Goodnight, Bob Hoskins

Now here's some news that bummed me out, Bob Hoskins died of pneumonia at the age of 71. Mr Hoskins was best known for playing the human lead in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but I think his best role was as the lead in one of my all-time favorite films- The Long Good Friday. In the film, Mr Hoskins played the head of a British crime syndicate who becomes aware that the people in his organization are dropping like flies around him. As the snare in which he's caught steadily tightens, he engages in a desperate struggle to determine the nature of his enemy. In one memorable scene, he has his operatives round up a bunch of associates and bring them to an abattoir in order to interrogate them:





Ultimately, he learns that his foes are implacable- they are not the "reasonable businessmen" or corruptible law enforcement officers that he is used to dealing with, and therefore he is out of his element in his efforts to save himself.

Mr Hoskins totally owns the movie, no small feat playing opposite Helen Mirren. While most of his career was spent as a supporting player (you know, "that guy" in a spate of movies), in The Long Good Friday you can see him as a forceful lead, playing an almost entirely unsympthetic character that is nonetheless fascinating.

While I am not much of a filmgoer, I have long been a fan of Mr Hoskins. I'm gonna miss the guy so much, I'll even give him a pass for starring in Super Mario Brothers, the movie.

New Pixies Album

It's been a l-o-n-g time, but The Pixies have released a new album titled "Indie Cindy". The single Bagboy, released last year, had that typical Pixies' guitar crunch, but the lyrics were delivered in a deadpan spoken-word performance which contrasts with the older Pixies "power pop from a warped alternate universe" soft/loud delivery. Sounds like they'd been listening to a lot of rap and a bunch of Cake singles:





I'm digging the new stuff so far, and more importantly, the Pixies are out and about, touring and making live recordings in various venues:





If there's one fly in the proverbial ointment to temper my Pixiesbliss, it's that bassist/vocalist Kim Deal was ousted from the band last year. I have to confess that I get a little weak in the knees everytime I hear her backing vocals in the outré song Debaser, a personal favorite:

Rupture, Not Rapture

Via Tengrain, we have the tale of Alex Jones calling out Glenn Beck for insufficiently supporting deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy. Jones believes that Beck is working for the Kenyan Usurper, setting up the right-wing loons up for the jackbooted thuggery of the latte-sippin' lefties:


“They’re positioning him as a Judas goat to lead the liberty movement. It all just clicked. He is actually Benedict Arnold, he actually works for Obama. And I’m sorry I have to say that. He really does!”


Poor Beck, he steals Alex Jones' schtick, then backpedals in one instance, and now he's Benedict Arnold. On his end, perhaps because he sees the coming backlash and his getting drummed out of the loonbertarian fringe, Beck is seeking the refuge of religious whackaloonery... because religion is the last good refuge for an utter scoundrel. Addressing the commencement of Liberty University's graduating class, he's gone full-on "Rapture Ready" fundagelical millennialist, claiming that God is coming back "to settle scores".






One could chalk up Glenn's "Road to Dumbasscus" moment as an example of Jerusalem syndrome, but I have a more cynical view. I suspect that Beck sees the coming Rupture among the far-righties, so he's going to switch gears and talk about the Rapture to reinvent himself as a religious figure, having failed as a political pundit. Unluckily for him, Glenn is a couple of horsemen short of an apocalypse.

Cross-posted at Rumproast.

Sainthood So Soon?

Today, the local news was dominated by the canonization of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII. I seem to recall that the canonization process took place at a slow pace, with several stages in which a candidate was evaulated. In 2005, upon the death of Pope John Paul II, the cry of "Santa subito!" echoed through Saint Peter's Square, but I'm of the opinion that the man's canonization was altogether too subito. I figure someone will have to play the role of devil's advocate, even if it's after the fact of canonization.

Karol Wojtyla's biography is a heroic one- as a young seminarian in Nazi-occupied Poland, he played a minor role in the resistance, about as much as could be expected from a young seminarian, and his resistance to the Soviets was genuine, though largely overblown, until his triumphant return to Poland in 1979. Wojtyla is rightly revered as a symbol of resistance and survival by the valiant, long-suffering Polish people. He was also instrumental in improving relations between Roman Catholics and Jews, both as a bishop and as pope.

On the other hand, he was very conservative from a theological perspective and resisted efforts to give women a larger role in the church. He was resistant to the liberalization of the church's stance on birth control and same-sex relationships. He was unsympathetic to the liberation theology movement in Latin America- seemingly willing to turn a blind eye to the excesses of capitalism due to his understandable fear of Soviet-style communism. By far, his greatest sin was his utter failure to address the sexual abuse scandal which rocked the church worldwide.

John Paul's virtues were the virtues of an individual- He was able to inflame the hearts of his fellow Poles in the face of decades of oppression. He was able to forgive his shooter. His vices were institutional- he failed to root out an evil element of the church which preyed on the most vulnerable members of his flock. He failed to modernize the church's attitude toward women and LGBT people.

In the grand scheme of things, John Paul II was a flawed man (as all humans are flawed) who accomplished much good in the world outside his control, but failed to curtail a great evil in the one sphere in which he could wield authority. He was a canny political player, but he allowed internal politics to interfere in an accounting of the modern Roman Catholic Church's most heinous crime. While I would generally consider that his good deeds outweighed his bad deeds, I would hesitate before I considered him a saint.

Being a cynical man, I'd have to say that his canonization is an obfuscation of his one fatal flaw, and an attempt to downplay the scandal he failed to address... more an example of public relations than of sanctity.

Night of Mucky-Mucks

I have a feeling that tonight is going to be pretty crazy on the job. The organization is previewing a new spring fundraiser, a "swing for the fences" extravaganza that's costing beaucoup simoleons. Besides the technicians who will be swarming all over the place making last-minute adjustments (the crew was on-site until 2AM last night, and returned mid-morning), a lot of the organization's bigwigs will be present. I guess I'll have to shave before heading out to work.

Next month will be occupied by the fundraiser itself. To make things even crazier, our normal season starts next weekend as well. I had to cobble together a tentative schedule for the month, which could change as the department head reassesses staffing needs. This is the first time the organization has endeavored to hold such a grandiose Spring fundraiser (Fall is our crazy season). Before I hop into the shower (can't catass when there are mucky-mucks around... it's okay to catass when you're just working with the cats- just kidding!), I think I'll post an appropriate video from The Vapors (funny how this UK band didn't use the British spelling of the word, something that just hit me tonight):





The Vapors are largely seen as a one-hit novelty act, due to the popularity of their song Turning Japanese. It's a pity, the entire album New Clear Days is fantastic. I'd listen to the album in its entirety, but for the fact that I'll be kept hopping all night.

A Coda to My Last Post

Tonight, I have a bunch of technicians crawling all over the site that I am working, so I don't have time to compose a lengthy post. Instead, I will link to a couple of the august residents of my blogroll concerning Tuesday night's speaker.

I will start with the brilliant Smut Clyde, who OBS believes is asking to borrow the keys to the "Riddled" time machine in roundabout fashion.

Next up are a couple of posts at the indefinitely suspended House of Substance- "COME BACK, MR McGRAVITAS!!!" In the comments, Thunder rightly notes that Dr Pinker's veritas sux. I'd add, "Better dead than crimson."

Anyway, I enjoyed the man's lecture last night, even though some of his findings are controversial. It's nice to hear something optimistic about the "arc of history" once in a while. I generally don't moderate comments (obvious spam is an exception, though the filter picks up most of it), so anybody who wants to hurl batteries is free to do so.

Secret Science Club Post-Lecture Recap: A History of Violence

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn for this month's Secret Science Club lecture, featuring psychologist Dr Steven Pinker of Harvard University. Dr Pinker's lecture, which covered the subject of his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, concerned the decline in violent behavior throughout human history.

Dr Pinker began his lecture by stating that (contrary to the impression one might get while watching the news) violence is in decline. The decline is not steady, it's not guaranteed, and violence will probably never disappear. This decline is occurring on all levels- from wars and genocides to the treatment of children and animals. Dr Pinker characterizes this decline as happening in a series of "Great Pacifications".

According to Dr Pinker, the first great decline in violence was the pacification processm which occurred with the end of the state of anarchy which characterized most of human existence. He referenced Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan which characterized human lives in the absence of society thusly:


Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.


The alternative view, promulgated by Rousseau (who never used the term "noble savage"), was that human nature was fundamentally sympathetic to other humans. Both Hobbes' and Rousseau's views were purely speculative.

In order to make a better determination of the nature of violence in prehistoric societies, forensic archaeologists (Dr Pinker likened them to CSI: Paleolithic) began to collect evidence of unhealed wounds in human remains. While estimates vary, Dr Pinker put the figure of death by violence in the "State of Nature" at fifteen percent. The rate today, even given the lethality of modern war and related violence, is three percent.

Ethnographic studies of hunter/gatherer or horticulturist societies suggest that the rate of violent death in these societies is 524 per 100,000 people. In contrast, even given the carnage of two world wars, the rate of death by violence in 20th Century Germany was 144 per 100,000, the rate of violent death in 20th Century Japan was 27 per 100,000 and the rate of violent death in the U.S. was 3.7 per 100,000. While warfare in "primitive" societies tends to be ritualized and less lethal than modern war, raids and ambushes make up a larger percentage of violent acts.

A second "great pacification" was named "The Civilizing Process" by Dr Pinker- involving the rise of states and the resultant "Paxes", with the Pax Romana being the best-known example (as a TV Tropes junkie, I'd refer to it as the "trope namer"). With centralized authority, the incidents of raiding and feuding are reduced- retribution tends to be handled by the state rather than through ongoing private vendettas. Dr Pinker displayed several graphs depicting the downward trend of homicides in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era (with a slight uptick in the 20th Century, with its war and genocides). Much of the period involved the consolidation of principalities and the resultant rule of law. The growth of trade also had an effect- zero sum plundering gave way to mutually beneficial trade.

The third pacification was the "Humanitarian Revolution", in which punishment by torture, mutilation, and execution began to fall by the wayside. A succinct expression of this humanist revolution is the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

In 18th Century England, there were 222 capital crimes, which dwindled down to four capital crimes by 1861. The vast majority of European countries have abolished the death penalty- Dr Pinker quipped, the Europeans have "lost their taste for death".

The humanitarian revolution also saw the end of witch-hunts, the drastic reduction in religious persecution, and the abolition of slavery and bloodsports. Dr Pinker cited the invention of printing and the subsequent increase in literacy as a major factor in the humanitarian revolution- the explosion of literacy led to the Enlightenment, in which knowledge replaced superstition, undermining the rationale for many violent behaviors. As Voltaire put it, roughly condensed: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."

Another factor in the humanitarian revolution was cosmopolitanism- with increased contact between societies, an expansion of the "circle of empathy" resulted.

The fourth pacification Dr Pinker termed the "Long Peace", which occurred after the end of World War Two. While the 20th Century is often characterized as being extraordinarily violent, the 19th Century was characterized by destructive wars beginning with the Napoleonic Wars, through the Taiping Rebellion in China, the War of the Triple Alliance in South America, Shaka Zulu's conquest of South Africa, and the American Civil War. Dr Pinker cited "atrocitologist" Matthew White's The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History’s 100 Worst Atrocities, which posits that World War Two, with all it's carnage, was probably 9th in the ranking of the world's worst wars from 500 BCE to 2000 CE.

The "Long Peace" of the post 1946 era was characterized by no wars between the U.S. and Russia, no use of nukes in war, no "great powers" wars since Korea, and no European wars. Before 1945, there were two new wars in Europe per year. Between 1946 and 2008, battle deaths declined as well. Dr Pinker cited Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch as an inspiration of the Long Peace- the spread of democratic governance and international community should lead to peace.

The fifth pacification Dr Pinker termed the "Rights Revolutions"- the civil rights, women's rights, children's rights, gay rights, and animal rights movements led to a decrease in violence. Lynchings are down dramatically, and hate crimes legislation is working to reduce violence even further.

Dr Pinker then discussed reasons for the decline in violence. He asserted that the decline has happened to rapidly to be evolutionary. The decline in violence is due to social/institutional changes. Dr Pinker then enumerated different categories of violence and discussed the neural pathways involved in such behaviors.

His first reason for violence was rage, which is generally thought to involve the amygdala. Dominance is another reason for violence, which is thought to involve the amygdala and the insula. The rage and dominance "circuits" are distinct but similar. Revenge is believed to involve a two-step process- the first involving the amygdala, insula, and the second stage involving the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex- it's similar to the striving/seeking "circuit" and dopamine is involved, meaning that revenge is, indeed, sweet. Instrumental violence is violence as a means to an end- predation, plunder, conquest, the elimination of rivals- it involves higher cognitive functions- reasoning. Utopian ideologies, the belief that violence can lead to a greater, even unlimited, good, also involves higher cognitive functions, such as cost/benefit analysis. To use a crude proverb, one cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Dr Pinker then described the neurology of our "better angels". Empathy involves the insula and the orbitofrontal cortex. Moral sense involves the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the temporoparietal junction. Reason primarily involves the frontal lobe.

Regarding social reasons for the decline of violence, Pinker cited several. Gentle commerce is one- plunder is a zero sum game while trade is a positive sum game- both parties benefit from fair trade. An expanding circle of sympathy- an "elastic" empathy that allows us to think well of the "other" makes us less likely to engage in violence with said "others". An "escalator of reason" allows people to rise above cruelty- violence is seen as a problem to be solved, not a contest to be won.

Dr Pinker then asked why so many forces push us in the same direction, and answered that violence is a dilemma- it is less of a benefit to the victor than a loss to the victim. All of the forces reducing violence improve outcomes for a vast majority of people. Dr Pinker concluded by exhorting us to examine what we are doing right, and to reassess modernity- modernity is better than nostalgia.

In the follow-up Q&A session, the Bastard was not able to get a question in edgewise in the packed house (the line for the lecture went down the block). Here's a short video of Dr Pinker being interviewed about the subject of his talk. Crack a beer or two (or six) and bask in the boozy, brainy Secret Science glow:





As an aside, back in 2009, when the lecture was still taking place at the lovely Union Hall, I joked to a reporter from NPR that the SSC would eventually have to move to Yankee Stadium. The last couple of SRO lectures convince me that our wonderful hosts, Andy and Jim (and their great, great staff) are going to have to open up a bigger venue. Once again, I can't say enough about what my great and good friends Margaret and Dorian are accomplishing.