On the 8 Spot

Principles of the American Cargo Cult

I wrote these principles after reflecting on the content of contemporary newspapers and broadcast media and why that content disquieted me. I saw that I was not disturbed so much by what was written or said as I was by what is not. The tacit assumptions underlying most popular content reflect a worldview that is orthogonal to reality in many ways. By reflecting this skewed weltanschauung, the media reinforces and propagates it.

I call this worldview the American Cargo Cult, after the real New Guinea cargo cults that arose after the second world war. There are four main points, each of which has several elaborating assumptions. I really do think that most Americans believe these things at a deep level, and that these misbeliefs constantly underlie bad arguments in public debate.

I. Ignorance is innocence

Complicated explanations are suspect

The world is simple, and there must be a simple explanation for everything.

Certainty is strength, doubt is weakness

Admitting alternatives is undermining one’s own belief.

Changing one’s mind means one has wasted the time spent holding the prior opinion.

Your opinion matters as much as anyone else’s

When a person has studied a topic, he has no more real knowledge than you do, just a hidden agenda.

The herd should be followed

The contemplative lemming gets trampled

Popular beliefs must be true.

No bad idea can survive.

People are generally smart.

Even if a popular belief doesn’t pan out, at least you’ll be in the same boat as everyone else.

II. Causality is selectable

All interconnection is apparent

Otherwise, complicated explanations would be necessary.

The end supports the explanation of the means

A successful person’s explanation of the means of his success is highly credible by the very fact of his success.

You can succeed by emulating the purported behavior of successful people

This is the key to the cargo cult. To enjoy the success of another, just mimic the rituals he claims to follow.

Your idol gets the blame if things don’t work out, not you.

You have a right to your share

You get to define your share.

Your share is the least you will accept without crying injustice.

Celebrate getting more than your share.

III. It’s not your fault

If it’s good for you, it’s good

Society is everyone else.

Good intentions suffice

You can always apologize.

There is no long term

Don’t miss an opportunity.

Consequences are things that happen to others

Only you can hold yourself accountable. Don’t let others make you do that.

If somebody starts the blame game, you can still win it.

There are evil people and institutions, and surely one of them is more responsible than you are.

You are not the problem

An ugly image means a bad mirror.

IV. Death is unnatural

You’re special

Bad things shouldn’t happen to you.

Pain is wrong

Life should not hurt.

It’s a Whiffle World.

Tragedy is a synonym for calamity

Bad things are never consequences of one’s own action or inaction.

There will be justice

Bad people get punished.

You, however, will be forgiven.

Principles of the American Cargo Cult.

The Most Unpleasant Post I’ll Ever Write… and It Is About World Peace

by cactus

The Most Unpleasant Post I’ll Ever Write… and It Is About World Peace

I really don’t like this post. I don’t like what I wrote in it. Unfortunately, it seems accurate to me. So here goes…

Saudi Arabia has no troubles with Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, or Shia Muslims. The Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews who were native to the area were wiped out. The Shia minority, about 15% of the population, knows to watch itself. As in, they know they will get beheaded (quite literally) for any activities with which the ruling regime doesn’t like.

Jordan, for the most part, can be described as a nation of Palestinians ruled by a family that was imposed on them by the British. The Hashemite family has few problems maintaining control, however, since September of 1970 (i.e., Black September) 1970-1971, when they demonstrated how they would react to any sign of rebellion.

There was a time when many Muslims considered Alawites, the minority sect that runs Syria, to be non-Muslim. I believe the Hama massacre marks the last time anyone in Syria questioned whether the Alawites are Muslim, or made noises about whether members of that sect should be running the country.

When the Arabs invaded Egypt, they referred to the Egyptians as Copts. These days, the Copts are a persecuted minority. (And yes, Boutros Boutros-Gali is a Copt, but that doesn’t change their persecuted minority status.)

The pattern I’m getting at, sadly, is that peace only arrives through superior firepower and willingness to use it in the Middle East. And its not just the Middle East. Think of the Ainu in Japan, the Aborigines in Australia, the Native Americans in the US, and anyone who isn’t a Han in China.

Angry Bear: The Most Unpleasant Post I’ll Ever Write… and It Is About World Peace.

Never alone

January 24, 2009

From William Deresiewicz’s article The End of Solitude in the new edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education:

The two emotions, loneliness and boredom, are closely allied. They are also both characteristically modern. The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest citations of either word, at least in the contemporary sense, date from the 19th century … Loneliness is not the absence of company, it is grief over that absence. The lost sheep is lonely; the shepherd is not lonely. But the Internet is as powerful a machine for the production of loneliness as television is for the manufacture of boredom. If six hours of television a day creates the aptitude for boredom, the inability to sit still, a hundred text messages a day creates the aptitude for loneliness, the inability to be by yourself. Some degree of boredom and loneliness is to be expected, especially among young people, given the way our human environment has been attenuated. But technology amplifies those tendencies. You could call your schoolmates when I was a teenager, but you couldn’t call them 100 times a day. You could get together with your friends when I was in college, but you couldn’t always get together with them when you wanted to, for the simple reason that you couldn’t always find them. If boredom is the great emotion of the TV generation, loneliness is the great emotion of the Web generation. We lost the ability to be still, our capacity for idleness. They have lost the ability to be alone, their capacity for solitude.

Posted by nick at January 24, 2009 02:11 PM<emphasis mine>

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Never alone.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been a student in UP , if you are a film lover probably the best school in an exposure perspective here in the Philippines. We had a Japanese/French/Korean/Spanish festival sponsored by their embassy and other festivals sponsored by student orgs and ngo. Probably 4 to 5 years ago the theme of the Japanese Film Festival was films by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and I’d have to say his films are dark and edgy, with some witty but still introspective moments. I remember the scenes and most of the scenes I remember are disturbing at best. I am excited to watch this.

Tokyo Sonata

In theaters: March 13, 2009 Copyright © 2009 Regent Releasing

Tokyo Sonata Poster

Set in contemporary Tokyo, TOKYO SONATA is a story of an ordinary Japanese family of four. The father, Ryuhei Sasaki, like any other Japanese businessman, is faithfully devoted to his work. His wife Megumi manages the house and struggles to retain a bond with Takashi, her oldest son who is in college, and the youngest, Kenji, a sensitive boy in elementary school. The quiet unraveling of the family begins when Ryuhei unexpectedly loses his job. Facing completely unfamiliar circumstances, he decides not to tell his family and begins his lonely sojourn into the world of the secretly unemployed. Along with many other businessmen that save face by concealing their shameful reality from family and friends, Ryuhei pretends to go to work each day, when, in fact, he kills time in libraries and parks. His lies and torment go unnoticed by Takashi, who becomes increasingly despondent and alienated from his family, and Megumi, who can no longer summon the will to keep her family together. Meanwhile, Kenji’s journey begins to mirror his father’s solitary plight. Although his father vehemently refuses to allow Kenji to play the piano, the boy uses his school lunch money to pay for clandestine lessons. What began as lies created as means to survive, gradually leads the family into unforeseeable destruction. In the hands of director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, renowned for his suspenseful films, this story probes the dark side of human nature and the social problems that confront contemporary Japan. Kurosawa’s portrayal of the breakdown and redemption of Japan’s “ordinary family” is every bit as gripping as his previous works.

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* Genre:Foreign, Drama

* Director:Kiyoshi Kurosawa

* Cast:Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyoko Koizumi, Yu Koyanagi, Kai Inowaki, Haruka Igawa

Apple – Movie Trailers – Tokyo Sonata.