politics – Page 14 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

The gulf between the generations

I just watched a fascinating interview with a 1960s White House intern who claimed to have an eighteen month affair with President John F. Kennedy. But the most interesting thing wasn’t the affair itself, but the way the President’s staff, the “fourth branch” of government (AKA the media), and the entire general public of 1960s America seemed more intent on keeping the secret than on facing the truth about JFK’s many affairs.

It seems that my parents’ generation had so much trust in their government that nobody would even raise the question–that to raise doubts about the integrity of the man who held the highest office in this country would itself be unconscionable. Rather than face the facts, the American public seemed unwilling to do anything that would shatter the gilded image of the man who led the free world. And that, quite frankly, is a mindset that I simply cannot understand.

In contrast, my own generation has very little trust in our government. We’ve been raised in an age of ambiguity, where the enemy doesn’t wear a uniform or pledge allegiance to a flag, but live quietly among us, until they strap a bomb to their bodies or turn a commercial airplane into a weapon of terror. Or at least, that’s the excuse our government gives us for an increasingly invasive security regime that infringes on our basic liberties, enables the military to hold us in detention indefinitely, and sends our soldiers overseas to fight increasingly senseless wars to “liberate” the people of oil-rich nations who don’t even want us there. As if that weren’t enough, the economic crash has taught us that all that stuff our parents taught us about equality and opportunity is really just a pack of lies–that the rich get bailouts while the rest of us foot the bill, and all that stuff about changing the world and being whatever you want to be…yeah. Lies, all of it.

My Dad had an interesting rebuttal to all this, though. He said that it wasn’t his generation that put the president on a pedestal–it was his generation that tore the pedestal down. During the 60s and 70s, the Vietnam era and the rise of the hippy movement, his generation fought back and made it acceptable for us to question the president, or to criticize the government, or to do all the things that we take for granted today. In fact, he said that we’re the ones who are backsliding into complacency, with our deafening echo chambers, our social media inanities, our reactive attachment to corporate brands and advertising, and our almost religious sense of entitlement.

I’m not totally convinced he’s right, but I do think there’s a fundamental gulf between these three generations. Our grandparents’ was the silent generation, where people were expected to keep to their own business and not rock the boat. Our parents’ generation was one of top-down media, where ABC, NBC, and CBS ruled the airwaves and told us all what to think, buy, and believe.

Ours is a much more peer-to-peer generation, but I worry that we’re turning into a collection of mindless herds who are turning the culture wars into a messy riot where we abandon civil dialog and rational thinking for a much more destructive mob mentality that isn’t really building anything, but tearing it all down.

Sometimes, it gets so frustrating that it makes me yearn for the days of the frontier, when anyone could leave it all behind and reinvent themselves somewhere out in the west. That’s probably why I’m so drawn to science fiction, where space is the final frontier. There really are times when I wish I could go to the stars and escape to it all, and I think that shows in my writing.

Maybe that’s why I feel so compelled to write Star Wanderers. It’s basically 80% wish fulfillment, about a guy who goes from planet to planet on the kind of spaceship I wish I had. It’s not all rosy, of course–space can be a cold, dark, and lonely place–but so can this world, when you’re lost and you don’t really know what you’re doing with your life.

Anyhow, those are just some of my random late-night thoughts about the situation in this country and how much things have changed over the decades. If I had a time machine and got a chance to go back to the 60s (after seeing The Empire Strikes Back on opening night, of course), I don’t know I’d be able to recognize this as my own country. But really, I don’t think I recognize anything as my own country anymore. Like Van Gogh, all I can say is the sight of the stars makes me dream.

Story Notebook #6

Alright, it’s time to go through another story notebook. This one covers the spring and summer of 2010, right after I graduated. It was a weird transitional period in my life, when I didn’t really know what I was doing or where I was going, but I was determined to keep on writing anyway.

I filled three pocket notebooks with story ideas in 2010, and last time I mistakenly thought I’d covered one that went from graduation through the end of the year. While putting my records in order before going abroad, I found that this one actually came a little earlier.

Lots and lots of story ideas…2010 was definitely a good year for that. So anyhow, here we go:

A planet settled by people with aircars: there will be no asphalt roads, only packed earth.

An interesting consequence of futuristic technology; too often, stories come up with something flashy without really thinking through all of the implications. Can you imagine a world without asphalt? If you can, then please take me there!

A task-oriented woman who thinks men are fickle because they’re always trying to come across as macho, trying to save face, etc.

This makes me think of something I heard somewhere about gender roles and politicians. If I remember it correctly, most men go into politics for the fame, power, and glory, while most women go into politics because something in their community is broken and they feel it’s their duty to fix it. Not sure if that’s true or not, but this story idea made me think of that for some reason.

Humanity has been domesticated by a super-intelligent alien race and bred into several different breeds with wildly varying physical characteristics.

In other words, a post-human universe where humans have been bred as pets, like dogs. Can you imagine a world where the physical differences between humans of different races are as great as this:

Can these two even physically reproduce?

A fantasy where the traveling hero is actually the bad guy.

I think Girl Genius already beat me to that, though Othar is more of an annoyance than a genuine villain.

An interstellar Sir Richard Burton.

Now that would be an interesting series. Sir Richard Burton was a British adventurer who went to the Middle East before doing that was cool. He made the first English translation of the 1001 Arabian Nights (as well as the Kama Sutra, apparently), and was one of the first European explorer to sneak into Mecca–certainly the first non-Muslim explorer. I hear he was quite a character.

A planet on a highly eccentric orbit where habitability is sustained by large glowstones that absorb high amounts of energy and emit heat slowly.

Ooh, I’d forgotten about this one. I’ll have to use it sometime–maybe in a science fiction / fantasy mashup. You know, with dragons and stuff.

A werewolf who is tame around just one person.

I’m pretty sure this one has been done, and I’m also pretty sure I’m not interested in reading it. Sorry, Twilight fans–or maybe you’re welcome?

A landscape more vertical than horizontal, where the architecture reflects this (like the old Knight building).

The Knight building was a multi-split-level administration building at BYU where Leading Edge used to meet. Lots of stairs, entrances on just about every level–it was a weird building (but not quite as weird as the JKB). But yeah, a vertical landscape would be cool–though I guess that’s pretty common in cyberpunk, with all those cities.

An alien species that communicates only by touch.

“What the–augh! Get it off of me!” Thus begins humanity’s first interstellar war.

Purgatory for fictional characters, where all the plot hole stories go.

I’m pretty sure that was a South Park episode.

A religious order that believes that developing math skills is the key to self and enlightenment, becuase math is the only science that is completely a priori.

Heh, I’ll bet my Dad would like that story. It might be the first one of mine that he actually buys.

A man frames himself to go to prison so that he can go to law school / have time to write.

When you’re unemployed and struggling to make ends meet, some otherwise unsavory options begin to look pretty attractive…

What if humanity had a blight like the American Chestnut, where everyone over the age of 20 dies of a horrible disease?

I actually started writing that one. Finished the first chapter, kind of in a pseudo-Victorian first person style, like Robinson Crusoe. I have no idea when I’ll finish it, but the universe is really, really fascinating.

A world where novelists / storytellers convey their tales telepathically without translation into words.

And then SOPA gets passed, and all of us creative types are screwed.

What if the mountains were sentient? What would they think of the human race?

“Dang it! Not another cavity!”

Land of the sleeping rainbows

I think this is actually a real place in southern Utah; I just thought it would make a cool story prompt.

What if the Amish really are 18th century people, guarding a natural time portal in central Pennsylvania?

That would be a fun one to research. “Hello, I’m writing a time travel novel…can I join your village for a year?”

Marital therapy that involves swapping bodies.

I’m pretty sure Disney did something like that in the 60s. With the way the country has changed, I’m sure it would be much different if someone did it again today.

And that just about does it for this notebook. As always, feel free to use any of these ideas in your own work. It isn’t “stealing” if it hasn’t actually been written yet (unless congress passes a revamped version of SOPA that…hmm, that gives me an idea…).

Thanks guys! See you around!

What French Women Know About Love, Sex, and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind by Debra Olliver

I have a confession to make: when I was at my sister Kate’s for Christmas, I saw this book on her shelf and ~~stole~~ borrowed it without permission. I finished it just yesterday, and at the risk of embarrassing myself, I’m going to review it as my second book of this year.

This book presents a fascinating perspective on French lifestyle, attitudes, and culture. Even though it’s geared more for women than for men, I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoyed Twilight–as an interesting anthropological experience.

It goes beyond that, though. The picture Ollivier paints of French culture is fascinating in and of itself, if nothing else for the contrasts she points out between us (Americans) and them. According to Ollivier, the key difference is that the French have a deep understanding of “the brevity of time and the immediacy of pleasure.” Ollivier follows this philosophy out to its logical conclusions to show that everything in French culture is an outgrowth of this–and it makes sense.

For a non-fiction book, the writing itself is quite entertaining, with constant pop culture references and a playful, humorous style. It was a delight to read, and fairly easy as well.

However, I did get the feeling that it was a little too enthusiastic and non-critical to present a comprehensive or truly accurate picture of French culture. Between the lines, Ollivier seems to be saying that if we Anglos would just be a little bit more like our “French sisters,” most of our problems (like our obsession with marriage, our frustrations with perfection, and our general lack of passion) would be solved.

I take issue with this: as much as we have to learn from the French, their culture has a lot of issues as well. For example, I personally believe that Laïcité is fundamentally incompatible with a multicultural society, and leads to de facto state repression of legitimate religious expression in the public sphere (such as the wearing of the headscarf).

Also, whenever Ollivier described American culture, I always felt as if she was describing something completely alien to my own experience. There might be a good reason for this, considering how for the past six years I’ve lived in Utah Valley, a bastion of Mormon culture so unlike the rest of the American mainstream. However, it might also be that Ollivier exaggerates the worst excesses of this continent in order to more sharply contrast the subject matter of her book.

As a writer, though, I found this book inspiring–particularly as a writer of science fiction. In my novels, I’m constantly inventing new cultures to populate the many worlds in my science fictional multiverse. This book, with its clear and entertaining analysis of some very real-world cultural differences, gave me an excellent world-building prototype and a whole ~~plethora~~ (oh how I hate that word) bunch of new ideas for ways to enrich my stories. In fact, this book gave me just what I needed to get through the block that had kept me from writing Star Wanderers, so if nothing else, there’s that.

So yeah, if you’re interested in world cultures or world-building cultures of your own, it’s worth your time to check out this book. It’s perhaps not the most thorough or comprehensive book, but it is entertaining, and fairly insightful as well. I mean, hey, if a science fiction geek like me enjoyed it, it’s got to be doing something right.

Story Notebook #5 (part 2)

For those of you who don’t know (or can’t remember, since it’s been so long), I’ve been doing this ongoing thing where I go through my old story notebooks. Last time, we covered my last semester of classes at BYU; this time, we’ll cover my time in Washington DC, when I was trapped in an internship from hell.

Now, you may be wondering: “why is this guy just giving away his ideas for free?” Well, last week at dinner group, the conversation turned to story ideas, so I pulled out my current story notebook and started going down the list. This quickly turned into a game of “name that tune,” where we managed to show that EVERY SINGLE IDEA had already been done.

And you know what? That’s perfectly okay! There are no original ideas anymore, just new ways of executing them, and maybe a handful of combinations that haven’t yet been tried. The purpose of keeping a story notebook with you at all times isn’t to come up with something new, it’s to keep track of the stuff that really turns you on.

Enough with that. On to the notebook.

In a spacefaring culture, the custom will be for the males to leave the station and depart in search of a wife at another port, either to capture or win over in some way. The women will tend more to running off with the travelers. This preserves genetic diversity.

This is actually something I want to talk about in a longer post. The problem of inbreeding in a space-based society is something that many science fiction authors have wrestled with, from Robert Heinlein to C. J. Cherryh. Their solutions are quite inventive, but while I was in Washington DC working on To Search the Starry Sea (my escapist retreat from a hellish internship), I managed to come up with a few of my own, and used them in Star Wanderers. More on that later.

What if one of the founders was a time traveler, sent on a mission to ensure that the US constitution made it through?

Hehe…in other words: James Madison, Time Traveler. It has a certain ring to it, no?

The human mind is like a congress–so many people at extreme odds, arguing constantly but holding together somehow.

Oh boy. If that were true, the US congress today would be like a paranoid schizophrenic.

A subway haunted by patrons from the past–maybe you will become one when it goes back in time.

Who hasn’t been creeped out by the subway at some point or another? Except the New York subway system is way creepier than the Washington DC Metro–I swear, some of those rats are man-killers.

A magic system where the cost is your unborn children. If you don’t have children within a certain period of time, you die.

Sounds like some of the Arab short stories I’ve read. Families and children are much more important to them than to us in the West.

When the Developed World develops instantaneous transportation devices, it will essentially merge into one super country, while the developing world will be left out. The only sense of distance will be in the developing world, and terrorism will be an issue.

Kind of like Larry Niven meets dependency theory.

A government where the Supreme Court is a super-intelligent robot.

Hopefully this would rid the country of activist judges…or would it??

A character who believes, at his core, that there is no such thing as a genuine surprise, simply a lack of information–and that if we had perfect information, there would be no surprises.

Sounds a lot like the platonic 19th century ideal of a scientist. What with quantum physics and such, there aren’t a whole lot of those left.

There are two kinds of shame: shame from loss of honor, and shame from not following the herd. Don’t mistake the one for the other.

This one isn’t so much a story idea as an observation. I learned a lot in my hellish Washington DC internship, most of which had very little to do with my area of study and everything to do with the less-than-honorable ways in which the world works. And on that note:

____ always felt that the world around him was somehow less than real; an illusion. While staring out the window of the train, he wondered if the window wasn’t just a video screen, like the car windows of old movies–or when looking out at the view of the mountains beyond his house, with the picturesque clouds and too-blue sky, if it wasn’t just an elaborate painting on a wall at the end of the world. In moments like these, ____ longed to peel back the video screens–to break down the pretty painted wall at the end of the world–and see what lay on the other side of reality.

If my hellish internship on K street taught me anything, it taught me that I would rather be a writer than have all the connections or political influence in the world. I got out of Washington DC as fast as I could, and haven’t looked back since.

9.11.11

I realize that by the time you read this it will probably be September 12th, and most of you will be breathing a collective sigh of relief that the 10th anniversary of 9/11 is over and done with. I apologize for bringing up the subject again; I’ve been putting off writing this post because I feel exactly the same way. And yet it doesn’t feel right to say nothing, so I figure I’ll just get this off my chest and return to my normal blogging routine tomorrow.

To be honest, there’s very little I can say about 9/11 itself that I haven’t said already. Last year’s post pretty much summed up everything I could say about my experience that day, and I won’t try to do a better job here.

There’s a reason I chose to spill everything last year as opposed to now, however, and that’s because last year was the final year in a decade that I think it’s safe to say all of us would rather forget. It started with the 9/11 terror attacks and ended with a global financial meltdown and massive recession, with two ultimately fruitless wars and millions of shattered lives in between.

I almost want to call it the “Decade of Lost Dreams,” which is sad because many of those years were the prime of my life. It’s true, though; the world has gotten a lot darker and grittier, at least for us Americans, and there are very few places we can look to for hope. President Monson wrote an excellent op-ed in the Washington Post on that subject, coming at it from a more spiritual perspective.

I wish I could be more positive, but I don’t expect things to get better anytime soon. These are dark times, and even if the specter of terrorism isn’t as bad as it used to be (thanks to the brave men and women in counter-terrorism and the military, to whom I give my utmost respect), the economy is a hundred times worse. With the crisis in Europe, I wouldn’t be surprised if we fall into a second recession; it may be that the 00’s were merely the “Decade of Disillusionment,” whereas the 10’s will truly be the “Decade of Lost Dreams.”

I actually want to do a series of posts on this later, because even though things are grim, I still think there’s a lot of options open to us–possibly more than at any other time in history. But that’s a subject for another time.

Basically, I just wanted to say that I feel like after 9/11, the country took a nosedive off a cliff, and that’s something I would rather put behind me than commemorate. Fortunately, we don’t need to let that define us–I know I certainly don’t. And as for those who have been working hard to make this world a better place since then, I tip my hat to you. We need a lot more people like that right now.

Thoughts on the protests in Egypt

So unless you’re living under a rock, you know that there’s a revolution going on in Egypt right now.

Protesters have been demonstrating 24 hours in Tahrir square in Cairo for the past seven days, demanding that President Mubarak step down from power. With police unable to contain the protests, the army has been called out, but seems to be taking a neutral role.

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on right now, but from what I can see, it doesn’t seem likely that Mubarak can hold onto power much longer. In some places, it seems that the military has actually sided with the protesters, allowing them to stand on top of tanks and blocking the police with their armored vehicles. Many of the looters include police officers, who apparently have read the writing on the wall.

If Mubarak does step down, the effects will be incredible. Egypt is by far the most populous Arab country, and a major center for regional cultural trends. Mubarak’s regime has also been one of the most authoritarian and repressive, and until now, his hold on power seemed as absolute as any Arab ruler. If he falls, where will the next revolution happen? Libya? Syria? Yemen? Sudan? Iran?

This wave of protests didn’t start in Egypt; it started in Tunisia, where a citizen’s self-immolation sparked massive unrest. When the protests reached their apex, the military and police stepped down, forcing President Ben Ali to flee the country. Tunisia had one of the most repressive regimes in the region, and the speed with which it collapsed was absolutely stunning–and no doubt an inspiration to the people of Egypt.

Some articles I’ve read suggest that the Iraq War and the fall of Saddam Hussein was a major cause of the current revolution, but I disagree. Most of the Arabs I’ve talked to consider the US invasion of Iraq to be a disaster, and have nothing positive to say about anything that’s come of it. The fate of Iraq is still very much in the air, and many people (myself included) don’t expect democracy to take root in that country without another dictator coming to power.

Instead, I think the root cause of this revolution is economic. According to the UN, food prices across the world have risen 25%, and the global recession has led to widespread unemployment. No doubt the people of Egypt have been feeling this, especially with the huge disparity between the rich and the poor. What we’re seeing right now is a loosely organized, broad-based popular uprising, with people from all segments of society demanding that Mubarak step down.

I’ve got to be honest; I think these protests are very exciting. The chaos and violence is definitely bad, but if it leads to a more just and democratic Egypt, I think that it’s definitely a good thing. When I visited Egypt back in 2008, my first impression of Cairo was that the place was a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a city, with trash in the streets and police armed with machine guns. The longer I stayed, the more I felt that the country was backward–and that a major source of the backwardness was the corrupt Mubarak regime.

I’m not an Egyptian, so I can’t say what’s best for the Egyptian people, but I hope and pray that they get what they are fighting for–a more just and democratic country.

Things I learned from working in a call center

Over the summer I worked part time at a local call center. At the time, it was just what I needed: a flexible job that helped me pay the bills while figuring out where I wanted to go next. That said, I learned very quickly that call center work is not the sort of thing I want to do for large portions of my life.

I’m glad to say I quit my job on good terms with the management, and was one of their more productive interviewers. I don’t harbor any hard feelings against the company I worked for or any of the particular employees.

However, I do want to reflect a bit on the nature of the work itself, which was less than awesome, as well as some of the things I learned about myself in the process. Since this has nothing to do with the company itself, I’m not going to mention it by name. Also keep in mind that the things I have to say are heavily influenced by my own opinions, so they may not apply to you.

That said, here are some of the things I learned from working in a call center:

1) In the long run, jerks only punish themselves.

I spoke with a lot of incredibly rude people in this job. I also spoke with a lot of people who were courteous and well-meaning. Without exception, the jerks seemed overstressed and miserable, while only the courteous people ever seemed genuinely happy and content with their lives.

I think the way we treat others says more about ourselves than anything else. People who are mean and nasty to each other are never truly happy.

2) A small amount of patience makes most things go faster and smoother.

I hated it when people told me “just put ten for everything.” As an interviewer, I couldn’t do that–I was required to ask every question verbatim. Those who were patient enough to let me do that got through the survey quickly and painlessly, while the impatient people who tried to rush things almost always got upset.

I think it’s safe to say that this has a general application as well. When we’re patient enough to let things happen the way they’re supposed to, things happen faster and more smoothly. When we try to rush things that shouldn’t be rushed, we screw up.

3) The ability to genuinely listen is a rare skill.

I can’t tell you how many times I asked a simple question on a survey, only to find the person on the other line answering something completely different. I didn’t expect anyone to drop everything and devote their full attention to me, but how much effort does it take to answer a simple question?

I’ve known for a long time that listening is a skill that requires work to cultivate, but apparently, it’s also one that few people have truly mastered. If you can’t understand a straightforward question well enough to give a yes or no answer, how can you understand something as complex as another person’s feelings?

4) Political campaigns are evil.

This is a little tongue in cheek, but I stand by it one hundred percent. Every survey we conducted for a political campaign asked questions that were clearly geared toward developing negative campaign ads and manipulating public perception. None of them asked how the government could best serve the people.

5) Having a flexible work schedule makes writing both easier and harder.

It makes it easier because you can plan your time around other things that are going on; it makes it harder because your days generally have less structure.

I think I hit a pretty good balance by working in the morning and writing in the afternoon, then going in to work again in the evenings if I needed the hours. Call centers are always looking for people to work in the evenings.

6) Reducing everything to numbers makes human interactions meaningless.

This was, by far, the thing I found most frustrating about my work. I talked with hundreds of people from all over the country and didn’t connect with hardly any of them on a personally significant level. It was all about checking off boxes, where each completed survey was just another number in the system.

This tended to be more true of the short surveys, less true of the longer ones. For that reason, I loved it when I got a survey that took twenty or thirty minutes to complete. It’s very hard to talk with someone for thirty minutes without making some kind of a connection with them, however fleeting.

7) If you have a love of learning, find a job that lets you use your mind.

To be perfectly honest, I never felt completely satisfied at my work. A robot with sufficiently advanced voice recognition software could probably have done my job as well as I could (at least for the ninety second surveys). Over time, I felt like my work was turning me into a robot.

That’s ultimately why I felt I had to get out. Maybe I have a problem with authority, but I can’t stand being just another cog in the corporate machine. There’s got to be a way to pay the bills and still live life meaningfully.

Image courtesy W. Lowe

Most and least productive days

Man, I don’t know how it happened, but I did not get a word in in my novel today. No, wait, I know how it happened: my schedule looked like a piece of moldy Swiss cheese.

First, there was work, then plasma, then a few hours of free time followed by an interview for an internship with the Utah County Democrats (which went extremely well–more later), then Leading Edge, and then Dr. Strangelove.

So yeah. No writing, unfortunately. Gotta work on the self discipline.

But as far as figuring out what the heck I’m going to do with the next 6 months to 1 year of my life, today was remarkably productive. I recently applied for a paid internship with the Utah County Democrats and the interview was today. I think it went really well, too–the board members seemed quite impressed. I was dressed up, showed up early, and answered every question by pointing to something specific from my work or volunteer experience. Finally, a job that I’m actually qualified for!

Honestly, when I went, in, I wasn’t too sure if this was something I was interested in doing. I didn’t have a very positive experience in DC with the internship, and the back and forth of partisan politics really grates on me. However, there seems to be a big difference between national politics and local politics–local stuff seems much more down to earth, with less of the rhetoric and bickering. A lot more hands-on, grassroots kind of stuff, without the constant abstractions or the hyperfocus on career priorities that turned me off so much to Washington.

Politically, I’m currently an independent, leaning more to the right. Surprisingly, that seems to put me in good company with the Utah County Democrats. One of the guys on the board described them as center / right of center–basically, a moderating influence in the face of right wing nutcases like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh that are so deplorably common out here.

The internship pays a $2,000 stipend for 4 months of work: 10 hours per week at first, moving up to 20 hours per week closer to November. For this part of the country, that’s decent money. Plus, if the candidate I work for gets elected, it may open job opportunities in Salt Lake City.

The catch? That I’ll no longer be able to be a political independent–that I’ll be picking sides, in such a way that the other side may never consider me credible again. At least, that’s how it works in DC: there’s Team Republican and Team Democrat, and if you work for any organization even loosely affiliated with one of the teams, no-one on the other side will ever have anything to do with you.

But…then again, that may not be so bad. I don’t agree with everything the national Democratic Party stands for, but neither do the Utah Valley Democrats. In fact, the Democrats here mirror my political views almost perfectly. Plus, I suppose it’s easier to change things once you’re on the inside.

I don’t know. I’ll definitely have to think about it.

So yeah, as unproductive as things were writing-wise, they were actually quite productive in other ways that mattered. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next couple weeks; I sense more than a few major decisions coming up (gah!).