Ross Douthat on Palin's resignation

This excerpt from Ross Douthat’s latest NYT column may seem a bit bizarre at first:

Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

First, we have meritocracy positioned opposite democracy. Funny, I had thought that democracy was the best route to meritocracy, that the two generally complimented each other—electing, and more importantly reelecting,* people based on performance. Yet somehow Douthat finds them opposed.

In order to do that, he has to gut the phrase “democratic ideal” of its core spirit, at least as we know it—election based on popularity, itself due to performance**—leaving only the barest of shells: election based on popularity, itself due to…“success,” which he leaves undefined. Oh, but the important thing is, he tells is, that she stands as a representative of the working class, Real American Values. Just keep that in mind, everybody.

So, election based on popularity, itself based on…ah…what? Just popularity via, in Palin’s case, cultural identification? Republican pollster Alex Castellanos, of the (in)famous “white hands” ad, does admit that “…with Republicans her support is not based on her record as governor of Alaska.”***

It’s not a meritocracy, then, I’ll give Douthat that. And it is indeed a form of democracy; in fact, Plato himself considered this form—rule based purely on immediate mass appeal, whether due to identification with a certain class, pacification through “bread and circuses,” or other means—to be the most accurate definition of the word. The philosopher also ranked it as the worst possible form of government for precisely this reason, behind even oligarchy, rule by merchants (his definition).

Douthat’s passage makes sense, then, if you assume he’s talking about “democratic ideals” as a Platonian. For some reason, I don’t think he would agree...but rather than accuse such an esteemed thinker of intellectual dishonesty or inconsistency, let’s go with this reading.

Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story, rising by virtue of merit alone. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a charismatic, shallow, power-hungry egomaniac† without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

The man finally writes a column I can agree with! Good to be on the same side for once, Ross.

*Something that Palin, perhaps not coincidentally, has just taken off the table.
** Often correlated with some measure of intellect and open-mindedness.
***Full quote: “For independents and Democrats, [Palin's] already not their candidate, and with Republicans her support is not based on her record as governor of Alaska.”
†A universally human sort of success story--Ross was even careful enough to leave "American" out in the original piece

Watchmen film thoughts, or "Zack Snyder has no balls"

Caught Watchmen last night. I'm a big fan of the book (more on that in a bit), and was quite skeptical about efforts to bring it to the big screen, especially with Zack Snyder of 300 directing.

For the most part, it actually wasn't bad. Had to be cut waaaaay down just to fit under 3 hours, and perhaps the frantic pacing needed to cram in as much as possible will leave non-Watchmen readers' heads whirling. My sympathies, but here I'll discuss my own impressions.

*******SPOILER WARNING*******

Really, everything leading up to the end was handled solidly enough, such that with a properly climactic ending, all the previous flaws could have been excused. But the ending... (skip to PLOT REHASH OVER if you know the background)

For those who don't know and don't care about spoilers, the setting is an alternate-history 1985. In 1959, the United States accidentally transformed one of their nuclear scientists into a being with near-godlike powers of teleportation, matter manipulation, and temporal distortion. This "man" was called Dr. Manhattan (the glowing blue guy). Dr. Manhattan's existence vastly imbalanced the Cold War--he could knock thousands of nuclear missiles from the sky in an instant, and when Nixon called upon him to aid in Vietnam, Dr. Manhattan won the war within a week.

By 1985, the U.S. enjoyed near-total veto power over the world, although the U.S.S.R. remained and had built vastly more nukes in the hope of overwhelming Dr. Manhattan through sheer numbers if need be. Then, in the events of the Watchmen book, Manhattan abandons Earth for various reasons, both personal and political. With the United States' trump card gone, the Soviets eagerly push in to Afghanistan, daring fifth-term President Nixon to respond. (Why would Nixon immediately resort to nukes? It's a good bet that, due to Manhattan's existence, the U.S. never dropped its policy of massive retaliation in favor of flexible response--the former nearly led to a nuclear war over some islands off China in the 1950s, hence Kennedy's historical decision to drop it).

Enter Adrian Veidt, or Ozymandias. Formerly a member of the Watchmen, a team of superheroes including Dr. Manhattan--though Manhattan was the only one with actual super powers--Veidt, the "smartest man on Earth," parleyed his fame into a massive fortune after the Keene Act outlawed superheroes.

Seeing the nuclear Armageddon humanity was preparing to visit upon itself, Veidt secretly struck first, razing several of the world's major cities from his antarctic base. In the book, he elaborately constructs a gigantic fake alien, pieces of which he then teleports into the cities to fool humanity into thinking they are under extraterrestrial attack; in the movie, he frames Dr. Manhattan. Either way, the intent is to unite humanity by convincing the world that it is collectively under attack. "Killing millions to save billions."

The plan works, as Nixon is seen on television lamenting the devastation and pledging to work together with the Soviets and all the nations of the world to defend against future attacks.

PLOT REHASH OVER

One of the most magnificent, truly bold things Alan Moore did with Watchmen the book was to paint Adrian Veidt and his actions in a sympathetic light. At first horrified at the slaughter their onetime comrade has perpetrated, the remaining members of the Watchmen, having arrived too late to stop him, reluctantly agree with his decision, promising never to reveal the true nature of the attacks. Save Rorschach, the psychopathically principled vigilante: "Never compromise. Even in the face of Armageddon." He tries to leave but is blocked, then disintegrated by a reluctant Dr. Manhattan, all the while defiantly screaming "What are you waiting for!?"

In the movie, however, Dr. Manhattan is the only one to truly accept Veidt's decision, offering understanding while neither "condemning nor condoning" his actions. After Rorschach's death, the rest, as represented by Nite Owl, violently attack Veidt before collapsing in tears, declaring that his deception has not "saved humanity, but deformed it."

Deform humanity? What exactly does this mean? The concept of ostensibly sworn enemies banding together in the face of a greater external threat is as old as human history. Even older; witness the symbiotic relationships enjoyed by the clownfish and sea anemone as well as ants and the Central American Acacia.

Is the deception the main issue? Veidt has ensured that no one will ever know the truth of the story. But what good is this one truth in a world where a multitude of less grandiose lies have led us to the brink of nuclear suicide?

The death toll? Don't even bother bringing it up. Veidt wiped out the centers of many of the world's major cities (out of New York City, only downtown Manhattan), whereas Nixon admits that they'd be lucky to only lose the entire East Coast in the event of a war--and those would just be the American casualties.

So why the refusal to fully embrace Veidt's solution? The first thing that springs to my mind is that director Zack Snyder and his backers were afraid to be seen as openly endorsing mass murder, even to avert a nuclear holocaust. Thus they let Dr. Manhattan, the blue-skinned quasi-god, speak in Veidt's defense, while putting their own voice in the human, audience-identifiable Nite Owl: "I don't care what the facts are, there's just something inherently wrong about all this!"

What a missed opportunity! They flirt with some truly weighty moral issues but at the last second refuse to take the plunge, retreating to spout stereotypically Good Guy stuff and in the process dropping all pretensions of true depth, portraying Veidt in the end as a naive crackpot visibly rethinking his actions. Oh, all the facts remain the same, but killing innocent people is bad no matter what, we certainly can't break that rule.

For all its other faults, it could have been a truly deep, bold, thought-provoking movie; not quite along the lines of the book, but in its own way. See this, audience? Moral and ethical issues! Gray areas! This man killed millions, but under the circumstances, that makes him the good guy. Think about that!

Ugh, I can't spit any more out. I may return with some edits or add-ons.

*******END OF SPOILERS*******

"And if you cut them down...do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

Caught a beautiful A Man For All Seasons quote from the Dish. God, I need to read more Serious Literature, there's a damn good reason it survives the deluge of history. What was true then still holds today. And such a perfect mix of style and substance--the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. Damn!

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Sullivan calls Roper the Yoo of his day, but I think Cheney or Addington would be more appropriate. Also, seems the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. (Damn, this is from 1988? Augh, such advance warning, so useless now!)

Mirror's Edge

Decided today would be a good Lazy Sunday, so I played through Mirror's Edge, a very recent release. A little note up front: skip the second paragraph if video game mechanics bore the hell out of you. Onward! The Wikipedia entry gives the lowdown; basically, it's a game based around parkour (or parcours, if you prefer non-bastardized French, although the French parkour Wikipedia entry also uses the k, so I'll throw my hands up in defeat on that one). It's all about being a courier for dissidents and rebels in an unnamed, dystopic near-future Matrix-y metropolis where surveillance is omnipresent. A hot, lithe Asian-American (or American-accented) courier--standard nerd fare, of course.

Fun game--plenty of wall-jumping, sliding, ziplining, drainpipe shimmying, and regular old climbing. Combat is mainly melee as you start with no weapon (all possible weapons are present-day guns), and though you can pick them up from downed enemies, you can't pick up or carry ammo and your speed and acrobatic skills are hampered significantly while toting a gun. Additionally, except for two or three set-piece encounters in the game, it's quite possible to play without fighting at all--you're mainly running to or from something, and you're so fragile that attempting to dispatch more than one enemy at a time is near suicidal.

As for the plot, again, standard "f*** the system!" Matrix-ish nerd stuff. Your normally independent character, Faith, doesn't start out overtly ideological, though--while she has no love for the Man, she's resigned to his existence, and she's mainly out to make a buck, at least until sister and good-girl cop Kate is framed for a crusading politician's death. Then it's all-out to save Kate, and though some ideological backstory is filled in (we discover that the sisters' mother died in one of the riots against encroaching Orwellization "18 years ago"), the game ends with the sisters reunited atop the towering skyscraper that serves as the Mayor's office/residence. No change in the System (though the city's main surveillance servers are toast, collateral damage from Faith's rampage to rescue Kate), nor any sign of the Mayor himself.

Although I enjoyed myself, the story seemed to have quite a bit of wasted potential. I know, I shouldn't expect anything grand from a video game plot, but it played like the game developers themselves had held that mindset while making the thing. "Don't mess around with story, keep it tight, simple, and mainly as a vehicle to show off the sweet mechanics we have here." Something like that.

At one point, Faith reminisces about the "November Riots" in which her mother perished, musing "They said it [the increased surveillance and authoritarianism] was for the greater good. But 'good' and 'right' are two different things." That's the extent of the political philosophy we get.

Perhaps a good thing, too, because what the hell? If you take issue with something, obviously it's not "good" to you. You cannot split "good" and "right"--they really are the same thing. What you think is, "No, it's not for the greater good--it may enhance security and stability for everyone in the short term, but in the long term it will inevitably be abused, so no, it's not 'good.'" This is assuming, of course, that Faith was casting "good" as "security, stability"and "right" as "principles of civil rights"--given the context of the statement, I'm almost positive she was.

What a discredit she does to her own side! Dick Cheney couldn't have asked for a better strawman...er, strawwoman? We do not have laws guaranteeing civil rights and privacy simply because it's the "right" and principled, though annoyingly self-handicapping, thing to do. We have them because they ensure our long-term security and stability far better than any ham-fisted crackdowns could.

How much trouble would it have been to put words like those into Faith's digital mouth? Then again, perhaps they were going for realism--what would an intelligent, principled member of the opposition be doing jumping off of rooftops, dodging bullets, and shimmying up drainpipes for cash? They are implied to be the (paying) clients Faith serves. Yet increased intelligence and critical thinking are never anything but positives as far as the protagonist/player character is concerned. After all, who wants an unquestioning lunk for an avatar? There are games which specialize in that, but Mirror's Edge does not advertise itself as one of those.

Again, though, imagine what a joyous surprise it would have been had Faith been actually thinking as well as running that whole time. Perhaps we could have learned more about the sinister Orwellian measures so constantly alluded to. Perhaps they were sincerely felt to be justified at the time of their enaction, in the face of serious threats to the people of Unnamed City? What is the world outside City like? What is the purpose of a city government, anyway--to ensure maximum security, stability, and prosperity? Chinese-style market authoritarianism? Most of the city signs are Firefly-style bilingual English/Chinese, too, which sets up another great aspect to explore...if the game devs had bothered to put in the effort. Instead, it's just more surface nerd-appeal--no background on it, and all dialogue is in American- or British-accented English. Mostly American.

Imagine if they had bothered to put someone on this, if only for background--no change needed to actual gameplay, just a bit more dialogue to record for background newscasts, a bit more art for newspaper headlines and open emails on computers. A few more and more intelligent musings for Faith. Perhaps the outside world really is dangerous enough to warrant such measures--perhaps she's conflicted about her role? Perhaps she might even come to sympathize with her pursuers--or perhaps the whole city plunges into riots again with the shutdown of the surveillance and security apparatus, a la late 2003 Iraq, and she comes to question her actions? I know, Dick Cheney eat your heart out, but I'm not sympathizing with this "emergency authoritarian" view. I simply wish some effort had been made to inject some real-world grey into the black and white of Faith's world, make her a critically thinking individual. Coincidentally (or not?), it is literally quite beautifully monochromatic, if you look at screenshots.

A damn fun ride, but it could have been so much more...