Thursday, June 28, 2012

On changing our behavior

Back when I was a student at Wichita (Kan.) State University in the mid-1970s, students (and faculty?) from the philosophy department used to debate students (and faculty?) from the psychology department at the student union about free will vs. determinism. Most of the psychology faculty members were Skinnerians or determinists. That is, they followed the teachings of B.F. Skinner, a proponent of a theory of behavior modification that seemed to imply that humans had no free will. The philosophy department members opposed this approach, as did I, though I was a mere linguistics major. One of my kind, however, was Noam Chomsky, a linguist who opposed Skinner's theories.


That all seems so long ago. But then I read the cover article in the June issue of The Atlantic, "The Perfected Self" by David H. Freedman. Freedman argues that Skinner's ideas are making a comeback today, thanks to smartphone apps that help people become perfected versions of themselves. He tells stories of people who have lost weight by following a Skinnerian formula, which goes something like this: set modest goals, rigorously track food intake and weight, obtain counseling or coaching, turn to fellow participants for support, transition to less-calorie-dense foods, and move your body more often, any way you like."
Freedman shows how Skinner's principles underlie many weight-loss programs and smartphone apps that may eventually individualize programs to the extent that they take into account "lifestyle and environmental factors like types of job, whom you live with, how busy you are, what ethnic group you belong to and what kind of activity or type of food and drinks you like." As one researcher says could happen: "You put sensors in phones and throughout the home, you develop algorithms that can infer what people are doing, and then you provide tailored automatic feedback that reinforces the right behaviors."
One thing that drives such research is not just individual marketing but the effects it can have on health-care costs. For example, "If mobile apps could reduce obesity and its associated costs by just 5 percent, the savings would amount to about $15 billion a year in the U.S. alone."
Such use of Skinnerian tools applies to other fields as well. A manager at the U.S. Department of Transportation mentioned that it was testing an app "that provides local travelers with various transportation options for specific trips and could gently reinforce decisions to use public transit by pointing out the extra calories commuters would burn by walking to the station and the carbon they'd avoid emitting by leaving their cars at home."
This use of these tools raises such questions as this: "Should we be wary of utilities that try to shift our energy use or health insurers that try to change our diets?" If the effects are good, such as reducing obesity, we may think, Sure. But who decides what are good uses and what are bad?
Freedman points out the irony of Skinner's theory: "To control our behavior, we must accept a fundamental lack of control, acknowledging that our environment ultimately holds the reins." He argues here that most of us can't go against our environment in the long run, but "we can purposefully alter our environment to shape our behavior in ways we choose."
These are large questions. We go through our days being affected by many things in our environment that we ignore or are unaware of. Perhaps this article can serve to alert us to this fact and challenge us to find ways to change what is affecting us.
And I suppose even those of us without smartphones can do this, right?

Thursday, June 21, 2012

The popularity of SciFi

I'm not a huge science fiction fan, but I do enjoy the occasional classic or newer novel, not to mention SF movies.
In the past few weeks a collusion of cultural events had me reflecting on SF's popularity and uses.
Last week, I went to see Ridley Scott's new film, Prometheus. I'd looked forward to it, being a fan of his films and hearing that this was a prequel to Alien, which is perhaps my favorite horror film. But by the time I went I'd read some tepid reviews that reduced my expectations. Expectations can play such a large role in one's enjoyment of a film.


Given this preamble, I liked the film, especially its stunning beginning, with its cinematography and music. But it's not on the level of Alien. And though it's not literally a prequel to that film, Prometheus ends with the familiar critter emerging in all its evil fury.
The film is scary, but one scene in particular steals the show. I won't give it away, but Noomi Rapace is great in portraying the strength and suffering of the movie's heroine. Rapace, who played the lead in the Swedish trilogy of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, is one more of the heroines Scott is known for.
Earlier in the month, I received the June 4 & 11 issue of the New Yorker, "The Science Fiction Issue." It included four short stories (regular issues include one), plus six short reflections on SF by SF writers, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood and Ray Bradbury, who died on June 5 at age 91. Several of these writers address the prejudice they've felt against SF by the literary community. Le Guin begins her piece thus: "For a long time, critics and English professors declared that science fiction wasn't literature." She goes on to argue that SF "can be imaginatively demanding and intellectually complex" and considers it "ungrateful for a writer to write science fiction and deny that it's science fiction."
Both she and China Méville caution against prejudice either direction--from SF readers toward other literature and vice versa. Atwood, though, makes a distinction between SF as fiction, and fiction as reality, while Karen Russell calls for reading for enjoyment, whether it's SF or literature.
William Gibson writes that SF told him, "Things might be different, … and different in literally any way you could imagine, however radical." This was a game-changer for him.
What is it about SF that's so popular today? I don't know. For me, though, it has to do with the fact that SF often deals with big issues in interesting ways. Prometheus, for example, is concerned with the question of the beginnings of humanity and asks, Where did we come from? And, as an article in Pacific Standard about astrobiologist Kevin Hand, who served as a consultant on the film, says, "It makes a better film when the makers get the science right."
Maybe people just like good stories, and SF provides some of those. Of course, there are bad or boring SF stories, just as there are bad stories in other genres.
Sometimes, perhaps, we need to get out of our usual context in order to see our world more clearly. SF is one way to do that. And it can be fun as well.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

The juvenilization of American Christianity

The June issue of Christianity Today devotes several articles to “The Juvenilization of the American Church.” Thomas E. Bergler’s long cover story, “When Are We Going to Grow Up?” presents a history of American Evangelicals reaching out to youth through organizations such as Youth for Christ and Young Life. He notes the success of this outreach but cautions about unintended consequences: “Juvenilization tends to create a self-centered, emotionally driven and intellectually empty faith.”
Throughout its history, the Christian church has adapted the gospel message to its culture, with varying degrees of success. At the same time, such efforts have been criticized as either watering down the message or presenting a false one that doesn’t adequately challenge people to follow Jesus.
White evangelicals, in particular, writes Bergler, found success in adapting the gospel message to the culture, especially to young people: “It fared equally well in the buttoned-down 1950s and the psychedelic 1960s.”
Meanwhile, in the wider culture, the meaning of American adulthood underwent change. Instead of encouraging responsibility, self-denial and service to others, a new “psychological adulthood” encourages the individual’s needs and wants above obligations and attachments to relationships.
He quotes sociologist James Côté, who says the seven deadly sins have been redefined: “pride has become self-esteem … lust has become sexuality … envy is now channeled into initiative and incentive … sloth has become leisure.”
Bergler refers to the National Study of Youth and Religion by Christian Smith and other researchers, which found that the majority of American teenagers are inarticulate about religious matters. Smith labels their pattern of religious beliefs as Moralistic Therapeutive Deism.
This kind of adolescent narcissism, Bergler writes, has come to typify many Americans today: “God, faith and the church all exist to help me with my problems. Religious institutions are bad; only my personal relationship with Jesus matters.”
In that same issue, several other writers respond to Bergler’s article. John Ortberg, a megachurch pastor, mostly agrees with Bergler but calls the issue a missiological one of contextualization. He asks, How do we contextualize the gospel to a youth-worshiping culture?
He also notes that we need help defining just what spiritual maturity is.
David Kinnaman, a researcher and president of Barna Group, says we under- and overestimate the power and shape of the next generation. He notes that “typical parents are just as ‘addicted’ to media and technology as are their teenagers, just in different ways.” He says they’ve interviewed teenagers who complain that their parents’ use of technology inhibited quality family time.
David Zahl, a cultural critic, agrees with Bergler’s diagnosis but says “it misses the freedom at the heart of the gospel.”
He makes the point that we don’t grow out of spiritual adolescence by trying to grow up. “The Christian religion,” he writes, “is not ultimately about the Christian, either adolescent or mature—it is about the Christ.”
The question Bergler raises is an important one: Are we too immature? One of the better resources I’ve found in discussing spiritual maturity is Richard Rohr’s book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. He posits that we create an ego structure in the first half, then “fall upward” in the second half as we search for meaning.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Complex humanity

Yesterday I went to see Bernie, the new film by Richard Linklater, who is one of my favorite directors. It's a different kind of film, hard to describe.


It's based on a true story set in the small, east Texas town of Carthage, where Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a mortician who is gay, sings in the local Methodist church and gives caring attention to older widows, befriends Marjorie Nugent (Shirley McClaine), an 81-year-old widow who is also a millionaire. After several years of accompanying her on various trips to far-flung places and serving her every whim, he snaps after too much nagging and put-downs and shoots her. Being a dedicated mortician, he stores her body in a freezer in her garage rather than disposing of it. He then carries on with his life, donating much of the money he gets from her account and making excuses for her absence.
Eventually the local district attorney (Matthew McConaughey) investigates and finds the body. Bernie confesses his crime, saying it was like someone else doing it. Clearly, in the film's interpretation at least, it was not premeditated. Nevertheless, a jury from another town convicts him of first-degree murder, and he's sent to prison for life.
Black gives a good performance and shows off his singing ability. But what makes the film work and provides the laugh-out-loud humor are the interviews with townsfolk in Carthage who by turns adore and admire Bernie. They overlook his homosexuality, more impressed with how nice he was to everyone. The townspeople's heavy accents and colorful language, such as "that dog don't hunt" or "he only shot her with four bullets, not five," are funny but also endearing.
Although many may look down on these people, the film reveals a community that is quite complex, able to include a variety of people and absorb a variety of emotions. These people don't hold onto stereotypical prejudices. Many of them embrace a gay man who murdered an old woman and believe he should be exonerated.
Granted, much of the film feels over-the-top. It's that rare film that doesn't feel realistic but is actually based on facts. One more evidence that truth is often stranger than fiction.
I understand that some Carthage citizens, including the district attorney, and relatives of Ms. Nugent, disagree with the film's interpretation of events. It's not a documentary, more a mockumentary. But it's not quite that either. Is it a dark comedy? Yes and no.
It's one more fine film by Linklater, who has also made Dazed and Confused, Waking Life and the outstanding Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
If you happen to go, be sure to stay through the credits. You get to see the real Bernie, conversing from prison with Jack Black.