All Hail the Essayist – Or Why News Skews and the Warlord [Name] Might Not be Such a Bad Guy

One thing I try to do (and often fail at) is get most of my information about important people, places, ideas and things from essayists; meaning, to me, writers who research more, take longer to consider, write in greater depth, and, generally, are less bent on convincing anyone of their particular opinion. That is not to say they are without opinion (and some great essays are very much drenched in opinion), but their opinions are, again, better researched, have more depth, and therefore generally more thoughtful. They also show an awareness and respect for opinions that don’t line up with theirs. I find that that sort of thoughtful approach generally leads to a better understanding of the depth and nuances of the subject about which they write.

Without even bothering to talk about the FOX News and MSNBC’s unashamedly biased silliness (a silliness that has it’s place, mind you, but it’s place is to entertain and not to inform), I think that, in general, news skews, and even when they are not trying to skew necessarily. It’s more a result of taking a tiny piece of a story – that which is news and so that which happened recently – and putting it out there all by itself. Even with the obligatory set-up and few paragraphs of background, the gist of the story then acts as a sort of soundbite that is ingested like a potato chip and often misconstrued as a balanced meal. Imagine a headline like “Warlord bombs tiny village – women and children among dead.” The first few paragraphs would be explanatory of exactly what happened – “Forces allied with the [Name], the [place] warlord, bombed a tiny village in [name], leaving [xx] people dead – among them [x] men and women, many of whom were elderly, and [x] children. The bombing took place during a battle the [other name] forces for…”

That is generally about as far as many of us will read, if in fact, we get beyond the headline at all. So we walk away with “Warlord is evil and [other name] forces are good.” Even if the reporting is accurate, and despite the fact that killing women and children (let alone any innocents) is certainly very, very wrong, and without my making up various scenarios where it might not be necessarily the wrongest wrong…coming to the conclusion that the Warlord is evil might be quite far from the truth. But the news story did the best it could, and maybe buried down in the article, if it was long enough, we could find a bit more background to explain that.

Like the constant barrage of economic figures tossed our way – “the biggest drop in unemployment since 2008” – these sorts of news stories are but a tiny slice in time and provide absolutely no context. “But 2008 is only four years ago and our country is 235+ years old – our economy even older, how does the biggest drop in the last four mean anything whatsoever, beyond the fact that five years ago we had a bigger drop?” It’s like peeking through the blinds of a ballroom for three seconds and walking away thinking you have some idea of what took place that night at the ball.

To those who would argue, “I’m busy. I don’t have an hour to read an essay on that.” I would contend that if you skipped the news and saved that time up, you might find that you do have time enough to read the essay and gain a much better understanding of the subject. And you pick and choose. We are so inundated with news now that we sometimes feel like we need to know what’s going on everywhere. You can’t. So pick your battles. If you have strong opinions about something – focus there. If you’re of a serious political bent – know all sides of the argument inside and out. If you love American history or have family from from Eastern Europe and are concerned about what happens there – read essays on American History and/or Eastern Europe.

Obviously, I’m making this all sound rather easy and of course it’s not. A person needs to know where to find the essays, then get to know those who write on those subjects, then actually sit down and read them. And work went late, and the kids have homework and hockey, the lawn needs mowing, the in-laws are coming … so flipping on the television news, turning to your Google news (which is in a constant state of tailoring – deciding for you, thank you very much – the news stories you see) or glancing at the newspaper (if you are among the dwindling few who do), it seems is all we can pull off sometimes.

And yet, now, at a time when the complexity of our world seems to be expanding exponentially (or is that just a result of our internet-abled seeming awareness of absolutely everything?), our main source of information is the most simplistic imaginable – the 24-hour news station. The great dumbing down began in earnest in the last couple of decades and it’s taking hold. NBC News “In Depth”, I remember I timed some years back, was about four minutes long. In depth, indeed.

Focusing on essays rather than the general popular news outlets also allows you to miss out on all the news stories that we are bombarded with that really have no impact whatsoever on our lives – or most anyone else for that matter. “There’s Pink Slime in our Fast Food!” Wait a minute, fast food’s not healthy? “Snooki’s Pregnant!” Wait a minute, Snooki’s a girl?

And beyond that, grisly multiple murders are grisly and horrible, but if it happens a thousand miles away, beyond hearing about it, should I, or better yet, do I need to know more? Are the details relevant to me? Or are there better ways to spend my time than hearing about how “the gunman entered the building through a back door and went first up the stairs to the office of his former boss who was on the phone with his wife wearing a shirt with the company logo when the gunman opened fire and shot the 48-year-old father of two eleven times leaving behind a grisly scene of…”

There was a time when essayists were the bee’s knees for a larger share of the literate public, and the essay itself, considered one of the great forms of writing. And while among a small population, that may still be the case, essays have fallen out of favor for the general public. We modern folk like everything, information and learning included, to be quick, convenient and easy to chew – not unlike pink slime.

But there are always great essayists writing and we have oodles of them right now – and some of them decidedly hip! The late David Foster Wallace made much of his name with his book of essays, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” – which was great fun! I’m currently reading “Pulphead” by John Jeremiah Sullivan, and have gleaned a more intelligent and thoughtful understanding of Christian Rock (of which all I used to be able to say was – ha ha – it’s an oxymoron), reality tv, Michael Jackson and Constantine Rafinesque (Who? Exactly.). My Atlantic and Harper’s magazines arrive monthly and keep me in good essays throughout the years (the latter skewing pretty liberal; the former a bit more centrist).

So it’s not all smarty-pants whatsoever. Essays can be great fun!

But I still do contend that if you want to understand something in some depth, you need to approach and study it in some depth, and essays provide that opportunity while being entertaining in the hands of those who know what they’re doing. And they’re not as long as non-fiction books!

So all hail the essayists. Let’s make them rich and famous rather than Snooki and the mass murders, and make ourselves as informed as we are opinionated.

My Addiction to Fiction

I’ve always been somewhat embarrassed to say that I really don’t watch much television at all; not because it matters, really, other than the fact that both my brother and sister-in-law are executive producers in that industry. I guess I’ve just never wanted to come off like some holier-than-thou pinhead, but I really do prefer reading. Pinhead Alert!

It’s a weird sort-of guilt, but can certainly be chalked up to my regular Midwestern guy upbringing that basically states, “You’re not fancy. Don’t be a sissy. Shut up about yourself and fit in, lest your head be chopped off.” Or something like that.

But a new article in the New York Times entitled “Your Brain on Fiction” might just be the proof I needed to prove I’m not holier-than-thou or thee or anyone else. It states basically that recent neuroscience shows that reading fiction engages the brain much more actively than watching television. I’ve always known that but haven’t been able to explain it beyond that which I’ve said a million times: “Any time we are subject to both sound and vision at the same time through the same medium, the brain has nothing to do but sit passively and take it in.”

Reading, on the other hand, forces you to fill in the blanks – to take the descriptions and build the image in your head; it’s much more active, and therefore, engaging and interesting, at least to the likes of me. The article shows that the areas of the brain the, say, recognize movement, smell or texture fire up when reading words that effectively communicate actions, scents or tactile feelings. And, more interestingly, that does not happen with television.

So I am no sissy. I just need more stimulation. Nothing wrong with that, at least with entertainment. It makes me wonder, though, if avid readers of fiction are more apt to be addicts. I’ll leave it up to the neuroscientists to figure that out.

I love people, but

I think I’ve had an epiphany of sorts – or maybe I was just able to put into a simple, tidy little phrase something I’ve known all of my life, but haven’t quite understood so simply. That is, I love individuals, but I don’t care for groups of people. In fact, I really don’t like groups of people much at all. I may even hate them – mostly. This is why I’ve always said, and with some weird pride, “I’m not a joiner.” I would often then go on to enumerate that which I will not join: I don’t want to be a part of your religion, book club, biker gang, ultimate frisbee team and so on and so on. It is not that I don’t like those in and of themselves, but I do not want to be a part of them. But at the same time, I love the individuals who make them up. Well, not all of them of course, but would give them all the benefit of the doubt, not as the group, but as individuals, in the beginning.

I am definitely suspicious of groups. They are unnerving for a host of very good reasons: They are dangerous; they are often possessed by mob mentality (even in small groups); they are often self-righteous; they allow individuals to be lazy and force others to pick up their slack, they are physically large and can lose control of that physicality, and on and on. Think groupthink. That is not to say that I am some sort of whacked-out every man for himself libertarian, or rugged individualist (whatever that means) as I’m really not all that rugged and I do love those I love dearly – my family, my close friends and co-workers – and I love to be around them. I even understand the need for and desire to help one another as individuals and even as a society (big group, that one).

But still I chafe at the little trappings of groups; god save me if I have to dress like a group of people beyond whatever I would normally choose for myself; scheduled and regular meetings I am certain each knock a good 20 minutes (beyond the wasted time of the meeting itself) off the end of my life; I can feel my ultimate demise inching toward me each time I am forced into a group experience not of my choosing. Little bits of me die within.

And I wonder even at the logistics of it all! How on god’s green earth do people round up large groups for biking, or ultimate frisbee, or to re-enact some bygone battle with muskets and period outfits(!) for that matter? That is a great mystery to me, but then again I am imagining 45 me’s at the end of the phone line receiving the invite: “Hey, wanna come out and meet a bunch of us at…” Nope.

But let me say again, I’m not anti-people – just anti-bunches-of-people. I’m also averse to concerts, sporting events, bullfights – wherever great hoards of humanity pile into a confined space. One could be crushed! I love the idea of Woodstock, but would have blown my head off to have had to be there for more than 15 or so minutes – even clean and sober; add some acid or mushrooms or even whatever weed they were smoking back then to that experience and I might have simply physically honestly exploded into individual atoms rather suddenly, simply ceasing to exist entirely.

People who know me gave up long ago inviting me to join anything. And I don’t think they love me less for it. I think they, as individuals, accept that. As a group, they could turn up at my door in the middle of the night with pitchforks and torches and stakes and demands of my skills for ultimate frisbee every other Thursday down at Como Park – rain or shine! What a nightmare!

Scoping the Horoscope

My birthday is today and thanks to Holiday Mathis, the Horoscoper (?) in the Star Tribune, I have some idea of how this next year will play out. See, I figure that anyone with a name as celebratory as Holiday must have something special going on and the ability to see into my future is certainly plausible. So here she goes:

Your birthday today: What has been trying in the past will now be much easier for you to accomplish. [Sounds good so far!] Next month, you’ll be shown favor by those who are difficult to impress. January brings important financial transactions. Lifestyle upgrades come in May. [Hoo, boy!] Gemini and Virgo people contribute generously to your life. Your lucky numbers are: 20, 1, 4, 44 and 18.

Good stuff! However, “important financial transactions” is all well and good but Holiday isn’t saying if those are in my favor (win the lottery!) or against me (foreclosure!). So then that whole “Lifestyle upgrades” could be following a foreclosure so that could mean a one-bedroom in Blaine after a few months of homelessness. She’s crafty, that Holiday, always leaves me guessing!

But I am going to note those months in Outlook with Holiday’s predictions to see just how accurate she is. I’m thinking that the Star Tribune wouldn’t hire her if she wasn’t a well-vetted, stand-up, card carrying, bonded and insured horoscoper. Here we go!

This is Your Brain on Information

A few years ago I remember hearing that the average New York Times paper had more information in it than the average person in the Middle Ages came across in their lifetime. I had no idea exactly how true that was, but was rather taken aback. I was consuming that amount every day, if not more, what did that mean for who I was as compared to them – my ancestors from not-that-long-ago, relatively well recorded history? Now, I found this in The Week magazine:

“In any two days, human beings create as much information online as it took our species to create in the 30,000 years between the dawn of cave painting and the year 2003. In another 10 years, that same amount of information will be generated in less than one hour.”

That is hard to even respond to. We talk about an information revolution, but I’m not sure that even gets to it. What’s bigger and more impactful than a revolution? An information tsunami? An information blizzard? An information supernova? You’d think with all the information at my disposal, I could come up with something better. Flood?

Now, I will be quick to say (so you don’t have to) that a very, very large percentage of the information we are creating online is useless in any real sense (see this blog). Pretty near 100% of what is posted on Facebook is certainly useless at least beyond the person who posted it. I do not care one tiny iota what an old friend had at The Modern Cafe last night let alone what a perfect stranger had at a restaurant hear them. And there’s plenty of that information being created.

But still it is information and it is being created and if some super highly evolved race is monitoring all of this to learn about our world, we are doing a kickass job of providing for them! They may have dropped in during the Middle Ages and picked up a little gossip, some recipes, how-to information, some religion and left. But now they have some stuff to chew on. The most obscure information is online, the most mundane information is online, some extremely helpful and useful information is online, and much of that useless information. But you’ve got to figure that those astral-planing cats or whatever they are from another world (they may be both) are rather pleased with us. At least, we’re finally giving them something worth planing back for.

So we are here now, surrounded by information, mired in information, overwhelmed by information, informed by information, taught by information, annoyed by information, enraged by information, enraptured by information and so on and so on. It really is a drug. I guess the question now we have to figure out is how we will each consume it, and whether or not we will be consumed by it. Some will be overwhelmed and inspired to the negative (really, think about the school shootings and whether or not all of those kids would every have come to that idea on their own) some will use it enhanced creativity and expanded thought and idea generation. Others will just sit there drunk and vacillate between that rage and rapture.

That’s probably enough information to be added to it all for today by me. Although I would like to add that Facebook is alcohol and Twitter’s a pinch hitter. That one’s for the astral-planing cats to mull over.