Visceral

A Hard Hit and a Fumble
Originally uploaded by The Humanihilsocialist

I think a good picture awakens an emotion. Sometimes its the pure glee and phantom giggles we might experience with a brilliant shot of a small child. Other times it might be the damp streak left by a tear drop that causes us to hurt.

Then again, some photos are just cool.

This is especially true with sports photos. Action, action and more action is the name of the game. Split second captures reveal human bodies in flex and contorted in strange ways. Human faces are caught in moments of pain and exertion that often are comical.

This photo here did not make it into the paper. Indeed, we of the losing team do not want to remember these moments of, well, failure. Nevertheless, as I fumbled with a loaned D700 and 400mm lens, this was one of my favorite captures.

The two scenes are juxtaposed in so many ways that subtly lead to our understanding of what's going on. The quarterback "faces" the left and the team is running right. The team is up, the quarterback down, in every sense of the word. Finally, his back lies bent, his body nearly flaccid as he recovers. No. 93, however, thrusts his arm straight outward as his team scores.

We see, at once, utter loss (if not shame) and pure celebration. I think this photo comes across as both emotional and cool, as it were; visceral in its dramatic juxtaposition.

Making Pictures

Butler University Basketball
Originally uploaded by The Humanihilsocialist

I've noticed (as my interest in pursuing photojournalism grows) that photographers refer to "making" pictures. This phrase comes across the tongue in an awkward way, because I think we are often use to "taking" pictures.

Do we really take anything? I usually say that I capture things. However an image itself is a reproduction and, if it is a good one, a reproduction with an emphasis on the dramatic. Making, then, however awkward it might be, is more apt and I think is the artist's celebration of succeeding in "doing" photography.

If I put aside the words-in-quotes now, what stands? Did I take this image. Did I capture the moment and remove it from some realty? No. I produced a reproduction through which we might relive the tradition that surrounds Butler basketball.

Musings

I had a thought today that nearly rattled me to my core. I was stuck in typical Chicago traffic, reluctantly using my air conditioning due to the toxic levels of humidity in the air, and I was noticing the gas prices. $4.30 here, $4.45 there. And I realized that I was making mental notes of how the gas prices shifted. And then I realized that I knew where to get the cheapest gas. And then I thought, "Well, if I really want cheap gas I could make the 3 hour drive to Indianapolis and pick it up there." Commuting for gas? No, no this isn't good. I thought like a true American, only we would come up with such contradictory solutions to problems. Commuting for gas. Yes, the end is near.

In a brief moment of clarity and illumination I stumbled over my tragic flaw as a man and as a perpetuater of the human race. I am not a hopeless romantic. Nay. I am instead drawn to women that have attained or exude some form of maturity or poise that I have yet to attain myself (and may never attain). Its a shame. Ever the tragic optimist, though, I'm sure one day someone will come along who is mature enough to cultivate my splendid genes into some future-full proto-human.

Ironicality, anyone? I am by no means a militant nutrition junkie, but I make more healthy choices that not I think. I also run an average of 10 miles a week. I work outside and spend most of my day making sure the excrement doesn't hit the air-conditioner at my local pool. I have high cholesterol, apparently. TF??

Indiana Jones survives an atomic blast in a 1950s refrigerator. Bad ass. He also, apparently, perpetuates stereotypes of incompetent Pre-Colombian Mesoamericans. Hey! People! Before we go out of our minds and look to extra-terrestrials and Atlantians to explain marvelous works of art, let's make the logical conclusions. Just because we cannot recreate these skulls in laser-guided machines within a 10 minute window, doesn't mean its impossible. It just means we're impatient self-righteous bastards who still refuse that ever-fleeting conclusion. What was it again. Oh, yeah. Logic.

I was watching CNN in the morning, because I'm a masochist. They covered (in the utmost brevity) a story of a 3rd grader who performed the heimlich in his school cafeteria. They covered it, went to a commercial, mentioned that Hillary still hadn't called it quits, went to a commercial again, and covered the 3rd grader story again. I have never pushed an on/off button with such frustration and intensity in my life.

I'm in desperate need of one of my treasured and captivating many-houred conversations into the wee hours of the morning.

In about two weeks I'll be half a world away, in peaceful and insane bliss with a group of archaeologists, waking up to a rooster at 5:30 am and spending my day on a mountain.

Perspective

I saw a particularly gruesome and vulgar episode of South Park that raised the bar on brilliant satire. The episode was about Britney Spears and was a commentary on celebrity obsession culture in the US media today. Britney is stalked throughout the episode and blows off the top 90% of her head. For the rest of the episode she is hustled around by a 4th grader (tongue loose) to escape te glare of the media. Nevertheless, not only does the media but an entre group of people finds Britney and shines the spotlight so bright that she collapses and dies. A conspiracy is revealed in the end in which US culture is compared to Mesoamerican cultures in which human sacrafice was done peridoically. It is said that we breed these helpless (hapless?) celebrities solely to destroy them in the end and maintain order.

What I find brilliant about thsi episode is not only the brillaint commentary about how obsessed with celebrity lives we are, but the comparison to human sacrafice. The creaters disregard any notion of political correctness and call out the hideous aspects of our culture in an explicit way.

This kind of look at our culture opens the door for a self-reflexive analysis that exposes our own culture as bare as it can get. It draws connections. Suddenly we see our own ways of life compared to something that we might consider both immoral and gruesome and savage.

This came to mind earlier this evening as I read a refreshing blog about the raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints in Texas. Most are quick to make judgements about polygamy and "cults," but are these things we define as wacko notions really so different from our own? The idea of mongamy in the US is fairly debunked. Serial monagamy at best, we might say. The fact is we change partners often and often commit to several at a time (even while enveloped in this sacred institution that is "marriage"). Placing celebrities on a giant public pedistal (TV) and watching their fall is tantamount to human sacrafice. We regulalry mutilate our bodies by injecting poison into our face and chopping up are breasts to conform to culturally accepted norms of beauty. Yet we are disgusted by female circumcision. We are quick to judge Muslim religious states, yet refuse to see the strong and often violent influence of Christianity in our own political and national actions. Plenty of various states are criticized for human rights violations while we practice state-sanctioned murder (death penalty anyone?) on a daily basis.

Who is more savage?

What do we need for the future? Money, success, a democrat in the White House? No. Hope? Ha!

Perspective. We don't need to discard our ideals and practice my level of moral relativism, but we do need perspective. A perspective to understand context and continuity.

Misanthropy, Anti-Intellectualism and the State of Things

As this academic year comes to a close in a frenzy of emotion and ideas and worries and hope, few things can prove as therapeutic as some good old fashioned dissenting (that and an hour long run without regards to pace that has left me sore and literally running from a thunderstorm).

Is it ironic to live and breath anthropology, yet abound in misanthropy? Humanity. Ur doin' it wrong! My days, of late, are bipolar swings from hope and camaraderie matched by despair and feeling lost in the deteriorating state of the world. I can't handle the media any longer. From the attitudes towards the church that was raided to the fact that the 2008 campaign is focusing on a man, Wright, who has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Time's 100 came out recently. Is it any surprise that Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie appear on the list alongside the Dali Lama? Is it any wonder that TV and movie celebrities appear on the "Heroes and Pioneers" list and that there is a section devoted to artists and entertainers? Not to say that art and music aren't important things in life, but that we attribute equal levels of influence to Barak Obama, George W. Bush, Lorne Michaels and Bruce Springstien boggles my mind.

Maybe I read too much into these things. But that's what anthropologists do, we treat the media and seemingly insignificant and harmless things as valid artifacts, symbols dependent on hegemonic systems of understanding and value. With the unrelenting presence of mass media and communication it is no surprise that Lorne Michaels wields as much influence if not more than, say, Vladimir Putin. But seeing that these two men operate within (what I would consider) completely separate spheres of reality, I am worried that we form our view of the world with shady boundaries between what we see on TV and what is going on abroad.

Separation of church and state (HA!)? Let's try separation of TV and reality first.

Anthropologists have interesting perspectives, a perspective that seems strangely lost on many (for it is not difficult to obtain). We are no better than anyone else; there are systems of belief and value that I cannot escape which influence how despondent I come off from day to day. However, what I witness from many of my peers all around is saddening.

Anti-intellectualism is very real. This is not an attack on "stupid" people or religious minded folk. Educations vary widely across the nation and I have no problem with religion and faith so long as it is accompanied with as little arrogance as possible. No, this is an attack on actions. Everyday people refuse to open their minds even an inch to explore something new. We are so entrenched in what is American and Moral and Traditional that we are closed to expansion. Now, things that are new (and often confusing) are not seen as opportunities to learn and understand (were they ever?) but are simply seen as threats to our very existence and being. Everyday people refuse to make up their own minds and instead heed the calls of TV anchors, "analysts" and rich celebrities.

I'm having difficulties communicating exactly what I mean; perhaps I have grown weary from my wild run. I'll just say how I came to think of this misanthropy. As I consider my future in archaeology, I must look to graduate school. Much of my looking is dependent on the fact that I want to leave the Midwest. Climate and landscape have driven me to the breaking point. My research into archaeological theory has shown me that archaeology in the US, as with all "American" things, seems to operate in a sort of vacuum. I had an epiphany. I need to get the hell out of this country and work with academics abroad. I am by no means naive and have traveled abroad for brief and extended periods, but leaving the country for grad school brings me to another level.

I have joked about Canada and fleeing there like the hippies of yore, driven out by a draft that never came to be for our generation. But, in my epiphany, Canada became a logical idea. The type of archaeology I want to study is found in this geographic location. This option is very much on the table and appeals to me.

Then I wondered if I really am being driven out. Certainly, my generation shares many things with the flower children of the 60s and 70s. Indeed, I am positive that we are entrenched in the same Cold War ideology. We've got the war, we've got the injustice and we've got the idiots in Washington. We're missing the draft. But, I am realizing now (having found myself in many uncomfortable spots like the Creationist Museum in Kentucky) that I am not welcome in the country.

This world we have created within the United States, one driven by greed and money and religion and self-riteousness has pushed me too far. Here I am, a young man with a great group of friends and a wonderful supportive family (and a hell of a lot of potential?), distrusting humanity. It's not right. Whilst navigating our world as one does nowadays through Facebook and CNN and "the tubes" I am angered and frustrated.

I see hope though, despite my dismal outlooks presented here, deep down inside of me I am an optimist, a humanist that knows there's potential. My hope now is that I can find my higher higher education abroad and flourish in an environment that embraces intellectualism and embraces the opportunities and challenges of the world today.

Will I come back? What will the climate of US philosophy look like in 10 years? Am I abandoning my country in its time of need? I'm not sure. Will I become another statistic of brain drain? I don't know. I probably won't find a way to change the world, I just hope that I will be able to find a place in it.

Acting Out

Hope and change has been the slogan of this political year. Unfortunately, politics has inspired little hope and has instead planted seeds of despondency that the United States is on a one way path to epic failure. All aboard the fail boat!

The immigration debate has inspired such despondency within me of late. It was highlighted by a small news story that slipped under the radar recently. Absolut Vodka ran an ad campaign in Mexico in which (in an attempt to celebrate Mexican heritage) it ran the slogan “In an Absolut World” over an image of 19^th century North American, where all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains was Mexico. Outrage arose, not from within Mexico, but rather from several conservative groups and journalists in the United States that called for a boycott of the brand. Absolut apologized for its campaign and stopped running the ads; A politically correct, profit minded and truly “American” response.

This reaction is representative of the deteriorating status of Mexicans and US/Mexico relations in light of the immigration debate. All politicians are dealing with the influx of illegal immigrants into this country, but the kind of rhetoric and ideas that are being thrown around reveal a dehumanizing of Mexicans.

In this debate Mexicans and Hispanic immigrants coming from the south are referred to as problems and often as “illegals.” Some might argue that terminology is harmless, but I think otherwise. Referring to fellow human beings in such negative ways creates immediate prejudice and devaluing. As a result the identity we project on Hispanic immigrants is one centered on notions of rejection, objectification and immorality. We refer to them, not as people, but rather as amorphous entities that exist in the realm of illegality and encroachment.

The discourse of solution is not a positive one. Illegal immigration (and the millions are human beings associated with it) is referred to as a problem that needs to be rectified. Immigrants are objectified and treated as commodities as we decide their worth in our economy and culture, or as we decide which ones to ship back and how to do so. There is not talk of moving forward, only of creating stasis by cutting off the routes and purging our country of these dirty, illegal and problematic bodies that are corrupting true American values.

Stephen Colbert joked with Mike Huckabee about building a catapult along the border to fire illegals back into Mexico. The idea seems ridiculous, but his satire is not far off. It highlights the dehumanization of Hispanic immigrants. Not only are their identities essentialized to that of “Mexican” but they are considered inherently illegitimate. Whether we agree with it or not, the immigration debate has stolen the status of equality from Hispanic immigrants. We are living in a world where “freedom and justice for all” is a farce and instead, human status is determined by economic worth and genealogy.

To be Freudian for a moment, can we examine the illegal immigration debate, and responses like those to the Absolut ad, as an acting-out of some deep seated problem? I think we can. The crisis we are facing here is not one of population, jobs, culture or globalization. No, what we are facing is an identity crisis of a national sort.

We are facing many problems as a nation, namely our economy and our political reputation. As the European Union and China grow stronger our role as super-power is being contested. We are accused of anti-intellectualism. Culturally we are divided over gay marriage, abortion, religion and wealth. Every day I see hopeless efforts to establish and secure the idea of “America” and a greater number of individuals and ideas that contest such an identity at fundamental levels.

The role of the United States and our future is uncertain and possibly quite bleak. As a result we are acting out and building fences on our borders to keep out those seeking better lives. As we become ever so deeply involved in contentious conflict in the Middle East, we are troubled and take our frustration out on those illegals that indisputably have broken the law and assailed our “American” values.

This debate is not about immigrants, they will continue to come and there’s nothing we can do about it. If we were a healthy nation, we would have confidence that our economics and culture would adjust accordingly. What I see through examples like that of the Absolut campaign, is that these crises we face are more likely unhealthy and counterproductive projections of our own cultural and identity crises.

We are freefalling downward into a pit of cultural crisis and shutdown. We are so insecure with who we are a nation that we are threatened by the Spanish language. Eventually, we will end our descent and hit rock bottom. We will be confronted with tumultuous and violent conflict as we run out things to cover our problems. Shall we focus of catapulting illegals back to Mexico? Shall we continue to obsess ourselves with the lives of celebrities? Shall we fill the voids of our political lives with debates over tiny and insignificant questions and comment? Or, shall we being to look deeper and find those bugs and irks deep within our cultural being and face our problems and the world’s problems head on?

I have not yet completely resigned myself to the bleak outlook I have defined here. I still have confidence that what we need is simple change on our own parts. Instead of breeding dogma, we need to breed understanding. I hope that one day we will be known as the generation of understanding that rose to the great challenges we are facing now and moved forward.

The Media, Inside Out

Well, it's been nearly a month since I last posted. I suppose my mind has been busy for more productive purposes.

Today, I shall focus on that brilliant entity that we all love, the media. The lovely Chelsea Clinton was at Butler University (my home) last week campaigning for her mother. Many are likely familiar with the incident that proceeded, the asking of the question about Monica Lewinsky. Likely because of a slow news day, this question and analysis of the question was everywhere.

I think that we students here have had an interesting opportunity to take a fine look at the media now. We have seen a simple little question blown into a huge national topic of discussion. We were also witness to all sorts of reaction to and reporting of this issue.

I think previous blogs here have shown my distrust and utter contempt for the media. Perhaps I'll reiterate anyway: far from informing us, I think the media does more to lull us into an ignorant acquiescence, where we are at the whims of emotion and sensationalism. And sensationalism, my friends, is exactly what we had here in the few days following the Chelsea question. I will not attempt to either refute or justify the question, it was asked and that's all we can really say about it. But suddenly the student who asked the question was being interviewed all over and CNN had the best political team on television picking over these words and Chelsea's words. For what? Because we need something to clamber over, something to divide, something to provoke empty rage and sympathy.

I also have another excellent perspective. I am a member of Butler's student newspaper, the Collegian. In one small report, the Associated Press reported that the student who asked the question was an editor for the Collegian. This is untrue, and I believe the confusion arose because one of our editors appeared next to the offending student on an interview. Nevertheless, we suddenly became the student's secretaries and we received hundreds of calls and emails from all the major new organizations as well as from citizens all around the country. Some were local Hoosiers who scolded us and said that they would never send their children to such a university. Others were full of praise for the student's bravery to ask the tough question.

What we see here is threefold. First, we see how an innocent mistakes occur can cause far-reaching consequences. I might also mention that our university was named incorrectly in numerous reports of Butler College, Butler in Pennsylvania and also Ball State University. Second we see the unruly reactions that we the people have been conditioned to have. How could this one student's moment of clarity (or lack thereof) in any way reflect on the education, environment and credibility of this institution? Were this the case, we must realize and take responsibility for the actions of our dear President. We didn't elect him you say? Well, we certainly did not choose the offending student to speak for our university. I am not contenting that we shouldn't have opinions and reactions to the things we see in the media, but we must consider the source of the material and why it has come to the media's attention in the first place before we attribute great value to our reactions. Finally, I combine these two insights and learn to further question the media in every way. We have seen how details become mixed up and changed, however minute they may be. After Chelsea left campus, life went on as normal, we certainly took note of the question, but we never expected to find it on national websites within hours.

Sensationalism. From a string of 20 words grows an unruly bush of misinformation, bad reporting, over-analysis and overreaction. In this world with the web, sensationalism breeds a careless sense of urgency, where it seems that fact checking is being passed up. I've gained new perspective on how realities are created within hours, realities that often vary drastically from creator to creator, person to person, news station to news station.

Think it out for yourselves. Realize that 90 percent of what you see on TV and read on any news source is bullshit, produced with corporate, political, personal and cultural agendas. Realize that very little of what is presented as fact, can be considered any sort of objective piece of information. For instance, from all the reports on the Chelsea question, I can assertain two things. One, that the question was asked. Two that Chelsea said what was quoted. That's about all the trust I put into this sort of thing. Any conclusions I come to are my own, perhaps to be shared, but not necessarily and certainly not to fill space on a dull day on the plant earth.

Perhaps most importantly, I beg that before we become emotionally charged over travesties, breeches of decency, tales of woe and of evil, that we consider the impact of our reactions, the far reaching impacts that your comments may have on a small collegiate newspaper bearing the brunt of a nation's outrage. These are consequences I have never considered before. Share the enlightenment.