40’s movies marathon – part 16

Sieg Im Westen (1941, Germany) – The story so far: Germany has successfully defended itself against Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France, and somehow finds itself in control of Western, Northern and Central Europe. Now if only some stupid fuck doesn’t go and invade the Soviet Union, nothing can go wrong. Anyway, this is a movie for and by war nerds. No I don’t want to know how they captured that fortress in Holland. Watched: 26 minutes.

‘Pimpernel’ Smith (1941, UK) – “In Nazi Germany, nobody can expect to be saved by anybody!” boasts the spokesperson for the Ministry of Propaganda as he dismisses rumors of a modern-day pimpernel who rescues scientists from Germany. Nazi stereotypes from during the war suffer from a lack of imagination. They’re just small-time crooks, mean and stupid. Watched: 7 minutes.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941, USA) – An over-eager Angel of Death fetches the soul of boxer Robert Montgomery before his time. As compensation, he gets to do the Quantum Leap thing, jumping into bodies to make things better. This could be enjoyable if the main character wasn’t so retarded. Watched: 32 minutes.

Sergeant York (1941, USA) – Gary Cooper is a violent drunkard. But Jesus and the Great War will no doubt sort him out. Watched: 18 minutes.

Stukas (1941, Germany) – No subtitles, but the message seems to be: Our wholesome and cheerful pilots, when the time comes, for the Fatherland their lives joyfully sacrifice will. Watched: 4 minutes.

Er evolusjonspsykologi kontroversielt?

Av og til blir jeg overrasket over samfunnet jeg oppholder meg i. Så som når Dagbladet inkluderer evolusjonspsykologi i en serie om en ny kulturkamp i Norge. Her snakker vi altså ikke om den bombastiske stråmannsdarwinismen som tror at alt ligger i genene, men om å akseptere evolusjonære faktorer i psykologi og sosiologi, i tillegg til de kulturelle.

Er dette virkelig kontroversielt i Norge i dag? Jøss. Hvorfor?

Jeg pløyde gjennom mange popvitenskaplige bøker om biologi for noen år siden, bl.a. Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, og jeg kan berolige alle som er bekymret med at det ikke er noe å være redd for her. Det er bare vitenskap. Mye av det er ordentlig interessant, noe er politisk relevant, men det snur ikke opp ned på noen ideologier.

Blindern-professor Inger Nordal siteres på at “om vi var så genetisk programmerte som sosiobiologene hevder, ville vi måtte frikjenne for eksempel voldtektsforbrytere, for «de kan jo ikke noe for det».”

Men det er det jo ingen som mener. Det er lett å begrunne straff uten å forutsette at gener er irrelevante. Men selv om det ikke var det: Blir en vitenskaplig påstand uriktig, bare fordi den kan ha konsekvenser du ikke liker? Hva skiller dette standpunktet fra kreasjonisme?

Harald Eia lager en NRK-serie om evolusjonspsykologi. Det trengs tydeligvis. Men dette har ingenting med kulturkamp å gjøre. Det er bare vitenskap.

En oppfordring til politikkbloggere

Jeg skrev tidligere at jeg i år skal drive en ortogonal valgkampdekning. Hva betyr det? Det betyr at jeg ikke skal la mediene sette dagsorden. Noen saker får tilfeldigvis mye fokus, andre får lite. Er vi uheldige drukner sakene helt i kontroversielle hendelser. Noen sier eller gjør noe dumt, og så snakker vi om det i ukesvis, til tross for at det betyr lite for neste Stortingsperiode.

Men jeg ønsker heller ikke å la sinte politikkbloggere sette tonen. Valg bygger på debatt, men debattene vi får er ofte verdiløse. Folk er mer interessert i å lime skjellsord på Fienden enn i å formulere ideer. Blåbloggere slenger dritt om Sosialistene, venstrebloggere om Høyresiden, (og alle slenger dritt om FrP). Men hvem er i stand til å beskrive hva de står for uten å gjøre det i motsetning til en Ond Ideologi Som Vil At Vi Skal Ha Det Fælt? Derfor nevner jeg partiene jeg er helt uenig med så lite som mulig i år. For å vise at det er mulig.

Vi har aldri tidligere hatt så mange bloggere som skriver om politikk. La oss gjøre noe ut av dette. Min invitasjon til politikkbloggere er derfor: Kom bli med, vær ortogonal og irrelevant du også. Sett din egen dagsorden. Plukk ut egne saker å skrive om. Når mediene kjører seg fast i en skandale, eller politikkbloggere i en flammekrig, bare gå rolig videre.

Jeg tror ikke bloggere får betydning for valget i år. Men la oss se på dette som trening foran neste valg.

Valgkamp 2009 – Skole

Jeg lurer i blant på om formålet med skoler i stor grad er å ha et sted å plassere barna mens de venter på å bli voksne. Skoler gir viktig kunnskap og felles kultur, men ut over det gir de oppbevaring. Jeg husker det iallefall slik.

Kanskje må det være sånn, men jeg vil ha mer eksperimentering inn i skolen. Jeg vil at entusiastiske lærere skal ha frihet til å prøve ut nye måter å undervise på, akkurat slik jeg selv har frihet til å påvirke min egen jobb. Jeg vil ha skoler med ulik fokus, enten det er at de følger en bestemt utdanningsideologi, at de har opptakskrav for elevene, eller at de vektlegger bestemte ferdigheter ut over det grunnleggende, så som musikk eller realfag.

Da trenger vi en objektiv standard for skolekvalitet, i form av nasjonale prøver. Vi trenger fritt skolevalg for foreldrene. Og vi trenger private skoler som stiller likt med de offentlige, hvor pengene følger eleven.

Dette er vanskelig, og det vil medføre ulemper. Men det kan neppe bli mye verre en situasjonen i dag, og det kan gjøre ting langt bedre.

Høyre står for mye av dette, men det er FrP som kommer nærmest, med en klar støtte til likestilte private skoler. I denne saken lander jeg altså på:

Tidligere i denne serien: Uaktuelle partier, miljøvern, samferdsel, narkotika, kultur og utenrikspolitikk.

Better to fight your wars with duct tape

From the moment when, in the first episode of Burn Notice, Michael Westen solved a problem with duct tape, I was hooked. The show is a sexier version of MacGyver, with many of the same plot formulas (“Hi, I’m your old friend who you haven’t seen in ten years and I need your help, and we can’t go to the police! Please go con some Miami drug dealers for me!”). There are fewer ingenious mechanisms, and more conning and spying, but the spirit of the macgyverism is preserved, down to the educational voiceovers. It’s all very stupid, and fun. And it has Bruce Campbell in a supporting role.

So I watched the first season two years ago, and then I tried watching the second season last year. It just didn’t work. I hated it. I gave up.

Now I learn that the third season has started, and I think: Why did I stop enjoying that stupid macgyverish show? And I realize what happened. I watched most of the first season in the summer, and the second season in the fall. There’s something about summer and stupid fun shows. I think it’s the heat. It makes you dumber, so you don’t mind that all the episodes are the same.

Right now we’re at the end of a week-long heat wave here in Oslo. My apartment is a greenhouse. So I started up an episode from season 2, and .. hey, this is fun! I like this! Does that prove my theory? We’ll see when the heat ends.

Until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable

“I’ve been meaning to read this one,” the clerk at the bookstore says when I buy Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. That’s unexpected. It feels like a secret handshake. Perhaps we’re both members of the underground society of people who find that the classics of the libertarian tradition are relevant, not as infallible guides but as a source of ideas, a default to make carefully justified exceptions from. “Everything should be free, except..”

Some of the arguments in this 1962 book feel contemporary, such as when Friedman discusses the pros and cons of voucher-based education, or the side effects of license-based occupations. Others do not, such as when he argues against anti-discrimination laws from a purely economic standpoint. The achilles heel of much libertarian philosophy is that a policy may be economically inefficient, but still worth doing for other reasons.

What I admire here is the search for policies that are more compatible with freedom, and work as well as or better than policies that rely on compulsion. That search should be kept alive.

Personally I find Hayek more relevant today than Friedman. Friedman is an economist, Hayek a philosopher, whose ideas about information and complexity in an economic system are subtler than Friedman’s practically oriented “the market could do this better”-arguments.

Still, anyone who wants to be politically relevant today must be familiar with both these and other thinkers of the liberal and libertarian traditions. (At the very least it may help you to avoid embarassing strawman mistakes.)

40’s movies marathon – part 15

Dumbo (1941, USA) – Hey, this is brilliant! Not because of the story, but because of all the perfect scenes and details on the way. This is how Disney conquered the world, (after declaring their intentions with Fantasia.) Watched it all.

All Through the Night (1941, USA) – The gangster movie is dead, but the corpse is shambling along as a parody of itself. This time it’s gangsters vs nazis. Oh brother. Watched: 12 minutes.

Two-Faced Woman (1941, USA) – Sleaze-bag rich guy Melvyn Douglas meets, gets skiing lessons from, and marries, Greta Garbo as Ninotchka, all within 8 minutes. Watched: 8 minutes. IMDB verdict: “They fool around on a dance floor!!!!!” (Count the exclamation marks.)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941, USA) – It’s ironic that this story has remained so popular, while Victorian morality hasn’t. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is Victorian morality. Keep your emotions under the lid, or you’ll release your lustful inner beast. But then, doesn’t all horror reflect old-fashioned morals? Anyway, it’s a good story, and I like that Spencer Tracy doesn’t play Hyde in silly monster makeup. Watched it all.

49th Parallel (1941, UK) – Hey America, look! This war of ours can come to your front steps as well! How about giving us a hand, eh? Watched: 15 minutes.

Horrible, evil music

Oh god, I had forgotten that this horrible horrible tune existed. You may have, too, but misery is better when shared.

Richard Clayderman – Ballade pour Adeline

This is one of the most idiotic, pretentious songs ever made. I hates it, I hates it, (and like it).

Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street

It’s not just this track, I hate everything about OK Computer, that truly great and truly awful album. To me, OK Computer stands for everything that’s wrong about people, in general. Whenever somebody says “well, people aren’t so bad”, I reply: “Then how do you explain OK Computer?” And that settles it. Among this album’s many crimes, it inspired Coldplay.

Radiohead – Fitter, Happier

To prove I don’t live entirely in the past, here’s a song I heard from a cellphone the other day. I play it here in the hope of preventing it from becoming some sort of monster hit that eats everything in its way.

Alexander Rybak – Fairytale (Cthulhu version via Dodofuglen.)

But never mind whether you deserve the attention

Seth Godin talks about promoting ideas and products by standing out and finding a “tribe” to lead:

Via Raymond M. Kristiansen, who finds this inspiring in his political activism.

I’m ambivalent. On one hand, Godin is no doubt correct that this is a good way to do marketing today. Stand out, be noticed, even at the risk of failure. Aim to be loved or hated by a few, avoid being merely tolerated by the many. Don’t be “very good”, be brilliant or terrible. Safe is risky.

On the other hand, this is just yet another variation on traditional branding, and how is that supposed to inspire us? Stand out .. by placing your product in a clever way at the store. Be noticed .. but never mind whether you deserve the attention.

Good marketers are always at the forefront of mass psychology. Instead of copying the masters of manipulation, we should ask: What does it say about me that this is how I’m being marketed to? Is that who I want to be?

I imagine a world where everybody listens to Seth Godin, and it depresses me.

Godin asks us to change the world. For me that change involves not being afraid of being boring, if that’s what the message deserves. It involves doing things that are genuinely new and genuinely worth doing, not repackaging worthless things in a more noticable way.

This desire is exactly what marketers today are trying to manipulate. And for that, I despise them.