Why is it so hard to title something: 'Killings inspired by Batman Movie'

My apologies for the long departure, I had been assimilated into the herd and have only now, after many months been able to draw my self away from the ponies.

I'm going to take the time here to very quickly make a post about something very obvious that doesn't seem to be spoken about regarding the Dark Knight Rising shootings in Denver. As with many such cases, (such as the Anders Behring Breivik shootings) the media is always very quick to allege that the perpetrators are simply insane and extremely slow to draw any connections between the shootings and any social causes for such occurrences.

What is interesting in these shootings however, is that the connections between the shootings and the movie are so blantantly clear that any attempt to write about the event without mention this connection is absurd, almost to the point of hilarity.

Take this quote from a National Post article about the even for example:

"It also wasn’t known why the suspect chose a movie theatre to stage the assault, or whether he intended some twisted, symbolic link to the film’s violent scenes."

I mean how can anyone take this seriously? An extremely intelligent and educated young man walks into a cinema, with make shift body armour, armed to the teeth and died red clown-like hair, murders his victims in the cinema where the Batman movie itself is showing and even mutters to the policeman who catch him afterwards that he's the joker.

And we're still being told that it wasn't known whether he intended some connection to the movie?

The fact that the killings are so clearly inspired by Nolan's movies makes any attempt to write an article about the whole event downright absurd.

The question that seriously needs to be asked here, even more so than the shootings themselves, is why it is so difficult for the media to mention, rather uncontroversially, that the shootings were inspired by the movies?

Brony Fever

Dear God Save me - I have succumbed to the Brony hordes.

Jung, Aufhebung and a Deeper Analysis of the Dialectic

Give that the Sublime Object of Ideology has a lot to do with the relationship between Idealism and Psychoanalysis, I sent upon myself to watch a talk by Zizek about the subject. As you can imagine he covers incredibly dense philosophical notions and I wanted to note some of the things I was able to get my head around.

Zizek talks about the Jungian compensation theory about the elevation of the unconscious into the substantial truth of the human subject.

The theory stipulates that when the Ego is faced with the things that don't fit it's self image - They are thus recognized as brutal foreign intrusions. Jung argues that instead of pushing or eliminating these 'intrusions' away, the objective should be to integrate them into a wide sense of self which transcends the narrow confines of the Ego.

In these unconscious foreign intrusions, you are faced by the message of your disavowed self (or the parts of yourself you do not accept) and the point is to reconcile yourself with this disavowed self.

Zizek rejects this theory however as he believes essentially, that not all selves are equal in their contexts, and thus there is no balance between two opposing selves that identify 'foreign intrusions' in each other. Rather, one self can be seen as a reaction to the other.

Zizek claims, that according to Hegel's dialectics, only one side is the one that brings transformation and it should be stubborn enough to bring itself to completion. He claims that it is not a matter of having one side and then the other side, and we need a broader perspective to bring them together through synthesis - He claims that for Hegel it is not about re-establishing the symmetry and balance of the two opposing principles, but to recognize in one pole, the symptom or the failure of the other.

Zizek puts this in the context of individualist capitalism and fundamentalism - The point is to recognize through fundamentalism the failure of capitalism. (Not as the Jungian compensation theory hold, that there is a current equilibrium between the poles of fundamentalism and capitalism and as both recognize in the other the 'foreign intrusions' that they must reconcile and reach a more enlightened equilibrium if you like).

He claims that the ultimate point of Hegel is to ensure that a universality needs to revolutionize itself so that it no longer requires it's opposite pole in order to sustain itself.

He claims that the entire model of fighting the extreme to find the balance is false. The essential feature of Aufhebung is that it is a cycle through which the cycle itself achieves change - not one in which the cycle of sublation stagnates. Zizek argues, that only the opposite (fundamentalism) will allow for the space to open up for real change (in individualist capitalism).

Below is the video for further reference.

Anticipating Change

In two weeks time I would like to implement some changes to my life - mainly concerning my daily routine.

I would like to include stringent measured exercise, study time and eating habits. I must find a way to battle my age old nemesis - laziness.

Longing for Immersion

I long to get back into Eve Online and lose my self in the back drop of stars, nebula and empty space. But it just feels like any attempt to return to the game will be a huge investment of time and effort. I realize that I'll never be able to capture those initial few months I spent learning the game again.

German Idealism and Psychoanalysis with Slavoj Zizek

This is an excellent video where Zizek addresses the relationship between idealism and psychoanalysis. I'm confident it will give me an insight into Zizek's the sublime object of Ideology. I might be worthwhile starting a new post where I analyze the below video in further depth and determine its relation to the book.

Spazistas

I was thinking about starting up a social group that championed rights and challenged stereotypes for the disabled by making an absolute mockery of them.
 
It would involve randomly walking up to people and acting like a borderline mentally disabled person. Members would measure how long it took for the actor to be rejected and each member would have their own unique mentally disabled acting style.

The group would meet regularly for a person to person or person to group session to develop their mentally disabled character with other members.

Then there would be sessions organized to go out as a group and have individuals approach random people with their character.

I think it would a very helpful exercise to overcome social anxiety while at the same time defeating negative stereotypes around mentally disabled people.

The Lies of Humor

I want to make an interesting observation about sarcastic humor - mainly its subtle capacity to reinforce the beliefs of the people it is directed at.

Lets take an example of someone who brings you a stale sandwich.

Let say the person isn't very thoughtful and doesn't care they brought you such an old sandwich.
You can respond by saying 'thanks, this is real fresh.' reinforcing the belief the person has about themselves that they're not a very thoughtful/kind person.

On the alternate scenario lets say the person is too thoughtful and feeling overly worried about the stale sandwich they brought you. You can sarcastically act like you are offended; "Oh god, it's so old it stinks!" which would reinforce the belief the person has about themselves that they are a thoughtful/kind person.

It's interesting to analyze the responses of people to such jokes to see what you can tell about their inner beliefs.

I would argue that the more they laugh about it, the more strongly they hold the belief opposite to the joke. e.g. When you bring out a stale sandwich and someone sarcastically jokes about how fresh it is -laughing heartily would be a way of coping with (and at the same time reinforcing)the belief that you're not a very kind and thoughtful person. An insulted or antagonistic reaction would entail that the you don't hold the belief that your an unkind person (in which case you probably didn't notice or don't think the sandwich is stale).

Whats powerful about this technique is that you can use it to determine peoples beliefs about themselves, but always say your joking as a means to defend your comment (I can always say I'm sorry, I was just joking about the sandwich being stale) in which case you identify that the person identifies as a kind person.

Furthermore, it would be interesting to test how effective it is manipulating a person's beliefs about themselves. If you thought a person was unkind, and you wanted to bring this to their attention, the course of action would be to exploit opportunities where they displayed unkind behavior, and make sarcastic jokes about how kind they are. The clearer the act of unkindness, the more likely a sarcastic joke about how kind they are will be to reinforce the belief that they are not very kind (and hence come to terms with their unkindness).

Pornography and Censorship

I am both strongly opposed to all forms of internet censorship and the Porn Industry.

The Issue is not 'Porn on the net'. The issues are
1. Internet censorship and all associated consequences, and
2. The Porn Industry and all associated consequences.

Hence, the argument can be generally deduced to two extremities. Either their exists some content on the internet that is so extreme that it needs to be censored or that there are some practices in the Porn industry that are so extreme that they need to be stopped.

To keep this argument simple (And do forgive me for resorting to such an argument) I will use Child pornography as an example as something we can all agree is wrong (I hope). Does this warrant legal and state imposed actions to prevent an industry that profits out of the sexual misappropriation of minors? It certainly does.

Now, does it also warrant the censorship of all content related to child pornography on the net?

My argument is as follows - Censorship of such content does little to stop the perpetrators of the crime. In fact, it does quite the opposite - censorship of such content serves to hide the perpetrators of the crime. This is precisely why child-abuse survivor organizations are so strongly opposed to censorship of child-abuse content on the internet.

On a side note - this is why the argument to be made against organizations like the MPAA (who use child porn as a reason to censor the net in the fight against piracy) is that they are supporters of child pornographers - not the contrary.

Given the above, my stance is that their needs to be serious social policies and laws that crack down on all forms of Pornography in the Porn Industry that involve:

A) Violence, exploitation or degradation against women (and men, transgendered people, animals, dead people etc).
B) Promoting values of misogyny, decadence and immaturity towards sexuality.
C) Taking advantage of people's privacy or their ignorance as to what will be done with the pornographic material.
D) Taking advantage of the sexuality of consumers of Pornography in the form of advertising dollars or direct payment.

Further to this, in order for such action to be effective, it is imperative that the internet is not censored in order to identify the culprits of the Porn Industry that create such pornography.

A Focus on Psychoanalysis

It would seem that I also require a strong understanding of psychoanalysis in order to to
Decipher a lot of zizek's work. I would like to explore psychoanalysis in my upcoming post, specifically the concepts of transference, fantasy, fetishization and the various complexes (anal, Electra, etc).

Zizek's guide to becoming a Revolutionary.

Extremely Brief Trotsky Post

I took part in another political spectrum survey (just for the hell of it) which labelled me a Trotskyist. I'm not very familiar with his life - but I just want to briefly cover some of his beliefs.

Trotsky was an advocate of Marxism and his socialist perspective differed greatly from those of Mao and Stalin in that he was against the idea of 'Socialism in One Country'. He fervently believed that socialism needed to be an international movement and purported the idea of the 'Permanent Revolution'.

The Permanent revolution seems to be meaningless without the context of Russian History.  It is essentially an explanation of how socialist revolutions can occur in societies that have not achieved advanced capitalism. He argues that the bourgeoisie in an undeveloped capitalist country is incapable of developing its productive forces in such a manner as to achieve the sort of advanced capitalism which will fully develop an industrialized proletariat working class. Further to this, He argues that the proletariat can and must, therefore, seize social, economic and political power, through an alliance with the peasantry.


It seems like an outdated theory especially in context of advanced Industrialized Western Societies. It would be interesting to look at Trotsky's theories in a contemporary context and see how they apply. Further to this, I'm interested in this idea of 'Permanence' and what Trotsky whether there is a self perpetuating system or methodology behind the 'Permanent Revolution'.

Story of Stuff

I made a point in my last post about Advertising being the primary driver of the issues caused by our economy.  The above video is a simple yet thorough delineation of the material economic system and I think it highlights the role that advertising has in keeping the 'golden arrow' golden.

Advertising

I was just listening to a radio program about advertising - arguing about how advertising is good for us.

Some of the points were:


It gives free services like facebook which is funded by advertising dollars

All people regardless of social class have access to the same product. i.e; A bottle of coke for a bum is the same bottle of coke a rich person drinks.

It creates perceived value in commodities and so helps the economy.


My rebuttal is as follows:

Let me begin with the 'free services' it allows like television.  I would argue that it is precisely not a free service, because the consumer incurs a cost in the media they are consuming, and do so in a way they are not aware of a lot of the time. For example, consumers will have to suffer constant interruptions in television shows - a lot of which use proven scientific and psychological techniques to get people to consume their products. Facebook, sells a lot of information to clients about peoples personal lives - which a lot of Facebook users are unaware of when they sign on to use the service. The point is, services funded by advertising always has hidden costs - and this is worse than paying for a service upfront because consumers are made directly aware of what they're paying with when the incur the cost.

Next, they made the argument that rich and poor alike are influenced by advertising as it's only motivation is the numbers - reaching as many people as possible. I would argue that this statement is untrue. Firstly, as any advertiser knows, targeting publics is an extremely important part of a successful advertising campaign, so the notion that everyone is influenced 'equally' is a farce. Secondly, the premise that all people have the same access to the products in our economy is completely misplaced. By definition, that fact that a person is poor necessitates their inability to have access to a product. In other words, a bottle of coke will be valued very differently when a rich person can have as much coke as he wants with little to no effort, and a Bum needs to beg all day just to be able to afford the same product.
 
 Finally, the program made a distinction between the actual value (utility) of products, and the 'perceived value' and how this helps our economy. There are two points to this. Firstly, there are very serious (environment, social, etc) issues that result from the way our economy functions - and the creation of artificial demand is a primary driver of those issues. So the argument that it 'helps' our economy, while true, and be nullified by a wider critical analysis of the system in which advertising operates. Secondly, the fact that advertising creates perceived value around commodities can be deemed as an enormous inefficiency - in that the resources of advertising can be used to build 'perceived value' around more abstract concepts, like kindness, like health or taking part in fulfilling activities. In other words, building the very values our society aspires to. Focusing all these efforts into mundane item like.. say toothpaste for instances, seems to me to be an enormous waste.

The Magic Hat

First World Problems

After a long conversation with a friend on the phone today, I've come to realise how much of a sucker I was for Dawson's Creek. I remember feeling so sad for Dawson when Joey went off with Pacey and now I feel like such an idiot for doing so.

I mean here is a guy, who is white, privileged has no serious problems in his life except for his girlfriend leaving him for his best friend. That is his ultimate tragedy. Jeez - who gives a shit. He embodies the very meaning of the phrase 'First world problems'.

And I don't buy the "everyone's-pain-is-unique-and-you-can't-compare-invidiuals'-suffering". That is utter bullshit. Sure, its undeniable that some people may experience serious distress over - say - recieving the wrong coloured car for their birthday.

But objectively, it really doesn't matter and the premise that their distress is just as worthwhile as someone who, say lost their family to a drone attack on their birthday - is just completely flawed.

But, mayble I am being a  little harsh on this rich privileged white girl - Let's hear what she has to say:

May the lord have mercy on our souls.

Oh and before I forget, now post about Dawson's creek would be complete without some cute pics of Joey.

MoAr Starcraft

This is one of my favorite Day 9 video where he talks about his adventures in professional gaming.

Adopting a More Liberal Approach to the Sublime Object of Ideology

I have, thus far, just reached the first chapter of Zizek's 'The Sublime Object of Ideology' after reading through the preface and introduction. I still can't get my head around the concept of abragation - or 'Hegelian shit' as Zizek likes to put it and how it relates to the Hegelian dialectic and the thesis/antithesis/synthesis dynamic.

I have the feeling there will be many such 'shitty' concept that will be difficult for me to comprehend so I will adopt a different strategy, read through the book liberally and pick up what I can along the way. It does seem that it is a book worthy of a few reads - and in any case, I will not be able to get to my next book 'Connected' without such a strategy.

Again, I think I would do well to remind myself that the object of this endeavour is to tie three subjects together. Ideology, Systems and Networks, and Anonymity/Individual Privacy.

Bedcraft

Nothing puts me to bed like a long starcraft pro game. It's apparently an amazing game, but alas, I was too sleepy to watch it.

umph..umph