Making sports analogies is like being political on Facebook. It gets you a lot of attention, and you can be saying intelligent things, but it's nothing some blogger hasn't already beaten to death, and unless you're astoundingly subtle you'll alienate half of your audience right off the bat -- but we keep doing it.
Anyway, we've just gone through two of the bigger significant American events of the year in a week and a half: the Super Bowl and the State of the Union.
One is a pageant of commercial excess, a scripted display of pretense and coercive prowess masking empty pandering and desperate appeals to and for various demographics -- the other one has Peyton Manning.
They really are more alike than different, but the Super Bowl is a lot better at doing what the State of the Union is really meant to do in the first place -- you know, assess the state of our union and whatnot.
The Super Bowl is that time of year where our whole diverse, opinionated society gets together and drinks until it's not awkward (family reunions!). We try not to talk about anything divisive -- but you know some people can't help but chime in (and you can't really blame them, because it's not like Uncle Ben stops being a dick over Thanksgiving, we're just actively trying not to talk about it).
The State of the Union, on the other hand, is when a small segment of our nation gets packed into an auditorium, fidgets in silence for a couple of hours and claps until their hands snap off.
Even with the embarrassingly uncompetitive little league soccer match that somehow passed for a serious athletic event this Sunday, more people watched it than have ever watched anything on a screen at the same time in American history. And the people that didn't watch it all posted statuses to make sure everyone was aware of exactly how little they cared.
In both events there are always going to be farcical attempts and failures to somehow make everyone happy. (See: Bruno Mars and Red Hot Chili Peppers with their guitars unplugged.)
The smallest, subtlest things carry a lot of meaning, and they're easy to miss. Bob Dylan had all of 30 seconds to talk to America during the Super Bowl, but he only needed for four to write off three-fifths of the world's population ("Asia makes our cellphones").
All things considered, however, I thought our union looked pretty great this year. (Except Jerry Seinfeld -- at this point it feels like he's dropped the jokes and we're just watching him age). It definitely wasn't much worse than any other recent year, and maybe even a little better. But that's not to say there's not massive room for improvement.
As with both the State of the Union and the Super Bowl, you always feel like there's something missing -- something incredibly pertinent but eerily absent from the conversation, that we'd really prefer to just leave off the table for now. Native American slurs, drone warfare and sex trafficking, perhaps? Oh well.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/02/obama-makes-it-to-the-end-zone
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
The real media and the real fake media (Guest post on copyediting blog)
The question of the day used to be, "Who gets to count as a real journalist?" But that doesn't seem to cover it anymore. For some reason, the question just seems irrelevant and nitpicky.
Now there's a better question: "What gets to count as a real news organization?" After all, that's the first thing we see when sharing or finding information online. Any article I'm sharing is attributed first and foremost to a company or website and only secondarily to the individual.
Here are a few online news organizations you may or may not have heard of: Free Wood Post, the Daily Currant, Diversity Chronicle and Hayibo. All of them have had articles go viral at one point or another.
The catch? They're all fake. They call themselves satire, which seems to legitimize what they do, but they are "satire" the same way TMZ or the Drudge Report could be called "news."
So let's amend our question once more: "What gets to count as a real fake news organization?"
Given how easy it is to confuse the real and the fake, we should consider it as a spectrum. At one end is The Onion, the big dog as far as media satire is concerned, and at the other end are the most reputable of the standard news agencies: The New York Times, CNN, BBC, etc.
Then we drift toward the middle, what we might generally refer to as the tabloid zone. The National Enquirer imitates real news organizations just like Diversity Chronicle imitates fake news organizations, but at that point in the spectrum they probably have more in common with each other than with either of our more reliable poles.
Although, of course, there are ambiguous points on each side. The Drudge Report and Hayibo might be closer to the edge, if not out of the tabloid zone entirely. (Hayibo is a South African satire site, now defunct.) But the worst satire is virtually indistinguishable from the worst news.
So what's the problem? In a nutshell: Bad news can spread misinformation and reduce people's trust in the news, and bad satire is even worse.
The Onion is a fairly well-established organization, but their articles still occasionally get taken as real news. (There's even a whole website devoted to documenting this phenomenon.) For the more tabloid-esque satire, however, one gets the feeling that they subsist almost entirely on readers that mistakenly think they're reading actual journalism. And this isn't only because the brands aren't well-known and the disclaimers are tucked away in corners; the content is different too.
Polished satire from organizations like The Onion tends to have a political slant, but it's obvious, and it approaches issues from a very particular sort of angle that shapes the way it's read. They feature shareable headlines like "Al-Qaeda operative can't believe how expensive Super Bowl tickets are," or "Biden frantically hitting up Cabinet members for piss." Readers might take these as real, but that only leads to confusion, hilarity and embarrassment.
And how does bad satire compare? Free Wood Post goes viral with headlines like "Mitt Romney: I can relate to black people, my ancestors once owned slaves," and Daily Currant gets views with headlines like "Obamacare death panel orders first execution." The contrast should be obvious. The worst of these articles are nothing more than hyperbolic political rants masquerading as journalism -- and as a general rule, they're not even funny.
While satire ideally contributes to public discourse and offers novel perspectives in otherwise stagnant debates, sites like these reflect and perpetuate the political polarization that permeates our media. Uncritical readers who share the expressed partisan views take the satire as fact, while others simply disbelieve.
And if I haven't made it clear so far, this problem isn't adjacent to the modern media landscape and its own quirks and discrepancies, it's fully a part of it. It's an extension of the already polarized political media, and it's only one of a number of ongoing factors that erode media credibility and contribute to the conflicting views of reality entrenched on each side of the political spectrum.
So it's a problem. And it's not quite clear what we can do about it.
http://editdesk.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/the-real-media-and-the-real-fake-media/
Now there's a better question: "What gets to count as a real news organization?" After all, that's the first thing we see when sharing or finding information online. Any article I'm sharing is attributed first and foremost to a company or website and only secondarily to the individual.
Here are a few online news organizations you may or may not have heard of: Free Wood Post, the Daily Currant, Diversity Chronicle and Hayibo. All of them have had articles go viral at one point or another.
The catch? They're all fake. They call themselves satire, which seems to legitimize what they do, but they are "satire" the same way TMZ or the Drudge Report could be called "news."
So let's amend our question once more: "What gets to count as a real fake news organization?"
Given how easy it is to confuse the real and the fake, we should consider it as a spectrum. At one end is The Onion, the big dog as far as media satire is concerned, and at the other end are the most reputable of the standard news agencies: The New York Times, CNN, BBC, etc.
Then we drift toward the middle, what we might generally refer to as the tabloid zone. The National Enquirer imitates real news organizations just like Diversity Chronicle imitates fake news organizations, but at that point in the spectrum they probably have more in common with each other than with either of our more reliable poles.
Although, of course, there are ambiguous points on each side. The Drudge Report and Hayibo might be closer to the edge, if not out of the tabloid zone entirely. (Hayibo is a South African satire site, now defunct.) But the worst satire is virtually indistinguishable from the worst news.
So what's the problem? In a nutshell: Bad news can spread misinformation and reduce people's trust in the news, and bad satire is even worse.
The Onion is a fairly well-established organization, but their articles still occasionally get taken as real news. (There's even a whole website devoted to documenting this phenomenon.) For the more tabloid-esque satire, however, one gets the feeling that they subsist almost entirely on readers that mistakenly think they're reading actual journalism. And this isn't only because the brands aren't well-known and the disclaimers are tucked away in corners; the content is different too.
Polished satire from organizations like The Onion tends to have a political slant, but it's obvious, and it approaches issues from a very particular sort of angle that shapes the way it's read. They feature shareable headlines like "Al-Qaeda operative can't believe how expensive Super Bowl tickets are," or "Biden frantically hitting up Cabinet members for piss." Readers might take these as real, but that only leads to confusion, hilarity and embarrassment.
And how does bad satire compare? Free Wood Post goes viral with headlines like "Mitt Romney: I can relate to black people, my ancestors once owned slaves," and Daily Currant gets views with headlines like "Obamacare death panel orders first execution." The contrast should be obvious. The worst of these articles are nothing more than hyperbolic political rants masquerading as journalism -- and as a general rule, they're not even funny.
While satire ideally contributes to public discourse and offers novel perspectives in otherwise stagnant debates, sites like these reflect and perpetuate the political polarization that permeates our media. Uncritical readers who share the expressed partisan views take the satire as fact, while others simply disbelieve.
And if I haven't made it clear so far, this problem isn't adjacent to the modern media landscape and its own quirks and discrepancies, it's fully a part of it. It's an extension of the already polarized political media, and it's only one of a number of ongoing factors that erode media credibility and contribute to the conflicting views of reality entrenched on each side of the political spectrum.
So it's a problem. And it's not quite clear what we can do about it.
http://editdesk.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/the-real-media-and-the-real-fake-media/
What makes for a good roommate? (Daily Tar Heel special housing issue column -- Cries from the Peanut Gallery)
The short answer: It depends. But otherwise there's a lot of ground to cover.
Roommates should either be just like you or totally the opposite, as it needs to be clear where they'll fit in your life (also in your nap, shower and angry ranting schedule). If they're you, you'll get along great. You'll pick up each other's mannerisms (like thumb-twiddling or laugh-suffocating), your cycles will sync (you'll need two toilets) and your lives will merge into one undifferentiated mass.
But if you have too much in common it'll be obnoxious, for the obvious reasons, but also because you'll have doubles of every new Killers album (and if you're me, you don't need to be reminded that they're way past their prime).
Also it'll piss you off and ruin your life forever when you find the one thing you differ on so radically (for me it's usually drone warfare, photojournalism or cashews).
You avoid that inevitability if you pick someone entirely different, but this can go wrong, too. It helps to have at least enough in common to fill one good lunch with conversation every couple of months on a random hungover Saturday of your choice.
Without any common ground, your relationship will be stuck at "friends-by-association." (The association here being that you sleep within at most 20 feet of each other and thus are exceedingly vulnerable to sneak attack.)
Not being close is easy because your lives are separate, like aloof and uncommunicative parallel lines. But one of you is going to be hilariously useless if you ever find the other crying on the kitchen floor some afternoon.
You might not think it'll ever happen to you, but you're probably delusional, which, incidentally, is another common type of stress-burnout -- we don't all break down the same way, but boy do we break down. (I'm a reclusive, break-off-from-reality-and-paint-inkblots type, but I think crying would be healthier.)
Anyway, it helps if your roommate knows you well enough to at least know whom to call for you during the periodic meltdowns in the productive but poorly designed nuclear reactors that are your life.
So a balance between the two extremes is probably for the best! Also, trying to decide and preemptively control the place your roommate is going to occupy in your life is futile and misguided, and it's not going to work.
What you need to do is sit down and compare notes. Talk about what you want in the college experience and your roommate relationship, and see if you're compatible -- communicate!
But that's awkward, so never mind. Screw it -- just pick somebody and run with it.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/01/what-makes-for-a-good-roommate
Roommates should either be just like you or totally the opposite, as it needs to be clear where they'll fit in your life (also in your nap, shower and angry ranting schedule). If they're you, you'll get along great. You'll pick up each other's mannerisms (like thumb-twiddling or laugh-suffocating), your cycles will sync (you'll need two toilets) and your lives will merge into one undifferentiated mass.
But if you have too much in common it'll be obnoxious, for the obvious reasons, but also because you'll have doubles of every new Killers album (and if you're me, you don't need to be reminded that they're way past their prime).
Also it'll piss you off and ruin your life forever when you find the one thing you differ on so radically (for me it's usually drone warfare, photojournalism or cashews).
You avoid that inevitability if you pick someone entirely different, but this can go wrong, too. It helps to have at least enough in common to fill one good lunch with conversation every couple of months on a random hungover Saturday of your choice.
Without any common ground, your relationship will be stuck at "friends-by-association." (The association here being that you sleep within at most 20 feet of each other and thus are exceedingly vulnerable to sneak attack.)
Not being close is easy because your lives are separate, like aloof and uncommunicative parallel lines. But one of you is going to be hilariously useless if you ever find the other crying on the kitchen floor some afternoon.
You might not think it'll ever happen to you, but you're probably delusional, which, incidentally, is another common type of stress-burnout -- we don't all break down the same way, but boy do we break down. (I'm a reclusive, break-off-from-reality-and-paint-inkblots type, but I think crying would be healthier.)
Anyway, it helps if your roommate knows you well enough to at least know whom to call for you during the periodic meltdowns in the productive but poorly designed nuclear reactors that are your life.
So a balance between the two extremes is probably for the best! Also, trying to decide and preemptively control the place your roommate is going to occupy in your life is futile and misguided, and it's not going to work.
What you need to do is sit down and compare notes. Talk about what you want in the college experience and your roommate relationship, and see if you're compatible -- communicate!
But that's awkward, so never mind. Screw it -- just pick somebody and run with it.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/01/what-makes-for-a-good-roommate
Monday, February 3, 2014
Of gray areas and gazpacho (Daily Tar Heel Opinion Column -- Cries from the Peanut Gallery)
It was pink and smooth, a peaceful sea populated by roaming herds of bell peppers and stale bread. It was also gazpacho, and I was supposed to eat it.
The first bite made me immediately uncomfortable, like a pack of teens stopping in front of me on the beach or a passing acquaintance who insists on forcing small talk. (It's not that I can't make words, but that the nagging voice in the back of my head won't stop shouting "THIS CONVERSATION MEANS NOTHING.")
But my disgust with the gazpacho had nothing to do with the unexpectedly salty flavor, the garlicky lumps of protein or the creamy-but-grainy texture of old yogurt -- my problem was that it was cold. I was a caveman again, sticking random twigs and berries in my mouth, and I knew instinctively that this particular bit of organic material was not food.
It was like a senile aunt or that possessed lady from Ghostbusters was forcing me to eat her leftover chowder straight out of the fridge -- and I couldn't say no because that'd be rude.
It was a simple enough problem, and there seemed to be a simple enough solution. "Hey, you know what?" I said to myself, "This soup wouldn't be all that bad if I just stuck it in the microwave." I grunted in agreement.
My dialogue completed, I translated for my host -- but there I came upon the crux of the issue. As my coarse but caring Spanish host mother so emphatically explained, "Gazpacho is cold." To deviate from that principle would be to alter the reality of the gazpacho itself! Hot gazpacho is soup, and soup is not gazpacho -- so sit down and eat, Michael.
I begrudgingly complied, but I couldn't help but think: Why the dogmatic distinction? Gazpacho and soup -- can't it be both?
Society likes to give us choices and pretend there're only two options, that it's always black and white (It makes me gag to use "society" as the subject of a sentence -- sorry). But as a general rule for life, it's better to embrace the gray. Because you never want to just nail yourself down to one color and one color only, you know?
Ambiguity rules! In that it's always there if you look for it. And I'm not going for "best of both worlds" with this whole "hot gazpacho" thing -- because the gray third option is never a straightforward mix of the standard two. Plus, you'll probably never stop getting crap from both soup people and gazpacho people, and golly do people get crazy about their liquid comestibles.
But if you're comfortable with never really being certain about anything, it can be a lot of fun! And you're probably closer to the truth than anyone else in terms of the fundamental nature of soup and such.
As with all boundaries and binaries, the most fun is in the middle. As with soup (or soup-like entities), so with life.
...Hm. Following an expedition to Wikipedia, it seems that what I ate was not gazpacho but a local variant called salmorejo. Gazpacho is more reddish without eggs. Forget I said anything.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/01/of-gray-areas-and-gazpacho
The first bite made me immediately uncomfortable, like a pack of teens stopping in front of me on the beach or a passing acquaintance who insists on forcing small talk. (It's not that I can't make words, but that the nagging voice in the back of my head won't stop shouting "THIS CONVERSATION MEANS NOTHING.")
But my disgust with the gazpacho had nothing to do with the unexpectedly salty flavor, the garlicky lumps of protein or the creamy-but-grainy texture of old yogurt -- my problem was that it was cold. I was a caveman again, sticking random twigs and berries in my mouth, and I knew instinctively that this particular bit of organic material was not food.
It was like a senile aunt or that possessed lady from Ghostbusters was forcing me to eat her leftover chowder straight out of the fridge -- and I couldn't say no because that'd be rude.
It was a simple enough problem, and there seemed to be a simple enough solution. "Hey, you know what?" I said to myself, "This soup wouldn't be all that bad if I just stuck it in the microwave." I grunted in agreement.
My dialogue completed, I translated for my host -- but there I came upon the crux of the issue. As my coarse but caring Spanish host mother so emphatically explained, "Gazpacho is cold." To deviate from that principle would be to alter the reality of the gazpacho itself! Hot gazpacho is soup, and soup is not gazpacho -- so sit down and eat, Michael.
I begrudgingly complied, but I couldn't help but think: Why the dogmatic distinction? Gazpacho and soup -- can't it be both?
Society likes to give us choices and pretend there're only two options, that it's always black and white (It makes me gag to use "society" as the subject of a sentence -- sorry). But as a general rule for life, it's better to embrace the gray. Because you never want to just nail yourself down to one color and one color only, you know?
Ambiguity rules! In that it's always there if you look for it. And I'm not going for "best of both worlds" with this whole "hot gazpacho" thing -- because the gray third option is never a straightforward mix of the standard two. Plus, you'll probably never stop getting crap from both soup people and gazpacho people, and golly do people get crazy about their liquid comestibles.
But if you're comfortable with never really being certain about anything, it can be a lot of fun! And you're probably closer to the truth than anyone else in terms of the fundamental nature of soup and such.
As with all boundaries and binaries, the most fun is in the middle. As with soup (or soup-like entities), so with life.
...Hm. Following an expedition to Wikipedia, it seems that what I ate was not gazpacho but a local variant called salmorejo. Gazpacho is more reddish without eggs. Forget I said anything.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/01/of-gray-areas-and-gazpacho
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Of pride, mollusks and sex jokes (DTH Opinion column "Cries from the Peanut Gallery")
Well seniors, this is it: the point of no return. For those of us eligible to graduate -- whether you're a headstrong, dedicated junior or a boring, credit-conscious senior -- something fundamental is changing.
Of course, this isn't just starting now. Like divorce and puberty, this is a process that begins long before we see the telltale signs (e.g. a lack of sexual contact, emotional distance and rapid undesirable, hair growth).
You finally have your own Amazon account, you've gone from the fated, ancestral enemy with your siblings to close friends and your aunt no longer censors her sex jokes around you -- and if you're me, you're learning the right way to tie your shoes and graduating beyond skateboard-brand Velcro wallets.
But most of those are just arbitrary markers of adulthood, and I'm never embracing any transition that tells me I should stop filling my spare time with Lego: Indiana Jones for PlayStation 2, Wii or PC.
What I'm talking about is what's changing right now, in a direct relation to our advancement through this convoluted and quixotic process of self-improvement and sacrifice we call higher education: our connection to home.
Up until now, the command has been "Come home. Spend time with us. Bring us back our Tupperware." But the polarity is reversing; your parents' magnetic field is shifting to push you away. (English major here, sorry -- you might say electromagnetic metaphors are a little out of my field. I try to stay current, but I have to force it to make it quark sometimes. Well, it is watt it is).
Your family probably isn't even aware of it yet, but it's happening. Every visit home in the past was welcomed with much rejoicing. But pretty soon after graduation, even short visits might be tainted with a little shame if you're not rapidly moving on to the next big thing.
You might've already noticed this slow shift in orientation over break. Every night after my first day back, my mom would make oblique references to "whenever we'll see you next" and say goodnight like I'd be leaving before dawn to find passage on a freighter to Singapore.
And after just a week of being at home, my self-worth started to dry and curl into a shriveled, unrecognizable mollusk of an ordinarily healthy (albeit swollen) ego. That's exaggerating a little bit, but it was a paralyzing and dazzlingly unproductive venture (dealing with the parents' shock at finding me on the couch again every morning didn't help).
Now don't get me wrong -- moving back home can be a smart, if not inevitable option. But be forewarned: what it costs you in pride and self-respect might end up keeping you there longer than you want or expect.
But then again, we should feel blessed to even have that option, especially in bone-chilling, godforsaken, polar vortex weather like this.
Pride, self-respect and a warm place to sleep and eat? One out of three ain't bad, and that's a deal many don't ever get a shot at.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/01/of-pride-mollusks-and-sex-jokes
Of course, this isn't just starting now. Like divorce and puberty, this is a process that begins long before we see the telltale signs (e.g. a lack of sexual contact, emotional distance and rapid undesirable, hair growth).
You finally have your own Amazon account, you've gone from the fated, ancestral enemy with your siblings to close friends and your aunt no longer censors her sex jokes around you -- and if you're me, you're learning the right way to tie your shoes and graduating beyond skateboard-brand Velcro wallets.
But most of those are just arbitrary markers of adulthood, and I'm never embracing any transition that tells me I should stop filling my spare time with Lego: Indiana Jones for PlayStation 2, Wii or PC.
What I'm talking about is what's changing right now, in a direct relation to our advancement through this convoluted and quixotic process of self-improvement and sacrifice we call higher education: our connection to home.
Up until now, the command has been "Come home. Spend time with us. Bring us back our Tupperware." But the polarity is reversing; your parents' magnetic field is shifting to push you away. (English major here, sorry -- you might say electromagnetic metaphors are a little out of my field. I try to stay current, but I have to force it to make it quark sometimes. Well, it is watt it is).
Your family probably isn't even aware of it yet, but it's happening. Every visit home in the past was welcomed with much rejoicing. But pretty soon after graduation, even short visits might be tainted with a little shame if you're not rapidly moving on to the next big thing.
You might've already noticed this slow shift in orientation over break. Every night after my first day back, my mom would make oblique references to "whenever we'll see you next" and say goodnight like I'd be leaving before dawn to find passage on a freighter to Singapore.
And after just a week of being at home, my self-worth started to dry and curl into a shriveled, unrecognizable mollusk of an ordinarily healthy (albeit swollen) ego. That's exaggerating a little bit, but it was a paralyzing and dazzlingly unproductive venture (dealing with the parents' shock at finding me on the couch again every morning didn't help).
Now don't get me wrong -- moving back home can be a smart, if not inevitable option. But be forewarned: what it costs you in pride and self-respect might end up keeping you there longer than you want or expect.
But then again, we should feel blessed to even have that option, especially in bone-chilling, godforsaken, polar vortex weather like this.
Pride, self-respect and a warm place to sleep and eat? One out of three ain't bad, and that's a deal many don't ever get a shot at.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2014/01/of-pride-mollusks-and-sex-jokes
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Politics, jokes and ideas, oh my! (Cries from the Peanut Gallery DTH opinion column)
What's in a joke? An obligatory Shakespeare reference with any other noun would be just as cliche, overused and meaningless.
Dead linguistic tropes aside, it's still a good question. Humor is ubiquitous, and what with identity politics, bigotry and whatnot, it can get heated. We use "joke" to refer to anything and everything that might produce laughter or polite chuckles, so contents may vary -- but we can pick out the basics.
1. The punch line is where the funny is, whether it's intentional, bloody, accidental or just really not that funny when you finally say it aloud.
2. The setup creates the proper conditions for the funny, but -- and this is key -- the setup is not funny. The "funny," as such, is entirely exterior to the setup.
3. The last major feature of a joke is what we call "the butt." Not every joke has a butt, not all butts are created equal and it's not always clear what is or isn't actually a butt in particular circumstances, but let's put that on the back burner for a moment.
Bigger question: What do jokes do? Are they just meaningless, self-gratifying ends unto themselves, like masturbation or poetry? Self-deployed instruments of ideology for expressing and enforcing cultural mores? Crude interpersonal devices for forming self-contained social groups, marking boundaries of inclusion and exclusion with odd sociological phenomena we might call "inside jokes"?
Or maybe they're just defense mechanisms for coping with the low-budget Adam Sandler film we call human existence -- what's the point? They're all of these things at one point or another, but there's more.
Jokes are made up of information -- messages of a sort, made graspable by the easy, silly format that tells you how to deliver and receive the information. We laugh if the info meets expectations (Ralphie in second period is a sissy), and we laugh if it's new to us (a truck driver in Utah ate a badger).
If you can avoid being creepy, try watching elementary school kids at play -- human interaction rarely gets more elemental and uninhibited (even keggers have more normative social constraints).
Let's face it: Kids aren't given much help in the way of understanding the world. Parents help and kids ask questions, but there's only so much time in the day -- and the world is a fairly complex place (I'm still getting the hang of herbology myself). Jokes are the tools through which kids, (and everybody else), build an understanding of the world. It lets us play with the signifiers that make up our society, throwing them around and trying them on, breaking them down from every angle.
This can go wrong, of course, and in any given humor-producing social bubble, the lack of certain key concepts can skew or stunt the growth of the whole. Case in point: sheltered bigotry, etc.
But the solution here, then, is not to limit or censor humor. What you do -- the only practical, effective thing you *can* do -- is write some jokes and add to the discussion.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2013/11/politics-jokes-and-ideas-oh-my
Dead linguistic tropes aside, it's still a good question. Humor is ubiquitous, and what with identity politics, bigotry and whatnot, it can get heated. We use "joke" to refer to anything and everything that might produce laughter or polite chuckles, so contents may vary -- but we can pick out the basics.
1. The punch line is where the funny is, whether it's intentional, bloody, accidental or just really not that funny when you finally say it aloud.
2. The setup creates the proper conditions for the funny, but -- and this is key -- the setup is not funny. The "funny," as such, is entirely exterior to the setup.
3. The last major feature of a joke is what we call "the butt." Not every joke has a butt, not all butts are created equal and it's not always clear what is or isn't actually a butt in particular circumstances, but let's put that on the back burner for a moment.
Bigger question: What do jokes do? Are they just meaningless, self-gratifying ends unto themselves, like masturbation or poetry? Self-deployed instruments of ideology for expressing and enforcing cultural mores? Crude interpersonal devices for forming self-contained social groups, marking boundaries of inclusion and exclusion with odd sociological phenomena we might call "inside jokes"?
Or maybe they're just defense mechanisms for coping with the low-budget Adam Sandler film we call human existence -- what's the point? They're all of these things at one point or another, but there's more.
Jokes are made up of information -- messages of a sort, made graspable by the easy, silly format that tells you how to deliver and receive the information. We laugh if the info meets expectations (Ralphie in second period is a sissy), and we laugh if it's new to us (a truck driver in Utah ate a badger).
If you can avoid being creepy, try watching elementary school kids at play -- human interaction rarely gets more elemental and uninhibited (even keggers have more normative social constraints).
Let's face it: Kids aren't given much help in the way of understanding the world. Parents help and kids ask questions, but there's only so much time in the day -- and the world is a fairly complex place (I'm still getting the hang of herbology myself). Jokes are the tools through which kids, (and everybody else), build an understanding of the world. It lets us play with the signifiers that make up our society, throwing them around and trying them on, breaking them down from every angle.
This can go wrong, of course, and in any given humor-producing social bubble, the lack of certain key concepts can skew or stunt the growth of the whole. Case in point: sheltered bigotry, etc.
But the solution here, then, is not to limit or censor humor. What you do -- the only practical, effective thing you *can* do -- is write some jokes and add to the discussion.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2013/11/politics-jokes-and-ideas-oh-my
Monday, November 4, 2013
Violence: how does it work? Also cats (Cries from the Peanut Gallery DTH Opinion column)
I used to live with a cat.
His name is Simba, but I called him Cat for simplicity's sake. That was the role he played in my life, so it seemed silly to call him anything else.
Our relationship was mostly a healthy one. I'd pet him, he'd paw me in the face -- it wasn't my job to feed him or clean his poop-box, so to me he was just a furry, naked roommate who rubbed his butt on the couch and wasn't allowed to leave the house.
But life gets crazy and tense, and cats get annoying.
Sometimes it'd start with biting or clawing me as I waved colorful things in his face -- he was just playing, and I knew that -- but before I knew what was happening, I'd smacked him upside the head.
And sometimes I didn't even need that much provocation. Sleep deprivation and high levels of stress mean low pain tolerance and jumpy as hell. There were mornings when all it would take for me to fly off the handle was the slightest interruption.
He'd jump and tap me on the back like a toddler starting a game of tag and I'd hurl the closest notebook at him. He'd approach me, all of a sudden asking for attention, and instantly I'd retaliate -- pushing him away or gesturing violently until he'd leave me alone.
It's easy to dismiss -- he was never visibly injured or obviously afraid of me, but I knew I was doing something both wrong and irrational. And after hitting him, I'd immediately regret it.
Of course honest remorse doesn't excuse abusing another living, feeling animal. And earnestly repenting didn't stop me from doing it again.
But why? In no other situation am I anything that could be considered an angry or aggressive person. With Cat, however, I'd lash out without provocation or restraint.
Why? Because I can. I'm allowed to. Because my brain must know without my conscious go-ahead that there is nothing and no one to stop me.
I respect Cat as a fellow creature, equal to me in abstract terms; I even feel love for him; but I know he is weak, wholly in my power, a cuddly whipping boy on which to take out my momentary rage. I like play time with Cat, but this is not play time. Like the domineering older brother, I alone decide when it's play time.
That is a problem. I'm working through it, but let's leave my personal character out of the question for now. I might just be deflecting, but what's more concerning to me is what this implies about violence in general.
I can't help but wonder how this particular power dynamic must be replicated elsewhere. How much violence between siblings, spouses and nations must arise simply from this sense of control, this sense that one can act without fear of retribution?
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2013/10/violence-how-does-it-work-also-cats
His name is Simba, but I called him Cat for simplicity's sake. That was the role he played in my life, so it seemed silly to call him anything else.
Our relationship was mostly a healthy one. I'd pet him, he'd paw me in the face -- it wasn't my job to feed him or clean his poop-box, so to me he was just a furry, naked roommate who rubbed his butt on the couch and wasn't allowed to leave the house.
But life gets crazy and tense, and cats get annoying.
Sometimes it'd start with biting or clawing me as I waved colorful things in his face -- he was just playing, and I knew that -- but before I knew what was happening, I'd smacked him upside the head.
And sometimes I didn't even need that much provocation. Sleep deprivation and high levels of stress mean low pain tolerance and jumpy as hell. There were mornings when all it would take for me to fly off the handle was the slightest interruption.
He'd jump and tap me on the back like a toddler starting a game of tag and I'd hurl the closest notebook at him. He'd approach me, all of a sudden asking for attention, and instantly I'd retaliate -- pushing him away or gesturing violently until he'd leave me alone.
It's easy to dismiss -- he was never visibly injured or obviously afraid of me, but I knew I was doing something both wrong and irrational. And after hitting him, I'd immediately regret it.
Of course honest remorse doesn't excuse abusing another living, feeling animal. And earnestly repenting didn't stop me from doing it again.
But why? In no other situation am I anything that could be considered an angry or aggressive person. With Cat, however, I'd lash out without provocation or restraint.
Why? Because I can. I'm allowed to. Because my brain must know without my conscious go-ahead that there is nothing and no one to stop me.
I respect Cat as a fellow creature, equal to me in abstract terms; I even feel love for him; but I know he is weak, wholly in my power, a cuddly whipping boy on which to take out my momentary rage. I like play time with Cat, but this is not play time. Like the domineering older brother, I alone decide when it's play time.
That is a problem. I'm working through it, but let's leave my personal character out of the question for now. I might just be deflecting, but what's more concerning to me is what this implies about violence in general.
I can't help but wonder how this particular power dynamic must be replicated elsewhere. How much violence between siblings, spouses and nations must arise simply from this sense of control, this sense that one can act without fear of retribution?
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2013/10/violence-how-does-it-work-also-cats
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