It's Not In The Book

This is another one of those: "No... wait. Really?" sort of news pieces that you come across every so often.

It's often said that the United States is a very litigious society - people go to court at the drop of a hat, spurred by the hope of a jackpot at the end of a lawsuit against a deep-pocketed corporation or person. It's already more or less an article of faith that winning the lottery makes one a magnet for lawsuits. But less often spoken of is how we've also become a very legalistic society - more so when we think that we're on the correct side of the law - but still, we tend to follow the letter of the law to it's illogical conclusions.

[California s]tate law says that if spouses are convicted of murdering or attempting to murder their husband or wife, they are not entitled to reap any financial benefits during divorce proceedings. But if they hire someone else to do the dirty deed for them, their victims' assets are not protected.

Seriously? Someone looked at California state law, and said to themselves, "Well, when the legislature passed this law, they didn't specifically say that if you hire someone to kill your spouse and then your spouse divorces you, the fact that you tried to have them rubbed out should disqualify you from an automatic 50 percent share, so they obviously didn't intend for that to be the case." Actually, given the fact that a new state law is being written to close precisely this loophole, it seems that a LOT of someones, some with law degrees said the same thing.

If you ever want to set a stereotypical Conservative off, mentioning the words "judicial activism" should pretty much do it. But I don't think that even the most die-hard constructionist thinks that lumping people who tried to pay to kill a spouse with people who tried to do the deed themselves constitutes unacceptable legislating from the bench, if they've put even a moment's thought into it. But as long as we have a general legal culture that makes the quest for loopholes into a de facto legal system of its own, our laws are going to grow more and more cumbersome. And people will continue to make themselves rich finding, exploiting and/or closing the gap between letter and sensibility.

It’s Not Our Fault

I’ve never been one to read memoirs. I suppose they’re interesting, but I rarely find myself drawn to mostly-autobiography. But, be that as it may, I decided to take a few minutes to read (and comment on) Marisa Meltzer’s review of Spent, a book about former model Avis Cardella's dealing with her self-diagnosed shopping addiction. (One wonders what drugs would be marketed for the treatment of Onimania, were it to be formally recognized.)

Late in the piece, Ms. Meltzer makes what strikes me as a curious criticism.

[Cardella's] very skilled at accepting the blame for her habits, but only barely hints at the underlying reasons we—women, typically, but men as well—are encouraged to buy things as comfort or to show status. Overall, she misses an opportunity to place her spending in a larger cultural context. She only briefly talks about the way credit-card companies prey on spenders, the ways glossy magazines manufacture desire, and the fad for luxury goods, instead pondering her own reasons for spending money.

I don’t see how this is a bad thing… (We should all be so skilled, I think.) Perhaps this isn’t what Ms. Meltzer meant to convey, but she seems to be critical of Spent for not casting Ms. Cardella and, by extension, the rest of us, as victims of yet another Hateful Conspiracy Against the Masses hatched by Big Money and designed to influence us to spend all of our hard-earned cash on meaningless frivolities and empty status signalers. It’s a common refrain, especially on the Left, that everyday people have little or no defense against the Dark Arts practiced by Madison Avenue and Wall Street and abetted by cupiditious neighbors and friends; and Ms. Meltzer seems disappointed that Cardella doesn’t parrot it in her book.

While it might be somehow comforting (although I most certainly don’t find it so) to think that we aren’t to blame for our impulse buys or unwise purchasing habits, the fact is that there is no coercion or subornment involved. Advertisers don’t send thugs to our homes to put guns to our heads and the credit card companies don’t have Orbital Mind Control Lasers (as much as they might want them). In nearly every circumstance, barring certain fraudulent practices, the hand that reaches into our pockets and pries open our wallets is our own, and even if you believe that strings are being pulled, it’s actually we who are the puppeteers.

Casting the idea that failing to indict people that, although easily unlikable, don’t bear the final responsibility for our decisions as a “missed opportunity” seems strange. Madison Avenue and Wall Street have both done some pretty heinous things in their pursuits of ever-greater profits. One would think that there are enough actual (if not always strictly literal) crimes to lay at their feet that one shouldn’t need to blame them for those that they didn’t commit. Perhaps it’s just my conservative side showing, but isn’t part of the idea behind beating an addiction owning up to the fact that one has a problem? I suspect that there is a reason that you won’t find the idea that liquor stores are to blame for alcoholism at an AA meeting. Shifting the blame has rarely been a viable strategy for self-improvement. And in a memoir, it seems that it would serve little purpose other than to allow the audience to avoid seeing themselves and their circumstances in the author’s life. And it seems that there is nothing more pointless than a cautionary tale that adopts as its moral that it’s all someone else’s fault.

Something For Everyone

There is, as I understand it, a subset of Utopian thinking, that centers around the idea that in a truly better world everyone gets something better than what they have now. This gets something of a bad rap. Which is unfortunate, because we could use more of it, especially in politics. There are people, on either side of the political spectrum who work to advance their chosen ideology out of a sincere belief that if the world was run their way, everyone would be better off. Now, you could debate that point with them, and if you happened to rest a different point along the continuum, you likely would, but you could still come away from the discussion with an understanding that, misguided or not, this person has everyone's best interests at heart. The flip side of this Utopian understanding of politics seems to be a steadily growing punitive approach - where one of the desired, (if not necessary) goals is the direct injury of those who disagree.

Again, this is not limited to any one ideology - both Liberals and Conservatives have fallen into the trap of wishing ill of those who have the temerity to not think like them. Of course, this isn't a new idea - the idea that one's political outlook is an objective truth, rather than a subjective understanding, has long bred the idea that there is no such thing as honest disagreement. And once you come to the conclusion that the people who are voting against you are acting out of ill intent, it's only a short step away from one's sense of fairness (also a concept that perhaps too many of us see as objective) demanding retribution.

But, as they say, down that road lies madness. As economic, social and other difficulties encourage Americans to turn on each other, the very unity of purpose which would be our greatest asset in solving those same problems erodes, and risks sparking a vicious cycle. To be sure, Americans have rarely been as unified as we like to think we are. It's difficult enough for a homogeneous nation to avoid division and factionalism - in a heterogeneous one, it's effectively impossible. But even with that, it's possible to understand that we're all in this together, and that hanging together is very much preferable to hanging separately.

Unpressed

I caught part of a local government-oriented television show this morning. Think "This Week," but for a much smaller audience. The guests were a pair of lobbyists for different business interests. At one point the host asked what seemed to be a pretty straightforward question about some changes to the law that the business groups supported. And in return, he received a detailed recitation of a completely irrelevant talking point. He didn't seem to notice.

I figured that one of a few things was going on.

1. He really didn't notice that the lobbyist hadn't bothered to even pretend to address the question.
2. The question was a sham, pretty much simply an invitation for a detailed recitation of a talking point.
3. Pressing the lobbyist on the question would have earned him a reputation as a hostile interviewer, and eventually, he would have found it difficult to book guests.

Of course, this isn't an exhaustive list, but these are the ones that occurred to me.

A suspect that 3 is closest to the correct answer, not only in this case, but in other instances as well. And that's something that we'll have to deal with as the public. As long as there are no consequences for blowing off any but the most supportive media outlets, we're going to have what appears to be a press that's subservient and fawning to powerful interests.

Nowheresville

Yesterday, we went to see Utopia in Four Movements at SIFF. It's "live documentary." And it's interesting enough that if it comes to your town, it's worth a viewing. The scene from Incubus, where Marc (played by a young William Shatner) is trying to seduce Kia in Esperanto, is, by itself, worth the price of admission. But don't put yourself out for it. Despite what the filmmaker says, you could package up the voice-over narration and the soundtrack and put it out on DVD without missing too much. The movie doesn't have enough interactivity to really require the physical presence of the movie makers.

But that's neither here nor there. During the film, you are left with the idea that it's only the Left that has any interest in working towards a Utopian vision. Now, I've never read Thomas Moore, so I'm not really familiar with his vision, outside of what was said during the film. Sam Green tells us that two major components are everyone has a high standard of living and everyone has meaningful work. Now, I don't know at all what it means for work to be "meaningful," so I'm going to re-define that into everyone has productive and useful work (that is, everyone is creating a good or a service, and there is actually some benefit in that production, other than simply keeping the worker off the streets).

During the Q&A session after the movie, had a chance to query the filmmakers. My basic question was this: Most Utopias are based on the idea of collectivism - everyone working for the greater good, rather than their own. In situations like this, once self-interested people start coming to the party, things can go downhill pretty fast. So, I wanted to know, were there any Utopias that sought to make naked human self-interest into the engine? Then, if people wanted to work for the greater good - bonus! I was disappointed with the answers I received back, which were in a nutshell, the writings of Ayn Rand and the state of Montana. Perhaps it's just me, but neither of these seem particularly Utopian.

This, for me, raises a greater question. Why on Earth wouldn't the Right want to have a society where there was enough to go around, and everyone was productive? I understand that the Right isn't on board with collectivism, but shouldn't the collectivist impulses of Communism be viewed as a means, rather than an end? I came away with a feeling that there was a deep, and perhaps even deliberate, misunderstanding between Right and Left in this country. Surely, if you gave a Conservative the assignment to describe what they felt would lead to a society where everyone had meaningful work and a high standard of living, they would be willing and able give you an answer. (Personally, I suspect that answer would jettison the collectivism of previous attempts, while holding tight to the authoritarianism.)