I have a feeling that when I’m older and reflecting on my experience as a young man, there will be a vital point in the story when I exclaim, “And then I found The Feminine Mystique!” It’s bewildering to consider that the work — which launched the modern feminist movement almost 20 years before I was born — could relate in any significant way to my own life. In fact it’s more than just significant; the application to and explanation of my own life is monumental. But I’m not alone there. I think Friedan’s work applies to our entire society. My new theory is that many of the forces affecting women in the ’50s and ’60s now affect both genders equally.

I’m only halfway through the book, so I can’t summarize the entire thing yet. I’m trying to get in the habit of posting little bits as I read, instead of trying to cover the whole whopper once I’m done. (That’s been difficult since I’ve realized I’m kind of like an Ent — those tree-like creatures from Lord of the Rings. Treebeard’s saying went something like, “It takes us a really long time to say anything at all, so we don’t say anything unless it’s worth taking a really long time to say.”)

Three days ago I received an email from a reader concerning a post I wrote in July 2008 (you may want to read that post before this one). He was confused about the logic I used when discussing the virginity of Henry David Thoreau, which in turn was related to skepticism over the sexual activity of Chris McCandless (protagonist of the book and film Into The Wild).

I asked the reader to post his email as a comment on the original article, but then I figured I would just put it in a brand new one. His note made me think that I hadn’t expressed myself very well, so I want to elaborate. Here’s his email:

Thanks to the wonderful serendipity offered on a regular basis by the Internet, I recently found an amazing Vimeo channel called Tryptophanatic Netvision. Or I should say, the channel found me. Kaliptus, the channel’s creator, added two of my creations to the list of mind-bending videos. So you can get an idea of what it’s all about, here’s the channel description:

Welcome to Tryptophanatic Netvision, where the screenings you are about to witness may reveal some of the deepest secrets of the universe! If you are ready for consciousness expansion, use this channel as a tool. The contents herein vary in style, quality, and nature… ranging from psychotropic animations to mystical videos, tripadelic motion graphics, mind warping experiments, occult surrealism and lots more. This Netvision is geared to alter your very being to a higher level of super hue-man exaltation & inspiration. “Caterpillars” beware!!!
This is “Butterfly” territory.

The imminent release of Tim Burton’s (epic failure) remake of Alice in Wonderland has me thinking about that story. What’s that? I’ve already offended you? You think it’s going to be wicked awesome? Well, you should stop sniffing glue. Have you seen the new official trailer? It looks like a CGI monster snotted all over some film and they called it a movie.

Phew. Now that I got that out of my system, let me get to the point. I think the long-running appeal of absurdist stories like Alice in Wonderland (based, let’s not forget, on the book by Lewis Carroll) is related to a few themes that aren’t often acknowledged. The Wizard of Oz is a similar example. In each case, a young woman bored or frustrated with her surroundings dreams (or hallucinates) that she travels to a land where things are more exciting and unpredictable, but a land that’s also more dangerous and terrifying. (Also note: the 1986 cult classic Labyrinth, featuring David Bowie and an early performance from Jennifer Connelly).

I expect to be re-reading books more often in the years to come. So many that I’ve read seem distant and vague now, probably because I encountered them before I had gotten enough reading practice. If I haven’t explained it yet, I was a late-blooming reader. I never saw the point when I was younger… or maybe I was just too busy playing Nintendo. Either way, I didn’t retain much from books I read in school — even the ones I enjoyed — or the first few I read on my own volition.

Earlier this year I re-read and wrote about The Great Gatsby. Then this summer I cracked open my copy of Lord of the Flies. I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I first read the book (it seems like it was ninth grade). And I didn’t remember every major plot development in the story. What I do know is that it was the first book to affect me profoundly. The Call of the Wild came close, but it didn’t reach the same level of real-life application.

One of the things I didn’t recall was how much I related to the character of Ralph. Of course, I may be relating to Ralph more as a 26-year-old than I did as a 15-year-old. I’ve been through so much more in the past decade than I had experienced in adolescence. Perhaps that’s why teachers yap and yap about symbolism in books like LOTF; it’s a short-cut way to explain the story in comfortable terms.

I think it’s funny how the textbook symbolism nonsense often gets carried on longer than other important elements of the story. Before this re-read, I glanced at user comments on Amazon.com. One person stated frankly, as if it were an undeniable fact, exactly what Ralph, Jack, Piggy, Roger and Simon “stood for.” The comment author was implying that these were cardboard cutouts inserted for only one specific purpose. I wasn’t convinced in high school, and I’m not convinced now. But then again, I never accepted the lazy ways of most English teachers. What’s the point of teaching symbolism if you don’t acknowledge each and every time that there isn’t just one explanation — that there is no right answer?

I also hated when teachers would suggest that every word in a book was there because the author wanted it there. They’d argue that every phrase and passage must have a specific purpose or the author would have omitted it. That’s bullshit. Or at least, if it’s true, then none of those books are literature or art; they’re textbooks.

But as I was saying, I don’t think the main characters can be adequately explained with a single interpretation — though they do have their obvious traits. Ralph is a benevolent, intelligent leader devoted to goodwill and progress, while Jack is a violent, disturbed leader fueled by insecurity and anger. Piggy is the brainy problem solver who provides fire with his glasses despite constant rejection from the other boys. Roger is a sadistic creature who waits until Jack leads a tribe to unleash his fury. Simon is the mystic, the schizomaniac, the visionary, and who prefers solitude to the creeping madness of the tribe.

I acknowledge that Simon is the most interesting character in the book, but he’s also the most complicated. He’s the only one who can see past reason and logic and fear and anxiety, and get a sense of the bigger picture of life. He’s also the only one willing to climb up the mountain and examine the so-called “beast,” instead of going to war over frail beliefs. Simon tries to save the boys from themselves by offering the truth, and for that the mob destroys him (sound like a Bill Hicks segment?).

Here one is tempted to refer to him as a “Christ figure” who seeks to awaken the crowd to the truth around them and who is then crucified for it. I’m not sure if that’s appropriate. Maybe this kind of 20th Century literature was pointing towards the necessity for a new kind of leader, a post-Christian spiritual guide. But any attempt to describe such a leader in common terms only alludes to trite stereotypes of the past (although that could just mean that my theory is far from complete).

Obviously the concepts of leadership and governance were at the front of Golding’s mind during the writing process. “Everybody wants to rule the world,” as Tears for Fears sang over ’80s synth pop. But there are endless ways that people go about exerting their influence on the world, and endless aims that they hope to achieve through that influence. Aside from Simon’s story, another mysterious element of the book is Ralph and Jack’s development into arch-enemies. It brings to mind all the “fevered egos” (to reference Bill Hicks again) that run our world today. Most of those egos are trying to make money, regardless of what other goals they may purport. Greed isn’t much of a factor on the island, so the two oppositional goals take shape as (1, Ralph’s) keeping the fire lit in order to be rescued and (2, Jack’s) having fun, hunting pigs, wearing tribal paint, and generally acting like savages.

Somehow this brings to mind the American Civil War. It seems that, in addition to the more discussed abolition of slavery, part of Lincoln’s high regard arose from his determination to hold the states together. He thereby guaranteed that those two very different cultures and often conflicting forces would have to live with one another. So are we ultimately better off because of that… or might the United States have been better split into two separate countries? (Try to answer that question without considering your fondness of Florida’s beaches.) The older I get, the less tolerant I am of the conservative American mindset. And yet, it will always be there, no matter how I feel about it — and (of course) regardless of geography.

It’s clear that Ralph didn’t benefit from having to tolerate Jack’s psychotic tendencies, but Ralph didn’t necessarily have the best plan for island life either. As I was saying before, I relate to Ralph in a very unique way. I had an experience like his while acting as president of Spartan Ski Club at Michigan State University. I wanted to lead the group to progress through logical reasoning, but always felt that some of theme resented me for it. My reasoning was simple: stay organized and do the hard work in advance so that events are more fun for everyone. Their reasoning was more like, “We do this for fun. This isn’t a job. I don’t care about your rules. I do what I want! Let’s get drunk!” We even had a talking stick at our meetings, like the conch! So club leaders were left with the choice of being alienated (an maybe punished) or abandoning the quest and joining the savages. Naturally there’s not much room for Simon’s enlightenment or spiritual awakening in a ski club, but you get the point.

I also related unexpectedly to the afterword by E.L. Epstein, in which he wrote: “Conrad was appalled by this ‘heart of darkness,” and existentialists find in the denial of this freedom the source of perversion of all human values. Indeed one could, if one were so minded, go through the entire canon of modern literature, philosophy, and psychology and find this great basic drive defined as underlying the most fundamental conclusions of modern thought” (p. 206).

Upon reading this I thought, “That’s exactly what I’ve been doing!” And, appropriately, Lord of the Flies was one of the first creative works to propel me down this winding path. I still haven’t gotten to the level that Simon had reached, but I intend to keep the fire lit… or keep hunting… or keep gazing at a rotting pig head on a stick — or maybe all three.

“Even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate.” Albert Camus clearly felt no need for an element of surprise in The Myth of Sisyphus, his long essay that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. This statement appears in the first paragraph of the Preface, before the book even officially begins. I’m a curious individual, and lately I’ve been unusually interested in this subject, so my response was something like, “Okay. Convince me.”

I can tell you right away that this will be a two-part analysis of Sisyphus, because I feel that I must provide an overview of the topic of suicide in literature and philosophy — at least how I’ve perceived it. Then there are two aspects to Sisyphus itself: an eloquent statement of the dilemma, and the closest thing to a solution that Camus — or anyone else, for that matter — has ever devised.

Camus discloses that the book was written in 1940, which I find extremely interesting, if only in terms of what came before and after it. Just scanning my favorites, Henry Miller published his first works in the ’30s — but Kerouac’s first book wasn’t published until 1950. Even earlier, Hesse’s Steppenwolf saw publication in Germany in 1927. I point these out initially because it seems that Sisyphus is a landmark in 20th Century philosophical development — yet in some ways it represents a transition that was never completed (I’ll expand on this later). By transition I mean that Camus essentially broke with the Existentialists of the ’40s and ’50s, most prominently Jean-Paul Sartre.

Camus and Sartre both recognized the absurd nature of life, but while Sartre and others sought to transcend it, Camus thought that required a leap beyond human certitude. As Camus put it, “I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone” (p. 40). Seen in this light, Sisyphus becomes a sort of poetic mathematical exercise in which Camus affirms the absurd life instead of evading it. And according to the Wikipedia page on Absurdism, this book is practically the manual.

Camus argues his case succinctly, acknowledging how deeply he could go into this subject, but at all times subjecting himself to a rigid set of guidelines. The main point of the book appears early: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy” (p. 3).

He attempts many definitions of the absurd condition:

“Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering” (pp. 5-6).

“What is this condition in which I can have peace only by refusing to know and to live, in which the appetite for conquest bumps into walls that defy its assaults?” (p. 20)

“That struggle implies a total absence of hope (which has nothing to do with despair), a continual rejection (which must not be confused with renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (which must not be compared to immature unrest). […] A man who has become conscious of the absurd is forever bound to it” (p. 31).

This blog is riddled with discussions of Existentialism and Absurdism. Two posts that come to mind focus on Sartre’s Nausea and Hesse’s Steppenwolf. But while Sartre’s Roquentin never really considers suicide, Hesse’s Harry is obsessed with the concept. He finds a “Treatise of the Steppenwolf” that explains:

“Suicides present themselves as those who are overtaken by the sense of guilt inherent in individuals, those souls that find the aim of life not in the perfecting and molding of the self, but in liberating themselves by going back to the mother, back to God, back to the all. Many of these natures are wholly incapable of ever having recourse to real suicide, because they have a profound consciousness of the sin of doing so. For us they are suicides nonetheless; for they see death and not life as the releaser” (p. 48).

“All suicides have the responsibility of fighting against the temptation of suicide. …It is nobler and finer to be conquered by life than to fall by one’s own hand” (p. 49)

But that’s it???!!! That’s all he could offer us? A sense of despair that drags one through life? Isn’t that just making oneself a prisoner of inertia, unable to improve upon any aspect of existence and thus resigning onself to it? Of course I should give Hesse more credit than this. Steppenwolf is a novel, not an autobiography or a philosophical essay. If you know the ending (I won’t spoil it!), it’s believable that Hesse was mocking Harry’s mode of living, even after the awakening inspired by the treatise and his wise lady friend Hermine. But even when more concrete suggestions arise, they’re often vague and difficult to adapt to the context of the 21st Century.

Plus, this book was published over a decade before Sisyphus. But that’s not to say that the literary community made a convincing progression beyond Harry’s position in the subsequent decades. The most prominent example is Jack Kerouac. He wasn’t a philosopher, but he remains one of the most beloved literary figures in American history. In his books he claimed that he could never commit suicide because he was a Catholic and that would mean he’d go to hell. His alternative? He basically drank himself to death. Big Sur outlines part of this irreversible decline.

Obviously the world of literature is very familiar with alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide, but Kerouac was always his own protagonist and thereby immortalized his story. And when examining this twisted path, it’s impossible to maintain a separation between philosophy and psychology. But this existential despair is an important characteristic of modern humanity, and one that cannot be ignored. In Steppenwolf, Hermine tries to calm Harry by saying, “The image of every true act, the strength of every true feeling, belongs to eternity just as much, even though no one knows of it or sees it or records it or hands it down to posterity. In eternity there is no posterity” (p. 153).

Camus recognized this tendency in existential thought, and he made a point of ruling that out of his possible conclusions in Sisyphus. “I am taking the liberty at this point of calling the existential attitude philosophical suicide. […] They always lay claim to the eternal, and it is solely in this that they take the leap” (p. 42). The “leap” mentioned here is applied to any bridge beyond what a human can comprehend. That more commonly means religion, so it was strange for me to see such a term applied to Existentialism, which I had previously seen as an answer of sorts.

In reality Existentialism is a statement of the problem; it’s where Camus begins and quickly dashes off. He’s not convinced by the idea of eternity, whether in organized religion or just broader spirituality. He’s not content to stubbornly hope that the basic condition of life will eventually improve.

Camus began to wonder if the desire to escape is an even bigger problem than the nausea inspired by existence. In other words, what if there was a way not only to endure the situation, but even capitalize off of it? It’s a very slight twist of the mirror that could produce an extraordinarily different outcome. “The danger…lies in the subtle instant that precedes the leap. Being able to remain on that dizzying crest – that is integrity and the rest is subterfuge” (p. 50).

Next I’ll explore what one is to do on that dizzying crest, and why and how Camus felt it could be accomplished.

Well, no need to let that one sink in. Bruno is the type of film that deserves a quick assessment after the first viewing. And yet there are so many layers that beg to be analyzed and picked apart! For those of you thinking, “Bruno? Is that a new family comedy about a troublesome-yet-loveable dog?” No, no…it’s the satire-by-candid-video film from Sacha Baron Cohen.

Most of the world was introduced to his wily behavior in Borat, the 2006 film of similar format (and from the same director Larry Charles) in which a TV reporter from Kazakhstan travels to America in order to learn what it’s all about. I was a fan of Cohen’s Da Ali G Show, which HBO has re-aired in recent years after initial broadcasts in the UK. That program featured alternating clips of Ali G, Borat, and Bruno, three characters designed to catch people off-guard, pull them out of their comfort zone, and elicit an outcome that is equal parts humorous, humiliating, and offensive.

So Bruno the character was no surprise to me, but Bruno the movie was. After the stir Borat caused, I couldn’t believe that Cohen could still dupe anyone into signing a filming contract without reading the fine print! I went into it thinking that I’d be one of the few people not offended by the film. I wasn’t totally wrong, but perhaps “offended” isn’t the right word. It’s not that anything offended my customs or beliefs; it’s that I felt extremely uncomfortable at multiple points in the movie.

I wasn’t uncomfortable about the fact that Bruno is a homosexual or because I had to watch a plethora of bizarre, unexpected nude scenes and sexual acts; I felt uncomfortable because watching Bruno was like living through a nightmare. It seemed that I was asleep and had no choice but to process the horror (a feeling that reminds me of an essay I wrote last year). Upon exiting the theatre, I remarked that — whether or not we perceive it on a daily basis — this nightmare is the world around us. And no, I’m not referring to Bruno; I’m talking about everyone that Bruno encountered on his journey through America.

I’m a generally pessimistic person with many strong reservations about American society, and yet Bruno still stirred me out of a general contentment with my surroundings. The film reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, which these days gets a lot of uninspired comparisons to the psychedelic drug experience. Many people gain satisfaction from knowing that they can expose themselves to wilder, more extraordinary sensory stimuli than their predecessors. We can’t necessarily be richer or possess more property or money, but we do have the power to live to greater extremes. Our wealth is our experience and our ability to retell it, to share it with others, to help them learn from it…

But I’m wandering. I thought of Alice in Wonderland even though that comparison isn’t often made to American culture. I usually think of Carrol’s absurdist satire as very specific to that British world of the 1800s. Of course I know America is just as pretentious and depraved, and the American Empire thinks it’s the best at everything. It was still a strange experience having this brought to mind. We don’t like to think of our culture as evil and infected. Even when we do, we usually project it on other groups or places. “The American South is so messed up” or “those west coast people are really strange.” To reference Norman O. Brown’s Freudian study Life Against Death, neurosis is everywhere, and it’s there all the time.

In reality, our world is only as strong as the dumbest, most backwards person around — in other words, the weakest link is the collective weakness. Yes, Bruno provoked people into acting the way they did, but once provoked, they were all too happy to continue behaving that way. That’s because the Mad Hatter is a Dallas talk show host; the White Rabbit is a candidate for the American presidency; Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are cage fighters entertaining in-the-closet gay men struggling to deal with their inconvenient sexual preference (Is that one a stretch? I’ve always said those extreme fighting shows are soft-core gay porn); the Red Queen is…well…a dominatrix at a swingers party in your neighborhood.

I’m disappointed in the professional critics who bashed this film, reporting that it was basically just more of the same from Sacha Baron Cohen. Many also claimed that it shocked for the sake of shocking. Their unwillingness to challenge themselves and their perception of “good filmmaking” is a big reason why people are losing (or have lost) faith in critics.

This film is nothing like Borat. Obviously the xenophobia has largely been replaced by homophobia. But instead of inspiring laughs and an occasional sneer, Bruno makes us cringe and even infects us with a bit of despair. Bruno is ten levels beyond Borat in every way possible. And let me be very clear: Bruno is arguably a terrible film, but it wasn’t intended to be a “film.”

Even more so than Borat, Bruno is a documentary posing as a comedy. Presenting it as a film was just the best possible choice in terms of distribution. Think of all the oblivious middle Americans who will pick it up from their local Blockbuster store later this winter, expecting an edgy comedy about some idiot foreigner trying to find his way to fame — whether it means moving to Hollywood, feigning charity, or even attempting a conversion to heterosexuality. Every single one of them will have their third eye pried open.

While sex only came up occasionally in Borat (with the exception of that nude hotel fight…), Bruno is all sex, all the time. Likewise, sex is at the very core of what it means to be human. It is responsible for more of our thoughts, feelings, and actions than any of us would like to admit. Sex goes deeper than customs and traditions; it goes deeper than national pride; it goes deeper than religious beliefs. Bruno spanked all our asses, but he was able to do so because of everything we take for granted.

We think we’re so advanced (hell, even the Republicans finally agree that something needs to be done about global warming!). But we have so much more progress to make. Actually it’s not a certain point we need to progress to. It’s that we, as a society, tend to lounge on the couch unless we have a fire lit under our ass. Say what you want about Al Gore’s electric bill — An Inconvenient Truth is the primary reason why our culture is currently obsessed with becoming more environmentally friendly. Environmental destruction is no longer a myth that happens in faraway rainforests; it’s happening in the tailpipe of every car in every driveway in the world.

Again I digress. The point isn’t that people reacted to Bruno’s flagrant homosexuality. Actually I’m not quite sure right now what the point was (apparently the film deserves a quick assessment and additional viewings). As one guest on NPR said last week, there are so many levels to Bruno that it’s hard to be sure who’s getting made fun of, who should be offended, and what we’re learning from the situation. But we are learning, nonetheless, even if we’re not quite sure what the lesson is.

The overall lesson, I think, is that even the most open-minded and enlightened of us still hide behind conventions and institutions. Perhaps this relates to my realization halfway through the movie, that the whole audience was unexpectedly watching a gay love story, and most (if not all) of us were emotionally involved in it.

We are capable of adapting to almost any situation that is forced upon us, so why do we have so much trouble adapting to what arises naturally from our peers and our unconscious? So many humans think of themselves as divine creatures on the path to eternal greatness. We ought to be a lot more aware of the true nature of this world, particularly the cultural world that we alone create. Awareness feeds the inspiration to change, and as we’ve all seen with the Twitter response during the recent Iran election conspiracy, our global awareness is growing at a rate never before possible.

If Bruno accomplishes anything, it will be to further raise awareness about the absolutely horrifying nature of the land we call America. We may be more culturally advanced that some places in the world, but we also have a greater responsibility to advancement. I don’t mean to say that we are entitled in any way, but just that we have absolutely no excuse to give Cohen enough material for not one, but two of these satirical films.

Until the material disappears, I’m so thankful that movies like Bruno exist, and I can’t wait to see what Sacha Baron Cohen comes up with next.

I recently watched both parts of Che, the 2008 biopic of Ernesto “Che” Guevara starring Benicio Del Toro and directed by Steven Soderbergh. I don’t intend to comment extensively on the quality of the film. However, its overall impact is questionable; that’s evident by its average score of 64 (out of 100) on Metacritic.com. I say “its” when it was actually produced and released in two parts: The Argentine and Guerrilla. Part 1 tracks Guevara during the successful Cuban revolution, and Part 2 follows him through the unsuccessful Bolivian revolution.

As one critic put it (I forget which one or where I saw it), Soderbergh seemed to be avoiding any of Guevara’s common stereotypes (i.e. – political activist, guerrilla warrior, t-shirt imagery). It did seem that Soderbergh wanted to let the story speak for itself. But 41 years after Che’s death, one wonders if a film should be made at all if it doesn’t dare to take a position on the controversial figure. This is, after all, an extremely important figure in recent history that most American students are taught nothing about (or at least I wasn’t).

According to Wikipedia, Jean-Paul Sartre once “described him as ‘not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age’ and the ‘era’s most perfect man.’ Sartre would also compliment Che Guevara by professing that ‘he lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel.’”

The film does provide at least a basic context for why these people were attempting a revolution in Latin America. Therefore my strongest criticism relates to the lack of insight into Che’s mind. I was surprised to see that the films were based on Guevara’s own writings: Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (Part 1) and The Bolivian Diary (Part 2). Knowing this, I wondered why Che’s thoughts were only revealed during an interview with a journalist that is scattered throughout Part 1. One of Che’s statements stands out from the rest:

“Of course, defeating imperialism is impossible if you don’t recognize its source is the United States of America. In a capitalist system, people live in an invisible cage. For example, they accept the myth of the self-made man. But they do not understand that opportunities for the majority are determined by forces completely beyond individual control.”

The journalist then asks the question, “What is the most important quality for a revolutionary to possess?”

Che responds, “A true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love — love of humanity, justice, and truth. It’s impossible to conceive of an authentic revolutionary without this one quality.”

The paradoxical nature of this statement set off my skeptic alarm. How could a person with great love of humanity seek to change the world through armed conflict. In other words, how could anyone using their rational faculties hope to improve mankind by shooting people with guns? A six-year-old would be able to tell you that that’s not a path to success. It was equally confusing to me that Jean-Paul Sartre would condone this armed conflict. After reading Nausea, I got the impression that Sartre’s existential problems were individual in nature and required an autonomous process of treatment. It’s almost as if Sartre didn’t understand his own philosophy, and that has caused me to lose faith in his writing.

Luckily I have the work of Carl Jung to fill the gap. I finally finished reading, Man and His Symbols, edited and co-written by Jung. The chapter by M.-L. von Franz entitled “The Process of Individuation” directly addresses my problem with Che Guevara, evident in the following quotes:

“Fanatical political activity…seems somehow incompatible with individuation” (p. 241).

“…The unconscious is pointing to the fact that today the dreamer should not try, as X did long ago, to free his country in an outer way. Now, the dream says, liberation is accomplished by the anima (by the dreamer’s soul), who accomplishes it by bringing the images of the unconscious to life” (p. 244).

“…In our time genuine liberation can start only with a psychological transformation. To what end does one liberate one’s country if afterward there is no meaningful goal of life — no goal for which it is worthwhile to be free? If man no longer finds any meaning in his life, it makes no difference whether he wastes away under a communist or a capitalist regime. Only if he can use his freedom to create something meaningful is it relevant that he should be free. That is why the inner meaning of life is more important to the individual than anything else, and why the process of individuation must be given priority. [...] …If a single individual devotes himself to individuation, he frequently has a positive contagious effect on the people around him” (p. 245).

In the film, Che’s character spoke of building a meaningful life through a communist revolution. But if the film succeeded at anything, it demonstrated the blatant absurdity of Che’s quest. The only thing armed conflict leads to is more death, more destruction, and more tyranny. When Fidel Castro took power of Cuba, he abolished elections in order to remain in power until modern day! Down in Bolivia, Che was executed by a common soldier in a dirty shed, when he could have rejoined his wife and children in Mexico or Cuba. And perhaps worst of all, American imperialism never ended.

It seems that we as a society are far overdue in studying the suggestions of Jung and his colleagues. The only revolution that will ever work is one of individual psychology. But if it could happen on a widespread level, it would change the world. A recent quote by President Obama (albeit in a different context) reflects this idea:

“One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world.”

If our president’s expression of such a profound concept isn’t optimistic enough for you, perhaps (in observation of today’s public funeral) I should also reference Michael Jackson. His song “Man in the Mirror” even has the basic principle down — a fun fact I realized a few years ago when I started getting into literature and philosophy.

I’ll have more on this topic soon. I’ve finally begun a large-scale essay on Jungian Psychology and the need for modern man to learn himself before trying to change anything external. In the meantime, I can’t make any promises about consistent activity on here, but I’ll try my best. I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. I’m truly sorry for that — times have been tough.

The past few posts have been pretty heavy. Or maybe that’s a matter of taste. Some might claim that the only light post on this blog so far was the horror movie guide last Halloween. And anyone making that claim wouldn’t be totally incorrect.

Either way, I owe you a “light” post, and my idea of light is Wife Swap, an ABC reality show which I found through its syndicated version on Lifetime. At this point a large percentage of readers will probably be laughing out loud and/or navigating away from this blog. Please stay with me! I’m not crazy (and I don’t normally watch Lifetime — it was at a holiday get-together with family). This show must be discussed.

I had no idea that the show was first broadcast in the UK in 2003 and has existed in various incarnations since, both there and in America. To me it appeared to be the reason that reality shows were invented. The premise: two families with multiple opposing characteristics, habits, and beliefs trade wives for two weeks. During the first week, the guest wife has to conform to the lifestyle of the host family. Then in the second week, the wife gets to run the show. She creates new rules or guidelines based on what she feels would benefit the host family. It’s chaotic, painful, and hilarious.

I’ll break down the first episode that grabbed me. One family has about five kids who have to do many chores per day. The father doesn’t do any chores himself, whereas his wife does the work of three people, driving the kids around and running the house. And the 16-year-old daughter isn’t supposed to talk to the father after 9 pm because she’s “too emotional.” The second family only has one teenage daughter. The two bedrooms are lofts with no walls or doors, so there’s no privacy in the home. The father is at the beckon call of both wife and daughter, and does all the cleaning and laundry. And the wife is obsessed with her pets — 3 or 4 dogs and one goat — all of which are welcome throughout the house at all times. The goat even comes in her bed!

The reason I think this is the epitome of all reality shows is because, from the very start of that genre, the shows have presented anything but reality. They are usually some kind of competition, filmed in a way that makes it look more like a live show — i.e. like real life. But in Wife Swap, it doesn’t matter how they film it, or even if parts of it are scripted or “encouraged” by the producers (and I’m sure that does happen). What does matter is that the participants’ lives—especially the parents’ egos—are completely torn apart. They are forced to examine their weaknesses and how they are negatively affecting the people around them.

The possibilities are manifold. Fathers make their sons turn baseball into a religion, thus taking the fun out of it while making competition a lifestyle. A mother lets her daughter treat the father like a slave, because neither parent is brave enough to stand up to their one “baby girl” and make her grow up. Both parents let their three adolescent boys behave like depraved lunatics because they don’t want to stifle their creativity by imposing too many boundaries.

Naturally, it’s often highly rewarding when the guest wife gets to set the rules. In the “goat” episode, the animals get locked outside and the house stays clean for once. The teenage daughter gets a bedroom with walls, does her own laundry, applies for a part-time job—and smiles for the first time in the show. Back at the house-of-chores, each of the five kids get to pick out a small animal at the pet store, and the 16-year-old daughter is allowed to communicate with her father after 9 pm.

As for my other examples…the baseball boy gets to take guitar lessons, and his instructor refers to him as a natural talent at the instrument. The three adolescent boys—well, their lunacy pretty much stays the same, but their crack-pot science project-loving father stops setting such a bad example for his sons.

Once again, the point is that they have to examine themselves to better the situation for everyone involved. And if that becomes a norm in society, we’ll all be better off…even if the inspiration did come from a trashy TV show. However, since most people will never participate in a wife swap, we are introduced to a bigger issue. What the show really exposes is how the institution of marriage creates a static environment for bad traits, habits, and beliefs to flourish. This builds from the individual family to the whole of society, and explains why America is so sick and deranged.

Everyone—from OCD clean to farm animal messy; from commanding to easy-going; from muscians to sports fanatics; from high school-educated to advanced degree-awarded; from liberal to conservative; from north to south; from urban to rural—everyone needs to reevaluate their lives. Not once, but at regular intervals. It’s chaotic, painful, hilarious, and absolutely necessary for mankind to progress. And that’s why Wife Swap deserved discussion.

Here’s the first part of the “CA Elite vs. MS Redneck” episode (see “related videos” for parts 2-5).

In an eerie coincidence, I’ve set out to write about The Bell Jar on the day after the anniversary of author Sylvia Plath’s death.

For about 10 years, I’ve wondered what Plath’s story was all about. Ever since Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club mentioned Plath, I thought she must be an important author to become acquainted with. The specific quote came when the “narrator” confronts Marla Singer about being a tourist at cancer support group meetings. “In the Tibetan Philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word, we’re all dying. But you’re not dying the way Chloe is dying.”

I recently became more interested in Plath when I learned that she had only written one novel — a mostly autobiographical one; then even more so upon seeing that the book documented her experience in New York as an intern at a fashion magazine. I thought I would be able to relate to the tale, since I myself spent an overwhelming period in a big American city, and was hired as editorial intern at a magazine during my last season there.

I was wrong, for the most part. The book didn’t grab me very often. I considered that could be because poetry was Plath’s forte, and she hadn’t taken the time to develop her skills as a novelist. But my favorite book authors are extremely poetic (Kerouac, Miller, Hesse, etc). A poetic handle should make a work of prose better, not worse. I also reminded myself that Plath was a woman (duh…) — not that that would determine anything about her writing ability, but it may have presented some natural obstacles in my quest to understand the author, since sex has a significant effect on psychology, language usage, and many other human traits.

This theory became more viable when I remembered I haven’t read a book by a female author since high school (almost 10 years ago), when required reading lists dictated my total reading activity. I’ve forgotten most of those (I recall not hating The Joy Luck Club though). It’s possible too that female authors don’t have good representation in the school-assigned reading category. It is doubtful that To Kill A Mockingbird or The Bluest Eye have won over many males in recent generations — those creatures that spend most of their time playing video games, shooting each other in the brain with simulated automatic weapons.

My reasons for not loving the book are precise. For a respected female poet and future suicide victim, she was alarmingly out of touch with her own emotions. She didn’t pass over difficult moments, but she tended to breeze through experiences that seemed to deserve more analysis or attention. She also (somewhat annoyingly) didn’t make a convincing effort at self-analysis, to try and figure out what had caused the bell jar experience in the first place. Obviously there were many factors that contributed to the problem (I won’t discuss most of them, so as not to ruin the story), but one stuck out to me more than the others.

Esther Greenwood (aka Plath), a life-long straight-A student, has based much of her identity on her ability to win awards and scholarships. Then she returns home from her month-long magazine internship in New York, only to find out that she’s been rejected by a famous author who personally selects students for a writing class at Harvard. This is a person who has essentially never failed in her life, and then is suddenly refused the opportunity to thrive further by some snobby professor, before even being given the chance to display her abilities. That kind of helpless failure can cause total meltdown in the ambitious mind of a previously confident individual. Never mind the possibility of help from a psychiatrist; instead of working with her to pick apart the issue, Dr. Gordon prescribes electroshock treatment, which is about as useful as snorting gunpowder in terms of psychological therapy.

Needless to say, it’s a rough story — even for the weathered reader. However, there was one moment when I did connect strongly with Plath. It was during an episode in the novel when former romantic interest Buddy Willard takes Esther skiing for her first time. She expects to hate it, but alas:

“I was descending, but the white sun rose no higher. It hung over the suspended waves of the hills, an insentient pivot without which the world would not exist.

A small, answering point in my own body flew toward it. I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery–air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy’” (p. 97).

And this came only a few paragraphs after one of the first hints of suicide:

“The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.”

Skiing is my heroin, an activity that — when undertaken on the right mountain and during the proper snow conditions — sends me instantly into the land of bliss. And I think about that often lately. Is my answer simply to move to a small town on a big mountain, and let everything follow from that? It was my unlikely fantasy for many years after high school, but it still hasn’t happened. Who knows.

(My apologies for the recent inactivity. This week my computer hard drive crashed and I started a new job. I’ve been a bit out of sorts.)

UPDATE 2/13/09: I’m afraid I didn’t give Plath enough credit in the self-analysis department. Maybe she just didn’t want to draw it out. But she did explain:

“All my life I’d told myself studying and reading and writing and working like mad was what I wanted to do, and it actually seemed to be true, I did everything well enough and got all A’s, and by the time I made it to college nobody could stop me” (p. 31).

“The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end. I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks…” (p. 77).

Perhaps the story deserves a deeper analysis on my part. It seems like the problem had something do to with a human world based on Reverse Social Darwinism, where highly evolved individuals like Plath are actually at a disadvantage for survival or coping in modern society. It’s a paradox: succeeding at adolescent tasks in no way guarantees that you’ll succeed in adult endeavors, and in many cases those youthful successes actually render one less fit for adult life.

That’s a problem I think about a lot. Reverse Darwinism was the focus of Mike Judge’s film Idiocracy, which was reportedly a failure of a comedy, but still an amazing concept. The plot: an average man travels to the future and realizes he’s the smartest person alive, because starting in the 21st century, intelligent people stopped having children. They were unhappy with the degenerative state of world affairs, caught up in the implications of parenthood, or simply too busy working hard at their jobs.

From that angle, I appreciate Plath’s effort much more.