Revenge Embedded in Culture and Media, Banned by Law

Revenge is popular at the movies. Liam Neeson has practically banked his career on revenge flicks after starting out as a “serious” actor in Schindler’s List, Michael Collins and other Oscar-worthy films. More actors have jumped on the revenge bandwagon such as Sean Penn and others:

Revenge Movies Offer Mythic Middle-Aged Protectors

Revenge is one of the oldest human emotions and drives stories even from ancient times. It is a primal urge to right a wrong and see a villain get his/her comeuppance. In olden days, taking the “law” into one’s hands was the only way to get justice as there was no law nearby or available. But with the advent of the industrial age and the rise of crowded urban areas, governments asserted their power and frowned on revenge as it was extra-legal and out of the control of elites and the powerful. The function of modern law is not necessarily to achieve justice or enforce ethics and morality, but rather to keep a lid on things on society. Keeping the peace and harmony of society is the paramount value, as how else can business and capitalism function? But by removing revenge as a tool of getting justice, many people feel powerless and project onto the film screen to live vicariously through the vengeance-taker.

Revenge can be seen as a moral imperative; that is we must get justice on a wrong-doer otherwise that person will commit wrongs upon others. The psychopath must be taken down a notch to know they cannot get away with their damaging actions with impunity. There are many things that are perfectly legal, but are not ethical, and therefore there is no legal recourse against someone who knows how to skirt those lines (and it’s not hard either). Twitter and other social media can ban revenge porn postings:

Twitter Takes Steps To Combat Stolen Nudes And Revenge Porn

But it’s not going to stop it. Wronged people will find a way to get revenge, and if it’s not through posting nudes of someone on Twitter then they will find other sites or other methods. With no legal outlet for getting justice, don’t be surprised when people become outlaws to get the satisfaction of a balanced and just order. In the meantime, they will continue to flock to revenge movies to satisfy their primal desire vicariously and then manifest motivation to get revenge in their real life.

What does it mean to “love” America (or any country)?

A few days ago former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said that President Obama does not love America in the same way that he does. It was a fascinating comment that, of course, the media jumped on creating its usual noise with no substance so let’s be better than them and look at this comment a bit closer. Giuliani says he loves America, but what does that really mean? What does he really love? Is it the culture? The culture of America is so variable and wide that it’s too hard to pin down. Perhaps he’s just being selective to the parts he likes (baseball, opera, etc.) as Giuliani doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would like gangsta rap or rodeo. Nothing wrong with that as everyone has their cultural preferences but the point is that American culture is writ so broad (which is a strength), that I don’t think he could be referring to the culture since there is no one American culture. Is it the Constitution? As a former prosecutor, he’s certainly a law and order type, but Obama was a constitutional law professor (adjunct), so I don’t think Giuliani was making that distinction either.

My guess is that Giuliani wasn’t really referring to “love” of country and just chose the word incorrectly to express what he really meant. Giuliani believes, whether we agree or not, that the US should be much more aggressive and in front fighting ISIS and terrorists around the world, and he believes that Obama is not taking the fight to them directly enough. By Obama not taking the fight in such a direct and visceral manner, Giuliani believes that Obama does not love America like he does. And I use the word “visceral” because Giuliani pointed out Obama’s cool manner when discussing ISIS, and his emotional response to Ferguson. Giuliani believes that Obama’s handling of ISIS and terrorists is not only not strong and tough enough to show that he “loves” the country, that is, going on offense directly to protect the defense of the continental United States, but also that Obama simply isn’t angry and outraged enough. Giuliani believes Obama should be more emotional in his speechifying on ISIS and terrorism to demonstrate a true love of the United States.

When to be project logic and rationality, and when to project emotion and anger is the issue between them.

Will We Enter a Digital Dark Age?

One of the ‘founding fathers’ of the Internet, Vint Cerf (co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocols), warns that most of the data being saved today in the cloud, USB drives, hard drives, discs, etc. will be inaccessible in 100 years due to advanced technology of the 22nd century making today’s technology obsolete. The 21st century will become a dark age due to all the data being lost.

Vint Cerf Warns of Digital Dark Age

Certainly a lot of data was lost during the transition from 3.5 inch floppies to CD-ROMs, and, yes, I know this from personal experience. But many of us learned that lesson and have become better stewards of our digital files, regularly backing them up and transitioning them from one new technology to the next. Surely some data will be lost along the way like a crumbling cookie, but it will be mostly the careless and ill-planned who will lose their digital past. Yes, technology available 100 years from now will be completely unusable with today’s ports and drives, but most of us who are responsible will make the necessary transfers along the way.

As for public data on the web, the Way Back Machine at Archive.org already copies and stores most well-known websites today. Researchers in the 22nd century will be able to see how Yahoo! looked in 1996 until its inevitable demise this century. On the marco level, so much is being archived that little will be lost. On the micro level, many individuals will lose their digital history but that will be their own fault for not preserving their past. And, in a sense, this is no different as it has ever been with failure to store film photographs and/or paintings in cool places and out of direct sunlight. The method of preservation changes, but ultimately it’s the human will and foresight that determines whether it will be saved for posterity.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150218_Vint-Cerf-Warns-of-Digital-Dark-Age.htm

Advertisements as Content on the Front Page of Forbes Magazine

We know the slogan of Forbes magazine is that it’s a capitalist tool, but putting advertisements disguised as content on the cover might be taking that concept a bit too far:

Ads, Editorial, It’s All #Content

Print magazines are desperate to generate revenue any way they can as ad dollars from agencies and companies increasingly chase new media outlets, but disguising an ad as content is a bridge that no large, mainstream media outlet has crossed before. Readers should be able to delineate clearly the difference between an ad and content. The latter is generally perused, while the former is scanned. The utility of a magazine decreases when the two are conflated as it confuses the reader. Perhaps this is a just a death knell for Forbes magazine. Though I never regularly read Forbes, it’s always had a nice nostalgic note for me by cracking the fabrications of Stephen Glass the fabulist at the New Republic in the late 1990s. Jukt Mirconics forever!

The death of print magazines is sad as it is a print medium I still enjoy reading. I like the convenience of flipping through the pages of a magazine as paper/ink than as pixels/slides on an iPad screen, or as a bunch of links on a website. But if print magazine’s path to survival includes ads disguised as content, then you can count me out.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150217_ads-as-content-on-forbes-magazine-front-page.htm

David Carr’s Boston University Syllabus

As the final Media Equation column with David Carr, the New York Times discussed and put a link to his Boston University journalism course on Medium.com:

David Carr’s Press Play Syllabus on Medium

As someone who has done some university teaching in the US and abroad, I was impressed at how Carr’s syllabus was content-rich with little fluff and tedium, and its attractive presentation on Medium.com (not as a Word doc or PDF). At other universities I have taught, a template is provided not only for the syllabus format, but even much of the content is already provided. There is little ability to make the syllabus one’s own personality, and looking at Carr’s (whether you liked the content or not), it definitely had his personality. When I was an undergraduate, my favorite professor’s syllabus was never more than a page. It had his name, office location, course reading list, brief research paper description, and exam dates. He was also a bit of an anarchist who believed a good university only needed three things: great teachers, students and library (everything else was superfluous and beside the point). Homogenization is the byword of university education today with little room for personality, innovation or creativity. Education as bureaucratic tedium, with accreditors setting up phony assessment tables and charts to “prove” that students are learning is the norm. The students might be passing the tests (which they are taught to pass or set up to pass), but they have little passion for learning. The course and professor are simply obstacles to pass on the way to a degree and a job, and university gets the money from students who cannot default on loan repayments.

Maybe because of Carr’s star power, he was able to write the syllabus and teach the class the way he thought it should be done. Maybe behind the scenes, the BU journalism program rewrote and formatted his syllabus to make the accreditors and assessment administrators satisfied, but in his classrom Carr was presumably able to teach… truly teach. And his students were surely better off for it. If students want better teachers and a valuable education, then they need to “vote” with their wallets and go to schools that value inspired teaching and service. Unfortunately, those are very few, until students demand better.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150216.htm

One Gaffe on Social Media Will Cost You Your Job

Modern life is unforgiving, and social media only exacerbates this harsh reality. People have always said stupid things, but now that one stupid thing can cost you your job:

Justine Sacco’s One Stupid Tweet

What Sacco said was stupid, insenstive and offensive, but the question should be asked whether this one tweet was truly reflective of who she was as a person. Was this part of a pattern of stupid, insensitive things she said, or was it a one (or two) off, shot from the hip, while waiting in the airport. We are under constant pressure to sling snark because others find it funny and will like and follow us more. Sometimes the line of public proprietary gets crossed, and then a person is pilloried for bad taste, insensitivty, racism, etc. If you haven’t realized it by now, this site positions itself as reasoned argumentation in irony to the connotative meaning of the site’s address moniker. But at some point, no matter how careful, something will end up getting written that will offend someone in some way that not have been anticipated. And then jobs will be lost because of it. One of the most horrendous examples from the article is the guy making an off-color sexual joke about dongles at a tech conference, and then a woman takes it upon herself to take his photo without permission and outed him as a misogynist to the planet. He promptly lost his job, and then so did she. Companies are wimps that fire employees who stray even a bit off the line into the slightest whiff of controversy. These companies should be boycotted as they are chilling the speech of everyone who works in them by firing employees who make one mistake in their private life.

The problem is that all our different selves at home, work, shopping, school, have become conflated for everyone to know every single facet. The joke Sacco told was meant for her good friends, but it spread globally because it is much more difficult to keep our private self under close wraps.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150215.htm

The Other Side of Revenge Porn

Most debate on revenge porn (when an ex posts nudes of a former significant other, usually a girlfriend) centers around the guys who do it being jerks and the women who consent to have their picture being taken and/or sending selfies being foolish and getting just desserts. But there are a couple other ways to look at the issue.

First, revenge is one of the oldest human motivational needs, and today a plethora of Hollywood movies are based on this ancient thirst. It is no surprise in a culture steeped in revenge-storytelling that many people would like to get even as well. One reason people seek revenge is they have no discourse within the framework of the legal system. If you buy a $10,000 diamond ring for a woman as an engagement promise, she doesn’t legally have to give it back if she breaks it off since it was a gift. Ethically she should return it since she’s not keeping her promise, but she is under no legal obligation to do so. When a relationship goes sour, the one leaving can oftentimes make out like a bandit with money and items milked from the victim over the years, and they do not have to be returned or remunerated. And this says nothing of cheating and adultery, which are both legal but judged as unethical (and even immoral) by most. There is simply no legal remedy for those who come out on the wronged side of an ended relationship. This is one of the primary reasons why revenge porn exists.

Second, revenge can be seen as a moral imperative. If someone wrongs you, then you must seek retribution. To do otherwise, would make you a weakling who meekly got abused and never stood up for oneself. In addition revenge serves a deterrent effect. That is, if a psychopath goes one relationship after another abusing others by cheating, lying and theiving, he/she may think twice if one of the victims gets sweet revenge. It is morally imperative to punish the transgressor since failure to do so will mean the psychopath will accrue more victims until someone stands up to him/her.

Revenge porn may seem tacky and even abhorrent, but it might also be the only way for some to get a measure of justice not available in the legal system. Pass laws against it if you like, but it won’t be going away anytime soon unless you want to make cheating and adultery punishable under criminal law again.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150207.htm

Firestorm Over Brian Williams Not Being Under Fire

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has come under fire from critics for claiming to be under fire in Iraq over 10 years ago when in reality he was never in harm’s way. His original report from the field was accurately reported, but over time his story became embellished into a tall tale with his chopper coming under serious enemy fire. There are a number of amazing things about this story and the brouhaha now surrounding it. First is that the story of making up a sotry took so long to come out in public. The military guys in the chopper with Williams left notes to the news media that the story being told by Williams was completely untrue, but the guys never got a call back. That’s just lazy journalism not following up a lead, disrespecting the guys in uniform for not being credible without even interviewing them, or simply protecting a fellow reporter. Take your pick, they’re all bad looks for the news media.

The second fascinating issue was Williams’s horrendous non-apology. He made the situation worse by not coming clean and just saying he embellished a good story into a great one by putting himself into the action environment first-hand. Of course, that’s a stupid thing to do, but at least understandable from the perspective of the human proclivity for self-aggrandizement in the public eye. Instead Williams said he conflated the two events over time: that is, within his mind, his location moved from the chopper that arrived with no damage and no combat to the one that arrived half an hour earlier with a significant combat engagement. It would seem either he is lying (knows what he is saying is false but is trying to come up with an excuse that he believes will absolve him), or he is quite delusional. Either one reflects poorly on a man sitting in the anchor chair with the ad slogan of “being the most trusted man in news.” Generally, I am against calling for someone’s head when they make a mistake and own up to it, but when you don’t come clean and just obfuscate further, then you lose my sympathies. Williams just doesn’t belong in the anchor chair any longer and should be reassigned to another duty within the NBC organization.

Originally posted: www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150206.htm

Former NFL Star Loses Job Over Solicitation Arrest

Retired NFL star Warren Sapp was arrested for soliciting a prostitute and misdemeanor assault in Phoenix after covering the Super Bowl for the NFL Network:

Ex-NFL Star Arrested on Prostitution Charge

Prostitution should be legal. Two consenting adults exchanging money for a service should not be illegal. It’s an absurd waste of taxpayer money and police resources. Prostitution should be legal, regulated, taxed and zoned. Critics say prostitution is demeaning work so it should be illegal. But cleaning toilets is demeaning work but it’s legal. Trafficking is bad, which is why the work should be regulated and licensed. Agency should not be taken from adults to choose a line of work they desire. There would be less violence and sexual assult if prostitution were legal as men would then have a legal and safe way to release their pent-up sexual angst and aggression. The misdemeanor assault charge against Sapp is troubling, but it sounds like a minor scuffle, and not an NFL style tackles. And he denies it any case. The NFL Network is cowardly to fire him before the courts pronounce a verdict. Presumably Sapp was doing fine in his job, having worked for the network since 2008. It’s easy to fire an employee immediately upon any minor transgression. It would be brave if they stood by him in this difficult situation to ascertain what really happened through due process. Unfortunately, with the glare of the mass media spotlight, companies fire first and ditch due process. So much for the admonition about being the first to cast stones…

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150205.htm

Super Display of Passivity Day

As the media drills into us, today is Super Bowl Sunday, the television event that draws the largest audience of the year in the United States. Personally haven’t watched it in years for a number of reasons:

1)Football got boring to watch. There is hardly any action left on the field, and it is continually stopped by the referees for penalties.

2) There are too many injuries as the players have become such hulking behemoths crashing around like titans destroying each others’ bodies. Mean Joe Greene would be a puny guy today.

3) Not allowing celebrations after a good play has taken the gusto and fun out of the game. Gastineau’s silly quarterback tackle dances were fun to watch.

4) The announcers and commentators, particularly when Fox took over, became so over the top with theatrics and shouting along with swooshing graphics and music that it became unbearable to watch. Give me the class of Madden and Summerall back.

The game just wasn’t much fun to watch anymore. And then you start to question why I am sitting on a couch watching a game that used to be fun to play actively. Get together with some guys (and gals) and have a game in the sand, snow, grass, etc. Play tag if you don’t trust others to tackle gently. Sitting down and watching others play is the road to a passive existence of witnessing a spectacle on the viewscreen. Instead of watching others play the game, play the game yourself. It’s more fun, healthier and interactive. Stop living a passive life and leave behind spectator sports to live your own life’s narrative actively, not vicariously through a imagined viewscreen.

Originally posted: http://www.mccarthyism.com/2015/20150201.htm