So, after finishing Feed and posting a little about it, I read an article about how Oprah's television spot could be filled, but the real question was who would fill her spiritual leader role.
The article noted some reality chick - Bethany - with whom I'm passingly familiar. It noted that she has a self-help book that counsels that "big changes come from small choices." It's a mantra that I love. To often the really big problems in our lives seem overwhelming, but could be changed by some small change, if we'd only see the chain linking the two. This is especially true before all the consequences of a choice have played out. Does this make sense? So, choice A, while seemingly insignificant, ends up being a very bad outcome B.
A simple thing like complaining about your spouse to a coworker about a "male" behavior, while it seems small, dominoes. Since the conduct is "male," its not changeable, so you don't try. You end up complaining to others instead of working on it with the spouse. This builds resentment both ways, as the complainer hates more and more conduct and the complainee feels henpecked. This results in more unchangeable conduct. Soon, a marriage lays irretrievably damaged and both hate each other.
Anyway, this got me thinking: there are probably more self-help books than one could count. Most, or at least a large number, seem to offer good, if not always helpful, advice (or is it the other way around?). Yet people will tell you we are more dysfunctional, trend addicted, media led, status conscious sheep then ever.
So, are the books not working? Are the books working but only to slight affect, and if so, is that really "working"? Are we actually getting better (whatever that means)? Are we getting better, but not at a rate that compensates for the negatives in the society and culture around us?
Maybe the books are simply wrong about their advice, though I'm disinclined to believe this. I think it probably goes deeper than that.
Maybe I'll try to come up with an answer in a future post.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Almost had me fed
I finished Feed last night.
It's premise is kind of an antithesis to my whole "today is better than yesterday, tomorrow isn't as bad as it seems" philosophy. In fact, I think author MT Anderson was kind of poking fun at me, saying essentially that I was turning a blind eye to the problems. The book features a main characters and his friends who seem to think or believe that all is well in their world, but there are hints that things outside of that small world are not all that well and are actually falling apart.
It really had me thinking.
Then I read a short interview in the back of the book. Anderson talks about how the media doesn't encourage curiosity and is misleading all of us, but especially youth. Putting aside whether the media should do things like this, I think its a fairly ridiculous statement. First, there has always been alternative media. It wasn't mainstream, but then again, that is kind of the point. Had it been mainstream then, well, it would have been mainstream. Second, the internet, which is at the heart of most of the evils in the book, has only added to the plethora of choices as far as media goes. In the past, if you lived in a less populated area you had easy access to say one newspaper, and maybe mail order to others that you would really never find out about, plus magazines. In cities you probably had access to a handful of papers. Now you have access to literally thousands of "newspapers" and other sources of news and curiousities.
Curiousity, if it is indeed lacking, isn't caused by the lack of media or the media' lack of engagement in the process. I have ideas about what might be at the root of any such problem, to the extent that it exists, but that's for a different post, I suppose.
Toward the end of the interview Anderson says that he listened to really obscure music. He says kids listen to music to self-identify into groups and doing that isolated him. This all came in response to how kids who are aware they are being manipulated by the media can handle it.
Anderson said you should try to extend your knowledge into obscure and eccentric things, rather than trying to chase the new thing. But obscure isn't for everyone, and that is probably for the best. And frankly, if everyone went exploring obscure and eccentric, it would not be obscure or eccentric for long. Plus, I think just about everyone has some obscure and eccentric thing they like.
My FB post alone shows a person who loves 1980s rap. Another is a member of a jam band, yet another "friends" small local bands and my sister is into music that is probably accurately described as either obscure or eccentric. I love science shows, especially outer space based, but earth-based as well, and stuff about ancient civilizations.
Maybe I'm not the guy Anderson is talking about. However, I love Def Leppard and radio rock, I know its not the most deep music, but I like it for my own reasons. So what that its not obscure or eccentric. I don't always, or even often, want deep music. If every aspect of life is deep, it's tiresome. You need rest.
This is what always bothers me about these arguments. I often feel that they boil down to "this is what I like and so should you." The fact that you like something outside the mainstream doesn't denigrate the mainstream in any way, but I think those outside of it often think it does. That being outside that stream somehow makes them superior.
It's premise is kind of an antithesis to my whole "today is better than yesterday, tomorrow isn't as bad as it seems" philosophy. In fact, I think author MT Anderson was kind of poking fun at me, saying essentially that I was turning a blind eye to the problems. The book features a main characters and his friends who seem to think or believe that all is well in their world, but there are hints that things outside of that small world are not all that well and are actually falling apart.
It really had me thinking.
Then I read a short interview in the back of the book. Anderson talks about how the media doesn't encourage curiosity and is misleading all of us, but especially youth. Putting aside whether the media should do things like this, I think its a fairly ridiculous statement. First, there has always been alternative media. It wasn't mainstream, but then again, that is kind of the point. Had it been mainstream then, well, it would have been mainstream. Second, the internet, which is at the heart of most of the evils in the book, has only added to the plethora of choices as far as media goes. In the past, if you lived in a less populated area you had easy access to say one newspaper, and maybe mail order to others that you would really never find out about, plus magazines. In cities you probably had access to a handful of papers. Now you have access to literally thousands of "newspapers" and other sources of news and curiousities.
Curiousity, if it is indeed lacking, isn't caused by the lack of media or the media' lack of engagement in the process. I have ideas about what might be at the root of any such problem, to the extent that it exists, but that's for a different post, I suppose.
Toward the end of the interview Anderson says that he listened to really obscure music. He says kids listen to music to self-identify into groups and doing that isolated him. This all came in response to how kids who are aware they are being manipulated by the media can handle it.
Anderson said you should try to extend your knowledge into obscure and eccentric things, rather than trying to chase the new thing. But obscure isn't for everyone, and that is probably for the best. And frankly, if everyone went exploring obscure and eccentric, it would not be obscure or eccentric for long. Plus, I think just about everyone has some obscure and eccentric thing they like.
My FB post alone shows a person who loves 1980s rap. Another is a member of a jam band, yet another "friends" small local bands and my sister is into music that is probably accurately described as either obscure or eccentric. I love science shows, especially outer space based, but earth-based as well, and stuff about ancient civilizations.
Maybe I'm not the guy Anderson is talking about. However, I love Def Leppard and radio rock, I know its not the most deep music, but I like it for my own reasons. So what that its not obscure or eccentric. I don't always, or even often, want deep music. If every aspect of life is deep, it's tiresome. You need rest.
This is what always bothers me about these arguments. I often feel that they boil down to "this is what I like and so should you." The fact that you like something outside the mainstream doesn't denigrate the mainstream in any way, but I think those outside of it often think it does. That being outside that stream somehow makes them superior.
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