Michael Prescott's Blog

There's no I in team

A couple more thoughts on Matthew Hutson's comments on "magical thinking," which were the subject of my last post. 

The tone of Hutson's piece suggests that people who believe there is someone "up there" looking out for them are fooling themselves in order to feel more important. They want to believe they are special, that their life is a mission, and that they are meant to do something important. It's an ego boost. 

My own perspective is very different. From what I've experienced, the belief that you have a guardian angel or a "spirit team" on your side engenders a certain humility and gratitude. It's not that you're special, because, after all, you assume that everyone else has a spirit team too. You may feel pleased that you're a little more in touch with your team than you used to be, or than some other people are, but that's about as much of an ego boost as you get. 

When things go right for you, you're less inclined to take the credit and more inclined to be grateful to your team for smoothing your path. "Thanks, guys," is a likely reaction. 

If things don't go so smoothly, or you're not sure what to do, you generally "get in touch" with your team through meditation, prayer, guided imagery, or what-have-you. Often an unexpected and viable solution will come to you in this altered state. The ability to relax and hand over your problems to "someone else" can be enormously helpful in relieving stress and anxiety. Again, if you get the answers you need, you don't feel personally responsible; you're indebted to your team. 

On the other hand, if you believe there's no one looking out for you and you're on your own, you tend to develop a much more ego-centered attitude, if only in self-defense. This is natural. You're a stranger and afraid in a world you never made, so you'd better have the biggest, baddest ego on the block. Otherwise how can you protect yourself in a dangerous and uncaring world? No one has your back, so you have to be tough, aggressive, vigilant, and above all, better than anyone else (however you define "better" in your particular social circle - smarter, more attractive, more talented, etc.). 

When things go right, you not only take the credit, you demand it. Like a small child you insist, "I did it! Look at me!" But no one ever does give you all the credit you feel you deserve, so you are perpetually dissatisfied. 

If things go wrong, you have two options: You can blame yourself and begin a dark spiral of self-accusation, anger, and depression; or you can blame this rotten world and all the idiots and lying bastards who screwed you over. 

Now, strictly from a psychological standpoint, which mindset seems healthier? Which is more likely to lead to happiness, contentment, and an appropriate balance of humility and pride? Which is more likely to lead to fear, anger, frustration, stress, anxiety, and dramatic mood swings that take you from self-aggrandizement one day to self-disgust the next? 

Studies have shown that regular churchgoers enjoy, on average, a more optimistic mood, lower blood pressure, greater longevity, a healthier old age, and other benefits when compared with non-churchgoers. Some experts speculate that the habit of socializing with like-minded people explains these results. Maybe. But another possible factor is that churchgoers believe that someone "up there" is watching over them, guiding them, and offering solutions to their problems. 

Hutson disparages this viewpoint as "magical thinking." Evidently he is sure there is no spiritual realm and therefore no possibility that anyone is actually watching over you. Let's say he's right. Let's say that, in fact, all the people who believe they have guardian angels, a spirit team, or saints or ancestors or a loving Savior looking out for them, and who believe they can in some way establish contact with these beings from time to time, are hopelessly deluded. 

Even so, if the actual results of this belief system are positive, what difference does it make? If you can come up with solutions to your problems by communing with an imaginary spirit guide, and if those solutions work, wouldn't you be foolish not to do it? If you can banish or minimize stress, fear, anxiety, and other negative emotions by convincing yourself that higher powers are on your side, then why not believe it? And if such beliefs possibly contribute to the positive health effects associated with churchgoing, even better. 

Why stigmatize a belief system and imply that people are silly or even a little bit crazy if they subscribe to it, when it has all these benefits? If a pharmaceutical company developed a pill that would help people solve intractable problems without strain, reduce stress, make them more even-tempered, engender optimism, lower blood pressure, lengthen their lives, and improve their quality of life into old age, wouldn't everyone be encouraged to take it? 

I'm sure there's a downside to belief in supernatural assistance. Any idea can be carried too far or can be misused and abused by people with psychological problems or an antisocial agenda. But for most of us, a belief that "somebody up there likes me" seems to carry a boatload of pluses and few, if any, minuses. Maybe we should paraphrase Patrick Henry and tell the experts, "If this be magic - make the most of it." 

Pep talk

I came across a Salon article about people who have lucky or miraculous escapes from disaster and who, quite often, read a larger existential meaning into their survival. The author, Matthew Hutson, has a background in cognitive science and the article is excerpted from a new book of his that's critical of "magical thinking," so naturally he has no patience with this attitude. Here's his snarky conclusion:

You want to believe that all those flukes of luck leading to where you are were somehow meant for you. Customized kismet means someone’s got your back. It also means that those events that happened for a reason may be building up to some future purpose. It gives the entire story of your life both continuity and a destination, something to strive for. You were put here for a reason, you matter, and you’re on a mission. Everything before now was to prepare you for your calling! The universe is counting on you! Now hop to it!!!

Sometimes it’s fun to pretend.

Let's leave aside the fact that Hutson can't possibly know whether or not there is a larger meaning to these (or any) events, or if someone up there has or has not "got your back." He may say he's being scientific, but really he's operating on the basis of unstated materialist assumptions, which he holds, evidently, as an article of faith.

Leave aside also the fact that many of the most enlightened figures in history have said quite plainly that there is a higher purpose and meaning to life, and that the great error of most people is to deny it or not even to look for it. Whole civilizations and cultures have been built on these teachings, and most art, at least prior to the 20th century, reflects this worldview. 

But forget all that. Here's what struck me. Since Hutson characterizes all the statements in the first paragraph as merely pretending, he presumably believes that none of them is true. What is true, we are left to conclude, is the exact opposite. So if we don't want to pretend, but instead want to face reality like mature adults, we should believe something like this:

None of the key developments in your life was somehow meant for you. No one is looking out for you. No events in your past happened for a reason, and they aren't building up to any future purpose. The story of your life has no continuity and no destination - heck, it's not even a story - and there is nothing to strive for. You were not put here for a reason, you don't matter, and you're deluded if you think you have a "mission" in life. Face facts! You have no calling! The universe couldn't care less about you! Just give up!!!

Inspiring, isn't it? And materialists wonder why people find their philosophy unfulfilling. 

Link fest

Kopimism, a "religion" for people who like to steal copyrighted material, is already a hit in Sweden. Now it's coming to the USA! 

Here's an interesting account of one bereaved mom's visit to the Afterlife Communication Conference in Phoenix. She came away moved by some of the events and amused by some of the offbeat people she encountered. 

Psi research is often criticized for lack of reproducibility. But even mainstream science suffers from difficulty in replicating its findings. One study in the field of cancer science found that peer-reviewed experimental results could not be reproduced in 47 out of 53 cases. (!) From the article: 

Part way through his project to reproduce promising studies, Begley met for breakfast at a cancer conference with the lead scientist of one of the problematic studies.

"We went through the paper line by line, figure by figure," said Begley. "I explained that we re-did their experiment 50 times and never got their result. He said they'd done it six times and got this result once, but put it in the paper because it made the best story. It's very disillusioning."

Sounds like a file-drawer effect to me. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen in "real" science. 

I'm enjoying Sabrina Feldman's book The Apocryphal William Shakespeare, which explores a collection of obscure plays that were credited to Shakespeare (or to "W.S.") during the 16th and 17th centuries, but which are generally dismissed today. The book advances a new authorship theory, but its scholarly treatment of this neglected body of work should also appeal to Shakespeare buffs with no particular interest in the authorship controversy. It's available in both print and Kindle editions. 

My friend and fellow author J. Carson Black's Darkness on the Edge of Town has been optioned by Winkler Films as a possible TV series. The Kindle edition of Darkness is currently selling for only 99 cents. It's a great read, and at that price it's such a steal that even a Kopimist might pay for it. 

TV review: Missing

Update (April 16): Despite my generally negative review of Missing (below), I decided to watch another couple of episodes via video on demand. I have to say the show does improve in episodes 4 and 5. The son starts to act more like a hero and less like a baby. Ashley Judd is not called on to perform as many ridiculous feats of physical strength and skill. (There was something absurd about her racing around on a motorbike in an early episode.) The plot twists, though predictable, do make the story more interesting, and the increased use of flashbacks helps to flesh out the character of Becca Winstone. It's still not in the same league as 24 or Taken, but it's getting better. And the scenery is really nice. Incidentally, Missing is a limited-run (ten episode) series, and the producers vow that everything will be wrapped up at the end. I guess I'll stick with it now. 

------

Recently I watched the first three episodes of the ABC primetime series Missing via my cable company's video-on-demand service. (You can also watch back episodes on the show's official site.) I'd heard some good things about the show, and I liked the basic premise. But after three episodes, I'm not particularly interested in going any further. I spent some time thinking about why the show didn't quite work for me, and although I doubt that anyone else cares about my thoughts on the matter, I figured I might as well post them here. After all, as I've said before, I have to fill up the blog with something.

Missing is essentially the movie Taken with gender reversals. In Taken, a father with a background in Special Forces searches Europe for his kidnapped daughter, dispatching a variety of bad guys along the way. In Missing, a mother with a background in espionage searches Europe for her kidnapped son, also dispatching a variety of bad guys, though without the savage panache that Liam Neeson brought to his role.

The ex-CIA mom thrust into this international adventure is Becca Winstone, played by Ashley Judd. Though the series features an excellent supporting cast, it's definitely Judd's show to carry. And right there we have a problem.

Having written a number of thrillers about kick-ass females, I have a certain affection for this genre. But it's not the easiest thing to pull off, especially on the screen. You have to believe, or at least sort of believe, that the woman can beat up or kill trained thugs and assassins twice her size. This usually works only if she's in undeniably top condition. When you first get a glimpse of Linda Hamilton's pumped-up biceps in Terminator 2, you're pretty much willing to believe she's capable of the over-the-top action scenes that follow. Jennifer Garner in Alias may not have been quite as menacingly steroidal, but she had the sleek, toned body of a natural athlete. 

Ashley Judd, on the other hand, just doesn't look all that formidable. She doesn't appear to be in especially good shape; her arms lack definition, and she has a rather frumpy look. None of this helps to sell the idea that she can transform herself from dowdy hausfrau into lethal combatant at a moment's notice. During the action scenes, I mostly found myself thinking, I don't believe this woman could really do this stuff.

Other actresses might have pulled it off more convincingly. I could see Sharon Stone kicking butt in a show like this. Sigourney Weaver too, maybe. One reviewer suggested Maria Bello, a sensible choice. Even petite Holly Hunter has a fierceness and a wiry energy about her that could make it work. Judd just doesn't seem to have that kind of mojo.

Successful shows in this genre have generally relied on a gimmick of some kind to add new life to tired situations. The conceit that every episode took place in real time made 24 unique and placed interesting constraints on the writers. But there's nothing really new about Missing. It plays out in bland formulaic fashion. And unlike 24–or Taken, for that matter–you don't get the sense that all the usual rules of storytelling have been thrown out the window, that the hero can do outrageously cruel and violent things to get what he wants, that the line between good and evil is not entirely clear, and that all the characters except the protagonist are potentially expendable. In 24, you never knew who was going to get knocked off next. No matter how much emotion you might have invested in any supporting character, you knew that the show's producers were just crazy enough to neutralize him or her in a heartbeat. This created real tension, because you genuinely didn't know where the story was going or who might be next to die. None of this holds true for Missing, where you can feel entirely sure there won't be any dramatic shocks to your system. Jack Bauer's wife died in the final seconds of 24's first season. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Becca Winstone's son does not suffer a similar fate.

Besides the cautious approach to storytelling, there are some predictable plot twists. At least I'm assuming that certain plot twists are coming our way. In the prologue of the pilot we see Becca's husband apparently blown up in an automobile ten years ago. But since he's played by a major actor, Sean Bean, we can safely assume that he wasn't really killed and that he will be back. Presumably he faked his own death for some reason, and I wouldn't be too surprised if he's involved in the son's kidnapping either directly or indirectly. (There is already a hint of this in episode 3, but it was obvious from the get-go.) We're also repeatedly told that Becca has been out of spycraft and working in a flower shop for a decade. The show's insistence on this point leads me to assume that it's a lie, and that, in fact, she has continued to work undercover all these years, though not for the CIA. I'm guessing this is one of the Big Revelations yet to come. (And really it should be, since otherwise her ability to jump right back into spy mode without missing a beat is even less believable.)

There's also a certain sloppiness to the writing. In a show like this, if it's played straight–as Missing definitely is–you have to get the little details right. But all too often the details seem wrong. As just one example, a character in episode 2 manages to uncover all the details of a corrupt police official's secret dealings on the cop's computer (conveniently the cop keeps all this damning info in one place), uploads all the files to a Wikileaks-type site, and apparently generates a huge amount of traffic–all within a matter of, I dunno, maybe fifteen minutes. Watching it, I couldn't help thinking that in real life it would take a hell of a lot longer to pull this off. It would've been more realistic for him to download the entire contents of the hard drive onto a backup drive and then mail the backup drive to the authorities. Is this a little thing? Yeah. But the little things matter.

Of course, big things matter too. And some of the big things in Missing are problematic as well. A couple of those things involve the kidnapped son, who corresponds to Liam Neeson's kidnapped daughter (played by Maggie Grace) in Taken.

Taken moves at bullet speed and gives us no hint of the daughter's condition until the climax. As a result, we don't have time to wonder if she's making any effort to escape on her own. Moreover, when we do eventually see her, we realize that she has been kept drugged throughout her captivity, rendering her pliable and helpless.

But the kid in Missing isn't drugged or incapacitated in any way; at least by the third episode, he is able to roam at will throughout a large medieval castle where he's being held prisoner. He's athletic, smart, and 18 years old–old enough to join the military. Yet he makes only the most halfhearted effort at escape. Mostly he just seems to be waiting for his mom to rescue him. His main effort at survival is to leave coded messages for her to find. There's something weak and childish about his apparently boundless faith that his mom will make everything all right.

This raises another problem. In Taken, when Maggie Grace tearfully embraces her father at the climax and says she knew he would come for her, it makes sense because she already knew he was a bad-ass with international connections and commando skills. But the kid in Missing has been kept in the dark about his mom's CIA past. As far as he's concerned, she's an ordinary suburban mother who runs a flower shop. So why is he so sure she'll track him down and rescue him? Does he expect a middle-aged widow with (as far as he knows) no knowledge of weapons, tactics, or espionage to track him to the villains' isolated layer and burst in with guns blazing? Sure, Maggie Grace expects Liam Neeson to do that–but he's freakin' Liam Neeson, scarred, tattooed, tough as an old boot, a guy who takes celebrity bodyguard assignments to earn cash in his spare time. For all the kid on Missing knows, his mom has never done anything more adventurous in her spare time than take a Pilates class.

Missing offers its share of pleasures, and I can see why some people would like it. It's filmed in attractive foreign locations–supposedly France and Italy, though nearly all of it is actually shot in the Czech Republic. The cast is good, even if I have my reservations about the star; the production values are high; the pace is brisk, and the frenetic action scenes are sometimes effective. There are worse ways to spend an hour. But to me, the whole thing feels a little bit too familiar, too safe, too obvious, and at times, too dumbed down and poorly thought out. 

I'd really like to like this show. But I don't. Something just seems to be ... missing. 

Comment chaos

The CAPTCHA word verification system for comments isn't working anymore, so I've disabled it. For the moment anyone can comment without jumping any hurdles. However, if I start to get comment spam, I'll have to enable a different option, requiring all commenters to sign in via some social media service like Facebook or Twitter (there are other services on the list). 

Hopefully this will work, one way or the other. 

Incidentally, I complained to TypePad about the CAPTCHA system, but they replied that they have no intention of changing it or fixing it. Which was helpful. 

 

 

Early on the first day of the week ...

Since we're coming up on Easter Sunday, I thought I would point out that the story of Jesus' resurrection is one of the loveliest stories in all of literature. It appears in different versions in all four canonical Gospels, but I think I like the version in the Gospel of John the best. Here it is, in the translation known as the New International Version, courtesy of Bible Gateway.

¹ Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ² So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

 ³ So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. ⁴ Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, ⁷ as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. ⁸ Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹ (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) ¹⁰ Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

 ¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

 ¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

   “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

 ¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

   Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

 ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

   She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 ¹⁷ Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

 ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

 There are variations among the four Gospels, as is typical when dealing with an oral tradition that has been passed down through different communities. In my opinion, it would be groundless to assume that any version–or some composite version–represents the factual, literal truth. Undoubtedly all four versions benefited from a great deal of embellishment and symbolism. But do they speak to an actual underlying event?

It is at least arguable that they do. For one thing, it is difficult to explain the rapid growth of the Christian cult in the absence of a triumphant reappearance of Jesus after his crucifixion. In those days it was not unusual for someone to proclaim himself the Messiah, but if he was arrested and killed by the Romans, his claims were dismissed, and he was subsequently regarded as a false prophet; his disillusioned followers dispersed, and he was largely forgotten. Indeed, one of the so-called Messiahs of the period is known to us today only by the sobriquet “the Egyptian,” his real name having been lost to history.

Something must have happened to turn the earliest Christian disciples from utter despair and disenchantment to hope and newfound religious fervor. Many of them were willing to die for their cause, and some of them did die in awful ways. It's unlikely they would have thrown their lives away for someone whose earthly crusade had ended in unambiguous failure. They certainly acted as if there had been some postmortem reappearance of their leader, and this was the core of the message they preached at their own risk.

Since I have no problem with the idea of postmortem appearances in general, and since some of the appearances described in the Gospels are consistent with reports of apparitions in more recent times (such apparitions often being surprisingly lifelike and tangible, albeit with the ability to appear and vanish at will, pass through walls, etc., just as Jesus was said to do), I'm inclined to think that the apostles really were reunited with Jesus not long after his death on the cross. Whether or not he was physically resurrected is, I think, somewhat irrelevant, since an apparition can seem convincingly physical and real, and can even be touched or embraced.

Another argument, which is often advanced by Christian apologists, is that if the story of the empty tomb had been entirely invented, it would not have depended on the testimony of women–one woman, Mary Magdalene, in John's version, and two or more women in the other versions. Women were not considered reliable witnesses in the ancient world, and according to what I've read, their testimony was not accepted in court. If someone wanted to make up a story out of whole cloth, he probably would have provided more respectable and authoritative eyewitnesses, especially considering that Mary Magdalene apparently had a checkered past as a victim of demonic possession, or what we would call mental illness, before being healed by Jesus. Who would choose someone with that background as the cornerstone of their story? Perhaps there was some subtle symbolic reason for the choice, but to me it seems more likely that she and the other women were mentioned because there were authoritative traditions that one or more women were indeed the first witnesses.

Finally, I can't help but mention the always controversial Shroud of Turin, purportedly the burial cloth in which Jesus' body was wrapped prior to burial in the tomb. In the 1980s, carbon dating of a few pieces of the cloth established that it originated in the Middle Ages, but this did not settle the matter, because later investigation showed that the corner of the cloth from which all the samples were taken was a patch, not part of the original. The patch is presumably newer than the original, but how much newer? Could the original, which includes the mysterious photonegative image of a crucified and scourged man, actually date back to A.D. 30? We'll probably never know, but even today no one has succeeded in precisely reproducing the subtle image on the cloth, though many people have tried and at least one has come pretty close.

Could the Shroud actually be the burial cloth in question, and could this haunting image have been impressed on it during a supernatural dematerialization of the physical body? I'm certainly not insisting on it, but I wouldn't rule it out.

negative image of the Shroud of Turin

But these factual and historical issues are, in a sense, beside the point. As Aristotle put it, “Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.” What makes the Easter story great is not its factual accuracy, which can be endlessly disputed, but its enduring emotional resonance. Its truth is not literal, but allegorical; not a matter of objective facts but of subjective interpretation and meaning. 

Even if we were to assume that the story of the first Easter is entirely fictional, it would still remain one of the sweetest and most poetic stories ever told. In a few simple words, with a bare minimum of description and characterization, the basic tale still has the power to stir the imagination and to summon feelings of renewal and hope. And in the end, that's what the Easter season is about.