopers and shiny, fast cars.

Pride

This entry was originally posted on 15 June 2003 at 12:13 p.m.

Yesterday there was a gay pride parade here in Albany. It wasn't huge, but it was larger than i expected. It started out at the bottom of Hamilton Street in Center Square, moved across the neighborhood via upper Swan Street, then turned up State Street (which is one-way in the other direction), and headed into Washington Park. I caught the parade at the corner of State and Dove, then made my way to the park (where i was pleasantly surprised to find a rather large crowd of spectators). I checked out the tables under the tents, then headed off to rent the last DVD in the first season of Six Feet Under.

See, i enjoy these events, but i'm not hardcore. I've met a lot of people who make being gay or lesbian their entire identity--culturally, socially, psychologically, and politically--and that sort of thing just doesn't sit well with me. I practice, believe in, and enjoy more things in life than my sexual orientation: science, arts, writing, photography, maskmaking (there is a reason for the "mask" in "circusmask," after all), music, diddling around on the Web, singing in the car, eating good food, hanging out with people i've recently come to call friends--and not one of these things is directly tied to my orientation. It's just another facet of who i am.

So why was i bothered so much when later, as i was walking down the street, i saw a group of people standing around talking, and one of them (a young African-American woman) said, "Yeah, where's straight pride month?" I wasn't sure whether her words expressed her own opinion or whether they quoted someone else (either out of agreement or sarcasm). Being so unsure, i didn't want to stop and butt my nose in where it didn't belong. But it did make me think about the whole idea of dedicating a month to the pride of any given group.

It occurred to me that there was a certain amount of irony in her words: what would her reaction have been had i stopped and said, "Yeah, and what about white pride month?" I'm sure i would have gotten an earful.

It bothers me that people seem to make a huge distinction between race and sexual orientation in terms of how we relate to them. Clearly, they're different aspects of a person. But they're very similar: just as one can't change one's race, i believe one can't change one's orientation. One might be able to hide who he or she is (both racially and sexually--it's called "passing" and it's been going on for decades on both sides of the coin), but one cannot change these fundamental parts of the self. I know that there are millions of people out there who disagree with this, but most of them are straight and have never questioned their sexuality (and most of them approach the issue from a religious standpoint).

Think of it this way: who would have chosen to be gay or lesbian in the '80s in the US, when there was absolutely no anti-discrimination legislation on the books regarding sexual orientation? Who would choose to be gay or lesbian when it might mean that walking down the street might lead to a beating? Who would choose to be gay or lesbian after hearing about Matthew Shepard? Who would choose to be gay or lesbian in parts of the world where homosexuality is grounds for shame, torture, or death?

In this country, the government has made a practice of dedicating a month to the pride of certain groups of people (African-Americans, women, Asian-Americans, etc.). Invariably, these people belong to groups that are either statistical minorities or are marginalized in society. It's supposed to be a way of promoting awareness of these groups. Of creating a platform for understanding their unique experiences and perspectives as citizens of this country. Of recognizing them as a group, as individuals, and as integral parts of society. Maybe it doesn't work. Maybe it's something we celebrate falsely, posting a few banners here and there, recommending books on the topic, inviting people to speak about it, all the while wishing it were over so we could get back to the business of living our lives.

But there's a reason for it. And if it doesn't work, it's because we allow it not to--because we allow ourselves to be marginalized and not heard, because we settle for a single month of pride rather than making it clear that we exist twelve months of the year whether we celebrate it or not, because once the month (or week or day) is over, we slip back into our hiding spaces and allow ourselves to be marginalized again.

I'm not saying that we should make our entire existence center around that one aspect of who we are. That would just play into the stereotypes and the politics, and it would defeat the purpose of making ourselves known as equals. What i'm saying is that we should simply be who we are. We should make it clear that there's more to a person than his or her race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. And that we are all of these things all of the time. That we are just like everyone else: human, confused, complex, and alive.

Happy Pride.

The Hot Seat

This entry was originally posted on 29 May 2003 at 12:18 p.m.

When i was in fourth grade, my class was subjected to a practice called "the hot seat." It consisted of one student being chosen at random (or maybe it was alphabetically, i don't remember) to sit on a stool (the hot seat) at the front of the classroom, facing the chalkboard so as not to see the other students. Then the rest of the class would be allowed to voice any criticisms they had of that student while maintaining their anonymity. The rules were that the person sitting in the hot seat could not turn and look at the class, and that the students who were doing the criticizing were not allowed to use the words "never" or "always." The intended result of this practice was that the kid in the hot seat would end up being humbled and more self-aware without losing self-esteem.

I don't know how well it worked. There are more resilient kids and less resilient kids, kids who take that kind of criticism to heart and kids who can brush it off without a second thought. And i wonder: did anyone actually learn anything from this? And if they did learn anything, was it about themselves or others?

I've been thinking a lot about that bizarre experience for the last day or two. And it made me wonder--what is the Internet if not an informal hot seat in its own right, a free-for-all where people get to know one another on more or less anonymous terms, then pick one another apart for their quirks?

The one time i was on the hot seat, i managed to surprise the class by recognizing the voice of one of my criticizers and addressing that kid by name. The teachers and the students were all sort of stunned that i'd managed to figure out who was talking to me--this was supposed to be anonymous, after all. There was some consternation, and then the room fell silent. I don't think anyone wanted to play anymore. And i wonder who was more humbled by the end of that session: me or the kid i named.

I don't know whether there's a lesson in there somewhere. Maybe it's this: anonymity makes some people much braver than they would normally be. Or maybe it's this: anonymity doesn't make criticism any easier to take, though it does make it easier to dish out.

Or maybe it's this: you're never really anonymous.

Of fantasy and messages

This entry was originally posted on 20 May 2003 at 1:03 p.m. Inactive links have been removed.

I just finished reading Ivoryshell's most recent entry (Ranting: On music and the theatre (movie theater included)). It's really good. If you haven't read it, read it now, because i'm going to be as unoriginal as ever and do something that Future Problem Solving groups call "piggybacking."

In the third paragraph of Ivoryshell's entry, he talks about how the fairy tale of Cinderella, told as a fantasy, was more moving to him as a kid than it would have been had it simply been told to him in the form of a news item. Somehow, the message, the moral of the story sunk in more when it was told as fantasy (complete with musical numbers etc.). To wit, he says,

The theatricality and unrealness of "Cinderella" allows us to get sucked into a new world, and when we leave that world, we have perspective on it. We can take lessons from it more easily because it's not our world. And it feels more vivid because it has its own specific world, created for that story alone.

To this, i ask the question of the eternal three-year-old: why? Why is it that, as a species, we tend to assimilate and accommodate (technical terms, different meanings) morals, messages, and stories best when they're told with only the most rudimentary trappings of realism? Why is it that setting the story in another world makes it easier to draw the lessons from it?

[Author's note: Before i go on, i want to make it clear that this entry focuses on stories with monumental lessons, the kinds of things you want to teach your children, or things with deep philosophical, spiritual, or religious roots. I also want to make it clear that i'm temporarily suspending the differences i conceptualize between the terms "creativity" and "imagination"--in this case, the act of imagining requires a certain level of creativity.]

When it comes down to it, the question is really why are fairy tales fairy tales and not CNN classics? Why do we require that level of abstraction, whereby we tell and conceive of the story as belonging to a place that doesn't exist--when we want people to draw a real meaning from it? And why is it that it seems we absorb those messages better through the fantastic?

It seems counterintuitive. Having to imagine an entire world slightly different from one's own--in which a wolf can speak and make human-like decisions, or a pig can build a house, or a pumpkin can turn magically into a stagecoach--should, by all rights, be a distraction. But somehow we still manage walk away from the story, newly-created world and all, with the vital message it carries.

I think there are a couple of possibilities here. First, the simple act of imagining a place "long ago and far away, filled with magic" encourages us to pay more attention to what is actually unfolding in the story. Our creative impulses do not stop once we imagine a specific "unreality" and can see it vividly in our minds. World-making is just the beginning of creation. One can see this clearly in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, where God creates the universe, then the world, then the creatures in it, then humanity itself. Myth reflects nature; God's act of creation reflects our own creative abilities. Once we've imagined a new world, we must populate it. And once we populate it, we must--out of sheer curiosity--know the stories of the population we have created. Hence, both the new unreality and the story are burned into our ontology, and the message is now easily accessible due to its vividness--the amount of detail that we put into it, rather than distracting us, actually makes it easier to remember.

Second, world-building makes it easier for us to use idiosyncratic heuristic devices, that is, heuristics that are tailored to our individual perceptions and ways of calculating things.

Think of it this way: emotions are heuristic devices; they provide a great deal of information in a split second, even before we've had time to process them. Much like Spiderman's Spider Sense, emotions alert us that something is out of place, comfortable, disagreeable, agreeable, and so on. Fantasy may work the same way; the major difference would be that we build the fantasy, whereas our emotions are more or less hardwired. In this schema, fairy tales are heuristics that work like emotions.

Third, it's easier to pack allegory into fantasy because it allows for layers of metaphor. Stories based in reality are constrained not only by the laws of physics, but also by the abilities of the average human being--and, perhaps most of all, by the limitations imposed upon us by historical characters, real not. Stories set in reality require even fictional characters to be believable. It's much easier layer symbolism on top of a character with supernatural abilities that are acceptable within an unreal world, than to layer it on top of the same character who has to deal with the realistic reactions of other fictional characters around him.

This may be why a film like The Matrix can include all sorts of mythological and philosopical connections, while a film like Fallen spends more time on action. In the case of The Matrix, the reality/unreality problem is addressed directly: before we can begin to understand the symbolism in that film, Neo has to get beyond reality. In the case of Fallen, we never get to the level of symbolism (and there was plenty of opportunity for it), because the character is bound by a reality that doesn't include demons--so we spend the entire film watching the story as it unfolds, rather than delving into meaning. (Substitute The Sixth Sense for Fallen if you haven't seen it.)

It isn't that stories set in reality aren't good or meaningful. That's not the case at all. It's just that it's easier to draw a lesson from a story that isn't constrained by pragmatic, physical, and material concerns.

Spirituality

This entry was originally posted on 13 May 2003 at 1:25 p.m. The author's note that appears in the original was removed and some minor edits were made, but the remainder of the text is unchanged.

Two of my closest friends are atheists. One of them studied English and, later, design/communications, and worked out a strictly logical moral code by which to live. The other studied music and biology, has a very organic view of death, and a sort of live-and-let-live attitude. I tend to think of the second one as being very spiritual, whether or not he realizes it.

The first one (the logical one) once told me that he'd like to be thought of as spiritual. I couldn't picture it. "Extremely moral," i told him, "but i just don't think of you as spiritual." His reply was that there needed to be a better (read "non-religious") definition of spirituality that captured the secular aspects of it. Now, i'm not a religious person. If you've followed this journal with any regularity, you might have picked up on the fact that i'm an ex-Catholic who currently does not belong to (or believe in) any organized religion. I have my own beliefs, and they don't involve the Judeo-Christian God--or any other anthropomorphic characterization of the divine (e.g., "higher power," "divine mother," "goddess," etc.). So i said, "I don't think of spirituality in terms of religion. And i still don't think of you as a spiritual person."

He grumbled something and dropped the subject.

I've been thinking about the concept of spirituality ever since. Don't get me wrong: it's not that i don't respect that friend; i hold him in rather high regard. I'm impressed that he could pick up the works of a certain notorious philosopher of ethics (who will remain nameless), work out a logically coherent moral code, and live by it, more or less. That takes a certain amount of critical thinking and discipline that clash terribly with much of our "cultural" teaching in the US (that's another entry--one about individualism that i've been thinking about for weeks and is way overdue). But the point is, adherence to a moral code, no matter how stringent, is not, in and of itself, spiritual. It can be, but it isn't necessarily so.

For a few weeks i struggled to determine just what it is that i think of as "spiritual." I consulted various websites, most of which defined spirituality in terms of religion. Obviously, this didn't provide me with what i was looking for. The sites that talked about spirituality without mentioning religion all talked about its root in the word "spirit," which connotes a dualist mentality. This didn't quite satisfy me either, as i don't think one needs to be a dualist in order to be spiritual. I tried searching on the term "secular spirituality" and found a few sites that blasted the notion that spirituality can be separate from religion. I also found a link to site called Freethinking Spiritual Wonderment, which no longer seems to exist, but which provided me (in cached form, thanks to Google) the following:

"In the practice of Freethinking Spiritual Wonderment, the word "spiritual" refers to those thoughts, feelings, sensations, intuitions, and experiences which increase our awareness of the reality that we are fundamentally inter-connected to all other living beings, and to our environment. Equally, those thoughts, feelings, sensations, intuitions, and experiences, which challenge the illusion of us being separate from all other living beings and our environment, are also spiritual in nature."

A little more digging turned up a site that must be the descendant of the FSW one (based on URLs and such, thanks again to Google)--The Secular Journey. There i found a section similar to the other one, in their section on language, and nestled in that page was another passage that seems to reflect and expand on the first:

"The word spiritual however, is also commonly used when we refer to those experiences which are awe-inspiring; those experiences which evoke a sense of transcendence beyond the limits of our own individual egos; those experiences which despite being fleeting, have profound and lasting effects upon how we experience ourselves, and upon who we are; those experiences, while often not intellectual or emotional, which can prompt a immense barrage of both thoughts and feelings and new awareness; those experiences which asks us to re-evaluate the impact of our behaviors and encourages us to grow."

Although some may brush these words off with a pfft and a shake of the head as silly or New Age, i think they capture a large part of what i mean by "spirituality."

Wanting a bit more, i posted the question to the World's End forum at the Neil Gaiman Message Board, one of my longtime haunts on the web. The thread is titled "What is spirituality?" and it produced a wide range of responses. Although people generally agreed with one another, no two definitions were the same--more proof of the concept's mutability. I had originally intended to quote some of the responses here, but i think that doing so without the context of the rest of the thread would not do the ideas justice. So take a second and read the thread--there are about 23 posts to it, all fairly brief, and all worth reading carefully.

One idea that stands out in the thread (and that seems to be shared by The Happy Nihilist, Melancolía, and gaist) is that spirituality is something intrinsic to all people, something that defines people when all other influences are removed, the innermost qualities of a person. It reminds me of a phrase from a song--"reaching out to touch our own being"--we spend so much of our time looking to others for the path when, in reality what we're looking for is not a path at all, but something buried within.

But there's still something that i need to understand about spirituality, something that explains why i think of the one friend as spiritual, and not the other. And i think it's this: Spirituality is one's understanding of the fact that all things are interconnected in curious and complex ways; these interconnections inspire humility, awe, and reverence. Knowing oneself is probably a huge part of this--once a person knows the self, that person is free to understand just how he or she belongs to the web of interconnections.

Maybe it works like this:

• Once a person can tune out the environment and create stillness, he or she begins to sense the underlying truth, these little whispers.
• Once a person can hear the whispers in the stillness, he or she begins to understand the self.
• Once a person can still the voices, he or she is open to clarity and understanding.
• And once a person has attained clarity and understanding, he or she can then view the environment again from this new perspective (think Neo at the end of the first Matrix film, where he sees the walls and people around him in code).

"Reaching out to touch our own being" in reverse, i guess.

Thing is, even by this definition, spirituality is still slippery. Or maybe just flexible. But this is a good thing: it means that it can manifest itself in any number of ways--through religion, art, music, science, literature, whatever. As an evolutionarily primitive species (in the literal sense--a primitive species is one that isn't adapted to any particular niche, and is thus able to survive just about anywhere), and as one that has a wide range of mental experiences, we need that kind of flexibility.

I think this is a definition that i can live with. And it's one that i think explains why i think of my one friend as spiritual--i've seen him react to some musical passages with a certain reverence. It also explains why i don't think of the other as spiritual at all--he's very logical and very moral, but he shows no sign of humility, no awe, no reverence for anything. He's critical and skeptical of everything. That isn't to say that he doesn't appreciate things; he just doesn't connect to them in a spiritual way.

I'm not sure if he would agree with me, but i can live with that.

The Human Factor

This entry was originally posted on 1 April 2003 at 4:11 p.m.

In my last journal entry, i mentioned that i'm reading a book called Visions by Michio Kaku. Now, since the title of that book could refer to lots of things--including things like certain kinds of spirtuality, UFOs, and the results of hallucinogenic drugs--i thought i ought to clarify it a little.

Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist and a professor at the City University of New York. And not just any theoretical physicist (though they're a brilliant lot to begin with), but he's also one of the co-founders of string theory. He's a smart, smart guy also happens to be up for this year's Public Understanding of Science Award, which is given out by the Exploratorium. His book Visions, written in 1996, is about the way that science and technology will change our lives over the next 50-100 years.

Although i haven't finished reading the book yet, there are a couple of passages that i've found particularly interesting. One of them is:

In many ways, the impact of the Internet can be compared to that of Gutenberg's movable type of the 1450s, when it became possible for large numbers of books to reach a mass audience in Europe. (p. 50)

Farther down the page, he goes on:

But the detractors of the Internet claim that it's a passing fad that will slowly fade away, as people get tired of being "flamed" and wading nose-deep in a pile of cyberjunk.

[...]

Perhaps the most consistent critic of the Internet is computer expert Clifford Stoll, author of the antimanifesto Silicon Snake Oil. Stoll pooh-poohs the claim that the Internet will one day swallow up all forms of human interaction. "Few aspects of daily life require computers, digital networks, or massive connectivity," says Stoll. "They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping. You don't need a keyboard to bake bread, play touch football, piece a quilt, build a stone wall, recite a poem, or say a prayer." (p.50)

This makes me laugh. I haven't seen an office today that doesn't use the Internet for research, advertising, information dissemination, and communication. The thought of offices that aren't just wired, but networked, inspires fears of raving Luddites in many of my colleagues. And we're academics for goodness sake.

Stoll argues that computers and networks are "irrelevant" to many of our interactions. Clearly, Stoll has forgotten to take the Human Factor into consideration. The Human Factor is this: as a species, we're extremely resourceful--to the point that we revel in excess, relevant or not. Just because something is technically irrelevant doesn't mean that people won't examine it, latch onto it, and incorporate it into daily existence. In fact, quite the opposite is often the case: give a chimp a box of tools, and he'll use the one appropriate for the job. Give a human a box of tools, and he'll use every single one in the box, regardless of whether it's necessary for the job. And if he can't use them all, he'll certainly try.

We're a funny species that way.

Pleasure reading?

This entry was originally posted on 12 March 2003 at 8:02 p.m.

Occasionally i meet people who don't read for fun. Not even nonfiction. This boggles my mind. I don't want to sound effete or anything, but i just don't get it. There are so many great books out there. What's not to be gained by sinking into one for the odd twenty minutes here or there? It seems wrong, somehow.

I've heard arguments from people who don't like science fiction or fantasy because they can't suspend their disbelief enough to enjoy it. That's fair. But there's plenty of fiction out there that resembles reality to the point of banality.

One could take the argument against speculative fiction a step further and extend it to all fiction. The argument would go something like this: by definition, fiction cannot fully resemble reality, so some people (who don't enjoy things that aren't "real") will not enjoy it. A little extreme if you ask me, but fair enough. There's plenty of nonfiction out there that could easily fulfill this need for absolute realism (excluding books on things like string theory and quantum theory--which make reality as we generally conceive of it a questionable enterprise at best).

There are people who go to the other extreme: they want entertainment, so they don't want anything that resembles reality too closely. And to them i say there's plenty of speculative and even surreal fiction--and plenty of books about things like string theory and quantum theory, which, as i noted above, completely overturn reality as we tend think of it. And there are plenty of books on the occult, for those with a more spiritual bent.

So how is it that there are people who don't like to read?

Maybe i'm going about this the wrong way. Maybe the issue isn't content. Maybe the issue is actually the effort involved. It doesn't take much to watch television, and movies are great because you can completely lose yourself in the images and sounds on a gigantic screen in a dark room. Movie theaters are probably some of the best venues for suspending one's disbelief and getting lost in the story. And this is great.

Movies and television provide the visual and aural components as well as the movement, rhythm, pace, and setting of the story. It's all prepackaged, and the only thing necessary to enjoy it is one's attention. It's easy to see how some people might prefer this, especially if they believe that less effort means greater enjoyment.

But there's a certain freedom to books. The reader can construct the scenes to her specifications. She can enjoy the work without being annoyed by choices in cast, setting, lighting, and so on. She can choose the soundtrack (or even complete silence, depending on personal taste). And best of all, the reader is not forced to complete the entire work in a single sitting, and is not confined to a single place at a specific time--books are the ultimate form of portable entertainment.

The benefits of reading for pleasure clearly outweigh the effort needed to engage in the act.

So why are there still people who don't like to read?

The irony of this, of course, is that one of these people, the one whose distaste for reading i discovered most recently, is a colleague of mine--a graduate student. In an academic discipline that requires consierable amounts of technical reading. I can't imagine what it's like to be forced to read for a degree when one doesn't enjoy the act in the first place.

I just don't get it.