content analysis

slow news - May 8, 2008

The Aria of Chris Matthews

By Mark Leibovich (New York Times)

This article came out almost a month ago and I have been talking about it constantly ever since.  But since nobody else I know has read it, I thought I’d feature it here.  This is an incredible profile of MSNBC enthusiastic political superfan and host of “Hardball,” Chris Matthews.  Now, most people I know didn’t read this because they have no interest in pundits.  However, this story not only blasts the hell out of Matthews and reveals that most of the NBC news staff can’t stand him, it also exposes the growing divide between those old-style politicians and pundits who embrace politics for its maneuvering, strategy, and give-and-take (think Matthews, the Clintons, Bushies, Machiavelli) and those who are cynical about politics and simply care about progress and social transformation (Keith Olbermann, Stewart/Colbert, Obama).  This philosophical difference, which appears to break along generational lines, seems to be one of the great
political changes occurring in American society right now.  We all been more cynical about politics than TV pundits for a while, but maybe people (especially young people) are becoming more interested in policy and progress than pundits, too.

I have vivid memory of an incident from my early teen years.  At the time, The Gap was all the rage.  All the rich kids had stylish Gap clothes — cool t-shirts, colored denim button-ups, and especially their trademark jeans.  I wasn’t a poor kid by any means, but having liberal Bobo parents, they were more interested in spending on trips to Europe, meals in Chinatown, and books (lots and lots of books) than in buying their kid some status signifying clothes.  For a birthday or when we happened across an outlet store (truly a place of shame for a teen), I might get a little something from The Gap.  But that was it; certainly not something you should get used to.

At about that time, a Swiss friend of my parents — a tall and athletic, charming and sardonic fellow named Jean-Francois — visited us for a couple of weeks.   During his visit, he was determined to see an American-style enclosed mall, a phenomenon that had yet to arrive in Europe.  So, one night, much to Jean-Francois’ delight, we visited one of the larger malls America has to offer.  The image from that visit that really sticks with me is J-F buying seven (!) pairs of Gap jeans, repeating, “It is unbelievable how inexpensive!”  The idea that what was to me an extravagant item could be purchased with such abandon led me to believe for sometime that your average western European was wealthy beyond imagination.

The following summer, we visited Jean-Francois in Geneva and he made a bit of a show of telling us how the jeans had worn out too quickly.  Disposable, he called them.

This story illustrates a dramatic difference between Americans and Europeans.  Americans have a vastly different approach to the accumulation of commodities.  As Ritzer (following Weber) notes, we place a tremendous emphasis on quantity over quality.  While Europeans have begun to adopt our habits in recent years (with the Brits leading the charge), traditionally, they favor quality over quantity.

As an example, let’s look at the case of t-shirts.  I estimate that I own in the ballpark of thirty t-shirts of various types (e.g., old soccer league tees, undershirts, colorful summer t-shirts).  I don’t think that this makes me very abnormal among Americans.  By contrast, most European friends of mine own no more than
five t-shirts, each costing vastly more than my entire collection.  While I have a lot of t-shirts, they have next to no value.  Whereas I acquire t-shirts like Swiffer sheets attract dust and chuck them when they inevitably rip in the armpit, t-shirts sold in Europe cost far more, but are “built to last”.

It is often said that Americans have a disposable culture, but rarely is it acknowledged that underlying the quality of the item and our behavior in purchasing a shit-ton of these items is a fundamental difference in values from our European neighbors.  Americans value having a lot of stuff and getting a bargain on it above all else.  Europe — at least for now — approaches commodities in a more functional manner, hoping to buy something once and have it last.

slow news - May 7, 2008

I’m Not Lying, I’m Telling a Future Truth. Really.

By Benedict Carey (NY Times)

We’ve all known a couple notorious liars.  For most of us, lying makes us feel uncomfortable.  However, according to a new study, for some people, lying helps them perfect or smooth over past failed performances and is actually comforting.  Or something like that.  While I’m usually skeptical about newspapers’ take on “a new study suggests…”, this one seemed interesting.

I have to say, I’ve always been somewhat skeptical about the notion of culture as an independent variable. Like many sociologists, I tend to think primarily in terms of the structural forces that shape social behavior. For example, how race/class/gender shape life chances. However, a fair number of scholars working within sociology’s “cultural turn” are interested in the independent effect of culture. To be perfectly honest, such arguments often baffle me.

But last night I came upon a great example of how culture can affect behavior independent of structural factors. As one of the five American soccer fans, I was doing my part and watching ESPN2’s MLS Primetime Thursday, the one time per week when games from our national soccer league are shown on basic cable (several other games are shown on Fox Soccer Channel and Telefutura). The match-up was between the ever-disappointing New York Red Bulls and the red-hot Toronto FC. The game, played on a cold, windy, rainy night in Toronto, benefited from the enthusiasm of the wildly supportive and vocal fans, who sang and hurled streamers all night. A great description of the crowd by soccer writer, Ives Galarcep, is available here.

Toronto FC is an expansion team founded last season. Unlike American soccer clubs which have struggled to fill their stadiums at times, TFC has sold out of season tickets in both of their first two years. Nearly every game draws a wild capacity crowd. The only possible structural explanation for this disparity is that BMO Field is in downtown Toronto (or on its outskirts), unlike the other stadiums, which are usually hidden in the suburbs. Nonetheless, given the enthusiasm of the TFC fans, I’d guess they’d show up even in the suburbs.

It seems to me that the strong cultural imprint of British culture on Canadian culture has led to the huge base of fanatical Toronto fans. Many would be tempted to point to the fact that Toronto is a city of immigrants and, given that soccer is a global sport, the immigrant population might explain the high level of support. Of course, several other MLS cities have large immigrants populations: New York, LA, Houston, Dallas, among others (moreover, I saw mostly Anglo-Saxon faces in last night’s crowd). I’d guess that Canadian culture, more than American culture, (well, sporting culture at least) is derived from British and European sources. This cultural similarity leads to a greater understanding of and support for soccer among Canadians. This phenomenon seems to me a pretty good example of culture having an effect on behavior independent of structural forces.

Then again, there are well-armed forces that keep American crowds from acting too much like English supporters. Galarcep writes,

Seeing stadium security toss pass unrolled streamers to the crowd was amazing. Imagine seeing that at Giants Stadium. Not only would that not happen, if you tossed a streamer at a player at Giants Stadium you would get tackled by two state troopers as a state police dog mauled your leg.

slow news - May Day 2008

Taxes, Warren Buffett, and Paying My Fair Share

By Justin Wolfers (Freakonomics Blog)

I don’t care how much I have to harp on this shit.  Our economy is scary bad right now.  We need to be talking about this every day.  And forget traditional measures like the value of the dollar, the Dow Jones, or GNP growth.  How are real wages doing?  How much revolving credit is the average American carrying?  Who is our tax structure favoring?

Well, crazy rich, high character guy Warren Buffett (Omaha in the house?) is thinking about the last question. He discovered that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.  Freakonomics explores the issue.  NBA blogger and ca personal hero, Henry Abbott, makes a connection, noting, “I’d be fascinated to see someone in the NBA pick up this theme: who pays a higher percentage of income in Federal Tax? LeBron James, or a Cavaliers’ receptionist?”

slow news - April 30, 2008:

Breaking the Wiretap (interview by Brooke Gladstone)

In 2005, Times reporters Eric Lichtblau and James Risen won the Pulitzer for breaking the story of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.  Brooke Gladstone, one of the fearless hosts of the great radio show On the Media, interviews him, giving us much of the backstory on how the Bushies tried to suppress the story and how the Times editorial team went along all too willing.  A great behind-the-scenes story for anyone interested in journalistic practices and a disturbing tale for those concerned by political elites’ capacity to influence the press.  Audio recording and transcript available.

In the movie and book, Fight Club, the main objective of the anti-hero, Tyler Durden, is to bomb the biggest finance buildings in an apparent bid to destroy the debt record – putting an end to a crucial aspect of the divide between the rich and, well, everybody else. Naturally, this is absurd notion because such records are backed up on computer systems globally. While I will not link to it, several people have proposed actions of collective computer hacking that could potentially wipe the debt record.

Given all the news in recent weeks about the looming recession and the millions of Americans struggling with debt and foreclosures (are we all aware of how bad things are right now?), I got to thinking about wiping out the debt records. If a national referendum were held on legislation to relieve all Americans of their debts, an incredible majority of people (mortgage-holders, credit card holders) would likely favor it, while a very powerful minority of business leaders and stockholders would oppose the idea with the vehemence of French Revolutionaries*. Of course, most banks would fail as would many businesses depending on those banks (apparently, many retailers are surviving only by taking on debt). In fact, the whole idea has economic disaster written all over it. Things might get much, much worse before they got better. But in the economy that resulted, banks would offer far less credit and people might be more reluctant to take on debt. Who knows? It’s too radical to reasonably picture.

On the other hand, as a democracy, we should ideally be responding to wishes of the majority and acting in the interests of the people, rather than the business community (I know I’m rehashing Domhoff, Mills, Chomsky, and others here). It’s undeniable at this point that our society needs a substantial financial re-organization to survive. What’s it going to be? Short of radically increasing wages, forgiving debts might be the only way to create a sustainable financial future for the majority of Americans. While I’m in no way advocating Tyler Durden scenarios, we really need a Manhattan Project for our collective financial future.

*According to Bill Domhoff, “In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58.0% of financial securities, and 57.3% of business equity. The top 10% have 85% to 90% of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate.”

After yesterday’s entry on enormous homes and bad neighborhoods, I couldn’t resist posting this poem (tip of the hat to NPR’s Writer’s Almanac):

Slum Lords

by John Updike

The superrich make lousy neighbors—
they buy a house and tear it down
and build another, twice as big, and leave.
They’re never there; they own so many
other houses, each demands a visit.
Entire neighborhoods called fashionable,
bustling with servants and masters, such as
Louisburg Square in Boston or Bel Air in L.A.,
are districts now like Wall Street after dark
or Tombstone once the silver boom went bust.
The essence of superrich is absence.
They like to demonstrate they can afford
to be elsewhere. Don’t let them in.
Their riches form a kind of poverty.

Regular readers of ca will notice that the places and spaces we live in is an issue of great interest to me.  So, naturally, I couldn’t resist making “The sociology of the mega-home” by Daniel McGinn (the third of a four part excerpt from his new book, House Lust) the slow news article today (tip of the hat to Contexts Crawler).

The article essentially focuses how Americans are currently obsessed with unnecessarily large homes (with obscenely large utilities bills) and how those rich bastards might feel lonely and isolated from each other.  Naturally, the actual studies of room usage show that much of the space goes unused and that the majority of waking house are spent in the kitchen.

Though I am wholly unconcerned about the loneliness of people living in 9,000 square foot nouveau riche palaces, I am very concerned about waste of space, materials (does anybody think these shoddily-built monstrosities will last the way older homes have?), and the destruction of neighborhoods that McMansions cause.  One of my favorite books, Suburban Nation (by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk), made me into an absolute evangelical for the New Urbanist movement (see also the PBS Newshour special for a balanced consideration of the movement).  While it is clear that development cannot be stopped, it is essential that we pressure for it to happen in ways that are environmentally-sound and foster strong communities where people from all different classes and racial and ethnic backgrounds interact.

It’s hard to argue with the merits of mixed-use (business and residential) zoning, pedestrian-friendly streets, short commutes, architectural consistency (whatever that style might be), and places where their children can play with friends and have some independence without being forced to turn her/his parent into a full-time chauffeur.  That type of neighborhood — both of the past and a could-be better future — is impossible as long as McMansions, the SUVs of residential life, keep being built.

Due to conditions very closely resembling the plot of a recent episode of South Park (a “Grapes of Wrath” parody in which South Park’s Internet connection dries up and Randy moves his family out west to find some), I have lacked Internet in the past few days.  This was a situation that nearly drove me crazy and led me to re-evaluate my overly-close relationship with the Internet.

Content coming back today.