A Dearth of Character

M:

How right you are about men and their dysfunction! The men in this chapter, as you point out, have carried into a dysfunctional extreme in the other direction their own response mechanisms (and how twisted and emotionally and relationally disastrous they are!). This is a matter of some great concern, for if we keep having more and more movement away from the roughly balanced middle, the latent savagery, brutality, and compassionless views demonstrated will tear at the seam of this civilization—and that civilization is already stressed to the near-limit.

Trust and balance? Less and less seen. The love of money in this spectacle culture has found fertile root in hordes of people who have little or no character, ethical, or moral basis to resist (and often, don’t want to and see no reason TO resist). That some of these individuals profess to be devout followers—or even leaders—of some faith only adds bitter gall to the sour wine.

I will share more of Bly’s talk at another date, but much of it was him reading his poetry, and it would take us a bit far off topic. And you and I already have major difficulty staying on topic! :)

The poor football coach is another victim claimed by this emasculating phenomenon that is sapping at our society. Women always trumpeted that men had so screwed things up that a woman-run society would be different if they were in control. Is this the result? Once again, as you have pointed out, the ruinous effect of lack of balance. And that numerous men—numerous KOW-TOWED men—obviously had to go along with it to force the resignation of the coach, only shows how far out of balance things have become. And what has already been sapped out of this society.

The coach’s fate is also a sad tale about trying to stand in the way of this out-of-control individualistic ethos, and nuclear families who feel largely disconnected from others. We will either correct all this, or it will be one of the things that corrects itself in some wrenching cultural agony (perhaps a violent one) as it all comes together to force a new reality.

As for the quote about “many men—maybe even a majority…”, I can only surmise he is referring to regular watchers of porn, not men in the whole general population. Men who watch excessive amounts of porn (10 hours a week? 20?) have already at least begun the process of de-socializing themselves. Greater and greater skewing, greater and greater disconnection with reality, greater and greater willingness to dehumanize women; all are the near-inevitable results. What seeps into their consciousness about the deleterious effects is probably brief, when it does happen at all. I would think it would take someone else—an intervention almost—to point out, to shake them out of their lotus vapors. Would have to look up the research to find out if what I suspect is correct…

Certainly, Hedges’ description (85) of men’s feelings about the silicone dolls is more illustration of the disconnection. The DANGEROUS disconnection.

Something I found interesting, and illustrative of our dualistic dysfunction, is Hedges’ describing (86) the government using the Patriot Act to prosecute both adult entertainment companies and CUSTOMERS. Did they do it because they objected to the violence, the exploitation? No, they did it to serve up a bone to “fighting for values,” when of course it was nothing but political theater and political maneuvering. Prosecuted for the nebulous classification of “obscenity.” Merely to show rabid political supporters what moral crusaders they are, and to advance their legal and political careers in the process. And to think that a government made so weak by underfunding—especially to judicial prosecution, and this in a country teeming with lawyers—made an effort to invest resources into this “moral obscenity” game is near criminal in itself. For that same country will turn its pockets inside out and say “there’s nothing that can be done,” or “there’s too much,” or “we don’t have remotely enough investigators,” etc. when asked why isn’t Wall Street, or Big Oil, or Big Pharma, or Big Insurance, prosecuted for their crimes, and why the money literally stolen/defrauded/abused is not recovered.

Hedges’ last page of this chapter is interlaced with lots of marginal or questionable judgments and insinuations of his. He tosses out words like incest and pedophilia which look to this observer to be unwarranted. Whatever one may think of Bret Michaels and Hugh Hefner, or their judgment in women, I think it is unfair to associate incest or pedophilia with them, and here I think Hedges has trapped himself a bit in the female-dominated rhetoric of our society. Because those two invectives, pedophilia in particular, are thrown around far too loosely in this culture. And Hedges is off-the-mark, in my view, in attempting to link porn to the casual sex taking place on many college campuses. Sometimes links are tenuous at best.

But in the last half of his last paragraph of this chapter, Hedges returns to his exacting critique. He decries “the belief that ‘because I have the ability to use force and control to make others do as I please, I have a right to use this force and control.’ It is the disease of corporate and imperial power. It extinguishes the sacred and the human to worship power, control, force, and pain. It replaces empathy, eros, and compassion with the illusion that we are gods.” (87) Like the Romans, who came to replace one-time realities of strength and character with facades of fantasy and illusion, and yet arrogantly chose to oppress and even crush individuals and cultures both internally and externally, we too go on in our intrusive belligerence and unexamined arrogance, even as we hollow ourselves out.

Some Balance is Due

Professor J, 


Yes, your mental agility is entertaining.  But you figured it out! :)


I'm fascinated at how we keep returning to the silicone stud.  I wonder if it's because he is the embodiment of the behavior of the other men taken to the logical end result. He has done what the men in the rest of the chapter are doing in varying degrees. He has managed to completely dehumanize women. His sexual experiences are entirely devoid of thoughts of anyone other than himself. He also tells us that he shops for their clothes, that his "job is to try and make them comfortable" and that he is "always a gentleman around them." I wonder if his ex-wives and the women he's dated recognize that behavior.

 As you've pointed out he mentions that his ("last" not just ex--which made me wonder how many there have been) used sex as a control mechanism. I've already addressed that issue in a normal relationship, but given some of the things he says I wonder how much of what she did or didn't do wasn't so much about control but emotional and physical self protection. There's a clue in his comment about how with his dolls over the years, he's "learned what works. "You can't beat them all you want"  and "they can get damaged."

 This guy and the rest of the guys in the chapter have forfeited something vital in society and interpersonal relationships: trust. I suspect his last wife knew he couldn't be trusted completely so she was reluctant to be vulnerable. (Control is unhealthy, boundaries are not.) Women want to know they can be both vulnerable and safe. He is also never having to work to gain a woman's trust or keep it. I'm not talking about trusting that he won't "cheat" (a term I know you dislike) or leave. I'm talking about an even more basic trust that a woman needs to feel, which is that a man isn't going to intentionally hurt her. Trust isn't required of him or the other men we meet in this chapter, and neither is balance. He doesn't have to balance what he wants with what anyone else wants. He is a splendid example of the result of us only thinking of ourselves. All "me", all the time, is a recipe for emotional and psychological disaster .

We're missing TRUST and BALANCE  "from Wall Street to Washington to personal relationships" just as you said, because of selfishness.  So many of the topics we discuss here are a direct result of the loss of these two elements of relationships in every thing from romance to business to politics. The absence of trust freezes people and makes it impossible to move forward. We see this in relationships where people aren't willing to commit at a deeper level, but we are currently seeing this in our economy. Distrust has ground the whole thing to a halt. We see it in the nasty political climate we are being subjected to. No one has any trust in the good intentions of the other side so we dig our heels in and refuse to move.

" You can say anything you want and they don't listen...It's all about the money. They've forgotten who they are and they don't care who they're hurting."  (p. 82) She's referring to male porn stars but we could also say it about all the things I just noted. 


Please share more about Robert Bly's talk when you get a chance.


A story getting lots of attention in our local school system is a bundle of many of these issues we've been discussing wrapped up in one unfortunate event. The football coach let loose with some profanity (gasp--in a locker room!). He was taped and it was posted to youtube prompting "outrage" (the Housewife is giving an exaggerated eye roll) and he was forced to resign. It's yet another example of our rolling along with the surveillance state as Hedges points out. Is there anyplace where we can trust that we're having a private conversation? It is also a very good example of what you and I have been discussing about "female-dominated rhetoric in the public space." I'm guessing that the person who complained probably wasn't a former football playing dad, but a mother who didn't want her darling's self esteem hurt. Since the point of the tirade was the individualistic attitude of the players I'm guessing the coach was dealing with some results of modern parenting techniques. Personally I think the kind of young man drawn to football is also the type who is going to need that masculinity and desire for physical contact channeled in a positive direction. I might wonder about it if the lacrosse coach was being quite as harsh. ;)

Back to chapter 2: 


"The reason it is so difficult for so many people to discuss is not that it is about sex--our culture is saturated in sex. The reason it is difficult is that porn exposes something very uncomfortable about us. we accept a culture flooded with images of women who are sexual commodities. Increasingly, women in pornography are not people having sex but bodies upon which sexual activities of increasing cruelty are played out. And many men--maybe even a majority of men--like it."(p. 61)


"Adult video companies such as JM Productions and Extreme Associates which includes graphic rape scenes in its array of physical abuse of women, make no attempt to hide the pain and acute discomfort endured by the women. The pain and discomfort are the major draws of the productions." p. 62-63

The amount of times women in this chapter are referred to as being discarded, thrown away, and tossed out is disheartening. But what did we expect from a culture where it's all about "me" and everything is disposable? These two paragraphs are disturbing. I bristled at the quote about "maybe even a majority of men" enjoying watching the cruelty being played out. I just find it hard to believe that most men are this detached...yet. But clearly we aren't headed down a road with a happy ending.

Heart lyrics come to mind. "What about love? Don't you want someone to care about you?" Aside from the damage these men are doing to others. Doesn't it occur to them that they are damaging themselves?

And a book? Sign me up. I'm your girl. :)

Look Not Away From The Ugliness

I am in a bit of a fog today, and am not sure what I am being “cautious” about, unless you mean it in a tongue-in-cheek way. Or do you mean that given this particular chapter’s contents, I am being cautious in what is directly spoken about? :) Oh wait, you probably mean that I wasn’t addressing you as Madame given our subject matter!

I hope you were amused by the mental gymnastics just displayed! :)

Yes, I have a fair amount of confidence that you are not a reactionary, nor over-emotional (although perhaps there are times where I am poking general femaledom in the eye so severely that maybe are having to resist the urge to do likewise to the maledom I perhaps seem to represent, lol). Let us hope I never take your exemplary logical, reasoning self for granted!

Interesting that the “odd doc with the dolls” Hedges portrays in this chapter admits that his ex-wife “used sex as a control mechanism.” (83) Your response to my friend’s comments: extremely well said! Although neither you or I may have formal training in relationship psychology (perhaps that’s what gives us an edge, lol; and to my friends who DO have the formal training, I ask your indulgence in not being offended at my playful jab!), perhaps we should partner in something (a book, maybe?) examining the modern state of American male-female relationships. We’d certainly be the unusual duo to do so (try saying that fast!).

Yes, good, er, Mad, er, Platinum Phraser (see below!), indeed “selfishness is the human default mode.” (Another well-turned phrase—you are on a platinum streak!). What concerns me about that default mode is when our society promotes it, revels in it, excuses it, and indulges it to an unreasonable and fanatical degree. Is that not one of the reasons for so many of our problems, from Wall Street to Washington to personal relationships? It is our individualistic culture run amok, to utter excess. Greed has gone from not just occasionally acceptable, not just the damaging enough “good” (in Gordon Gecko’s words), to being considered a standard that is part and parcel, as you say, of far too much of this culture, especially upper-class culture. Ayn Rand’s ideas of individualism and objectivism have been twisted and perverted (in some views) or taken, along with capitalism, to their inevitable excess (in other views). We could indeed be becoming the very diminished creatures you outline. An awakened portion of our populace rages in its way at this phenomenon; will it be enough to make us look at ourselves in all our ugly nakedness?

Interesting what you say about the female-dominated rhetoric in the public space. I recently heard Robert Bly speak, and since he is the founder of the modern men’s movement, he was asked about the state of it (that we need a men’s movement is evidence of how far the pendulum has swung in the other direction after male dominance for so long). He answered that men have a need to get together with other men and discuss real things that are bothering them, but they are STILL shy and hesitant, still unsure of themselves, and still AFRAID of what the women in their lives think and say. Afraid! How brave men have not only lost their bravery but become so kow-towed!

I have observed this phenomenon that you, Hedges, and Naomi Wolff speak about. It is yet another thing contributing to the dysfunction between the genders! The isolation, the illusion. The lack of developing social skills because one can retreat to the virtual world for far too many things (which are, as you and Wolff point out, not only divorced from reality as well as being enfeebling, mind and emotion-poisoning substitutes, but they actually turn one against reality, making the person unable or unwilling to function in that reality). Hedges reinforces this with the story of the ex-porn star who went on to get her doctorate degree in psychology: “The more society loses touch with reality, especially in relationships, the more people do not know how it is supposed to be, how to react with other people, the more they turn to porn.’ (81)

Yes, kudos to our readers! They are obviously superior beings for being able to slog through what must seem our (or at least my!) raw and unpolished blogness when compared to the concisely and tightly written/edited work of someone like Hedges! :)

And now on to more of the book! Hedges quotes Gail Dines in saying that “just as white suburban teenagers love to listen to hip-hop and white adult males gaze longingly at the athletic prowess of black men, the white pornography consumer enjoys his identifications with (and from) black males through a safe peephole, in his own home, and in mediated form. The real breathing black man, however, is to be kept as far away as possible from these living rooms, and every major institution in society marshals its forces in the defense of white society.” (77). Again, although I cannot much argue about the point, the connection is still not certain to me. It could be that I am merely resistant to accepting it, however, for it has been apparent for some time that much of white society, young males in particular, have been adrift without a culture they find appealing, and have mimicked (usually from a safe distance, as Dines suggests) what they see (often woefully incompletely) as elements of African-American culture (at least inner-city culture).

The porn director that Hedges interviews is raw but perhaps brutally enlightening about the previously mentioned coarsening of our culture: The director says that he “’makes stupid content for stupid people,’ that porn is a prime example of the ‘stupidification of America. This is a YouTube world,’ he continues. ‘It is a Jackass world. Everyone has short attention spans. You need a catchy trailer. You catch their attention, they buy the film, and they jerk off.’” (78)

The cruel and ruthless exploitation of even amateurs who just happen to be momentary participants in one form or another in the porn industry, is revolting, as Hedges shows us on pages 78-80. How our culture has become commodified, as Hedges relates. This has even progressed to “dating.” A website now advertises on satellite radio as being “authentic” dating, without all the “phoniness” of traditional online dating sites. What’s the authenticity, you ask? I don’t know. “Generous” men bid on advertised women to have a date with (attractive) women who advertise themselves, and the highest bidder wins (and the woman gets part of the money). To use my now nearly worn-out phrase: as if we needed yet ANOTHER thing to add to the dysfunction between the genders!

The Romans were once known for their utter sensibility, their practicality and pragmatism. But that changed as time went on. It changed largely because THEY changed.

If there is a cosmic reporter/historian watching us from space, he/she/it must marvel at the searing irony of a nation and a people that cares so little for history marching in near-exacting repeated steps of that “all-powerful superpower” of ancient civilization.

And one of the ways we repeat Rome’s mistakes is our dualistic dysfunction about sex and sexuality. And our version of porn would be familiar enough to the dysfunctionals of Rome—and for many of the same reasons.

An UN-Merry Go Round

Most Cautious Correspondent, 

What confidence you have that I am not a reactionary, over emotional female! No one can ever say we avoid controversy on our blog! :)

Here's the overriding message of our culture: Use what you have to get what you want. If there's collateral damage from that...oh, well.

Your friend's quote has some validity.  A woman using sex as a weapon of control may make herself into a "little hooker", and it would be because of her own manipulation, bargaining, materialism, etc.  In my opinion the behavior he outlines is worse than prostitution. A prostitute's goals aren't hidden. To pretend to genuinely care for someone or love them to further your agenda is wrong. (Yes, ladies, we see men do this all the time and we'll address it at some point. There's plenty of blame to go around.) Society used to provide all kinds of protocol, they were called manners, to insulate both men and women from this kind of behavior. A woman (well, a lady) wasn't allowed to accept a gift from a man she wasn't at least engaged to, for example. That properly protected the man from being used materially, and the woman from feeling obligated otherwise. It was considered highly dishonorable for men and women alike to "trifle with the affections of another." Again, while we've corrected lots of things that were wrong we've lost lots of practical protective ideas that served everyone's best interest.

This paragraph is straight from one of my comments on your recent blog post about this topic:

Women use to be the "powerless" but highly influential moral voice of the culture. Society's conscience, as it were. It was women who cared for the sick and poor in their communities and set the moral tone within the home. While I wouldn't want to return to the days when ladies were excused after dinner while men discussed important topics of the day (how frustrating that must have been for a well read, intelligent female!) one must admit that something quite valuable has been lost. Women were using those "wiles and manipulation" to try to even things out a bit, which is understandable. What you are describing here is something else. It is the use of power, control, and manipulation simply because one can. The most offensive reason of all. It is the game of "What can I get him to do?" not because she is powerless at this late date but because she is enjoying wielding the enormous power our culture gives to the beautiful. You'd be surprised how often this is in play even among females.

The moral imperative lies with the beautiful woman to check her motives. This goes far beyond sex.  Toying with someone's emotions because you find it an amusing ego boost or exploiting known weaknesses for personal gain is wrong. All of these problems are rooted in selfishness. In a true friendship or healthy committed romantic relationship there is a desire to do what is good for the other person. We can't always keep from behaving badly (selfishness is the human default mode) but from time to time, if we care at all, we examine not only our actions but our intentions.  If we aren't careful, we will lose our authenticity, our souls will shrink, our hearts will callous, and we will  become sad little shadows of the men and women we were meant to be.

As to the violet turn porn has taken in recent years, I do agree it's a backlash against the new female controlled, estrogen soaked culture. But there are undertones of retribution toward beautiful women as well. All men want an attractive partner; it's built in. Unfortunately, the person inside is often less appealing than the packaging (in large part due to how she's been treated by men--round and round we go). We've been so focused on what women want/need that we've done a very poor job in recent years addressing the real and unmet needs of men in this current culture. Men are feeling that even if they haven't consciously thought about it. Women who care about the well being of our husbands, brothers, sons, and male friends need to take up this cause. The female dominated rhetoric in the public arena makes it difficult for men to speak out and be heard on these matters.

Since you brought up Naomi Wolf, I think we should point out something she comments on when she discusses these issues. Men (especially young men) are being damaged by porn. She sees this when she visits college campuses and encounters a generation raised in our porn saturated culture.“For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.”  Hedges documents the same thing in his interview with Scott Smith:

"Smith says the images crippled his ability to be intimate. he could not distinguish between the fantasy of porn and the reality of relationships. 'Porn messes with the way you think of women,' he says. 'You want the women you are with to be like the women in porn. I was scared to get involved in a real relationship. I did not know how extensive the damage was. I did not want to hurt anyone. I stayed away from women." (p.57)

I agree with you that in some cases his connections between porn and the other things he mentions are tenuous, at best. When you and I, who tend to see LOTS of connections can't see it, it is probably a bit of a stretch.

 I had a slightly different take on  the Abu Ghraib situation.  I didn't think it was as closely linked to the porn culture as the author. I thought it had more to do with the Lord of the Flies mentality that can happen in groups left to their own devices without the rule of law or authority (or when authority remains silent, or worse, participates). We see people behave in groups in ways that we would never see them behave as individuals. We see them  do things, that if you asked them beforehand if they would participate in such activities, they would deny that they would be capable of such things. Lots of studies have been done to show just how easy it is to get humans to inflict pain when it gains them approval.

I totally agree with you that he went into too much detail in this chapter. I think we could have gotten the point with a lot less information. It has, unfortunately, kept me from being able to recommend the book without reservation to everyone, knowing lots of people would be so offended by the language that they would miss his larger message entirely. Of course I always assume our readers are thoughtful adults who are looking for the truth, which sometimes means being exposed to some ugly realities. Aren't we proud of them for sticking with us! :)

Can The Disposable Culture Get Maturity?

I hesitate to address you as Madame M, as it might carry an odd connotation given our subject matter! :)

Porn is part of our cultural norm about disposability. People aren’t people, they’re commodities, to be used up and thrown away. It is only more raw, and often more violent, than what corporations do to workers, or what TV’s transitory foci do to persons, or what the creating and destroying of superficial friendships and relationships do to psyches, etc.

As to using up these women, it is tragic and despicable as you say, but I am also reminded of what you have said previously about what this culture teaches or doesn’t teach women about true respect, true femininity, and the unfortunate results of that. Often the resulting superficiality and uncontrolled manipulation and commodifying of everything can set too many women up for exploitation and backlash. As one fellow (married, too) told me: “Think about it. If they’re good looking, they are all little hookers. They directly or indirectly trade sex, use sex, or manipulate via sex, to get what they want, whether it be material things, attention, commitment, control, or even just to see drama in others.” Harsh! What do you think?

This dovetails a bit with what you pointed out about the “getting even” aspect. I actually think it’s about more than merely lashing back about the women who wouldn’t have them when they were growing up (HAVE they grown up?). I think it’s also about a backlash concerning female social domination in general. These men might feel (in varying degrees of accuracy/inaccuracy) that females are in large part responsible for their feelings of inadequacy, reduction in masculinity, loss of control, isolation, etc.

“A million little fissures.” Madame, your turning of phrases has been spot-on-ingly grand! We are, as you suspect, building an accelerating, interlocking, cascading effect to our problems. An effect that multiplies and infects multiple parts of the societal and civilizational bodies, especially when those bodies’ immune systems are not activating and responding. Like human bodies, those cultural bodies will, in the absence of dramatic focus and dramatic action centered on holistic health, eventually be overwhelmed and succumb.

Something else that should make us anxious is that we almost never know the precise tipping point until after it has passed. And once again, we play games of chance with things from which we can’t really recover if we are wrong. Homo Sapiens Sapiens? More like Homo Puerilis Puerilis! (Stulti, if you’re a Julius Caesar fan!).

To return to Vegas, we keep being allured, like Percy Jackson in The Lightning Thief or people in the Matrix, by things which APPEAR to allow us to escape reality. In Vegas, we have Americans escaping reality, isolating themselves more in arrogant manufactures of caricatures of other cultures: “In a nation where less than 10 percent of the population has a passport, how many Americans can tell the difference between the illusion of France and the reality of France? How many can differentiate between Egypt and the illusion of Egypt? How many care?” Hedges (64-65). Hedges goes on to quote Postman about this entertainment of illusion: “For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment. Our politics, our religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protests or even much popular notice.” (65)

Hedges, especially on page 72, goes into too much unnecessary detail in my opinion. Perhaps he felt the need to shock his readers into considering and accepting his points, or perhaps he has unresolved issues about porn in general, I don’t know. Some of his conclusions seem a little too tied to the straight-jacket of Freud, and maybe even Nietzsche, both of whom had rather unexpansive views when it came to sex. Or perhaps his excessive fixation on, and relaying of, graphic sexuality is just my perception, and that maybe someone with little or no familiarity with porn would need to have that information presented to them.

But Hedges is making difficult connections, in my view, in making statements linking porn to a “society that does not blink when the industrial slaughter unleashed by the United States and its allies kills hundreds of civilians in Gaza.” (73) I’m not sure how I feel about the statement, let alone the connection. He goes on to say that “porn reflects back the cruelty of a culture that tosses its mentally ill out on the street, warehouses more than 2 million in prisons, denies health care to tens of millions of the poor, champions gun ownership over gun control, and trumpets an obnoxious and superpatriotic nationalism and rapacious corporate capitalism. The violence, cruelty, and degradations of porn are expressions of a society that has lost its capacity for empathy.” (73) While I do not disagree with that particularly statement (although the piece about guns is a bit problematic to me), and nor do I disagree that we have lost a great deal of capacity for empathy, Hedges has lumped all forms of sexual titillation, etc. in with violent porn, which I don’t think is accurate.

Hedges says that the events of Abu Ghraib “reflect the raging undercurrent of sexual callousness and perversion that runs through contemporary culture. These images speak in the language of porn, professional wrestling, reality television, music videos, and the corporate culture. It is the language of absolute control, total domination, racial hatred, fetishistic images of slavery, and humiliating submission. It is a world without pity. It is about reducing other human beings to commodities, to objects. It is a reflection of the sickness of gonzo porn. Torture and porn inevitably converge. They each turn human beings into submissive objects. In porn the woman is stripped of human attributes and made to beg for abuse. She has no identity as distinct human being. Her only worth is as toy, a pleasure doll. She exists to gratify any whim that male decides is pleasurable. She has no other purpose. Her real name vanishes. She adopts a cheap and usually vulgar stage name. She becomes a slave. She is filmed being degraded and physically abused. This film is sold to consumers, who, in turn, are aroused by the illusion that they too can dominate and abuse women. They, too, can be torturers…Absolute power over others almost always expresses itself through sexual sadism.” (73-74) I cannot disagree with hardly a thing of what Hedges says here, and I would readily agree that sadism, like rape, is about the violence, not the sex. Hedges does however need to do a better job of discriminating for the reader between sex and violent porn. The former has had far too much puritan moralizing about it. Therefore, we don’t need any more contributions from that 17th century legacy hangover to the dualistic dysfunction our society has about sex.

I agree with Timothy Lukeman that distinctions need to be made. Hedges is not talking about erotica or old-fashioned porn, which at least portrayed sex as mutually enjoyable for men and women and as a natural impulse (at least from men). This humiliation, degradation, pain and suffering, etc., almost all of it inflicted on women for the pleasure of emotionally stunted men, is part of the violent road that too much of porn has taken. Yet Hedges does a poor job of acknowledging that non-violent porn still exists, although it is much reduced from its former state.

Hedges ignores, is unaware, or simply doesn't care about the views of many contemporary feminists (Annie Sprinkle and Naomi Wolff are two prominent ones) that porn can be many things, and is, in fact, NOT inherently degrading to women (and is sometimes not flattering to men). In fact, there are more than a few female erotica producers and directors. I say erotica, because they do tend to make different enough films from the usual male producers/directors that one needs to make that distinction, and there are even some male producers/directors of erotica.

One of the measures of maturity for this nation will be when it finally attains a healthy attitude about sexuality, one without exploitation, ignorance, or fear, and without it being used as a weapon (at least politically—not sure whether we will ever completely remove its weapon-like possibilities from personal relationships!).

Requiem For Compassion

Professor J,


Good for your colleague trying to stem the tide of ignorance and apathy. I wonder how many of his students appreciate his effort. I highly suspect that in the future at least some of his students will wish they had paid more attention.



"Porn is about getting off at someone else's expense." (p.57) (Can I quote that? This is going to be tricky. :)) I have to say that this idea and some others I'll mention were far more disturbing to me than the descriptions of events and language in the second chapter. While it made for some harsh reading the underlying attitudes of callousness and cruelty were much more offensive. We could change that quote to "getting rich at someone else's expense" for those purveyors of the violence and degradation we see Hedges outline,  or in the case of several men quoted we could even change it to "getting even."


Let's start with getting rich, since the original quote is rather self explanatory. According to Internet Filter Review, that Hedges uses as a source, worldwide porn revenues topped $97 billion in 2006. "Annual sales in the United States are estimated at 10 billion or higher. There is no precise monitoring of the porn industry. And porn is very lucrative to some of the nation's largest corporations. General Motors owns DIRECTV, which distributes more than 40 million streams of porn into American homes every month. AT&T Broadband and Comcast Cable are currently the biggest American companies accommodating porn users with Hot Network, Adult Pay Per View, and similarly themed services. AT&T and GM rake in approximately 80 percent of all porn dollars." 

Let's give some people what they want and make a lot of money at it, while we destroy other people. Tragic. Often, the women being used and abused in these films are starting out at a disadvantage in life, Hedges gives an example:


"Roldan, like many of the women who drift into the porn and prostitution industry, had a difficult and troubled childhood, including a physically abusive mother. Her mother threw her out of her home when she was seventeen, and she spent time in homeless shelters." (p. 58) 

 While I will say that these women are responsible for themselves and their decisions it is also true that for a variety of reasons some people are more defenseless than others. The women we do see emerge from the porn industry with their health, self image, and money they've made from it in tact tend to come out of the Playboy system. It's the only place we see women with anything resembling business savvy, managers, and agents. Whatever else I might think about Hugh Hefner, he does seem to genuinely like women, something that can't be said for the majority of  men in this chapter. Preying on the weak which is what happens in this industry most of the time, is despicable. Hedges exposes the standard thinking by quoting a director he met at a porn convention:


"...they are nineteen. They are hookers. They don't care. (I wonder if he has asked them if they care) They are a throwaway commodity in a throwaway world.' He turns to look, with disdain, at Kenci and says to me, 'She doesn't know what a book is, I bet" (p.78)



Of all the depressing stories related in this chapter this one made me especially angry. To destroy another human being for your own profit and then mock them for their situation, is beyond cruel. As a former flight attendant much of what is said by these women even when they weren't performing reeked of Stockholm Syndrome to me, in which a hostage comes to identify with, and even defend a captor. It seemed to be exactly what had happened to Jollee as she relates the story of the men on the fire truck. She had reframed the event in a way she could deal with gushing about how grateful she was to the "pervert" (her word) who took her there, when she was clearly under age,  and considers him a friend and says she will "thank him every day for the rest of my life." (p. 69)


Besides getting off and getting rich, lots of men are getting even in some warped way which they seem to use as justification for their behavior. The titles of the films and the language and situations are filled with humiliation and degradation. I don't include the doll guy in this group because he is probably doing women everywhere a favor by staying at home with his silicone harem. :)


"My whole reason for being in the industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don't care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn't have when they were growing up,' Bill Margold, a performer and producer of porn, has said. 'I strongly believe this, and the industry hates me for saying it ...We're getting even for their lost dreams. I believe this. I've heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul onscreen." (p.74)


His reasoning is interesting. Apparently in his mind one's lost dreams are suitable cover for brutality and barbaric behavior. Disturbing that large numbers of men are living these cruel scenarios out vicariously. And so we watch the culture disintegrate further into an attitude of whatever I want, I should have. There is alarmingly less "us", less "we".

Where is that road taking us? Because we are an "us" whether we like it or not. So we have to ask the same question Robert Jenson is quoted as asking on p. 61. "What does it say about our culture that cruelty is so easy to market?"  I think it says there are a million little fissures just under the surface in lots of areas, weakening us as a whole in all these areas we're discussing. I'm afraid it says that at some point we may find ourselves on the edge of a very ugly tipping point.

Hit Us Again, Chris

Madame:

To give reply to one of your first questions: It is not yet precisely clear to me why hosts do that, but polarization is the name of the game these days, as those who tune in regularly tend to be polarized (in one direction or another). And of course it is the political season now, and hosts’ often limited views only intensifies the natural processes. Political theater keeps the rabid masses coming back. More spectacle, as Hedges would say.

Most of Chapter 2 is unquotable? [*Professor works feverishly to delete most of his planned quoting* :)] I will try to keep my comments to paraphrasing, if I can, in the interest of sparing sensibilities [we can leave the occasional crudity to the Prof blog—as it should be, I’m sure! :)].

“They tell us where to look, decide what is important, and dictate what we think and talk about at any given time.” How you have encapsulated in such an eloquent phrase the essence of the corporatized things you mentioned, and what passes for our evaluation of them!

You are right about education—we process future workers, but we don’t create dynamic and critically thinking citizens. As my colleague who teaches government says to his new students: “I am going to work you hard, because for most of you this will be the last class like this you will ever have. The last class to help prepare you for the most important job you will ever have. Because whatever you decide to do, even in the unlikely event that you get lucky enough to do it your entire working life, that will be only 40 years or so. But you will be a CITIZEN your entire life. And what you do as a CITIZEN will shape your life, your family’s life, your community, your society, your country, and the whole world. And they only give me 15 weeks, 3 hours a week, to prepare you for this awesome responsibility.”

Yes, my good Madame, what you say about education: That may indeed be the point!

I am of mixed feelings about Steve Jobs. He accomplished many great things. He also coerced or bullied a lot of people, including many of the true designers of a number of the cool things he got credit for (but for which he marketed well, far better than they could have, no doubt).

Well, to BEGIN addressing the Chapter about pornography (Chapter 2): Hedges makes many good points about it, although his focus often becomes so narrow it doesn’t allow for the complexity and exceptions that usually accompany most human endeavors. For instance, Hedges is correct that much pornography promotes masturbation, isolation, dehumanizing, and social dysfunction rather than intimacy, socialization, respect, and healthy living, and is often numbing in its effects. It is often so far in the realm of illusive fantasy—crafted or artificially enhanced physical attributes or made up appearances, performances beyond realism, absurd endurance, etc., that it only contributes to illusive expectations, and often to the point of effective addiction. There are instances, of course, where this is not the case, and so I would not be as quick as Hedges to classify and dismiss categorically, but I would say these exceptions only demonstrate the general effect.

Porn, at least in its recent manifestation, often contributes to the social dysfunction, as I said. And we sure don’t need ANY more things that further disconnect us, either between the genders or as citizens, neighbors and community. And given the estrogen-laced assault on the male hormonal system—and all its effects—this is one more thing taking us in the wrong direction.

There are few actors/actresses in the porn industry—females especially—who emerge unscathed, let alone just as mentally and emotionally and physically healthy or healthier than when they entered it. This has particularly been the case, as Hedges describes, as porn has become more violent toward women. And often commoditized women in the process, further contributing to social dysfunction. The women often seek numbing substances to escape the reality of their status.

Although I think the connection to porn is a bit more tenuous than he believes it is, Hedges makes one of his laser-precise evaluations of a thing (Las Vegas) that ends up illustrating too much of what is America the Illusioned: “Las Vegas, a city built on illusions, lends itself to the celebration of porn. It is the corrupt, willfully degenerate heart of America. It is, in Marc Cooper’s memorable phrase, The Last Honest Place in America. Las Vegas strips away the thin moral pretention and hypocrisy of consumer society to reveal its essence. The commodification of human beings, the heart of the consumer society, is garishly celebrated in Las Vegas. Here there is no past, no history, no sense of continuity, and no real community. The mammoth resorts and casinos glittering in the desert are monuments to greed and vice, even as the rest of the country crumbles under the onslaught of physical decay, shuttered stores and factories, a disintegrating infrastructure, and mounting poverty.” (Hedges 63)

Keep hitting us hard, Chris Hedges. Maybe we’ll choose the hard work of living in reality, as it’s the only way we can, really. Live.

All Shook Up

 Professor J,

If I've "latched onto" what Hedges is saying it is because I looked at it in the light of the larger discussion including what Franks and others were saying. I still think for a reader wholly unfamiliar with Hedges who just picks up this book, it is going to be a bit of a challenge to pull out his true feelings and the complexity of it given some of his language.  You have probably figured out by now that I like to swim about in lots of information and ideas until I can put it together in a way that makes sense to me--some people call it hardheaded. ;)

We have churches where pastors disparage the intelligentsia but where are the great thinkers of the Christian community? The Lewis? The Chesterton? At what point did we decide that we could bow out of the discussion and leave it the academics, then complain that we don't have a voice in academia? The Church cannot have it both ways. It cannot disengage from the culture, put up walls, and isolate itself and then curse that very culture and its institutions for being "un-Christian."

I caught Joel Osteen on Piers Morgan last night and while he's not my favorite preacher (for many of the reasons Hedges specifies) I did think it interesting in light of what I wrote last week that while he was trying to stick to a message of love and redemption the host kept badgering him to give his opinion on several sticky political issues as well as endorse a candidate. Has this now just become part of the culture? Must all ministers go all Pat Robertson and take us into the voting booth with them? Or is it just more fun for these personalities to discuss politics than nearly anything else?


In chapter 2 (most of which is unquotable)  I'm  back to the guy with the dolls. Aside from being creepy and disturbing in the extreme, he says some very interesting things. Some of them I mentioned in a previous post, but among comments like "They all have personalities" (Sure pal, so do my dining room chairs.) and "...there is direct eye contact" (a window to her soul to be sure) he says "Their eyes are adjustable." I couldn't help thinking he could be talking about more than his dolls.

That comment could be more or less be used to sum up what Hedges is trying to point out about the culture. Our eyes are adjustable. By the media. By advertisers. By the education system. By the government and corporations. They constantly divert our eyes from things that need a good looking over. But as you pointed out it is all so much "bread and circuses." They tell us where to look, decide what is important, and dictate what we think and talk about at any given time.

If we're unhappy women we need "retail therapy" (which often has the odd effect of depressing us somehow). If that doesn't work, television ads compel us to ask our doctor about this pill or that, as you are so rightly pointing out on your blog, are probably deepening other problems. Unhappy men of course need the right beer or car and all can be made well. Yet underneath, deep down, we know we have been had. As Hedges says on p. 38 "Our favorite hobby, besides watching television, used to be, until reality hit us like a tsunami, shopping." I've often thought that "buyers remorse" is really just an unexcavated feeling that there should be more to life. And there should.

We'd hope that education would supply some of the depth and richness we sense is missing. Hedges doesn't give us much hope for that either, if we are defining "education" only in the form of a college experience:

"Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, The University of Toronto, and the Paris Institute of Political Studies, along with most elite schools, do only a mediocre job of teaching students to question and think. They focus instead, through the filter of standardized tests, enrichment activities, AP classes, high-priced tutors, swanky private schools, entrance exams, and blind deference to authority, on creating hordes of competent systems managers."

And in the next paragraph: "The elite universities disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent, and often subversive." (p. 89)

As if on cue this week Kathleen Parker penned an article about the under-education taking place on college campuses. Here are some excerpts: 


"Gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills are either 'exceedingly small or nonexistent for a larger portion of students."


"Thirty-six percent of students experience no significant improvement in learning (as measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment) over four years of higher education."


"Most universities don't require the courses considered core educational subjects--math, science, foreign languages at the intermediate level, U.S. government or history, composition, literature or economics."

"Only 5 percent require economics. Less than 20 percent require U.S. government or history."

I'm asking the same question as the journalist: "How can one think critically about anything if one does not have a foundation of skills and knowledge?" If no one understands economics then will it really matter if (as you pointed out recently) so few of the people commenting as "experts" on television news are actual economists? If we have no grasp of history how will we know that those in power use the same tactics over and over? Or that single minded people who are persistent and refuse to sit down and be quiet can make a difference? Or to recognize lies and illogical arguments when they are presented?

Or is having a population that DOESN'T know all of that, the point?

-----------------------------------

While I'm writing this the news is coming across that Steve Jobs has passed away. A college drop out who changed the world and made all of this possible for us.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” ~ Albert Einstein

Shaken AND Stirred (Up)

Madame M:

What’s The Matter With Kansas practically deserves its own complete discussion! You have delivered multiples of poignancy in what you have said already! And your point about the Christians’ tactics and what has been the effect—history repeats once again! Did not Gibbon tell us how the early Christians, who changed from a faith-based, loving , and brotherly community—nearly socialistic; how that fact is glossed over today!—into one often petty, violent, revengeful, spiteful, and hateful as Christians inserted themselves front and center into the politics and attempted to bend the culture to themselves (often by coercion!)? Gibbon, when pressed to name only one primary reason for the fall of Rome, replied simply, “Christianity.” Often this has been misinterpreted as meaning that the warlike Romans were made soft by Christianity, but as what I just described relates, the real meaning is something altogether different.

I think both Gibbon and Jesus, among others, would take pride in your words, Madame. Hard hitting truth it appears to these eyes and this discernment: “We should, if we are who we say we are, be appalled that the government would need to supply so much for so many when there are so many of us with so much.” Sounds very like something the Holy Spirit would inspire a modern prophet to say! The prophets of old, and the disciples and holy people who followed them, called out their culture when it was so wrong and/or so hypocritical.

I think that in all of what you have said in your exactingly good post, you have latched onto Hedges’ frustration with American Christianity, with what he calls “the church.” What could be the very spiritual soul-center of society, which should, if anything, be the hearth and deep-well of what is good and timelessly spiritual, has given itself over to the twisted or corrupt culture in one form or another. Worse, has often promoted it.

I have seen Hedges in interviews. Let me summarize some of what I heard him say. He has watched the rise of the Christian right—and he considers that group not Christians, but heretics. Jesus did not bless getting rich or dropping bombs. Additionally damning is that other Christian “leaders” did not denounce this zealous sanctioning of wealth accumulation and promotion of war. They refused to even remotely acknowledge that the price of the moral life may be death, as Jesus showed. The Christian right became a mass political movement wrapped in the flag and the cross. It is different only in naked violence to the fundamentalist and radical movements of the Islamic world. Most clerics are afraid to challenge the Christian right (just as many moderate Muslim clerics are afraid to challenge the radicals), and the ones that do are often silenced or impoverished and isolated (a better fate, to be sure, than the moderate imams who are killed in the Islamic world, but the chilling effect is nevertheless similar). Perhaps that is why theologian Paul Tillich once remarked: “All institutions, including the Christian church, are inherently demonic.” He understood quite well that fealty to religious value and fealty to religious institutions are different things.

Hedges is exacting in pointing out that far too many Christians hold secret and deceptive agendas. One example is Intelligent Design. Advocated as a viable alternative in teaching biological development in public schools, this seemingly reasonable “multiple viewpoints” stance is discarded in many of the Christians’ own schools—there one finds only one viewpoint taught; no alternative to learning creationism is permitted. “The Christian advocates’ purported love of alternative viewpoints and debates Is replaced by an iron and irrational conformity…” (Hedges 52)

And the minister you cite reinforces Hedges’ condemnation of the unrestrained “self.” Most especially the lack of self-restraint: “In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we neither seek nor want honesty or reality.” (49) Hedges quotes Gabler in saying that “both entertainment and consumption often provided the same intoxication: the sheer, endless pleasure of emancipation from reason, from responsibility, from tradition, from class, and from all the other bonds that restrained the self.” (49)

You have brought up Dave Ramsey, and quoting him seems appropriate here: “Children who reach the age of eighteen with their entire skill set composed of Nintendo and eating Doritos have been abused. The parents neglected the child by not giving him the character traits needed to live successfully. By giving in to every whim and attaching no consequences to actions the parents have given the child a false sense of reality.”

And this one also from Ramsey: “Giving makes children less self-centered. Giving brings your kids depth of character. Thos who never give become shallow, self-centered, and miserable adults.”

We have taken to ruinous absurdity this idea that the self should be so glorified. As if we needed more to unhinge us from reality!

“When a nation becomes unmoored from reality, it retreats into a world of magic. Our national discourse is dominated by manufactured events, from celebrity gossip to staged showcasings of politicians to elaborate entertainment and athletic spectacles. The exposure of the elaborate mechanisms behind the pseudo-event only adds to its fascination and power. Reporters…no longer ask whether the message is true but whether the pseudo-event worked or did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. The worse reality becomes—the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment skyrocket—the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusion.” (Hedges, 50-51)

How insidious and destructive is this illusion? “The flight into illusion sweeps away the core values of the open society. It corrodes the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense tell you something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to grasp historical facts, to advocate for change, and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways, and structures of being that are morally and socially acceptable. A populace deprived of its ability to separate lies from truth, that has become hostage to the fictional semblance of reality put forth by pseudo-events, is no longer capable of sustaining a free society.” (Hedges 52)

Recall how the Roman emperors used free bread and circus shows to distract the Roman population from the cascading problems. Eventually, the entire civilization collapsed.

We, the masses of this modern culture, are too often obsessed with the trivial, or with diversions such as sports-watching. We then have no time or energy to devote to addressing the problems that are unraveling us. Our actions in effect make us ignore the powerful. And so we give a pass to what they do about war, how they champion and carry out monstrous greed, and how they keep the masses (us) addicted to spectacle.

Ever wonder why we are not galvanized into action at what our intelligence and wisdom should be telling us is avoidable calamity coming right at us? Hedges says it is because we have become lotus-eaters lost in our misty dream world of delusion: “Those who slip into this illusion ignore the signs of impending disaster. The physical degradation of the planet, the cruelty of global capitalism, the looming oil crisis, the collapse of financial markets, and the danger of overpopulation rarely impinge to prick the illusions that warp our consciousness. The words, images, stories, and phrases used to describe the world in pseudo-events have no relation to what is happening around us. The advances of technology and science, rather than obliterating the world of myth, have enhanced its power to deceive. We live in imaginary, virtual worlds created by corporations that profit from our deception.” (Hedges 52)

Removing our illusion-producing virtual reality devices (which take many forms) from our minds reveals a rotting (and perhaps rotten) heart and corrupted soul within what remains of our Republic. Nonsense from the so-called liberal class about the Republic, civilized discourse, rationality, “established programs,” and the like merely provide ammunition for the right to fixate on. They do not obscure the root rot.

Wendell Barry, always an insightful commentator on the state of things and people, is quoted by Hedges: “People whose governing habit is the relinquishment of power, competence, and responsibility, and whose characteristic suffering is the anxiety of futility, make excellent spenders. They are the ideal consumers. By inducing in them little panics of boredom, powerlessness, sexual failure, mortality, paranoia, they can be made to buy (or vote for) virtually anything that is ‘attractively packaged.’” Hedges goes on to say “there are no shortages of experiences and products that, for a price, promise to stimulate us, make us powerful, sexy, invincible, admired, beautiful, and unique.” (Hedges 53)

Hedges closes Chapter 1 with these words that should haunt the awakening: “Blind faith in illusions is our culture’s secular version of being born again. These illusions assure that happiness and success is our birthright. They tell us that catastrophic collapse is not permanent. They promise that pain and suffering can always be overcome by tapping into our hidden, inner strengths. They encourage us to bow down before the cult of the self. To confront these illusions, to puncture their mendacity by exposing the callousness and cruelty of the corporate state, signals a loss of faith. It is to become an apostate. The culture of illusion, one of happy thoughts, manipulated emotions, and trust in the beneficence of power, means we sing along with the chorus or are instantly disappeared from view like the losers on a reality show.” (Hedges 53). Perhaps like those of the 70s and 80s in Latin America, only less violent—for the moment.

Well shaken Hedges, the real Morpheus of our own Matrix! If we listen, and respond to the shaking...