Non-submersible Units

A Hijacking vs. Captain Phillips

2013-05-15T14:44:00.001-07:00

Tobias Lindholm's A Hijacking (2012)

Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips (2013)

Two forthcoming releases, both high-tension dramas about the hijacking of Western cargo boats by Somali pirates. One stars Tom Hanks and is helmed by Paul Greengrass, of Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum fame; the other stars Borgen alumni Pilou Asbaek and Soren Malling, and is written and directed by chief Borgen contributor Tobias Lindholm.

Observe the sharp contrast in European and American styles of film-making:

Both are mass-consumption fare mind, even the Danish A Hijacking was made on a reasonably sizeable budget, presumably possible due to the successful exporting of Danish and general "Scandi" TV shows and films in recent years (The Killing, Wallander, All You Need is Love, etc.).

It goes without saying that Captain Phillips will be the bigger draw at the Box Office, and I must admit, it looks more exciting (Scary Somalian pirates! Brave gentle Tom!). It's still a quiet shame that we all know which is the more worthy film (hint: it's A Hijacking), not solely due to the nuanced performances and palpable tension built on uncompromising realism. I have more than a suspicion that Captain Phillips won't leave the audience pondering the socio-political disparities separating the Somali pirates and our Western hero quite like A Hijacking will...

The psychology of mass murder (a brief overview)

2012-12-16T18:17:00.002-08:00

We Need to Talk About Kevin - 2011

In a sort-of update to my previous post, I thought I would briefly and tentatively dissect a minute aspect of a multi-layered problem: mass-murder. Much of my thoughts contained herein stem from this article, which talks about psychopathy. I don't believe there is any meaningful conversation to have regarding the link between mental illness and mass-murder, but perhaps by looking at what tenuous links there are, I might educate some people.

Another devastating mass-shooting has taken place in the United States, this time in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, one of the safest states in the country.

In amongst the usual liberal vs. conservative/libertarian arguments over gun-control, I've witnessed a gradual but steady rise in calls for bringing the discussion of mental illness to the table, to make it more "public", as though it were a dirty secret. This comes in the wake of reports that Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook shooting, purportedly had a form of autism, or was at the very least "socially awkward", a term often used to describe the kind of "lone, deranged killer" types we're accustomed to hearing about on the news.

The argument, then, is presumably that by raising awareness about mental illness, we can address the issue that REALLY matters, i.e. screening for the wealth of undiagnosed nut-cases stockpiling weapons all around us?

It's fair to say this argument is mostly put forward by conservatives wishing to steer the debate away from the issue of gun-control. This short but sweet response from DSM 5 contributor Dr. Frances sums up my feelings on the matter.

Nonetheless, a troubling and touching account was published today by a mother whose 13-year old son she feels exhibits strong signs of becoming a future Adam Lanza (her article is somewhat dramatically titled "I am Adam Lanza's mother"). She argues that

It's time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health.

What would this conversation be about, in the context of mass-murder, and what outcome would it have? Could we screen for and prevent potential mass-murderers?

Firstly, I think it is important to note that a person with a diagnosis of mental illness is more likely to be a victim of violence rather than the perpetrator.

Secondly, there is not much in the way of literature on the psychology of mass murderers (discounting analyses of historical atrocities like genocide). Seeing as mass murders are relatively few and far between (despite what the media may have you believe), the best we have are case-studies conducted on high-profile individuals after the fact, such as the two perpetrators of the Columbine shootings.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, 18 and 17 respectively, have had their motives and minds analysed in a number of books and reports, some less reputable than others. Taking an aggregate of what I've read/heard over the years, the two shooters appear to fit the criteria for psychopathy, or at the very least narcissistic personality disorder.

The year before the massacre, Harris and Klebold had been caught breaking into a van. They avoided prosecution through a “diversion programme” involving counselling and community service. Each wrote a letter of apology, with Harris stressing his empathy for his victim: “I believe you felt a great deal of anger and disappointment.”

But Harris’ journals revealed his true feelings: “Isnt america supposed to be the land of the free? how come If im free, I cant deprive a stupid fucking dumbshit from his possessions If he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his fucking van out in plain sight and in the middle of fucking nowhere on a Frifuckingday night. NATURAL SELECTION. fucker should be shot (sic).”

Hence by joining a few dots in an unscientific way, we could conclude that psychopathy predicts mass-murder...

I doubt it would be the first time, and you might even say it's an obvious deduction, but it's worth remembering that there are a panoply of possible reasons for wanting to go out and kill people, some of which I'm sure we all secretly and shamefully share (bullying, vengeance etc.).

There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable - Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von, 1749 - 1832

Nonetheless, only a rare minority of us actually goes out and does it. Through the gradual medicalisation of human behaviour, Psychiatry has identified a key set of personality traits that taken together can potentially account for some of the extreme violent acts that the media loves to sensationalise: Psychopathy (often wrongly called Sociopathy in the media).

Ted Bundy

I'm not going to go into it here, but psychopathy is a controversial diagnosis (as are personality disorders in general); some people think it doesn't exist (it is after all a composite of traits from other personality disorders), others swear by Robert Hare's patented Psychopathy checklist.

Regardless, the construct has built up quite a hefty empirical basis over the years, and is very useful for describing and preempting some of the frighteningly manipulative and cold-blooded behaviour of violent people (friends of mine who have worked with such a population have quite the stories to tell).

We're now accustomed to hearing about men in their late 20s and 30s committing a spate of grizzly crimes, the psychopath tag being an easy fit. But what about relatively young (often male) perpetrators of cruel, violent acts? The conventional wisdom would be to hold off on a diagnosis and blame external influences (video games, music, etc.), assuming that youth equates with impressionability. The research is beginning to challenge this accepted wisdom.

“To me it seems a no-brainer,” says Essi Viding, professor of psychology at University College London. “Nobody’s going to get psychopathy as a present when they turn 18. Of course you’re going to see some precursors.

Essi Viding is actually professor of Developmental Psychopathy at UCL, and the bulk of her research is dedicated to examining the early markers for later development of antisocial personality disorder, a component of adult psychopathy. Particularly strong markers are Callous-Unemotional traits (CU).
According to Paul Frick, who so named the Callous-Unemotional traits based on parents' descriptions of their children,

The difference between children with conduct disorders and this particular group lacking in empathy can be seen in two referrals that he recalls. Both had been cruel to animals. One child had shot and killed a cat in a tree, in a reckless attempt to get it down. The second had, little by little, cut pieces from a cat’s tail to see how it would respond.
Viewed in terms of severity, the first child is worse, having killed the cat, Frick says. But it is the dispassionate cruelty of the second that indicates callous-unemotional traits.

I have to say, I find that second story particularly unsettling. It's worth noting however that only 2 to 4 percent of children have conduct disorders, and only a third of these display the aforementioned traits, so it is relatively rare. Here are the traits in full:

“One is lack of guilt. They just don’t seem to show remorse or guilt. A person doesn’t feel bad or guilty, unless they’re expressing guilt when they’re caught.

Second, a lack of empathy. They have a disregard for the feelings of others. Third, they are unconcerned about how well they do in their school work. And fourth, shallow and deficient affect. They don’t show emotions except if emotions will get them something. These kids are often described as cold.”

As alarming as these traits are, to start labelling children as psychopaths is problematic, as psychopathy has historically been seen as an untreatable illness, the only solution being preventative incarceration. An example of this can be seen when a murderer pleads insanity, thinking they'll spend a reduced sentence in a medical facility, ending up spending the rest of their life in a high-security institution like Broadmoor Hospital, due to a diagnosis of psychopathy.

Nonetheless, Professor Viding's research indicates that CU traits and Antisocial Behaviour (AB) are not only present in early childhood and predictive of adult psychopathy, but based on adoption and twin studies appears to have a strong genetic basis as well, particularly CU.

The CU and AB traits could well describe an Adam Lanza, or the Virginia Tech killer, and it is chilling to think that the signs arrive so early in life, even in the absence of bad parenting. In this regard, the film We Need to Talk About Kevin is remarkably perceptive in presenting an ambiguous account of a mother struggling with her CU child, feeling guilty for her suspiciousness and lack of emotional connection with Kevin, despite him being, in clinical parlance, a little shit. And when the titular Kevin commits the heinous acts his short life has been building up to, the ensuing community backlash towards the mother is all the more painful to watch.

I would argue that culturally, we assume children are born innocent and naive, becoming damaged or warped by whatever neglect and abuse they suffer over time. Viding's research would argue for a strong heritability of the C-U trait, which may then exhibit itself in early childhood. This contrasting image of a child essentially born "evil" is hard to swallow, as this article explains

It is clear that our growing understanding of callous-unemotional traits in children presents a massive challenge to schools: to accept that children can be without remorse or regard for others’ feelings

So are we to assume that these young, budding psychopaths are irreparably damaged goods, with close monitoring and eventual incarceration the only solution?

The added benefit of early identification is the opportunity for early intervention. As it happens there is already an intervention that claims to produce meaningful change in behaviour (if not in underlying psychology): positive reinforcement. This may come as a surprise, given the received wisdom:

Faced with some of the most serious misbehaviour, teachers and parents are asked not to reach for their most instinctive response: punishment.

Laura Warren is an educational psychologist who, like Frick, became frustrated that the methods she had been taught were increasingly failing on children with conduct disorders.

At the time, teachers would universally attribute bad behaviour to low self-esteem, she says. “What I was finding was that usually the children who were the most disruptive didn’t have low self-esteem. If anything, it was over-inflated. They thought they were fantastic. Overly high self- esteem is a bigger predictor of aggression than low self-esteem.”

A grandiose sense of self-worth is in fact one of the characteristic traits of adult psychopaths. Viding points to an anecdote from Robert Hare, a psychologist who developed one of the leading tests for psychopathy. He met a prisoner who insisted that he was going to swim for Canada in the Olympics, despite the disadvantages of being overweight, unfit and serving a life sentence.

Hence, the need for a solution that plays into the interests of this rather unique population:

The programme, called Let’s Get Smart, replaces sanctions with rewards. Some teachers were uneasy. “Some teachers felt that punishment happens in the real world; if they misbehave in the real world they will still go to prison. Why are we setting them up for unrealistic expectations?” says Jones. “Our point is that it doesn’t work.”

By offering regular rewards, perhaps three times a day, controlled by the adult in authority, it aims to provide a rational, self-interested motivation for pleasing adults where that motive is emotionally absent. “The adult becomes the clear intermediary between the child and what the child wants,” Warren says. The rewards are tailored to each child’s interests.

These children often have a strong desire for control and teachers have to resist attempts to negotiate, because any concession just leads to more demands. “I teach parents and teachers to say, ‘It’s not open for discussion, go away.’ Adults don’t like to dismiss children,” Warren says.

All this is backed by role play and other exercises that are intended to build children’s capacity to pay attention to and respond appropriately to others’ emotions. Video playback helps the children to see their behaviour as others do, often to their surprise. (“I do swear a lot,” one girl told Warren.)

Promising, although the article describing this intervention points out that it took the children's' behaviour from being in the worst 99% to the 89th percentile. Additionally, as they rightly point out, the approach plays directly into the children's preponderance towards cold, rational self-interest (mini-economists, if you will), without attempting to change their underlying psychological make-up.
Still, it's positive to hear that something works at all, given that historically psychopathy has been considered untreatable.

To summarise, it would appear that psychopathy is rare, has a strong genetic component, and the signs can be detected early. What's more, leading researchers in the field are collaborating to develop and empirically support interventions that will help curb the cruel, calculating behaviour of psychopathic children.
If awareness needs to be raised as has been suggested, it would be amongst schools, parents, and clinicians, so that any eventual programs tailored to the needs of such children could be introduced without the fear and hysteria that one might expect if we simply start labelling callous children as psychopaths.

So, regarding a "meaningful" conversation about mental health, it seems that if there is any connection to be made between mental illness and mass-murder, psychopathy is the best one we have, but it's a tenuous link at best.
As interesting and valuable as all of the research on psychopathy is, none of it links directly with mass murder. Equally, none of the interventions and measures I've discussed have anything to do with preventing mass-murder. As Dr. Frances explains

Psychiatry has no way of predicting or preventing rare and fairly random acts of senseless violence—it is simply impossible to find needles in haystacks. We must accept the fact that a small cohort of deranged and disaffected potential mass murderers will always exist undetected in our midst. The only questions are how often will these ticking time bombs go off and how much damage will they do when detonated.

As is hopefully clear, I decided in this post to focus on explaining the roots of psychopathy, in part because I read an article written by a mother whose young son she fears will become an Adam Lanza. I have a feeling her son may simply be displaying Callous-Unemotional traits (albeit severe ones), and by taking her jump in logic seriously, I hoped to show that no direct link actually exists between psychopathy and mass murder.

Mental illness is but one small component (if it is at all) of a complex and nuanced problem. Wanting to understand the psychology of extreme acts like mass-murder may help bring a sense of control in the midst of confusion and chaos, but ultimately it distracts from other, more worthy causal factors (like Adam Lanza's mother being a survivalist with a large gun collection, for example).

Should mental health evaluations be required before the purchase of a fire-arm?

2012-09-29T06:05:00.001-07:00

EDIT: This post was written hastily in response to something inflammatory posted on Facebook (isn't it always the case?) about the Aurora shootings. Please excuse errors and the gradual deterioration of my argument into a general anti-guns rant.

Regarding whether psych evaluations are necessary or indeed useful, I think we first have a to dispel a few myths and look at some data.

First of all is the way in which we psychologise extreme and disturbing acts that involve firearms, like mass murder. There's a great article here by a Cambridge Professor discussing how we tend to see Western murderers as lone, deranged individuals, but see non-Western murderers as acting on cultural influences (Islam, dictatorships, social deprivation etc.).
The reality in all cases West and East is it's a combination of many factors that we tend to ignore in favour of a simplistic analysis of motivations which helps us make some sense out of the chaos.

A recent Fox News article actually tried to blame failings in Psychiatry for not being able to properly understand and pre-emptively catch the aforementioned "lone deranged killers". Dr. Allen Frances, Chair of the Psychiatry department at Duke University and contributor to the upcoming DSM5 (the American bible of psychiatric illnesses) wrote an eloquent but pithy response to this kind of article explaining that we will never be able to find the needles in the haystack and we either need to accept Mass Murder as part of the American Way of Life, or we need to get in line with other industrialised nations and accept reasonable gun control laws.

Does that mean psych evaluations are useless? Not exactly. Up until now I've only been talking about mass shootings, which by default represent extreme exceptions in society, and sadly contribute to stigma and the false association between mental illness and violence.

The majority of murders in the US are overwhelmingly represented by firearms and are not carried out by mass murderers. Again, all these gun-related homicides aren't all caused by one type of person. It's certainly clear that most gun deaths happen in poor urban areas, and black teenagers appear to be most highly affected in terms of gun deaths, so that does help narrow down some of the social factors.
But from a purely psychological point of view, what lines can be drawn? We do know that a significant section of the criminal population may be suffering from mental illness (sometimes as a consequence of prison!). Furthermore, there is evidence that 64% of males and 50% of females in prison suffer from one form of personality disorder or another (in the UK), although the exact relationship between type of personality disorder and type of offence is unclear.

Additionally, we know that there is an association between violent offences and this narrow sub-set of psychiatric illness called personality disorders. Antisocial personality disorder is a fairly robust construct that can account for a lot of violent offending, and a recent large-scale study in Baltimore found that early disruptive behaviour and anti-social personality was predictive of later criminality (on the plus side, this was tempered by the introduction of a behaviour management program; remember season 4 of the The Wire?).

What I'm saying is that we're already well aware of some of the early signs and causal factors and there are (often under-funded) prevention programs in place to help avoid high-risk individuals from becoming violent, but again, it's a very complicated, multi-layered problem, and honestly, guns shouldn't have to be part of the equation.

Let's not forget though that guns don't just contribute to homicide rates; ready availability of guns in the household increase the risk of suicide in the home. Most states in the US actually ban the purchase of firearms for individuals who have a diagnosis of mental illness or have ever been hospitalised, but clearly it's not enough.

I don't know if mandatory psych evaluations would help or not, I do know that police have to take them before entering the force, and their gun is seen as an enormous responsibility, something that contrasts with my experience of walking into a Bass Pro shop in Oklahoma and seeing a large sign saying "Glock Giveaway!! 2 for 1!!".

I guess debates over mandatory screenings, and gun ownership in general relate to the wider notion of Isaiah Berlin's Positive and Negative Liberty.

Without going into too much detail, positive liberty represents the degree to which we have social representation (in other words, how democratic our society is), and negative liberty represents our ability to be left alone and do what we want, while still being held individually responsible for our actions (agency). Sir Berlin was more focused on negative liberty, as at the time the cold war had left the Western world feeling that any form of de-individualised mass movement could only lead to violent revolution.

I completely understand this concept and can largely agree, but in America the cultural history has strangely tied the notion of gun ownership tightly to this core principle of the Liberal conception of Freedom.

What provides a sense of agency about having a gun? Provided you're not a member of the Crips or the Bloods, you're probably a homeowner who feels that owning a weapon is a necessary part of home protection, leaving you and your family free to enjoy the fruits of liberty:

It's a well-known finding that, rather than confer protection, gun ownership increases the risk of homicide.

We don't have guns in the UK, or rather, we do have illegal guns in certain gangland areas near Manchester and London, but I've never seen one or been in a situation where I thought a gun might be necessary. Illegal guns are very difficult to come by as they are simply not manufactured and sold in a way that benefits the criminal underworld in Europe.

The police advise people in my neighbourhood that if someone breaks into your home, you should barricade yourself in one of the rooms of the house; intruders are mostly looking for stuff to steal, and that's covered by insurance. The best way to effectively deal with a violent situation is to get out of it. Charles Bronson most of us are not.

So as you can tell, I'm pro gun-control. I'm really anti-guns full stop, but I'm willing to meet halfway. Here's a study from Austria where guns are legal, comparing the homicide and suicide rates before and after the introduction of restrictive firearm legislation. The results speak for themselves.

And this cultural myth that America is simply a more historically violent nation and you simply can't compare it with other civilised nations? Need I remind you of Austria's history?

The Imposter: Review (with as few spoilers as possible)

2012-08-30T16:25:00.002-07:00

Early into Bart Layton's unsettling documentary, the filmmakers employ a striking gimmick that while initially jarring, ultimately helps elevate The Imposter from a good film to an excellent one.
The opening salvo is high-concept enough already: A stylish mixture of one-on-one interviews spliced with reconstruction footage details the tragic disappearance of 13-year old Texan Nicolas Barclay, culminating in the tantalising reveal that 3 years after vanishing without a trace, Nicolas has apparently resurfaced in Spain, traumatised and unable to speak.

Just as this preamble lets us settle into a seemingly conventional whodunnit, with a jolt the film is physically rewound: spooling past the interviews with teary-eyed family members, back past the reconstructions, we arrive once again at the opening credits. The film then starts anew, and as we re-watch the reconstructed footage of an unknown child hiding scared in a Spanish phone booth, an accented male voice chimes in, informing us of how he impersonated Nicolas Barclay, and of his expertise in manipulation.

This meta-narrative twist of rewinding the film we're watching is lifted wholesale from Michael Haneke's Funny Games, and benefits greatly from the comparison. Anything that references this scene is certainly going to create a deep sense of unease in anyone who recognises it. In an interview for Funny Games, Haneke explained that he constantly tries to give the viewer an out over the course of the film, so that if the audience persists beyond each narrative break, they have to bear the responsibility of their decision to do so.
Similarly, once we realise that the disembodied voice is none other than Frederic Bourdin, serial missing-child impersonator wanted by Interpol for many years, we are forced into a compromising position. The filmmakers have signaled to us that we are sharing company with an unreliable narrator: the eponymous Imposter. Right from the off we know something is deeply wrong, but we decide to go along for the ride regardless.

Frederic Bourdin

Then, of course, there's the voyeuristic pleasure of having Bourdin tell us what was really going on while doe-eyed clueless family members and FBI agents hopelessly try to piece together the events that characterise this truly bizarre story.

Profound creepiness notwithstanding, Bourdin turns out to be a gifted storyteller, hardly surprising given his honed ability to convince all those around him of the most unbelievable things. How else could a 23-year old Frenchman with dark hair and brown eyes convince a family and the FBI that he was a 15-year old blonde-haired blue-eyed teenager from Texas? It is a testament to his easy charm and ability that for the most part his story comes off as wholly believable.

Large portions of the film feature close-ups of Bourdin, now approaching 40, his face filling the screen with his coy, knowing smile, as he excitedly guides us through the twists and turns of this implausible story. Despite his disturbing sang froid, it is everyone around him who comes off looking bad by corroborating his claims; claims that would have most of us scoffing in disbelief.
The audience is essentially forced into judging the naive family and FBI for their lack of deductive awareness, rather than sympathising with what are essentially a group of easy "marks" who have been exploited by a master puppeteer.

Hence when Bourdin offers a sinister explanation of the family's unsettling eagerness to accept him as their missing son, we're ready to buy the theory that their naivete might have been a deception. Only later upon reflection does it become abundantly clear that if anyone in the film was being deceptive, it was surely Bourdin himself. It leaves the viewer uncertain as to whether Bourdin was ultimately spooked by the implausibility of his own situation and jumped to a dark conclusion, or whether he had in fact fooled the world once again.

As an invisible fly on the wall, the audience can feel safely distant from the intimate violation Bourdin's deception brings on his victims. The brilliant third act shatters this assumption. If I'm honest, for a good 10 minutes I bought the family's complicity hook, line, and sinker. I actually wanted Bourdin to be telling the truth. One way or another I had been fooled by a narcissistic psychopath drawing me into his ficitonal world.
My unofficial diagnosing of Bourdin as a psychopath (often falsely termed sociopath) may seem initially hasty, but as someone who works in psychiatry it is difficult not to reach that conclusion.

Born to a rejecting mother and an absent father, Bourdin builds the image of a victimised orphan in search of parental love. Certainly, witnessing the nature of his crimes makes it clear that his pathology is very specific and even tragically relatable, but this does not preclude a concomitant personality disorder. He is at the very least a narcissist, and at worst, a classic psychopath according to Hare's checklist. This does nothing to reduce the complexity of his crime, nor does it ruin the incredible suspense the film generates in spades. For me, it helps reduce the ambiguity surrounding his story.

I think Bart Layton might have arrived at the same conclusion. The film begins with the only existing archive footage of the the real Nicolas Barclay. This short home video, filmed by Nicolas himself, actually bookends the film, and it becomes clear as Bourdin's voice-over is introduced that this footage was to be our last glimpse of reality before as an audience, we are collectively sucked into the weird fantasy world of Frederic Bourdin.

Dark Knight Rises: Review

2012-07-28T19:08:00.006-07:00

It's sad that in googling Dark Knight Rises in preparation for this post, I found the search results to be overwhelmingly dominated by the tragic news of the Aurora shootings. When I walked out of my local cinema having watched the film last friday, I switched on my phone and immediately saw the news. My parents-in-law live in Colorado so I have a feel for the place, and I often went to midnight screenings when I lived in America. There's a half-crazed air at those showings, and the thought of a sudden outburst of real violence amidst the witching hour delirium is truly haunting. And all accomplished with guns I associate with films! I still find it shocking that anyone other than farmers are allowed to not only tool up with semi-automatic weapons, but can also stockpile vast amounts of ammunition. As the Guardian put it:

It says something about America today that emergency personnel now pride themselves in coping with mass shootings.

Regardless, this post was not supposed to be about anything other than my thoughts about a new film that I saw.

There's long been a dictum stating that the third offering in a movie franchise will be found lacking in quality when compared to the previous two incarnations. Most trilogies, The Godfather, Terminator, Alien, etc. with a few exceptions, have suffered this fate. So, even with the heft of Christopher Nolan's intellect and epic vision behind it, does the Dark Knight Rises end up leaving a sour taste in the mouth? Or will the box-office behemoth leave the world foaming at the mouth for "MOAR", like the anonymous patrons of 4chan's porn .gif threads? My humble verdict would be: not exactly.

Let me explain.

I had the slight misfortune of turning up late to a packed screening filled with noisy undergrads (I live in Oxford), only to discover that the last seat was on the far right of the front row.

While I wasn't at the IMAX, which apparently the film is intended to be seen in, I was sat in front of a screen incongruously large for a high-street cinema chain. This meant I got to fully appreciate Wally Pfister's gorgeous cinematography, albeit sat at an angle that would have rendered the hidden skull in Holbein's The Ambassadors fully visible.

I'll say right away that the performances are excellent across the board; even Anne Hathaway surprised me in a frankly silly role that gave her little to do. While the late Heath Ledger's Joker deservedly dominated most of the running time in the second outing, Batman regains centre screen here, played with depth and charisma by Christian Bale. Eight years into self-imposed seclusion, in full Howard Hughes mode and sporting a cane for his ailing bones, there's more for Bale to do, and he manages to provide conviction to the character's arc, even if at times the narrative borders on the ludicrous.

Nolan's visuals retain their exceptional gloss and composition. I've long been a fan of his eye for sumptuous imagery. I have the half-formed theory that in each film he incorporates one or two stand-out images intended to leave an impression on the audience's mind that reaches beyond the immediate narrative. One might call them "non-submersible units" to quote the Kubrickian origins of this blog. In Insomnia, there was the visual motif of the blood soaking into the fabric reminding Al Pacino's weary cop of his past guilt; Inception had the spinning top as symbol of the precarious nature of reality; the entirety of Memento was in its own way a re-working of how we expect to view images unfold on screen.

In the Dark Knight trilogy, the first film contained the memorably trippy visuals brought on by the Scarecrow's weaponised hallucinogen. In the second film, the Joker's scars and make-up provided the world with a meme it's still getting over. So what do we have in the third? Sadly, the visual motifs are a little thin on the ground in Dark Knight Rises. The best we get is Bane's sleek S&M mask, whose overall look is generally striking, but ultimately a little uninspired.

His dialogue is equally frustrating, in that it is mostly unintelligible. He certainly sounded menacing, all hoarse and gravely, part Darth Vader/part Hannibal Lecter, but he could have been yelling about filo pastry or horse dressage for all I know. I felt that partly to blame for the lack of clarity was the booming score, which eclipsed most other dialogue as well. I initially thought this was due to my having sat to the right of the screen where giant speakers blasted distortion into my face, but others have picked up on it too.

As I mentioned, the narrative is a little delirious at times, juvenile even, which is a real shame given the maturity and depth that the second film achieved. The cod philosophy and patronisingly "Eastern" mysticism of the Ras Al Ghul subplot from the first film make an unwelcome return early on, then proceed to grossly overstay their unwelcome, like a sweaty overweight person who sits next to you on the train and proceeds to sneeze into your open mouth.

One misjudged interlude seems to take place in the Turkish prison from Midnight Express (sans rampant bum-stabbings), where Bruce Wayne gets treated to some inventive fist-based back surgery as well as spiritual re-invigoration in the form of reverse-Jedi bulshittery ("The reason you fail is because you do NOT fear death!" wrap your head around that one). There are problems narrative-wise right the way through; here's a spoler-heavy link to some apt questions one might have upon leaving the cinema.

The other element that had me mentally rolling my eyes in a perpetual loop was the incorporation of current events into the story, drawing uncomfortable political parallels; a feature carried over from the second film. The Dark Knight definitely had covert themes about the unfathomable nature of terrorism ("some men want to watch the world burn") and the justification of extra-judicial measures used to address said terrorism in times of crisis (the cell phone surveillance scene).

Without giving too much away, there are such undercurrents in Dark Knight Rises, mostly to do with Occupy Wall Street and clean energy. These are riffs more than outright analogies, but nonetheless, the usual intelligence of Nolan's plotting is poorly complemented by the dodgy right-wing politics on show here.

I suppose I shouldn't start nit-picking comic-book politics, as by their very nature all comic book movies serve up a libertarian wet dream of pagan and christian-tinged revenge; solitary ubermensches meting out "justice" against the dangerous radicals that threaten liberal democracy. The fact that Batman doesn't use guns is irrelevant, some deus ex machina (in this case, a woman!) will inevitably pop up to finish off the bad guy, saving Batman from having to do the dirty work his ethos truly implies. Again, I'm not the only one to pick up on this:

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All these gripes aside, it's still an epic spectacle that I enjoyed most of the way through. The opening aerial set-piece is masterful, and the peppered in-jokes along the way were mostly cringe-free. As I've stated before, I'm so cynical about the state of big-budget cinema that I'm simply content not to be bored for 2 hours, so take all this with a pinch of salt. Admittedly the stakes were high given the achievement of the first and second films, but overall this doesn't let the trilogy down.

David Nutt: The Truth About Drugs

2012-07-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

A quick link to a fascinating podcast courtesy of the Guardian Science Weekly: An hour-long interview with David Nutt, psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London, sacked in 2009 from the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs for, well, being rational and not towing the party line, basically.

I think he's enormously clear and it's nice to hear scientific information about drugs that isn't infused with moral or political rhetoric. I've always liked this simple yet controversial graph from his Lancet paper on the relative harm of drugs:

My favourite point in the whole interview? Right at the beginning, where he explains that all drugs are derived from plants, which developed compounds to stop insects from eating them.
All animals, including us, have corresponding receptors for these compounds in their nervous system; in insects it kills them, in us, it produces weird and sometimes pleasurable effects.

If that isn't a prime example of the sublime absurdity and meaninglessness of our existence, then I don't know what is.

Polisse

2012-06-30T15:24:00.002-07:00

This French crime-drama probably won't appear in high street chain cinemas (to my knowledge), but if you get a chance, seek this out. Polisse (purposefully miss-spelt as though by a child) is a warts-and-all look at a year in the lives of police workers in a Child Protection Unit in Paris.

It's a real shame that the title is mis-leading and the description a little yawn-inducing. What sounds like a grim look at Paris' gritty underbelly is actually a sharply-written free-form drama composed of several vignettes that are by turns haunting, life-affirming, dramatic, and even surprisingly funny.

It's refreshing to see a serious and difficult subject being treated in this way. No dark blue/green shots of po-faced actors scowling as they recount the grim details of another child-prostitution ring here. If anything, the most striking element of many scenes (apparently all drawn from real events discovered while researching the film) is their sheer banality.

An early scene has an old man being summarily scolded by the CPU workers as he sheepishly denies the sexual abuse of his grand-daughter as though he were a boy caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. It's awkward and jarring in its domesticity, particularly when contrasted with the tension and weight we might expect from an American drama (especially in the wake of the recent Sandusky case).

A later scene sees the workers practice their shooting in a firing-range, presented in a wonderfully breezy and irreverent way. It's a million miles from the seriousness of recent "séries polars" that have made their way to BBC4 over the years.

The cast is uniformly excellent, mostly comprised of star actors playing low-key every-men with a refreshing lack of ego. The stand-out however has to be newcomer Joey Starr, hitherto best known in France as an infamous rap-artist known for conspicuously lacking grace during interviews. He plays his character with maturity, depth, and range, never selling any emotion short in the more high-drama moments.

Some scenes are a little too on the nose, as is the case half-way in where a conservative male muslim refuses to be processed by a female worker, who in a grandstanding speech reveals herself to also be Muslim, proceeding to point out the lack of basis in the Koran for female oppression amongst Muslims. It is very timely given the anti-Islamic sentiment in France (the far-right party won third place in the General Election this year), but the lack of subtlety makes it stick out in this otherwise effortlessly naturalistic ensemble piece.

Another scene that generated some mixed response, most notably in my mind from Sight & Sound, is the one in which a group of CPU workers are interviewing a teenage girl who admits to performing oral sex to get her smartphone back. Despite their best efforts, the CPU staff begin laughing uncontrollably, cracking gallows humour one-liners as the puzzled victim looks on (e.g. "what would you do for a computer then?"). What appears as an insensitive and flippant treatment of a delicate situation is in my view a common response borne out of fatigue and stress that I have witnessed all too often in burnt-out staff on mental health in-patient wards. The laughter produced by such a moment is intelligent precisely because it is discomforting in the dissonance it creates. Such moments show that the workers we're following aren't wholly likeable and nor should they be; at the same time, when faced day-in day-out with child abuse cases it's natural to develop a dark absurdist humour as a defence mechanism; an identifiably human trait I recognise all too well from my own job.

The vignette style does mean a certain slapdash approach to continuity, and perhaps too much time is given to the private home-life of each worker, but all in all, I give Polisse 5 Jerry Sanduskys out of 5 (I am going to hell).

In Defence of Prometheus

2012-06-26T09:53:00.002-07:00

Insert 'Inception BRAAAHM noise' here

I'm a little late to the party, but I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring and give an honest and generally favourable opinion of Prometheus; timely now that the internet furore has begun to subside.

Let me begin by saying that I forked out a mini-fortune to see this film; digitally projected in wholly unnecessary full-mega-rhomboscopic-3D at my local film emporium (rhymes with Ode to Leon). I even brought my own pair of 3D glasses, having sussed out a while ago that extra profit is gleaned from sorry punters by forcing them to part with cash for new glasses at each screening, should you be one of the poor fools who didn't realise you're supposed to keep the first pair you buy: "What, you mean you don't keep your 3D glasses on you at all times you dopey cunt? 5 quid chump.". I did all of this, then sat through all 124 minutes of Ridley Scott's welcome return to the sci-fi genre (subtract around 5 minutes for credits, I'm not that hardcore). And you know what, I fucking loved it.

Let me explain.

It is true, there are many problems with this film: a number of sub-plots that don't tie together, simplistic characterisation, some awful dialogue, and a heft of groan-inducing movie cliches ("Why do they take their helmets off in the cave?", "Why don't they simply run perpendicular to the trajectory of the rolling spacecraft", "Why does it matter that Charlize Theron is Weyland's duaghter?" etc.).

The difference between me and clearly most internet film nerds is that I simply made a mental note of these shortcoming and moved on, too enthralled as I was by the grandiose set-pieces and epic visuals to agonise about plot, character development or scientific accuracy. This last aspect galls me in particular. It seems to be a problem inherent within the science-fiction genre. Just because Science is involved in this -fiction, it somehow becomes the moral responsibility of all the internet's ~~fanboy geeks~~ erudite logicians to make a comprehensive run-down of all its inaccuracies. Worrying about how plausible the science of an alien thriller in space is is exactly the kind of superficial pretension that passes for discernment these days.


Don't tell me you didn't cry during Wall-E because "the future won't look like that"

But speaking more broadly, to charge a mainstream summer blockbuster with inaccuracy of any kind is, to quote Apocalypse Now, like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. I've actually heard comic book fans defend the Chris Nolan Batman films whilst slamming the success of The Avengers by saying, quote: "at least Batman could happen." (Should it though by the way? Clearly they've not heard of this guy).
It's these sorts of people that watch a simplistic, yet admittedly well executed dystopian parable like Gattacca and proudly uphold it as a real possibility, thus making it a better film. That's not really the point is it?

As an aside, I will go out on a limb and say that inaccuracy isn't a problem even for more superficially "legitimate" art-house films.
I recently watched the beautiful and complex A Separation (my favourite film of 2011),
an Iranian quasi-whodunnit with multiple narrative strands that tie together effortlessly. A central plot point involves a man accused of pushing his pregnant maid down the stairs, causing her to lose her child. The ensuing legal process highlights a number of themes in a Rashomon-style examination of truth and social class in modern-day Tehran. Half-way through, the person watching alongside me pointed out that it is a medical myth that falling down the stairs can cause a woman to lose her baby, proudly explaining that there are many sad cases of women being pushed down the stairs by abusive husbands hoping to lose an unwanted pregnancy, only to find their wives battered but still with child. This same person then became noticeably irate during scenes where the prosecutors and defendants argued over responsibility for the lost pregnancy, clearly in a huff at their collective ignorance of modern medical knowledge. If only they could've communicated this to the Academy of Motion Pictures before A Separation won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012...

I would offer a guess that the agony induced by plot holes in film is in part caused by the over-dependence on action and plot in most media, whether it be film, television, or literature (Fifty Shades of Grey, what what ladies!). It seems that even dialogue has simply become another action set-piece where a smart line is like a sword being swung at an opponent; a witty comeback a successful parry. Compare this to a Mike Leigh film where characters are awkward and embarrassing like the people you know; their seemingly innocuous dialogue revealing deep-seated insecurities and dashed dreams.

This action-plot-action-plot dynamic pervades mainstream film-making and produces a streamlined pleasure buffet, akin to a Big Mac meal or a plate of hot buffalo wings at a motorway sports-bar. I'm not being precious here; I like fast food as much as the next man. I just know to call it what it is and move on.

People who complain that their Summer blockbusters aren't intelligent enough clearly don't understand the oxymoron implied in their statement. The simple fact is that such complaints are clever, certainly, but ignorant.
It reminds me of Brave New World, where Bernard Marx's superior intellect produces in him the strange feeling that the pristine manufactured world around him isn't all it could be, but is too unaware of what falls outside this microcosm of passive hedonism that he simply becomes a false cynic, appearing more "discerning" in his continued engagement in the pleasure rituals of The World State. Hollywood ain't all there is, folks.

Well done, you're more intelligent than Damon Lindelof, co-creator of Lost, that brain-buster of a franchise

I've become deeply morose when considering the current and future state of mainstream Hollywood cinema; my default assumption is that the film I'm about to see is riddled with unrealistic characters and plots that don't make any sense. I'm therefore pleasantly surprised when the overall experience is a happy one, as in the case of Prometheus.

But I know that's not what everyone else wanted. You wanted a high-concept horror-thriller with enough integrity to pass itself off as a real "film". You wanted to have your cake and eat it.
And from time to time, this is almost possible. Every now and then, the studio machine churns out a product so filled with talent, so pumped with creative juices that for a brief moment, our brains are tricked into thinking we're watching something meaningful.

I would argue the original Alien achieves this, made at the tail end of a time when Hollywood was in love with European film and a more naturalistic style of acting. The crew of the Nostromo bantered like real grimy space truckers, talking over each other like a Robert Altman film, so that when John Hurt finally has his ribcage redecorated by a frog-snake-thing, it comes as a deliciously horrible surprise (perhaps due in part to the cast not being told what would happen before hand, so legend goes).

But we all knew that couldn't possibly fly in the modern age right? We all knew that Prometheus would be a RIDLEY SCOTT PICTURE (TM), rather than a Ridley Scott film, didn't we? From the moment I heard that aptly-cheekboned Noomi Rapace's main character wore a cross on a chain round her neck, I knew that the film would have contrived simplistic answers to the films big-question premise (Noomi Rapace is lovely though).

I knew that what would fill this hole would be the stunning H. R. Giger inspired design, the beautiful holographics, and the thrilling set-pieces (the surgery scene has to be a stand-out of bonkers Hollywood grue).
I also had a suspicion that the android David, played by my current favourite actor Michael Fassbender, would be an interesting multidimensional character with great lines to spit at the crew in a patronisingly polite manner. It didn't bother me that the rest of the crew were one-dimensional alien fodder.

I also thought the "engineers" looked great. I know they look a bit like albino chippendales, but they're just the right mixture of strange and familiar to help suspend ones disbelief.

If you honestly want to see a real sci-fi film that asks big questions and delivers on all fronts, go watch Solaris; and not the Soderbergh/Clooney indulgent re-hash, the original, full flavour Tarkovsky film. There isn't a single tattooed geologist in there, I can promise you. It also doesn't have any aliens (unless you count the planet Solaris itself) or conventional narrative structure, just a lot of Bach and poetry with characters asking rhetorical questions.

In fact go watch Tarkovsky's Stalker too while you're at it. That shit's brilliant.

Cannes 2012

2012-05-24T03:58:00.002-07:00

Oh how I wish I could be at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival (although I hear the weather is uncharacteristically shite this year).

Yes, the festival is a veritable parade of crass excess and solipsistic masturbation; but you get to see new films by famed art-house auteurs, and find out who amongst the pompous attendees will jeer, applaud, or simply walk out of the screenings. A feedback system akin the House of Commons then, only slightly less meaningless.

My top picks of the festival so far (having not attended any screenings or been to Cannes) are as follows:

1. Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (yes, I know only clips are being shown at the festival; I'm excited about this, what can I say):

Glad to see Joaquin Phoenix has come back to do real films again after his mockumentary mis-fire in 2010.

"Agh Agh Agh Agh Agh; I needs me spinach!" Joaquin goes all method for his portrayal of a 50's naval recruit.

Something tells me that Philip Seymour Hoffman as the head of a burgeoning 1950s religious cult that bears "no resemblance to Scientology whatsoever" will be both magnificent and glorious in equal measure.

2. Michael Haneke's Amour:

Another haunting misery-thon from the Austrian angst-master general. My bet for the Palme d'Or is going on this after having reading reviews (edit: I was right!), although with neurotic intellectual funnyman Nanni Moretti (the Italian Woody Allen) as Jury President things could go either way.

As an aside, it's sobering to see a once French New Wave film legend go from this:

Jean-Louis Trintignant

To this:

Oh dear I've sat on my balls again

3. Jacques Audiard's De Rouille et d'Os (Of Rust and Bone):

Yes, the mythic man of Un Prophete (A Prophet) returns with his fifth film, a love story between a bare-knuckle fighter and a killer whale trainer who gets her legs chopped off. A formulaic rom-com then.

I can't wait, not because Jacques Audiard is a consistently brilliant director/screenwriter (and son of the equally revered screenwriter/director Michel Audiard), and not because of the delirious mise-en-scene and apparently inspired use of music; no, I'm excited because the male protagonist is played by none other than Matthias Schoenaerts, the powerful lead in one of the most barmy yet brilliant dramas of last year: Bullhead.

4. Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt:

Remember Festen? The feel-good family reunion movie? Apparently this provides a similar level of can-only-watch-through-my-fingers awkwardness. Plus it's got the amazing Mads Mikkelsen (edit: he won best actor), who sadly is only known outside of Denmark as the bad guy in Casino Royale.

I have no idea what they're saying in the above trailer, and an "Eng Sub" version in HD does not exist yet to the best of my knowledge. From reading the synopsis and review however, it looks to be thoroughly, thoroughly good.

5. Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly:

Many will know Andrew Dominik from Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James, who in two movies alone has been able to carve out an impressive niche for elegiac, revisionist films de-glorifying notorious criminals, all filmed in a "gritty-beautiful" aesthetic (legendary DoP Roger Deakins provided the stark beauty on show in Jesse James, and won an Oscar for No Country for Old Men released the same year).

This low-down crim' caper casts Brad Pitt once again as the lead. I'm a little worried we'll all get a bit tired of his affable psychopath schtick; he is remarkably good at the frightening/charming routine though.

6. Ken Loach's The Angel's Share:

Ken Loach, making a light comedy? Next you'll be telling me Takashi Miike's made a high school musical! Oh, wait, he has? And it's screening at the festival? Up is down! Black is white! Cats and dogs will start living together!

Arghhhh!

To be honest, I don't think I could sit through another Wind That Shakes the Barley level guilt-trip about political strife, so an uplifting socially conscious comedy caper comes as a welcome surprise. In fact, it seems this year's Cannes is an overall more cheery affair (Haneke's Amour notwithstanding), as previous years have seen an onslaught of unrelenting misery. I still haven't come round to seeing 2007 Palme d'Or winner 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days simply because I can't bear to do so.

7. David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis:

Perhaps sitting through all of A Dangerous Method was worth the crushing boredom after all, as with Cosmopolis, David "mind-fuck" Cronenberg has gone back to what he does best: warped apocalyptic odysseys through the horrors of modernity (See Videodrome. Long live the new flesh!).

I'm a little on the fence about Robert Pattinson playing the lead, although I'm sure Cronenberg has found ways to pervert those clean looks into something menacing and repugnant.

8. Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love:

No idea if this is going to be any good, and to be fair, Certified Copy was a little self-indulgent and tedious. But it's Kiarostami, the Iranian art-house darling, known for his sensitive investigations of the human condition (innit). The Japanese setting provides intrigue due to its cultural foreignness (if not a little eye-roll inducing pretension). He's not known for giving the audience what they want; 2003's Five Dedicated to Ozu literally consisted of five static shots of a seashore, clocking in at 74 *fucking* minutes. I hope this won't test my stamina in a similar fashion.

If you want to see an excellent Kiarostami film for free check out Close-Up. It's obscure even by film buff standards, so you get double hipster points for bringing it up at parties. You shallow ponce.

...

So...that's my list, thanks for reading...What? No Moonrise Kingdom I hear you bellow ironically, flicking your clove cigarettes and rattling your fixed-gear bicycles?

No; no Moonrise Kingdom. Good DAY sir!

GAY WHITE NEGROES!

2012-05-08T14:35:00.003-07:00

That should get some hits on Google... Anyhow, now that I have your attention, I'd like to redirect you to this customarily brilliant article by Adam Curtis on the subject of...gay white negroes!

It's about Norman Mailer's campaign to become mayor of New York.

And gay white negroes. It's also about Boris Johnson, sort of...

Choice quotes:

"This outsider culture had originally been created, Mailer wrote, by blacks in response to racial oppression and violence. But for the "white negroes" that culture was then co-opted in order to give a meaning and grandeur to their psychopathic narcissism."

"Today it is possible to argue that we have all become gay white negroes. We all listen to "edgy urban" music, spend our time in the gym, go shopping and groom ourselves, take lots of drugs, have sex and then spend the rest of the time talking to our friends about the impossibility of finding real love and connection in the world."

"Instead the white negro hipster has actually become one of the central conservative pillars of our time - because their real function is now simply to prop up an increasingly shaky system of credit and rolling consumption."

"And one wonders where are the real outsiders of out time? Who are the new "white negroes" of our age?"

Indeed! WHO?

The Origin of "Death Panel" Hysteria and Other Tragedies

2012-04-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

I love Jon Ronson, pretty much everything he does is entertaining and informative, even if he tends to jump into things without much prior knowledge. I sense it's somewhat deliberate, allowing him to go through the same emotions and questions that the naive audience would when exposed to the outlandish and bizarre things he uncovers.

This video, part of a series on how corporations use the internet in subtle ways to influence people, or at least try to, sees Ronson move gradually away from fringe social phenomena and start tackling large institutions, albeit examining equally mad and baffling behaviour; in this case, the health insurance industry in America, and its frankly psychopathic behaviour.

Fat Betty (nuff said)

2012-04-16T10:51:00.001-07:00

If you've been watching Mad Men, then this needs no explanation. Glorious.

Psychology Docs (+ Dan Deacon)

2012-03-21T09:52:00.006-07:00

Interesting BBC Horizon docs: One on Obesity; and one on The Unconscious (a bit of a shameless callback to my last post!).

Speaking of the Unconscious, here's the podcast from a recent Maudlsey debate (March 2012) on the place of Psychoanalysis in the NHS.

Finally, and randomly, here's a song by Dan Deacon, because I think he's fucking great. Hit play, and do other things while it builds; it will suckerpunch you with awesomeness.

Consci(enti)ousness

2012-02-22T02:07:00.001-08:00

Courtesy of CSHBenchmarks (no idea who they are!)

A friend of mine recently asked everybody science-related that they know (myself included) to write for a science blog they've created. Such blogs have become a trend of late, what with prominent researchers and relevant young academics having found a new avenue to vent spleens and scratch itches on all matters science without having to worry about accountability or plagiarism laws (unless particularly letigious people actually read their posts - see Ben Goldacre).

While I love the idea of contributing to public debate, and potentially gaining exposure for my own perspectives and research, there's always the fear that in the end you're writing for an audience composed of your "peers" who would rather send each other in-jokes about dead salmon in an fMRI machine than actually stimulate new ideas.

This still gets fucking brought up at dinner parties. (If you're confused, here's the original article)

Similarly, the Science blog community can often end up gathering behind a cause that, while often justifiably aimed squarely at stamping out ignorance, results in a technocratic boy's club atmosphere, where anything vaguely non-rationalist is treated with instant contempt.

Take that, rationalists!

That's in part why I started this blog, as a kind of irreverent nose-thumbing mish mash of private thoughts, funny animal pictures, and critical theory. It's the kind of satirical post-modern toss that keeps deconstructing itself. Or it's just wildly unfocused. One of those two.

Nonetheless, I've decided to post a paper on consciousness that I wrote during my MSc that I feel is Sciencey, but skirts the border of other fields and will hopefully allow non-scientists and my "peers" to have a stimulating exchange of ideas, rather than be a demonstration of didactic knowledge.

Here it is in its edited version:

Can research on meditation help bridge the gap between phenomenological and neuroscientific approaches to consciousness?

Although consciousness continually resists a clear definition, there are roughly two principal approaches that populate contemporary western thought: the phenomenological and neuroscientific accounts of consciousness. Both offer a compelling perspective on the nature and function of consciousness, but before delving deep into these opposing schools of thought, we must first examine their epistemological roots.

For the sake of brevity, the best point of departure lies in Descartes’ dualistic contention that body and mind are distinct entities. In this view, the body is simply an arrangement of matter - sensory organs and so on - while the mind is composed of a nonphysical substance, an "immaterial spirit" (Descartes, 1641). This gives rise to the popular image of consciousness as a “ghost in the machine” (Ryle, 1949), a pre-existing self-aware entity inhabiting a shell-like body:

The Homunculus argument

This view no longer holds weight amongst the majority of academics; there is much evidence and compelling argument against this false dichotomy that I don't have time to go into here (although this video might help!). Where the notion of Cartesian dualism has endured however is in what can be described as the irreducible rift between our “inside” view of meaningful experience, and the “outside” reality of ostensibly abstract neural pathways that give rise to this “inside” experience (Metzinger, 2003). In other words, there is an explanatory gap between the first-person, subjective mental phenomena of our awareness and the third-person, objective, quantifiable biology from which consciousness emerges.

Phenomenologist David Chalmers calls this the “Hard Problem” (1995). He takes a staunch anti-materialist stance, arguing that while we may some day explain consciousness, it will never be reduced to the level of functional substrates of the brain. In fact, when one attempts to break consciousness down into composite parts, a point comes where biological explanations cease to be adequate. This non-reducible leftover is termed “qualia”, referring to our unique, subjective experiences, such as the way in which “sweetness” or “redness” appears to us individually.

John Locke's "inverted spectrum": an example of qualia.

Drastically opposed to this view, eliminative materialists such as neurophilosophers Patricia and Paul Churchland (1998) posit that there are no "qualia" as such; subjective phenomenalism is just an illusory cognitive epiphenomenon. This means that our subjective feeling of conscious control is a constructed after-thought to the vast, complex unconscious processes that are constantly occurring in the brain. Thus we are given the mere semblance of free will.

Positioned somewhere in the middle, more moderate neurophilosophers such as Dennett (1992) and Hofstader (1985) concede that while subjective experience does indeed exist, “qualia” are not intangibly personal and can be adequately reduced to the material level. In their view, as neuroscientific research progresses, the mysteries of consciousness will gradually be revealed in full.

From this post-Cartesian, neuroscientific perspective, consciousness plays a functional role, a regulatory mechanism akin to homeostasis. An eloquent authority on the subject, Antonio Damasio (1995) distinguishes three kinds of self that constitute consciousness. At the neural level, there is the non-conscious proto-self. This represents the pattern of neural impulses that, from moment to moment, regulate the body-mind organism in reaction to external objects that perturb homeostasis.

The core-self is the next level up, the lowest form of awareness that observes the proto-self in the process of being modified by an external object. This produces a basic reflexive sensation e.g. “I can feel myself becoming irritated by something”. The idea of the core-self draws upon the concept of the transcendental “I” by the German idealist Fichte (1796/2000), where consciousness is not a pre-existing phenomenon reacting to external obstacles, but rather the phenomenological subject arises in the very interaction between outside objects and the internal activity that deals with this disturbance. The core-self is this very activity (Zizek, 2006). As will be discussed later, the core-self might therefore present a useful meeting point between neuroscience and phenomenology.

Damasio’s third level of consciousness is the autobiographical-self. This is a more elaborated level of consciousness, relying on memories and past experiences, formulating imagined, anticipated futures; essentially our internal story-teller, rendering the first-order experiences of the core-self into personal narratives. This allows for a richer form of consciousness, featuring complex subjective emotions and beliefs.

The complex stream of consciousness resulting from all levels of Damasio's "selves"

Integrating the phenomenological and neuroscientific approaches

With Damasio's "integrationist" model of consciousness in mind, there should exist potential avenues of research in the overlap between neuroscience and phenomenology.

Part of the resistance towards integrating the two approaches is that many neuroscientists find it difficult to distinguish between phenomenology and true introspection. Introspection could be likened to the autobiographical-self, as there is an emphasis on subjective beliefs and emotions. For this very reason it is considered by neuroscientists to be biased and un-scientific (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Lutz & Thompson, 2003). Contrary to introspection, phenomenology actually seeks to strip away culturally-biased narratives to achieve knowledge of what is termed the “essence” of consciousness: that without which the substance of subjective experience cannot retain its identity (Husserl, 1999). By “bracketing” assumptions of the existence of an outside world, the fast elaborations and beliefs that so frequently populate introspection are cut short (Varela, 1996). In this context, the interaction between the aforementioned proto- and core-selves may be of most interest for researchers as they are uncluttered by the elaborative excesses of the autobiographical-self.

The existence of the proto- and core-selves has arguably been demonstrated in Libet's early experiments using EEG to predict participants’ decisions before they reached subjective awareness (Libet et al., 1979). These experiments portray the core-self as a passive observer, becoming aware of the proto-self after the fact, and could appear to undermine free will, a foundational assumption of phenomenology. Libet himself actually defended free will throughout his life (1999), claiming that it exhibits itself in the ability of the core-self to veto the impulses of the proto-self. The core-self is thus characterised by intentionality, able to exert a degree of control over lower level impulses.

Phenomenology’s roots share much in common with this particular neurophilosophical view. Husserl (1999), considered the founder of phenomenology, thought that the main characteristic of consciousness is that it is always intentional. Every mental phenomenon that has content is directed towards an object.

Neurophenomenology and meditation

On the basis of these theoretical parallels, the concept of neurophenomenology was introduced by the neuroscientist Francisco Varela (1996). This view posits that by combining physiological data with rigorous first-person phenomenological reports in the Husserlian tradition (Lutz & Thompson, 2003); research will capture this core-consciousness that arises from the surface-contact between the “inside” and the “outside”.

One particular research tool for neurophenomenology is the study of meditation. Meditation offers a useful platform for gathering both phenomenological and neuroscientific data (Lutz, Dunne & Davidson, 2007). There is often a misconception that meditation is simply a loose collection of unscientific beliefs. The reality is that traditions surrounding meditation have developed over a long period of time and, either through accident or expertise, have gathered valuable knowledge and practices that cannot be consulted elsewhere (Lutz et al., 2007).

Ommmmm...

For this reason, there has been a particular focus on the Buddhist tradition of meditation. According to Buddhist scholars, meditation is a precise system of mental training in the observation of mental processes, with an emphasis on refining the skills required to investigate the mind from a first-person perspective, often considered a Buddhist “science of the mind” (Wallace & Hodel, 2006). Unlike other meditative traditions, Buddhism offers extensive, detailed theories about meditation practices that many researchers have found can be readily appropriated into neuroscience (Lutz et al., 2007). Hence there have been recent academic conferences between the Dalai Lama and western scientists to exchange thoughts on attention, mental imagery, and emotion (Barinaga, 2010).

Buddhist meditation

Two principal forms of Buddhist meditation of interest to researchers are Open Presence (OP) and Focused Attention (FA). In FA meditation, the practitioner must achieve a mental state in which they are focused unwaveringly on one object (Lutz et al., 2007). In order to achieve this focus one must resist arousal and distraction; dullness or excitement being undesirable mental states. This therefore implies that the mind must pay attention to the incoming stream of impulses that might disrupt focus. Becoming aware of the occurrence of distraction, the practitioner makes note of it in a reflexive thought e.g. “I am aware I am being distracted” and then returns focus to the intended object (Thrangu & Johnson, 2004). From a neurophenomenological perspective, this could represent a parsimonious exercise in bolstering the intentional core-self, exerting wilful veto power over the incoming impulses of the proto-self.

Open Presence, in contrast to FA, does not involve an explicit attentional focus. Rather, the aim is to encourage a reflexive awareness of the ongoing stream of experience; hence this technique is sometimes referred to as Open Monitoring (Lutz, Slagter, Dunne & Davidson, 2008). There is no attempt to either suppress or encourage any particular mental content. One simply observes dispassionately the stream of consciousness (mental imagery, sensations etc.) as it occurs. This is similar to Husserl’s notion of the “disinterested subject” or phenomenalising “I” (1931/1960). This refers back to the notion of stripping away the autobiographical “interested” self to reveal the “essence”, the core-self, which does not engage with the oncoming thoughts and feelings. Its only minimal interest is in observing and describing what it “sees” (Damasio, 1995), i.e. the proto-self. Hence as practitioners develop their skill in OP, their aim is to cultivate an awareness of the invariant nature of experience (Lutz et al., 2007).

Based on these two principal forms of meditation, Buddhist meditation offers attractive prospects to both neuroscientists and phenomenologists. FA and OP are designed to induce predictable, distinctive and reproducible states (Lutz et al., 2007). These states target separate underlying processes and thus are likely to engage different neural pathways; helpful for brain-imaging studies (Gaillard et al., 2006). Since there is a consensus that consciousness does not stem from activity in one specific brain region, most adopt a contrastive approach (Frith, Perry & Lumer, 1999). By observing the different reproducible states, contrastive networks of activation can be established.

From the phenomenological perspective, experienced Buddhists are mentally trained to be able to observe the differential features attributed to each state and report this in great detail, even to the extent of being able to indicate how their stability of attention changed from trial to trial, what mental preparations they made etc. (Lutz et al., 2007). This means that neural correlates of consciousness can be supplemented by accurate verbal reports, all within the context of a specific tradition whose practices target meticulously documented phenomena.

Additionally, practitioners of OP and FA are said to gradually increase their ability to induce the intended state over time, such that an expert would meditate in a superior way to a novice (Lutz et al., 2007). This further provides useful data by generating contrasts of activity between experts and novices in brain imaging studies.

Research on meditation

Indeed, recent neuroscientific studies of OP and FA have been fruitful. Buddhist scholars recognise as much as western scientists that the skills required for FA involve the monitoring of attentional focus, the detection of distraction, the ability to disengage attention from the distraction, as well as the re-engagement of attention to the intended object (Lutz et al., 2008). These attentional and monitoring aspects of FA have been found to relate to regions in the brain previously associated with conflict monitoring, as well as selective and sustained attention (Corbetta and Shulman 2002; Lutz et al. 2008).

With regards to the intentional nature of consciousness, an early EEG study found that practicing FA may lead to a partial “deautomatisation” of the mental processes that interpret perceptual stimuli (Kasamatsu & Hirai, 1966), like turning off our internal auto-pilot and switching to manual control, to use a garish analogy. This would imply that meditation trains the practitioner to have increased control of the core-self where not only is awareness of proto-self activity increased, but the power to inhibit the impulses of the proto-self is strengthened.

Conversely, since OP does not involve an explicit attentional focus, the same regions involved in selective and sustained attention should not be engaged, but rather those implicated in monitoring and disengagement of attention. Indeed, recent findings support this notion, indicating dissociable systems at work in the brain (Farb et al., 2007; Tang et al., 2007).

Comparing expert practitioners with novices also yields interesting results. An fMRI study looking at experts and novices engaging in FA meditation found activity in the brain regions previously mentioned involving monitoring, engaging attention and attentional orienting (Brefczynski-Lewis, Lutz, Schaefer, Levinson & Davidson, 2007). What was interesting was that expert practitioners with an average of 19 000 practice hours displayed more activation than novices, while those with 44 000 hours of practice showed less; creating an inverted u-shaped curve of activation. This type of curve has been observed in other areas of expertise, such as language acquisition (Sakai, 2005), suggesting that at a certain level of expertise, little effort is needed to sustain attentional focus. It is unlikely that this drop in activation corresponds to a developed “numbness” where stimuli are simply ignored, as these experts had significantly more activation in auditory processing regions than did controls (Brefczynkski-Lewis et al., 2006). This might instead indicate that they are more attuned to their inner stream of consciousness but are less emotionally reactive to that content (Lutz et al., 2008).

Unfortunately, without in-depth verbal reports by the practitioners, many of these claims remain speculative and cannot “bridge the gap” between phenomenological and neuroscientific approaches.

Successful use of meditation to integrate the two approaches

While few studies have demonstrated a truly neurophenomenological approach, a recent study by Lutz, Lachaux, Martinerie & Varela (2002) provides a good illustration of the method. After training naive participants to become aware of subtle fluctuations in their attentive state and spontaneous thought processes, a simple visual task was presented. Electrical brain activity as well as first-person reports were recorded during the task. Brain activity was subsequently clustered according to similarities in the first-person data. Predictably, patterns of activity emerged that were separable by cluster. The detailed, moment-by-moment accounts helped to guide the analysis of dynamic fluctuations of brain activity.

Despite the current lack of many neurophenomenological studies, a peripheral indicator of the value of meditation for further study is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT, Kabat-Zinn & Chapman-Waldrop, 1988; Kabat-Zinn, Lipworth, & Burney, 1985). A central aim of Buddhist meditation is the elimination of suffering (Gethin, 1998). To achieve this, one must wilfully invoke changes in one’s cognitive and emotional states. MBCT draws upon this idea by encouraging patients to distinguish primary sensory experience from the secondary emotional reaction to this primary experience (Raffone & Srinivasan, 2010). By training themselves to directly perceive the contingent nature of their feelings of withdrawal and aversion towards psychological and physical pain, the patient can learn to counter these maladaptive responses. MBCT is now applied across a wide range of clinical populations and appears to be effective for chronic pain, anxiety disorders, general psychological well-being, psoriasis, and recurrent depression (Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach, 2004).

MBCT might therefore represent a successful integration of Buddhist meditation into western, research-based medicine. The apparent health benefits also suggest that neurophenomenology is correct to focus on the wilful core-self as the seat of consciousness. Finally, due to their phenomenological training, MBCT patients may embody ideal research participants for furthering the understanding of consciousness from this integrative perspective.

The limitations of meditation research

It may however be a little presumptuous to claim that research involving meditation offers a flawless integration of neuroscience and phenomenology. Despite the effectiveness of MBCT and the extensive detail of reports by expert meditators, it is perhaps difficult for an individual to ever truly communicate what occurs during a meditative state. While one may be able to experience with clarity the “essence” of the core-self while meditating, when disengaging from the meditative state one must return to the inescapable “qualia” of the autobiographical-self. Perhaps it is impossible to avoid narrativising subjective experience when giving a verbal report.

But then surely the apparent overlap between phenomenology, neuroscience and Buddhist meditation demonstrates the communicability of a precise, un-biased understanding of consciousness. Again this might be a flawed assumption.

The ultimate goal of Buddhist meditation is to lose a sense of subject-object duality, demonstrating to the practitioner that there is no such thing as a fixed or absolute identity (Gethin, 1998). This eastern concept of “selflessness” is somewhat at odds with the western conception of consciousness as being self-reflexive and object-centred. An attempt has been made by Travis and Shear (2010) to incorporate this idea into the concept of “automatic self-transcendence”, but the definition is inadequate and reductive.

Likewise, phenomenology contains aspects that, while esoteric, imply that consciousness is transcendental; pre-constituted before it makes contact with the outside world (Husserl, 1931/1960). This contrasts with the neurophilosophical view of consciousness as emerging directly from the activity of the proto-self. Ironically this phenomenological view is not entirely dissimilar from the Buddhist concept of transcendental awareness, except that is written within the continental tradition of philosophy. It might appear therefore that neurophenomenology and its interest in meditation may simply represent an attempt to force several types of discourse into a path of least resistance; a reductionist approach that ultimately pleases no one.

In the end, despite meditation offering undoubtedly appealing factors that could help integrate neuroscientific and phenomenological approaches to consciousness, perhaps the “hard problem” remains. Chalmers, a self-proclaimed naturalistic dualist, treats consciousness as a separate physical property that cannot be adequately explained in neurological terms. While undoubtedly a radical view, this nonetheless highlights the difficult issue of selecting which form of discourse best expresses consciousness. Despite the stimulating dialogue between neuroscientists, Buddhist scholars and phenomenologists, there may remain unbridgeable parallaxes of discourse that are irreducible to a consensual level of understanding.

You've been Foucault'd

BREAKING NEWS

2012-02-19T16:02:00.000-08:00

Well, not really, but I just wanted to share this startling development in the decidedly weird Youtube saga that began with a young Midwestern fellah doin' balisong to a techno song. I last covered this delightful oddity here, and at the time, only two videos had been uploaded by the user.

Now, a third has arrived:

Not all that special, just the old lady from the previous two videos and some dude talking...Wh-Wait!? What the fuck? Is that Diplo? The hip DJ who produced some of M.I.A.'s best songs and forms one half of Major Lazer?? What is he doing there?

Once again, the video offsets all expectations by being both banal and exciting. Yes, it is just a conversation about books and trinkets in some old lady's kitschy southern fried house, but she happens to be talking to a guy who's arguably SO HOT RIGHT NOW, and he's game for it, chatting away about old, unread books and dinky kaleidoscopes.

Again, it's clearly a professional production, and probably the work of some postmodernist Wes Anderson wannabe art student. A key detail is the fact that their dialogue is subtitled, and in a cool font. What will you do next, strange young balisong man. I must know!

Incidentally, if you're not familiar with Diplo, check out Major Lazer's Pon De Floor.

The video is directed by Eric Wareheim, one half of the mind-melting comedy duo, Tim & Eric:

See, we're learning!

La Reine d'Angleterre

2012-02-17T17:01:00.000-08:00

This is one for my fellow bilinguals, who can appreciate all the levels of humour in this scathing piece of satire:

CLARK

2012-02-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

New Album coming soon!

Bleepy bloopy glitch voob

FENTON

2012-01-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

JESUS CHRIST
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PEACE OUT

Girl Talk

2012-01-07T06:42:00.000-08:00

Ahh, Gay Paree... Smell the warm croissants, hear the gentle accordian playing, and watch the friendly mimes performing as you float through the sun-dappled streets of Montmartre, nibbling on maccaroons and reblochon, wiping crumbs off your petticoat...

Yeah, I'm aware that description is antiquated, patronising, and bullshit (didn't stop Woody Allen from making a potential Best Picture winner though!). You're more likely to see something like this nowadays:

Although to be completely fair, the centre-ville area has done well to retain its nostalgic, cobble-stoned sheen, thanks in large part to the paupers and ethnics being housed on the outskirts, where they bloody-well belong (see banlieues).

So why am I going on about Paris you wonder? You don't? Well, I'll just go fuck myself then.
If you're still reading, the lady wife and I took a well-deserved break to the much-filmed city.

We didn't do much in the way of sightseeing, as we've visited several times and are far too local now to do what ghastly toursits do, like visiting art galleries (although we did spot an original Invader piece on a wall near a metro station!). That, plus we were fucking tired from living life and wanted a nice kip in the hotel room for most of the weekend.

Hence I spent quite a bit of time channel surfing France's frankly crap selection of channels while the lady napped; the diamond in the turd being Franco-German co-production ARTE.tv:

Fuck knows, its Art...

Admittedly, it's a little pretentious, you probably wouldn't enjoy its programmes if you're not a left-wing sociology professor; lots of documentaries about Nepalese wild honey hunters and the like. But I think there's plenty to offer if you give it your time.
Televised concerts, documentaries about hipster idols like David Bailey... One of my favourite shows is called Into The Night, where two similarly-matched artsy celebs spend an evening in a city they love, showing each other the places they like to go and the things they like to do.

Gaspar Noe AND Harmony Korine!! Can you say "headfuck"? Also, don't worry, a good deal of this is in English.

It's a simple and brilliant concept that creates the atmosphere of a laid-back road movie, a million miles from the self-aware artificiality of traditional variety shows where the celeb is wheeled out for a pre-vetted interview with a chirpy host.

Another prog I love is Metropolis, a general culture show, and brings me to the title of this post. I'm a fan of pop music mashup guru Girl Talk, who somehow takes recognisable songs and splices them up into an intoxicating semi-continuous mix of riffs, beats, and voice samples that's fresh and exciting. Basically it's a 16 year-old's stream of consciousness remixed by Daft Punk.

In the particular episode of Metropolis I caught, they highlighted a young New York photographer's (Jacob Krupnick) ambitious project to make a feature-length dance music video for the entirety of Girl Talk's 2010 album All Day, the plot taking place, conveniently, over the course of a single day in New York.

Now, I must say, I don't particularly like dancing (neither the watching of or participation in). I especially don't care for the increasingly popular Dancing With an iPod In Public videos that have been showing up on youtube (I would gladly and gleefully kill this man), but I have to say I love Girl Walk // All Day. First of all the dancing is genuinely brilliant, secondly it's well shot, and finally, the leading lady (played by Anne Marsen) has the pep and charm of the Gamine role in the best of Chaplin's movies: wide-eyed, insouciant(e), and very expressive.

The whole thing is available for free on Youtube, so check it oowwwt. Official Trailer:

Merry Christmas One and All!

2011-12-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I just had to steal this wonderful .gif from this great tumblr. Just in time for Jesus's birthday! Sad that Hitchens died recently though, I'm sure he would've received 1000 Christmas e-cards with this very .gif in it. All from me.

Annyeong, Kim Jong Il!

2011-12-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

Note: Annyeong (안녕) means goodbye, and is not a reference to Arrested Development.

Yes, grief hits us all differently; for the internet, laughter is a common defence mechanism.

You may have seen videos of the frankly mad outbursts of public crying by the denizens of PyongYang:

The super-racist part of me wants someone to make a .gif of that and slap a caption on it about getting bad grades at school. That, or the nation running out of dog meat. I'll leave now...

Hard to know if it's true brainwash-induced sadness, or if surrounding guards have a gun to their kids' temple off-screen or something.
Apparently a good deal of the refugees who escaped the country at great risk to themselves still believe in their nation's leader and ideals, such is the power of their upbringing...

I think this is a good opportunity to post about an awesome video Vice did after riskily finding a way into N.K. I can't embed the video so link to part one here.

It's a truly mesmerising doc, and gives a fascinating insight into a country that is able to remain completely insular and controlled despite existing in the modern era of information technology. It's also ashamedly humorous to see the sheer po-facedness of their jingoism.

Not that I'm a typical Westerner laughing at how repressed and backward N.K. is, whilst falsely assuming that I live in a land of sober, unfettered liberty.

As Julian Assange said in a recent interview: "Censorship is a sign that your country's government is healthy, because it's still scared of the power of information". I'm paraphrasing, so here's the original interview/debate with Slavoj Zizek:

Meanwhile

2011-12-16T17:38:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a while; unfortunately my time is currently split between a full-time job and my part-time apathy. Maybe it's seasonal blues...

In the mean-time, here's an ambient .gif to while away the hours...

Somewhere in the Midwest...

2011-11-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

Remember this??:

No?? It was briefly a meme some months ago (it was trending hard on the interwebs I tell you!). One of those deliciously random videos that's equal parts weird and awesome.

Now there's another:

Somehow, this just sums up the Midwest for me. I lived in Oklahoma for a year and although none of what is depicted here actually occurred, this still just nails it for me. I love the music, even though it's not necessarily something I'd listen to. It's clearly a professional production, and has a peculiar midwestern aesthetic a la American Gothic:

Maybe it's some viral promo akin to Die Antwoord's Zef Side video that everyone thought was a real slice of South African white trash' life:

Oh Youtubes, what incongruous delights will you give me next?

Fun links

2011-10-19T12:27:00.001-07:00

I figure I've written a number of long, verbose, over-involved posts in recent times, so instead here's some quick-fire links to energise you like a bottle of coke to the face:

Penguin crime! (BBC)

Happy Birthday EpicMealTime! (YouTube)

Quantum Locking! (io9)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses! (Jezebel)

Chaos Cinema! (Filmdrunk)

Mind-fuck animation! (David OReilly)

Police Academy sound-fx guy's still got it! (Filmdrunk)

The Birth of Think Tanks! (This one is long, but excellent. BBC Adam Curtis)

Harrison Ford play Uncharted 3, and likes it! (SlashFilm)

"Jumping to Conclusions" bias in Schizophrenia, and Negative Capacity! (British Journal of Psychiatry)

Possibly the greatest Food blog of all time! (The Sneeze)

How the opening credits of Tintin should go! (SlashFilm)

8 Ironic Effects of Thought Suppression! (PsyBlog)

And Finally:

Some General Awesomeness! (Dark Roasted Blend)

Occupy Wall St

2011-10-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

So is it just a case of white people problems? Is the "other 99%" composed of Frappuccino-sipping hipsters whining about their student loan debt?

The truth is, yes and no. As a starter, I refer you to Pierre Bourdieu, and particularly his concept of symbolic violence.

Then ingest a good deal of Michel Foucault, maybe watch some Adam Curtis documentaries.

Then read Smith, Hayek, Friedman, Marx, Rand, Gramsci, Marcuse, and Fukuyama, while doing your Masters degree in International Political Theory. As a starter, mind.

Or just read a bunch of articles confirming your preconceptions and feel smug...

Look, I'll say that in my view the outcry is utterly legitimate. I'd be a hypocrite if I said that those "occupying" Wall Street were just making an empty symbolic gesture, since on some level I defended the meaningfulness of the impotent outbursts of the London rioters this Summer, which by comparison clearly made little political impact and were completely devoid of ideological thrust.

It's vital to express the frustration and upset caused by a system that has resulted in so many being metaphorically sodomised (by the invisible hand no doubt...).

On the flip-side, there appears to be very little in the way of consistent and structured policy demand-making. There is a lot of vitriol around dodgy financial practices, as well as general economic inequality. Incidentally, there also seems to be some confusion about the true locus of perceived wrong-doing; some protesters claiming "the real villains are in the White House!", shudder.

I'm also irritated by the incessant accusations of greed and moral bankruptcy lodged against Wall Street traders. I'm certainly not saying that this isn't the case, there clearly is legitimised corruption en masse within the market-place, but by localising the problem to a few bad eggs with personality flaws we abstract the financial crash from its ideological and structural roots. In the same way that identifying our own complicity in the Holocaust is more effective in making fascism unpalatable than simply blaming Hitler, it's important for us to identify the ways in which we are complicit in perpetuating a system that rewards competitive, selfish behaviour.

Blaming the fat cats simply creates an Us vs Them mentality.

I do have a bank account after all...

“What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?”
― Bertolt Brecht

But back to my point: I made a crack at the beginning about people whining about student loans. The truth is that student loans are a massive problem in America, and have been one of several major themes in the protests:

Last year, Americans began to owe more on their student loans then their credit cards, with student debt reaching the $1 trillion mark. Many have flocked to higher education during the down economy, only to find themselves still unemployed or underemployed.

Perhaps a taste of things to come in the UK by the way... ;)

While this is indeed a crippling problem for an entire generation, it's hard to say what direct link there is between the rate of student loan debt in America and the perceived discrepancy in wealth between the top 1% and the rest...

As the relationship is indirect, the implication is thus that the protest is an attack not on individual greedy bankers, but on neo-liberal capitalist ideology itself. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, but if this is the case, and the protests are intended to show neo-liberal policy to be fundamentally egregious, an alternative needs to be proposed. Otherwise it's easy for capitalist realists to portray the protesters as sore losers complaining about how unfair the game of life is and not taking individual responsibility for their problems. Even worse are the implications that the protesters are un-American (apologies for low-quality image):

To be fair, one might say that demands are not necessary at this point in time.

But I think that if you don't qualify your political stance early on, you leave yourself open to those motivated enough to swoop in and hijack your movement for their own ideological ends. Truth never speaks directly for itself; interpretation is always required.

Israel recently had mass protests of a similar nature during the Summer. Much of the economic inequality was being blamed on the high proportion of family-owned monopolies run on nepotism mutual back-scratching within these elites. According to a close Israeli friend, a major theme of the protests that emerged was a call to dismantle said monopolies in order to establish a truly free market.

This is exactly what happened in the 1970s in America and the UK and has essentially contributed to the common practice of CEOs stripping failing companies of their assets, selling them off and moving on to the next company, leaving employees to hang, as it were.

Here's a documentary on the whole thing: The Mayfair Set.

So here you have a movement led primarily by idealistic 20-somethings, like the Occupy Wall Street lot, confusedly allowing their protest to be used to push good ol' neo-liberal economic ideology.

SUMMARY

It's no small secret that I have an admiration for the works of Slavoj Zizek, partly because he's good, and partly because he tends to summarise a lot of current theory very well so I don't have to go out and read any of it.

I thought that I'd re-post the transcript of his speech at Sunday's protest taken from Occupy Wall Street. It's not complete as only so much was recorded. Here come the block quotes:

Part One
…2008 financial crash more hard earned private property was destroyed than if all of us here were to be destroying it night and day for weeks. They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are awakening from a dream which is tuning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scenes from cartoons. The cart reaches a precipice. But it goes on walking. Ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street – Hey, look down! (cheering).
In April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV and films and in novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. It means that people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dream. Here we don’t think of prohibition. Because the ruling system has even suppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from communist times.
A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors. So he told his friends: Let’s establish a code. If the letter you get from me is written in blue ink ,it is true what I said. If it is written in red ink, it is false. After a month his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theaters show good films from the West. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.
This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink. The language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom war and terrorism and so on falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.
There is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after. When we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then. I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like - oh, we were young, it was beautiful. Remember that our basic message is: We are allowed to think about alternatives. The rule is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?
Remember: the problem is not corruption or greed. The problem is the system that pushes you to give up. Beware not only of the enemies. But also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat. They will try to make this into a harmless moral protest. They think (??? unintelligible). But the reason we are here is that we have enough of the world where to recycle coke cans…
Part Two
….Starbucks cappuccino. Where 1% goes to the world’s starving children. It is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture. After the marriage agencies are now outsourcing even our love life, daily.
Mic check
We can see that for a long time we allowed our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back. We are not communists. If communism means the system which collapsed in 1990, remember that today those communists are the most efficient ruthless capitalists. In China today we have capitalism which is even more dynamic than your American capitalism but doesn’t need democracy. Which means when you criticize capitalism, don’t allow yourselves to be blackmailed that you are against democracy. The marriage between democracy and capitalism is over.
The change is possible. So, what do we consider today possible? Just follow the media. On the one hand in technology and sexuality everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the moon. You can become immortal by biogenetics. You can have sex with animals or whatever. But look at the fields of society and economy. There almost everything is considered impossible. You want to raise taxes a little bit for the rich, they tell you it’s impossible, we lose competitivitiy. You want more money for healthcare: they tell you impossible, this means a totalitarian state. There is something wrong in the world where you are promised to be immortal but cannot spend a little bit more for health care. Maybe that ??? set our priorities straight here. We don’t want higher standards of living. We want better standards of living. The only sense in which we are communists is that we care for the commons. The commons of nature. The commons of what is privatized by intellectual property. The commons of biogenetics. For this and only for this we should fight.
Communism failed absolutely. But the problems of the commons are here. They are telling you we are not Americans here. But the conservative fundamentalists who claim they are really American have to be reminded of something. What is Christianity? It’s the Holy Spirit. What’s the Holy Spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other. And who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense the Holy Spirit is here now. And down there on Wall Street there are pagans who are worshipping blasphemous idols. So all we need is patience. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer, and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case.
We know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire. Thank you very much!

You can also watch the videos of his speech, but unfortunately due to a lack of a PA system he has to say small chunks of text at a time, then wait as the crowd around him repeat the words loudly for the rest to here. While it ruins the speech, it ironically forces Zizek's delivery into a weird religious ritual, as though the baying crowd were mindlessly reciting the dogmatic teachings of their holy leader! Perish the thought...

Check it oowwt:

Evenin' all.