**This was posted a week or so ago, and I got a lot of reactions to it—positive and sort of negative. Some of the latter were more in the area of factual errors I might have made, rather than “you’re totally wrong”, so I’m re-posting now with some of those corrections incorporated. All edits and reactions are in blue.**
How does one react to laws and practices that seem to be unfair or bordering on immoral? What is unfair and immoral depends on one’s point of view, of course. Scientists and philosophers argue whether we have a built-in evolved sense of morality that our laws are meant to reinforce and uphold- that may or may not be, but many laws and behaviors while legal may, in retrospect, be considered immoral.
As I think about how laws and behaviors get changed I suspect we should be following, amongst others, the example of Gandhi or the Civil Rights activists in the Southern U.S. who sat at lunch counters where they weren’t allowed and refused to ride in the back of busses—or automatically give up their seats for white people. Rosa Parks is a good example.
And these folks were sometimes willingly and peacefully hauled off to jail as a result—all very peaceful and civil though they were often also harassed by locals. Here is a policeman harassing folks who want to sit at a lunch counter in Oklahoma.
Draft resisters who opposed the Vietnam War similarly voluntarily went to prison. All of these people opposed laws that were accepted, on the books, but that they decided were unjust. Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Dept. employee who eventually decided to distribute what became known as the Pentagon Papers described the moment when he decided that he had to take action in response to what he felt was an unjust war:
“And he [Randy Kehler, a draft resister] said this very calmly. I hadn't known that he was about to be sentenced for draft resistance. It hit me as a total surprise and shock, because I heard his words in the midst of actually feeling proud of my country listening to him. And then I heard he was going to prison. It wasn't what he said exactly that changed my worldview. It was the example he was setting with his life. How his words in general showed that he was a stellar American, and that he was going to jail as a very deliberate choice—because he thought it was the right thing to do. There was no question in my mind that my government was involved in an unjust war that was going to continue and get larger.” Source
Ellsberg decided to release The Pentagon Papers. These were documents that made clear the hubris and hypocritical decisions made by politicians and generals that were affecting soldiers on the ground in Vietnam. Though many of us suspected that what was contained in these documents was already common knowledge, to make it public and verifiable was a big step. I would argue that his actions—and the subsequent publishing of the papers in the NY Times and Washington Post—hastened the end of the Vietnam War (as the Wikileaks data leaks have, in my opinion, hastened the ending of the U.S.-backed invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan). I cheered both of these revelations, partly because I too felt that both wars are unjust and immoral.
Ellsberg was, like his inspiration Kehler, willing to face the consequences and publicly surrendered to the Boston DA’s office, facing charges that carried a maximum sentence of 115 years. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:
“I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.” Source
Civil Disobedience in the Internet Age
Is there a contemporary equivalent to these actions? If we, as citizens, feel an injustice, an immoral act is being committed in our name, in our nations name, are these models effective ways to draw attention to it? To eventually effect change?
Passive resistance is sometimes dangerous—a young woman who sat down in front of some Israeli bulldozers as a protest against illegal settlements was killed. That’s worse than the threat of going to prison. My mom was threatened when she protested the invasion of Iraq.
One key aspect in the success of non-violent protest is the fact that it relies on media being present. Otherwise, it doesn’t draw attention to the issue, and similarly, the action has to be done publicly. Transparency is key. Me privately deciding not to pay taxes that go to the invasion of Iraq, to take a hypothetical example, doesn’t serve as a very effective protest unless I crank up a publicity machine, let everyone know I’m doing this as a protest, and then willingly face the consequences.
I’ve been following the canonization of young Aaron Swartz—the coder, hacker, and digital rights activist—after his recent tragic suicide. For those who haven’t been following this, it seems he surreptitiously set up his personal computer to download many, many academic papers from the academic database, JSTOR, through MIT’s open network. Why did he do this? Do we know? Was it a crime?
It took a little poking in the Internet, but it seems this theft of data was Swartz’s own form of civil disobedience. Here is what he wrote:
“Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.” Source
Later in his manifesto he suggests a mass movement devoted to “liberating” this data that is “locked up”:
“Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.” Source
So, we can assume he covertly downloaded the data to draw attention to a perceived injustice—that he felt that the academic papers in the JSTOR archive were unfairly behind a paywall and should be available to all. Following the imperative of his manifesto one might assume he was going to give them all away—to make them free, as he thought they should be. But he didn’t. (He certainly wasn’t going to sell them himself.)
He hid his face from library cameras, so he didn’t want to get caught in the act—though maybe he thought it was going to be OK and he wouldn’t actually get caught. Sort of an unreasonable assumption given that someone makes money on this stuff (but given his skills as a coder maybe it was not an unreasonable assumption). We also might assume that he was then going to proudly and publicly announce that he had “liberated” these documents to draw attention to his position. Transparency, as mentioned above, is key to the effectiveness of this kind of protest. This publicised “liberation” would also be a sort of “come and get me” action. Like the Civil Rights activists, he would, one might assume, be willing to face the consequences in order to draw attention to this perceived injustice. I don’t think he did that either. He was a disturbed young man, and seems to have hesitated in carrying out the typical civil disobedience MO.
What bothered him so much about this archive of data behind a paywall?
What’s the deal with these academic archives? How do they typically work?
Like music and movies that are legally controlled by copyright holders—typically movie studios or record companies—many academic databases contain papers and other material that are proprietary. Institutions or individuals therefore have to subscribe to access them or pay a fee to get to download these papers. LexisNexis is one such academic site in which the material is protected by a pay wall; Swartz downloaded his documents from a similar database called JSTOR. Needless to say, he didn’t pay for them.
Where does the money that subscribers pay to these services go? Do the poor academics who did the research and wrote the papers get some part of those fees? It has been pointed out to me [by Cory Doctorow] that this never happens—they never get paid for their contributions to these journals. Academics get paid a salary by their institutions, and are obliged, but not paid, to publish papers like the ones stored in JSTOR. Part of the deal is also that they hand over their copyrights as well—worse than the record business!
They don’t get paid for publishing these papers, but they have to publish in the journals to eventually get tenure and keep up their academic standing. They usually publish their work first in various academic print journals, and it is often these journals that by default post their papers on JSTOR or similar sites. The academic is, one might say, coerced into placing their work behind the paywall. Record companies who own the copyright on many of my recordings place those recordings in places where I might not wish them to be—it’s an ongoing battle… and another story. JSTOR and others funnel their income to the print journals who own the rights to the papers. One hopes the journals would pass some of that income on to the writers. This reminds me of my own pathetic income from Spotify and other services that record companies (who own the copyright on some recordings) place my recordings on—the income I get is so small that it’s essentially nothing. The record companies get the lions share.
I can empathize both with academics who might either want to monetize their research or those who might want to make it freely available to all—and the choice, ideally, should be the authors’. One would assume that this is one of the issues young Swartz was trying to draw attention to.
LeeAnn Rossi writes—in the case of JSTOR, institutions pay a one-time Archive Capital Fee (which fluctuates based on size of institution and amount of access to documents granted) plus an Annual Access Fee. From the breakdown of their 2008 tax documents, it looks like they [JSTOR] made $43m and had expenditures of $35m, giving them an $8m profit (they're registered as a non-profit organization). Of those expenditures, $8.3m were under the line item "Publisher's Fees and Payments", though there is no breakdown for how the Publisher accounts to the Author on the backend. From this article—it sounds like the name of the game in the academic world is that authors and scientists don't get paid for their peer-reviewed work in journals or on databases at all. Another anti-academic publishing article ironically ends with a nod to this article, which you can't read because it's behind a paywall.
Ultimately that is all irrelevant, the point is the owners of this material have their work behind these pay walls. The authors were coerced maybe, unfairly, probably, but there it is. It’s legal. Unfair maybe, but legal. Swartz, as I understand it, was an advocate for “free”—that all of this information (and presumably much other copyrighted material) created by others should ideally be free and available to all. Information, especially scientific and academic information, should, in this view, be intrinsically shared. Information, like that contained in these papers, is what scholars use to inspire themselves and it often serves a foundation for their own research. They therefore don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they begin some avenue of research—which would cause research to proceed at a snails pace. I agree with this idea—with the added clause that whether something is free or monetized should be entirely up to the author.
Archives like JSTOR also, according to Swartz, buy up research and papers that are in the public domain, then lock them up and privatize them, as a way of profiting from works that were once available to all. While I can see that there might be some minimal admin charge for organizing and storing all this data, this seems incredibly greedy. Orphaned works should, I agree, enter the public domain—and stay that way.
LeeAnn writes again—He was mostly fighting against what he saw as corporations owning and profiting off of something that was produced and owned by individuals who not only never recieved any compensation for their work, but also never produced it with profit in mind in the first place.
There is a big difference in my opinion between using someone else’s work as inspiration and as a stepping-stone and using that work—or work that incorporates that work—as a way to make money. I am happy, for example, for people to slice and dice my recordings—recordings they have legally obtained—and play around with them to their hearts content as long as they don’t decide to make money from that new work—either directly or indirectly. I am, I think, quite open about sharing income if someone builds on my work—but the crucial concept is “share”. (I have to point out that even posting songs on YouTube these days is in fact selling something—it is often monetizing someone else’s work. YouTube makes money on the ads that are all over their site. It’s not an altruistic “sharing service”.) I have no problem, for example, if someone performs a Talking Heads song or creates a video with their cat that uses it. But the fact is that all these services like You Tube and Facebook are filled with ads now, so someone is making money somewhere. It’s ripping off not just me and the corporate owner of that recording, but the filmmaker with the cat as well.
But back to civil disobedience. Swartz stole the material, pure and simple, and he seems to feel that he and others have, in this case, the right to steal because they are beholden to a higher moral standard. I am sort of fine with this if he’s willing to accept the consequences, as Ellsberg and the Civil Rights activists were. I sort of feel the same way about Wikileaks—though much of the data they make available wasn’t “stolen” by them directly, though they do know that under many nation’s laws disseminating that data is illegal. (Significantly, the NY Times and Washington Post were not prosecuted for printing the Pentagon Papers—though Nixon tried to do so—and these same papers were not thrown in jail for printing Wikileaks excerpts. So when is dissemination a crime and when is it not? What’s the difference between Wikileaks disseminating stuff online and the NY Times disseminating that very same stuff on their own website?) And as much as I’m glad these files made the horrors of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq obvious, Assange might face jail under U.S. law—though I’m happy that more corporate and military misbehaviors are made public.
If Ellsberg and the civil rights activists were willing to go to jail, should Assange and Swartz and formerNY Times editor Bill Keller and (Oh jeez, am I writing this?) poor Bradley Manning also be publicly willing go to jail too?
I’m going to shift the subject for a minute.
I wonder where one draws the line with the claim of “higher morality” as a justification for breaking the law.Conversely, when do acts based on one’s personal moral indignation become unjustified? I empathize with many of the actions above, but there are many acts made by those who similarly claim to be impelled by a higher moral calling that I find repellant and horrible.
Lots of religious fanatics also claim to be acting based on higher moral standards—and they’re quite public about it: lunatics, building bombers, abortion clinic bombers. Lots of wars have been fought by the U.S. and others based on claims that God is on our side—as an argument it’s pretty risky. Anyone can make it. In the case of civil disobedience, a lot depends on public opinion and how the media delivers the news of the action to that public. It also depends on that transparency, which allows one to hold the moral high ground. In some cases, it is assumed that the civil disobedience is not doing a lot of harm. Unlike the morally justified abortion clinic bombings mentioned above, no one was harmed by Rosa Parks, but I’m sure the Nixon administration made a case that Ellsberg’s leaks damaged national security—as the Obama administration has done with the Wikileaks material.
In civil disobedience actions it’s critical how the acts play out in public—that the perception be that the consequences are good, not harm.
This reminds me of the way the entertainment industries often overreacted to kids and grannies who were busted for file sharing (downloading copyright material without paying for it). By overreacting, the institutions helped folks to empathize with those they were prosecuting. The grannies weren’t engaging in civil disobedience though.
However, Swartz wasn’t totally transparent and he fought back. If Swartz had admitted the theft and publicized his willingness to go to jail, as did the civil disobedience activists mentioned above, thereby bringing attention to the inordinate punishment he was about to receive and to the inequities of databases like JSTOR, then he might have better made his point—in my opinion. He was, as I have read, a disturbed young man who maybe sadly wasn’t quite psychologically ready to be a Gandhi figure—should he have realized this ahead of time? Hypothetical and impossible to answer now, as his tragic suicide has clouded the issue.
I am reminded how Jean Valjean, who stole a loaf of bread in the novel Les Mis, was unfairly punished by the authorities—which eventually highlighted the need to overthrow the royalty. He didn’t steal the bread as a form of civil disobedience, but I seem to remember it functions in the narrative in much the same way.
Swartz’s actions as a form of civil disobedience are very confusing for me. It’s not like he didn’t know he was doing anything wrong. He hid his laptop and hard drive in a little closet at MIT and hid from security cameras when he went there to retrieve his data trove. Imagine, as MIT seems to have briefly done, that it was the Chinese or North Koreans or some other entity stealing this data (and it very well could have been)—the “higher moral grounds” defense would then seem pretty ridiculous. Cory Doctorow has pointed out that China or North Korea wouldn’t need to steal this particular data, but my point here was more about the sneaky way that Swartz went about obtaining data that was supposedly gathered in a legal and upstanding way.
I don’t disagree with many of Swartz’s points. I can certainly see the point that much academic data, when freely available, can have a greater chance to spur insights and creativity from researchers and scientists around the world than if it is locked up behind paywalls. Withholding cancer research from academics who can’t afford access because a big pharmaceutical company “owns” the data doesn’t seem like a very morally defensible position—even if it is what the law might say is perfectly legal.
But who then decides what data “deserves” to be stolen and “liberated”? There are all sorts of data. Some of it is—though I hate to admit it—possibly essential to our security, and some is strictly personal and deserves to stay that way. It’s complicated, and this particular case seems messy—though Swartz’s points are mostly valid… but maybe his method was sloppy.
How does one react to laws
and practices that seem to be unfair or bordering on immoral? What is unfair
and immoral depends on one’s point of view, of course. As I think about this I
suspect we should be following the example of Gandhi or the Civil Rights
activists in the Southern U.S. who sat at lunch counters where they weren’t
allowed and refused to ride in the back of busses—or automatically give up
their seats for white people.
And these folks were sometimes willingly and peacefully
hauled off to jail as a result—though they were often also harassed by locals.
Here is a policeman harassing folks who want to sit at a lunch counter in Oklahoma.
Draft resisters who opposed the Vietnam War similarly voluntarily
went to prison. All of these people opposed laws that were accepted, on
the books, but that they decided were unjust. Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense
Dept. employee who eventually decided to distribute what became known as the
Pentagon Papers described the moment when he decided that he had to take action
in response to what he felt was an unjust war:
“And he [Randy Kehler, a draft resister] said this very calmly. I
hadn't known that he was about to be sentenced for draft resistance. It hit me
as a total surprise and shock, because I heard his words in the midst of actually
feeling proud of my country listening to him. And then I heard he was going to
prison. It wasn't what he said exactly that changed my worldview. It was the
example he was setting with his life. How his words in general showed that he
was a stellar American, and that he was going to jail as a very deliberate
choice—because he thought it was the right thing to do. There was no question
in my mind that my government was involved in an unjust war that was going to
continue and get larger.” Source
Ellsberg decided to release The Pentagon Papers. These were
documents that made clear the hubris and hypocritical decisions that were
affecting soldiers on the ground in Vietnam. Though many of us suspected that
what was contained in these documents was already common knowledge, to make it
public and verifiable was a big step. I would argue that his actions—and the
subsequent publishing of the papers in the NY
Times and Washington Post—hastened
the end of the Vietnam War (as the Wikileaks data leaks have, in my opinion,
hastened the ending of the U.S.-backed invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan).
Ellsberg was, like his inspiration Kehler, willing to face
the consequences and publicly surrendered to the Boston DA's office,
facing charges that carried a maximum sentence of 115 years. In admitting to
giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:
“I
felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer
cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this
clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences
of this decision.” Source
Is there a contemporary equivalent to these actions? If we,
as citizens, feel an injustice, an immoral act is being committed in our name,
in our nations name—is this a model of an effective way to draw attention to
it? To effect change?
It’s sometimes dangerous—a young woman who sat down in front
of some Israeli bulldozers as a protest against illegal settlements was killed.
That’s worse than the threat of going to prison. One aspect of this kind
non-violent of protest is the fact that it relies on media being present.
Otherwise, it doesn’t draw attention to the issue, and similarly, the action
has to be done publicly. Me privately deciding not to pay taxes that go towards the
invasion of Iraq, to take a hypothetical example, doesn’t serve as a protest
unless I crank up a publicity machine, let everyone know I’m doing this as a
protest, and then willingly face the consequences.
I’ve been following the canonization of young Aaron Swartz—the coder, hacker, and
digital rights activist—after his recent tragic suicide. For those who haven’t
been following this, it seems he illegally hacked his way into an MIT database
that contained many, many academic and technical papers and downloaded them
onto his hard drive, rather than paying for access. Why did he do this? Do we
know?
It took a little poking in the Internet, but it seems this
theft of data was Swartz’s own form of civil disobedience. Here is what he
wrote:
“Information is power. But like all power, there are
those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and
cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is
increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private
corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the
sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed
Elsevier.” Source
Later in his manifesto he suggests “liberating” this data
that is “locked up”:
“Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly
by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating
the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark,
hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of
knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its
crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded
by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.” Source
So, we can assume he covertly stole the data to draw
attention to a perceived injustice—that he felt that the academic papers in the
JSTOR archive were unfairly behind a paywall and should be available to all.
Following the imperative of his manifesto one might assume he was going to give
them all away—to make them free, as he thought they should be. He didn’t. (He
certainly wasn’t going to sell them himself.)
His theft was done surreptitiously, so it seems he didn’t
want to get caught in the act, though maybe he thought it was going to be OK
and he wouldn’t actually get caught. Sort of an unreasonable assumption given
that someone makes money on this stuff—but given his skills as a coder and
hacker, maybe not an unreasonable assumption. We also might assume that he was then going to proudly and
publicly announce that he had “liberated” these documents to draw attention to
his position. This public “liberation” would also be a sort of “come and get
me” action. Like the Civil Rights activists, he would, one might assume, be
willing to face the consequences in order to draw attention to this perceived
injustice. I don’t think he did that either. He was a disturbed young man, and
seems to have hesitated in carrying out the typical civil disobedience agenda.
What bothered him so much about this archive of data behind
a paywall?
What’s the deal with these academic archives? How do they
typically work?
Like music and movies that are legally controlled by
copyright holders—typically movie studios or record companies—many academic databases
contain papers and other material that are proprietary. Institutions or
individuals therefore have to subscribe to access them or pay a fee to get to
download these papers. LexisNexis is one such academic site in which the
material is protected by a pay wall; Swartz downloaded his documents from a
similar database called JSTOR. Needless to say, he didn’t pay for them.
Where does the money that subscribers pay to these services
go? Do the poor academics who did the research and wrote the papers get some
part of those fees? One would hope so, but I have my doubts that they get very
much of it. Academics get paid by their institutions, and are obliged, but not
paid, to publish papers like the ones stored in JSTOR. They don’t necessarily
get paid for publishing these papers, but they have to do so to eventually get
tenure and keep up their academic standing. They usually publish their work in various
academic print journals, and it is often the journals that by default post their
papers on JSTOR or similar sites. The academic is, one might say, coerced into
placing their work behind the paywall. Record companies who own the copyright
on many of my recordings place those recordings in places where I might not
wish them to be—it’s an ongoing battle… another story. JSTOR and others funnel
their income to the journals who own the rights to the papers. One hopes the
journals would pass some of that income on to the writers. This reminds me of
my own pathetic income from Spotify and other services that record companies
place my recordings on—the income I get is so small that it’s essentially
nothing.
While I can empathize both with academics who might either
want to monetize their research or those who might want to make it freely
available to all—the choice, ideally, should be the authors’. One would assume
that this is one of the issues young Swartz was trying to draw attention to.
LeeAnn Rossi writes—in
the case of JSTOR, institutions pay a one-time Archive Capital Fee (which
fluctuates based on size of institution and amount of access to documents
granted) plus an Annual Access Fee. From the breakdown of their 2008 tax
documents, it looks like they [JSTOR] made $43m and had expenditures of $35m,
giving them an $8m profit (they're registered as a non-profit organization). Of
those expenditures, $8.3m were under the line item "Publisher's Fees and
Payments", though there is no breakdown for how the Publisher accounts to
the Author on the backend. From this
article—it sounds like the name of the game in the academic world is that
authors and scientists don't get paid for their peer-reviewed work in journals
or on databases at all. Another
anti-academic publishing article ironically ends with a nod to this
article, which you can't read because it's behind a paywall.
Ultimately that is all irrelevant, the point is the owners
of this material have their work behind these pay walls. The authors were
coerced maybe, unfairly, probably, but there it is. It’s legal. Unfair maybe,
but legal. Swartz, as I understand it, was an advocate for “free”—that all of
this information (and presumably much other copyrighted material) created by
others should ideally be free and available to all. Information, especially
scientific and academic information, should, in this view, be intrinsically
shared. Information, like that contained in these papers, is what scholars use
to inspire themselves and it often serves a foundation for their own research.
They therefore don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time they begin some
avenue of research—which would cause research to proceed at a snails pace.
Archives like JSTOR also, according to Swartz, buy up
research and papers that are in the public domain, lock them up and then privatize
them, as a way of profiting from works that were once available to all.
LeeAnn writes again—He was mostly
fighting against what he saw as corporations owning and profiting off of
something that was produced and owned by individuals who not only never
recieved any compensation for their work, but also never produced it with
profit in mind in the first place.
There is a big difference in my opinion between using
someone else’s work as inspiration and as a stepping-stone and using that work—or work that incorporates that work—as a way to make money. I am happy, for
example, for people to slice and dice my recordings, for example, recordings
they have legally obtained, and play around with them to their hearts content
as long as they don’t decide to make money from their work—either directly or
indirectly. I am, I think, quite open about sharing income if someone builds on
my work—but the crucial concept is “share”. (I have to point out that even posting
songs on YouTube these days is in fact selling something—it is monetizing
someone else’s work. YouTube makes money on the ads that are all over their
site. It’s not an altruistic “sharing service”.)
But back to civil disobedience. Swartz stole the material,
pure and simple, and he seems to feel that he and others have, in this case,
the right to steal because they are beholden to a higher moral standard. I am
sort of fine with this if he’s willing to accept the consequences, as Ellsberg and
the Civil Rights activists were. I sort of feel the same way about Wikileaks—though
much of the data they make available wasn’t “stolen” by them, they do know that
under many nation’s laws disseminating that data is illegal. (Significantly,
the NY Times and Washington Post were not prosecuted for printing the Pentagon
Papers—though Nixon tried to do so—and these same papers were not thrown in
jail for printing Wikileaks excerpts.) And as much as I’m glad they made the
horrors of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq obvious, Assange might face jail under
U.S. law—though I’m happy that more corporate and military misbehaviors are
made public.
If Ellsberg and the Civil Rights activists were willing to
go to jail, should Assange and Swartz and (Oh jeez, am I writing this?) poor
Bradley Manning be willing go to jail too?
I’m going to shift the subject for a minute.
I wonder where one draws the line with “higher morality”
used as a justification for breaking the law. When do acts based on one’s moral
indignation become unjustified? I empathize with many of the actions above, but
there are also acts made by those who similarly claim to be impelled by a
higher moral calling that I find repellant and horrible.
Lots of religious fanatics claim to be acting based on
higher moral standards—and they’re quite public about it: lunatics, building
bombers, abortion clinic bombers. Lots of wars have been fought by the U.S. and
others based on claims that God is on our side—as an argument it’s pretty
risky. In the case of civil disobedience, a lot depends on public opinion and
how the media delivers the news of the action to that public. In some cases, it
is assumed that the civil disobedience is not doing a lot of harm—unlike abortion
clinic bombings mentioned above. No one was harmed by Rosa Parks, certainly,
but I’m sure the Nixon administration made a case that Ellsberg’s leaks damaged
national security—as the Obama administration has done with the Wikileaks
material.
In civil disobedience actions it’s critical how the acts
play out in public—that the perception be that they have done good, not harm.
This reminds me of the way the
entertainment industries often overreacted to kids and grannies who were busted
for file sharing (downloading copyright material without paying for it). By
overreacting, the institutions helped folks to empathize with those they were
prosecuting.
However, Swartz fought back. If Swartz had admitted the
theft and publicized his willingness to go to jail, as did the civil
disobedience activists above, thereby bringing attention to the inordinate
punishment he was receiving and to the inequities of databases like JSTOR, then
he might have better made his point—in my opinion. In my opinion this was a bad
move. He was, as I have read, a disturbed young man who maybe sadly wasn’t
quite psychologically ready to be a Gandhi figure—should he have realized this
ahead of time?
I am reminded how Jean Valjean, who stole a loaf of bread in
the novel Les Mis, was unfairly
punished by the authorities—which highlighted the need to overthrow the
royalty.
In much of the recent discussion, Swartz is portrayed as a
martyr. The fact that, yes, he is also legally a thief, is almost never
mentioned. The emphasis tends towards lauding his advocacy (see higher
principals, above) and there is often mention of his known mental instability,
a fact that made him particularly susceptible to the kinds of harassment the
Feds seem to have engaged in.
I don’t disagree with many of Swartz’s points. I can
certainly see the point that much academic data, when freely available, can
have a greater chance to spur insights and creativity from researchers and
scientists around the world than if it is locked up behind paywalls. Withholding
cancer research from academics who can’t afford access because a big
pharmaceutical company “owns” the data doesn’t seem like a very morally
defensible position—even if it is what the law might say is perfectly legal.
But who then decides what data “deserves” to be stolen and
“liberated”? There are all sorts of data. Some of it is—though I hate to admit
it—possibly essential to our security, and some is strictly personal and
deserves to stay that way. It’s complicated, and this particular case seems
messy—though Swartz’s points are mostly valid… but maybe his method was sloppy.
Here is a NY Times
photo of the children of the Mullets—the Amish clan in Ohio where 16 members,
led by charismatic elder Samuel Mullet Sr., went on a tonsorial rampage,
cutting off the hair of many of their neighbors, whom they claimed were
deviating from the true path. This has nothing to do with the hair style often
referred to as the mullet. At least I don’t think so.
Part of that is the similar dress, but a big part is the
composition and POV, which seems to be a slightly elevated, psychologically
objective view. Whether the photographer or editor was aware of this
coincidence—consciously or subconsciously—and chose the picture and cropped it
accordingly, is a puzzle. The prevalence of these similarities makes me think
that there might be archetypical visual compositions we unconsciously gravitate
towards. It’s not a new idea. John Berger, the writer and art critic, wrote
about this phenomenon many years ago, noting the striking similarity
between this picture of the murdered Che and the Rembrandt painting of an
anatomy lesson:
Do we have artwork pre-existing in our brains? Have we
evolved to find certain patterns and images more resonant than others? It
sounds ridiculous when I put it that way, but these similarities occur over and
over—the images are powerful, memorable, and iconographic.
Oliver Sacks, in his new book, Hallucinations, goes further. Sacks suggests that religious imagery
and popular, powerful iconography come from neurological processes which are
sometimes the result of damage or injuries or other phenomena that happen
fairly frequently. The kinds of images the brain creates—sometimes abstract
shapes and sometimes emotionally evocative scenes—fall into recognizable patterns.
Angels, spiders, doppelgangers (some of whom are imagined to be bent on
replacing oneself), witches and their cats, tunnels with light at the end, out
of body experiences, fractured stained glass-type patterns, and cubist
fragmented reality—they all, Sacks implies, have natural, though sometimes
extraordinary, explanations. We often ascribe spiritual explanations to these
phenomena, as they are so peculiar and moving—no other explanation is
available.
Does this explain the similar composition in the photo of
Che and Rembrandt’s Lesson? What
about the seemingly elevated out of body POV in the photo of the Mullet
children and the Bruegel painting? Are there neurological explanations as to
why we find ourselves drawn to these images?
But back to the haircuts.
The folks who were inspired (but not directed, Mullet Sr.
claims) by their elder all belong to the extended Mullet family, who live in a
rural area of Eastern Ohio. They felt that some of their neighbors were
straying from the path, getting too influenced by the “English” (their word for
American mainstream culture), and needed to be punished as a way of getting
them to straighten up. In Amish culture, as in some other religious groups,
one’s hair and beard are sacred. They are not just hairstyles but symbols of
one’s faith, and they are an important part of one’s personal standing in the
community. To have them violated is a grave and profound humiliation, a
disfigurement, a mark of shame. So, to make their point these enforcers
kidnapped their victims and cut their hair and beards.
Obviously, as with the recent child molesting issues in the
Brooklyn Hasidic community, they wanted to keep these matters within their community. They hoped that their system of justice would handle it quietly and
no outsiders would catch wind what was going on.
Something
went wrong in Ohio, though, and the haircutters got arrested.
Because of the profound effect these attacks had on the
victims, they were considered hate crimes, and these people are facing serious
jail sentences. As outsiders, we can understand punishing someone for
kidnapping—that seems to be accepted as a serious social infraction—but haircutting?
Look at those haircuts! In another context one might think that having an
acceptable Amish haircut would be humiliating all by itself! One is asked to
imagine the damage the hair and beard cuts did to those within the community
and not just consider what they would mean to us.
A friend wonders what will happen to those dancing children.
If
all of the accused go to jail, then the whole community is not only left
without moms and dads, they are left without caretakers and breadwinners—no
sources of income. Won’t the communities then collapse, and are the children
therefore being punished for the misbehavior of their parents?
Well, yeah, and my thought is “That’s what happens when a
parent goes to jail.” The difference here is that this is a whole community
that is being gutted, while we assume that other parents in jail result in
isolated cases of families being destroyed, not a whole community. But that’s
not true—the majority of dads in jail in the U.S. are black and Hispanic. One
could certainly say that those communities have been similarly gutted, and that
their children have been forced to grow up in extraordinary circumstances.
I tend to believe that one has to live in a way that doesn’t
harm others, and that if harm is done then the society can be empowered to deal
with it. That means that—in my view—gay sex, plural marriage, punk songs sung
in church, and bad haircuts don’t really do any harm—probably none at all if both
parties are consenting adults. But the kidnapping and lack of consent regarding
the haircuts does indeed cross a line.
My friend, who is a mother, might see things from a mother’s
point of view, and automatically think “What will happen to the children?” She might think that the long-term damage done to them is possibly
worse than the damage inflicted by the kidnappings and haircuts. That’s
probably true, but only because they were just—in our “English” eyes—haircuts.
If these guys had physically maimed their victims or worse, then we’d feel that
justice must be served to preserve the greater welfare and order of society—and
possibly that the destruction of their community is justified as collateral
damage.
Now we get into a really sticky issue—is the charismatic
elder, Sam Mullet Sr., who didn’t participate and (he claims) didn’t encourage
the kidnappings and haircuts, also guilty? The court says he helped plan the
crimes, so he’s guilty of telling someone else to do something.
The fact that, like Charles Manson, he didn’t actually
participate in the crimes, raises, for me, the question of free will. In its
verdict, the court believes that the perps were obliged in some way to obey the
suggestions of Mr. Mullet, and that they were therefore not in full possession
of their moral and reasoning facilities. They are excused, in some sense, as it
is accepted that they somehow felt that they had to commit these acts—they had no choice. It is assumed that our
leaders have us hypnotized.
There it is. Do we have a choice as individuals? Could these
guys have said, “Hold on a minute, we could get in serious trouble for this.”
Or “Those guys are blasphemers, but disfiguring them isn’t going to help.”
Could the Manson girls have similarly said, “No, we might be outlaws and
outsiders, but we don’t kill innocents.” Do soldiers have a similar
responsibility? We don’t hold soldiers on either side responsible for the
murders they commit—we tend to hold their leaders, the Sam Mullet’s of their
nations, responsible. (The exceptions are when the war crimes are committed by
our side, as with My Lai or Abu Ghraib—then the little soldiers become the fall
guys.)
I would like to believe that we all as individuals have the
power to step back, examine our actions, and determine whether or not they
adhere to, not just the laws of the land, but to a moral code that allows a
society to function. What if, as John and Yoko suggested, our soldiers in
Afghanistan said to themselves “Hell, they don’t want us here. We’re not doing
any good, not really. Let’s put down our guns and go home.” Granted we might
not know whether a product we buy is produced by child labor, but we certainly
know when we’re kidnapping or killing someone.
Well, it’s not a soldier’s job to see the big picture and
make individual decisions. If they did there’d be chaos and endless discussions
on the battlefield or in the drone control centers. Like a sports team, the
only way there can be success on the battlefield is if everyone pulls together
and refrains from questioning the action. Cooperation absolves one of responsibility,
it seems. If one wins a game, the whole team wins; if the team loses, it’s not
one player’s fault.
Likewise, the overly strict Mr. Mullet assumes that he is
helping the Amish community cohere, survive, and achieve spiritual unity by
punishing strays. In his view, only by cooperation can the team “win,” and
sometimes that cooperation needs to be coerced—as it does in the military
(where deserters are often shot).
Last night I watched a UK doc called Wagner and
Me, the me being British actor and personality Stephen Fry. He loves
Wagner’s work and in the film he visits Bayreuth. Besides talking about what a
shrine the place is for him, he asks the inevitable questions about whether our
assessment of art should be affected by an artist’s behavior, politics, or, in
this case, anti-Semitism. Fry is Jewish, so he embodies this conflict in some
ways. He doesn’t focus on the serial adulterer side of Wagner’s personality—so
we assume that doesn’t necessarily affect whether or not we like Wagner’s work.
I know a smattering about Wagner: the big rousing tunes, the long mythic Lord Of The Rings-type operatic saga,
his professed need to build a completely new theater to perform his new work
in, his anti-Semitism, and his Gesamtkunstwerk concept—a creative form that
embodies all the arts. But I was hoping to learn a little more, so I rented
this doc.
Wagner’s work was notoriously loved by Hitler, though of
course Wagner had been dead for decades before the little guy came to power—so
Wagner didn’t write work supporting the Nazis or encouraging the Holocaust. He
can’t be blamed as being a supporter or collaborator. However, in a famous essay
that Wagner wrote before he became successful, he railed against Mendelssohn
and another Jewish composer who was very, very popular at the time. No doubt
there was professional jealousy involved, as these guys were both wildly
popular and had found patrons to support them. Wagner, meanwhile was getting
himself deeper and deeper into debt, and at one point he found himself on the
wrong side of a revolution (though a side we might politically agree with) and
was forced to immigrate to Switzerland for many years.
After his years in “exile” he returned, having conveniently
made friends with the wife of the new King Ludwig II. The King was a madman who
was extravagant and rich beyond imagining. Below is his castle, which was the
inspiration for the one in Disneyland. The castle itself was based on a
fantasia of what a medieval castle might look like—but this was the mid-1800’s and
no one was building medieval castles anymore! Not only that, it was a
simulation of something, a physical manifestation of a historical architecture
style that had never existed. Perfect for Wagner though, as this castle has now
become a kind of archetype of a fairy tale castle and Wagner was all about
embodying German mythology and archetypes in his operas.
Can I offer that this cozying-up–to-the-wife-of-the-crazy-king-thing
might be viewed as a craven means of securing arts funding (pretty sleazy
actually), but really how different is it from the schmoozing and ass-kissing
that goes on today? And it worked. Wagner got himself out of debt, began completing
his Ring cycle of operas, and securing a suitable venue in which they could be
performed.
Most of us musicians and composers don’t have the hubris to
think that a completely new venue should be built to accommodate our artistic
dreams—though there are indeed visual artists who have had museum wings and
structures made to accommodate their work. More often we look to existing
venues (concert halls, ballrooms, bandshells, basketball arenas, and re-purposed
industrial buildings) and hope to find our work performed in the one that will
showcase it in its best light. Wagner is the exception to my rule that we tend
to tailor our art to these existing and available venues.
Wagner wanted the orchestra that would play his work to be
both larger than usual and hidden. That might seem a contradiction, but he had
his reasons. He wanted expanded brass and bass sections to accommodate the
bombast to come, and he hid the orchestra in order to submerge the music—at
least visually—more thoroughly into the total work. To his credit, he also
wanted the performances to be less elitist than opera had a tendency to become.
He was annoyed at the extra-musical behavior that often took place during opera
season—the socializing, gawking, and gossiping. To emphasize the more
egalitarian aspect of his theater he eschewed much of the Rococo decor and gilt
that often covers opera venues. This was to be serious—a shrine, a people’s
temple, set isolated on a high grassy hill.
Though I view his hubris at insisting on a purpose-built
venue as the exception as far as composers go, I realized while watching the
doc that there are indeed recent equivalents—Celine Dion, Elton John, Cirque du Soleil, and a handful of other Vegas shows have had venues specially built to
accommodate their needs. Lion King and Spiderman on Broadway in NYC are others—the
amount of remodeling and construction that went into the theaters where these
shows run effectively makes them into new purpose-built venues.
I find this slightly disgusting and unfair. I tend to
believe that part of the challenge of any artistic endeavor is to find a way to
work within the limitations and physical restrictions that have been given to
you. That’s part of the game—to acknowledge the rules and context but then come
up with something totally new within that world. Maybe there’s some creative
jealously here—I convince myself that ignoring the rules is easier than
accepting the restrictions as given; that ignoring them isn’t playing the
game. (What rules one might ask?) To propose impractical projects might be the
mark of a visionary, but one wonders if the huge effort and expense to realize them
necessarily guarantees an appropriately increased level of audience experience.
Think of Jeff Koons’ locomotive that he proposes suspending by the barely
solvent LA County Museum. Sometimes yes, bigness is indeed part of a piece—but
scale is not a sure-fire guarantee of a great experience.
Back to the question of whether or not we can allow
ourselves to like someone’s work knowing they might be a despicable human
being, hold abhorrent views, or possibly be a complete pervert. Do we care that
Picasso may have been a bad father and mistreated all his wives? Not
particularly—we tend to separate his work, or at least our judgement of its
quality, from his private life. Do we care that the poet Elizabeth Bishop made
excuses for the brutal dictatorship in Brazil? Does that invalidate her work?
The composer Gesualdo
murdered his wife. Mussorgsky
was an alcoholic. The composer Henry Cowell went to
prison for molesting young boys. Caravaggio killed a man over
a game of tennis! And the contemporary painter John Currin goes against
most of his peers and often espouses conservative Republican political views.
Actors and singers have a harder time separating themselves
from their work. Mostly because physically they are their work—to a large extent their bodies are what we see and
hear in their work—it becomes hard to separate them from what they do. As a
young man I found both Charlton Heston and John Wayne intolerable based on
their political views (though I’ve managed to watch Wayne’s John Ford westerns
lately). I’m suspicious of Scientologists—Beck, Cruise, Travolta—but they seem to keep their wacky cult leanings out of their work. More than a few
country singers hold pretty radically conservative views and sometimes it makes
it into songs like Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue”. Ted Nugent is just a crazy person,
period. It can be confusing.
And if we do sometimes judge someone’s work based on their
extracurricular behavior, is the reverse then true? Does being a good and kind
person make your work better? Most certainly not. The painter Jacques-Louis
David promoted the overthrow of the monarchy during the French revolution—something
we tend to empathize with. A lot of his work was propaganda; his political
beliefs were very much entangled in his work. Here is an unfinished work
depicting the provisional government forming at an (indoor) tennis court:
Though we might agree with his politics and instincts, do we
give him extra artistic points as a result?
Picasso’s “Guernica”—an act of political protest—is given
high marks. But imagine if instead of depicting the pain and horror of the
civilian bombing of a Spanish village, it depicted civilians being bombed by
the Allies in Dresden or Berlin. The painting might not look all that
different. Imagine what our architectural taste would be like if Hitler had
decided to promote an industrial-inspired Bauhaus aesthetic rather than the
romantic imperialism of Speer. Would modernism have been suddenly abandoned as
a project?
Wagner’s anti-Semitism is not inherent in his work, I don’t think.
Though his operas evoke a sense of the deep roots of Teutonic culture and
therefore encourage a pride of that culture, it isn’t exclusionary. So, we can
compartmentalize here if we want to. Picasso’s work doesn’t espouse bad
parenting. Currin’s paintings of grotesque nudes don’t promote the Tea Party.
Caravaggio doesn’t excuse murder in his paintings. Similarly, Fry concludes
that Wagner’s work should be judged solely on its merits, and he suggests we
view and hear it independently from his personal views.
Until The Light Takes Us(2008), is a documentary about black metal music culture in Norway that’s quite good. You don’t have to know much about, or even like the music to be drawn into this film. It seems that the impulse of the original black metal bands, who had a miniscule following, was in part, to defend Norwegian culture—at least as they saw it. They saw the Americanization of their culture as a terrible thing and something to fight against. When the first McDonalds came to Norway, they shot at it. Similarly, they felt that Christianity imposed upon true Norse culture and mythology (i.e. Odin and Thor)—quite reasonable, in a way (I was rooting for them, at this point).
The documentary describes the rise of the black metal scene. One guy, Gylve "Fenriz" Nagell, was the first to wear “corpse” makeup.
Another artist, to make a statement, burnt a church that was built over a pre-Christian sacred site.
One practitioner compares the scene’s music and art to that of Edvard Munch, another Norwegian, which isn’t a big stretch. Both Munch and artists of the black metal scene express parts of their culture that are generally kept tightly bolted down.
Although, they aren’t all necessarily “nice” guys. Burzum frontman, Varg “Count Grischnackh” Vikernes, is interviewed in prison (a prison with very homey curtains it seems!), where he is serving 21 years for murder and several church burnings. He describes the murder, quite matter-of-factly, in the film. It’s a chilling scene, as he comes across as articulate and disarmingly mild-mannered, explaining that their music is a way of defending Norwegian culture and heritage.
The press portrayed the black metal scene as purely Satanist, which it was not. But, it was the press’ branding of the scene as Satanic that caught fire (oops). Soon, everyone accepted this as truth and as younger bands came into the scene, they claimed to be Satanists. These kids burned more churches than ever before, and also put up 666 graffiti. It all spiraled out of control—not that there was much “control” from the start.
What began as a not totally unreasonable impulse to defend Norwegian culture, (though I’m not defending the burnings and murder) was perverted by the media. This perversion encouraged a far more deeply disturbed youth to emerge, badly copy, develop and act out in sad and meaningless ways. The “evil” thing that was preached against in press, was, in a way, encouraged to come forth and manifest.
A friend wrote to me, “David, didn't something vaguely analogous happen with American skinhead bands back in the day—I mean, decline of western civilization one day? Didn't [west coast punk groups] groups like TSOL launch entirely banal attacks on suburban ennui, but looked like skinheads with some window dressings, got written up as white supremacists, and so began a generation of surf Nazis?”
One can see how forms, not just musical, that trade and dabble in dangerous, disturbing images and provocative actions—even if these images and actions are not the main focus of their intent—run the risk of being perverted. There is, it seems, a great likelihood that potent images and actions will be used for other purposes. Not just likelihood, one can almost predict that powerful memes like these, like some strong medicine or drug, will inevitably be repurposed. It’s almost as if there really is a dark world, and upon entering, one surrenders some control—or at least maintaining control is extremely difficult. Someone like young Vikernes, disgusted by the bombardment of commercial images he saw all around him, decided to resist not just a little, but completely reject the whole package of how other people accept the world. He, alone, struck out into remote and barren territory, as he described, “to find the truth in a sea of lies.” Again, I’m sympathetic to the resistance to the McDonaldification of his country—most of us simply cave in and accept that this is the way things are going to be. It takes a saint or a maniac to reject the status quo, and maybe the two are flip sides of the same coin.
Going at this alone is a solitary quest, in a dangerous landscape, taken, in this case, without a guide. One would be tempted to say that maybe Odin, Thor, Wotan and the rest of the Norse horde, might have been summoned—but maybe these Gods or archetypes are too powerful to be confronted by an amateur. As with Voudoun, chanting, LSD and many other arts and practices that reach parts of us that we often don’t touch, it might be wise to have a professional along who knows where the dangers and pitfalls lie.
“The truth is hidden, under grass, under rocks, in a hidden trail, a forgotten trail in the forest, you know? And when you find these trails you will stumble, you will get branches in your face.” -Varg Vikernes
Additional quotes from others in the scene:
“He is like an angel lost in a dark universe.”
“It’s out there now [black metal]… anyone can have it… it’s like a brand now.”
I had a dream the other night in which the production designer of a documentary about a farm family was presenting me with some color swatches to view. All of the color swatches were dull colors—beige, pale blue and a muddy, off white. The idea, as the production designer explained it, was to make the entire setting, the farmer, his family and their home, look “better.” It was decided that the clothing and environment should be contained within a proscribed color universe. To do this, they would dye all of the farm family’s clothes, empty the rooms, repaint the walls, remove all of the knick knacks and utensils around the house and even alter the color of those in order to create a somewhat duller but more unified world.
This aspect of production design is common in fictional films. David Fincher is famous for color coordinating the rooms of his protagonists—for example, their clothes, furniture and walls might all be varying shades of bluish gray. Other movies might use this technique to confine flashbacks to golden warm tones while others might choose to unify the colors within the setting by meticulously coordinating wardrobe pieces, or even curtains and furniture. This can be obvious or subtle. For example, it’s fairly common for a white shirt to be dyed down to an off white during production of a film so it does not pop or glow too much against the background. You might not notice any of this art direction at work, but it’s there.
Anyway, many of these design elements were going to be applied to the documentary in my dream. Once the clothes, house and other items were all coordinated to depict a color-muted universe, the stuff would be put back exactly where it had come from and the family would be allowed to resume their normal daily lives.
In the dream I thought to myself, “This is very clever. Visitors to the farm family will immediately look like garish outsiders with their loud clothes, sporting colors that will inevitably clash with the toned down world of the farm. The sense that the farm is a world unto itself would, therefore, subtly be reinforced.” This seemed, in my dream analysis within the dream, like a pretty cool idea. Leave aside, as I did in my dream, the issue of whether this is a perversion of the notion of a documentary.
As my thoughts within the dream drifted, a disturbing thought arose. “What about the vegetables?” I realized, being a farm, that there would inevitably be bright red peppers, rich green leaves of kale and chard, and a variety of colorful fruits that would be brought from the farm into the house or barn. I thought to myself, “What about those? The film people wouldn’t re-paint vegetables would they? Nah, that would somehow be crossing a line.”
There are many forms of collective creation that run the whole spectrum, from merely coloring in someone else’s existing drawing to the actual creation of a thing from scratch. Often this spectrum of distinction is lost in the rush to embrace the amazing and wondrous, collectively created works like Wikipedia and, um, Zagat guides—these being held up as models for the possibility of collective creation of all and every kind of activity—from politics to newspapers. I’ve maintained a fair amount of skepticism about the idea of crowd sourced creative works for some time, which is not to say some of them don’t work incredibly well. But, they’re not all the same. To me, even though Wikipedia is indeed an example of the wisdom of crowds producing an amazing work—one that is possibly better than those that are top down in their inception—it seems that the claims made for this kind of creative process are often a little misleading. Each Wikipedia entry is not vetted or added to by everyone—by the lumped masses—but by self-appointed experts on each subject. Then, after these experts have had their say, we, the masses, tend to accept on faith that they have haggled amongst themselves over a particular subject to determine what will be included and the accuracy of what is in the entry. Of course, everyone considers themselves an expert on some subjects…
I’m not going to claim that only folks nominated as experts should be trusted to manage our world and create the things we enjoy and consume. I’d be the last person to believe that a college degree or experience in a field gives one a guaranteed wise perspective—would you trust a Rumsfeld? Often, it’s the perspective of amateurs that is more accurate than the professionals who are embedded and entrenched within their field of work. That said, nature seems to have found that some level of specialization is proven to work on some level. Though it seems clear that certain ants are designated as “experts,” and are deferred to as such, I admit that I have a bias against deferring to experts. Despite the sound social management system of ants that is responsible for their long survival—a system that we often believe that we might do well to emulate—I refuse to believe that the bankers who got us into our current economic mess are the best minds to get us out of it. Similarly, I sense that one maybe shouldn’t trust the military in evaluating and establishing their own budgets. It happens over and over—the police have proven they can’t be trusted amongst themselves. Economists? Oh, forget it.
The popular hive analogy, which compares insect societies to human interactions and creation, is often applied to the idea of many doing and creating what one alone cannot. Even in the hive though, there are “experts”—worker bees are given right of way to accomplish their tasks by the other bees because it seems that everyone recognizes no one can do their job as well as they can—there is not a mass consensus meeting or discussion amongst the entire hive about the role of these worker bees. For example, it is assumed they know best how to forage for food. Like the worker bee, the area of expertise of Wikipedia contributors may vary widely, potentially covering topics from Glee to String Theory. When one of these experts writes an entry, and then annotates and/or expands on it, we (in some sense) assume they are wise and perceptive in their particular field. Also, we assume these contributions have been vetted by that expert’s peers—not by everyone. So we, the non-expert readers, give respect.
With ants it is similar. Certain worker ants (all of whom are female) have designated tasks. A quick smell, via an antennae brush, identifies what a specific worker is best at doing—foraging, cleaning debris elimination, guarding—and no one tries to “tell them” how to do their jobs. There are no bosses. It is possible for the worker ant to switch jobs, but usually, as with humans, that opportunity arises when the colony is relatively young. After that, the job pool, one’s career, is more or less set. Though, there are always reserves of other ants underground that are recruited if a new food source suddenly becomes available (Thank you Deborah Gordon’s TED talk 2003).
One of the ways an ant figures out what is going on is oddly similar to the Google search algorithm—it “counts” how many encounters it has with a specific kind of worker. Based on these encounters, the ant can deduce that there is, for example, a major clean up in progress. Instructions and situations in progress are not “described,” but are inferred by the aggregate of encounters.
The consensus “rules” of OWS were (are?) possibly a more accurate example of real crowd (or democratic) decision-making. How did the OWS group, who struggled to maintain their leaderless and self-organized identity, ever make decisions? They endorsed the idea of consensus as opposed to voting. The word consensus comes from a Latin word meaning, “feel together”. Consensus means everyone (eventually) arrives at a place where they will give consent, although they might not be in 100% agreement. The distinction seems a little vague to me.
The well-reported use of hand signals, as a means of reaching this consensus, was adopted (microphones weren’t allowed due to noise restrictions) by the movement. One would be very tempted to ask who exactly decided that consensus would be the mode for decision-making? Who and how was that decision made?
Many of the participants found the assembly and consensus reaching process a bit tedious and boring—some would wander off from lack of interest.
Maybe the ants are on to something. They too have no leader (the queen lays eggs but doesn’t manage the colony via smell, as used to be thought) nor do they have a central control. On the surface, this sounds very democratic—even anarchistic. A completely leaderless society—that works! Although it might appear this way to us when viewed from a distance, you, as an individual ant, are very much programmed by your evolved instincts and your innate reaction to smells and behaviors. While having no leader might imply absolute freedom, there are other restrictions among insects. The leader, the guide, the rules, are not external, but are built into you as an individual.
Therefore, it statistically appears as if there is no free will in the ant colony. Each individual seems to go about their task without questioning things or stopping to ponder why or what for. But, maybe on the individual level, to each ant, they feel like there is, in fact, free will. Maybe they do agonize and make specific decisions. Maybe they have simply “learned” that following the aggregate tends to give the best results for the colony as a whole. They may feel that they have made a personal decision to join along with everyone else; they may also feel that they have acted of their own free will and are not forced into joining a specific program or activity. They’re acting in consort because, from their point of view, they want to…. or so they may be telling themselves. Maybe, their “government” is internalized.
According to Gordon, when you look inside of ant colonies, the behavior seems pretty haphazard. They’re not the well-oiled, smoothly functioning machines we might expect from a species that has survived for millions of years. As in human society, the behavior of individuals is not predictable. We all, as individuals, appear to be acting on our own—but just as it is with the ants, there is a kind of decision-making based around aggregate behavior. I’m not sure how this translates exactly—how this process works with people. Does it mean that if everyone is “drinking the Kool-Aid,” I intuitively “decide” that I should too? If everyone watches Kim Kardashian, then I better join the bandwagon and do what everyone else does? If the ants appear to have some sort of free will on an individual level, but in actuality it is mostly an illusion, does the same apply to us?
How Does Anything New Come Into Existence?
I’m curious as to whether or not what we call creative works can come into fruition as a result of the contributions of countless individuals. Must a creative work inevitably be guided by the tyranny of one person’s vision—or at least a very small group (Pixar films, for example)? Can the crowd write a great novel? A symphony, or pop song? A feature film? (Hollywood films are notoriously made by a committee—and the results speak for themselves). Do we all have a kind of innate (possibly unconscious) wisdom that can profitably guide us to influence and direct the track and arc of a creative work? Do these deep instincts, if trusted and tapped into accurately, and without bias, result in a work that is inevitably true? Is this why we feel cheated when a Hollywood movie has an obviously happy ending tacked on? Do we sense that the instinctively “true” ending was abandoned? Or, is this why the happy ending was tacked on in the first place? Is the happy ending what we instinctively want in a narrative? (Is this making any sense?). If, to some extent, a sense and structure of narrative is innate, then are authorship and writing skill overrated? Superfluous?
A parallel to the question of how new works come into being are some ideas that seem to be related to collective creation, but that might not really be the same at all. Are open-ended works (e.g. video games in which the players determine details of the story) and self-generating works—such music and visual programs that accept outside input but are designed to endlessly generate content on their own—truly collectively created works?
There is an established tradition of what are called indeterminacy in music—a not so new idea that has now migrated to digitally programmed works (musical and otherwise). In these earlier musical works, used by John Cage and many others, the player was allowed to determine how long to hold a note—and sometimes, what note to play from a set of given choices. Terry Riley’s “In C” is like this, as is Cornelius Cardew’s “The Great Learning.” These are all works that almost always end up sounding wonderful, despite being as open ended as they are. The marvel is why they don’t go off the tracks. We expect that, given free reign, chaos will inevitably result. Though, it doesn’t seem to—not always, anyway.
Maybe what is key is that the overall shape of the work has been cleverly pre-determined. There is free will involved in the choices the players are given, but within very severe limitations. One might say that this process is a way of fostering the illusion of free will. Maybe it proves that these compositions and social mechanisms, when cleverly “designed” can appear as though they allow for free will but, in actuality, they involve lots of restrictions—which have the effect of guiding the structure and the finished work to be something beautiful.
Cage used other devices to introduce chance and randomness into the “decision-making” process, but the “programmer” was always lurking. More recently in music, this process has been moved into the digital realm—with algorithms that do their best to randomize the choice of notes, along with other aspects of a composition. The Buddha Machine is a good example of this—a transistor radio sized device that plays endlessly changing sounds, chosen by the program, from a given set of notes and sounds. There is, as one would expect, no arc to these compositions—no beginning, middle and/or end. They are merely states of being, not substitutes for narrative.
These indeterminate scores can be viewed a bit like the literature that emerges out of oral traditions—the great epics and sagas. The process is not so different than what occurs in a lot of folk music as well—blues songs that get passed from area to area and subtly altered each time someone new sings them… but the main thrust of the story and the song tends to remain consistent. Everyone recognizes the song despite every interpretation being absolutely distinct.
There was a text version of this process called Consequences. It’s a bit like Mad Libs, though it originated much earlier (pre-1918). One creates a sentence by filling in the following blanks (from Wikipedia, of course):
1. A Man's name 2. A Woman's name 3. A Place name 4. He said to her… 5. She said to him 6. The consequence was… (A description of what happened after) 7. An outcome
Then the resulting “story” is read (for example):
Scary Bob met voluptuous Alice at the zoo. He said, "This is delicious.", she said, "Hit me baby one more time." He gave her a red rose, she gave him cholera. The consequence was that they eloped to Mexico. The world said, "the femme fatale will always win".
Could one write a whole book this way? William S. Burroughs used an aleatory (chance) literary technique that he and Brion Gysin popularized, called cut-ups. Cut-ups are created in two steps: by cutting a finished text into pieces and rearranging the words and then, by folding the linear text and looking for resonant bits of text when overlapped and placed next to one another.
There is the visual equivalent—collectively produced artwork like the Exquisite Corpse drawings. The Surrealists created these images based on an old parlor game. The idea is that 3 or more people contribute to a “body” by drawing on a folded piece of paper and then passing it around without knowing what the next person will contribute below the fold. Restricted by the rule that one is obliged to draw either the upper, middle or lower portions of the body the resulting monsters are, yes, beautiful and strange things whose authorship we could say belongs to an invisible 4th entity.
Here is a Chimera collectively drawn by Joan Miro, Man Ray and Yves Tanguy. They sort of didn’t adhere to the normal rules (in which you are to add normal body parts appropriate to your segment):
I’d argue that all of these forms are in fact authored. The programmer that sets the ball in motion, the one who determines the set of simple rules is, in these cases, the author. While you often get marvelous things through these algorithms, I’d be inclined to think that what you don’t get is a coherent story arc, complex characters or even a consistent vision—musical, lyrical or visual. That is, unless the framework has already been provided by a “programmer.” Follow a framework modified with embellishments, modification, additions, etc.—as in the oral tradition of storytelling—and, as a result, you get a coherent form.
Some of our most resonant works of literature have emerged out of the tradition of oral storytelling and do not have a single author credited. The tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights, for example, is composed of stories that have all been embellished, edited, written and molded by an unknown multitude of individuals over a long period of time. The stories hold up, and continue to move us today, as do the folk tales collected by the brothers Grimm. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana epics are similarly composed by a host of unknowns, as is the Bible. These all were all derived from oral traditions—in which each storyteller would add subtle embellishments and refinements to suit the local culture, time and place. The basic story arc would tend to be maintained and serve as a skeletal framework—though, in many cases, we can see where successive refinements over time completely altered the “message” of the tales. We know this because people wrote down some of these tales at different stages of their evolution and transformation.
The Old Testament tales are, in many cases, embellished versions of stories that were told (sometimes even written down) for hundreds of years. Though, by the time the stories came to exist as they do today, they had already morphed into tales that emphasized the overthrow of the older matriarchal society and spirituality by a more rigid patriarchal one. (There’s a very nice analysis of this in the back of the Crumb comic version!)
Even though these particular tales changed their emphasis in a majority of cases, usually not too much fundamentally changed in the narrative framework. The embellishments were mostly superficial… until the cumulative effect of the changes became something more profound. When reading these works, one can often sense the fragmentary nature of the chapters and episodes—many of which contradict one another. At other times a plot point or explanation is dropped for political reasons, leaving one wondering why there was a sudden shift in tone of a story or the behavior of a character. A single author would be less likely to contradict him or her self. But often, if we take each single episode—such as a single Grimm’s tale or one of the tales out of the Arabian Nights—it is often consistent, incredibly well constructed, efficient and resonant—like a tool honed by use over centuries.
These stories behave like living creatures that have evolved over time—adapting themselves, over and over again, to the psychological needs of the listeners and the creative embellishments of the narrators and their audiences. They’re not, and never were, fixed stories with an Ur version—there never was a primal text. They survive and maintain their resonance by mutating, changing and adapting to the world around them. As soon as they become fixed, they die (in a sense). They become a work that is somewhat ossified—rooted in a specific time and place. Then, the core narrative quickly resurfaces in another form—a film, TV show or popular novel.
Folk, blues, house music, pop, hip hop and lots of other musical genres might be viewed the same way—not so much as individual songs or acts of unique creativity, but as the cumulative result of many creative narrators pitching in to tweak a form that already has a given and collectively accepted shape and framework. The equivalent of the narrative arc of a story is already there in these song forms, and we songwriters, producers and singers are the storytellers in our own oral tradition—putting our own spin on an existing form, but not making substantial changes in the form itself. The point is, a lot of music that we think of as being individual acts of creation might actually be narrators contributing to what might be viewed as a larger epic work.
Though I am not a griot or epic bard, I am in my home studio making subtle adjustments and contributions to a form that came before me, and will later be picked up by others. I have the illusion of free will, of creating work and forms from scratch, but I am merely embellishing. Of course, successive embellishing will eventually lead one far from home…
That said—I believe I lean towards work that has a consistent vision. Don’t we want to feel that the version of a song, movie or narrative we have just spent time listening to, reading or absorbing is consistent—that every part was considered by its author, so as to adhere to a coherent vision? We assume that collective works don’t have the same intention as authored works. This view doesn’t totally exclude the author as a creative contributor to an ongoing epic storytelling effort though, as one still might hope for consistency from a narrator, songwriter or storyteller, even if the individual works that result are essentially modifications of something recurring and familiar.
Authorless Architecture
Architecture Without Architects is the title of a wonderful picture book, by Bernard Rudofsky, that came out in 1964. The pictures are presented as evidence that exquisite, “authorless,” architecture has existed for thousands of years—and that, despite not being designed by one person, it rivals individually designed works in beauty and, above all, practicality. One might view the simple and elegant furniture of the Shakers the same way. The buildings Rudovsky chose evolved much in the same way folk stories and oral narratives did—to best meet the demands of each place and society, while also maintaining an aesthetic and spiritual appeal.
Was the latter aspect an unintended consequence of meeting local and practical needs? Could one say that these entities that have evolved over time tend to be beautiful because we recognize that some deep parts of ourselves are expressed and manifest in them? Is the beauty a layer that is, in fact, serving another equally practical function that is as important to human beings as keeping out the cold or ventilation? Is the need for beauty and elegance also something practical?
It seems that the beauty these buildings possess is not an aspect added on, an appliqué, but an integral consequence of every other aspect of these kinds of works. When every other aspect is true and integrated, maybe you automatically get beauty. These buildings and houses have evolved so that they have a spirit of life deeply ingrained in them. By recognizing this, by sensing that these qualities are in there, we find the resulting structures beautiful.
In his book Rudovsky includes single-family homes, as well as monumental works.. All of them were molded over time by a kind of collective will and impulse; none were built by just one designer. The design is not open to anyone-—it’s clear that not everyone in the community would have voted on where the chimneys go—there are folks who know how to thatch a roof, for example, better than others. But, it’s the evolutionary process that tells the community, and the specialized workers within it, that maybe there is, indeed, a best place for a chimney or a best size for eaves—and that this wisdom shouldn’t be ignored.
Here is a vernacular plantation house in Hawaii and the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu:
There are other types of architecture, not designed by “individuals,” and these are not so different from the mosque above—like these giant termite mounds in Australia (near Darwin):
The chimneys and air vents from underground allow the hot air, in the parts of the world where these things are built, to escape—so that the precious nurseries deep inside can maintain a constant temperature. It’s a fairly sophisticated bit of building and HVAC for a creature whose brain is the size of a pinhead. However, one might say that if you combine all of those pinheads, you get a more substantial mental capacity.
However, I’m not sure size is what matters. Heh heh. A fairly simple algorithm—rules and behavior that don’t require a lot of brain cells—can set in motion what, in retrospect, seems like a very complex bit of creation. So if over time evolution arrived at a structural solution by adapting to the situation at hand, and by using just a few rules, When these rules are set, the mental capacity of each individual doesn’t have to be so “big” at all. Everyone (or all of the workers anyway) can, and does build these incredible things instinctually.
Recently, there was a short film posted on the web of some scientists who poured concrete into an anthill to see what the network of nurseries and tunnels might look like. After the concrete (10 tons of it!) set, they painstakingly dug away the surrounding dirt to reveal an entire (miniature) futuristic city.
It’s easy to see how incredibly impressive the city is that these little things constructed. Overlap this town over a medieval city in Europe, in the Maghreb or in the Middle East, and one might see an almost an identical layout. It makes one think that: (A) we haven’t come so far, and (B) maybe the “hive mind” concept is more literal than metaphorical. Maybe we have retained elements of the insect mind, and we use and are guided by that, to order, build and organize our own cities. Like storytellers and songwriters, maybe in urban planning, we are merely embellishers too—we are reworking the same forms over and over, making slight adjustments to fit our own needs.
Others have preferred to view the social insects, not as social cities composed of individuals, but as single super organisms—more like one being made up of millions of semi-autonomous crawling “cells.” This would mean that these towering termite mounds and the tunnels of the ant colonies might represent the clothing or shell that belongs to a collective whole being. The mound is like the skeleton and the skin of a large creature. This view makes the cooperation of the little critters seem more like the cooperation and symbiosis of the cells and bacteria that make up our own bodies. The chambers are like the organs in our own bodies—each with its specific function and specialized job functionaries.
If we make that leap, then we too can be seen as sophisticated works of “soft” architecture. Just like the cities of the ants, bees and termites, one would never imagine that our little cells would be able to individually make and organize a structure as complex as we are. If we reorient our viewpoint, and can see ourselves as a kind of ant colony, we get a frightening insight that maybe our sense of free will is not much more than that of the ants and termites. Our most beautiful cities, and maybe we too, are not much more sophisticated than those of the social insects.
I recently read an article about a group of Swedish neuroscientists: Björn van der Hoort, Arvid Guterstam and Professor H. Henrik Ehrsson, who conducted an experiment called, “Being Barbie.” Their findings explain how our perception of our bodies determines our perception of the world. Here’s a summary of what they did:
They built a rig that allows them to substitute other body images for your own. Their experiment was based on two models—a tiny sized Barbie (or Ken) and a 16-foot tall giant sized model. You lie on a table, wear a video helmet and when you look down at “yourself," you see not your own torso and legs but these models as if they were your own body. They encourage this belief by having a stick touch your leg while another stick touches your virtual body. You see the padded stick touch the Barbie body and at the same time you feel something—another padded stick—touching your own leg. This really locks the illusion into place.
So far, this might seem merely like a nifty parlor trick—albeit one I’d love to participate in. But there’s more to it than simply fooling the eye.
What the scientists point out is that their “trick” emphasizes that your perception of the whole world is affected by the size of your body image. If you perceive your body as Barbie size then the chair across the room now seems both giant and incredibly far away. That hand that touches your leg, in that instance, appears to be that of a giant. Like Alice after she drank from the vial, you believe that you have shrunken (or grown in the case of the giant body model they built).
What you see in the room doesn’t change. Your eyes, with their stereoscopic vision and depth perception, should tell you that the room and its furniture are normal. Wouldn’t one think that our eyes would at least tell us the “truth”—that the chair is still where it was and is a normal size chair? Wouldn’t you think that our eyes would counteract this trickery? That we’d instinctively realize that the doll body was a Barbie torso and that the chair is not miles away and giant? We assume that it is our eyes that transmit to us a kind of objective visual truth—but it seems these other factors can and do influence how we interpret what we see. They can override that “objective” truth. It seems that our “vision,” or at least how we interpret it, is quite malleable, and our body image has an unexpectedly huge influence on how we see the rest of the world. One can only imagine what an anorexic or bulimic young woman sees! Maybe these women would benefit, or at least get a measure or relief, from wearing the rig and experiencing their body image in the form of little Barbies?
This experiment is evidence that our vision, our image of the world around us, is even more subjective than we might have thought it was. What we believe is our “true” version of the world around us, a vision we assume matches that of everyone else, is merely the one (among many) that accommodates and is modified by our particular body image. Who knows how many other factors might similarly affect our image of the world?
It was then a small leap from discussing this experiment with some friends to a conversation regarding our current situation in which we are continually confronted with unreal body images in magazines and ads. Surgically enhanced, photoshopped and artificially tanned bodies are nothing new. For decades, Playboy centerfolds have been a mash up of drawings and cartoons aimed at men and photographs of what are purported to be real women. The visual clues that trigger a man’s lust, along with other factors that would make a woman desirable, seemed, in these images, fairly easy to exaggerate and emphasize. With digital and other image manipulation techniques, combined with surgical modification, we now have a whole race or super people parading in front of our eyeballs. Not just in centerfolds, but on TV, newspapers, tabloids, fashion magazines and yes… in real life. I recall sitting at on outdoor café in West LA marveling at the new heightened version of the female species that paraded in front of me. Now, the poor male who has evolved over millennia to respond instinctively to such clues is continually manipulated and completely helpless. For example, one might “know” that what they are looking at is photoshopped but, as in the Swedish experiment, one’s gut responds, as it will, despite any rational cognitive dissonance.
Likewise, women who view similar types of images—for example, the surgically and digitally enhanced images of celebrities and models—are also subject to succumbing to the power of these new bodies. Maybe not necessarily as objects of lust (as some men might instinctively to the centerfolds), but as body images they might emulate and aspire to. They too believe that what they are seeing is “real,” despite intellectually knowing that a picture has been doctored or an actress, reality star or celebrity wife surgically enhanced. These visual buttons and triggers that are being pressed are deeply ingrained in us as a species—mere rational thinking is powerless as a way of discounting them. Ordinary women (and men) naturally then hold up these doctored images of an ideal humanity as something to be strived for. Despite knowing better, they believe that this look can (and should) be achieved through a mostly simple and prolonged effort. Stick to one’s exercise regimen and maintain one’s diet and then, you too will look like the folks in the magazines. Sure, some surgery wouldn’t hurt either. This, we know, is a recipe for heartbreak… or even worse, a kind of insanity—as no amount of exercise and diet will ever make a human being look like the images being dangled in front of us.
We instinctively want to believe that a merit-based world exists—that with some hard work, focus, time, effort and perseverance, you too will be rewarded with the body you see on the billboard. The same also applies to our notions of economic well-being. As a result, you have Bill O’Reilly and Newt Gingrich (among many others) implying that poor people are poor simply because they aren’t trying hard enough (note the clever segue from Barbie to politics and economics). The implication is that poor people, or anyone who isn’t successful, just aren’t applying themselves or trying hard enough. Also, that less than fabulously attractive people similarly aren’t going to the gym enough. The corollary is that Bill and Newt are as wealthy as they are because they worked hard. This, excuse me, is bullshit. Donald Trump definitely received a few handouts from his father.
Sadly, this dissonance between what is possible image wise, and what is being aimed for by many normal women, is making many of them nutso. They exercise like crazy but still don’t quite match the girl on the red carpet. What gives? Must one need eat even less or switch to a new exercise regimen?
I was told recently that fashion designers and retailers now have to alter the cut of women’s garments to accommodate the extreme diets and surgically enhanced bodies that prevail among certain classes and in specific regions of the US. This swath of enhanced and altered bods runs from southern California across the southwest to Florida and Georgia. The silicone belt, one might say. Clothes cut to fit unenhanced, naturally evolved women’s bodies don’t fit these gals anymore… or at least they tend to look weird in them because they need clothing that accommodates a disproportionately bigger top and a smaller bottom.
Spent author and evolutionary psychologist, Geoffrey Miller suggests that these new body images are short-circuiting the criteria of evaluation for mate selection that has evolved over eons. Sexual selection is the other aspect of Darwin’s theory. Darwin proposes that how and with whom we mate with is at least equally as important to our “survival” and determines the course of evolution. For example, it used to be that a woman with perky breasts probably indicated that she is under a certain age. The same could be said for indicators such as lack of wrinkles, thin waists and non-grey hair. From a Darwinian point of view, these clues point to these women as prime candidates for mates—they appear both healthy and of prime child bearing and rearing age. According to Miller, these, along with similar markers, no longer can be guaranteed to signify what they have for eons. These days our rational sense might tell us that a woman or man is of a certain age, but now quite often the visual cues don’t match—there is a weird conflict between what we see and what we “know.” Which are we to believe? Will we be like the participants in the Being Barbie experiments and the men ogling centerfolds? Will our instincts override our “knowledge?” It seems they usually do. Advertisers and fashion magazines know this, and use it to their advantage.
One might read all this as a criticism (and probably some of it is) of these increasingly ubiquitous body modifications and enhancements. Although, one could equally say that if God didn’t want us to use the tools at our disposal—be they scalpels or pixels—then he wouldn’t have invented plastic surgery or Photoshop. Like “dressing to impress,” maybe these tools are just medical and digital extensions of our natural tendencies to put our best foot forward. In which case, we’ll collectively just have to adapt to this new wrinkle (sorry for the pun).
I was recently asked to do a conversation/talk with Janette Sadik-Kahn, our commissioner of transportation, at the AIA New York Center for Architecture Center (American Institute of Architects). Since I imagined there might be some architects or designers in the audience, I took some time to share some of my notes and photographs from my summer Latin American bikes and cities tour. I also took this opportunity to finally organize some of the notes I had taken and post them. So here it is, many months late.
Flashback to July 23, 2011—Oscar Diaz is my host here in Bogota. He worked closely with Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of the city (from 1998-2001 and currently running this year with the Green Party), on various projects to improve Bogota’s system of parks, bike paths, road construction, and mass transit system. He suggested we take a field trip so he could show some of the projects they had initiated. A few of us piled in a van in the morning and headed towards the outskirts of town, to the Kennedy District. In this district there are several small neighborhoods like El Tintal, Bellavista, and El Recreo. Bellavista is a small community that was formerly illegal. It was a place of dirt streets, no sewage, no water, or electricity. There was no property ownership or the various rights that go along with that. Much of that has changed, for the better, since that administration implemented a number of interrelated schemes.
There are lots of these illegal communities around Bogota and other cities here. Invasiones ilegales or piratas (illegal or pirate invasions) are what these communities are called when they begin forming—as they’re completely illegal. They’re called favelas in Brazil, townships in South Africa. They don’t hook up to city water, sewage, or electricity (not legally anyway), but there are still entrepreneurs who will develop real estate in these settlements, if you can call it that.
This is the way they used to look (Oscar took this in 1997):
One might call this old view of this community an example of crowd-sourced architecture—as there are no regulations or governmental guides. The patterns—streets and basic infrastructure—that comes into being could be considered to be emergent. But without sewage or water it’s pretty sad. Maybe that crowd principal can’t really be applied in all areas? Or maybe it needs a framework and set of principals and then it can form and grow around those?
This is the way it looks now (I took this July 2011):
We biked along these bike/ped paths that have been built here. We passed many improvised bike repair stations that have sprung up—a guy with a set of flat fix gear and other tools sets himself up as a pop-up business. Little shops have appeared on the ground floors of many of the buildings since the paths have been built. Needless to say in the intervening years this area got electricity and sewage, streetlights and schools.
Unfortunately, because of the current administration, the neighborhood has gone back to being a tough and dangerous area though it didn’t look it—I was advised to slip my big camera into my bag rather than letting it hang on my neck. Whenever I went off a little on my own, someone from the group would appear close to me, watching out. But now, at least there are possibilities for the residents—the local schools, the library and other centers provide educational services, and the TransMilenio buses that now reach here can connect these folks to employment in town—all of which didn't exist until the bus system (BRT) was created under Peñalosa’s administration.
The bike and pedestrian passages that former Mayor Peñalosa and Oscar instigated go through these communities and provide a network—they give the communities a street-type focus. Also, the “roads” serve as a link to other communities and to the TransMilenio—the rapid bus network that goes to, among other places, the center of the city.
The TransMilenio system, was begun some years ago as a cheaper and less socially and ecologically damaging alternative to the 600 million dollar highway scheme that was ready to go. The buses run really fast and, because you buy the tickets before getting on, there is no time wasted doing ticket business after you board the buses—which pull up to specially built stations along the existing highways as well as inside the city. They pull up, exchange passengers, and then zoom off. Only a masochist would decide to drive his or her own car to work... but there are plenty of those.
In the Americas terminal the station has indoor bike parking, as the inhabitants of that zone get around mainly by bike or by walking.
Would this kind of bus system work in some place like Atlanta, Georgia, where people spend hours and hours stuck in their cars getting from one side of the sprawl to the other?
It was pointed out that the improvements in Kennedy (schools and the bike/ped paths), and those in other barrios, were funded by the savings that accrued after the decision to build the TransMilenio system—a much more cost-effective solution than building the massive highway that had previously been proposed. There are 84km of exclusive corridors in the TransMilenio system. 1.7 million people are transported every day. 7 million people live in Bogota.
Many of the inhabitants of these squatter towns had never been outside of those places. These bike/ped "roads" coupled with the bus system allowed them to get out, get jobs in town, go to school, university etc. The storefront businesses that sprung up along the paths changed the communities in other ways, not only by creating jobs—people began to be more motivated, feel better about their situation, and about the future chances for their kids. My point to the architects was that here were fairly cheap and simple improvements that (coupled with some other changes described below) radically transformed people’s lives.
In order for these "townships" to receive basic city services—sewage, city water, electricity, schools, etc.—the settlements had to be legalized. Usually, previous city administrations would legalize about 12 of them a year but under Peñalosa and Oscar, they legalized 600. To kick the process off, the city would buy some of the vacant land and sell it to developers, as well as putting in some infrastructure such as the bike paths, pedestrian walkways, and public parks—all the stuff the “developers” in those zones would not ordinarily put in but made the areas attractive and more livable. The developers, seeing that clients were drawn to those amenities, began to advertise their future developments as having those features. Here is a developers’ billboard—their advertising features apartments with public spaces and green zones:
The public education in these areas was terrible. According to Oscar, that was partly due to the unions, who were mainly interested in holding onto their positions and increasing their benefits. The city took an initiative and began to build schools and then open them up to bids for private management at the same cost allocated per kid in a public school. In other words, if a kid were allocated $500 a year for a normal public school education, that was what the bidders would receive—but often under private management they could accomplish a lot more for the same amount of money.
It was a way of getting around the unions, and it was very successful. Some of the management of these schools was by Catholic schools that do not really aim to make a profit on their schools the way others might—breaking even is considered OK by the religious schools. The grade results and SAT scores are now equal those in the established private schools.
Critics say this system is privatizing education—a dangerous precedent, but Oscar counters that the parents don't have to pay tuition as they would in a real private school. It has brought a vast improvement in the quality of education to these poor neighborhoods. My friend Sally wrote me: “The education stuff sounds dangerously close to arguments made here for charter schools and the evils of the teachers' unions; I would say [to you] to be careful and be specific, but then again I am wary of such semi-private endeavors in education and you may not be...” I too am wary of the privatizing of education—it could turn into something driven by profits, like prisons are in the US. Can you imagine if a basic service like water were privatized—as is being discussed in some places? Scary. However, Oscar claims in this situation it worked because the education remains public for the children and the city pays the same per student. What changes is the administration, teachers and program—all managed by the private schools and universities that won the public bid.
Next we toured Biblioteca El Tintal—which is a library, auditorium, meeting rooms and cafeteria complex that was built on the site of former garbage dump. In the past, the trucks would go up the ramp and dump their loads, and the resulting heap was eventually carried off to the distant landfill. It was an unsightly dump, and certainly didn’t make the area attractive. These new library complexes—and quite a few were built based on this model—are usually located near a bus transit hub and surrounded by green. They were built by respected local architects and were the sort of eye-catching buildings any city would be happy to have downtown, but here, they were being built in the poorest neighborhoods. Needless to say, besides being a social, educational and cultural center, these places became sources of pride.
Here is an aerial view—the library complex has now been there for a while, and as a result the shanties that used to sprawl out in the area have been replaced by apartment blocks and row houses—all still linked by bike paths and pedestrian walkways:
(Image Source: Oscar Diaz)
Peñalosa fought to keep the former garbage truck ramp as a reminder of what it once was. When it was built there was not much around here—the illegal communities were springing up all around in a kind of squatter anarchy. The parents in those days would plop their kids in front of the TV. Now, the kids are going to schools and can use computers at this center—and teach their parents how to use computers as well.
Here’s an inside view:
Here is one of the other libraries in another outlying area:
This concept of the library as community hub, and as a transformative catalyst in a community was also picked up by the former Mayor of Medellín, Sergio Fajardo. His realized version was even more spectacular looking, though the effect was similar.
He brought in Giancarlo Mazzantito as an architect to build Biblioteca España on the edge of a hill, as part of a funky barrio, Santo Domingo, that had been dangerous and was considered a sort of dead-end for its citizens. The newly created plaza soon became a place for folks to meet, mingle and shop in the kiosks that sprung up—a focal point the barrio didn't previously have. The library became both a local and international architectural landmark, and is an example of both how architecture can transform a community, as well as being an example of serious architecture being introduced into a poor neighborhood, as opposed to where it usually is—in city centers where the well-to-do are entertained.
Fajardo did something similar to the BRT bus system connection as well—he linked this formerly isolated community to the main city by public transportation. Though in this case, it wasn’t possible to tag a bus line onto existing roads because the way up that hill is too twisty. So, instead, they made a gondola that takes folks to and from town.
Fajardo managed to transform Medellin from a place of squalor and despair into a liveable open city. He resorted to architects and urbanists, many of them Colombian (Rogelio Salmona, Giancarlo Mazzanti who designed the Parque Biblioteca Espana, Alejandro Echeverri who was responsible for the spatial development strategy, Sergio Gomez for the Botanial Garden), to realise “our most beautiful buildings in our poorest areas.”
His strategy was to begin in the most deprived areas, gain the trust of the poorest with the lowest chances of succeeding in life. Santo Domingo Savio which houses some 170,000 people was the starting point of the regeneration of Medellin from where it has spread elsewhere. Places for learning, schools, a library were deliberately designed as landmarks to signal a brighter future. Parks (of Wishes, of Bare Feet), internet facilities, an art gallery and a day care centre form part of the public realm open to all, together with new connections to the city at large. Converting dilapidated spaces into places where people can meet without fear and the very young population can play triggered improvements to the precarious abodes.
Openness and, most importantly, beauty was brought to these areas, for which the inhabitants started to feel civic pride.
The locals participated actively in these transformations. Youngsters and the unemployed were given the opportunity to learn building trades. Not only were they able to improve their own abodes, but their skills provided them with jobs and a new lifestyle.
Oscar and I had lunch with Alexandra Rojas, former Deputy Secretary of Finance, who is involved in a program of national accident prevention. She was also involved in a big campaign (Fondo de Prevención Vial—FPV) to reduce road, pedestrian, bike and car accidents. She said that the prevailing attitude is that accidents are destiny—that they come upon us at random and unexpectedly—black swan events that we can’t predict. There is a feeling that you, therefore, can’t do anything about them. Their program, fronted by a very well known TV presenter, was called Epidemic of Excuses. Interesting that when they tested they found that this presenter had a credibility rating of 80%—so she was perfect for getting this difficult message across.
Rojas says all studies show the opposite to the prevailing perception of accidents as random or fate—it showed that traffic accidents, and especially those involving pedestrians, are indeed mostly avoidable, and therefore preventable. However, to prevent them, there would need to be some compromises for drivers such as driving slower (which may mean more traffic jams, though), along with additional crossing stations, more lights, etc. The number of lives that would be saved is not random—it’s completely predictable. Janette Sadik-Khan is figuring out how to do a similar program here in NY to get drivers to slow down. In Colombia, as in the US, it’s an uphill battle. In Colombia, 80% of the population does not have cars, but, as in the US, most of the infrastructure budget goes to accommodate the other 20% who do own cars. As Peñalosa and others have pointed out, these fiscal policies are counter democratic—they privilege a minority, a wealthy minority, of course, over the bulk of citizens. It would be as if sections of public parks were lopped off to create helipads for wealthy businessmen, or as if hire cars were allowed to stop and park wherever they wish. As in many parts of the U.S., lots of roads in Colombia have no place for pedestrians—there is no sidewalk. If you don’t have a car, tough luck. When the largest part of a nations funds go to accommodate a small, wealthy portion of citizens (the drivers, in the case of Columbia), democracy and the rights of the citizens are being subverted in the most profound way—at the level of the pocketbook.
Back in the U.S.A.
In a similar effort to those that Peñalosa, Salas, and Fajardo have done, an organization named Studio H has been active in North Carolina. I read a piece the other day that Alice Rawsthorn wrote for the NY Times in which the organizers were quoted as saying that, similar to Fajardo’s scheme, they focused on young folks becoming involved in the building effort. Many of these folks were around 17 years old and had never made anything in their lives—never held a hammer or sawed wood. So this was a big step that not all of them wanted to take, but for those who did their sense of self was radically changed.
Will Oldham and I wrote songs for director and writer Paolo Sorrentino’s new film This Must Be The Place. Needless to say, that Talking Heads song is in the film as well, in various versions, one of which is a live performance by my band and me. The film stars Sean Penn as a version of present-day Robert Smith of The Cure—an aging rock star who still wears makeup and dresses all in black.
They had a screening in NY recently, but I didn’t want to see the film in rough form, as I figured they’d eventually want me to be present for some public screening when it was done. I offered that they could pick a later screening for me to attend. They picked Cannes—whoa.
I flew Thursday night, arriving the day of the screening. Took a nap, got up and showered, dressed all in white (they said it was OK) and headed towards a rendezvous with the rest of the film people. In the hotel elevator on my way to meet up, two guys entered that looked like private security, but something was off. Their outfits were impeccable, perfectly tailored to their trim physiques—a little odd for cops. Their patches, upon closer inspection, said Beverly Hills Police. I thought to myself “this is probably a precursor of the unreality to come.” I walked to the hotel down the road and in a room were the sound editor, the picture editor, the DP the American line producer, the many Italian, French and Irish producers, Paolo the director, some LA agents and of course some of the actors.
The sound editor advised me that he had been asked to make the live performance of the song “bigger,” and he hoped I wouldn’t be shocked by what they’d done. I’m glad he prepared me! When the song started during the screening, it was more or less as I remembered us playing and recording it in Detroit, but then, as the camera pulled back and you saw more of the “audience,” the sound got bigger and you could hear audience members shouting and some singing along. I bought into it. I believed the crowd was actually that excited and rambunctious, though I knew they were not. They did a good job with the mix to create that illusion, but I wondered how he did it, as none of the extras sang along during the filming.
The sound editor said he was working on another film in London and had about 35 actor/performers on hand in a recording studio, so he threw up a karaoke version of the song and asked them all to sing along. He’s from Sarajevo, and said he was a refugee during the war. His family was totally mixed—Serb, Croat, Muslim—and thus didn’t fit into the emerging post-war situation there, where each of these ethnic groups are now more or less assigned to their own region. What was beautiful about that place before it fell apart was that families like his weren’t uncommon—families in which all the ethnic groups were represented and were cool with one another. Now he’s pretty much permanently relocated to London.
The other songs, the ones Will and I wrote, were meant to be demos that a young character, a singer, hands to Sean’s character, who listens to the CD sporadically as the movie progresses. This conceit wasn’t all that apparent, or so it seemed to me, but the songs did get heard, in bits and pieces, providing a kind of emotional commentary along the way—which was what Paolo intended.
Anyway, back to the screening ritual. There were about 20 town cars lined up at a side door of the hotel, and we were assigned specific cars—Paolo in #1, Sean in #2, me in # 3… These cars drove the 10 blocks or so along the seaside promenade up to the festival building, where crowds, a red carpet and security awaited us. There were no quickie interviews on the red carpet as one sees at the Oscars. This red carpet was carefully managed by a couple of men in formal suits. As if we were being choreographed or conducted by these guys, they directed us using hand signals to face one bevy of photographers, and then, by making a turning motion with their hands, let it be known that we were now to turn to face the photographers on the other side of the runway. Then they used other gestures to herd us a few meters further down the runway, where the same dance would be repeated. Eventually this conducted procession was led up the stairs, and we were directed to stop at various levels and once again turn and face the photographers. Then we entered the theater where there was applause for Sean and Paolo, as a voice of God spoke their names and the title of the movie for all to hear.
Our names were on our seats, so no confusion there. In the row in front of us was Pedro Almodovar, who has a new film in the festival, and we all said hi.
After the film, the lights came up and the applause started—and didn’t stop. The audience stood, as did we all, and a man with a video camera appeared in front of me, shooting Paolo and Sean receiving the applause. It went on and on…is that common here? Does it mean they REALLY liked the movie? On and on it went. I look around, beginning to fidget. Oh, there’s Rosario Dawson in the row in front of Pedro—wow, she’s gorgeous—and oh, that’s Jane Fonda, and there’s some Hollywood exec whose face looks familiar. A publicist motioned for me to go congratulate Paolo, which I did and then I tried to invisibly step to the side so the attention can go back to him.
Eventually the applause died out, and we began the parade back to the waiting cars. Inside the theater women in matching brown outfits confine the audience to their seats while we filed out into aisle. They did this by standing along the sides of the aisle, all holding hands with one another—like some strange feminine cult. They said nothing, smiling, but only a little.
Outside the security was more robust—burly men in gray suits formed a phalanx between us and the photographers, who were no longer confined behind the barriers. As we slowly advanced (and the sound system segues from Saint-Saen’s mysterioso Aquarium movement from The Carnival of the Animals—we were the animals, I suspect—into the Talking Heads version of the title song), this human barrier advanced in front of us, physically pushing the photographers back. The photographers were used to this I guess, but inevitably one or two tried to squeeze in one more snap, and the pushing became a little more forceful. At one point I was distracted as one photographer was somewhat violently shoved back in with his own kind. He slipped to safety behind a barrier.
How did all this feel? Umm, slightly surreal to be sure. Not to be taken too seriously. Flattering, yes—the ovation, of course—but even that might be taken with a grain of salt. This is show business after all, and even the audience is a willing participant in the show. That might sound cynical—their enjoyment and appreciation of the film was largely genuine—wasn’t it? But the cars and the security and the red carpet—it’s all engineered to pump up the glamour and distance the “creators” from the “consumers.” The latter is something I’m a little uncomfortable with.
One works on these things (movies, songs, whatever) often alone, or with relatively small groups. The cast and crew that were present during the couple of scenes I was on set in Detroit was small, and there’s almost no glamour during that creative production phase. The contrast with what happens here is simply hard to imagine, though who would deny that it isn’t flattering? Seductive too, I’d imagine—it’s easy to see how this monster could get a grip on one’s sense of reality.
Onward. Into the cars again and down to a large tent set up down the beach. The entire beach was covered with these white tent things. You can’t see the sand in this town—there’s the promenade, the tents and then the water with its luxury yachts floating nearby. The tents are all party spaces, clubs and restaurants, aligned one after another. A security gal at the tent asked who I was, and looked for my name on her list. I told her my name, and one of the producers jumped in and told her I’m “OK.” Inside girls in VERY short skirts offered everyone champagne. The same group as before gathered in the tent, but we were supplemented by even more invitees. I chatted with a few folks—the head of the Venice Film Festival, whom I met just recently—and then headed to the back area where I was told we folks from the movie are to go. I chatted with Judd Hirsch and his agent. He plays a Nazi hunter in the movie. The women in skirts brought out raw oysters. I heard that Luca, the film’s DP, and some of the crew (production design, costume, etc) are shooting a low budget movie in Napoli, so they would go back to work the next day, just like me. He did an amazing job on this film.
Many American directors and DPs have a habit of covering a scene to death, shooting every angle and approach as a hedge, since they often don’t have a preconceived concept of how each scene will look. I’m generalizing of course, but I think the factory approach of much American filmmaking encourages this, as do the producers who can then have scenes re-cut if they don’t get a good test result. Luca and Paolo didn’t do that. They pretty much knew how each scenes shots would piece together, so, although there was certainly coverage, it wasn’t excessive. Their approach is generally cheaper too, and though I heard the budget bloomed a bit, I suspect it was still done fairly efficiently.
I made my way to the back room, behind the back room, where Sean and some others were sitting around a giant low table chatting. He was engaged in conversation with a tall woman with bleach blonde hair—a singer, I think. She said hi to me after a bit, but I didn’t catch her name. I sat next to some business guys, and we slurped more oysters. Someone ordered a cheeseburger and fries! Courtney Love waltzed in and plunked herself close to Sean, who was at the far end of this massive lounge table, but he didn’t seem to pay much attention. She spotted me and shouted something about “I wish it went for more money!” I didn’t know what she was talking about at first, but then realized she was referring to some of her late husband’s LPs that she donated to Creative Time, an NY arts organization, for a benefit auction—among them were some Talking Heads LPs, I was told. She moved to our end of the table and began to engage with an agent sitting on the other side of me, as well as some other folks—carrying on about 3 conversations at once, all at high speed. She mentioned to the agent that she was clean, except for sleeping pills sometimes and something else—cigarettes? Wine?
She doesn’t look as botoxed and surgically enhanced as I suspected, at least based on recent photos, but when she put her hand on my knee (we’ve never met before), I figured I’d better go. So, when she was fully engaged with the agent, I slipped off, saying I needed the toilet.
I walked back to my hotel along the Croisette (the promenade), which was packed with people. On the other side of the street were luxury shops and soon another screening would be letting out. Some people in the hotel lobby recognized me from the live video feed from the festival screening and shouted “bravo.” In my room I read a New Yorker article on my Kindle about the crazy expansion of the NSA post 9/11, which I think I blogged about at one point, and then I fell asleep. It was a little after midnight, and I wondered if the party would be getting more interesting now.
