While thinking about something entirely other, I was brought to my knees under the weighty force of Truth. Truth with a capital T. Yes, it's true, I came to realize something deep, dark, disturbing, and several other ominous d-words about spectator sports. Particularly, we're going to speak of the psychology of spectating.
I know, I know. You're all thinking that I couldn't possibly be shocked that spectator sports could be a dank pool of cess, that the act of spectating itself could be feeding into the filth of the human soul, probably causing more problems than Hitler. I know that all these things may seem obvious to you. But please, for the sake of the children, humour me.
Here, in a nutshell, is the problem with spectator sports. It's the rooting that does it.
It's not in the competition or the aggression of the athletes but rather in the spectators themselves, the fans, in whom we find the mortal flaw. When a group of Kings fans gather to watch their team take on the ducks, they are not just rooting for the victory of their own team but they also cheer the failure of others. These are people who are rejoicing in the inadequacies of others. Further, they are happy to judge the errors and inadequacies of those from other teams. They even look forward to it with relish.
It's the same story with sports fans the world over.
Philadelphia Flyers fans? Bad people. San Diego Chargers fans? Bad people. L.A. Lakers fans? Bad people. UCLA? Buckeyes? Sabers? Dodgers? Green Bay? Tiger Woods? Mike Tyson? Yep, that's right. Their fans are bad people, relishing the opportunity to rejoice in failure, suffering, and inadequacy. They are the worst of society, dancing in celebration upon the ruin of their arbitrary foes, capitalizing on weakness and cherishing the the exploitation of mistakes.
So then spectator sports: healthy celebration of athleticism and physical greatness OR despicable vehicle designed to draw out the worst from its audiences. I don't think there's really any question, so I would encourage us, as a society to spit on the practice of rooting when viewing sports events.
First:
In light of tax day, I just wanted to send out mad props to Kent Hovind, the national mascot for taxes.
Second:
Get out your fives, dust 'em off, and raise 'em high, because tomorrow (Thursday) is National High Five Day once more.
Third:
Darwinia is an awesome game and you should download and play the free demo. It presents a whole self-contained level taking place generations after the actual game and can really give you a feel for how the game works.
Fourth:
I've been reading the Book of Mormon and it's awesomely bad. Like seriously. This Mormon cat came over to my house the other night and was like: "It's such an amazing book that a man couldn't have written it." My thought was How could the person behind the book actually be considered a writer? This stuff is worse than The Lovely Bones. Silly Mormons. That probably sounds mean to you. But that's only because you haven't read this thing. Maybe I'll devote a post to the thing but here's a taste.
Beyond the clownishly overwrought impersonation of Elizabethan English (written 200 years after Elizabethan English was the pops), the book features expressions such as Hosanna (3 Nephi 11) and I am the Alpha and Omega (3 Nephi 9:18) and Mammon (3 Nephi 13:24). Keep in mind that this book is written (between 600 BC and AD 400) in some fantasy language called Reformed Egyptian (like Quenya but senseless). This particular section of anachronisms occurs after the resurrection of Christ and so terms like Hosanna (a Hebrew term) and Alpha/Omega (Greek letters) would be gibberish to both audience and author (none of whom speak Hebrew or Greek). That their Jesus would come to Native Americans and introduce himself as the Alpha and Omega kinda lends to the picture that their Jesus is kind of dumb in the head.
If pop-Christianity is marked by anything here in the late-Aughts, it's the theme of Culture War. We hear it time and again that there is a culture war raging between, what, liberal America (?) and Christianity. Battle lines, we are told, have been drawn between the sides of such issues as abortion, gay marriage, feminism, et and cetera. And as is common in times of war, we hear charismatic speeches, rallying cries, and soul-soothing lilt of propagandists in their variety of shapes and forms.
There is a war at hand. Or at least, so some would have you believe.
No, the truth is, there is no war. And there never was. At least not between Christianity and American society. That war of culture is one built of myth and fancy and, like we should come to expect, is more a product of the politics of niche cultures than anything so real as an actual war.
Let me interject here that clashes between cultures are frequent. When Jazz came on the scene, the grumpy old whiteys didn't take to it and branded it an evil, sordid thing. When rock 'n roll came on the scene, the grumpy old whiteys didn't take to it and branded it an evil, sordid thing. When punk came on the scene, the grumpy old whiteys didn't take to it and branded it an evil, sordid thing. Et and cetera.
Let me further interject that the church is alien and the foreignness of its culture is indelible. Christianity cannot be changed or understood by the world in which it presently sits. It is, in fact, so entirely other that there can be no nurturing of the church on the food of the world and no nurturing of the world on the food of the church.
And yet, despite the fact that there are indeed battles between cultures and the fact that Christianity is fundamentally at odds with the world around, there is no culture war involving Christianity.
One more interjection. I think it safe to say that the sub-cultures that Christians involve themselves in may indeed be at war with various other cultures or sub-cultures. Those who find themselves deeply embedded in the culture of Chuck Colson may indeed find themselves at war with the cultural ideologies forwarded by the Democratic Party. Those who find themselves swallowed up in the culture of Evangelical Christianity might find themselves at war with those of the culture of social liberalism. Those who cherish their culture of moral integrity might find themselves taking arms against those who forward the agendas of Hollywood. Et and cetera. There's just one thing...
None of that has to do with Christianity.
The church is not interested in affecting culture; it has better things to do. There is no war between Christianity and the culture of the world in which it sits as an outsider. Even should the culture outside of the church choose to war on the church, there is no cultural war for the Christian to engage. Why? Because wars are about ground gained and lost, the destruction of enemies. Christianity is an all or nothing venture. A person is not an almost Christian or mostly redeemed. A person is of this world and its culture or of the next world and its culture. And Christianity isn't about the destruction of the enemy because all Christians know that such a resounding and climactic defeat as that has nothing to do with us but is wholly a victory earned and sealed by the Son of God himself.
Let's put it this way. If John and Mark are not only unable to marry but are shunned by society for expressing their carnal desire for each other, is the cause of Christ forwarded? Nope. If those who would dare to abort a child are imprisoned and perhaps even sentenced to execution, is the promise of the Gospel ennobled? Not really. If prayer is in schools, God in the Pledge, profanity out of Hollywood, morality in rap music, and justice in the courts, then is Christianity on the rise? Nuh-uh.
This cultural stuff has nothing to do with Christianity. Though Christians are at liberty to engage in any number of hobbies (culture wars being little more than a hobby), such individuals should not make the mistake of thinking their interest in such things is "Christian" or that their involvement in "making the world a better place" forwards the cause of Christ.
While culture wars may exist, they have nothing to do with Christianity and anyone who sells you on the idea of a culture war between the church and the world is, well, selling you something. And you should always beware of those who try to sell you something without telling you that they are actually selling. Those people are sneaks and liars, whatever their cause.
Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is actually probably the best novel I've read in a long time. Granted, many of the novels I've read over the last two years have not been spectacular. There was The Lovely Bones. And then The Ass and the Angel. And then His Dark Materials. And others, none of which I would recommend spending any time with.
Wind-Up Bird on the other hand was worth every moment spent burning through its 610 pages. It was mysterious, absorbing, and informative. Murakami writes in a form and style that makes the act of reading as simple as consuming a volume of Harry Potter. His prose is neither dense nor confusing. It's not his words that propose depth but his ideas.
On top of engaging philosophies of death and identity and epistemology, Murakami couches his world here in a system of reality far more encompassing than our own. His is both reality and meta-reality and the boundary between both permeable and malleable. Things from the realm of mystery make themselves known in the realm of the normal. And contrawise. A wound taken in a dreamworld manifests itself in the waking world and a weapon carried in the waking is available in the dream.
So then is there really any difference? And if so, then does such a difference matter.
At heart, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle seems to be an exploration of fate, of destinies unbidden and prophecies unalterable. Murakami's flaccid protagonist, Toru Okada, moves from passivity to activity as he struggles either to engage his destiny or bend fate to his own need (which one, which one?). There are so many aspects to the story that move characters around outside of their own willpower that Fate clearly has the upper hand, but still, it's fun to watch the struggle.
The story begins when Okada's cat goes missing and his wife Kumiko asks him to find it. Or maybe it begins earlier, when Kumiko gets pregnant. Or maybe it begins still earlier when Kumiko's sister dies. Or earlier still, during the years leading up to WWII. Whatever the case, everything is connected through gossamer tendrils of fate and pain and anguish and collective identity.
And then there's the wind-up bird, the unseen bird whose cry sounds like a spring being wound—the bird who winds up the world, a stand-in for fate who propels things and people to and fro, loosing and stanching the flow of life and the stream of reality.
This was the second book of Murakami's I have indulged—the first was Kafka on the Shore, a number of years ago—and I can't wait to read it again. Wind-Up Bird is actually far more easily understood that Kafka and despite the same presence of such a magical reality, the story elements more easily combine to paint a sensible landscape. Still, Wind-Up Bird leaves plenty robed in mystery and will give readers a feast of afterthoughts (I spent my lunch break scouring the internet for critique—to little avail, alas!). The dialogue is crisp and occasionally crackles, especially where the Kasahara character is at play.
I have only one thing to say in criticism of the book. In a climactic chapter, the protagonist explains everything (to some extent) to the reader and another character. I felt ripped off by this, as if the author couldn't trust me to be engaged enough to piece things out on my own, though my conclusion had been identical. (Though from reading some of the Amazon reviews from people who still didn't get it, I suppose it was necessary after all.) Unless we're not meant to trust Okada's interpretation... Okada certainly has his own doubts, but it didn't seem to me that Murakami was trying to capitalize on the whole untrustworthy narrator bit—he seems more interested in more interesting matters.
In any case, awesome book. High recommendations for everyone except stuffy evangelicals. Who will burst from the pressures of the lust/anger cocktail the book's more unseemly narrative pieces will likely stir up.
Rating:
Book: Videogame
Platform: PC
Game Length: @20 hours.
Bioshock opens with our protagonist (through whom the player experiences the games sprawling tale of dystopian objectivism) swimming free from an oceanic plane wreckage and finding himself (sorry ladies!) all too conveniently surfaced an easy distance from the entrance to a great undersea city. Rapture is a marvel to take in. Tycho described it as a meditation on human loss and he spot on here. The city, even in its entropic state of disrepair and evidently decreasing lifespan, is staggeringly gorgeous. While once a spotless tribute to the mettle of the human spirit, carved of Art Deco lines and hailing the glory of German Expressionism, Rapture has decayed—rotted from the inside as its organic creators have curdled and fouled the nest.
Rapture, by the time of our arrival, is undone.
The city was built in echo of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Andrew Ryan, the metropolis's father, felt deeply the unjust burden that society had placed upon the shoulders of the great minds of the time; and so, he devised a sanctuary, a city constructed deep below the ocean waves, in which the greatness of the human race could explore that greatness emboldened by an absence of moral constraints. Doctors and researchers could experiment and develop without fear of ethics boards. Artists and writers could explore their own thoughts and philosophies without worry for the ostracism by the weak-minded who would necessarily fear their work. Ryan hoped his submarine Eden would become the bastion of truth and knowledge, while the outside world would continue to rot, engaging war after war, small-minded and petty.
Ryan's dream began to show cracks with the discovery of Adam and development of plasmids. Adam was modifiable genetic material and plasmids were the means to altering human DNA. People could now become super-human, or better, post-human. With the new availability of plasmids and the chance to become more powerful (and conversely the fear that others would become more powerful), the greed and fear inherent to the human frame took hold of the city and madness ensued.
Now the city is done for. Though still inhabited, its denizens have been driven to insanity through the voracious and unsafe degree to which they spliced their DNA over and again. They are not zombies, but they aren't far off. And here you are, stuck in a leaking city, surrounded by a plagued and dangerous humanity, and trapped between struggling factions built up by the few remaining sane men and women who rule the skeletal city from its shadows.
The game design is beautiful. Every section of the city bleeds design. The atmosphere is captured perfectly and the many instances in which one is able to view the rest of the city through its gradually flooding windows to the ocean outside are always a treat. Bioshock may be among the five most handsomely designed games I have ever experienced.
The story design is equally impressive. Through radio messages from various survivors and via cassette-recorded diaries lying around (an admittedly stilted storytelling mechanic), the story of Rapture unfolds, its citizens and its lords, and even of its protagonist. Piece by piece different stories, perspectives, and chronologies are unveiled, giving the tale a sense of anticipation and mystery that culminates, perhaps, in the climax to the second act.
And of course, as in any contemporary FPS (first-person shooter), one's choice of weaponry is paramount in judging a game. Bioshock certainly holds strong in this respect, offering both the standard array of improvable FPS weaponry (e.g. blunt weapon, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenades, etc.) with several choices where ammunition is concerned, as well as the interesting option of taking on plasmids yourself. From more mundane abilities like shooting lightning or flame from one's finger-tips to more interesting options like controlling a swarm of bees. In any case, the options for building your character are impressive.
Beyond the typical mechanic and the personal genetic manipulation available to players (including the sensational means for obtaining genetic material), the game features other things that work toward making it interesting, including the ability to hack security systems and turrets as well as the multitude of vending machines in the city and the ability to research different kinds of enemies by photographing them in action. I'll admit that while each of these mechanics had valuable results (researching different creatures could give you new abilities), they soon got pretty tiresome. Especially the camera. But, as they were an option part of the game for the most part, I can forgive.
In any case, Bioshock was an awesome game dipped in great atmosphere. Like any strongly story-based game, its replay value will be limited. I could probably play it through again sometime soon, but after that, I'd probably need to give it at least a year. It's no World of Warcraft in this respect. But then, what FPS is?
One of the currently popular hobby horses of American pop-Christianity is the so-called feminization of our culture. This comes up all the time. I was most recently reminded of our society's effeminacy and its detrimental effect on the world as we know it by a CAPC-commenter's thoughts on an article on violence and mixed martial arts.
The proposition forwarded by so many is that there is an ideal level of masculinity toward which men in society should strive and an ideal level of femininity toward which women in society should strive. And further, many of the problems evident in our current culture are seen to be a result of a reversal of this standard—where men are increasingly feminized and women are becoming more and more masculine.
In discussing this concept today, we will come to the conclusion that such talk is moron's talk. And that those who forward such ideals in the month of April are prime examples of April Fools.
To start with, we'll have to presume both that there is such a thing as masculinity and femininity and that there is a level of each to which each sex should aim, neither exceeding nor falling short of such marks. But wait! Why should we presume such things? Let's start apart from the presuppositions and only then come to evaluate the argument from the realm of pure hypotheticals.
In the first place, while there are certain characteristics that we tend to assign to the descriptions masculine and feminine, I tend to think that those descriptors have no connection more necessary to the sex with which we've tied them than pof and hil do (that is, masculinity and femininity might as well be random terms for all they relate to the sexes). The typically admirable traits associated with masculinity (courage, honour, bravery, strength, charisma, leadership, decisiveness) are as lauded in females as they are males, and probably no less present. Contrawise, the negative traits associated with masculinity (anger, violence, laziness, heartlessness, aggression) are as loathed in females as they are in males, and probably no less present.* Similarly, the typically admirable traits commonly associated with femininity (compassion, sensitivity, romance, nurture, domestic prowess) are lauded in men while the negative traits (cattiness, over-sensitivity, moodiness, menstruation) are loathed in men as well as they are in women.**
Masculinity and maleness are two entirely separate descriptions and intersect about as frequently as masculinity and femaleness.*** Question: Are men brave or are women brave? Answer: Men and women are brave. Fact: Both men and women are capable of bravery and prone to cowardice. Question: Are women compassionate or are men compassionate? Answer: Women and men are compassionate. Fact: Both women and men are capable of compassion and both are prone to callousness.
And then what if there was some testable difference between men and women? What if it wasn't merely anecdotal? What if 60% of men were brave and only 20% of women were? What if 75% of women showed compassion while only 13% of men bore the trait? How would it be that we could tell whether the distinction was something natural to the sexes or whether it was merely just the cultural hegemony showing its colours and influences.
And with how fuzzy our understanding is of whether femininity and masculinity even exist, how on earth can we responsibly make it a moral thing? How can we say that men should aim to be, quote-unquote, masculine (with all that entails) and women should be, quote-unquote, feminine (with all that entails)? How can we honestly do that? Answer: because people are clowns. We are. We're ridiculous and we like to make rules to govern things whether those rules are at all realistic.
So wait, let's go back. Let's pretend that there really is some such thing as this Platonic form of masculinity and another of femininity. Let's pretend that there really is this objective standard. And let's further pretend that we, as men and women, are supposed to strive toward our respective gendered standards. Let's pretend that I and all American men should be striving for True Masculinity. And even more, let's pretend that if we don't, as a society, meet that standard (and that the women don't meet theirs)—let's pretend that if we are truly negligent here that society will get all screwed up. That all sorts of horrible things will happen. That kids will stop learning well. That we won't have prayer in schools. That incidents of homosexuality will rise. That Bush will attack Iran and kill more people who are not white enough to care about. That teenage boys will start wearing women's pants that are too small for women their size. That the rest of society will follow suit, crumbling around our ankles.
Let's pretend all that will happen if we don't get the masculinity/femininity thing right.
OMG We ares doomulnated!!! No really. If the health of society rests at all upon us getting the masculinity/femininity distinction correct, we are without hope. We are so doomed that even the doomed will feel safe, happy, and well-cared for by comparison. And why is this?
Because we have no freakin' standard to look to!
Not even a hint.
There is nothing we can reliably look at, point to, and say, "Behold! Femininity!" There is no example of what true masculinity might look like if it were to actually exist. Even if there is this fabled objective standard, we, the people of earth, have no possible way of discerning it. Well, unless God decides that it's important enough for us to know that he sends a third testament to explain it. Maybe it's in the Book of Mormon, I don't know. What I do know for a certainty is that such a standard is very much not found in the Bible as delivered to the saints in ages past.
No, everything we know to be masculinity and femininity is made up. Which is part of the reason we see such vast differences in the so-called gendered traits from culture to culture. So knock it off already.
Incidentally, what really kills me about the kind of ideology Hooser (the CAPC commenter) forwards is how common it is in certain segments of Christendom. The Monk recently regaled me with tales of how in her own college town, there was a big movement**** toward letting boys reclaim their masculinity by letting children fight it out. Instead of quashing fights before they could get out of hand and before lips were bloodied and teeth were lost and ears were punched, boys would be allowed to duke it out, presumably to make mens out of 'em. Part of the justification was that we should be encouraging boys to be boys.
Somehow I doubt that the Christians in this particular town really followed through on their own line of thought, because heck if you're gonna let boys be boys, there is nothing so immediately boyish than teenage boys doing anything within their power to engage the fairer sex in a little first base, second base, third base, GRAND SLAM! Really, more than fighting, boys seem to be all about the dream of fornication—though I doubt if they would ever term it as anything so vulgur as "fornication."
Example. I am in eighth grade. I have a water bed. I have also just purchased a small colour television set (back in the day when you could still get a black-and-white). To which I have connected my NES. The NES being the current Rad Thing, neighbourhood kids would come by, hoping to taste the finest cuisine proffered by the Japanese technation. So me and three other kids sit on my bed and the following conversation takes place:
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Tubby Little Fifth Grader played by BOB Tubby's Younger Brother played by IAN World-Wise Beanpole played by WEE DANE Cynical Classmate of Beanpole played by JUSTIN
JUSTIN:
Crap. Lost again.
WEE DANE:
I hate this level.
BOB:
Dude. You water bed is awesome.
WEE DANE:
Uhm.
BOB:
I'll bet this is just like humping a girl.
IAN:
Woah! Cool!
WEE DANE:
[Realizing that girls don't look like anamorphic blobs
and so probably don't feel anything like a water bed...]
Wow. I, uh, sincerely doubt it.
BOB:
Huh. Still...
JUSTIN:
Dude. Stop humping his bed. That's... just. Dude.
[BOB stops, feeling what one would hope to be something akin to shame.]
Now, neither Bob nor Ian were particularly aberrant.***** They were just average boys from an evangelical Christian home who had what might be considered something nearbouts the normal level of sexual curiosity. They just really wanted to fornicate their little brains out. A fifth grader and a something like a second or third grader. But hey, after all, boys will be boys.
NOTES:
*I believe a case can be made that the presence of testosterone in males can cause heightened and sustained aggression, surpassing that normally found in females. This would be a part of the male chemical environment.
**I only included menstruation to see if you were paying attention.
***The rate of intersection differs based upon cultural influences.
****I actually made up the "big" part and have no idea exactly how prevalent the "movement" really was.
*****They did still like Michael Jackson in 1988, but what did they know...
