Things that seem normal but aren't, part 5

Continuing my occasional series, "Things that seem normal but aren't"...

9. Our cultural fascinating with the concept of "The One." The concept of The One permeates so many areas of culture. Most major religions -- Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all fixated on the concept of The (Chosen) One. Sports commentators call Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, or Tiger Woods, The One. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Oprah Winfrey anointed Obama as The One. It seems like any movie which costs over $100 million to make must be focused on The One -- Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Terminator, and Star Wars are all about the search for The One. Furthermore, beauty pageants and reality TV shows like Survivor are designed to identify and crown The One.

But here's what makes all of that so weird -- anything worth doing, anything of lasting value, any truly great accomplishment, is almost ALWAYS a collective effort. Furthermore, it seems bizarre that the search for The One shows up in religious contexts because it invalidates the concept that we are ALL made in God's image and that the divine resides in ALL of us (in which case, we wouldn't really need to wait around for The One in the first place would we?) My hunch is that the reason our culture is so fascinated with the concept of The One is because secretly we all think we are the one, it's an affirmation and reflection of our own narcissism.

At the end of the day, The One, as a concept is the foundation of theocracy, fascism, monarchism, and hyper-individualism. But as animals, what makes us truly happy is connection with others, interrelationship, and collective experience. Therefore it seems to me that the sooner we abandon the concept of The One and acknowledge our interconnection instead, the happier we will be. Furthermore, it seems that shifting our focus to "the all" and collective approaches to problem solving will better enable us to build things of lasting value -- families, buildings, companies, cities, societies.

As one example, imagine if instead of spending billions of dollars every Saturday on college football (the search for The One national champion and The One Heisman trophy winner) what if every Saturday the people of every major city poured out to build (and improve) houses in the area. I know, it's very Amish, but when you realize that we spend billions of dollars on football while literally walking by people who are homeless, that's the definition of insanity.

10. The fact that apocalyptic thinking shows up in almost every generation. It seems that every time I turn around, there's another blockbuster movie about the end of the world (2012, 28 Days Later, Blindness, anything with Keanu Reeves, etc.). It makes sense to me that any generation growing up since World War I would be infused with a certain level of apocalyptic thinking -- because since then, humans have actually had the capacity to end the world with our own means.


But apocalyptic thinking goes back as far back as recorded history. The people who wrote Revelations weren't predicting the end of the world thousands of years later, they thought it was imminent. Jesus and Paul were certain that the world was about to end. Every generation has its religious gurus who predict the end of the world and it seems that they are usually able to attract a decent-sized following. The persistence of apocalyptic thinking throughout human history seems disproportionate to the size of the threat. So what explains that?

Like the point above, in some ways it seems that perhaps apocalyptic thinking is a reflection of our own narcissism. Apocalyptic thinking gives us a narrative for exploring the fact that, as time-limited mortal creatures, every generation really does experience itself as the last. It's a way to make each generation feel important, chosen if you will, the pinnacle and ultimate expression of humanity. It's a way of overcoming our own insignificance in the face of the relentless march of time.

So just to be clear, to me, the 2012 stuff seems really silly. But as I said above, since WWI we really have had the capacity for our own self-annihilation and global warming seems a credible threat to the future of the planet that merits immediate and comprehensive action.

Finally, a little antidote to the heaviness of this post. In looking for a picture to accompany this post I stumbled upon a blog post titled, "Signs of the Impending Apocalypse." It's pretty funny. [Hint, Heidi and Spencer are sign #4!]

Update #1: Another sign of the impending Apocalypse? The Booty Pop Panties commercials running on MTV right now.

Things that seem normal but aren't, part 4

Continuing my occasional series on things that seem normal but aren't...

8. How totally fucking unhappy most of us are at work. We spend 8, 10, 12 hours a day at work. Most of us are there for a reason -- a common purpose shared with others or just a common goal of wanting to earn a living to provide for the essentials of life -- shelter, food, and medical care for ourselves and those we love. And most of us are totally fucking miserable in our jobs. Employees hate their bosses and see them as selfish, willfully ignorant,and intentionally counterproductive to the mutual aims of all involved. Bosses see their employees as lazy, unproductive, unenlightened impediments to traversing the obvious path laid out in front of them. In spite of seemingly mutual aims between all involved, most workplaces are a total fucking mess.

In a four year undergraduate college degree, most students will take zero classes in management (and no, an undergraduate class in psychology is not very helpful preparation for human relations in the workplace). In an MBA program there are lots of classes on economics, risk management, and decision making but most students will take one class in the art of management at most. In teacher education programs there are lots of classes on pedagogy and curriculum, but very few classes on how we get along with others and successfully negotiate the academic politics around us. In seminaries, where our religious leaders receive their professional training, there are lots of classes in theology but few classes in management. It's really quite extraordinary that the one thing essential to our mutual happiness -- the art of people relating to people -- is almost entirely unstudied in most all of our professional training. There is a sense that most people, in their heart-of-hearts must regard the art of how we are to get along with one another as simply unknowable. But the fact is, there are techniques for how we can and should get along with each other. Some methods are better than others and all of these propositions are knowable, testable, and replicable. The fact that all managers and most employees don't spend lots and lots of time learning, developing, and perfecting these skills is really dumbfounding.

If you are looking for a place to start, I highly recommend, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone (and three other co-authors at the Program on Negotiations at Harvard). Hands down this is the most informative self help book I've ever read.

I also highly recommend Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande Even though the book is focused on how to improve workplace practices in a medical setting, I think his insights about checklists and processes could help improve both performance and satisfaction in lots of different workplace settings.

If you have other ideas for tools, techniques, and processes that you find helpful, I'd be eager to learn about them in the comments.

Things that seem normal but aren't, part 3

Continuing my occasional series, Things That Seem Normal But Aren't, I've got two more for you today.

6. The sheer volume of vampire stories in film, TV, and books. Look, I could understand if a new vampire movie came out every 15 to 20 years. But it seems that a new vampire-themed media product comes out every other week these days. Conservatives love vampires (ahem, Ayn Rand), progressives love vampires, men love vampires, women TOTALLY love vampires, old people like vampires, young people like vampires, Americans like vampires, people around the world like vampires. As a media brand, vampire rule. Which is all very odd when you think about it. What makes a sickly pale white guy who sucks people's blood compelling let alone sexy?

I gotta figure that the enduring power of vampires in our collective consciousness stems from the fact that vampires are really serving as a sort of metaphor for something else. My hunch is that vampires serve as a metaphor for the ways that men mess up women's lives and the ways in which women sacrifice their own lives for desire. As Carol Gilligan points out, for much of human history (really up until about the late 1960s) desire (eros) and death (thanatos) often went hand in hand (desire led to sexual union which led to childbirth where a high percentage of women lost their lives). Even since the advent of the pill and even with improved maternal and infant mortality in childbirth, men still seem to find ways to make women's lives messy (as Rene Russo's character Catherine said so well in The Thomas Crown Affair).

7. Car chases in movies. Even though we've mercifully escaped the era of the Cannonball Run series there are still an awful lot of car chases in movies. Which is surprising given that there really aren't that many car chases in real life. Of course there is the occasional O.J. Slow Speed Chase or various police pursuits on the freeway covered by local news traffic helicopters. But those are usually covered on the local evening news. It's unclear why someone would also pay money to see such things in a theater. But I think the role of the car chase in modern movies is not to simulate reality. Rather, the movie car chase recreates the primitive animal sensation of pursuit -- both predator and prey -- that is hardwired into our limbic system through millions of years of evolution. I think the movie car chase, even though unrealistic and foreign to our daily lives, gives us the dopamine rush and subsequent sense of relief when the danger passes that makes us feel satisfied -- like we went on an intense journey -- as we leave the theater (or as is usually the case these days -- as we hit the "open" button on the DVD remote and walk to the fridge).

Things that seem normal but aren't, Part 2

Continuing my occasional series, "Things that Seem Normal But Aren't" I've got some new ones to add to the mix:

4. Woody Allen movies. Woody Allen is a creepy old guy who literally married his own long-time partner's step adopted daughter [see discussion in comments]. Ewww doesn't even begin to describe it. So I guess it's no surprise that Allen's latest movie, Whatever Works, follows the contours of his life. The plot courtesy of Wikipedia:

Boris Yelnikoff (Larry David), an eccentric, misanthropic University of Chicago graduate and chess teacher from Greenwich Village, finds a young woman (Evan Rachel Wood) from Mississippi lying on his doorstep. He takes her in for the night and eventually marries her, despite their 40 year age difference and their clashing cultural backgrounds. His philosophy on the matter is that life is short so he might as well enjoy himself.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about Woody Allen movies is the adulation he receives from old (creepy) white male reviewers -- like this embarrassing gem from Richard Corliss at Time Magazine:

Not again, we hear you groaning. Another Woody Allen movie that propagandizes crabby old guys attracting cute young women. This is not a comedy scenario; it's a criminal offense, right? Except that in Whatever Works, Allen has taken his usual ingredients--mismatched pairings, the collision of the bitter and the sweet, an abiding love for Dixieland jazz, classic Hollywood movies and his hometown--and somehow made his freshest film in ages. After four pictures abroad, two of which (Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona) were pretty good, the 73-year-old writer-director has found new vigor and warmth in his old surroundings. Melody's perky nature rubs off on Boris and on the entire enterprise. No kidding: this is the feel-good movie of the year and a cinematic soul massage.

"Soul massage" -- riiiight. It's glorified mainstreamed pedophilia and it's just flat out weird that it passes for normal in our society.

5. Las Vegas. Imagine a mutual fund that publishes its returns and shows that you will lose at least 2% a year and will likely lose much more than that. And then imagine that the mutual fund company tells you -- don't worry about losing all that money -- it's gonna be fun!!! And then imagine lots and lots of people telling you how excited they are to invest in that mutual fund on weekends. Very strange indeed.

Even the hugely successful ad campaign, "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" -- seems an odd allusion to the fact that the "What" in question is your money -- and it will definitely be staying in Vegas. Compare the excitement of people flying into Vegas with the depressing scene of people leaving Vegas and you'll wonder why folks continue to believe that losing money intentionally is fun. Somebody is paying for those pretty buildings and all of those blinking lights and that someone is us.

Things that seem normal but aren't, Part 1

[editor's note: I've been meaning to do this post for a while. I imagine it's the sort of post I could keep adding to for years and years.]

It seems to me that there are lots of things that SEEM normal in society that, when you actually stop to think about them, are actually very very strange. Here are a few:

1. Holy Communion (aka The Eucharist). The Roman Catholic Church teaches that through the process of transubstantiation the wafer and wine are LITERALLY turned into the body and blood of Jesus -- and then EATEN by the members of the congregation. That's not a typo or a misuse of the word "literally." Catholics believe that the wafer and wine are literally the body and blood of Jesus. So that means that 1.1 billion people on the planet practice cannibalism on Sundays to honor their creator. That's some crazy shit. And Protestant communion really isn't that much better is it? "Take and eat, this is my body broken for you." Really? Did I ask you to do that? I'm supposed to eat a representation of your body to honor a decision you made without consulting the rest of us? Really? What if I would have actually preferred for you to build an army, overthrow the government, and then pass universal health care instead?

2. Cheer leaders. At major sporting events, heck even at high school and junior high sporting events (and pee wee football games!) we take the prettiest girls from the surround area, dress them in the skimpiest outfits imaginable, and have them act as public emotional fluffers for the boys/men playing in the sporting event and the partisans who watch them. That's some crazy shit. And culture is powerful enough that many girls/women actually seek to perform these roles -- the task is seen as desirable and status producing. When I see college sports, with male "yell leaders" hoisting young women up for display or throwing them in the air, I feel like it is some weird Druidic taunting of the opponent -- like 'look at how hot our women are -- you can't have them because our warrior men (athletes) are so fierce.' But really, it seems that cheer leaders are the prize that the two teams are competing for -- because everyone knows that women prefer the alpha males. Cheerleaders are like the brief case full of cash that gets put on the table in the final round of the World Series of Poker -- letting everyone know what they are really playing for. And that is really really weird when you think about it.

3. Horror movies. In our country and indeed around the world, people pay money for entertainment which consists of moving images of young women (some young men, but mostly young women) being tortured and killed in the most gruesome ways imaginable. It is considered normal to consume this entertainment with friends or even a "cool" date. And often, these brutal sadistic images are considered funny. Again, that's some really weird shit when you think about it.

That's what I got for now. I'm sure other examples will come to me. If you have any examples of "thing that seem normal that aren't" I'd welcome them in the comments.