It’s easy…

It’s easy to call yourself a Liberal.  It’s harder to be habitually generous.

It’s easy to call yourself a Conservative.  It’s harder to conserve, preserve and transmit the traditions that you love.

It’s easy to call yourself a Democrat.  It’s harder to respect the beliefs, viewpoints and experiences of your entire society.

It’s easy to call yourself an environmentalist.  It’s harder to plant a tree.

It’s easy to call yourself a pacifist.  It’s harder to be a peacemaker.

Labels are easy.  Actions are hard.


Man of Steel

Last night some I saw Man of Steel with some friends, and was reminded why I don’t go to the movies very often.

It’s not that I’m opposed to entertainment, and I certainly enjoy hanging out with the guys every bit as much as any other introvert with social anxiety and Aspergers, but I found myself very impatient with the movie.

man-of-steel-poster-1

Having to sit through 25 minutes of skin care commercials didn’t start things off well.  They were interspersed with trailers for upcoming movies dedicated to the twin proposals that (a) the quality of a story is directly proportional to the number of explosions and (b) violence is always the best way of addressing social problems.  I work hard to minimize my exposure to commercial messaging, so I don’t particularly enjoy being a captive audience.

As to the movie itself, Man of Steel had it’s good points, but these were spread thinly through two hours of rapidly re-focussing camera work swooping through exploding CGI landscapes.  I feel that something has gone wrong with the art of storytelling when witnessing an entire tower block collapse induces deja vu rather than awe, because the exact same thing has been happening more or less continuously for the previous twenty minutes.

One of my friends mentioned the Christological themes to the movie.  While there are a few visual references to Christian iconography, it’s clear that the Superman franchise draws far more on Greek mythology than Christian, and especially the story of Heracles.  Heracles, like Clark Kent, is part-human, part-divine, raised by foster parents, endowed with enormous strength and abilities, and called on to protect humanity by battling an array of monsters.  Just like Heracles’ battles with hydras and titans, Man of Steel introduces enemies that no mortal can challenge, thus requiring the intervention of the near-invincible superman.

I’m not particularly comfortable with the overt militarism that seems so popular in movies these days.  It doesn’t surprise me though.  The Pentagon’s Film Liaison Office is well known for encouraging a positive portrayal of the US military by providing support, material, and even military hardware for films that it sees as favourable to the army.  Movies such as Platoon or Apocalypse Now had to be made without such support due to the unflinching way in which they depicted armed conflict – the latter was eventually produced in the Philippines.

(Another concern of mine is the attempt by the marketers of this film to bribe Pastors to recommend it to their congregants.)

Henry Cavill does turn in a fine performance as Kent when he’s actually allowed to portray a human being.  His hitchhiking casual labourer is a genuinely sympathetic character.  But once he dons the red cape, he’s mostly upstaged by the CGI effects.

There are, fortunately, vastly better superhero stories.   The best is undoubtedly Alan Moore’s Watchmen, which not only created a whole pantheon of superheroes but actually explored the social, ethical and moral consequences of the existence of vigilantes and their complex relationship with regular society.    Moore also wrote V for Vendetta,  a scathing indictment of the conservative policies of the Thatcher goverment in the 1980s.  Another product of that era are the Judge Dredd graphic novels, which despite the appalling Stallone adaption frequently managed to be both thrilling action stories and uncomfortable looks at what happens when the police and the court system become a single entity.

(On a side note – all these graphic novels are British.  Why do US writers dream of powerful individuals protecting society from harm, whereas UK writers fret about the implications of too much concentration of power?)

My advice is to save your money and go buy a copy of the original Watchman graphic novel.  It will provide many more hours of entertainment, and every time I re-read it I’m rewarded with finding yet another nuance hidden in the background of nearly every page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(a) uncomfortable about the whole ‘selling movie to pastors bit’


Secret secrets

The US government commanded the phone company Verizon to secretly collect vast amounts of data about its users activities.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

Furthermore, Verizon was banned from admitting the existence of this secret order.

“The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI’s request for its customers’ records, or the court order itself.”

I am very disturbed when anyone is ordered to do something unethical and then required to deny all knowledge of that action.  At this point I truly believe that non-compliance, even if it results in prosecution, is the ethically correct action.  To do anything else is to be complicit in the creation of a privatized secret police.  I would have a huge amount of respect for any executive who stood up in public and said “we have been ordered by the government to spy on our customers and then deny all knowledge of this program, but instead we choose honesty.  We refuse to do this.  We will inform you if we receive further secret orders.  And we will accept the consequences of our honesty if necessary.”

Imagine the power of an executive choosing to go to jail rather than become complicit in large scale espionage.  That would be someone I could respect.

 



Courts Martial for Christians?

So my facebook feed this morning had a couple of folks worried about ‘the last days’ and ‘the decay of western society’

The cause?  A breathless report worrying that soldiers in the US military may be court martialed for sharing their Christian faith.

At this point I did a daring, radical thing.  I actually looked up the policy in question.  It took me all of about 30 seconds to find it: it’s freely available at http://www.180fw.ang.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120820-005.pdf.  Despite being reported in some circles as being ‘unreal’ or ‘a slap in the face to the military,’ it’s actually a completely unsurprising piece of HR policy that would not be out of place in any large government agency or private enterprise.  The articles in question are as follows:

2.11. Government Neutrality Regarding Religion. Leaders at all levels must balance
constitutional protections for an individual’s free exercise of religion or other personal beliefs
and the constitutional prohibition against governmental establishment of religion. For example,
they must avoid the actual or apparent use of their position to promote their personal religious
beliefs to their subordinates or to extend preferential treatment for any religion…
 
2.12.1. All Airmen are able to choose to practice their particular religion, or subscribe to no
religious belief at all. You should confidently practice your own beliefs while respecting
others whose viewpoints differ from your own. 

A document exhorting individuals to ‘confidently practice your own beliefs while respecting others whose viewpoints differ from you own’ is hardly indicative of the downfall of western civilisation.  Unless, of course, you don’t want to respect others.  Perhaps you genuinely feel that you should be allowed to use a position of authority to extend preferential treatment to adherents of one particular sect.  Perhaps you feel that the government should be in the business of picking and choosing creeds.  Perhaps you want your government be the official arbiter of acceptable belief, practice and religous affiliation in your country.  After all, we already have examples of how well that works.

But if you are such a person, frankly you concern me far more than a well-written HR document outlining the principles of freedom of conscience and respectfulness towards others.


A Long Line of Criminals

I have been thinking a lot recently about incarceration.

At its highest levels, the Soviet Union’s gulag system imprisoned 800 people for every 100,000 people in the country.  Today the United States has 743 prisoners for every 100,000 people.  Nearly a quarter of all the prisoners in the world are in United States prisons.

This worries me, and when I read about the Stephen Harper proposing more ‘tough-on-crime’ legislation, I wonder what exactly we are trying to achieve.  But before I delve to deeply into the subject, I first have to recognize how this must be approached.  As a Christian, I belong to a faith tradition that has, frankly, spent quite a lot of time in jail.

  • Joseph was imprisoned for years on trumped up sexual harassment charges.
  • David spent his formative years as an outlaw.
  • Jesus was arrested,  imprisoned, and condemned as a threat to the state.
  • Paul wrote large chunks of the New Testament from a prison cell.
  • William Tyndale was imprisoned and executed by the imperial authorities
  • Martin Luther King wrote his most important work from a Birmingham jail.

I recognise in our society the need for a judicial system, for police officers, magistrates, prison guards and probation workers.

But when we are discussing the criminal justice system, the starting point for those who call themselves Christians needs to be this – our first and primary identity is with the jailed, not the jailer.  As the founder of our movement said, “I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

 


Defining your Central Conflict

Last month I wrote my first novel.  One of the most interesting things that I learned from this process was that stories all tend to share certain form.  At the heart of nearly every story is a conflict.

The story starts when something causes the world to go out of balance.  The protagonist, then, must work to bring balance back to the world, while the antagonist opposes him at every step.  Without this conflict, there is no story.   Indeed, we MUST have an antagonist for their to be a narrative.  Harry Potter is defined by his struggle against Voldemort.  Frodo is defined by his quest to rid the world of Sauron.  The soldiers in Band of Brothers are defined by their struggle against the Third Reich.

It is as if we are hard-wired to respond to stories of struggle, and to understand the world in terms of conflict.  This applies to our own lives, too.  We define ourselves every bit as much in terms of what we fight against as we do in terms of what we are in favour of.

Because if there is no struggle, there is no story.  Who would watch a movie about a guy who wakes up to find that he hasn’t lost his job, an enemy he thought dead has not suddenly re-appeared, an alien race has not started destroying cities, the love of his life has not just vanished?  Who would read a book about someone whose  defining struggle of his life is deciding where to have lunch?

So, if you were writing the story of your life, with yourself as the protagonist – ask yourself this question.  Who is the antagonist?


Public Speaking

I got to give a little presentation at Ignite Barrie this evening.  I found it surprisingly good fun to stand in front of a room full of people and share a little about my experiences running triathlons and some of the life lessons that I’ve learned in becoming a triathlete.

We also got to hear from a beekeeper, a poet, a science-fiction fan and many other unique and wonderful individuals from the community.  I’m learning that Barrie truly is a diverse and fascinating city!

I’ll put a link up to the videos of the evening once they are posted.

 


Paul Godfrey Doesn’t Understand Markets

Apparently, you can be the CEO of a major Canadian company, even if you don’t understand the first thing about free markets.

Paul Godfrey is the President and CEO of Postmedia Network, the owners of the National Post.  He’s also the chair of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, and previously has been both a politician and the CEO of the Blue Jays.

Despite that impressive resume, he demonstrated during his interview today on ‘Ontario Today’ a quite startling lack of understanding of the way that free market capitalism works.  He was asked whether, as the National Post and other newspapers try to move to a more restrictive online model, whether readers who are used to free content would be willing to now start paying for it.

In one of the most impressive displays of wishful thinking that I’ve seen in a long time, Mr. Godfrey replied that they would, because they should. He didn’t base this argument on an analysis of market forces, but rather an appeal to to necessity.

Namely, that newspapers would not turn a profit unless people pay them more.

Clearly Mr. Godfrey did not pay attention as Blockbuster saw its business model destroyed by online movies.  Nor did he notice that the classified ads sector lost billions of dollars from its market value when Craigslist appeared.

Tell me.  When you want to buy or sell something, do you post it on Craigslist or Kijiji?

Or do you say to yourself “No no, the poor starving newspaper industry deserves my hard earned cash.  I will pay to post this item in tiny, unsearchable print in the back-end of my local newspaper.  I’m sure it will get noticed sitting in the bottom of a recycling bin.”

Paul Godfrey said that “newspapers are going to have to return a profit to their shareholders.”  He said that “the consumers must pay.”  He said that “the public has to remember that the greatest provider of content is newspapers.”

He even said that if you want opinions, you will have to pay newspaper sites.  Who knew that opinions were in such short supply?

The National Post costs money to produce; therefore, in Mr. Godfrey’s fantasy land, loyal citizens of this country will take it upon themselves to re-imburse his expenses.

Except, of course, we won’t.  We’re children of the digital age.  We will continue to learn about our world from The Guardian, from Reddit, from Twitter, from AlJazeera, from BBC, from CBC, from Google News, from Wikipedia and Wikinews and from countless other online sources.

And if we’re smart, we’ll divest ourselves of any equity we own in companies run by Mr. Godfrey.  Anyone who thinks that they have a moral right to paying customers should not be a CEO.