Running Apart from the Herd

Interestingly, the book I mentioned before, Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect, has been offering me many insights about the things that I went through with my previous teaching employment. Lord knows some bad things happened to me there. I had asked a colleague to try and make a study seeing how learned helplessness and how that might factor into how the system changes people, makes them do things they know they shouldn't.

Knowing the way that the authority imposed its will oftentimes without the clear thought of logic to justify, I found myself opposing the authority many times. Sadly, as I opposed most others complied or stayed quiet, one reason why I was regularly in trouble or seen as a troublemaker. Here's some stuff from the book that causes one to think about things.

I also taught some lessons on the hive mind, on the ability of the herd mentality to impose itself on people, and for our tendency to get sucked into thinking the same as others without our noticing. According to Zimbardo: "Resistance creates and emotional burden for those who maintain their independence- autonomy comes at a psychic cost." Means that while compliance is easy, opposing is hard because you know you're going against the others. In real, measurable terms, it's hard to be the lone person, one against the world, etc etc.

And Zimbardo continues: "...other people's views, when crystallized into a group consensus, can actually affect how we perceive important aspects of the external world, thus calling into question the nature of truth itself. It is only by becoming aware of our vulnerability to social pressure that we can begin to build resistance to conformity when it is not in our best interest to yield to the mentality of the herd."

It's difficult to draw lines. Conformity, following the herd, in the workplace, could mean the difference between permanency/tenure and having to update your resume at the end of the school year. We have to make compromises, granted. But those few who are willing to bear the emotional burden of opposition sadly must suffer further from the intolerance of people who just want to keep things quiet and simple.

Where does this lead us? In our upbringings, in our development as rational adults, how often are we faced with questions such as these? And how many people will find in themselves resistance to the dominant paradigm? How many will subscribe to what is imposed?

It's a big 1984 question. If the whole world tells you 2 + 2 =5 how inclined are you to believe. The psychological studies reveal that in the majority of cases the individual will agree with what the majority of people believe, whether it is true or not.

Can you imagine the kind of emotional trauma Copernicus or Galileo may have had to go through as they knew that the world was wrong? Copernicus sat on his discoveries til his death and Galileo was persecuted by the church.

We have to ask ourselves now, how much are we willing to sacrifice to prove something right, or to oppose a system in the wrong?

Pondering Violence

I've just started reading Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect and it asks us not only to take a view of "evil" acts as being based on disposition but also situational and systemic factors. It argues about how environmental factors can influence behavior, based on his research such as the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment.

I got to thinking about myself and how I enjoy violence, or at least watching violence. I'm a huge action movie fan. And it got me to thinking about how much of a kick I get out of watching jack Bauer torture terrorists to get the necessary information from them. I even partook in that torture, kind of, when I played through the 24 game. The violence of games is admittedly excessive and again that prompts the question of how I can enjoy such things. Not only enjoy but actively seek such opportunities.

There are lots of questions that are prompted by our searching of these things. For example I would like to believe that I am a peace loving person, but I know, and sadly I do advocate sometimes, that violence is the best form of conflict resolution in certain situations. What does this say about us? Zimbardo says it's not the moral choices you make in situations you are comfortable with, but situations that are alien or that put unusual strains on us on which we are unsure of how to act that makes openings for "evil" behavior. But at the same time it allows us the opportunity of rising to the level of the heroic.

Blame the Big Boys

I just read about two Pinoys getting screwed at Cannes. Congrats to them, that's great news. However I did read something that's disconcerting and that kind of irritated me. Somewhere in the article someone blamed Hollywood movies like Iron Man for the lull in the Pinoy film industry. I don't really think that's fair. To acknowledge that people are willing to shell out more for big budget flicks and to say that the media marketing machines behind these movies accounts for filling up the seats is acceptable. But to blame the bland Pinoy mainstream film scene on them is another thing altogether. It would be like blaming Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling for why Filipino writers don't get read as much.

I think that there are quite a few levels to it. First is our belief that the foreign product is superior. Take again the book example. We won't have trouble forking over say 700 bucks for a foreign book with nice publishing value, but then when a Filipino writer comes out with a book that's P250 people will say, Mahal naman. Now the great gap between our local stuff and a lot of Hollywood, even the Hollywood crap, is the production value. Undoubtedly a lot of theater-goers go for that. Effects even. Think, some of the local viewers are impressed with Enteng Kabisote.

Now I watched four films from the MMFF, and they were all pretty much garbage. Throw in artistas (we must draw a line between them and people who can actually act) some marketing gimik, a nice grant, and you've got a crappy MMFF film. A lot of the major studio productions offer similar things. Bland stories or things we've seen before and what advertisers like to refer to as star power.

As for the indie films, well they've got major problems in terms of distribution. There are a lot of talented indie filmmakers out there but they can't tap the market. One of the problems I see is that there is a divide between the indie filmmaker and the local viewer and this is probably one of taste or sensibility.

Think of our local poetry scene and how we have innumerable great poets, but how this seems to fall short in terms of being commercially viable. However people will go out and buy Bob Ong's books because they are entertaining. I'm not saying the poets should stop, in fact they should keep on because what they do is beautiful. And I'm not saying that people should not read Bob Ong. What I'm saying is that it might be possible to find some middle-ground.

I'm thinking this way because the big summer movie season's coming up and there's a lot of great films. I think that a lot of viewers pay to have an experience, to be transported, to feel that magic of movies. Our indie films are wonderful, very artistically made, but they don't really have the appeal of say, an Indian Jones movie. Anyone who's seen the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark knows that scene with the boulder. That's movie magic getting you to jump out of your seat. Or for me, how about the great Star Wars moments with the rousing John Williams score. Or when at the crack of dawn Gandalf arrives with the reinforcements just as Aragorn and his mates look like they'll be overwhelmed. Again there's some big production value involved there. But having watched something like On the Lot, you can see that in little doses there can be some big magic.

Let's see if there are some local filmmakers who can tow the line between indie and big production, if there are any that can deliver big fantastic moments. There is a market for big action adventure, which some feel they should blame for the bland local film production. but we're a country of fantasy, of adventure, of action, of magical stories. We see literature turning to these genres, how about our films going this way?

Finishing Recording

Today Chupacabraz will be heading into the studio to hopefully finish our first album, Release the Evil. It's been a protracted affair, suffering starts and very long stops due to economics, busy schedules, and any other thing that you can throw at a band that doesn't really have time to make the band a priority. With the icing being put on the cake today we should be able to reproduce this within the next few months, again subject to budget constraints (how much does it cost to get an album reproduced?) and hopefully be selling this thing soon so that we can get a return on investment which should lead to maybe more recordings. This means that we'll probably be looking for gigs again to promote the album. After not gigging for somewhere near seven months, after Angel Radio last Tuesday the band got onstage on a whim and started rocking out. There's a very special chemistry and energy with this band when it's clicking. Stripped down and without playing together for months we delivered a strong, if short, set. I get a real kick out of Angel Radio, but there's something else that happens when you've got a full band charging ahead and plowing things over with this big sound. Angel Radio would be a smooth cool Smart Car buzzing through the lanes, Chupacabras would be a '57 Chevy, big and taking up the road. To be honest, interest has waned with the lack of gigging and the long time this recording has taken (by my accounts it's going on three years) but that mini-gig electrocuted me and brought some real enthusiasm back for me and finishing the album signals a step forward. It's been a long time coming, this step forward, but now it's here and it's one giant leap for the band. I hope that old fans will find something to come back to, and we can get some new fans in the process. Here are some links if you wanna get an idea of how we sound, if you haven't been to a gig.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c0tyo0-CB4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEQziA21ywQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Vagl9otG8

And here's our multiply. Please visit


http://loschupacabras.multiply.com/

Dog Days (Flash Fic?)

When I was young my cousin, Ate Margaret, taught me something. We were walking down the street when a dog started barking at us. It slobbered and each time it barked it revealed its vicious fangs. At first it moved towards her. It barked, as if daring her to move. When she held her ground the dog started coming to me. “Mite nyur nung!” she screamed to me. I couldn't understand her. She screamed again, “Mite nyur nung!” I couldn't move. I wanted to run. As the dog came closer I could swear I could hear it smacking its lips in anticipation of a jaw-full of my flesh. “Bite your tongue!” Ate Margaret shouted just in time. I bit my tongue and for some reason the dog backed off.

When the dog had gone I asked her why the dog left. I asked why it was that it didn't bite me when I bit my tongue. She said that she didn't know. Someone older had taught her that. There wasn't any way to explain it. But it kept the dogs at bay.

Now Ate Margaret is dead.

Biting your tongue doesn't work anymore.


Dear Reader,

I'm not exactly sure if this is a piece of flash fiction, or if it should be a full-length short story.

writing math

it's kind of funny that i'm writing for a math project. it's a tv show that's about math. i am terrible at that subject. math 17 being one of my first subjects in UP may have something to do with that trauma. in high school i failed to understand geometry and trigonometry but i managed to get by. the multiple takes of math at the college level, however, made math an evil and alien thing to me and i joined the many denizens who desired to bomb the UP math building. that building was filled with misery. now though, much later in life, and seeing all the practical applications, doing lots of reading on the natural sciences, and appreciating math more, i'm seeing that it's so rich. however, as i write the script i still have to holler for my sister to help me with these math problems. it's so sad i'm the only one of us sibs that didn't go to a science high. ah well.

attempts to be intellectual

I hear that smart intellectual people listen to jazz and classical music. not only do they listen to it, but they also write poetry about that kind of music. me, i'm more of a classic rock, rock and roll, and hip hop kind of guy. but i said, hey maybe i'll be smarter and write better if i try the classical music. i tuned on to a classical music station through the itunes. it's alright but i'm not getting the adrenaline, the kick. i don't know. i'm appreciating it but i'm not feeling it in the way that it makes me write. i think i'm going back to my classic rock stations, but i will come back to this. maybe i'm just not ready for this yet.