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The Corporation: Canadian documentary that examines the history and inner workings of what has become the dominant institution of the free world.
Economist Milton Friedman talks about the strength of the economy.
Globalisation is Good Johan Norberg examines the positive effects of free trade and enterprise on what had once been impoverished countries.
Roger and Me, Michael Moore's memorably sardonic docu-diary that made him the darling of the left wing.
Art and the Critical Eye
Often I see a landscape painting by an untrained artist, painted in colors and hues they probably learned in grade school -- having not yet learned to break out of the familiar habit first learned in first grade, even though they might have the tools and supplies to progress beyond whatever limitations they had back then.
The sky is always blue. The tree trunks are always a rich, mahogany brown. The grass is an unnatural shade of bright green.
Why? Because we learn in kindergarten that those are how the colors are "supposed" to be. Tree trunks are "supposed" to be brown, so we use the brown crayon to make them that way. Water is "supposed" to be blue, and so we use the blue crayon from our limited color palette, etc.
Yet examine the colors of the real subjects and compare. Nary will you find such artists' colors in nature. The tree trunks will all be varying shades of grey -- not the mahogany brown that Crayola defined for us as "brown". If we want to define something for how it truly is, sometimes we have to put aside the assumptions we've learned and learn to become a more objective observer.
I wonder if this is where the phrase, "thinking outside the box" originated from. Sometimes we allow our perceptions to be clouded by the limited palette of personal experience. This is all perfectly natural; the brain is designed to economize information by storing it in memory for later use. But to be truly objective as observers, we have to distinguish between what we really are seeing, and the packets of assumptions and doctrine and memory that sometimes interfere with our perceptions.
Freud Would Have A Field Day With The Muslims, Too...
"Pierre Rehov's feature examines the phenomenon of suicide bombers through interviews with their family members, along with prisoners whose bombing attempts have been thwarted. The film's revelations about the bombers' true motivations are both surprising and shocking....
Rehov was interviewed by the Counterterrorism Blog on the making of the film.
[excerpt]:
What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know?
I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution.
An excellent BBC documentary on the history of psychoanalysis, and how Sigmund Freud's pioneering ideas about the unconscious mind have been used to manipulate public opinion and consumer behavior.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
(If any of the above links do not work, click here)
There's a new buzzword making the rounds these days: "Rejuveniles" -- defined as adults who "refuse to grow up" -- is the subject of a new book by author Chris Noxon, who observes how American culture is progressively becoming stuck in a kind of Never-Never Land of arrested development. Noxon points out how our culture is becoming progressively toy-centric; even the designs of functional items like cars and computers have taken on a play-toy appearance. More adults partake in "play" related activities than ever before, and this shifting change in attitudes is redefining age and what it means to be an adult. Is this a predictable consequence of living in a first-world environment of relative luxury, where "play" is a healthy way to alleviate boredom? Is it due to an over-emphasis on materialism and entertainment? I haven't read the book yet, but I'm curious as to whether addresses how this kind of perspective has affected our nation as a whole.
Are Humans Just Chibi Apes?
Back in the 1950s, Russian scientist Dmitri Belyaev initiated a breeding experiment with silver foxes, selecting only the most tame individuals for breeding. After several generations of this selecting for tameness, the resulting offspring showed not only behavioral, but morphological changes associated with a state of "arrested development". These changes are echoed in all other types of domestic animals.
The popular press has recently picked up on this story, concluding with implications regarding human evolution. This theory has been proposed by the science community for years -- but only now has technology become available to study and compare the genes associated with this process.
For readers unschooled in evolutionary theory, this entry is not to imply that the "domestication" process immediately creates brand-new species. What it does imply is how physiological and behavioral traits are altered within a species (and fits in with certain themes of this blog). The implications here are that past hominids might have lived a wilder and more primitive existence and have since been supplanted with their brainier and more creative counterparts -- and we are continuing to move more towards that direction.
And considering that economic success in modern society has depended more and more on cooperation, subordination, and other traits of "tameness", does this imply that populations in more advanced nations are evolving more in the direction of a state of "arrested development?" Hmmm... :-)
Regardless of the answer, I'm betting those tame Russian foxes will be on the wish list of many Americans willing to shell out some major capital for the next big pet fad.
Further reading:
Social Cognitive Evolution in Captive Foxes Is a Correlated By-Product of Experimental Domestication
Genetic Effects of Domestication
[update]:
Video clips:
The Purple Koolaid Film Festival Continues...
An assortment of online videos for your viewing pleasure:
"The Power of Nightmares", another excellent BBC documentary by Adam Curtis that examines how politicians use fear to manipulate the public, and traces the timeline of both modern day radical Islam and the neocon movement in the U.S.
PBS Frontline: The Dark Side: Frontline examines how Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and cohorts pushed for a war with Iraq following the events of 9/11.
Bullshit! Penn and Teller Debunk Common Assumptions and Conspiracy Theories (NSFW) An entertaining but uneven Showtime series. (I would have liked to have seen more statistics, more in-depth analysis, etc.)
...Speaking of conspiracy theories, here's a 2+ hour job by conspiracy watchdog radio host Alex Jones, who or less suggests the same idea that Michael Moore does (but with a "New World Order"/police state spin):
9/11: The Road To Tyranny