Talking Tom Wolfe

Since my last few posts have been on poetry and the theater, it strikes me as appropriate, or at least not altogether inappropriate, to continue with a literary theme. And yes, I know that technically there is a world of difference between the literature and performance, but they do tie together as art forms that are based, more or less, on the word. And anyway, I'm just looking for an excuse, after all, to get this post off the ground.

So, I want to take this opportunity to share another New York Society for General Semantics program that was held on June 27th of 2018. The program was devoted to discussing Tom Wolfe, who had passed away the previous month. And I want to note here that I had the opportunity to meet Tom Wolfe for the first time in 1999, when he gave a Marshall McLuhan Lecture at Fordham University, preceded the evening before by a special dinner at the Canadian Consulate. We also corresponded and spoke on the phone on several occasions, and he generously allowed us to include his poems inspired by McLuhan in the anthology I co-edited with Adeena Karasick, The Medium Is the Muse [Channeling Marshall McLuhan].

It was, therefore, sad news indeed to learn of Wolfe's passing, and it seemed altogether appropriate to organize a program paying tribute to him. The session, entitled, Tom Wolfe, Man of Letters, Man of Words, had the following write-up on the NYSGS website:

On May 14th, the world lost one of its most celebrated, talented, and accomplished authors, Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr., best known simply as Tom Wolfe. Wolfe earned his PhD in American Studies from Yale University in 1957, and worked as a newspaper reporter for a decade, writing for periodicals such as the Washington Post and the New York Herald-Tribune, as well as New York magazine and Esquire.

Wolfe pioneered the use of a personal, literary style in news reporting and feature writing that became known as the New Journalism. A best selling author, his nonfiction works include The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965); The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968); The Pump House Gang (1968); Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970); and Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine (1976). His examination and critique of the contemporary American art scene, The Painted Word (1975), proved to be extremely controversial. His history of the early space program The Right Stuff (1979), was adapted as a feature film by Phillip Kaufman in 1983.

His book, In Our Time (1980), featured his own artwork, while From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), as a follow-up to The Painted Word, took on the topic of American architecture. Wolfe turned novelist with the publication of The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), which was followed by A Man in Full (1998), I Am Charlotte Simmons (2004), and Back to Blood (2012). Hooking Up (2001) collected several works of his short fiction coupled with several of his essays.

Tom Wolfe was an early promoter of media ecology scholar Marshall McLuhan, famously posing the question, "What if he's right?" in a 1965 essay published in New York magazine, and comparing McLuhan to the likes of Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and Pavlov. Wolfe's last book, The Kingdom of Speech (2016), a critique of Noam Chomsky's approach to linguistics, was awarded the Institute of General Semantics's S. I. Hayakawa Book Prize at last year's [2017] annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, which was co-sponsored by the NYSGS.

I am going to interrupt the quote here to state that it was truly a privilege to have Tom Wolfe with us at the 2017 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture. And his brief acceptance speech upon receiving the Hayakawa Book Prize was itself quite memorable, and fortunately preserved on video:





And now, let me return to the NYSGS program description:

Wolfe is credited with coining a number of terms, including the right stuff, radical chic, the Me Decade, good ol' boy, and statusphere. As an author and journalist, he was truly a man of letters, to invoke an old fashioned phrase that fits well with the famous man in a white suit, as he was known. And as a student and scholar of language, art, media, and communication, as well as a writer, interviewer, and raconteur, he most certainly was also a man of words.

On June 27th, 2018, the New York Society for General Semantics honored his contributions, creative and intellectual, and celebrated his achievements with a special panel discussion on select aspects of his career and publications.

The participants on this program were:

Thom Gencarelli, Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at Manhattan College, member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics, and the Board of Directors of the NYSGS, and the new editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics.

Martin Levinson, author of several books on general semantics including a forthcoming new edition of Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living, President of the Institute of General Semantics and Treasurer of the New York Society for General Semantics.

Lance Strate, author of several books including the award-winning Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics.

The program was moderated by Jacqueline Rudig, Treasurer of the Institute of General Semantics, and member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics.

It was a thoughtful and belletristic discussion!

And here now is the recording of the program:






And I have to say that, in my opinion, this was one of the best programs we've had since I've been organizing them for the society. Don't you agree?

Theatre Talk

My previous post, With the Words, featured a poetry performance of mine from April of 2018, and since we're on the subject of performance, not to mention recordings of New York Society for General Semantics events, why don't I follow up with the panel discussion that followed up our poetry program. This one took place on May 2nd, 2018, and the title was Language, Symbol, and the Theatre, and I think it was a really great discussion, if I do say so myself. And that's because of the participants, not on account of the moderator, which was yours truly, although I do take credit for bringing these folks together.

Anyway, here's the write-up:

General semantics is concerned with the ways in which language and symbols function as representations of our outer environment and our innermost feelings and thoughts. These representations function as maps of our external and internal realities. They help us to understand what we perceive and experience, they guide us in evaluating and navigating our world, and they give us tools for thought and action.

Different representations or maps may be more or less accurate or more or less useful in helping us to achieve certain ends. But different representations or maps may also help us to learn about different aspects of our reality, providing us with different perspectives, and abstracting out of external events different parts of the greater whole. What scientific modes of representation tell us about the world, for example, is quite different from what literary modes reveal, but each one provides us with knowledge that the other cannot.

The theatre is one of our oldest forms of literary expression, one that has an extraordinary influence on our use of language and symbol, from the Attic playwrights of ancient Greece and the introduction of the proscenium arch, and the unparalleled creative production of William Shakespeare in Elizabethan England, to the avant-garde experimentation of Bertolt Brecht in 20th century Germany, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's combination of hip hop and history in the Broadway hit Hamilton.

It follows that it is worth considering questions such as, what is unique to theatre as a mode of representation? What are its advantages and limitations, its problems and potentials? What are the relationships between dramatic performance and language and symbol, spoken and written word, play and script? Importantly, what role can theatre play in helping us to understand our world, in education, in social and political commentary?

Given that programs for the New York Society for General Semantics are held in the historic Players Club, founded by Edwin Booth, the greatest dramatic actor of the 19th century, as a social club "for the promotion of social intercourse between the representative members of the dramatic profession and the kindred professions of literature, painting, sculpture and music, and the patrons of the arts," a panel discussion on theatre was especially appropriate.

The participants on this program were:

Robin Beth Levenson, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, and author of Acting Chekhov in Translation: 4 Plays, 100 Ways (Peter Lang) , published in 2018. A graduate of the Media Ecology Doctoral Program at New York University, with an MFA from the University of California at Riverside, her articles have been published in journals such as Dialogues in Social Justice and Communications from the International Brecht Society. Her research explorations include how language influences thought and behavior, and the nature of performance.

Emily Lyon, a Brooklyn-based theatre director and dramaturg who recently created a theatrical piece, How We Hear, inspired by Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Her other directing work includes The Summoning (Best Direction, Best Production: sheNYC), Sword & the Stone/The Tempest tour (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), The Secret in the Wings (Hedgepig Ensemble), Women of Williams County (Best Ensemble: Manhattan International Theatre Festival), Interior: Panic (FringeNYC), Max Frisch’s The Arsonists (DCTV Firehouse), Some of the Side Effects (Best Premiere: UnitedSolo), and As You Like It (Geva Theatre Directing Fellow).

S. Brian Jones, Director of Operations for The Players, recently completed his masters in the Masters of Applied Theater program at CUNY School of Professional Studies. He has served as a Teacher in Residence and Arts Administrator with schools, regional theatre companies and social service agencies, conducted credential training workshops for teachers with Delaware Institute for Arts in Education, served as an advocate for Arts Education within the educational and government systems, and worked at Foundation Theatre, Freedom Theatre, Delaware Theatre Company, Christina Cultural Arts Center, New Castle County Parks and Recreation, La Jolla Playhouse, Horton Grand Theater, Ensemble Arts Theatre, Creative Management Group, Dorwell Productions, Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, the 1199 Child Care Corporation, The Artist Playground Theater and Inside Broadway. Most recently, he worked as the Education Programs Manager for the award winning Off-Broadway Company, Epic Theatre Ensemble.

M*** S******* is a New York based actor, director and writer. As a performer, he has appeared on Broadway in the 39 Steps and off Broadway in Small World at 59east59, Checkers at the Vineyard Theatre, Tryst at the Irish Repertory Theatre, As Bees In Honey Drown at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. His directorial work has been seen at The Alley Theatre, the Fulton Opera House, Virginia Stage, the Westport Country Playhouse, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, George Street Playhouse and many others. His play, The Dingdong: or How The French Kiss, an adaptation of Feydau’s Le Dindon, premiered Off Broadway and has played around the country. His adaptation of A Christmas Carol, which he will also direct, premieres this December [2018] at Florida Repertory Theatre. He is a graduate of Brown University and received his MA in Communication and Media Studies from Fordham University, where he teaches film courses. *Name withheld by request.

The discussion was moderated by Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, President of the New York Society for General Semantics, member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics.

It was a lively and dramatic discussion!

And now, without much further ado, here is the recording:






And what more can I say? It was a class act, don't you think?

 

Power As Arbitrary and Conventional

Following the sickening spectacle of President Trump in conflict with our closest allies, single-handedly undermining the western alliance that has been in place since the end of the Second World War, and then cozying up to the dictator of North Korea, arguably a monster on a par with Hitler and Stalin, albeit on a smaller scale, I was reminded of what was said about the Nazi concentration camps. 

It was not just that the Nazis were cruel and inhuman, or used a mechanism for committing genocide with a factory-like efficiency. It was also that survivors described how guards and officers meted out punishments and rewards with no particular rationale, no sense of what kind of behavior was approved or disapproved of. There was no sense to their actions, no way to make meaning out of the misery they inflicted, no inkling of order within the chaos. It was a deliberate policy of confusion, a method of effecting complete and utter desperation and despair.

In other words, their actions were arbitrary. They had no rationale. They appeared to be entirely random in how they approached acts of reward and punishment. This made their actions utterly unpredictable. And this served to make their power essentially absolute.

Rules of any sort function as constraints, limitations. Imposing rules on what can or cannot be done help to make actions relatively predictable, at least to reduce their unpredictability. For this reason, rules serve as a counter to power, a way of constraining and limiting the exercise of power. They are a grammar governing human behavior.

Considering Trump's recent actions, they appear to be almost entirely arbitrary. Treating Canada as an adversary. Doing a 180 from threatening North Korea with nuclear devastation to giving them an unequivocal win on the world stage in exchange for nothing concrete, not to mention the leap frog from South Korea's initiative to meet with the North Korean dictator to Trump completely bypassing our South Korean allies. Sure, we can find explanations here and there for these moves, pundits can rationalize them in both positive and negative terms, but the bottom line is that are essentially random, arbitrary, and unpredictable.

The unpredictable nature of Trump's actions are key here. Everyone is taken by surprise, even in taking into account that he is unconventional, narcissistic, and seeking to undo everything that his predecessor accomplished. Even knowing all that, everyone is always surprised by his actions. And this, more than anything, serves to demonstrate his power.

Being arbitrary, being unpredictable, shows that he is free from any rules or conventions, any constraints or limitations, on his power.

At this point, I want to go back to Hannah Arendt's arguments about power as it relates to violence. I wrote a series of blog posts about that topic back in 2011:  Violence and Technology, Violence and Power, Violence and Identity, and Violence and Unity. The key point that Arendt makes is that violence stands in polar opposition to power. That is, the presence of violence represents a lack or loss of power, an attempt to compensate for its absence. Power requires acquiescence, obedience, the absence of resistance, whether violent or not.

Power, therefore, is demonstrated by the absence of the use of force, by the absence of any need for enforcement. What this means is that power is symbolic rather than substantive. You could call it rhetorical, or ideological (although that tends to be poorly defined), but mainly it's that power is a form of symbolism. It's not simply that symbols, language, discourse, etc.,  reflect the power relationships that exist in society, as folks like Foucault maintain, but that power itself is a form of symbolic communication. Power exists in the relationship between symbol and referent, signifier and signified, or in general semantics terms, between map and territory, between word and what the word represents.

It is, of course, basic communication 101 that a symbol is arbitrary and convention. It is arbitrary because it bears no necessary relationship to what it represents. Saying the word "fire" out loud has no actual connection to the phenomenon of burning. This is in contrast to the presence of smoke, for example, which always is a product of burning. That's why shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater can be a false alarm, and why the same phenomenon can be represented by saying words like, "feu,""feuer,""fuego," "brand," "zjarr," "hixs,""ahi," "srefah," "kaji da,""may ba-giy," "unlilo," etc. The connection between smoke and fire is causal, and the connection between a picture of fire and the phenomenon of flame is one of resemblance. But the connection between the word "fire" and the phenomenon is purely conventional, purely based on the unspoken and largely unconscious agreement that the word will "stand for," "point to," in other words represent the actual phenomenon (or concept that in turn represents the phenomenon).

Symbols are characterized as arbitrary and conventional. Power in its purest sense is arbitrary in nature, being fundamentally divorced from force, and violence. Power therefore is a form of the symbolic. The existence and expression of power is based on the acceptance of everyone concerned, those who "have" power" and those who do not, those who "wield" power and those upon whom that "power" is directed and exerted, the dominant and the subordinate. Power, in other words, is a product of convention, is conventional in the sense that it depends upon its acceptance by everyone involved.

The symbolic interactionist and sociologist Hugh Dalziel Duncan argued that societies are held together by symbols, and that it is only when people stop believing in their shared symbolic environment, when they question and reject its conventional meanings, that societies go into decline, and disintegrate, whether by revolution or other means. Power is conventional, based on agreement, as well as arbitrary. That is why power can evaporate quite suddenly, shockingly so. Think of the downfall of many a dictator. Think of the sudden dissolution of the Soviet Union.

But convention is also a kind of constraint, and therefore places some form of limitation and constraint on power. What this means is that there is a kind of dynamic tension between the arbitrary character of symbols/power, and their conventional aspect. In the absence of conventions, meaning cannot be established, purposeful communication breaks down, legitimacy is lost, and power vanishes, replaced by violence.

Trump's main motivations seem to include the demonstration and exercise of power, and in flouting established conventions regarding presidential conduct, he has been trying to establish that he is not bound by rules and norms, by constraints and limitations, that he is able to wield power in ways that his predecessors could not, that his power is near absolute. This is consistent with him wielding power in ways that seem random and unpredictable. He has an intuitive sense of the symbolic nature of power, and is seeking to maximize his hold on it by amplifying its arbitrary nature.

The problem is that he appears to be ignorant of the fact that the arbitrary exists in dynamic tension with the conventional. Trump not only bulldozes through existing conventions, having razed them to the ground, he does not replace them with new conventions, and in all probability is incapable of doing so. After all, it takes a truly great leader, like Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to accomplish that sort of thing.

It might be argued that the dynamic tension between the arbitrary and the conventional became unbalanced some time ago, leaning too far on the side of the conventional, and therefore biased toward stasis rather than change. But Trump, in shifting the balance in the other direction, threatens to go too far, and as conventions are eliminated, he moves closer and closer to destroying the symbolic order that keeps our society together. The result could be anarchy. Certainly, as the symbolic order is undermined, power will give way to violence.

Ironically, the very device that Trump uses to try to demonstrate his power may ultimately result in its evaporation. And as much as many of us would like to see that happen to Trump, I think we have to be aware that he may take our entire society with him on the way down.

Am I saying this purely to spread some doom and gloom all around? No, not really. Because if we understand what is going on, we can think of what we need to do. In this case, it is not enough to expect things to spring back to normal once Trump is gone. As much as the American experiment has proved to be resilient, permanent damage has been done, and this should not be, cannot be ignored.

Whoever follows Trump will have to pick up the pieces and put them back together again. Whoever follows him will have to re-establish conventions, not expect them to be restored on their own. Whoever follows him will need to establish new conventions as well, a tall order and an enormous opportunity. We will need someone on the order of a Lincoln or a Roosevelt at that time. For now, we can only pray that we get someone like that when the time comes. And that the time will come sooner, rather than later.

What is 'Medium' & Why is It the Message?

Back in April, I posted one of the outcomes of my visit to Saint Mary's College of California in March of last year: If Not A Then E (Studio Version), featuring a video that was produced there based on my PowerPoint presentation, with my recorded voiceover.

So, as part of my visit, which by the way was as a Roy E. and Patricia Disney Forum Fellow, I also delivered a public lecture, entitled "What We Mean By 'Medium' (And Why it is the Message)". It's similar to talks I've given before, and after, but the addition of PowerPoint makes a bit a different than some. And of course, there's also the introduction given by my good friend and fellow media ecologist, Ed Tywoniak, Professor of Communication at Saint Mary's. And a Q&A that followed, those are always unique forms of improvisation.

So anyway, for whatever it may be worth, here's the recording of my address, recorded in beautiful Moraga, California, on March 14th of 2017.





We also did an interview while I was out there, and maybe I'll share that as well in a future post. Maybe. We'll just have to see... 

On the Role of Play for Learning & Language

So, how about another New York Society for General Semantics session? Sure, why not, you say, and I thank you for being so agreeable! This one took place on December 6th of 2017, and the result was a really interesting discussion, at least I think so.

Here's the description of the program:




 

Play, Learning, and Language

A Panel Discussion

General semantics has long been concerned with the uses, misuses, and abuses of language. As the primary form of human symbolic communication, language is a tool through which we learn about our environment, make sense of our surroundings, evaluate and act upon our world. Language is the foundation of human intelligence and time-binding, our capacity for learning, both individually and collectively.

The processes of learning and education are also among our most central concerns. Over the years, leading educationists such as Neil Postman, Ashley Montagu, and Jerome Bruner have been associated with general semantics. And that should come as no surprise since general semantics represents an educational movement in its own right, one devoted to incorporating the benefits of the scientific method to human relations, improving our methods of evaluation and understanding, and maximizing human potential.

Early in the 20th century, play was recognized as an important part of our learning processes, one that is closely connected to our capacity for symbol use, language learning, and cognitive and emotional development. The role of play and creativity in education has gained increasingly greater emphasis in recent decades, along with greater interest in the interactions and interdependencies among speech and language, literacy and media, and art and play, as they all relate to learning.

Our panelists discuss the relationships between play, learning, and language, and these related topics. It was a program that was most certainly elucidating and enlightening!

The participants on this program were:

Robert Albrecht, Professor of Media Arts at New Jersey City University, author of Mediating the Muse: A Communications Approach to Music, Media, and Cultural Change (2004), and a musician and songwriter, his two CDs are A Tale of Two Cities (2012), consisting of original songs about Jersey City and Hoboken, and Song of the Poet (2008), consisting of poems by Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, and others set to music. He is currently co-authoring a book tentatively entitled, The Arts as Pedagogy in the Age of Digital Technology: Teaching as a Creative Activity.

Margaret M. Cassidy, Professor and Chair of Communications at Adelphi University and Past President of the New York State Communication Association, author of BookEnds: The Changing Media Environment of American Classrooms (2004), and the recently published Children, Media, and American History: Printed Poison, Pernicious Stuff, and Other Terrible Temptations (2017).

Michael Plugh, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, Immediate Past President of the New York State Communication Association, Internet Officer and Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association, and member of the New York Society for General Semantics Board of Directors, currently researching innovative initiatives in schooling.

Oh, and the moderator was none other than yours truly. And here's the video:





I think this was one of my all time favorites NYSGS sessions! 

Communication and Disruption

So, how about another post about one of our New York Society for General Semantics sessions from last year? Interested? Of course, you are!

This one is a little different from some of the others, as it involves one extended address, followed by a few shorter responses. And it features my colleague from Manhattan College and co-founder of the Media Ecology Association, as well as fellow trustee of the Institute of General Semantics, not to mention NYSGS board member, Thom Gencarelli.

I should also mention that Thom is a fellow past president of the New York State Communication Association, as well as the MEA, and this all starts with him being selected as a fellow Wilson  Fellow at NYSCA in 2016, which obligated him to deliver a Wilson Scholar Address at our last meeting, this past October. Which he did, and it was outstanding, which was why I asked him to give it again as part of a NYSGS program.

So, anyway, here's the write up for it:

Last year, Thom Gencarelli received NYSCA's John F. Wilson Fellow Award, based on his record of scholarship and service. Other scholars previously named as John F. Wilson Fellows include Neil Postman, Gary Gumpert, Dan Hahn, Deborah Borisoff, Susan Drucker, James W. Carey, Lance Strate, Susan B. Barnes, and Brian Cogan. In conjunction with his selection, he delivered this year's John F. Wilson Fellow Lecture on October 13th, at the 75th anniversary meeting of the New York State Communication Association:
"Dark Nets and Disruptive Practices"

All too often, people outside the academic discipline of communication and media studies consider what we do to be little more than a special interest, rather than the study of something that is central to, and one of the primary defining features of, the human experience. As a case in point, the Presidential election of 2016, the most disruptive event of all disruptive events in our contemporary experience in the U.S., can be explained from a media perspective, and an historical one at that. Beginning from Gutenberg’s invention of the mechanical, movable-type printing press and through our contemporary innovations in mobility, social media, and Tor, this presentation argues that all inventions and innovations in media are a disruption, and that the evolution of media by which the citizenry in a democratic society inform themselves can explain, in full, exactly what happened to us in 2016.

On November 3rd, Professor Gencarelli reprised his Wilson Lecture as the main event of our NYSGS program, and following the lecture, as an added bonus, additional reflections, comments, and responses were delivered by

MJ Robinson, Professor of New Media and Journalism and Media Studies, Bernard N. Stern Professor of Humor, and Graduate Deputy Chair for the Media Studies MS program in the Department of Television and Radio at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York;

Michael Plugh, Professor of Communication at Manhattan College, Immediate Past President of the New York State Communication Association, and Internet Officer and Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association;

and Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, Past President of the New York State Communication Association, Editor of Explorations in Media Ecology and Executive Board member of the Media Ecology Association, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics, and President of the New York Society for General Semantics.

Thom Gencarelli, Ph.D. (NYU, 1993) is Professor and the founding Chair of the Communication Department at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. He is a Past President of the New York State Communication Association, the Media Ecology Association, and New Jersey Communication Association (twice), and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics. He researches and writes about media literacy/media education, media ecology, and popular media and culture with an emphasis on popular music. He is co-editor (with Brian Cogan) of Baby Boomers and Popular Culture: An Inquiry into America’s Most Powerful Generation (ABC-Clio/ Praeger, 2014), and is currently at work on a book about language acquisition and cognitive development. Thom is also a songwriter, musician, and music producer, and has released two album-length works with his ensemble bluerace, World is Ready and Beautiful Sky. The group’s third, as yet untitled effort is due out in 2018.

It was a program that most certainly shed light on our contemporary semantic environment!

Jedi and the Jews

So, my January 12th op ed for the Jewish Standard was given the title, Jew vs. Jedi: “May the Schwartz Be With You”, and here it is for the first time on Blog Time Passing:

The Last Jedi is one of the best, if not the best, of the Star Wars cinematic series that first exploded onto theater screens in 1977. The film franchise, originated by George Lucas, was sold to the Walt Disney Company in 2012, and revitalized in 2015 by the first installment in the new trilogy, The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams.

Although it was a huge commercial success and generally well received, many fans were unhappy with the shift to a more progressive outlook in The Force Awakens, and expressed dissatisfaction with the casting, which deviated from the previous films, which were all but monopolized by white males. In this new trilogy, the lead heroic role of Rey is given to a young woman, while another main character is played by a young African-American man. Even when the sentiments expressed were not overtly racist and sexist, those undercurrents were apparent, especially given that the plot of The Force Awakens was quite consistent with the original Star Wars film.

Star Wars The Force Awakens cast Harrison Ford; Daisy Ridley; Bob Iger; J.J. Abrams; John Boyega; Lupita Nyong'o; Oscar Isaac

The Last Jedi, directed by Rian Johnson, extended the new sensibility by highlighting female leadership, including the late Carrie Fisher as the leader of the resistance and Laura Dern as a self-sacrificing admiral of their decimated fleet, while introducing a significant new character played by Kelly Marie Tran, the child of Vietnamese immigrants. Consistent with this move toward greater diversity in casting, the film also emphasized the progressive theme of breaking with the past.

Given the reactionary mentality of most disgruntled Star Wars fanatics, I was disturbed to read Liel Liebovitz’s December 18 piece in Tablet magazine, called “Reform Jediism.” Liebovitz explains his reaction to the film:

I felt a torrent of anger I haven’t known since gazing at the calamity that was Jar-Jar Binks. That’s because the movie, while otherwise engaging and enjoyable, introduced a radical new take on the Jedi religion. Call it Reform Jediism.

Anger is consistent with right-wing screeds against any form of liberal politics, but in this instance the target was Reform Judaism. As he puts it,

for American Jewish audiences… The Last Jedi can feel almost like a documentary, a sordid story about a small community eager to trade in the old and onerous traditions for the glittery and airy creed of universalist kumbaya that, like so much sound and fury, signifies nothing.

As a Reform Jew, I am deeply offended by Liebovitz’s disdain for those of us who practice a form of Judaism different from his own. And I have to wonder what it is about us that makes him so afraid. In the words of the Jedi master Yoda, who presumably represents Liebovitz’s idea of Orthodox Jediism, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Don’t we know this to be true? Isn’t our world big enough for different forms of Jewish worship, different modes of Jewish identity? Does he really want to open up an irrevocable schism in the Jewish population?

Responses from readers both sympathetic to his general outlook and supportive of the Reform movement have taken Liebovitz to task for misinterpreting the meaning of The Last Jedi, ignoring important details in the film or just getting them wrong, forcing facts to fit his views instead of vice versa. For my part, I find the entire conversation absurd. Its original sin is Liebovitz’s equating Jew and Jedi.

The Star Wars universe was created by George Lucas, who was raised a Methodist. The film’s underlying Christian sensibility is apparent in its emphasis on a savior figure. In the original trilogy, the messianic character is Luke (evoking the Gospels) Skywalker (paralleling walking on water). In the prequels, Anakin Skywalker is born via immaculate conception on the part of the Force and identified as the “chosen one” of prophecy, before falling from grace and becoming the equivalent of the Christian Satan, Darth Vader.

The Jedi are referred to as an “order” rather than a religion. Judaism does not have any orders, but there are many within the Catholic tradition (e.g., Jesuits, Dominicans), as well in as other forms of Christianity including the Methodists, and also within Buddhism, a major influence as well on Lucas and his creation. The Jedi Order is monastic. Worldly attachments—notably marriage—are forbidden; that’s a rule also associated with Christianity and Buddhism.

A fully trained Jedi is referred to as a knight, and Jedi knights are all but invincible warriors, in some ways modeled after Japanese samurai, but also after holy paladins, not unlike the Arthurian knights of the roundtable in search of the Holy Grail of Christian legend. Jedi also are much like priests, Christian or Shaolin, with a direct connection to the godlike Force, one that ordinary people lack. They are nothing like the great rabbis of Jewish tradition, learned sages who study and interpret our sacred texts.

The Christian sensibility of Star Wars is especially apparent in its valuation of redemption and forgiveness. At the end of the original trilogy, Luke is able to convince his father, Darth Vader, to turn on his master, the evil emperor. Luke insists that there still is good in Vader, and this final act allows Vader to die in a state of grace, and to appear in ghostly form alongside the good Jedi who have also left the earthly plane. But the fact remains that Vader was guilty of untold atrocities, including destroying an entire planet in the first Star Wars film.

In The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren is introduced as essentially worshipping Darth Vader as well as following the evil Supreme Leader of the First Order, and engages in acts of patricide and mass murder. In The Last Jedi, Rey tries to turn Ren away from the dark side, just as Luke did with Vader, saying that it’s not to late for him. The idea that you can be forgiven for all of your sins as long as you repent in the end has its origins in Christian theology, whereas in our tradition, as expounded by Maimonides, some sins are so heinous that no forgiveness or redemption is possible.

I don’t mean to imply that Star Wars is based only on Christian elements. Lucas weaved together a variety of influences, including Buddhism, Japanese samurai films, westerns, World War Two movies, old movie serials such as Flash Gordon, and Joseph Campbell’s notion of the hero’s journey (itself more consistent with Christianity than Judaism). What I want to emphasize is that Star Wars does not reflect Jewish sensibilities, and does not make for a good analogy with contemporary Jewish life.

We still can appreciate and enjoy the movies, which above all are entertaining. But we also ought to be aware of Lucas’s failings as a storyteller. His movies have been criticized for portraying democratic institutions as weak and ineffectual, supported only by the elitist Jedi. Only a few people exhibit the force sensitivity needed to become a Jedi, and that trait is inherited rather than acquired through hard work or ethical conduct.

Lucas drew on many stylistic elements from the World War II era, some in disturbing fashion. For example, the final scene of the first Star Wars movie is based on a scene from the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. Worse, in the prequel trilogy, Lucas drew on offensive ethnic stereotypes, trying to displace them onto alien beings. The character of Jar Jar Binks, whom Liebovitz and many other fans criticized for being too silly, was based on African-American Stepin Fetchit stereotypes, with a Jamaican/Rastafarian speech pattern. The leaders of the evil Trade Federation were based on East Asian “yellow peril” stereotypes. And the greedy slave owner Watto is hook-nosed and speaks with a Yiddish accent.

Liebovitz is wrong in thinking that the earlier Star Wars movies emphasized tradition. No, they were exercises in nostalgia, romanticized images of the past. And they are profoundly ahistorical, set “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” The fairytale-like formula stands in stark contrast to the Jewish invention of historical narrative. The events that occur in the Star Wars universe have no connection to our world. How long ago did they happen? What is the connection between their time and ours? Are we the descendants of the human characters in these stories? Are they even human? For this reason, as well as the fact that there is no rationale given for the “futuristic” science and technology, purists argue that these stories are fantasy rather than science fiction.

As Jews, we believe in progress toward a better future as well as continuity with the past. The Star Wars universe is as disconnected from our tradition as it is from human history. We can enjoy the films as entertainment, certainly, and I would suggest that also we ought to applaud the more progressive approach associated with Abrams, Johnson, and Disney. As for a Jewish take on the franchise, I can think of none better than the 1987 Mel Brooks movie Spaceballs, which teaches us to live and let live and not take ourselves so seriously.

And so I say to Liebovitz and others like him, “May the Schwartz be with you!”

If Not A Then E (Studio Version)

So previously here on Blog Time Passing I posted my 2013 Keynote Address to the Media Ecology Association, a version of a talk I had first given at an Institute of General Semantics symposium. If you somehow missed it, here's the link: My MEA Keynote (If Not A Then E).

That address, "If Not A, Then E," includes a creative use of PowerPoint, at least I think so, and in fact that was a key element of the talk. The recording of the keynote captures much of the visual presentation in the background, but not all of it. And the PowerPoint is the main point, visually speaking, you don't really need to look at me at all, you just need to hear me talk.

As a live event, that recording also includes my friend Thom Gencarelli introducing me, and the question and answer session that followed.

My friend Ed Tywoniak liked the address so much that he said he wanted to produce a video version. It took a few years to get around to it, but a little over a year ago, March of 2017, he had me over to his school, Saint Mary's College of California, as a Disney Forum Fellow (that's the Roy E. and Patricia Disney Forum), and one of the goals was to convert the PowerPoint to video, with me doing the voiceover.

There were some challenges in making the conversion. You would think it would be easy enough, but there tends to be a loss of visual definition or quality in making the transfer from PowerPoint to video. To avoid that, this version does not include some of the transitions which were part of the overall aesthetic of the presentation. Still and all, Ed's students, Ryan Moran and Sean Wagner, did an outstanding job in putting together the video, setting up the sound recording, and putting it all together. 

The end result comes in at 28 minutes, as there is no one introducing me as a speaker, and no Q&A session. And here it is:





I'll share some other videos that came out of my visit another time. For now, this is me, signing off, from here on E-world.

Success and GS

 So, I know it's been awhile, another bit of a hiatus, life happening while I was making other plans, that sort of thing, but I will try to get back on track, at least a bit. And let me start with a post about a podcast interview that took place back in August, and was published on September 12th, 2017. Here's a rather cool and groovy preview video for the podcast:







The interviewer was Jeff Bogaczyk, who was finishing up his PhD in communication at Duquesne University, and does a podcast series called Mind for Life. As he explains it:

Who Am I?

My name is Jeff Bogaczyk and I write about and produce a podcast on personal development. I am very interested in the intersection between our thoughts and actions and explore this in my writing and podcast. I hope you enjoy!

What is Mind For Life?

Mind for Life is a podcast/blog designed with your best life in mind based on the idea that how you think greatly affects the way you live. This seems obvious at first glance but a deeper probe into the question reveals how important this fact is, and also how often it is forgotten in our daily activity. The majority of our life experience is done on “autopilot.” What this means is that our actual lived experience is comprised of thousands of things each day that affect what we choose to do, how we respond to people, the choices we make, and the actions we take. There are so many factors involved that we cannot consciously be aware of all of them and so our brains “choose” for us based upon past experiences and decisions. Our brains act for us and make “autopilot” decisions beneath our conscious awareness.

Of course some of these decisions are minor and don’t have major affects on our lives–we are tired of sitting so we stand, we stretch our arms, we fidget in our chair because we are uncomfortable. Usually, we aren’t aware that we are doing these things because it happens subconsciously. However, there are other decisions our brains make for us that have greater consequences in our lives. How we respond in a conflict situation with someone we love, for example. See, our brains have been “programmed” to respond in these instances based upon the past experiences in our lives. In other words, our environment has taught us how to respond simply by experiencing things and events. To use the conflict example–we usually respond to conflict the way we have been “taught”–not intentionally, necessarily–but by the examples of the people that we have been around and grown up with. Our parents, our household environment, our friendships, and other relationships all influence how we learn about managing conflict. So, if we have grown up and lived in an environment that has been characterized by shouting, slamming doors, demeaning others, etc. in conflict situations, we learn that unconsciously and that becomes the “default” for how our brains operate in similar situations.

We Can Change

The good news is that we can change our default thinking patterns by establishing intentional, productive thinking processes in our life. Recent research into our cognitive development has shown that our brains have a quality called neuroplasticity. This basically means that our brains, our thinking patterns, our thought processes are still mold-able and can be adjusted and improved. This is good news because we all understand, if we are honest with ourselves, that we have areas in our lives where we can improve. Self-awareness is the ability to see those areas of weakness in our own lives. The challenge is finding ways to correct them. This is where communication can make a difference.

Mindful Communication

Really, if you think about it, thinking is simply a process of communicating with ourselves in a particular direction. When we think, we enter an internal dialogue with ourselves where we ask questions, provide answers, state premises’ and hopefully solve problems and come up with solutions and answers. This podcast/blog is basically about helping to turn our attention to this entire process as it is taking place in our lives and helping to establish proactive thinking patterns that will, in time, provide better outcomes and a better life. If our default thinking patterns in particular aspects of our life are dysfunctional due to bad experiences in our past, then the default thought process will result in a habitual action that results in a destructive outcome. Think of it like this. Though the “computer” model of brain function has many problems, in this area we might be able to say if the programming is bad, the output will be bad. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.

The solution? Though we can’t always fix what goes in, we can take steps to address these inputs in constructive and productive ways. Changing our thinking involves self-awareness–a realization in all facets of what has happened to us and where our areas of difficulty lie. Secondly it involves education–learning about what is really happening, how these processes are taking place and how we can respond positively and productively. This is what Mind For Life is all about. Join with us on the journey!

Jeff has been doing very impressive work, and we originally connected via his interest in media ecology and participation in communication conferences. Given the nature of his series, it was only natural that the discussion emphasized general semantics, and it seemed only fitting to get into Wendell Johnson's general semantics concept of the IFD disease. 

Jeff incorporates the connection in his blog post related to the podcast: 3 Powerful Leadership Lessons From General Semantics And Media Ecology. You can read what he wrote over on his blog, I'll just note here that the three lessons he mentions are: 1. Develop operational definitions; 2. Watch out for idealization; and 3. Avoid abstract jargon and leadership clichés. His explanation of these three ideas and the overall discussion leading up to it are worth reading, so I recommend checking it out.

As for the podcast itself, can listen to it via this link: MFL 22–Dr. Lance Strate: Success and IFD Disease. I do think it turned out rather well, don't you agree? And here's the custom pic he included:

You can download the podcast via that link, and there's a bio and list of my books on the same page, and some links, which I don't need to include here. But I think the following items Jeff also includes are worth a little cut and paste. The first is a list of Podcast Time Stamps:

Podcast Time Stamps

[5:51] – Dr. Strate tells what Media Ecology is all about and explains General Semantics.

[7:48] – Lance describes how General Semantics can help us in thinking about words and how we use them in our lives.

[10:03] – Dr. Strate describes how General Sematics can help us when thinking about success.

[11:00] – Lance talks about IFD disease: Idealization, frustration and demoralization. A process that occurs when we use our words as high level abstractions instead of more specifically.

[17:13] – How operational definitions can help to prevent IDF disease. Operational definitions prevent us from idealizing any given term or goal in our lives.

[18:42] – How General Semantics is an attempt to take scientific method and generalize it to human relations.

[21:26] – Lance talks about his own personal “operational definition” of success. Specifically about looking at accomplishments and completing tasks as realistic expectations instead of idealized abstractions.

[24:00] – How pride and status are related to success and accomplishment. For Lance, it’s more about “going with the flow” and following the path that rose up before him.

[25:30] – There is also a component about being realistic about what you are able to achieve.

[26:22] – How Lance finds the motivation to write as extensively as he does – it’s about committing to things and leveraging his sense of obligation to deliver on what he promises someone.

And the second is Jeff's list of Top Learning Moments:

Top learning moments

Much of success is related to your definition of success. From a General Semantics perspective this has to do with creating an “operational definition” that allows you to pursue something that isn’t a generalization or abstraction.

IFD disease – the idea of having “idealistic” expectations that will never come to pass turns into frustration and demoralization. If you find yourself frustrated or demoralized, ask yourself if you aren’t pursuing some idealistic end and then think about how you can make that more realistic and practical.

Committing to doing something leverages the psychological power of obligation. When we commit to something, we have a stronger tendency to accomplish it because other people expect it of us. So, to accomplish more, it may be helpful to say “yes” rather than “no” when someone asks us to do something outside of our comfort zone.

 

All in all, I'd say the outcome of this interview interaction was, indeed, a success!