On Moral Relativism

Well, I am not going to write for a terribly long time on this topic, but I do want to put down a few things that have been rattling around in my brain for quite some time.  I also know that I have visited this topic before, but given the nature of many peoples' views on morality, it seems worth addressing again.

For the first point, many people believe they are moral relativists when they are actually not.  How can I make this assertion?  It is actually quite simple.  To truly be a moral relativist, one must not make a value judgement on any moral code adopted by any society - in a given context, majority rules is "right".  That means that the dominant moral view in a society is "good" and any minority view is "evil".  While many people can accept not judging other cultures, it is very difficult to label a particular thing (which you find reprehensible) as good.

By way of example, imagine a society that values men over women.  Women are second class citizens, forced to cover themselves at all times, are convicted of a crime if they are raped, etc.  Obviously, this is not an imaginary society; there are parts of the world that have this, now.  However, while some people might still cling to the idea that these cultures are legitimate expressions of a set of values, all but the most strident of moral relativists will be very hesitant to call these actions/values "good".  It is even more difficult to say that the person resisting this dominant culture is "evil".

A true moral relativist would have to take be able to look at a case where, say, for example, a 13 year old girl is shot on a school bus because she is vocal about educational rights for young girls, and make certain conclusions.  One - because the dominant cultural view is that women should not be educated, the young woman is performing an "evil" act by trying to change the culture, two - the person who shot her might actually have to be considered to be doing "good" because he was preserving moral order (relatively speaking, of course), and three - her continued attempts to reform the system after the attempt on her life would be similarly "evil".

It is very difficult to actually get someone who clings to the ideology of moral relativism to accept these as the inevitable conclusions of their philosophy, but they are the correct conclusions.  Of course, moral relativism has more issues, which I will attempt to elucidate below:

• If the morals are based on the dominant feeling/opinion in a culture or society, how is this determined?  Is a simple majority sufficient?  If, in a population of 101, if 51 people believe one thing is right and 50 believe it is wrong, according to relativism, the 51 are right.  What then happens if one person changes his/her mind?  Can the morality change day to day or even moment to moment?
• Most philosophers reject individual relativism, but then how many people does it take to define a moral structure?  And how many people make a society or culture?  Can a subculture hold different values that a primary culture?  And are those values then right and good within the subculture, even if they are evil in the primary culture?
• If several different groups form one culture, or one culture is made up of several subcultures, what is actually right and wrong?  Can things then be simultaneously right and wrong, if a person is a part of two (or more) "cultures"?  Since the family is ultimately the basis of human society (a point which may be open to argument, I will admit), can each family decide its own moral code?  If that is the case, and a family is started with a man and a woman, if they cannot achieve consensus on values, then what is right and what is wrong?
• What if one culture has the dominant view that conquest is good, and another holds the opposite view?  If the first culture conquers the second, is that act good or evil?  Which cultural norm prevails?  What if the two cultures have the same populations and there is no clear majority view?
• What, if anything, is the limiting size of a culture?  Is there a "human" culture, that could then dictate right and wrong on a planetary scale based on the majority belief of most humans?  If not, why not?

I could go on, but I do not feel the need to right now.  Most philosophers argue that individual relativism is untenable (I agree).  The reason should be fairly obvious - whatever I decide to do is the right and good course of action.  It cannot be otherwise.  If I make a choice, and I decide morality, then it is impossible for anything I do to be evil (unless I do something I do not want to do, but if I do it, then, at least on some level, I made wanted to - even if the choice was forced by onerous consequences of choosing the alternative; I wanted the choice more than the alternatives, so it was still the "good" choice).  Of course, this is completely ridiculous, but I believe that for moral relativism to be possible, then individual relativism must be viable as well, as it is the views of individuals that make up the cultural norms - how can individuals create morality in one circumstance, but not another?

Moreover, back to my original point, most people who cling to relativism seem to have a staunch belief in its validity.  For want of a better term, they believe that non-judgement is good.  But we then come against the crux of the issue - why is not judging other moral structures "good"?  Since it is all relative, isn't the idea of moral relativism subject to its own strictures?  That is, it can only be right if enough people believe in it.  If enough people do not believe in it, then they have to be, by their own definition, engaged in something morally wrong.

Of course, there is a flaw in my assumption - that is that the relativist believes that their opinion is "good".  A true moral relativist would probably not have this baggage (though I could still argue otherwise, and I will in a later post).  What I think is the case is that most people who claim moral relativism actually have a moral absolute, they just do not realize it.

They have a belief in the value of freedom and liberty - liberty of thought and of choice.  They feel bad for trying to force their perspective on someone else - not because of the value of the other's moral code, but because they believe it is "wrong" to impose one morality over another - it is "evil" to remove freedom.  But of course, this is an absolute statement.  One cannot have moral relativism and simultaneously hold this moral absolute.  A true relativist would have to recognize that their own beliefs on relativism would have to be relative, and that if a dominant culture emerged that believed in moral absolutism, then moral relativism would be wrong both by the dominant cultures absolutist beliefs and by the relativist beliefs as well.

I think that most people cling to moral relativism because it seems easy and comfortable - freedom is important, and relativism gives an excuse to value freedom without much baggage of the difficulty of making moral judgements.  In addition, they misunderstand the idea of moral absolutism as meaning there are no shades of gray - I would refute this hypothesis: just because there may be things are right or wrong does not mean that some may be more right or less wrong.  All moral reasoning is more sophisticated than that.  Lying may be wrong, and saving someones life may be right, so how does one assess lying to save a person's life.  Even if you believe in absolute rightness or wrongness, these nuances are not eliminated.  The problem is that moral absolutism has become (wrongly) connected with religious zeal and/or fanaticism - the two are not identical, but I would think that a lot of the cultural disposition to opposing of judgements is in opposition to the perceived judgementalism of the religious zealot.

Coming down to brass tacks, I believe that moral relativism is a vacuous and slip-shod philosophy that attempts to cover up people's own insecurity with the two actual options - either there is an existing morality that is (to some greater or lesser extent) absolute, or that morality is simply a fabrication and there is no actuality in the ideas of "good" and "evil".  Moral relativists seek to avoid the nihilism of the latter choice but end up with a fatuous and ridiculous philosophy that ultimately makes no sense.   

Right vs. Good?

Yesterday, subergoober texted me and mentioned that he wanted to ask me some questions about doing what is right vs. doing what is good, so I want to briefly address some of this.  I don't know his particular question, but I do have some thoughts on this issue in general.  Once I talk to him, I will probably have more to write.

My first thought is that the question, on its face, is something of a misstatement.  I would say that right and good are self-referential (they are not necessarily synonymous, but they are closely related).  I would say that the right thing to do is a good act, and good acts are the right thing to do - they are terms which inform and define one another; as I said, very close to synonymous.

A much more interesting question, however, and I think that this is what supergoober may have intended with his question is "good vs. necessary".  Of course, implicit in this question is the concept of the "necessary evil", an idea that I have used in previous arguments/justifications for certain things, but one which, of late, I have come to feel is quite weak and can be used as a justification for almost anything.  As a result, I do not believe that the idea of "necessary evil" is a tenable position to defend.

However, there are many necessary acts that are morally neutral, and, in fact, some acts that are "evil" are less evil or even morally neutral given context.  In fact, much of morality is not about the actual act, but about the context of the ramifications and of the intent behind the act.

For example, many religions view sex outside of marriage as wrong.  In fact, there is a lot, generally, of interest in sexual ethics.  The actual sexual act is not the moral concern (even at the heart of the Catholic religious teaching - I am Catholic, by the way - the essence of the teaching is not actually about the sex act), rather the impact it has on the people involved.  Sex can be morally good, morally neutral, or morally evil (in my opinion).  When it serves to enhance the relationship between two loving individuals, when it deepens the relationship, when it is mutually expressive of love and it brings those two people closer in their relationship, then it is a moral good.  When it is simply two consenting individuals meeting for mutual physical gratification of a need or perceived need, it is morally neutral (though I would argue that this situation is extremely rare - people do not come in to sexual encounters with equal power, with well-identified and conveyed intentions, etc.).  When it sex is solely for one of the partner's personal gratification with no care to the other person, or when it is done to establish control or power over another, or when it is done to demean another is when it is morally evil.

(Side note - this is not to say that a committed, loving couple cannot engage in behavior that would appear demeaning to others when viewed out of context; rather, if the behavior serves to strengthen the loving relationship, it is appropriate and good)

If an act becomes necessary (for example, if the act is compelled) - it ceases to have moral implications, in effect becoming morally neutral.  For example, if I were to tell you that if you don't steal a loaf of bread, I will kill your wife, you would have little option but to steal the bread (a lesser evil than the taking of a life) or somehow stop me by restraining, injuring, or even killing me (again, done in the service of preserving a life). 

You may have noted that I remarked that one thing was "less evil" than another.  While I do believe that there is an absolute morality (that is, there are things that are unequivocally right or wrong), but that does not preclude gradations.  It is entirely possible for things to be more or less right or wrong under this structure.  Most people erroneously believe that belief in an absolute morality precludes gradation; it does not.  Stating that there is a right answer does not mean that there aren't lesser right answers, better wrong answers, and completely wrong answers.

In a non-moral sense that allows for visualization of this, consider the equation

x² = 9.  The correct answer to this equation is positive or negative 3.  A slightly less correct answer would be positive and negative 3 (a subtle set distinction in math).  Answering 3 is partially correct, answering 4.5 is kind of wrong (dividing instead of taking the square root, but still applying algebra), answering 0 is patently wrong (just a guess, but still in the realm of mathematics), answering "tomato" is about as wrong as you can get.  

Just because there is a right answer does not preclude gradation (the essence of partial credit in a classroom).  

As far as I am concerned, morality is essentially based on the impact on the lives, feelings, and spirits of people (basically how it impacts people emotionally, intellectually, and physically).  I have not fully thought this out yet, but the worse impact you have on a person (or persons, including yourself) the more evil it is.  Obviously, this culminates with taking a life or lives (though I am sure I could potentially conceive of a way to come up with something more evil without taking a life).  Some people would argue that I am missing out when I do not specifically address the world, or the environment, etc., but I would argue that there is a moral obligation to uphold the environment to be able to allow other people the positive experience of beauty, as well as to be able to live in a healthy, life-affirming, and positive way.

Again, this seems to be somewhat relativistic in that I base it on the impact on human beings; however, I believe that there is an absolute positive or negative impact on people whether they realize it or not.  Take, for example, a person who routinely engages in meaningless sex with strangers for physical gratification.  I would argue that this person may be satisfying a physical need, but may be damaging themselves and their partners emotionally.  If the acts serve only to make them more base and less "fully human" (that is fully expressed as an intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual being) then they are doing something evil - both to the other people involved and to themself.  There is a moral obligation to any human being, including yourself.  

More forthcoming later...  

I Am Back, One More Time

 So here I am, one more time.  I think this time I will be able to maintain a presence a bit longer than the last foray onto the internet, as I have been laid up because of a car accident.  No martial arts, going out, or really doing much of anything except going to teach and coming home to read and watch crappy TV.

So, hopefully, I will find enough things to write about, that I will continue forward with this.

The first topic I want to address came from a conversation with Supergoober.  He was mentioning some things about cultural relativism that both he and his girlfriend had been speculating about.  In many ways, she ascribes to some form of cultural relativism - because there are so many different expressions of morality across cultures, it is difficult to imagine that there is one possible right answer to moral questions.

I do not agree with this perspective.  I do believe that there could be (and is) an absolute morality.  Whether it is actually possible to know this absolute morality is debatable (and I would argue that it is likely that the absolute morality is unknowable), but just because cultures exist that have different interpretations of morality is not sufficient evidence that there is no moral absolute.

A brief aside - I teach math, and suppose I assign a problem, x² + 7x – 18 = 0.  I don't even want to tell you the number of ways that I have seen a problem like this done incorrectly.  Am I therefore to assume that there are that many ways of doing the problem, and that there is no actual correct answer. 

Of course, most people will agree, even if they don't know how to do it, that there is a correct answer (or in this case, answers).  There are lots of ways of getting a problem wrong, and the more complex the problem, the more possible wrong ways of getting it wrong. 

This is called "Descriptive Relativism".  Just because we can describe a lot of ways that cultures have defined morality does not mean that there is actually more than one "right" way.  Descriptive relativism does not preclude an absolute morality.

Of course, descriptive relativism does not preclude cultural relativism either.  There are a number of other issues that I have with cultural relativism, but the description above was just to establish that it is possible for descriptive relativism and absolute morality to exist in the same realm.

There are aspects of cultural relativism that defy common sense, and others that defy logic.  I should probably address these two topics separately, but in all likelihood I will not.  I am writing things as they come to me, so I will probably end up mixing the two, as that is the way I think. 

But as a brief aside, we might contemplate, "What about individual relativism?"  Most philosophers simply state that individual relativism is an untenable premise.  If every individual can construct their own morality, then there is no possibility of anyone ever being wrong.  Since each person decides their own morality, ever action they take is right, and if they later regret it, it is simply a matter of their personal morality has changed.  The reason I will actually look at individual relativism is because it contributes to cultural relativism.  If cultural relativism is correct, individual relativism must (at least in part) be valid.  

The reason I contend this is that cultures are made of individuals.  A culture can only establish a morality based on the opinions of the individuals in that culture, therefore, individuals actually determine the morality of a culture.

While this may seem overly simplistic, I think that it is a very important fact - if the culture determines its own morality, then the individual members of that culture must be participants in the creation of the morality.  That means that for cultural relativism to exist, individual relativism must also exist.  

More on this later...  

I am getting a little tired. 

Superbowl Sunday

So I am going over to supergoober's place to watch the game, and frankly, I am more excited about last night's UFC than I am about today's game. BTW, I don't know the results from the fights, but that is neither here nor there.

I am looking forward to hanging out with a couple of friends and BS-ing for a little bit. Frankly, I don't know what more to write about, but I wanted to just start writing something, and I don't know what.

Oh yeah, just thought of something. McDonald's is going to eliminate ammonium hydroxide from its meat processing. It apparently uses the caustic chemical to kill pathogens and make food that would otherwise only be useful in dog and cat food available for consumption by people (this is according to the newscast I heard on KCBS this morning).

The broadcast continued to state that the chemical is used in cleaning products and homemade explosives (as if this shows how dangerous and bad it is for people). The broadcast concluded that since it is used in a step in a process and is removed, it is often not listed as an ingredient, so people trying to eat well don't know that it is being used.

First, the stupid "news piece" is laden with bias. I don't know a ton about the process, but basically, a step is grinding up beef trimmings and treating them with ammonium hydroxide to kill e. coli. There have been no links to hazards from ingesting the beef treated this way (from the chemical, anyway). The real risk, and the one the FDA is beginning to be concerned with is that there are a number of e. coli outbreaks that are potentially linked to this. This is because the e. coli is not killed, not because the chemical caused it. It may be grounds for stopping this process because the process is ineffective, not because the chemical is dangerous.

I can list a chemical that huge numbers of people consume on a regular basis that has similar qualities and has, in fact, been know to cause deaths of consumers who indulge in the products in which it is used. In fact, some less scrupulous manufacturers will add more of this substance to a product just to increase the potency of there products, while others go through a variety of physical and chemical processes to have this included in their product.

It is also used as a base for many cleaning agents, has know carcinogenic qualities, is highly flammable, can be used to make homemade explosives. It is also well know that it is highly toxic to humans and ingesting sufficient quantities will inevitably be lethal.

Of course, I am talking about grain alcohol. All of what I said above is true, and yet there is no movement to ban the stuff. In fact, at my niece's confirmation party yesterday, a friend of my brother was spouting about the "pink slime" that was "ammonium hydroxide additive" all while sipping away at a beer. In fact, the majority of his argument was based on how gross the pink slime looks, and this is a common persuasion tactic used by the people trying to stop the process.

In fact, ammonium hydroxide is not pink - it is a pungent smelling, caustic, whitish, crystalline salt. The pink slime is the munged up ankle meat and tendon and blood of a cow that is mixed with ammonium hydroxide. It is not pretty, and it probably does not smell good. But if you look at food preparation in general, this is often the case, even for natural or "organic" food. Try watching (or smelling) the making of "organic" cheese (or even regular cheese). There are times when the cheese looks like puke and smells like sweaty feet and excrement combined. It is not a pleasant process. Same with beer making. Just because a process isn't pretty doesn't make the outcome bad.

I am not trying to defend the process; honestly, I don't know enough about it to say whether it is or is not terrible. I would like a little less scare tactics in a news report, however, and also I would like to not have to put up with idiots at parties.

Actually, the guy was kind of nice, and not really an idiot - he was some sort of an engineer (actually, he said "sort-of, engineering" when I asked him if he was an engineer). But, like most people, he had formed his conclusions and wanted everyone else to see how smart he was, so he talk about how acidic this stuff was, and how acidic that diet soda was - it would eat away unlined aluminum cans so quickly - like 2 weeks - if we did not have organic inner linings on the can. I mentioned to him that the stomach lining regenerates every 3 days, his retort was that this was causing that to happen more quickly. I told him I had been drinking diet sodas for 20 years on a daily basis and did not have a bleeding ulcer yet, so I would continue what I liked (I was quite a bit nicer and more personable than this, actually). I also happened to have mentioned earlier in the conversation that ammonium hydroxide was caustic, not acidic, and his reply was "whatever, I'm not a chemist".

If you are going to spout stuff, please try to get it right. Also, he failed to note that they coated the cans with "organic" compounds - that is carbon containing compounds, not the incorrect "Green" usage of the word. This is because metals are vulnerable to the oxidation-reduction reaction much more so than many organic chemicals. He also said that sodas will make the stomach "way more acidic" - wrong again. Your stomach is a buffered system at around a pH of 3 to 4. Diet coke has a pH of about 3.4. When you eat a large (non-acidic) meal, the pH of your stomach drops close to 1 to break down the food. People who suffer from acid problems in there stomachs are having problems with their own system releasing more acid than there stomach can handle; it is not usually that the food, itself, is too acidic. The other problem is a sphincter issue, where the sphincter at the top of the stomach doesn't close properly and stomach acid splashes up the esophagus (causing "heartburn"). If the acid was as dangerous as they say, your mouth and throat would be burned. Take a mouthful of soda and leave it in your mouth. See how long it takes before your mouth gets "burned" by the acid.

Also - pH is logarithmic, so the acid in your stomach after a heavy meal (let's say 1.4 pH) is 100 times more acidic then the 3.4 of diet coke. So stop getting your panties in a twist, everyone, and don't get your panties in a twist about the phrase "panties in a twist", either.

Okay, So I Am On 2 Days in a Row

This is what happens when you get 3 days off from teaching and don't feel like correcting tests. Actually I just want to spark up the old writing chops again, so I hope one or more of my friends reads this.

And I didn't really know what to write until I just wrote that second sentence. There was one person who would always read this; whether or not he agreed with it, fully understood it, or even cared about whatever topic on which I was musing. He would always read it and often comment, and his comments were always kind if not always supportive (not that they should have been supportive, when we differed in opinions, I am glad he felt comfortable enought to voice his opinions).

If you haven't guessed, I am talking about Steve T.

It is approaching a year since his death, Feb 6, 2011, and I find myself thinking more about him as I write this. I am not going to sugar coat anything, nor am I going to pretend that I was always close with him - that would be disrespectful to him and to his memories. If you remember our interactions, Steve T. often got on my nerves. He was not an intellectual powerhouse, but that is not what bothered me (although his tendency to speak from authority on subjects that TrackMan (I can't remember the moniker I used to use for him, but he's the guy in our group that loves to take his car to the track and is not supergoober) believed in irritated me.

What bothered me most about him was based on one of the things that I find most praiseworthy about him; a thing that I cannot say about many other people (myself included) and something that is quite rare and remarkable in this world. The thing that bothered me most was his hero worship of TrackMan. I don't want to offend you TrackMan, and I don't think this will - but particularly at the time you tended towards the misogynistic, hump-em and dump-em lifestyle. I know this is a gross oversimplification, and I don't want to get into it here, but steve t. idolized you.

That infuriated me. Here's why.

Steve t. was a genuinely nice guy. If you know me, I don't say this about many people and I mean it as high praise. He was kind to everyone he encountered that I ever saw or heard about, and I can speak from personal experience that he never expressed anger at me despite the fact that on many occasions my frustration would boil over to a point where I would lash out and be insulting to him. He would always take it with good nature and aplomb. I would occasionally apologize, and he would always say that it was no big deal, that I didn't need to worry about it, and that he didn't take it too personally.

And for my sake, I hope that this is true, because I already feel a lot of guilt over this, and if I really did hurt him in any more than a superficial way, I would feel really terrible. I can make all kinds of excuses for my behavior - most of which are true, but none of those invalidate the fact that I hurt him on a number of occasions and he was someone who did not deserve to be hurt that way.

And this all goes to the reason I did not like his hero worship, though I did understand it. He would echo TrackMan's opinions like they were gospel and seemed to live vicariously through his sexual conquests. Steve t. did not need to idolize someone like that - he was a good man in his own right. It would have been just as bad if he had idolized me - a self-righteous, intellectual elitist who is very vulnerable and wounded at the core. I know why he would idolize someone like TrackMan - he embodied the self-confidence, the personal savvy, and the charm that most of us do not have. Steve found these qualities desirable, and who wouldn't so I don't blame him for that.

I just always wished that he could recognize how good a person he was in his own right, and that he did not need to live through anyone else. And rather than simply tell him that, I would lash out at him, and it is a sign of my own shortcomings and not his. I had been trying not to make those mistakes from my younger years again, and I clearly made them again with steve t., someone who never deserved it, and I am still trying not to make the same mistakes.

And I hope that somewhere steve t. can read this or notice these thoughts, and he can understand that I am really truly sorry if I ever caused him pain - he did not deserve it.

And while this may also seem somewhat of an indictment of TrackMan, it is not intended as that. I want all of you to know (not that any of you will read this anymore) that I value each of you for who you are, and that I do not want to see any of you come to any harm, from yourself or anyone else.

And by way of excuse, I suppose, that is what I wanted for steve t. as well - I just never had the courage or decency to come out and say it, but I will say it now.

If I get mad at you for something, it is because I care enough about you to not want you to get hurt, and I will do my damnedest to actually say that rather than just get mad at you. I will see you all tonight, and again, steve, wherever you are, you are in my prayers.

And I guess I should change the title, but I don't think I will, because that is where all this started.

Frivolity with Fast and Furious

And Additional Alliterative aaah-crap I can't think of an A word for musing

Was watching some news today about the Eric Holder stuff, and I have been giving it some thought. There have been very few (to my knowledge - I admittedly haven't researched it) repercussions for the Fast and Furious debacle in the DOJ. A few people reassigned, some ATF field agents reassigned to desk jobs (which makes it look more like they're being kept quiet then being disciplined - that is how it would look to a casual observer, myself included), not much else.

Holder is not terribly forthcoming (but who would be given the typical grilling one gets by congress - very supportive by your supporters, very antagonistic by your antagonizers - why should that be surprising), but the lack of anyone getting fired really is causing him problems. Virtually everyone in a position of power has a sacrificial lamb that they throw under the bus at this point (to carelessly mix metaphors) or at least a devotee to fall on his sword - yeah, 3 death metaphors in one sentence.

That is why it seems that we are left with one of two options - either Holder is the first ethical man in power, unwilling to let heads roll to take the heat off of him (doubtful) or he doesn't want to fire someone who could potentially implicate him.

Occam's Razor forces me to choose the latter option since an honest man in a political position is rarer than ... I don't know what, honest political figures are my bellwether for rarity - I usually use them to compare rarity of other items, like a mint condition Alpha Black Lotus.

The real problem is that I find it unlikely that he knew nothing, in which case he lied to Congress, and if he did not know, then he is incompetent (ignoring reports to him) or not in control (just never notified). None of those are good options. Considering the emails that have gone around with the words "gun walking" or the like, it is unlikely that he knew nothing of guns being allowed into the hands of criminals.

And before anyone uses the "Bush Administration did it too" argument, I'd like to point out a couple of things:

• First, one administrations mistakes does not give the next licence to continue those mistakes (yeah, yeah, two wrongs don't make a right). If it did nothing would ever change, we would still have slavery, wage controls, price controls, no income tax, the Vietnam Conflict (dare-I-say War), etc., etc., etc.


• Second, there are quite a few differences between the policies - Operation Wide Receiver was a monumental failure and was cancelled as I will detail below.

Differences between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious:

1. Wide Receiver installed RFID chips in the guns so that they could track and arrest gunrunners before the guns got into the hands of the cartels, Fast and Furious had no protocol for monitoring the guns electronically.


2. Wide Receiver never intended for guns to cross the border but still alerted Mexican authorities to the potential, Fast and Furious intended for the guns to cross the border and never alerted the Mexican government (putting Mexican government agents at risk). One could argue that the level of corruption in the Mexican government makes this a bonus for Fast and Furious, but anytime you are having a law enforcement effort that actually crosses a border, you should alert the other country.


3. Wide Receiver was stopped by the ATF when it proved a monumental failure (the cartels took steps to deal with the RFIDs) and prosecutions still resulted - it was stopped in a relatively timely fashion and did not require a whistle blower or a death to occur, while Fast and Furious, well, we all know when and why that stopped, and no one has been prosecuted because the ATF seems to have lost track of the guns sold.

There would not be as much furor had the program been stopped before the death (there still would be anger, but seeing that the program had been recognized as faulty and stopped first would likely have mitigated much of it). 400 guns got away in Wide Receiver, 2000+ in Fast and Furious. The real problem was the intent - the former never intended guns to get into Mexico, it was to find the straw purchasers and the people for whom they purchased. The latter targeted higher ups in the cartels (a laudable goal) but at significantly higher risk (intentionally putting guns into the hands of criminals on a semi-permanent to permanent basis). A basic risk analysis seems to say that the latter option is a bad idea, especially if you have the previous experience (wide receiver) from which to learn.

So, Is Hollywood Bereft of All Ideas?

I just saw another commercial for the movie "Real Steel", and I cannot help but wondering about the inspiration for this film.

To me, it looks like someone really loved the game of Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots as a child and then and tried to make a movie of it. What's next, a movie based on G'nip-G'nop, or the action thriller in a theme park where a cop chases a fugitive through Chutes and up Ladders? How about "Saw VI: Escape from the Connect Four Puzzle"

So many movies that are out now are just remakes, or poor ideas - there are plenty of good novels to make into movies, there is creativity out there, but because of the structure of Hollywood is such that movies have to make money. I do not begrudge that aspect of Hollywood - the "churn and burn" style of film-making where you have a weak plot idea, a lot of money, good effects and mediocre but pretty actors and actresses are what gets butts in seats. But have more than a thin veneer of a plot, please.

Michael Bay is the perfect example - why does Hollywood keep letting him make movies? Because his movies make money, and not in the way you might think. Most people use this Hollywood proclivity to bash the anti-intellectual middle-American, but big movies make most of their money on the international market. The international (and particularly European) markets love this stuff. Their cinema does not have the money to produce the effects that Hollywood does, and much of Europe does not allow much action or violence on television, so violence in American film is driven by European demand as much as by American demand.

People like to blanket condemn America because we get addled at any depiction of sex, but are totally fine with violence. To get to the truth of it all, you have to dig a bit deeper. We have prohibitions about sex and violence on TV, and yes, sex is more taboo, so we see more violence on TV, and more sex in movies (which is why American audiences love European cinema - lots of naked Europeans, who cares about plot). Europe is the opposite. So in many ways, our respective film industries are giving us and the foreign markets what we want.

I will not brand either the American or the European consumer with any labels for liking this stuff - to the majority, a movie is an escape - something about which you do not have to think, that you can just go and get washed away in the visual imagery, whether that is violent or sexual or artistic or all of the above. They want an escape not an analytic experience. This is fine, and there is nothing wrong with it.

I just would like filmmakers to endeavor to something more - put a good movie together with great visuals.

(Warning: the following example sounds condescending and nasty - it is not. I am not trying to say the majority of film viewers are children, and I am like the adult. Just look past that and see the heart of the analogy. Two things can be simultaneously targeted at different audiences - this is the best example of which I could think)

Old Warner Brothers cartoons are the perfect example (and it has been done in many cartoons since - Rocco's Modern Life, SpongeBob Squarepants, and the Animaniacs are just a few). The visuals and some of the jokes are targeted at kids, while there is a subtext that only adults will get. The subtext does not distract from the kids experience, and the kid stuff doesn't detract from the adult's experience. In fact the kid's stuff usually enhances the adult's experience because of the whimsy and nostalgia.

It has been done well and successfully in films before: District 9, Aliens, Harry Potter, Serenity, and many others. Formulas make financially successful films, extending beyond the formula can achieve greatness in the box office and in an artistic sense. I just wish people in Hollywood would try a little harder.

In all honesty, Real Steel might be fantastic. It may have a great story and be much more than I have given it credit for. I honestly have no idea, because I only know what I saw in the commercials. But those commercials crystallized for me a number of thoughts that have been rumbling in my head for quite a while, and I suppose I should give it credit for that inspiration as well. The advertising seems to scream superficiality, and while it may have great depth (and I hope it does and I am wrong) they are advertising it as if it doesn't.

And I suppose that is fine, too. People who go see big escapist fantasies want the stunning commercial to say that this is an escape that you want. Since that is the majority of the film-going public, they have to advertise this way. If there is a plot, the rest of us will hear about it and go see it for both the plot and the escapist visual fantasy.

I am not judging the escapist fantasy - even those of us who want something more complex are looking for an escape, just one into story rather than into visual imagery. Neither one is particularly better, but because I like the one style better, it frustrates me that there seems to be so little of it, when just a little effort and risk could make both groups happy.

Thanks for listening (radio, anyone - I suppose this was the same argument that was made by people critical of radio programming at the dawn of the radio era, and the same argument as the radio advocates made of TV, so I am just as bad as Hollywood - I am just recycling old arguments)

I guess it comes down to the simple fact: 90% of everything published is crap. Myself included.

And I am lucky if 10% of my ramblings aren't crap.