Doomsday Schmoomsday

Hearing lots of talk lately about preppers and the reality show on the National Geographic Channel called “Doomsday Preppers.”  I suppose it’s crass and unfair to mock or criticize a show I’ve only heard of and never actually watched, but, knowing that the Florida statutes against crass unfairness are pretty weak, I will surge ahead.  And, after all, how seriously am I supposed to take a show that apparently refers to an upcoming “Doomsday?”

I’d like to know first of all what do the preppers expect is going to bring about Doomsday next week, or at some other specific point in the foreseeable future.  There are those, of course, who fret about economic collapse, and we did have an almost-collapse at the end of the Bush administration and a real collapse in 1929.  But neither of those scenarios brought about “Doomsday.”

Or could it be that preppers are expecting climate change to do us in?  Certainly we have suffered catastrophes in the face Katrina and Sandy, but each of these was local in its effects and neither came close to a Doomsday worthy of the name.

I notice that preppers talk about being “off the grid,” which, I gather, means living without the support of such vital utilities as water, electricity and HBO.  I actually can envision a catastrophic breakdown of utilities, but again, such breakdowns in the past have been localized and always temporary.  We have never come close to seeing the power grid for the entire country go dead as a doornail leaving us at the mercy of the elements for weeks, let along months or years at a time.  In fact, to my knowledge, such a thing has never happened in any country, ever.

So, if Doomsday scenarios based on past experience seem so unlikely, what is it that motivates the current prepper movement?  I think the main factor is the American obsession with (and delusion about) individualism, an obsession which breeds among some citizens a longing to feel they are in control of their own fate.  Of course, we are not in control of our own fates.  The one thing that has characterized humanity over the past 500,000 years or so is our super-sociality, that is, our absolute need for cooperative interactions with others.  This need and the complementary drive to assist compatriots in need are features of human nature that not even our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, share. 

We are nothing if we are not deeply and thoroughly embedded in the thoughts and actions of our fellow Homo sapiens.  So what’s the point of imagining that in some not-too-distant future we will be thrown back on our own individual resources, forced to produce our own food and provide our own power and plumbing facilities?  In the final analysis, whatever fate awaits us, it will surely involve our continued negotiation of relationships with our neighbors, and with those institutions, including government, that seem to survive no matter what disasters befall us.

Doomsday, in other words, is no more reasonable a scenario than was the Y2K collapse that was supposed to accompany the turn of the century.  But like the Y2K obsession that gripped so many Americans back then, the current prepper fantasies are nothing more than delusional notions about self-reliance and a “you’re-on-your-own” worldview that ignores the fundamentals of both human nature and human history.  For most preppers, I strongly suspect they also include a bonus idea along the lines of, “I’m smarter than most of my fellow citizens, and when the Great Collapse comes, they will have to admit this when they see how I am prepared and they are not.”

After a quick search on the web I came across a site called Backdoor Survival that included a recent post titled “11 Important Skills For Preppers.”

This posting was revealing to me.  I was surprised, for example, that the author, Gaye Levy, refers to the prepper survival scenario as likely to be temporary.  Under the Perseverance item (number 4 on her list) she writes that “[Perseverance] will allow you to focus on the future – and hopefully better times – rather than staying stuck in the moment when all may not be perfect.”

In other words, Ms. Levy’s notion of Doomsday, is that its effects are likely to be temporary.  It really will be a Doomsday or Doomsmonth, not a Doomscentury or Doomseternity.

Also interesting is her reference to “the community.”  Under Basic Fix It Skills (8), she writes that “Plumbing, welding, electrical and general carpentry skills will always be in demand and will give you a marketable skill that will make you valuable to the community.”

So now I’m finding it harder than ever to grasp the Doomsday concept.  If your basic prepper sees herself as dealing with electricity and welding equipment in the context of a community, what is it that has vanished in the Great Collapse?  The mayor?  The police department?  The school board?  But not the commercial distribution system that gives one access to welding equipment and electricity-generating equipment along with the fuel and spare parts to maintain them?

At any rate, here is Ms. Levy’s list of 11 important skills for preppers (minus their elaborations – which can be found on the Backdoor Survival website):

1.  Interpersonal Skills

2.  Problem Solving

3. Home Arts (e.g., cooking, food preservation, sewing, sanitation)

4.  Perseverance

5.  Frugality

6.  First Aid

7.  Gardening

8.  Basic Fix-It Skills

9.  Defense  (“Whether you choose a stun gun, pepper spray, a knife or a firearm, get to know your defensive weapon well so that you can defend what is yours in a safe and sane manner.”)

10.  Compassion for Others

11.  Know Yourself

I would say that all of these skills would be useful in a variety of situations, Doomsday-related or not.  

And finally, I have to confess that I am impressed with the cheerfulness with which the author envisions us facing Doomsday, as evidenced by the following picture which she includes with her posting:

       Just cuz it’s Doomsday, doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves


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Outrages on Personal Dignity

Kathryn Bigelow, the director of Zero Dark Thirty, wrote the following: “I think Osama bin Laden was found due to ingenious detective work. Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn't mean it was the key to finding Bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn't ignore.”

Bigelow is no fan of torture and, in fact, as her Los Angeles Times essay makes clear, she is fundamentally opposed to it.  But did her film inadvertently help promote it?  Popular movies do have their effects on the public imagination.  Witness the way in which Gone with the Wind promoted a heart-warming view of plantation slavery and Juno made teen pregnancy seem cool.

Steve Croll, in a terrific piece on Zero Dark Thirty in the New York Review of Books points out that Americans have grown more comfortable with torture in recent years.  Stanford scholar Amy Zegart attributes this change in attitudes, in part, “to the influence of ‘spy-themed entertainment.’”

Zegart is referring to shows like the TV series 24 in which torture is portrayed as vitally important in saving America from catastrophic terrorist attacks.  But torture is not crucial to our well-being, and shame on the 24 writers for making it seem so.

Croll goes on to argue that Zero Dark Thirty is problematic because it may influence the public debate about torture by virtue of its “distorted contribution.”

I think Croll is correct.  Though I have to admire Zero Dark Thirty as a work of dramatic art, I believe it will all too likely help fix the idea in American public opinion that torture was useful and justified in the hunt for Bin Laden, when its usefulness is clearly debatable and its justification even more so.

Even if torture was helpful in finding bin Laden (and remember, a number of knowledgeable insiders say it was not) we should not, in my opinion, resort to it.  Better that the scruffy, bearded 9-11 mastermind had lived to a ripe old age watching video porn in his dank Abbottabad hideout than that our country should besmirch itself with waterboarding and the beating of helpless captives.

Let’s just say that we have faced more dangerous forces in our past than anything presented by today’s Al Qaeda-type religious fanatics.  Abraham Lincoln dealt with the greatest threat our nation has ever encountered and yet he did not feel it necessary to torture Confederates in order to preserve the union and end slavery.  Nor did Eisenhower tell his underlings to torture captured German soldiers in order to defeat Hitler.  If these threats to our nation were met without sanctioned torture, why should it be so damn essential to us in our fight against nutcase losers like Osama bin Laden?

Some people (former Vice President Dick Cheney, for example) claim that torture is as American as Honey Boo Boo and just as lovable.  Of course, the kinds of beatings, waterboardings, confinement to coffin-like boxes, being stripped naked and hung from the ceiling by one’s wrists for hours at a time portrayed in Ms. Bigelow’s film are not, Mr. Cheney insists, torture.  They are, to use CIA parlance, merely “enhanced interrogation techniques.” 

I wonder if Mr. Cheney ever pictures himself or his loved ones being interrogated in such an enhanced manner.  My guess is no, the only ones he imagines will ever be subject to such techniques are people who he thinks deserve it: terrorist suspects, Iranians, Palestinians and Democrats.

There are, we should note, prominent officials in the U. S. government who are vehemently opposed to torture and they have made their objections known to Cheney and company.  Most notable of these are Senators John McCain (himself a victim of torture) and Dianne Feinstein.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit combatants (or anyone else) from inflicting “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”  So I have a question for Mr. Cheney and others of the Bush administration who seem so enthusiastic about using their “enhanced interrogation techniques.”  When you all advocate waterboarding captives, the placing of them in narrow boxes for extended periods, etc., do you tell yourselves that you are not doing anything that could be considered “humiliating and degrading?” I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you need to face facts: to normal Americans your very existence is both humiliating and degrading.

OK, I’m not really sorry to be the one to tell you that.

Even if torture does work, decent people should oppose it and so should Dick Cheney.  And, though I congratulate Ms. Bigelow for having made a compelling film, I object to her film’s implication about the usefulness of torture and am concerned that it will strengthen the hand of those who want it to become a permanent part of “the American way.”

On Not Taking Humor Lightly

In view of my longstanding interest in humor, I was intrigued to see that today’s NY Times referenced “the first-ever United States symposium on the artificial intelligence of humor” organized by computer scientist Julia M. Taylor et al.  Well, I say it’s about damn time.  Humor, after all, is no mere laughing matter.

I want to acknowledge up front that not everyone shares the same sense of humor.  For example, at a conference last fall, I managed to crack up the group at my table with this bit of hilarity: A colleague named Murray was complaining at some length about spending time at a hotel where a Chinese family, the Wongs, were having a major event.  “Well,” said the exasperated Murray, “wherever we went, we were told, ‘The Wongs have reserved this room -- these hors d’oeuvres are for the Wongs -- the Wongs will be using this area, etc.’”  To which I responded, “Jeez, Murray, you were at the Wong place at the Wong time.” At this, the entire table burst into laughter.

But, when I related this hilarious incident to a spouse and daughter (who shall remain nameless), the former responded with a combination head-shake and eye-roll, and the latter by saying flatly, “Were these Dads at your table?  That sounds like a Dad joke.” 

Rodney Dangerfield, now I understand you.

Anyway, my research into the functions and bases of humor recently included the reading of a fascinating book by Hurley, Dennett and Adams called Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind.  But this book, interesting and thought-provoking though it is, does not quite hit the nail on the head in my opinion.  One point I did get from it is that the actors involved in humor always include humans or anthropomorphized entities.  I had never thought of this before, but I am convinced that it is not only true, but very significant.  It emphasizes that humor is above all a social construct with a social kick.

These authors review some of the major theories of humor including the release of tension theory, the incongruity theory, and the superiority theory.  Of the factors these theories highlight, the most crucial, I believe, are incongruity and superiority.  Other points, like the release of tension, may sometimes be relevant, but, it seems to me, that virtually every humorous situation includes either something incongruous or an occasion to feel in some way superior to a victimized individual.

My favorite joke from the entire book can illustrate this.  Here’s a version of it:

Eight-year-old Johnny and six-year-old Jimmy were about to go downstairs for breakfast when Johnny says to his little brother, “Say Jimmy, I think it’s about time we started cussing.  So at the table this morning, I’ll say hell and you say ass, OK?”

Jimmy happily assented to his brother’s plan.

So, when they sat down at the table, their mother asked, “What will you guys have for breakfast?”

“Sure as hell, Mom, I’ll have some Cheerios!” says Johnny.

At this, his mother grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, threw him over her knee and walloped him five or six times.  Then, dragging him upstairs, she threw him into his bedroom and slammed the door.  Finally, she stomped downstairs, sat back down at the table and said, “So, what will you have, Jimmy?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” said Jimmy, “but you can bet your ass it won’t be Cheerios.”

OK, so here we have it.  There are incongruities between Jimmy’s innocence and his rough language, between his focus on the issue of Cheerios rather than cussing as the source of Mom's anger, and, finally, between the expectation of self-preserving compliance vs. blatant defiance in his response.  We also have the victimization of poor little Johnny and, perhaps, of Jimmy as well.

The authors of Inside Jokes emphasize the incongruity feature of humor at the expense of the victimization or “superiority theory.”  And, though I agree that incongruity may be the single most important factor in humor, I’m not willing to discount the superiority aspect as these authors do.  I can’t imagine how people find America’s Funniest Home Videos amusing without acknowledging the importance of superiority/victimization.  I mean, we all see the idiot attempting to jump his bicycle over the muddy ditch, we know what’s coming, yet all too often we laugh at his disastrous splat when it comes anyway.  And how do groin shots manage to evoke laughter year after year?  I’m expecting that an archaeologist will someday find a cave painting depicting a Megaloceros butting a Neanderthal in the groin while a gang of Cro-Magnons stand around laughing.

My main problem with the theory of Hurley et al. is that it gives too much weight to the cognitive payoff of having an incongruity resolved as the main driving force behind humor -- and even as the main explanation for the very existence of humor.  With apologies for oversimplifying their position, I suggest that they make a mistake by not recognizing the importance of humor’s social function.

If we are going to explain the universal existence of humor in human societies, it seems to me the best way to do so is by noticing the way in which humor functions to define social relationships, either by cementing them, as when individuals share a laugh, or by specifying or denigrating outsiders as in the case of satire and mocking humor.  A theory encompassing these functions has room to accommodate both the importance of incongruity (as when two people share a perspective on an issue, sometimes by resolving an incongruity that reveals a heretofore unspoken truth) and superiority, when the butt of a joke takes it on the chin or some other anatomical area.

Related to humor is another human phenomenon, slang, which not only often incorporates humor, but which, like humor, is very often employed either to strengthen a social bond or to distinguish in-group members from outsiders. 

I have to stop here, given time's winged chariot, etc., but allow me to offer a couple of pictures for your consideration as I go:

  

This tree is not at all funny, but I took a picture of it during my morning walk because I  thought it looked very cool. 

This tree, however, is hilarious - it has a palm frond stuck in its branches.  Ha, ha, ha!  What a stupid tree!

Science in the Pulpit

Senator Marco Rubio sees himself as a strong contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.  Okay, let me pause here to apologize to all those weary souls who think (not unreasonably) that it is way, way too soon to be talking about the 2016 presidential election.  Nonetheless, please forgive me as I continue to pursue this topic. 

The senator’s image of himself as a future contender for the GOP nomination no doubt accounts for his double talk about the age of the earth in his recent GQ interview.  For those who missed it, here’s an excerpt:

GQ: How old do you think the earth is?

Rubio:…I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

                                     Senator Rubio

As a number of commentators have pointed out, the age of the universe is not a great mystery.  It is no more a mystery than is the distance of the sun from the earth – about 93 million miles.

I say this with utter confidence despite the fact that, like Senator Rubio, I am not a scientist.  Okay, I am a social scientist, but I still know damn little about astrophysics.  What I do know is that there are thousands of scientists who specialize in solving these sorts of “mysteries,” and they long ago determined how far the sun is from the earth, and how old the earth is: 4.54 billion years.

You don’t have to be a scientist to know these things; you simply have to have paid attention in your sixth grade science class and be willing to speak simple truths even when they are likely to infuriate the religious fundamentalists who make up a big chunk of the GOP’s base. 

So, I have to conclude that either the senator dozed off hundreds of times during his middle and high school education and missed a lot of basic information about how the universe works, or he’s planning to run for president.  I leave you, Gentle Reader, to guess which it is.

Of course we still have to face an important underlying question here: are we going to continue teaching our children science as part of their education?  Senator Rubio implies that we should periodically disrupt the teaching of classroom science in order to allow various nonscientific religious notions to be presented to our students. 

Science teachers, as well as quite a few other citizens who are stubbornly insistent about keeping our children connected to reality, object to the idea of offering religious teachings in the science classroom.  Things could get quite nasty around this issue if we don’t find a way to deal with it.

Fortunately I have the perfect answer to this perplexing problem.  All we need do, whenever a fundamentalist preacher insists that religion be taught in the classroom, is to balance this by having science teachers explain evolution, astrophysics and other scientific fields during the fundamentalist’s Sunday sermon.  What could be more fair and balanced than this?

This fairness principle could even be applied to televangelists like Pat Robertson.  I would certainly be willing to watch his program if his biblical sermons were to be reliably followed by scientific explanations with their “alternate theories.”  Let’s say, for example, that Reverend Robertson is sermonizing about that brutal, blood-drenched day when Joshua (10:13) commanded the sun to stop in the sky so his minions would have enough daylight to continue smiting the enemies of Israel and, as the Bible explains, placing their feet upon the enemy kings’ necks, then slaughtering them and hanging their mangled corpses from the trees.  (Joshua was not, apparently, a big fan of diplomacy.) Okay, immediately following the reverend’s inspirational sermon on this biblical passage, an astronomer from, maybe, the University of Virginia could take over the podium for an equal amount of time and explain, with illustrations, how it is impossible for the sun to stop in the sky, how, in fact, the sun doesn’t actually move through the sky, and, really, isn’t this something you would expect God to know?

Joshua: Stop the sun!  I've got some smiting to do here.

A sermon about Methuselah -- who, according to the Bible (Genesis 5:21-27), lived to be 969 years old – might be followed with a biology professor’s lecture on telomeres and their role in the aging of our chromosomes.

The story of Noah could be balanced with an explanation of the food chain and the need for a lion to eat more than a few zebras or wildebeests if it’s going to be on an ark for forty days and forty nights.

                                       What's for Dinner?

Etc.

I anticipate endless possibilities here, and I don’t see how anyone with a basic sense of fairness could possibly object to this plan.  So, let our motto be Religion in the Classroom Means Science in the Pulpit!

Problem solved.