Seven Billion Nudges

There are holes in Siberia. I’ve seen countless postings of people asking what possibly could have caused them, but it’s quite clear to me: the Russian permafrost is thawing, thanks to climate change. This releases large amounts of methane gas (which we know has been locked up in the ice for eons), which is building up in underground pockets, and increases in pressure until the least resistant thing holding it in is the ground above it.

I really hope this will be another nail in the coffin of climate change denial, but it drove home to me how we are continuing to alter, perhaps forever, the biosphere we live in. It’s becoming more clear – at least to me – that the search for a balance between humans and the rest of the living things on this planet is just beginning, and there is no end to it in sight. Short of a massive human die-off, this is going to be our permanent job from now on – trying to keep ourselves from permanently altering the world we’ve inherited.

Of course, there’s no cause to say that the changes we put on the planet will necessarily be bad. But the main trouble with humans is a matter of sheer numbers; as we can see now, when some of us start benefitting from our technology, soon everyone will be adopting it, no matter how small the environmental impact could be. Seven billion times tiny nudges in any direction could be cataclysmic. We could put millions of cars on the road that expel only water as exhaust, but then we’d have to figure out whether we’re ruining entire ecosystems by putting so much extra water vapor into the air.

Is this self-regulation really a job we can, or even really want to, take on? Should we just keep putting greater and greater amounts of work and money into preserving species that are on the verge of dying out, if the only reason we’re doing it is to keep them around so that we can save them again? I understand that there’s something to be said for trying to preserve the world the way it was before we started completely influencing every part of it, but in my worst moments I wonder if it’s worth it.

This question was brought up in an especially poignant way after Hurricane Sandy hit the NYC area in 2012. In low-lying areas of the coast that had been flooded, I heard stories of people wondering whether the government should monetarily assist people to rebuild their homes in low-lying areas that were now susceptible to being hit by another equally destructive hurricane in a few more years. How important is it that we not give up these pieces of land that nature is starting to reclaim? It’s the same thing with wildfires in California and Arizona… they’re a natural part of the cycle of the Western biome, but we suppress them and suppress them until the dry scrub builds up and when the fires finally do come, they’re devastating.

It seems like a similar problem to me. Maybe we should concentrate our efforts on sustaining creatures that directly affect our livelihood: Bees, pigs, cattle, basically anything that we either eat or that creates things that we eat. The trouble is, these are creatures that we’ve basically created through the process of domestication. Not only that, we don’t fully understand where the immediate family of creatures we rely on ends. If every part of the food chain is integral, we’re probably already chipping at a weak link and don’t even realize it.

On the other hand, it’s unrealistic to think that we have the resources to control a living, growing process like the Earth as a whole. Add an element of chaos? Sure. But even if we could figure out how to actively point these vast natural processes in the right direction, should we try to hold it in stasis, corral it into a simulation of what it was like when we first got here? Or do we find a way to let it evolve as it would have without our technological influence? And if that’s the option we take, how will we know if we’re doing it right?

Clearly, I’m in a bit of a pessimistic mood. Because preserving/saving the planet goes against every basic human instinct of survival. By this I mean that, in every instance, mankind survives by putting priority on its own short-term goals. That's how we've survived all these years, and we do it regardless of how that affects our long-term goals, never mind what we can do for the good of the planet as a whole. Ironically, this tendency is hardwired into us by nature itself.

But maybe there’s hope for progress… I look back at what humans were doing fifty or a hundred years ago and see how hopelessly naïve we were. Not only did we think that the world was indestructible, we thought that we were pretty much indestructible too – not only were smoking and drinking given no kind of social or moral stigma, but we drove around with no seatbelts and saw smog as a necessary nuisance; we tolerated abuse, sexism, homophobia and racism; we thought depression and psychological trauma were things you could just “get over”.

Maybe in another fifty or hundred years we’ll look back and think the same thing. Maybe we’ll be on well on our way to solving our current problems and have a whole new set of runaway issues to deal with. I’m pretty sure that’s the signpost to look for… a culture that looks back and says, “Yep, we figured it all out a hundred years ago, and we’ve been doing it the same way ever since” is pretty much doomed. It’s a good rule of thumb to keep in mind on a personal level too… there’s a quote I’ve seen on the Internet – attributed to Morgan Freeman, as most things are – that says that a person who believes the same thing at 50 as they did at 20 has wasted 30 years of their life.

Whether we like it or not, we've become directly responsible for the fate of every living thing we share the earth with. And we're changing things faster than we can comprehend the result of our actions. There are even factions of our society that are actively championing ignorance about this new role of ours. But when has anything good ever resulted from ignorance, in any aspect of life? True, this isn't a job that any of us want, but we've at least got to acknowledge that it *is* our job. That's the first, crucial step to deciding what to do with the power we now wield.

What I Don't Know About Ferguson

I woke up this morning full of righteous anger -- apparently at the entire world -- that I couldn't readily explain. There simultaneously seemed to reside in my mind a bedrock-solid belief that there is unimaginable untapped potential in us as a species, and an equally strong belief that we are utterly going to fail in fulfilling that potential.

It's been building up over the last few days, and I guess it all starts in Ferguson, Missouri. Now, I should say up front that I'm not going to espouse any particular stance on what's happening there... because I honestly don't have one. Save from what I can glean from headlines and overheard anecdotes, I know nothing about what's going on. This is for several reasons:

The first reason is that I want to see what kind of opinion gets formed by a person who only hears headlines and anecdotes about a significant event such as this -- because I think that's how the majority of people actually get their information. And here's what I do know: a young black man, who may or may not have been under the influence of marijuana or even harder drugs, was either robbing or shoplifting from a store (bit of a distinction there, eh?), and when confronted by the police, was subsequently shot and killed by said police for failing to comply with their orders. This touched off days-long rounds of rioting, which resulted in people being hit with rubber bullets and tear gas, and members of the media being harassed and arrested for filming on-duty police officers.

That's it. That's the sum total of what I know at this point. I have no idea whether I've got the details right or not, because the wide world of Interweb news is keen on nothing if not positing conflicting information using as few words as possible. Which brings me to the second reason I'm consciously not following what's going on... It's impossible to look very deeply into a controversial news story like this without being instantly mired in a swamp of opinion, conjecture, racism, and slanted reporting.

Most people I've seen post opinions about what's going on quite clearly believe they know what happened. The worst part of this is that, by publicly announcing your opinions and facts immediately before having time to assimilate and ruminate, you make it that much harder to change your mind on any given situation as it evolves. Since you've already declared how you feel about something to everyone you know 10 minutes after something happens, doesn't it make it that much harder to do anything but more deeply entrench yourself in that conviction?

I felt much the same with the Trayvon Martin case. Within an hour of the story breaking, it seemed, everyone was taking hooded selfies of themselves in protest. At this point, we had next to no information on what actually happened. A member of Neighborhood Watch had shot and killed a 17-year old. That was all the confirmed facts we had at that point, and yet everyone had already declared whose story they believed. Let me say flat out, I think Zimmerman acted wrongly and killed someone in the process. A young man should not have died in that situation. But would I have changed a hoodie-selfie profile photo when I heard about the injuries Zimmerman had sustained, and if I had, would my decision be based on what would my fellow hoodie-selfied friends would have thought? How tempted would I be to just hold to the opinion I had already stated so boldly, even as more evidence rolled out? What kind of contrary evidence would it have taken to get me to publicly state that I was rethinking my status?

*That's* why I'm not following Ferguson closely. I refuse to participate in the inevitable, endless debate about what facts are true, which were reported in error, which ones are planted by the media, and which ones are being perpetuated by local police/the military-industrial complex/the federal government. If I am going to make an informed decision about the issues that have been raised -- whatever they turn out to be -- it will be when passions have had a chance to cool, and a consensus of basic facts agreed upon. I will not decide how I feel about something that's happening hundreds of miles way until I *know* what's happening.

In a world where we all have the potential to be immediately connected, I am appalled that can't figure out how to accurately determine facts and agree on them. I think the problem may be that we (and by that, I mean anyone over thirty) spent the first half of our lives being indoctrinated into the belief that someone in authority who states something as truth has checked their facts, and is not just playing a 21st century version of the telephone game. Or maybe it's the rush to be the first to present information, truth behind it be damned. It's like we're not using this wealth of information we have it our disposal to get to the truth of things; instead, we're extracting from it the bits and pieces that fit the story we've already concocted in our heads.

Look at Trayvon Martin again. We still don't know exactly what happened that night, but what we do know is that there are two diametrically opposed sides to who was at fault. Not only that, both sides have provided exhaustively documented facts, evidence and diagrams precisely detailing why they are right. If you belong to either of these sides, you're fooling yourself if you think you formed that opinion based on the evidence presented and the cases argued... because it's impossible to. No, you're most likely to still believe the exact same thing you announced to everyone ten minutes after it happened.

The news media isn't doing itself any favors, either, by itching to jump in and try to splash facts together before they verify them. One journalist announced on Twitter that they saw a dead body in the street, about the most incendiary thing they could have said at the moment -- it later turned out that it was merely debris (thankfully, non-human) from an unrelated car crash. That's the problem with yelling things out before you really know what they are in an attempt to be first. The hyperbole you tweet in the heat of the moment actually has greater weight than the reasoned conclusion you tweet hours later after you have a chance to figure out what's actually going on, simply because it's a) first and b) more exciting. And there are countless examples of legitimate news agencies picking up such ill-formed reportage and passing it on, making it seem even more real.

So without even the media to trust, we're left floundering in this churning mess of arguing, sniping, and accusing that passes for public debate. The worst part is that I know if I even dip my toe in it, I'm going to end up with a roiling stomachache and my faith in humanity being chipped away a little more. In the end, the truth will end up lying somewhere in the middle, and sadly, none of us are going to know exactly where.

We've got to get better at this. We've just got to.

The Height of the Matter

Every year on my daughter's birthday, we mark her height on the doorjamb of her room, although if it were up to her, we'd mark it every few weeks. It's astonishing to look at all those marks further down the woodwork and think about how much I didn't know back then, and what I hadn't even guessed at yet about who she (or I, for that matter) would come to be.

It's got me thinking this week about height. When I sat down and started making notes about it, it really became shocking to me about how prominently height and size influence cultures around the world. And, frankly, about how surprising it is that it's shocking. We come into this world so much of a smaller size than just about everything in the world around us. The people that we're closest to tower over us, and the impression never leaves us that we have to literally "look up to" those who are stronger and in control of our lives.

I think this is probably why people look up to the sky when they think about their concept of God, and the power He represents. We're looking for the ultimate parental figure, to care about us the way our parents had (or perhaps the way we wish they had), and the heavens are the only place that is forever bigger than us. And part of most religious rituals is to kneel or supplicating in prayer, becoming even smaller and lower before whatever power you’re praying to. Even when we attempt to elevate people and other gods to greater-than-human status, the best way to do that is portray them in larger-than-life ways... Sometimes these representations are intended to inspire awe by magnification (Michelangelo's David), to deify (the statue of Zeus in his temple at Olympia, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.), or can sometimes be seen as symbols of subjugation (Mount Rushmore?), but in all cases, size equals power.

This trend even continues into fashion. Think of all the things people do to make themselves appear larger than they are. You can immediately tell the hierarchical status of a Catholic priest, Egyptian king, or French chef by the height of their hats. When women first started coming into the white-collar work place in force, they augmented themselves with extra-high heels and shoulder pads, trying to make themselves as physically present as they grew in boardroom power.

The simplest sign of humility before someone of greater authority is to literally make yourself shorter by bowing or curtsying. The elaborate Japanese custom of ojigi takes this into the realm of art, with correct posture and form conveying fine levels of meaning. It’s similar to the Islamic religious postures of ruku (bowing) and sujud (prostration). Even when the humility is mostly for show -- such as performers bowing to their audience, even though they've been the center of attention for the duration of the performance -- it still forms a connection of a particular sort between people.

This distinction is so woven into our cultural fabric that people still consider it when choosing partners. Women will think twice about dating a man who is shorter than them, and men will do the same about a woman who is. Of course, this is only a tendency. Still, I can't help but notice that cultures who on average tend to be taller also have more freedom in choosing who they marry... those where the decisions are made more by arranged marriages, or with regard to familial and political alliances – basically, things other than physical attraction -- seem to have men and women of about the same average height.

Physical size, and height in particular, is perhaps the one true universal human trait, which has been noted and woven into all of our cultures in an amazing myriad of ways. As much as we’ve changed, these traditions have persisted because they derive from our common physical form, and the process every single one of us goes through as we move from childhood to adulthood.

Aaron's Top 50 Shades of Grey

Every now and then, there are pop culture phenomena that we somewhat grudgingly partake in, just because we just want to see what the big deal is. We don't want to be the only one at the party who doesn't know what all the others are talking about. That's how I came to read 50 Shades of Grey.

I had heard a whole lot of things about the book before I had even cracked its spine: that it was fantastic/terribly written, that it was a huge step forward/backward for feminism, that it was harmful/liberating to the mental states of women/men, that it was the true dawning/deathknell of the ebook. It's not often that some work of art comes so quickly, fully, and multi-controversially into public view, and even less when that thing is a book. So I felt that I had to give it a try.

I don't think it's my place to tell you here whether 50 Shades, in and of itself, is good, bad, sexy, or offensive. It's one of those things that personal beliefs and taste figure into even more than usual, so for me to attempt to tell you what you're going to think is kind of pointless (I felt the same way about The Passion of the Christ, which is perhaps the weirdest comparison you’re bound to hear someone make about either of these things). I also realize that, being a man, I'm not even in its target audience. But what's really intriguing for me is the way it's made me address a dichotomy in my own head that has been there for a while, and which I wasn't even truly aware of.

When I was a kid, my mother owned a bookstore. If I'm remembering this correctly, there were a pair of shelves that were dedicated to Harlequin romance novels. I think the order-seeking part of me liked the way they were set up... all the same color, all the same thickness, so different from the riot of colors and sizes that were in every other section. It was as if hundreds of copies of the same book had been neatly lined up. I had only a vague idea of what these books were about, or why they all looked the same, but the thought was implanted that they were just as they looked -- nearly identical, completely interchangeable.

This stereotype was perpetuated when I worked at the local public library during high school. There, we had an alcove where the romance novels were stored. While there was a little more variety in their color and size (this was in the late 80s), they still weren't managed the same as other books. There was no order to the way they were shelved, and when the patrons checked them out, we didn't even keep track of which titles they took, just the number of books. There was at least one woman who, every week or so, would faithfully bring in a shopping bag full of them, only to leave with it filled again. The lesson was consistent: these are disposable. They barely even qualify as literature.

I remember telling one of my fellow Borders employees how so many romance novels seemed "predatory" to me -- I actually used that word. It's hard to argue that books with titles like "The Oil Tycoon's Secret Love Child" were created by people doing anything other than looking for women who wish that some rich, powerful man would fall helplessly in love with them just for being exactly who they already are. I saw it as a completely unrealistic view of adult love, and not only that, but it might actually damage the person reading it. Wouldn't some women, after immersing themselves in such a fantasy, I thought, end up closing off to real-world love and affection, just because it couldn't hope to live up to the dreams concocted for them during a Harlequin board meeting?

So this is the prejudice I found myself fighting against when reading 50 Shades. But then I realized something... you could make (and I have actually heard) the same argument against pornography. While I realize that I'm starting to speak in generalities, it seems to be for men what romances are for women. At their worst, both forms of entertainment gravely underestimate the intelligence of the sexes. In truth, these two genres really are means to the same emotional end, and play out surprisingly similar fantasies: someone suddenly appears and sweeps you off your feet, who exists only to provide intimacy to an idealized avatar of you, removing all your worldly cares, allowing you to live in the moment, and making you feel alive.

What it's taken me over 200 pages into this story of dominance and submission is to figure out exactly how the story does what it does. And, to my surprise, I've found that it's really not all that far from what romance novels -- and pornography, for that matter -- have been doing all along. It's a clever melding of the two, in fact.

To figure out what the reception of 50 Shades really has to tell us, let's take a look at how that new sensibility is used in this book, as well as the flurry of BDSM-themed romance novels that have come out in its wake. In a traditional romance novel, you've got to find a way to get your characters together and realistically build their relationship, in both the physical and emotional senses. Now, If BDSM is the backdrop you set your story against, you can effectively drop all pretenses. No meet-cute is necessary, nor any extraneous plot devices. As an author, you can take the quickest short cut to the reason romance readers come back to the genre time and again: intense relationship moments between characters. Issues of trust immediately need to be questioned, insecurities revealed and worked through. In this sense, 50 Shades and other BDSM novels are like a concentrated distillation of other romances. They skip nearly all the preliminaries and kick in with a starting gear of what usually amounts to two months' worth of relationship.

The really fascinating part is that I never even realized that I still unconsciously look down on this whole genre of literature. But when I compare this new, more hardcore style of romance with the identical, disposable Harlequin romances of yesteryear, I've got to say the new stuff at least feels more honest in its intent. Really, it’s just like any other kind of “genre” fiction: it puts real, accessible feelings against an unrealistic background in order to draw attention to them and help us process them in our everyday lives. And when it comes to learning the landscape of such a tricky, complicated landscape as ourselves, that's not necessarily a bad thing. So here’s my formal apology to the romance readers/writers/lovers out there… I’m sorry, and while I’m still not going to start reading it regularly, I think I’m closer to understanding it now.