Catharsis in the Middle East

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude...in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions. (1449[b])

-Aristotle, Poetics

Conflict in the Middle East will probably end in violence. It is difficult to see it going down any other way.

The Economist declares that the Arab World is awaking from a slumber to find itself in the modern world. Such views, common among Western thought these days, are poorly thought out. They may offer some insight, but they ignore the scope and intensity of the underlying problem. More importantly, they offer no solution to it. But however you conceptualize things, ignoring the problems won't make them go away.

The Patronizing View

The Economist writes in a special report on the Arab World:

Imagine an Arab Rip Abu Winkle who had fallen into a deep slumber some time in the early 1980s. If he woke up now, he would rub his eyes in disbelief at how little had changed.

Coming off of Iran’s recent election protests, the magazine’s writers see the Arab World as ripe for political and philosophical change. In the face of the region’s common religious-political charges of heresy, they challenge a Middle Eastern academic to spark an intellectual revolution. Jestingly they conclude:

It turns out the French thinker Voltaire probably never uttered the words so often ascribed to him: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” So the way is clear. Let some Western Muslim sage be the first philosopher to make that pronouncement, and mean it.

The Economist is right to point out the region’s state of transition, but it’s hard to see how the solution lies in a philosophical breakthrough. Furthermore, it's tempting to view the region as absent from the world’s rapid changes over the past 20 years, but the first half of the 20th century saw a similar stagnation in Europe.

Contemporary History

A European Rip Van Winkle who went to sleep after the First World War only to wake up during the Second undoubtedly would’ve had déjà vu. Many of the direct causes of the First World War can be traced further back to the late 1800’s, and its proper resolution lay in the Cold War - all of which arguably stretches the period of European unrest to just shy of a century.

During the years leading up to World War I, Europe has in retrospect been called a powder keg, waiting to explode into violence. It would not be far off to call the modern Arab World a powder keg. And despite the region’s residual violence and ongoing tensions, it doesn’t seem to have exploded yet.



The Arab Rip Abu Winkle who wakes up today should be gravely concerned, similar to the European Rip Van Winkle waking up around World War II. From an outsider’s view – such as The Economist’s – it’s tempting to conclude that nothing has changed in the Arab World; but this cannot be correct from an Arab’s perspective. Dealing with the same issues for nearly 50 years has likely built a huge amount of tension, which has only been released in small doses of short wars, border conflicts, and mini-massacres.



The Arab Rip Abu Winkle who awakes this year, unlike his European counterpart, is unlikely to think that little has changed, as if all of the strife is a trifle annoyance preventing him from getting on with his life. He is more likely to think, "Why do my bloodsucking neighbors still roam the earth?"

What Has Changed

In the meanwhile, the West has thrown all the resources and diplomacy into the region that it can, none of which has had appreciable effect. If the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again without meaningful results, then working on yet another treaty is certainly stupid. By this point wishful diplomacy further carries the risk of alleviating violence in the short-term while failing to solve the underlying problem. Indeed, the longer the underlying problem persists, the more powder is added to the keg.

Disregarding meaningless diplomacy or the rise of an Arab Voltaire, there are a few key factors at play that will determine whether the region falls into bloodshed.

First, the region is getting younger. The baby boomer phenomenon in the West has been echoed throughout the world through dramatic jumps in the average lifespan. Older generations throughout the world are yielding to younger ones. This transition is even further delayed in developed nations, where average lifespan is longest. But it has already occurred in 2nd world areas like the Middle East, where over half the population is entering their 30’s.

The world is just beginning to witness this transition, as seen in Iran’s election protests. The near future of the Middle East rests in the hands of the young. If the region erupts in bloodshed, it will be their doing. If nations lay down their arms, it will be their doing as well.

The protests might signal that the new generation is growing tired of the old regimes, and may consequently be less violent than their ancestors. Moreover, Israel’s culture, in many respects, is known as being surprisingly secular.

But forgetting such violent past grievances is easier said than done. Contemporary history doesn’t suggest that peace will do a good job at burying the hatchet.


A second but less critical factor is the global recession. The Middle Eastern economy is disproportionally reliant on oil, making it overly sensitive to fluctuations in world demand while eschewing other forms of internal economic growth (a phenomenon known as Dutch Disease). Unemployment is particularly high among Arab youth, which further worsens its prospects for peace.

Looking Forward

In a famous piece, American-Egyptian columnist Mona Eltahawy called Israel the opium of the Middle East; the statement was made in the same sense that Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. She claimed that the conflict has blinded the region from pursuing more virtuous goals by influencing each nation to play the victim.

The conflict certainly has taken their gaze off of more noble aims, but the region is hardly in a pain-free euphoric state, even be it artificially induced. The conflict with Israel is hardly intoxicating, and it hasn't trumped more noble other pursuits simply because it's easier. It's trumped these other pursuits because it has remained red hot with intensity for nearly half a century.

All hope is not lost for a peaceful solution. But whatever that solution may be, it will have to genuinely come from within the region; patchwork external solutions merely risk making things much worse. The greatest source of hope lies in the new younger generation, who are just beginning to take power. At the same time, their young hubris remains an even greater risk for volatility.

Catharsis

Modern day relations between European nations might not seem like anything special, but it's no coincidence that Europe's current peacefulness arrived off the heels of almost a century of cyclical violence and tension. The devastation of two World Wars, followed by the bitter taste of the Cold War, thoroughly purged Europe. The world will have to wait and see whether the Middle East need undergo a similar purging of her own.

But again, tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will then be greater than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design. (1449[b])

-Aristotle, Poetics

-KJ
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Media (in order of appearance)

Photo: (1)Issue cover for July 25th Economist; (2)MontageMain Page; (3)WWI ChartX: A diagrammatic illustration of European political alliances in the period leading up to the First World War, depiction of Europe's preWWI "powder keg" from Wikipedia; (4)Will it ever stop?, 06/28/2009, Clar@bell; (5)TL032318, 06/03/2008, Ava Pearl; (6)Oedipus at Colonus by Jean-Antoine-Theodore Giroust 1788 French Oil, 11/10/2006, mharrsch. for the World War I Wikipedia.

Music: (1)Video, 10/30/2007 Basketballerke, of the song "Broken Chord Can Sing a Little" from the 05/27/2000 album He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms by the band A Silver Mt. Zion.
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Judge not, that ye be judged

“Who are these losers?” I asked myself 15 minutes into the 2007 documentary, Confessions of a Superhero. The film tracks the lives of a rare breed of pan handlers crossed with superheroes located on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Dressed as superheroes of their choosing, they coax passersby into getting a picture with them in return for a tip. The film focuses on four of these faux-heroes' backgrounds. Each has the cliché background of moving to Hollywood with hopes to hit it big, only to get stuck there with an undesirable job. The catch is that the occupation is in one sense so close to the dream – getting into costume and playing a role – but in another sense, so far – begging pedestrians for spare change.



Confessions of a Superhero is a great film in how it digs into these characters rather than skimming the surface with high profile interviews and related late-night talk show items. In their own individual ways, each character has a yearning that we can all relate to. They each have failings that we can all relate to as well. They’ve dreamed so large, yet hit reality so hard. Perhaps, at the least, they’re not losers after all.

“Judge not, that ye be judged” – This is the only thing I really got out of the Bible, but it stuck hard. It’s easy to judge and to cast off. Yet it fosters an attitude of arrogance. A state where no one feels that they should listen to the other. It’s impossible to truly withhold judgment, but acting heavily upon such judgments, I find, confines my mind into a corner. Why should I bother with other people if so many of them are below me? We're influenced heavily by those around us. We're built that way. To shut your mind off from those around you is to block yourself from a human essential. To shut your mind off mentally from those around you, you might as well shut your body off physically from those around you.

One of many products after millions of years of evolution, most people are not so different from one another, and they may not be so different from one another as to warrant judgment, at least, judgment in any grand sense. Looking from the outside-in, we have similar characteristics, builds, purposes, mechanisms. Surely one individual isn’t universally better than another. Any such judgments made are just on a trivial subjective scale, be it in terms of preferences, personality, money, education, colored heavily by culture. People from cultures other than your own often look alike because you don't have the cultural tools to pick them apart. So are people across all cultures: similar.

This is what democracy is built upon. “That all men are created equal.”

People are an economy’s best asset – particularly in their most free and unbridled form possible. It’s telling that Einstein escaped persecution as a Jew in Nazi Germany (his work ridiculed as Jewish Physics) in order to eventually help America defeat the Axis. Perhaps if Nazi Germany had been more welcoming to Jews, he could have helped them defeat America. But then again, had Nazi Germany been more welcoming to Jews, it wouldn’t have been Nazi Germany, and we’d be talking about something else not World War II.

-KJ
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Media (in order of appearance)

Photo: (1) Confessions of a Superhero movie poster; (2) Einstein portrait.

Video: (1) Trailer for the 2007 documentary Confessions of a Superhero, 10/10/2007, from Arts Alliance America channel. Sphere: Related Content

fMRI: The Argument of Authority

Science in America has replaced religion. Not in all aspects – science will never be held in people’s hearts like religion, but the two tread on the same ground, by some arguments they stab at the same questions. Both are paradigms for explanation, and they’re competing for space - science’s gains in status speak more to scientific progress than to religious decline. In a funny way though, science’s rise in power has inherited it some of religion’s warts. Science in America has adopted an air of superiority and objectivity, which for centuries was reserved for Christianity. The curious rise in the use of fMRI – functional magnetic resonance imaging, used to tap brain activity - is an interesting example of this. It’s a scientific technique that may have more objectivity and authority than substance.

The argument of authority is the weakest argument of all. This is a stance put forward by St. Thomas Aquinas (who, ironically, was rather authoritative himself). As the Church’s authority changed and grew with the times, this became a common criticism of doctrine. Nietzsche, though, first revealed authority - or at least, how authority was perceived by the masses - for what it really was: a power grab.

His line of thought was that people are going to declare whatever they want to declare and they’re going to use any means to do so. The largest historical example of this is the Church – who go so far as to claim backing by the word of God in order to hold captive the public.
But Nietzsche didn’t stop there. He damned objectivity as part of the same game. This is theology, this is bodies and bodies of literature using the bible to form public opinion. Authority and objectivity have a synergistic effect, and this is what kept the Church in place. In 397 AD St. Augustine wrote The Confessions and in 1227 St. Thomas Aquinas wrote The Summa Theologica. In the 800 years in between, there weren’t really any other intellectual breakthroughs in the Western world. This worked.

Democracy heralded a new age of decentralization in the West. People not only stopped trusting authority, they were smarter. Smarter in an academic sense. More intellectual, more opinionated, individualistic, they felt their voice should be heard because it deserved to be heard. The academic sphere – which used to center around religion and authority – now focuses more on objectivity. With an air of objectivity, it is earier to win over the modern mind. Modern day science holds a similar role - in power and policy - as religion used to, but it’s traded a bit of authority for some more objectivity: The latter is built on the pillars of the scientific method and peer review; while authority still persists in premier research institutions and "Ivory Towers", but overall the value of authority is still sinking. Here, though, Nietzsche still stands: Objectivity, yes, but objectivity for what?

Moving onto fMRI's, this post was largely sparked by a presentation I saw about neuroimmaging by Robert Poldrack. He’s documented his skepticism behind the widespread use of fMRI. On the surface, the technology, as used in most research, is simple enough: Participants do activities while their hemodynamic responses from different brain areas are measured. This gives us pretty images like this:The results are the changes in brain activity across tasks that have been carefully selected by scientests. The tasks involve turning on/off a certain thoughts or stimuli (e.g., viewing a shape versus a piece of art). Empirical results from fMRI studies are centered around very simplified and controlled changes in the lab and corresponding changes in brain activity. That’s it.

Poldrack raises the point that fMRI images are very sensitive and they’re very nonspecific. In other words, your brain lights up from almost any activity, and the areas that light up aren’t always specific to the activity you’re doing. You could be pondering the world or having sex, a lot of the same areas of your brain will light up. This becomes a problem when scientific studies pinpoint areas of the brain that are tied to some distinct activity and/or use fMRI to distinguish between two populations.

For the better or worst, these sorts of studies can't simply look at the whole brain. In the world of science, it’s preferred to keep studies limited in scope, and this particularly applies to brain imaging. Too much data is hard to interpret, and in technical terms it’s…a mess. Unfocused studies have a higher chance of finding spurious results. This has a statistical explanation, but really it’s just that if you look at tons of stuff, you’re bound to find stuff that appears interesting, on an empirical level, but is actually just occurring by chance. This gets worse though with fMRI’s, because they spit out millions of pixels, each of which is a data point that is analyzed. As technology makes fMRI’s more resolute, they give out even more data, increasing the chances of finding a mess on your hands.

As participants do the required experimental actions, researchers focus on distinctive parts of the brain. When that part of the brain lights up across their sample, the authors attribute whatever action they have the participant do to that part of the brain. It seems reasonable, and that's often why you always hear about the executive part of the brain, the emotional part, etc. But the issue of high sensitivity and low specificity calls most of that logic into question: Due to high sensitivity, those areas in the brain might have lighten up in response to any other task; and due to non-specificity, many other areas of the brain likely respond to that activity as well.
An example: Poldrack brought up an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, often summarized as the decision making part of the brain. However, this area lights up from so many other tasks: reading fake words versus real ones, pushing your tongue against the roof of your mouth versus resting it, viewing certain patterns versus letters, and doing simple versus complex memory tasks, to name a few. Nonetheless, whenever researchers find that this area lights up, they'll specifically attribute it to their experimental task. This sort "reverse inference", as Poldrack calls it, runs rampant in the field.

Everything gets messier when comparing different people. (You might remember the recent news item that Democrats think with different parts of their brains than Republicans.) Inevitably, many fMRI studies do this, but things get tricky with the introduction of a new demographic or person-based variable.

For example, a study might compare responses to certain stimuli - say, threatening versus neutral stimuli - in anxious versus normal people. So they’re dealing with two versuses: The first – based on the task – produces those sensitive and non-specific responses in the brain; and the second – the person-centered comparison – brings into the equation differences between people, which is a complex area in its own right.

One pitfall (of many) in this common experimental design: Different clinical conditions are related to different amounts of baseline brain activity. Going back to our example, this is likely the case in anxiety, which is a state of hyper-vigilance. So the noise of the anxious person’s brain is already turned up. This leaves less room for their brain to respond to tasks (causing a ceiling effect). Studies in fact often conclude that clinical groups are less responsive to changes in stimuli, because a specific brain area lit up less in response to a certain activity in clinical populations than in normal ones. Again though, this might be due to differences in resting brain activity. Or it might be due to non-theoretical differences between the populations - for example, anxiety tends to be higher among women or in insomniacs. Or it might be due to non-theoretical differences in responses to the stimuli that the researchers used (e.g., the color of a certain card) which were picked up in the sensitive brain reading. In other words, it's easily possible that such a typical study isn't teaching us much about anxiety or the brain.

I apologize for the long and technical discussion of fMRI, but the resulting situation is rather interesting, albeit not because of what it teaches you about the brain. Imagine if every question you could ask about the brain were answered in the positive, regardless of the true answer. That’s much like this field.

Since every study finds what it wanted to, you get this mishmash of absurdly complicated theories about neural correlates, brain circuits, specific activities linked to specific areas of the brain. It reminds me of reading theology, where I'd have to step back and ask myself whether the sheer complexity of the subject matter ever matched its underlying content. Every research question is answered with a yes, and consequentially it's said to deserve further research, which means even more finely detailed study. You end up getting these very complicated theories about how specific activities affect very specific brain areas in different types of people. The word complex is used very often even within scientific circles to summarize these theories. (There’s even a blog called The Neurotic completely devoted to unveiling society’s brain-imaging-based misconceptions.)

Not that all of science is going to hell in a hand basket. There’s no mistaking true scientific advancement for anything but – and we’ve been a fortunate and smart enough society to have experienced much of it. Likewise, despite Nietzsche’s musing about the church and power, there’s a true underlying glow of religion which fits the human soul so perfectly and like a key. But inevitably there are ways to exploit any man-made system, and fMRI’s maybe a unique example of this exploitation in science. They provide a veil of objectivity necessary for academic clout, justification for future grants – in a word, power.


-KJ

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Media (in order of appearance)

Photo (1) The Majesty of Law, statue on Independence Avenue Washington, DC, 09/19/2008, by Kimberly Faye; (2) Portrait of Fredrich Nietzsche (1844-1900); (3) Christianity, 08/29/2007, by OdedG; (4) Triumph of Christianity, by Tommaso Laureti (1530-1602), Sala di Costantino, Vatican Palace (5) Stained Glass Tower of Ivory, window in St. Ignatius Church, Chestnut Hill, MA, 05/17/2006, by John Workman; (6) fMRI, 03/08/2004, by Washington Irving; (7) Varian4T, fMRI scanner from Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at University of California Berkley; (8) Artistic Mess Cormacphelan; (9) Anterior Cingulate Cortex; (10) Activation of Brain Region Predicts Autism, Scott Huettel, Duke University Photography Jim Wallace; (11) Hawkan Lau by Dr. Pat, 07/18/2005; (12) Nietzsche's Will to Power - Bar, 05/01/2008, by Sharon Hagenbeek

Video (1) some of them were superstitious, AlGorey91's channel, music by the band Midlake, from the album Bamnan and Silvercork, released 07/06/2004 Sphere: Related Content

Chameleon

Freedom is a cornerstone of Church doctrine. When left “in his own counsel,” the argument goes, man “might of his own accord seek his creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection.” It’s fitting that America welcomed religion with open arms.

Tocqueville ascribed it partly to the power of free choice. Freedom strengthens conviction. People are more dedicated to those things that they choose. Conversely, restricting people tends to yield lackluster results. Consider the fall of communism. Or the uniquely secular populace in modern-day Israel, a country originally formed out of devotion to one religion.

It frames men, but religion is also framed by men. History has revealed a constant give-and-take; at times man bends to suit religion, at times religion bends to suit man. It changes with the scenery, like a chameleon.



It’s no surprise then that Christianity was different in America. Noted Tocqueville, it became more practical. Clergy tended to highlight the importance of rewards in the present life rather than in the afterlife. It changed some.

In some sense, it adopted scare tactics, ranging from fire-and-brimstone speeches of the 18th century to Hell Houses of today (haunted houses depicting the consequences of sins like abortion and suicide on the afterlife).

Hell House - Trailer | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

In some sense, it became subliminal. %92 of people believe in God, but visions of him vary, ranging from all-powerful to impersonal to not quite sure.

In some sense, it became more tolerable. Theoretically religions are mutually exclusive of each other, but this breaks down when surrounded by neighbors and friends of different faith.

In another way, it became more divisive, a part of personal identity to separate one from others.

Most of all though, it mirrored politics. Wrote Tocqueville, “religion itself holds sway [in America] much less as a doctrine of revelation than as a commonly received opinion.” This underlies the maxim of never discussing politics and religion at the dinner table – it speaks to an interesting similarity between religion and politics in a democracy.

Although separated legally, religion and politics share cores of beliefs, values, and opinions held intimate by many.

Original sin. Faith. Guilt and redemption. Ritual. Community. The apocalypse.

These all extend beyond aspects Christianity, they stir the soul on some level.

Today, they’ve arisen as cornerstones of environmentalism, a movement that relies more heavily on Christian-like dogma than science. Conservatives have Catholicism and liberal’s have environmentalism.

Per environmentalism, areas of Alaska are considered holy and untouchable; while industrial actions previously taken by America are deemed unfit for third world economic development. Its plethora of apocalyptic visions far preceded the current global warming frenzy, covering food availability, population growth, and even water.



Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore stand out as pure modern-day fire
and brimstone visionaries. In 1969, Ehrlich predicted that:
"By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth's population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people." Two decades later he revealed his true unscientific feelings: "We've already had too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure." Al Gore's current rhetoric needs to be interpreted as part of the same tradition - not so much a scientific prediction as scare tactics, similar to worrying little kids about hell, and a dislike of economic growth.

Environmentalism's more superficial parallels to Catholicism include Earth Day, its day of worship, and a heavy reliance on symbols. Yet at their cores, both are fueled by an essential distrust of human nature and ego.

The chameleon – dragging on belly through its habitat – is a an apt analogy. And religion, or whatever my underlie it, is strongly present in America.

-KJ



"Changing-Color Chameleon"


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Media (in order of appearance)

Photo (1) Toppledominos; (2) Creation of the Sun and Moon, face detail of God, by Michelangelo, completed on the Sistine Chapel cieling, 1512; (3) Portrait of John Edwards, famous for his fire & brimstone speech, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, delivered 07/08/1741; (4) Photo of Paul Ehrlich;(5) Photo of Al Gore , 2007; (6) Recycle by Nick Palmer, 7/27/2006; (7) Eath Day symbol of greek letter theta, commonly believed to represent death.

Video (1) Power of color change - Chameleon, by Chuihx, 10/26/2007; (2) Trailer for Hell House, documentary, 2001 ; (3) Trailer for An Inconvenient Truth, documentary about global warming, 2006; (4) Colour-changing Chameleon, 05/23/06, by Daydreamer123

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Upcoming ideas:

• Democracy's reflection of man
• The government, the economy, & Mr. Market
• Opinions are easy
  

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