The Last Psychiatrist

When Was The Last Time You Got Your Ass Kicked?

2010-09-02T13:46:14Z

the problem is that the answer is never

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On Louie, super-comic Louie CK and a date end up at a late night donut shop. Five teens roll in, obnoxious and expansive, and Louie turns and tells them to keep it down.

One teen comes over and threatens Louie. He does it in the pseudo-friendly, control the conversation way that is 100% the sign of someone trying to size you up; the longer it goes on, the more sure he is.

30 second clip tells you all you need to know:

"Hi, my name is Sean. What's your name?" And extends his hand.
Louie sighs. "Nice to meet you," he says resignedly.
"'Nice to meet you?' Is that your name? 'Nice to meet you?'"
"No, it's Louie."
"Oh, Louie. Hmm. Hi, 'Loo-ey.'" [Smirks.]

Etc. It escalates to threats, "tell me, Louie, how long has it been since you've had your ass kicked?" and ends with the kid forcing Louie to beg: "Please do not kick my ass."

Right before he leaves, the kid says, "that was painful to watch." He's right.

II.

The whole mess is complicated/dominated by the presence of Louie's date. What's a chick going to make of this? The scene concludes: Louie's date says, "mentally I know you did the right thing by not fighting, but emotionally, primally-- that was a turn off. That was pretty humiliating, watching another guy dominate you like that."

Let me amend that: what would a guy think a chick is going to make of this?

III.

Louis CK is prime timingly perceptive about men; but he's way off about women.

On the one hand, you get no points for beating up a 17 year old; on the other hand, points off for getting beaten up by a 17 year old. Using this scoring, Louie should have clocked him. But then there's that whole jail thing.

But there's the secret deduction: points off simply for allowing a teen to bully you for ten minutes.

"Well what would you do?" I'm asked as if what a misanthropic rummy would do and what you should do are even compatible. But they're asking about the date: "I don't want to humiliate myself in front of her. I don't want her to think I'm not a man." Ok, so fight. "Well, I'm being honest here-- I'm not a fighter."

America isn't obsessed with sex and violence; it's obsessed with authenticity (or avoiding it). It just so happens that sex and violence are the only two things that you can't fake, and we keep coming back to them as the definitive "measures of the man." We can fake wealth, intellect, status, kindness, political acumen, parenting, looks-- there's no objective measure of any of these things, a man can construct any identity he wants, people might not buy it but who are they to say? But a fight isn't a matter of opinion, it is too real.

Same with sex. "Listen baby, I'm a great lover." Well, we'll know in fifteen minutes. "Am I a real man?" The response stands.

The anxiety over a fight when your date is right there is that she will find out the truth about your masculinity. You'll take verbal humiliation over a beat down not because it hurts less but because (you think) it lets the question "am I a man?" rest unanswered. Plausible deniability.

IV.

Louis CK went for the dichotomy between what a woman wants intellectually and primally; that even though women may be anti-violence (e.g. Megan Fox) they still feel drawn to dominant men. But Louie got the subtlety wrong. A woman doesn't want the best fighter, she just doesn't want a man who won't stand up for himself.

What would happen if he lost the fight to the 17yo? Would she leave him for the 17yo? Cheat on him with a tough guy some Saturday night? (The cuckold problem.) "I just don't want her to think I'm less of a man."

Listen to the language: "I don't want her to think..." That's the infection of narcissism in the thinking. Don't you think she has her own perspective? Don't you think that she already knows whether you are tough or not? Unless you have a secret identity, she already knows who would win the fight. Do you think you can fool her with words?

If she is a reasonably attractive woman-- defined as not bathing in smallpox-- then all that she gets, all day, is practice appraising men and filtering through their words.

She already knows who you are. That's why she is, or is not, with you, despite your attempts to convince her you are someone else. Losing a fight won't drive her to another man because if it would, she'd already be gone.

The cuckold fantasy is when the girl cheats on her man with better, stronger, more masculine men. The cuckold problem is this: the cuckold fantasy is a male fantasy.

VI.

The question no one ever asks is: how did the 17 year old know he could pick on you? Why do you think he can sense something that your girlfriend can't? Feminist response: "See? Men don't think women can have their own opinions." No, we're not sexist, we're narcissists: it's not about you, it's about us. Men believe they can convince people of their identity-- convince a girl to like them. The whole male grammar is structured like this: get her into bed; get her to go out with me; show her what kind of a person I am. We think we can fool women for the same reason a 3 year old thinks he can manipulate his parents: sometimes they let us because they were going to do it anyway.

You think you can convince her you're tougher than you are, but you worry you can't fool another guy because he "knows" toughness. But why would he know it any better than she? She knows you better than he does; and she knows men-- and posturing and puffing up the chest-- better than either of you. The only person who doesn't know what kind of a person you are is you.

VII.

Disagree if you want, but there's one thing that's indisputable: this whole scenario reads differently if the kid were black. A 17 yo black teen comes up to your table, and it goes from being an ego battle to a felony in progress. You think Louie would have told 5 black teens to keep it down?

Universal agreement: no one would think any less of you for backing down from a 17 yo black teen than if you backed down from a grizzly bear. "Dude, a grizzly bear tried to eat me, so I just gave him my lunch!" The hell you say.

And if you fight-- even if you lose-- no one is going to say, "ha ha, you got beat by a kid!" because everyone knows a 17 year old black kid has the strength of ten men. It's in the Constitution.

You think the cops are going to arrest you for fighting a juvenile?

I'll even go a step further: it would be the exact same if it was a 17 year old black girl.

There's a sense that blacks are violently unpredictable, that's what TV told me, anyway. You know that white kid in the Louie clip isn't going to murder you with the same certainty that you know this black kid might murder you.

While we're at it, we can all agree this would be a completely different scenario if it was a white kid rolling up on a middle aged black man on a date; or a black kid vs. black adult. No matter how equal opportunity you think you are all of those are different. Black kid on white adult is crime/poverty; white kid on black adult is racism; and black on black is "one of those things, you don't get involved." Unless you're black, then you don't have much of a choice.

If you want to know why we see these things differently, check with The Atlantic, they have all the answers that George Bush stole from us to give to Katrina. My purpose in using these scenarios is to lead you to realize that "what would you do if...?" is an impossible question because a situation doesn't happen to you, you are the situation. Louie wasn't the random target, he was chosen. The kid didn't pick on the woman, right? Nor did he threaten an empty chair. In other words, "what would you do if a teen comes up on you?" was already answered by the teen on the way to coming up on you: nothing. There's a chance he could be wrong. But probably not.

VIII.

Go back to Louie. Where did the whole thing go wrong?

An observation about the middle class: they have it deep inside their psyche that though they are taught to make prejudicial judgments based on hearsay, they are not allowed to show that they made them. The middle class think they are lawyers.

That kid was up to no good. You knew it as he walked to Louie's table, even before he opened his mouth. You knew it. But Louie/we were constructed to act only on what happens, not what you think is happening. Since the kid was polite, Louie had to be polite back, even though the kid was obviously being a bully-- you're not allowed to respond to that. "Hey, I was just being friendly!" And prove he wasn't. The kid offers to shake Louie's hand, "Hi, I'm Sean," and Louie has to shake it because so far the kid is being polite. We relate things to our future cross examination: "isn't it true, sir, that sticks and stones can break your bones but names can never harm you?"

Since we're already knee deep in race: back when I lived in various bars in NYC, I frequently saw what I assume to be intelligent people allow what I assume to be dangerous black males come up to them at 2 am and ask them if they knew "the way to get to 44th St." Just for my Danish and German readers who generously donate, here's a geography lesson: Manhattan is a grid, in numerical order. Asking a New Yorker which way is 44th St. is like asking a Florida orange farmer which way is sky. But these white devils were willing to put their lives at risk-- not because they didn't want to appear racist, I saw the same hypnotized compliance with obviously bad white guys-- but because they are amateur lawyers: "he didn't do anything bad to me first." So we follow the script: guy asks for directions= "ten blocks up make a left." Guy pulls a gun= "look, I have 50 bucks, just don't hurt me."

do you mind drawing it for me?

IX.

The Bully Dialogue-- where they spend ten minutes chatting nicely even though both of you know you're eventually going to get stuffed in a locker-- is another Cognitive Kill Switch, which is about reversing power and dominance. The aggressive "Hi, what's your name, that's a nice shirt you got there" works because you're not willing-- you feel you're not allowed-- to respond to the situation for what it is: a bully trying to dominate the conversation. You feel obligated to reply to their words, and not the meaning. So the bully gets to bully the conversation for ten minutes, after which point it hardly matters whether you get stuffed in a locker or not.

There's a model for everything in childhood. In this case it's when the parent, rather than a direct confrontation (i.e. teach the kid how to be a man) tries to lead and trap the kid, like a jealous woman trying to catch her man in a lie. "So, Tommy, how was school? Anything interesting happen today?" At this moment everyone knows it's a trap. Dad knows what happened, and Tommy knows what happened, and now Tommy knows that Dad knows, but Tommy still has to say, "oh, nothing really, " all the while thinking, "oh, great, I got to play this nutty game now? When I turn 18 I am so outta here."

Back to Louie. When that kid appeared at his table, everyone knew why he was there. So this is how the scene should have gone, though I'll admit it wouldn't have been theatric enough for TV:

"Hi, my name's Sean, what's your name?"

"Get your punk-ass away from me, I don't want to know you."

Now the kid's either going to fight you, or back down-- which is the same thing that was going to happen anyway, but at least you stood up for yourself. She noticed.

---

http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

Wasted Billions In Iraq

2010-08-30T18:27:36Z

even worse than that

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In March 2004, the Corps of Engineers awarded a $40 million contract to global construction and engineering firm Parsons Corp. to design and build a prison for 3,600 inmates, along with educational and vocational facilities. Work was set to finish in November 2005.

But violence was escalating in the area, home to a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite extremists. The project started six months late and continued to fall behind schedule, according to a report by the inspector general.

The U.S. government pulled the plug on Parsons in June 2006, citing "continued schedule slips and ... massive cost overruns," but later awarded three more contracts to other companies. Pasadena, Calif.-based Parsons said it did its best under difficult and violent circumstances.

Citing security concerns, the U.S. finally abandoned the project in June 2007 and handed over the unfinished facility to Iraq's Justice Ministry.

Wait a second:

but where are the projects?

and if:

then

did they get the money anyway?

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http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

If I've Won Cronkite, I've Won America

2010-08-27T14:10:51Z

PFC Jessica Ogilvy

]]> Yesterday, on the Ron & Fez show (XM202-- this is a stellar show), the director of The Tillman Story was interviewed. The Tillman Story is a docu-drama on the the cover-up of the death of Pat Tillman.

I haven't seen the movie yet; but something the director said to host Ron Bennington completely floored me.

If you can remember the Jessica Lynch story, she was ambushed and attacked by Iraqi soldiers, and, apparently, ninjas, who stabbed and tortured her and then hospitalized her. Then came the daring rescue operation with Rangers and Seals, the first ever military rescue of a POW (?) We've since learned that that there were no ninjas in Jessica's ambush, and the rescue footage was staged and edited by the military.

"this is impressive"

That the military would manufacture the truth doesn't surprise me. I've seen enough action movies to know that a) it's always a cover-up; b) it goes all the way to the top. Poor Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian immigrant, was the victim of a military cover-up 11 times between 1984 and 1999. It's a wonder he wasn't later killed by a drunk driver in a terrible hit and run accident, but I guess they figured keep your enemies closer.

Sully chose to take the blue pill

Because of the 2007 Congressional hearings, we have finally been able to see the real, unedited footage of that rescue, and it shows... well, it's boring. No bad guys, no radio for air support, no one needs to shoot two pistols at once. They do actually get her, but you clearly get the sense that this less for Jessica's benefit than for the camera's.

I know, I know, it was Evil George Bush and the Republicans hiding the truth, trying to get us flag waving. For the record, I didn't expect it to change at all under Obama, and so far so right. No one who sits in that chair is going to willingly give up any power. He can barely make things work with all that power, "how am I going to do this with less?" Power corrupts and absolute blah blah blah. Maybe instead of pardons, an outgoing President could sign away powers?

So this is what the director of The Tillman Story said, and I'm trying to quote from memory:

Ron: And the other thing I found fascinating was how the news networks went along with it.

Amir: I'm so glad you brought this up, because this is really the real story. That unedited footage (of Lynch's rescue) we show in the movie didn't come from some undercover/hacker network, it wasn't Deep Throat-- we got that footage from the regular news media. They had both the edited and unedited footage the whole time, but they chose to run the edited footage because it was more dramatic.

Holy crap. You almost expect it from Fox News, ok; maybe even CNN, they just want ratings, fine. But did no one in 2003 think to show the unedited footage? Even selfishly to boost their own ratings, did no one try to make the story, "Hey, Look, the MSM Is Lying To You!"

When they pretend not to know the truth about some pop culture story, the real shame is on me for expecting truthful reporting on nonsense. But for the media to pretend not to know the truth about something like this-- dozens of news outlets, all playing chicken hoping no one blinks first and tells the truth...

II.

There's a lot written about the causes of the failings of the Froth Estate: beholden to ratings, a dumbed down America, having to compete with other media, but I submit a slightly different cause: there's too many of them.

Back in the day, when there were three networks giving America the news, if any one of them went a different way, it would have been big news. "If I've lost Cronkite," President Johnson maybe said, "I've lost America" and he was right for a different reason than he meant: he wasn't the window to America, he was the filter of the information. Cronkite wasn't filtering anymore.

In fact, the intellectually snobby thing to do circa 1969 was pretend to read the foreign press. If you read Le Monde you were sophisticated, and if you read Izvestiya and Pravda-- smuggled out or transcribed from memory, of course-- you were outing yourself as an intelligence analyst.

Now there are news outlets everywhere, all competing with each other-- hence the focus isn't truth but survival, and survival means more boob pictures and a willingness to play by the government's rules because if they cut you off, you're done.

There's an even worse factor in play: the multitude of news outlets makes you think they're all checking on each other, that even if one gets it wrong the other 19 won't. But most are getting their story from the same single source, the AP.

"So where do we go for objective news?" I don't think that's the question, because the market requests it, and the way to get the market to request it is for all of us to be aware of the tricks and manipulations of media.

I make fun of John Stewart because it seems silly to me, but maybe shows like his are the only thing standing between us and, well, CNN.

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http://twitter.com/thelatpsych

Love The Way You Lie (With Me)

2010-08-26T04:36:09Z

wrong video

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In his latest video, "Love The Way You Lie," starring Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan (Charlie from Lost) Eminem raps about what everyone is calling an abusive relationship. Stop. When you hear the words "abusive relationship" what do you think we're about to see?

a) guy beats girl
b) girl beats guy
c) they beat each other

You probably amended your answer as you read the choices, but grant me that most people reflexively choose a. The Huffington Post did: "Megan Fox Abused in [said video.]"

The video is decidedly not about that kind of abusive relationship. Megan Fox throws the first punch-- while Dominic is still asleep. And the second, and the tenth, and pretty much all of the punches. The first 55 seconds of that video can be aptly retitled, "This Crazy Bitch Is Crazy, Why All These Bitches Gotta Be So Crazy?"

This didn't stop a lot of people from holding this up as an example of male aggressor domestic violence, and that is because they didn't really watch the video, they saw a guy in a tank top and went to Defcon 1.

In fact, the only people Dominic Monaghan does hit are a) a wall; b) some American Eagle wearing mofo in a bar; c) a mirror.

Ok, ok, not totally true: he does hit Megan Fox once at 3:45, and if I am interpreting this video correctly, it is because she asked for it.

II.

Slow down, I hear you, check your prejudgmentices at the door.

What Dominic (and Eminem) do a lot of is talk tough. Threats, yelling, intimidation, punching objects, "I'm feeling a lot!" these are the tools of male weakness, aptly embodied in Dominic Monaghan. I liked him in Lost, but is anyone buying this guy is a physical threat to anyone? Not wearing a shirt only makes you look like a better fighter, but you'll still need to sneak up on your target and hit them in the face with a bottle. This next sentence is 100% accurate: I could take out Dominic Monaghan, Megan Fox, and Eminem, all together, even if they were all armed with toasters and I was asleep in a bathtub. This isn't bragging, it's just that tattoos don't actually make you strong or else every girl I knew at the beach was a superhero.

"I guess I didn't even know my own strength," says (Eminem speaking as) the abusing boyfriend. Nope, that's what you want me to think, because you don't want me to realize that I just witnessed your maximum strength. Bristle that fur, wildman, bristle bristle. "I'm a man, STRONG, yes I hit you and it was wrong but you should also know that I restrained myself because I love you, if I really let my anger out you wouldn't stand a chance." (Yeah, yeah, you'd have to sucker-bottle me first.)

In these relationships, the hold over the woman isn't physical, it's nourishing. The song isn't about Domestic Violence (capital letters, you are in the presence of a construct) but about a kind of love that substitutes magnitude of emotions for quality of emotions. I don't mean this next part as an insult: toddlers do this. They want you to extra love them up, but if you're busy watching the Radiation King they'll not hesitate to lick an electrical socket to get attention. They would rather you yell at than than ignore them, and that emotional charge they get temporarily sustains them. Spam isn't ham, but if you're starving it'll do. And yes, eventually you will get used to, and even like, Spam. It is repetition compulsion and it is inevitable. Look, in the video Dominic is strolling through the vodka aisle and he can steal anything he wants and he chooses to steal... Stolichnaya. Freud was right.

This is why it is so hard for women and men in such relationships to leave. Yes they are afraid but the real fear is abandonment, starvation: this is your whole life, how do you walk away from everything you know? You know it got violent yesterday, but you also feel emotionally full: the contrast between yesterday's anger and today's teddy bear gift is so gigantic that your emotions top out, like cocaine or winning at blackjack. The absolute value of that love may be much less than "a good man's," but he can't provide the differential. That's the toddler problem.

Asking them to stop battling each other is to ask them to fast, what should they do when they get hungry? They both feel no one will ever love them as much, and dopamine or whatever is going on in their brain confirms it. While you're yelling from the outside "get away from him!" from the inside they try to deflect with high emotion substitutes: drugs, pregnancy, cheating. After a while, your life is that cycle. You can break up, sure, but each of you will probably repeat that pattern elsewhere, because the problem isn't the specific partner in front of you but the way you sustain your relationships. And when you both work off the same patterns, you'll be together ten years longer than you should be. When you're hungry, you gotta eat, and you may have heard of hunting and cooking and peeling garlic but Spam is SO EASY and you know EXACTLY how to get it. Bonus: it now comes with Stoli.

The only solution I have ever seen work is that one of the people has to change the way they respond to the other. You hate me when I bring up certain topics, so I'll give you a parable; one thing I've noticed about the mutually abusive is their clinging to spirituality because when you live by no rules the psyche demands you to impose them from without:

And when the toddler comes ferociously upon you and yells, "I AM TWO AND I AM UNCONTAINED!" do you beat him like a dog? Teach him that the rest of your life will have to wait while you unleash your anger on him-- so central is his existence? Or rather, do you calmly show restraint, neither do you reward his mania with your emotion? They are filled by your love, but they will settle for your attention. He who feeds a Chaos will raise a Demon.

I'll let you work out the details for adults.

III.

Let's just dispense with one thing, formally, right now: hip-hop is not a periscope on the black experience, and Eminem is evidence. This isn't to say that it may not speak to/about blacks, but it speaks to Kansas white girls a whole heck of a lot as well. The myth that Top 40 hip hop is still black is mostly perpetuated by culture writers who a) have no other contact with blacks whatsoever, and desperately need this as a source of information and to pretend to be diverse; or b) culture writers who don't like blacks, don't really know why they don't like them, and need an easy target.

Here's an example, and I hope my terrible writing skills will be able to effectively articulate this because it is extremely important.

Here's how a writer at The Atlantic describes the video:

I suppose I genuinely sympathize with both of them. Rihanna went through a public, awful domestic violence incident that she's clearly tried to work through

Note the exaggerated "awfulness." The only person who would describe it that way is a person with no personal interest in it. How do you know it was awful? I'm not saying Rihanna liked it, but... isn't Rihanna saying she did? Isn't that the whole reason she is in the video in the first place?

Her (the writer's) thinking is infinitely narcissistic, it refuses to even attempt to understand the experience from the other person's perspective because it does not CARE. Of course it was awful, you don't have to pretend to be horrified or outraged; we would have assumed it just by your not having 47 chromosomes, but by saying you're outraged it makes me suspect you're not outraged. This thinking chooses a label, and then tries softens the use of that label by feigning outrage or sympathy. You'll see it often/always when race is the topic; an earnest by self-absorbed white person will reveal their unconscious racism but hide behind their progressiveness and intellect:

"We're being ironic!" No you're not, you're idiots.

Here is the primary difference between The Atlantic's perspective and Eminem's audience's perspective of the video: to the former, the video is a discussion of an issue; to the latter, it is CCTV of their lives. And probably a routine Thursday at the Inem house. It is too real and too usual for them to describe it as an "awful domestic violence incident," any more than they would describe their dinner as "a reliable spaghetti scenario."

The Atlantic writer discusses the song in that same superficial, deeply ignorant, aloof manner.

But this just feels incredibly self-indulgent. Eminem's slow. Rihanna's autotuney.

That's written by someone who needs to pretend to like hip hop music, i.e. a poser. "The wine has a smoky, fruity aftertaste." ? "The painting was minimalist but jarring, an amazing use of color." ?? But why do you have to pose? You don't have to like hip hop, or understand it, to write something about it; you could simply write as an outsider, "look, I have no idea what the hell I'm looking at, but here's what I see" and still give the reader something valuable; but the reason she is writing isn't to teach the reader anything but to convey the impression that she is a serious critic of hip-hop. She's not writing for you, she's writing for herself, for her identity. This is how she began the article:

I tend to be a defender of Eminem's poppier impulses, as long as they make good use of his skill set.

This is when I reflexively bit through the neck of my rum bottle, yes it hurt, but it saved me from a stroke. This woman doesn't really care about hip hop, though I'd bet big stacks she truly believes she does; and she doesn't really care about domestic violence though I'd double down on those big stacks that she really, really, believes she does. It's all a show.

Eminem has no interest in glorifying domestic violence. He is speaking to the majority of his audience who completely, utterly, deeply "get" the song:

"This song completely changed my life"
"I love this song"
"I want a relationship like this, intoxicating just like a drug"
"I know every word"
"there's no words to describe how much your music turned my life around and also saved my life"
"this song, so deep, so awesome"

And that's just the women.

This song isn't about Domestic Violence, it's about people.

IV.

Why does the song have to be about "Domestic Violence" anyway? Why can't it just be about two screwed up people, one of whom is a soccer hooligan? Because there are certain themes that are not allowed to be merely depictions-- they have to be about "awareness" and "sending a positive message." Domestic violence is one of those things, and before you say anything observe that homicide is not one of those things. Neither is adultery or cannibalism. We choose our causes based on something other than the cause.

Yet you're going to find a lot of people who can't wait to say: "it's not a positive message to send to kids." Fine, but this is when you pipe up? Someone on the Huffington Post used this video to offer up the warning signs of domestic abuse, here they are for your education: Jealousy, Controlling Behavior, Blames Others, Cruel, Past Battering. I stand vigilant. Prior to revealing these insights, said writer includes this caveat: "remembering that though these warnings are written in the guise of straight man/straight woman, abuse knows no gender or sexual preference boundaries. " That's what she needs to tell you, "I'm sensitive to lots of things, battered women and sexual orientations," that's where her head is at. The article has no value in preventing Domestic Violence, it is all about identifying her.

I may not like Eminem's music, but I am able to see how his lyrics speak to a lot of people that no one else is speaking to, unless it's down to. If you want to know why there's Domestic Violence, that's why.

V.

Maybe you can't feel the song because you don't have a personal connection to that kind of relationship. Ok, let me use a different example. There's an other video, Airplanes, not Eminem's but he does rap on it:

alright lets pretend Marshall Mathers never picked up a pen
lets pretend things would have been no different
pretend he procrastinated had no motivation
pretend he just made excuses that were so paper thin they could blow away with the wind
Marshall you're never gonna make it makes no sense to play the game there ain't no way that you'll win
pretend he just stayed outside all day and played with his friends
pretend he even had a friend to say was his friend
and it wasn't time to move and schools were changing again
he wasn't socially awkward and just strange as a kid
he had a father and his mother wasn't crazy as shit
and he never dreamed he could rip stadiums and just lazy as shit
fuck a talent show in a gymnasium bitch, you won't amount to shit quit daydreaming kid
you need to get your cranium checked you thinking like an alien it just ain't realistic
now pretend they ain't just make him angry with this shit and there was no one he could even aim when he's pissed it
and his alarm went off to wake him off but he didn't make it to the rap Olympics, slept through his plane and he missed it
he's gonna have a hard time explaining to Hailey and Laney these food stamps and this WIC shit
cause he never risked shit, he hopes and he wished it but it didn't fall in his lap so he ain't even hear it
he pretends that...

You can complain about who is glorifying what and how someone is being represented as whatever, but in doing so you ignore the millions of people-- kids-- who are feeling neglected by you and represented only by Eminem et al. If you focus on Domestic Violence and miss their internal struggle, then you will neither stop Domestic Violence nor affect their lives, and they will abandon you. They already have.

Maybe this song doesn't speak to you, fine, okay, but trust me on this: there is someone who is hearing it, and if you are hearing it, it's for you.

---

More on rap music: Jay-Z

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http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

Do Cougars Exist?

2010-08-20T05:00:02Z

she appears to be whatever age that puts her out of reach

]]> Time Magazine, always on the cutting edge, says no:

Michael Dunn isn't buying it. The noted psychology researcher at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff has just released a study that he insists renders the cougar craze a "myth." After examining the age preferences expressed in 22,400 singles ads on popular dating websites in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan, he found no sizable cohort of women seeking younger men.

If that were the simple finding I could shake my head at the ignorance, but that wasn't exactly the conclusion that Dr. Dunn wanted to reach, the one which Time Magazine was fortunately too bored to discuss.

First, his results: when he looked at online dating profiles of 22k people, he found that men of all ages preferred women their age or younger; and women of all ages preferred men their age or older. Oh. So why is the Discussion section 5 pages long?

It's five pages long because he writes like this:

It would appear that the sex-role reversal lifestyles of the rich and famous as exemplified in the popular press, more specifically pertaining to the tendency for older females to form relationships with younger men, is in no way reflective of the desires evident in the general population. Indeed the toy boy phenomenon may be illusory, being restricted universally to an insignificant elite, as cross-culturally men and women appear to conform to strategies consistent with evolutionary hypotheses.

That's just the first sentence. No one could read that; Time certainly didn't. And so they missed his real "conclusions" and why they're wrong.

II.

The study appears in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. The whole point of this study is to show that mating is "consistent with evolutionary hypotheses. "

Contrary to the evolutionary perspective on sex differences in age preferences are theorists who posit that any sex differences that do exist do so primarily due to both sexes conforming to sociocultural expectations, economic predicaments or "arbitrary norms." By opposing or at least de-emphasising an adaptive strategies interpretation for these differences such theorists by default if not by direct advocacy subscribe to the view that age cues as attractiveness indices may indeed be more flexible cross-culturally and historically with the capacity to change periodically due to for example changing sociopolitical and/or economic conditions.

If you are reading a story in which the words "adaptive strategies interpretation" are used as a noun, then you are experiencing the linguistic equivalent of The Human Centipede:

One does the talking, everyone else has to eat it.

What he means to say is that there are certain people in this world (e.g. me) who thinks our "mating strategies" aren't guided by evolution but by "sociocultural expectations." I may be all in on evolutionary theory, but not when it comes to human beings mating, not in 2010, not when the media has already decided how I'm going to talk, think, and feel. If evolution isn't driving your decision to drink 10 cans of Diet Coke a day, how could it possibly be driving my choice of sex partner, let alone wife? Birthing hips? Really?

I'll pass

III.

Here's where he study goes wrong.

An opportunistic sample of 22,400 participants' age preferences were collected between November 2008 and January 2010... taken from each of the 14 countries and two religious groupings

That's supposed to make you feel like this is a study about human beings, i.e. evolution. It isn't: guess what isn't one of the 14 countries? The U.S. Huh?

This isn't my nationalism, it's important to the methodology. You can't attack a "social constructivist" hypothesis and leave out the very nation that is doing the constructing. Yes, I realize that they included Canada which is technically part of Buffalo, but you can't rely on Canadians' stated dating preferences if "Take Any Offer" isn't available as one of the choices. Damn Canucks coming down here to steal our women. Strengthen the borders is all I'm saying.

you only wish Canadian women looked like this

The use of dating website profiles is also flawed because it does not represent ordinary mating. It's probably an oversimplification to say "they can't get laid on their own", but it is impossible to take explicitly stated-- i.e. cognitive-- preferences as reflective of instinctual preferences. If you want to measure innate preferences maybe you can show some pictures but for God's sake, you can't ask them. "I like a guy with a sense of humor..." I'll self-servingly assume that's code for "heavy penis."

Cameron told me he's hilarious

IV.

But the biggest problem with the study is its misunderstanding of the significance of the cougar phenomenon.

Men don't want older women; and women don't want younger men, in reality. They do, or do not, based on the usual things men and women look for in mates. But middle aged men fantasize that middle aged women are with young men. The point of it isn't the age difference but the fantasy of wanton sexuality that they (the men) can't participate in.

Evolutionary theory can't explain this. You have to turn to those media driven "sociocultural expectations" for the insights. Quoting Marshall McLuhan: "it's way easier to masturbate to horny bitches your age, then it is to penetrate horny bitches your age."

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http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

Life's Possibilities As Seen By Men And Women

2010-08-20T02:36:14Z

time to change your perspective to include getting more glasses

]]>

Life's Possibilities As Seen By Men And Women

the problem isn't that one is right and the other is wrong; the problem is that they are different

Real Or Fake? (Fake.)

2010-08-18T14:32:23Z

a corollary to Parkinson's Law of Triviality

]]>
It's a slideshow called "Real Or Fake." Look closely.

FYI: the answer is real.

You can see at the bottom the rest of the people are Rihanna, Pam Anderson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Playboy Playmates, etc.

But rather than the slideshow being about the obvious-- about the thing that got me to go to it-- it pretends to be about something else:

Ooh. Tricky. And it continues in this vein:

Get it? Bait and switch, without the switch.

You are enticed to look at it because it makes you think it's about famous women's boobs. But CBS can't just become the CW, it has big brand advertisers it needs to satisfy with its high level of integrity. Acura isn't paying just for eyeballs, it's paying for positioning and loyalty. "The kind of person who likes CBS is the kind of person who likes Acura." And vise versa. So the captions afford it plausible deniability even as they pull in the internet clicks.

And there are plenty of clicks. Go to the CBS site-- the same slideshow is playing on CBS affiliates throughout the land-- and scroll through the 27 slide show (turn off your adblock.) Every new slide refreshes the ads. So if each ad pays $x per 1000 displays, the slideshow has the potential to bring in $27x.

It's the same with the NYT or any other site that has multiple pages to a single article that you need to click through-- all of those allow the ads to refresh.

So an article of $x can potentially generate $4x.

II.

In Network, the news division simply didn't bring in the revenue like an entertainment show did; but it was argued that the news division is too important, profit be damned. Is that realistic? No. It makes tons of money for the network.

The primary motive for the media company (not the individual news outlet) is to draw in ad money and traffic. So an unwatched show on CBS like the Miss Universe Pageant generates tons of money for CBS in other ways (e.g. Access Hollywood. "You'll never believe what happened!" I didn't think I cared what happened, but I guess I do?)

Same with the news. The news can legitimize a story sufficiently to allow it to get play everywhere else on the network. "CBS News is reporting that Mel Gibson..." Or it can play in the reverse. Rolling Stone magazine is expected to have the naked cast of True Blood on their cover, CBS News couldn't get away with that. Solution? CBS News does a story about the Rolling Stone cover, which in turn legitimizes it further.

All "shows" are responsible to their advertisers (not the public) but in a way that circumvents clear accountability. Does Acura really want a fake boobs story on CBS? No. But would it allow a "how celebrities deceive their public?" story? Go get 'em.

So the news wants to give you pornography, but it still has to pretend it is giving you information.

III.

For example (British paper The Daily Mail):

So why would a newspaper want to publish a story about a woman upset about breastfeeding bullies?

They wouldn't; the only part of the story that makes it interesting to them is that the bully is supermodel Gisele. Without the link to Gisele, the article has no draw.

But even so, why would a paper care what some mom thinks about what Gisele says? It would only do so if the "mom" was some kind of a celebrity herself already; and Denise is apparently some kind of celebrity over in the UK, having judged a talent show and been naked in public.

Meanwhile, how does a D list celebrity keep herself in the spotlight post baby? Not by talking about breastfeeding (meh) but by attacking Gisele (oooohhh!)

For clarification, the real reason Denise doesn't breast feed is:

"I can't be sitting in Starbucks and breast feeding, because they (photographers) are taking pictures."

That's media today. The story is used by Denise to keep herself in the spotlight and then by the publisher as three kinds of linkbait: Denise, Gisele, and breastfeeding.

The point that must be emphasized is that the purpose of the story is to get you to go there. That's it.

III.

I've chosen silly examples to make the method obvious and the purpose clear.

A more subtle example of this manipulation is the current controversy over the "Mosque at Ground Zero." This is manufactured controversy if there ever was one, but instead of being being manufactured by politicians for political purposes, it's by media for the purposes of bringing in clicks.

Never mind it's not at Ground Zero. It's two blocks away, well guarded by St. Peter's Church, The Department of Health, and the University of Phoenix. Feel safer? Furthermore, the Amish are stationed right next door.

And never mind that it is already a mosque. Another mosque four blocks from Ground Zero got full, and so they were having services at the Burlington Coat Factory-- the site of the proposed mosque.

The only thing that matters is keeping the controversy alive so that people go to the story. Fox will tell you it's at Ground Zero, CNN will be careful to mention that it's only near Ground Zero, but anyone is free to use the controversy to bring in the clicks:

etc.

Interestingly, the CS Monitor gets it exactly right, I'm sure by accident:

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http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

The Worst Thing That Can Happen Is You Succeed

2010-08-16T19:43:22Z

a market research firm that should have done a bit more market research

]]>
DO YOU REALLY BLAME SCOTT'S PARENTS FOR HIS INABILITY TO FIND A GREAT JOB AND HIS AMBIVALENCE TOWARDS THE ONE IN FRONT OF HIM?

No, just for the second. Ambivalence is learned.

WELL, WHO DO YOU BLAME FOR THE FIRST? THE MEDIA? THE GIVERNMENT?

They're all working together: overpromise, underdeliver, and apologize with aspirational goods. "Here's the lease for your new Honda. Why don't you drive it to college? For only $20k a year you can pretend you're employable."

The media designs the fantasy. They show you the cars and the clothes and the life, and your parents-- misty about their unfulfilled dreams but thankful they can put food on the table, fill in the blanks: "to get that, you need to go to school."

I TRIED TO DO IT ON MY OWN. BUT IT'S NOT SO SIMPLE AS "JUST DO IT." WHAT I NEED IS ONE GOOD BREAK. ALL I NEED IS AN OPPORTUNITY, THEN---

I frequently get requests: "I love your blog, do you ever accept submissions?"

I'm sure these people are creative and hardworking. So what do they need me for?

Working for someone else means the payoff is visible.
There's some lack of confidence in their own work, but a complete absence of confidence in the market's ability to realistically value it. That's what happens when bad output is routinely subsidized for political ends: people will think it's all rigged. So they want an expert to appraise their output. Immediate validation. No uncertainty, e.g. "am I really a writer?" If Random House says you are, then you are.

They're willing to work hard for someone else, while toying with their own dreams at internet cafes. ("Hey, should I open an internet cafe?")

Resistance:

resistance in a dream is symbolized by being frozen or stuck;
resistance in dating is manifested as obsessive strategizing, running scenarios, going over your audition;
resistance in pursuit of a life goal is created with endless schooling, ADHD/caffeine/marijuana, and "I just need to tighten a few things up..."

All of those are the same: "I'll do whatever it takes not to move towards success, because then I will never have failed."

SO IT'S FEAR OF FAILING AT YOUR ATTAINING YOUR GOAL?

Oh, no, this is America, no one fails in America, it's always the fault of circumstance. No, it's not fear of attaining success; it's fear of sustaining it. "Oh God, how long before they figure out I'm faking it?" That's the American horror movie.

You know how in the horror movie the killer is chasing the girl, and she trips or the car won't start? That's resistance: "I need to be punished for the earlier use of my pleasure centers-- because if I get away with it, what kind of a person am I?"

And the boyfriend wants to save her, but the door won't open or he can't get to her in time, so he has to watch her be killed. That's resistance: "If I manage to bust in there, what am I supposed to do then?"

If you become President, will you know what to do? If you get that part in a movie, will you actually be able to act? If you manage to pick up the ultrahottie at the bar, will you be able to not blow it and/or your load on the car ride home? "We can watch a couple Michael Cera movies, he's wicked. I love your shoes. You already have herpes, right?"

Working for someone else creates a buffer: they guided me through the first success, they'll guide me through the next one. That's what fathers are for, after all.

A DEFICIENCY OF SELF-CONFIDENCE?

How do you explain how this generation is (supposedly) the most attended to, protected, educated, well fed, anti-bullied, antibacterial, sunblocked generation in history, yet they lack self-confidence to make even easy choices like whether to chat up the brunette at the other table in the internet cafe who is equally terrified of what she's capable of? Or did you think those were separate things?

WHAT ABOUT WOMEN?

I went back to that New York Times story about Scott and his crazy corporate fantasies, and I replaced "Scott" with "Anne." You know what happened? The article became a parody. Yup. Check The Onion.

Would Anne just sit around the house waiting for the "perfect" job? Would the father and grandfather be so anxious about her future career? Would her grandfather recommend she move to Europe? Would she be allowed/allow herself to be photographed drinking iced tea?

Imagine if Anne had said this:

I am beginning to realize that refusal is going to have repercussions... My parents are subtly pointing out that beyond room and board, they are also paying other expenses for me, like my cellphone charges and the premiums on a life insurance policy.

Which term/s would the 1487 NYT commentors use most often:

slut
pig
cunt
bitch
savvy go-getter
airhead
casualty of outsourcing and illegal immigration
bimbo

There are other obstacles for women, but they do have an advantage in navigating the traditional path of college to job or grad school because they were historically told NOT to pursue that path, so they don't seem to take it for granted (though I expect that to change in another generation.) And they do not have Scott's luxury of unlimited time. Nothing trumps ambivalence like a looming deadline.

Of course, that just messes things up for Scott. Why would Scott take a job for $40k when his girlfriend, who worked just a bit harder in school, has one for $50k? "Well, because 40k+ 50k = 90k." No, 50k+40k = 90k. 40k+50k=0; they're eventually going to break up.

YOU'RE SUCH A SEXIST PIG.

Sigh, maybe, whatever. Interesting, however, that you assumed he was breaking up with her. Ha! Personal prejudice ZING!

Here's a little secret. No woman wants to be with the kind of guy who can't accept a woman who is smarter or who makes more money than him; but no woman wants a guy who is too comfortable with that, either. Oh look, another guy in the passenger seat of his girlfriend's Honda. Betcha he controls the radio. I know, I know, it's temporary, someday he'll be buying his girl anything she wants. Too bad that if that day ever comes, it'll be a different girl.

CAN YOU REALLY BLAME PARENTS FOR PUSHING THEIR KIDS INTO THE SAFETY OF COLLEGE AND JOBS?

Of course not, I don't know any father that wouldn't advise his kid to take the job-- any job.

He is afraid of you going out on your own because he is worried about failure, of course; and he has a looming deadline of his own. "If I die, what is going to happen to this kid?" That's what all non-opiate dependent parents are thinking, all the time, at dinner, on the toilet, during masturbation, all the time. Sometimes parents even have recurrent dreams in which they die and beg God for two more hours back on Earth so they can bury a box of money in the back yard and leave a coded map, only to wake up and realize they live in an apartment.

WHAT?

Absinthe. Part of it is the normal cycle of father-son. The father looks at his 20 year old son and thinks there is no way this kid is going to make it on his own, he's not strong enough/the world's too complicated; but this is the same thing his father thought about him and all the way back to the Thetans. So the parent tries to shortcut the maturing process by getting the kid into a stable job ASAP.

The problem is that each successive generation is being raised in less gravity, so the bones are weak. The grandfather says, "my son's a bit of a wimp, but at least there's no war so he'll probably be okay." Then that kid becomes a parent and says, "my kid's an idiot, but at least he can get a college degree and that will protect him." Then that kid grows up and becomes a parent, and you know what he says? "My kid needs a bike helmet."

"How can you know what kind of a man you if you've never been in a fight?" Ed Norton asks himself in Fight Club. Well, there are other ways, but the point's solid.

Take a look at Scott's trajectory and you'll see something not at all unusual. Just as parents try to shortcut maturity with the safety of a good job, kids rebel against these shortcuts by choosing a shortcut to manhood: the military. "If I do four years of this, then my Dad will have to let me do anything I want."

This isn't to discourage joining the military; if you are brave and focused and want to pull a Wittgenstein, go; but if you are doing it because you are afraid of your Dad's disapproval of your ambivalence, then aren't there easier ways to "individuate?" Scott appears not to have thought this through very well, he quit after a year of ROTC then tries a half-assed attempt at officer candidate school and then "the sheen wore off." Oh. Has there ever been a previous instance of the words "sheen" and "Marine Corps" appearing in the same sentence?

WHY ARE YOU FOCUSING ONLY ON ENTREPRENEURS, THE CREATIVE, AND THE SELF-EMPLOYED?

Because they're worth the investment. I can't help them succeed, but sometimes the the single thing standing between trying and not trying is encouragement.

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http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

Why The Latest Season Of Mad Men Blows

2010-08-13T13:29:41Z

]]>
Dr. Faye Miller, a marketing psychologist who specializes in figuring out the consumer's hidden motivations, is offering her sympathy to Don Draper for his divorce. "Don't worry, she says, "you'll be married in a year." "What?" he says. "Oh, I'm sorry," she replies, "no one likes to think they're a type."

I tried to switch the channel to A Serbian Film but it hadn't come out yet. I'll accept that Don Draper is a type, but when did he become a caricature of a type? End of Season 3?

Gone are the subtle distinctions between a womanizing bastard who seduces everyone and the womanizing bastard who seduces everyone except certain women because you shouldn't. Gone are any subtleties whatsoever, this is a CBS spinoff about good guys vs. bad guys. (Spoiler: the bad guys are wearing ties.)

Here's a race example: In Season 1 there was was a scene in which young Pete Campbell is trying to get some insight into the African American market by asking the elevator operator a few "innocuous" questions, but the operator ain't going out like that. He knows that any conversation with a white executive can go all kinds of sideways, and he has to trickily be respectful while not saying a damn thing.   It's a great scene, discussed from many perspectives all over the internet.

Here's the Season 4 approach to this: four white guys are sitting at a Christmas party, and one says, "if they pass civil rights, it'll be a slippery slope." That's all he says. Get it? White male privilege. Never mind that the phrase "slippery slope" wasn't in popular rotation in the sixties-- it's only there to call to mind its use by the cast of Fox News and The Supreme Court who cry "slippery slope" at every progressive agenda.   Got it.

It only gets better, i.e. worse. Here is another guy's immediate response to that comment: "If they pass Medicare, they won't stop until they ban personal property." Because white men are too dumb to embrace Medicare. Ok. But how is that a response to the civil rights comment? Who has conversations like that? Not even the Fox News improv troupe talk in disconnected non-sequitors. "Michael Jordan was the best ever." "I punch animals."    "My eyes smell like barbecue!"

And I'll wager a bottle of rum on this: the writers must have thought they were pretty clever when they wrote the Medicare line to be delivered by guy who played the Chief of Staff on ER.

Ooooohhh. I get it.   It's post-modern, or something.

White people hating on white people, and its derivatives. An old story, frequently played out on NPR, NYT, or wherever this photo is considered interesting:

I'll help you with the context: the brown stuff at the bottom is Saudi Arabia and the black thing in the middle is Maureen Dowd. No, I'm not kidding. Yes, she is great.

Whites hating whites doesn't mean they like blacks, of course, or Arabs or anyone else. It's all about the hate, that's what drives people, not a love of the oppressed but hatred of "oppressors." If that generates the same outcome I guess it's a viable social policy, but it's hard for me to buy into what leads to cognitive dissonance, as with poor Maureen Dowd: she hates America for what we do to them but hates them for what they do to women.   After a night at the Ritz Carlton the solution she comes up with is to agree to the abaya but wear a snorkel at the same time. That'll show 'em.

II.

The often cited draw of Mad Men was its authenticity (uh oh), including character authenticity. The elevator scene shows that Campbell can be ignorant but not malicious-- he thinks he's just getting information, but is reinforcing the social disparity between them. What Campbell asked that elevator operator is on the order of, "hey, what's up with you people and chicken? How can I get you to buy more of it?" which is simultaneously a societal prejudice and a personal observation. That's what makes the scene interesting. Quoting Dave Chappelle: "all this time I thought I liked chicken because it was delicious, turns out I was genetically predisposed to liking it."

Campbell wasn't being purposely demeaning, he was being Campbell, he didn't understand that merely bringing up the question is an act of aggression. That's "show don't tell" writing.

What would have made it very racist (and unbelievable) was if he pretended not to be aware of societal prejudices: "so, tell me... I love chicken... what do you think of chicken...?"

This is where Mad Men is failing. I know racism and sexism are bad, I know they existed, I don't need this show to tell me that. But was every white guy who didn't vote for Kennedy a gigantic POS? I want you to figure out how to show me how a man in the 1960s can simultaneously be a good person yet still think women are inferior; how he can be a womanizing pig who still respects women enough to give one the coveted office. In other words, I want the character depth of Season 1, not an off-Broadway rendition of The Huffington Post.

III.

The examples are endless: the (parody of the) egotistical client who makes demeans the advertisers on purpose, because he can. Do you think he gets inappropriate with one of the oblivious wives who thinks he's funny/charming/handsome, while the husband stares on helplessly? True/False: is cuckolding implied? Yay obvious.

Or the fall down drunk Don Draper who has sex with his wide-eyed secretary who is just so thrilled to be with this sloppy mess, and so surprised that he would dismiss her the next day. "He was too drunk to see the couch and he didn't even pull his pants down, but he did manage to ejaculate before he even got hard, so I'm ordering dinnerware." Hint: this means men are pigs.

The problem with the current season's approach to the characters is it's using them to describe the era, not using the era to describe the characters. I know what happened in the 1960s, I don't know what happened to Peggy. Tell me that. Season 1 Peggy was exploited and exploiting, I couldn't tell if I wanted to strangle her or Campbell and so I was hooked-- what kind of a woman is this? According to Season 4, she's a budding superhero. Are you telling me they had superheros in the 1960s?

The writers of Mad Men owe their responsibility to the characters, that's why people watch the show. When you pass on this responsibility in order to tackle social issues, then you better have something new to say about them, otherwise why do we care? If I want a 3rd grade approach to gender equality, I have Eat Pray Love.

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http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

Narcissism Run Rampant

2010-08-11T14:32:51Z

we'll have the sex so you don't have to

]]> Is narcissism on the rise in college kids?

According to Prof. Jean Twenge at San Diego State, it is; to Prof. Chris Ferguson in The Chronicle of Higher Education, it is not:

The evidence just isn't there for an epidemic of narcissism or anything else. Social scientists would do well to exercise a degree of caution when interpreting data. Just like with the little boy who cries wolf, people are bound to notice too many phantom epidemics. The price to be paid is the credibility of social science itself.

At the core is the study by Twnege finding that college kids are becoming more narcissistic over the years.

The Chronicle disagrees, taking the perspective that data is conflicting, and anyway "epidemics" and "crises" are often fads of the social sciences.

So Twenge says it's on the rise in college kids and Ferguson says it's not. My question is, who cares? Seriously, so what? I admit it's annoying though enlightening to be in a bar near them, but otherwise, does it matter? The problem isn't the college kids, the problem is the adults.

II.

Take a developmental perspective.

If you follow that narcissism is more appropriate in adolescence than in middle age, then it may just be that adolescence has been extended into your late 20s, i.e. that we really should be comparing the narcissism of college kids in 2010 to the narcissism of 10th grades in the 80s. This isn't a slander/libel, it's to put the social context out front. If you adults-- media, parents, givernment, colleges, banks-- created a society that promotes lingering adolescences, you can hardly blame college kids for lingering. Right? When Vanderbilt University spent $150M to create a walled garden for their freshman nymphs and satyrs, did you expect them to instead join the Marine Corps? If I went to Vanderbilt now, you know what would happen? I'd be pregnant. Yeah. Figure that one out.

you want us to grow up... why?

I don't want kids to be narcissists, of course, but I simply don't know if what Twenge detected is pathological narcissism, a relatively stable trait over time, or developmentally appropriate though tremendously expensive adolescent narcissism.

It is completely useless to talk about the narcissism of kids without first yelling about why they have whatever level of narcissism they do have: adults. You made them this way. Honestly, I doubt if you (an individual parent) could have done anything differently, the entire structure was built for that purpose-- kids have disposable income so let's build a giant marketing network around that, along with TV and movies and people you want to be like, and probably adults will want to be part of the youth crowd because being an adult blows so you know what to do for them: create a show called Friends, then replace with Sex and The City, then Cashmere Mafia, which are all the same show but less funny but either way they will buy shoes.

"They're going to have to grow up eventually!" First, I hear contempt in your voice, like you can't wait till they have to suffer. That's narcissism. Get that out of you, why should you be happy that they're going to suffer? Do you see how you take their lives and reduce it to how it impacts yours? Fix that, forget about them. It's a miserable way to live, your own successes will never be enough to make you happy. Ask Mel Gibson.

But here's an alternative response: really? do they have to grow up? Haven't you constructed a society where you can credit your way to a simulacra of branded prosperity for the next few decades? Healthcare, social security, unemployment and extremely cheap food? I know, I heard it to, the Dutch have it better in Sweden.

What we should be asking is not how the kids got this way, but how the 50 year olds got this way. It's the same answer.

III.

One thing you should know about the study done by Twenge: it uses the NPI as a measure. The Narcissistic Personality Inventory is a valid and reliable measure of the kind of narcissism a layman thinks of when he thinks of narcissism: someone on The Bachelor. Extraverted, grandiose, vain, overconfident, exhibitionistic.

Here's the guy the NPI does not detect. Nor the guy who kills his family, nor the suffering 40 year old man who can't seem to get a date despite how much time he spends learning how women think and what tricks to use.

IV.

If you're on a desert island and you're a narcissist, it doesn't matter. It only matters as it affects other people.

Were a narcissism epidemic truly striking the United States, we ought to be seeing signs of it, but we're not. Violence among young people is at the lowest levels since the late 1960s. Rates of teen pregnancy, substance abuse, smoking, and dropping out of high school are all down as well.. more high-school students are taking difficult courses like calculus and advanced science... achievement in reading and math among schoolchildren has either remained stable or improved in recent years (and that is on standardized exams, so grade inflation is not the issue). And, as far as selfishness goes, evidence suggests that young people are engaged in community service and other civic activities more than before.

So what does that tell you? If violence and teen pregnancy and all that is a mark of narcissism, and theses kids have lower rates than previous generations, what does that tell you about the previous generations?

The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Do you see?

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http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

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Short post on Twenge's study

No One Likes A Sure Thing

2010-08-09T19:50:59Z

]]> Parkinson's patients had their dopamine agonists (Sinemet) stopped, and were then told that they would be assigned to one of 4 groups:

You have been randomly assigned, like pulling numbers out of a hat, to Group A. As you read in the consent form, this means that you have a 25% chance, or 1 in 4 chance, of receiving active Sinemet... We took one real Sinemet pill and three placebos and shook them up and withdrew one. This is what we are giving you.

Group B was 50%, C was 75%, and D was 100% chance of getting Sinemet.

In reality, everyone got placebo; all that was different was the patient's expectation of receiving Sinemet.

Those who were told they had a 75% chance of getting Sinemet exhibited a maximal (placebo) response. It was the same amount of clinical improvement, and the same amount of actual dopamine release, as they exhibited back when they were still taking their meds.

This is actual dopamine release (as measured by the decline of a tracer):

and this is clinical improvement:

Interpret this as "less than 50% chance of getting Sinemet meant very little response; more than 50% meant more response."

Perhaps they had a placebo response to the symptoms ("hey, I feel better") which then caused a subsequent release of dopamine, especially in the nucleus accumbens which is the "reward center"? No: dopamine release was entirely dependent on the expectation of the medication.

Think about the words. When you are told it's a 50% chance of it being Sinemet, you are checking with your body to see if it is Sinemet. When you are told it is 75% chance, you are expecting it to be Sinemet. 50% marks a turning point between skepticism and expectation.

Now think of the placebo effect in most other scenarios, e.g. clinical trials: "you're going to get drug or placebo." Imagine, instead, that they told you, "there's a 75% probability of receiving placebo."

II.

So what would happen if you were told that there was a 100% chance of receiving Sinemet, i.e. you were lied to?

Why would 100% certainty result in less dopamine release, and less clinical improvement, than 75%?

Because the placebo response is not simply the body reproducing the effect of the real drug. The placebo response is a reward; and if there is no reward, there is no response.

It doesn't matter what kind of placebo response you want-- pain/endorphin release may not seem dopamine related, but the results would probably be identical. It appears that all placebo responses are substantially mediated by the reward circuits. These are unconscious and immediate. Expecting a response is the same as expecting a cookie, the same pathways are used; and, conceivably, they can be destroyed in the same way.

A more scientific explanation is that the tonic, sustained increases in dopaminergic activity preceding the presentation of a reward are related to the level of uncertainty. 50% probability of reward represents maximal uncertainty, and hence maximum dopaminergic activity. ("Is it going to happen?") It declines like an inverted U from there ("I'm more sure it is/is not going to happen") to zero when you are completely sure.

Another way to say it is: the more that you are unconsciously making a reward prediction (nucleus accumbens), the greater the effect; but certainty bypasses this, leaving no reward contribution to the final clinical effect. In that case, it's all up to the pill.

III.

Feel free to extrapolate.

This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach

2010-08-02T18:05:11Z

That's 90% of the answer right there

]]> New York Times, in five months, only one job has given him an offer: $40k as an insurance claims adjuster.

Scott said no, because

Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, he would hold out for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder.

Now, the easy way to go here would be to call Scott an idiot for giving up a $40k/yr job in the midst of a recession. However, a) the recession ended last year; b) 1487 NYT commenters did the heavy lifting. No, I'm going this way:

"The conversation I'm going to have with my parents now that I've turned down this job is more of a concern to me than turning down the job," he said.
He was braced for the conversation with his father in particular. While Scott Nicholson viewed the Hanover job as likely to stunt his career, David Nicholson, 57, accustomed to better times and easier mobility, viewed it as an opportunity.

A long time ago, before psychiatry and rum, I seriously considered a job in intelligence. Among other things I had some Russian, and I knew another guy who was fluent in Russian and was actively being recruited by the CIA. He decided not to do it because... his Dad wouldn't let him. At that time it struck me as curious that you'd be more worried about your dad than the Russians, but I have since understood: we were living in a time where there was no right and wrong, no objective truths, all things were relative except the inviolable Law of Growing Up American: go to college, then get a job. Your dad's sole purpose was to make sure you followed that rule. If you raped a murder victim then your Dad would get you a good lawyer, but if you showed any proclivity towards anything other than a future 9 to 5 in a field he understood, it was your ass.

I'll grant you up front that Scott probably suffers from a mixture of ennui and myopia and absolutely no chance of STDs, who apparently feels neither shame in nor fear about sabotaging his job prospects by appearing in these photographs, to the fury of every other American who sees them:

This is a guy whose entire job search is conducted online in the mornings. Anybody want to hire this go-getter?

But for me, you have to start at what's known to be a fact: this is the New York Times.
You almost have to wonder why they would photograph him in this way if they weren't trying to sabotage him, trying to make him look like a privileged (white) out of touch jerk, just to bring out the populist backlinks. This is the NYT after all, where playing to the lowest common populist denominator is the next best thing to running a Page 3 Girls. "Do you mind pouring a Gatorade? We're trying to show how the millennials won't let their unemployment stand in the way of their thirst. Sigh, iced tea will do."

So I'll grant you that Scott is responsible for his own plight in the way that everyone carries the burden of their own choices, but Scott wasn't born in a vacuum, he was born to parents, parents who think this:

"I view what is happening to Scott with dismay," said the grandfather, who has concluded, in part from reading The Economist, that Europe has surpassed America in offering opportunity for an ambitious young man.

Huh? He read The Economist, or an economist? There is absolutely no way that anyone who reads The Economist can have concluded that Europe has surpassed America in anything not involving riots, in the way that no one who reads Maxim can conclude that acne is in vogue. Unless he meant China, but that's not in Europe yet, is it?

II.

"I am beginning to realize that refusal [to take the insurance job] is going to have repercussions," [Scott] said. "My parents are subtly pointing out that beyond room and board, they are also paying other expenses for me, like my cellphone charges and the premiums on a life insurance policy."

Shoot/fish/barrel that Scott's a retread, but in his defense he doesn't think about life insurance policies because he was never taught to think about life insurance policies. That was going to be taken care of by the "salary plus bennies" pornography he was raised on since kindergarten. For him to now learn that a life insurance policy could also be an investment would be like slapping him with some tranny porn and yelling, "this is how it's done in the real world!"

Not unusually, his parents themselves did not follow Scott's path: his grandfather came out of the war and went to work for his father-in-law who had started a brokerage; and his Dad went to work with a friend who had just opened a factory. These men were right at the start of businesses, they didn't slide into middle management at Sterility Corp. But after taking those chances that ultimately resulted in prosperity and blah blah blah, they taught their children to do the opposite: look for new parents. Someone else to pay the life insurance policy. I submit to you that any guy who doesn't know his life insurance premium is exactly the same guy you complained had a fear of commitment and never grew up. Well, now you know why; his parents told him not to bother.

"Scott has got to find somebody who knows someone," the grandfather said, "someone who can get him to the head of the line."

Is this Russia? This is diabolically terrible advice, it betrays a paranoid, cynical vision of reality where everything is a network, exclusionary, no one is desirable for their talent and the only thing that prevents supersuccess is not being in the right clubs or friendly with the right people. I get that those things give you an advantage, of course, but does not having them mean a career in holes?

The parents and grandparents, like so many parents today, are disappointed in the boy because he's not taking their advice, but in fact he is taking their advice all the way to its conclusion: he's holding out for the perfect corporate job. What they meant to advise him was to improvise towards a career like hopping a creek; but what they taught him to do was wait for the package.

BTW, for any women still reading this after three porn jokes: that's exactly what he's waiting for in a relationship. You're welcome. Paypal is at the bottom.

III.

"They are better educated than previous generations and they were raised by baby boomers who lavished a lot of attention on their children," said Andrew Kohut [the director of the Pew Research Center.]

WRONGALONGADINGDONG. They're not better educated, they just have more degrees. Were you smarter at 21 post college than your Dad was at 21? And whatever the difference, was it worth the $50k-$200k he paid to get you it?   No, but every parent of a high school kid I've talked to about this says the same thing: "I know, I know, but I just want her to get that piece of paper."   So work this out in your head: either this parent is a solitary genius who is the sole possessor of the knowledge that the college degree is merely a brand and not a mark of knowledge; or every employer in the world already knows this.    So if we all agree the degree doesn't mean anything close to what we are pretending it means, then what's the point of piling on? Isn't this technically a Ponzi scheme?

There is no arguing with such parents, they're not going to sacrifice their kid's future by calling America's bluff, sure, I get it. I am sympathetic. But these are parents who never thought it was wrong to force their kid into violin lessons because it would help them get into college. Did it work? Of course it worked, but at what cost?

Two generations of parents have knowingly fed the Ponzi scheme while simultaneously crushing their kids' spirit.

IV.

Where Scott is going wrong is not that he is holding out for a "better" job that isn't there; he's holding out for a job that shouldn't be there. We don't need more corporate management guys. The 1980s business schools created a market for those ideas (and graduates) and America quickly became a "management" country, at the expense of everything else. What we need are more businesses.

Scott and his friends at the Irish Pub are in the best position imaginable: young, smart, living debt free with their parents. Four of these guys, each borrowing 10k personally (at 4% -- $400 a year to pursue your dreams?) they will have 40k startup capital to do anything they want. If they're really serious, they could indeed do anything, from putting out a comic book to starting a high end tutoring/home schooling service (pays the bills at the Washington Post!) to integrating Flash with the iPad to inventing something to whatever etc, etc, what, you need me to hand you ideas as well? If they are serious, they cannot fail, and if they do fail, we have the most liberal bankruptcy laws on the planet. The point of those laws is to encourage you to try. All the pieces are in place for success at almost no risk. And he'll be a better man just for trying.

However, what Scott is doing-- and what his grandfather is horrifyingly encouraging him to do-- is pursue these kind of dead end management jobs in another country. If we don't need that crap here, why would they need it in Europe?

The problem with Scott and his generation-- and this is most decidedly not Scott's fault but is the fault of his dad and grandfather's generations-- is that Scott just can't imagine playing without a net. "No, I'll just wait here, thank you, got myself an iced tea." This is what happens when you go through four years of college and don't at least read On The Road, let alone try it. "Start a business? From nothing? I don't know..."   For him, debt should only be for a house, a school, and Polo shirts.

Here's a little factoid about the medical school I work for: very few graduates go into hang-a-shingle private practice. They go to work for hospitals, clinics, etc-- established places where they get a salary plus benefits. Even psychiatry grads-- no overhead, see people out of your house-- run to group practices.

Here's why: never in med school or residency we were taught how to start a practice or the business side of medicine. So we defaulted to what we've been taught in the first few decades of life: get a good job working for someone else. "I don't want to deal with all that billing." Of course you don't.

No one told them how to open an office, hire three therapists and three NPs, bill insurances. But you know who owns all the private psych group practices? Foreign medical graduates, i.e. people who were comfortable "playing without a net," improvising, seizing opportunity. (Sigh. Now I sound like my own father.)

V.

"Well, we can't all become entrepreneurs. What about all those guys in college who are smart, hard working, but are better suited to working for someone else?" Then go do it! If you need a job and they're offering, take it!   But if they're not offering a job, what are you going to do instead? XBox?

I'm not here offering a solution for the 45 year old guy with three kids. I am offering encouragement to a crop of college kids infantilized by terrible advice from parents and TV who have the freedom and opportunity to try something; while simultaneously describing the only long term solution to America's economic problems: more businesses. Jobs programs and stimulus packages are debatably good or bad, but assuredly temporary. Remember "the children are or future?" How about encouraging them a little? Maybe someday they'll pay for your social security.

---

http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

How Do You Lose Weight? Which Diet Is The Best?

2010-08-01T05:09:09Z

]]>
There's a stack of studies a meter high. "Look," they say, "the evidence is pretty strong that they are all the same." Really? That seems intuitively wrong-- shouldn't some diets be better for certain people? And yet, there's the stack.

This post won't tell you which is the best diet. You can go back to Oprah.com now.

This post is about why the studies can't tell you this.

I.

Most clinical trials have high dropout rates. What do you do with them?

1. You could use only the data of people who finish the trial, so you can say, "it had a 100% cure rate for the 13 people that didn't explode."

2. You could leave the last recorded score intact, and just carry it to the end.

Clinical trials have usually employed #2: LOCF: the last observation carried forward.

Researchers regularly remind us that this type of analysis can potentially underestimate the effect of a treatment. If a patient drops out because of side effects after one day his score will remain "sick", bringing the overall average down. Perhaps had he stayed on the medicine, he may have been cured.

Example: consider N=2. One person gets cured, the other person dropped out on day 1 (no improvement.) So the study found that Drug A gets you 50% improvement. Unhelpful.

II.

Here is an unrealistic example for the purposes of illustration. Take a bunch of 300 lb individuals. I give half a 100 calorie diet, and the other half a 5000 calorie diet. Read it again. Which will result in more weight loss?

After one day, most of the 100 calorie diet group drop out-- "this sucks"-- and so their last weight carried forward is 300 lbs. Average weight loss at the end= 0 lbs. If the 5000 calorie people can stick to the donut-ham-hamburger diet and lose even a single pound, the study would conclude that the 5000 calorie diet resulted in more weight loss.

The study isn't useless, because it tells you something very important: across a population, the 100 calorie diet is going to fail-- most people like dessert.

But that doesn't tell you what to do. This study does not help with that decision at all. In fact, it may confuse you because now you are confronted with the evidence that the 5000 calorie diet is better, or at least not worse. Bacon up.

Studies can be further misapplied when they (read: media) overgeneralize the results. Are all obese people obese by the same mechanism?

Point: in an LOCF study, dropouts don't just minimize the importance of the study, they ruin the study if all you are doing is looking at the primary outcome. Point 2: you can't take the results of an LOCF study and simply apply it to an individual in front of you. You have to consider the contex. "Most of the people who dropped out did so because of X. Is this likely for my current patient?"

III.

Now consider an FDA trial of an appetite suppressant.

Lorcaserin is a new 5HT2C agonist (think opposite of Remeron) that theoretically promotes satiety and/or suppresses appetite. What happens when you give it vs. placebo to a bunch of 100kg people who are told to exercise and eat 600 less calories a day, for a year?

You see that the placebo group lost an average 2.2 kg, which was 2% of their baseline body weight, while the lorcaserin people lost about 5.8 kg, which is 5.8% of their body weight.

Is that 3.5 kg difference meaningful? No: according to the FDA, you have to beat placebo by 5% or you don't get FDA approval. To the FDA, this failed a primary efficacy measure.

However, in theory, the drug should work in certain kinds of people-- maybe those whose obesity is a function of hunger? How many people were able to lose significant weight, like 10kg? Answer: three times more than with dieting alone.

Is this a drug you'd be willing to try? There is a group of people for whom the drug might be awesome-- if you could predict who those people were.

The study becomes difficult to interpret because 50% of the people dropped out. When did they drop out? Doesn't say. But if 25% of them had dropped out by the fourth month (4kg or less weight loss)-- let alone earlier-- the rest of the people would have had to have lost about 7kg in order to generate an overall average of 5.8kg of loss-- and those guys would have met the required 5% superiority required by the FDA.

I'm not saying that happened (or didn't happen.) I'm saying that for the purposes of practicing medicine, you cannot say "studies show this drug works/fails" without an understanding of why it worked/failed.

IV.

Now take the Atkins diet: is it better than conventional "low fat" diets? Let's ask the gated community socialists at the New England Journal of Mendacity:

(from N Engl J Med 2003; 348:2082-2090)

You can see that at 6 months, the Atkins diet people lost more weight.

But, it's LOCF: by month 3, 30% of the conventional diet people bailed, vs. only 15% of the Atkins. If you assume that very little weight loss went on in the first three months, then the weights for the conventional diet will appear heavier than they could have been, dragged "up" by the dropouts who lost no weight because they didn't stick to it.

We won't know what could have happened if all of those conventional dieters stuck to the plan. This isn't to say Atkins didn't work; it is to say that it may not have been better.

Analyze the data a different way. Instead of using the morally weak quitter's last score to carry forward, the authors reverted to their baseline score (e.g. no weight loss), no matter how much weight they had lost in their brief time in the study.

If you take the curve using this analysis (B above) and compare to the LOCF (A below), then there are three possibilities:

If they initially lost a lot of weight, then this analysis would "artificially" worsen the curve (i.e. make it appear like there was no weight loss.) A curve would be higher than B curve.

If they had magically gained weight before dropping out, then this analysis would hide that fact and the B curve would appear lower.

If my assumption is correct-- that they didn't lose much weight in those early months, then the curves should be the same.

Note that for the conventional diet, the curves are almost the same: they didn't lose much weight, and they dropped out. The effect at month 6, therefore, is to make the overall weight loss of the conventional group appear less.

In other words, conventional diets may not be as good; or they may better. The same can be said about Atkins, which is to say, nothing can be said at all.

The point here is about the studies showing Atkins is superior: they really mean only that more people stick to it.

V.

Now to the meat of the issue. What about all the studies that show that the diets are the same? Surely those aren't flawed?

Let's find out if the percentage of fats, carbs, and protein matter for weight loss. Let's pull a major study from the stack, something from the NEJM:

800 people put on various diets: high/low protein, high/low fat, and a range of carbs, e.g.,

20% fat, 15% protein, 65% carb
20% fat, 25% protein, 55% carb
40% fat, 15% protein, 45% carb
40% fat, 25% protein, 35% carb

Check back at the midterm elections. Which was the best?

From the Discussion:

Discussion
In this population-based trial, participants were assigned to and taught about diets that emphasized different contents of carbohydrates, fat, and protein and were given reinforcement for 2 years through group and individual sessions. The principal finding is that the diets were equally successful in promoting clinically meaningful weight loss and the maintenance of weight loss over the course of 2 years. Satiety, hunger, satisfaction with the diet, and attendance at group sessions were similar for all diets.

Or, from the abstract:

All diets resulted in the same weight loss! This proves it! Oh, wait, this was published in NEJM, where peer review= spell check. Better look more closely.

Though patients were told to eat a high fat (40%) vs. low fat (20%) diet, using a fixed protein amount, here's what they actually ate:

That difference of 20% has been reduced to a difference of 7%, i.e. what should have been a difference of 33g of fat is now a difference of 11g.

What about high (25%) vs. low (15%) protein diets?

That 15% vs. 25% difference in average vs. high protein diets has been reduced to no difference whatsoever. In fact, these people all managed to eat 20% protein no matter what diet they were supposed to be on.

So this study did not test various diets against one another; it tested essentially the same diet four times. And it found that pretending to be on a high/low protein/fat diet has very little effect on the outcome, which if written that way would never made it into Children's Highlights, let alone NEJM.

Strangely, that's not the finding reported in the media-- or even by the lead author himself:

How could it matter if it wasn't actually different?

VI.

So what do these studies stacked a meter tall tell us? That lorcaserin doesn't work (except when it does work awesomely); conventional diets suck (except in those who stick to them); Atkins diets may work or suck, and most people give up after Labor Day anyway, just in time for the season premiere of The Bachelorette. (FYI: She's on Pinot and apples diet.)

If you were hoping the effect size or p values were going to guide you would have been lead astray. Those p values aren't telling you anything useful, they are at best confusing and at worst misleading. A glance at the methodology has more practical value than the little asterisk above a score at month 6.

Look at that stack of studies a meter high. I've just fed them to a goat. Tasty. Can you use them to say whether you should take lorcaserin? Whether Atkins was better than conventional diet? Can you use them to guide your decision about whether you should eat more bacon or more ice cream? Nope. And they will never be able to, because the purpose of these studies is not to determine the answer, the purpose of these studies is to be published, truth be damned.

So I'm sticking to bacon. And getting my sugar from you know what.

----

http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

The Ultimate Explanation Of Inception

2010-07-29T04:35:29Z

the object circled in red is a distraction

]]> (spoilers; you may want to start with this intro post first.)

I'll start at the end: the top will fall.

Take a moment. How do you feel? You're probably not satisfied, whether you agree or not. There's no relief to it, no "aha!" moment, no catharsis. That's because the top doesn't matter. You are looking at the wrong thing.

To explain how this can be known, you have to consider three metaphors that Nolan makes explicit.

A.

First, the labyrinth:

Oh, look, a maze. And Ariadne auditions for Cobb by drawing mazes, and builds model mazes; and of course her name is neck deep in the metaphor of the maze.

But then nowhere in the movie is there an actual or metaphorical maze. Arthur says they need a maze to better hide from the projections, but they don't actually do this, right? When Ariadne draws her mazes for Cobb, he rejects the square mazes and is satisfied/stumped only by the circular classical labyrinth.

And anyway, mythological Ariadne didn't construct the Minotaur's labyrinth-- Daedalus constructed it for her-- she merely showed Theseus how to get out of it. But she didn't need to: a classical labyrinth doesn't have multiple dead ends; it is a single winding path that leads either in or out.

But Theseus, like the audience, upon being shoved inside wouldn't have known the form of the labyrinth-- dead ends or single path? So to be able to find the Minotaur, he needed to know which way to go, and Daedalus told him: downwards is the only way forwards.

B.

And so it becomes clear: it's not an actual maze, it's a labyrinth, which brings us to the second metaphor: the paradoxical staircase.

A single path, that ends up back on itself.

The staircase defies geometry because it is fixed in a single perspective. If you alter that perspective, then the illusion is revealed.

Hence, Arthur and Ariadne can walk around and around the stairs passing the woman who had dropped her papers; and Arthur could sneak up on his attacker by going down the stairwell. When the perspective changed, then Ariadne and Arthur had to stop walking; then the surprised attacker could be pushed off a ledge.

But each of those times required a choice by Arthur to "see" the staircase from another perspective. Seeing it from a different perspective changed the reality.

Cobb's not trapped in a maze, he's trapped in a paradoxical staircase, covering the same ground over and over. He doesn't need Ariadne to lead him out; he needs her to clue him into another perspective.

II.

The third metaphor seems to be the wedding ring. When he's in a dream, he wears a ring; when he is in real life there is no ring. So easy? Then why did Cobb insist on using the top-- something that Mal had touched and hence defeats the purpose of a totem? Why not just look at his ring? Well, give it a try yourself:

Pay close attention to how difficult it is to see Cobb's left hand. Right hands abound; left hands are hidden in pockets, under tables, in shadows. Now that I've said it, you'll be astonished at how obviously deliberate it is that DiCaprio is hiding his left hand from us-- except at certain moments. Nolan is actively frustrating your attempts at determining whether it's a dream or not.

Why so many long gun battles and fight scenes? Can't they just dream of being at the safe or past the bad guys? No. That's how we signify (male) conflict in movies; on the way to catharsis, you have to fight.

All of this is the expression of the third metaphor, which is really the theme of the movie: resistance.

I said I only want to be shot from the right

III.

Does Inception remind you of The Matrix? The Matrix brothers wanted you to reference Baudrillard's idea of a simulated reality substituting for "real" reality. However, their execution was flawed.

The Matrix is a great movie but a poor expression of Baudrillard's philosophy. The Matrix is quite straightforward, there's no confusion, no paradox: you're either in the Matrix, or you're in the real world. You may not know you're in the Matrix, but that doesn't change the fact that you are, or are not, in it.

A true Baudrillard Matrix would be a single fake world that became so real that you no longer needed the original. The whole world becomes a fake; there is no recourse to the real world. You'll know it happened when you look at a copy of something, the original of which you have had no actual knowledge, and say, "oh, that's so authentic."

The dream does not have an external reference, it is not an illusion of reality, but a simulation not based on anything real. Cobb is specific about this when teaching dream architecture to Ariadne-don't use memories (which reference reality). What becomes real for Cobb and every other dreamer is the simulation. The dreamer merges their memory of reality with the architect's imagination into the symbolic. Only death is beyond the scope of the simulation-- and even that, levels deep, was a real possibility. Other than that the simulation becomes the reality. Fischer never reconciled with his dad, but Eames set him up to dream that he did, and upon waking behaves as if he did. He was shown a simulation of a reconciliation and merged into it his memories and wishes. Is that not real?

Cobb had the same catharsis. He dreamt-- four levels down-- a catharsis with his wife that never actually happened "in real life." But that doesn't matter, not for Cobb or his kids.

What makes the film so perplexing is precisely the ambiguity necessary to get across the point about simulation. If the narrative clearly identified totems, who was dreaming, and how many levels down we were, it would be clear to us the audience the difference between simulation and reality. But that's not the point of the narrative, indeed, it tries to frustrate that inclination. The point is catharsis.

IIIb.

The problem with making the distinction "dream vs. not dream" is that it fails to get you off the staircase. It's debatable, but probably likely, that Cobb was on the phone with his kids in real life, and dreaming when with Ariadne in the cafe. But why should we believe that he's wanted for his wife's murder? And that a Japanese tycoon can alter a gigantic criminal justice bureaucracy with a ten second phone call? Why doesn't he just move his kids out to Paris? It's more plausible that "the police want to get me" is a projection of his guilt; I can't go home...I can't face my kids... Looked at from this perspective, what's dream and what's not is irrelevant to Cobb. If it matters to you, that's your own baggage.

You want to know what's real? His wife is still dead. That's real, very real, everything else in the world, no matter how real, is less real than that. But they had their time together, (however brief and incomplete it may have been in real life, however sudden and savage and wrong was her death.)

It's time to let her go.

What's keeping you on the staircase is the fear that getting off the staircase means you'll never see her again.

IV.

In the warehouse, Cobb explains that Mal was possessed "by the idea that their world wasn't real." Adriadne tries to comfort him: "you're not responsible for the idea that killed her." But of course he thinks he was. He implanted that idea into her head in their 50 year dream life, she lay on the tracks with him so they could die/wake up, but that idea stuck into her real life-- so she jumped from a building. That event gave him his guilt. It is irrelevant whether her jumping happened in a dream or in real life-- he still carried a guilt around with him.

The top isn't the totem, and the wedding ring isn't his totem. The totem is his guilt-- "this is my fault." It is his origin. It is his inception.

He incepted himself.

V.

Miscellany: many trains, Kyoto, freight train in the street, Cobb and Mal's suicide train, the train underneath the moving bridge which Yusuf drives off. Train is a common metaphor for thought, one track mind, train of thought, get back on track.

Water: stream of consciousness, put under, sleep deeply. Symbol of the unconscious: fear death by water.

VI.

If you're busy looking for what's dream and what's not, you're just trapped running the staircase. You need to change the perspective.

Cobb has Fischer hostage in the warehouse; he tosses Eames disguised as Browning next to him and says, "you have one hour!" (to figure out "the combination" to the safe.) Exactly one hour later (yes, I timed it), Fischer and the real Browning escape from the submerged van and swim to the shore, where Fischer proclaims he will break up the company. Yay, the plan worked, inception worked.

But if that dream time matches our (the audience's) real time, then are we dreaming?

Inception is also an allegory of filmmaking or narrative construction. It's a movie about it's own making. It describes how the simulation (movie) is constructed and manipulated so as to become the reality.

So change the perspective. Forget about the top, forget about the ring, look elsewhere. The children are wearing black shoes throughout the movie, until the final scene where they are wearing white sneakers.

But be careful, that doesn't tell you what's dream and what's not, it tells you that they have changed. That's what's important. It may be a dream or it may be real, but they are now different-- they aren't a memory.

Others have observed that in imdb, the children are played by two pairs of actors, two years apart. In a movie about narrative structure, are we supposed to ignore the structure of that movie?

("We have to buy out the cabin... and the first class flight attendant." I know just the gal; and I'll throw in a kid, for free.)

So either he is truly awake at the end and about two years have passed since Mal's death; or he's still asleep, but has moved past staricasing memories and moved into new dreamspace. It doesn't matter to Cobb.

What matters isn't whether the top stopped spinning; what matters is that Cobb didn't bother to find out.

----

(special thanks to pastabagel for his perspective)

http://twitter.com/thelastpsych

Mel Gibson Audio Tapes: A Closer Look At What Was Said

2010-07-26T21:36:15Z

ain't we a pair, raggedy man

]]> The purpose is not to criticize either one or to place blame; the purpose is to prevent this from happening to you.

(transcript from Salon.com, with corrections made by me listening to the tapes on Radaronline.)

Tape 1: