The Captured Perspective

Yesterday, one of Pitchfork’s strongest writers and the author of one of my favorite blogs, Eric Harvey, contributed “The Social History of the MP3,” a long-ass article discussing the many aspects of how the digital format affected music this decade. For me, the most fascinating aspect of reading this piece was that I lived it, and unless you’re a toddler, you did too.

Remember downloading songs off of Napster? How about Kazaa? Remember asking friends to burn you a CD because you were too cheap to buy it yourself? Did you ever pass music through AIM or access another user’s “getfile”? Or maybe you used Ourtunes to download from other iTunes users at your dorm or in the college library. Were you on Oink? Or maybe you were bolder (dumber), accessing torrents from free sites like The Pirate Bay. Maybe you’ve downloaded music from a blog via a public hosting site like MediaFire, SendSpace, or RapidShare. Perhaps you’ve been a member of a message board, facebook/google/yahoo group, or just an email chain where music was passed around. Have you ever listened to a full day’s worth of music for free at The Hype Machine, Pandora, Last.fm, or YouTube? Or maybe you’re one of the good ones, buying MP3s from the iTunes, eMusic, or Amazon music stores. REMEMBER WHEN NONE OF THIS CRAP EXISTED?

Today, Rob Mitchum’s perfect 10.0 review of the Special Collectors Edition of Radiohead’s seminal work, Kid A, echoed Harvey’s piece in its opening paragraph:

We used to listen to music in an entirely different way. There was once a time when music was organized into 45- to 75-minute chunks—often a few standout tracks padded with a lot of mediocre filler, but occasionally designed so that the parts built up a larger structure. Used to be, people would sit down and listen to that lengthy piece of music from front to back in one sitting, resisting the urge to jump to their favorite parts or skip over the instrumental interlude that served as grout between two fuller compositions. These antiques were called CDs. Here’s a story about the last of its kind.

Combined, the two articles spurned a great deal of thought in my puny brain as to what the future of music may look like. Hence, this post.

. . .

For the last century, technology has often dictated how artists—who actually create (!) the music we listen to—think about their craft. When 45s were introduced to the general public, a 7-inch vinyl record only large enough to fit one song on each side, the “single” saw its heyday. Kids wouldn’t have the cash to buy an entire LP (“Long Player”), but for chump change, they could get “Hey Jude” (which, amazingly, was never actually on a Beatles’ album). Thus, so many of rock n roll’s earliest stars ignored the idea of an “album,” and focused instead on churning out as many strong singles as possible (see, for example, Elvis’ discography).

But when technology changed, so did music itself. As Wikipedia so eloquently puts it:

As the LP achieved market dominance, musicians and producers began to pay special attention to the flow from song-to-song, to keep a consistent mood or feel, or to provide thematic continuity, as in concept albums.

The rise of the album as we know it was really therefore a direct spawn of the vinyl record itself, perhaps why the terms “album,” “record,” and “LP” are still used interchangeably today. Only the wealthy and obsessive could afford many records, so it was common practice for fans to play their newest buy on repeat. Ask your parents how many times they listened to their least favorite vinyl record, and I bet it’s twice as many times as you’ve played your 10th favorite computer-downloaded one (let alone the huge number we download—just because we can—and never get to).

Moreover, and to the point of that Wikipedia quote, because the standard vinyl side runs for only 23-minutes, bands and musicians had to consider the format itself when recording and sequencing their songs. Take Abbey Road, a record I’ll assume most readers have heard at one time or another. Side A closes with “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” which feels remarkably heavy as it repeats the same riff for its final three minutes, before ending abruptly. Side B begins anew with “Here Comes the Sun,” one of the sunniest bits of music in the band’s late catalog. For anyone who has only heard Abbey Road in CD or MP3 format, it should now be self-explanatory why these two songs appear back to back, why “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is seemingly placed out-of-place in the middle of the record, and why vinyl as a format mattered to the artists. Many bands experimented with the “sides” of their albums to create two (or four) sub-albums. To use another Beatles’ example, The White Album couldn’t seem more arbitrarily arranged in your iTunes window, but listening to it on vinyl can feel like playing four separate records.

Rather than alter the way artists thought about the album, cassettes did more for the fans, harkening a time to come when making our own mixtapes would be commonplace. Still, their 30-45 minutes per side and cheaper production costs meant that longer albums could be released for a fraction of the price.

The late 80s brought the Compact Disc’s dominance over all other music formats, an era which Mitchum claims more or less ended with Radiohead’s Kid A. With singles long gone, so too did “sides” go the wayside. Sure, most pop artists still cared more about racking up radio hits, but some damn fine albums came out in the one-slab CD format, altering the way musicians and bands once again thought about crafting the larger piece of art. Case in point: album listeners/critics now widely prefer roughly 35-45 minute run-times (as Mitchum’s review confirms), and anything over an hour is regularly referred to as “bloated.” Tell that to The White Album (1 hour, 34 minutes), Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1 hour, 21 minutes), or hell, The Clash’s Sandanista! (2 hours, 25 minutes).

At times, however, artists have refused to be boxed in by the CD format. Two examples come to mind. First, The Flaming Lips’ Zaireeka attempted to give the listener more control over how their music sounded:

Released on October 28, 1997, the experimental rock album consists of four compact discs. Each of its eight songs consists of four stereo tracks, one from each CD. The album was designed so that when played simultaneously on four separate audio systems, the four CDs would produce a harmonic or juxtaposed sound. The discs may be included in different combinations, omitting one, two or three discs.

While forward thinking, how many people have two stereo systems, let alone four? (Not to mention the thing kind of sucks no matter which records you choose to play). The second example is Ryan Adams & The Cardinals’ Cold Roses. Despite the fact that he could have fit the bloated album (see what I did there?) onto a single 80-minute compact disc, Adams chose to release it as a double-disc set, “designed to make it look like a vinyl LP.” Perhaps he preferred us to think of it as two separate albums, or maybe he was just nostalgic for the past. Regardless, neither of these gimmicky ideas ended with many CDs sold.

. . .

The MP3 has effectively demolished the CD industry. Brief tangent: Oddly, that last sentence could have read “music industry,” and you wouldn’t have flinched. It’s been argued before that it was the big labels own damn fault for resisting change, rather than offering what the fans wanted: a high-quality, DRM-free, cheap, and vast library, akin to what Oink had before it got shut down (see: DJ/ rupture’s phenomenal blog post “Defending the Pig” from 10/2007).

But what effect has the MP3 had on the artists themselves? Most obviously, the single has re-risen as the dominant format. Who would run out and purchase the new Britney record when you can legally download “Womanizer” and “Circus” for a couple of bucks on iTunes? Does anyone care about the last few songs?

As for the future, who better to show us the way than the band that gave us the last “pure” CD? Radiohead’s most recent album, In Rainbows, was announced exactly 10 days prior to its release as a digital download in October of 2008 (just about one year after the demise of Oink). Lead singer Thom Yorke would later explain:

“Every record for the last four—including my solo record—has been leaked. So the idea was like, we’ll leak it, then.”

Even better, anyone who wanted to download the thing got to choose their own price. I paid $0 for it, felt kind of bad for five minutes, and then forgot I ever cared. Some people I know paid as much as $20 and bought the physical CD when it came out three months later. As amazing as this whole plan still seems today, the true genius was that the band knew the record would still sell well when they officially released it. In many ways, the pay-what-you-want idea was just another promotional tool (and a damn good one) to bolster excitement for CD sales.

Instead of repeating their success, however, the band is choosing a different approach. In a recent interview with The Believer (which also, by the way, includes a comparison of the MP3 and the 50s single market), Yorke said:

“None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again. Not straight off. I mean, it’s just become a real drag. It worked with In Rainbows because we had a real fixed idea about where we were going. But we’ve all said that we can’t possibly dive into that again. It’ll kill us.”

In the last few weeks, the band has put its money where its mouth is, by releasing two digital download singles, “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)” and “These Are My Twisted Words.” The former is available for just a one pound donation to the Royal British Legion, the latter, for free.

No one seems to be talking about this in the grandiose manner everyone did for the In Rainbows release, but personally, I think this could be what’s next in the timeline. Why would bands continue to go through the costly and time-consuming pains of making cohesive albums, selecting (and usually paying royalties for) cover art, and getting a label to manufacture their work, when no one cares enough to pay for the end product anyway? The only people that regularly obtain full CDs anymore are those like me—the ones who download more albums in a fortnight than our parents ever dreamed they’d own in their lifetimes.

. . .

I used to argue with those that only listened to single songs that they were missing the bigger picture. “It’s like looking at only a 2×2-inch spot on a huge canvas of paint,” I’d say. After all, most of Kid A doesn’t sound much like “Idioteque,” and to only hear that single track would be a damn shame—that’s Mitchum’s whole point.

But what if CDs, LPs, albums, et al. had it all wrong? What if the future of music is just 100 singles on iPod Shuffles? Will the MP3′s ultimate legacy be to drown the “album” format for one more easily digestible? Only time will tell.

I humbly request that you sing the following entry to a bright and bubbly tune.  This long overdue submission is another glimpse into a topic that I’ve been thinking about for a good fortnight or four.  Like it or not, it has the potential of sounding downright pessimistic.  Without further ado; please, sing away:

What is a guy supposed to do when he wants to explore the world, pick up and go, leave nothing behind, no strings attached, but at the same time, is afraid to leave his friends?

2gether clearly stated: “the hardest part of breaking up is getting back your stuff”.

My stuff is all emotional baggage.  I’m not upset about leaving my family.  As harsh as that sounds, I have an unwavering faith that they will occupy an active roll in my life.  But my homeboy friends are going to change; I’m certain of it.  Pessimistically, I can already imagine how we are going to grow apart.  The subject I want to address in this post is how much effort we choose to invest in our friends and acquaintances.

My sister brought this up to me months ago.  She lives in a large metropolitan city an, has a business job, and comes into contact with a heck of a lot of people everyday.  Since she graduated from college, she explains that it is just impossible to keep in close personal touch with all of her old friends.  Eventually, you have to evaluate the people that you still hold dear, think about what they bring to your table of friendship, so to speak, and then choose to invest a proportional amount of your time and energy.  This does not mean that you close the door on all of those people that you just don’t get the chance to see as often as you might like; it just seems that, at some point, you can’t be everyone’s best friend.

Man, that sounds bad.  She would never relate “proportional “time and energy” to her “table of friendship”.  I suppose I am harshly paraphrasing.  I’m hoping, though, that you can, at least, somewhat relate to what I am saying here.

What you think?  Many semi-close friends, or a few really close ones?  Or maybe a third really cool option that I don’t even know about?

I hope this didn’t come across too insanely nutso.  I’m not angry at anyone.  I don’t view my friendships as investments that I evaluate quarterly.  I don’t have a mathematical formula that I keep in my head to remind me every Thursday evening to reevaluate my current relationships.  I do, however, like to let my friends know that I care for them.  And I am beginning to find myself in situations where it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep in touch with everyone I hold dear.

In case you were wondering, when “caring”, poking someone on Facebook doesn’t count.  I mean, seriously, I’ve reached a point that I’m sure other people have: feeling lucky and warm inside when I get a personalized email from a friend that wasn’t generated through a third party website.  No kidding!  I almost wish it was the winter holiday so I had an excuse to send out paper cards to everyone…like, OMG, maybe even with some handwriting in them or something!

Ugh.  Maybe I’ll do that later.  At the moment, the dog is wining because she is about to poop her pants, I have some emails to read, wash to do, shirts to iron, and some pokes to hide.

Please advise.

Your friend and, now, more frequent contributor,

~ Andrew

Over at her Atlantic blog, Megan McArdle poses an interesting question to the supporters of universal health care. She starts with the following facts:

There are 45 million uninsured people in America.  But there are 300 million people who are going to die of something we can’t cure.

…

If the innovation spurred by the private sector could save 1% of the people who currently die each year, the number of people we’d be killing along with the private sector would necessarily be hugely larger than the number of people we’d save by implementing such insurance, since the most grotesquely exaggerated estimates released by interest groups pin the latter figure at around 0.8% of deaths in America (a much smaller number than the number who are estimated to be killed by access to the system–nosocomial infections and treatment side effects).

Moving to her point, she outlines the following question:

What P(less innovation) would it take for you to abandon the quest for single payer?  How many billions of lives would you be willing to gamble on your speculation about alternative innovation mechanisms?

To the statistically inclined among us, her comparison of lives saved in different systems is an interesting approach. But, while compelling, I think its important to look at Megan’s argument a bit more closely.

First, McArdle’s claim of 300 million people dying from something we can’t cure yet is a bit misleading. I assume she is basing this number on a count of the number of people in the US, coupled with the fact that all these people will die. There is a bit of an unfair framing to this point in that it suggests that in the best case scenario, we can save 300 million people. But, if ‘saving’ cannot mean never dying, what does she mean?

Consider the top medical kllers in the United States– heart disease, cancer and stroke– which, taken together, are likely to be one’s cause of death approximately 38% of the time. The best case scenario from an innovation standpoint is that new treatments are created for each of these diseases, and as a result, no one dies from such causes. Specifically, in the best case, we have about 115 million people whose lives can be ‘saved,’ to use Megan’s language.

But what does this mean, and for how long are such lives extended? Take heart disease as an example. The average age of a first heart attack is 66.  The average age of a stroke onset is closer to 70. The trends in cancer are much more variable. Given that the average life expectancy in the US for males is 75, in this ideal possible world, you have a situation in which 100+ million people gain a significant chunk of time in their lives, moving towards or beyond the average life expectancy.  To understand this benefit in a calculation, it might be helpful to move beyond the abstraction of ‘saved’ to really explicate what is meant here… what kind of benefits we might expect in terms of life expectancy.

As for system reform, Megan argue that if the probability of lower innovation is high, we should maintain the current structure because, even given all its current ills, it is at least sufficiently innovative (i.e. it creates products which benefit future generations). If this probability is low, then moving towards greater coverage might be the right thing as we won’t be sacrificing the future while still benefitting the current users of the system. She sides with the former approach as a result of seeing the probability of lower innovation as quite high (see her case HERE).

Personally, while I also also see a good chance of innovation dropping, I do not see this probability deterministically. In other words, if we know some insight on the causes of lower innovation, why not tinker with these structures to counterbalancing such tendencies in a revamped system. If the problem is monopoly, why not create greater market structure, even if that operates inside a coherent structure. Or maybe the answer is tax incentives for venture firms pursuing medical innovation. Perhaps increased innovation requires re-opening dried-out scientific grant funding pools, and finding a way to target them towards more pressing medical needs.

All in all, if we value increased health coverage as a matter of principle (see a previous argument I made here), then I think there are ways to arrange an alternative system that maintains strong innovation while still pursing this end, even if it takes some experimentation to find the right balance. If this is the case, why not try to have our cake and eat it too?

I attended the Leadership Summit on Thursday and Friday last week and was really (really) impressed. This annual event is put on by Willow Creek Church and broadcast around the world for 120,000 conference attendees. The speakers included Tony Blair, Bono, Tim Keller, Gary Hamel, and David Gergen to name a few, and the constant marketing of books and the emphasis put on reading by these individuals has finally inspired me to share my “favorites” reading list. Let’s just say if books affected your BAC, I’d be a bumbling, stumbling alcoholic.

These books, in my opinion, all meet a high thought provocation standard while also being immensely readable. What can I say, I like to have my book and read it too.

Economic Development

Banker to the Poor/Mohammad Yunnus
The Bible of microfinance; I dare you to not be moved by his pragmatic, diligent, and experiential approach to organization development and problem solving.

The End of Poverty/Jeffery Saches
Incredible story of how the author became a leading voice in economic development. His work in the economies of Eastern Europe around the fall of the Soviet Union, Peru during it hyperinflation crisis, and Asia are fascinating. His message though, about how more aid will solve the world’s problems is seriously misguided. Be sure to read White Man’s Burden afterward.

The White Man’s Burden/William Easterly
Don’t you love a good contrarian? Read Easterly’s book immediately after The End of Poverty. He pretty much shreds Saches arguments to bits and focuses on small, non-government controlled solutions to problems. While I don’t agree with everything he says, the spotlight he puts on the hubris of the West has deeply affected how I think about aid and intervention in other countries.

A Thousand Hills/Stephen Kinzer
Detailed account of Kagame’s controversial but economically effective turnaround of Rwanda. Additionally, it provides a detailed history of the country which elucidated for me what lead to the genocide.

Honorable mentions: The Age of Turbulence (Alan Greenspan), The Blue Sweater, and Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Opening Your Heart and Mind to the Needs of Others: Incredible Personal Stories

Three Cups of Tea/ David Oliver Relin, Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortenson overcame incredible odds to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He began this quest after a failed attempt at summiting K2 so it is a great study of how to accomplish amazing things when you’re completely unequipped. Everyone should read this book. Period.

A Long Way Home: Memoirs of a Boy Solider/Ishmael Beah
The story of how a boy became a solider in Sierra Leone during a civil war. If you’ve ever thought you could never commit war atrocities, read his story and challenge yourself to question how you would react. The most difficult book I’ve ever read. It is a blessing that he survived and shared his story with the rest of us.

Leap of Faith/Queen Noor
Queen Noor of Jordan is a fascinating figure. American by birth, she ended up marrying the much older King Hussein of Jordan. This is the story of their deep relationship and the Jordanian perspective of Middle Eastern events over a 30 year period.

Gang Leader For A Day/ Sudhir Venkatesh
This book answered a lot of questions for me about how the Projects operate and why gangs exist in these communities. A graduate student stumbles upon an up-and-coming gang leader on the south side of Chicago and is given an unprecedented view into a gang leader’s life and the “business” of gangs over a 6 year period.

Infidel/Ayaan Hirsi Ali
A first hand account of a Somalia girl raised in a fundamentalist Muslim family. She made a daring escape to Holland to avoid an arranged marriage and ended up a member of Dutch parliament. While a highly controversial figure, her story and view points are worth considering.

Mountains Beyond Mountains/Tracy Kidder
The story of Paul Farmer’s crusade to improve the health of Haitians and others worldwide. There is just no one like Paul Farmer and his experiences caring for the poor are informative as you think about health issues and the needs of the poor.

Same Kind of Different As Me/ Dawn Hall, Denver Moore, Lynn Vincent, Ron Hall
A story about faith, service, homelessness, sickness, transformation, friendship and death. I was incredibly moved by each one of the characters. Highly relatable and a quick, powerful read.

The Glass Castle/ Jeannette Walls
A short book with serious literary punch. What happens when a now acclaimed journalist grows up in a dysfunctional yet loving home marked by poverty but also fantastic adventure? This book.

The Soloist/Steve Lopez
Addresses mental illness as well as the challenges of serving the homeless. Helped me understand why it can be difficult to get homeless people into housing, even if it’s free. Fans of classical music will love it.

Honorable Mention: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze/Peter Hessler

Other Great Leadership Books

Autobiography of Ben Franklin/Ben Franklin
The Man Who Listens to Horses/Monty Roberts
Team of Rivals/Doris Kearns Goodwin
American Creation/Joseph Ellis

I have read most of these books in the last 12 months and have been changed in some indelible way by each one. I find these stories, especially the personal accounts of transformation, more useful than all the business books I’ve read. I encourage you to add additional book suggestions. Happy reading!

The Hurt Locker [directed by: Kathryn Bigelow; starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty]

Whenever a movie begins with a quotation, I rarely remember the damn thing by the time the credits roll. But The Hurt Locker’s ominously simple opening message from former war correspondent Chris Hedges stayed with me throughout the entirety of this tremendous film: “War is a drug.”

Director Kathryn Bigelow brings moviegoers to the streets, markets, and desert of Baghdad, circa now, where Sergeant William James’ job is to diffuse improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are charged with protecting the young James, a cocky and reckless soldier (played to perfection by Jeremy Renner), while he disarms the bombs. And that’s basically it.

There are a couple of sub-plots, including an enraged/deranged James running the city streets at night in search of a little boy’s killer, but they largely distract from the film’s true draw: the hyper-real, engaging, and terrifyingly tense combat scenes. My palms were sweaty and my eyes were wide as I watched James strip a car in search of whatever it was he knew would disarm the IEDs packed in the trunk, while his team nervously scanned the surrounding buildings for potential “hostiles.”

Writing this scene — and the others just like it — probably wasn’t too difficult (the dialogue throughout the film is innocuous at best). But the production team, cinematographer, and Bigelow deserve every bit of wild praise The Hurt Locker‘s received (currently at 98% on RottenTomatoes) for making these characters, their baggage, and the sore spots they find themselves in, too intimately realistic not to invest in 100%.

Apart from the look and feel of the film, the acting is excellent. Kudos to the producers for allowing three relatively unknown actors to shine in the lead roles, while providing them with an all-star supporting cast. If you don’t quite recognize Guy Pearce (LA Confidential, Memento) as the Sergeant who James replaces, David Morse (The Rock, The Negotiator) as a Colonel impressed by James’ work, or Evangeline Lilly (Lost) as James’ wife, you will not miss the always-wonderful Ralph Fiennes’ performance as a contracted British team leader who finds himself caught in a desert shootout along with James’ team.

Besides the obvious revelation that there are actually individuals doing this crap for our country, I was struck most by the way the whole “war is a drug” motif kept materializing. James sheds his protective suit regularly, chases bad guys down dark alleys, and scoffs at the notion of first utilizing a robot to investigate the IEDs. He does these things because he lives for the rush that follows, a strikingly problematic truth for the professional Sanborn and nervous-wreck Eldridge.

Perhaps the most eye-opening scene of The Hurt Locker takes place back in the US, where a common trip to the grocery store screams monotony after two straight hours of combat action. It’s his “real” life that James finds most foreign. In clear contrast, Eldridge can’t wait to go home.

Then: it’s not that war is a drug, just that it’s James’. The point? We’ve all got something to live for, and it’s worth doing, even if it means risking life itself. The Hurt Locker is therefore most praiseworthy because it’s the only war film I’ve ever seen that is entirely relatable (without sacrificing its sharp sense of authenticity). James may be an unlikely and rough-around-the-edges protagonist, but he’s got exactly what so many of us twenty-somethings are searching so desperately for: purpose.

This blog has been on a bit of a review kick as of late… from Adam’s identification of 5 great albums from 2009, to John and my respective reviews of “The Unlikely Disciple.”  As such, who am I to deviate from this momentum?

A few weekends ago, I went to see Marc Webb’s movie “(500) days of Summer.” The film is a sharply written non-love story about two twenty-somethings, their search for companionship, and the ways in which those paths indirectly and tragically deviate through each other’s lives.

My goal in this post is not to give a review of the movie per-se, but rather to bring up what I hope is an interesting observation about the role of film and experience in learning. Nevertheless, it might be helpful to have some background for those not familiar with the story. Here is a brief excerpt of the review of the film by Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek:

“(500) Days of Summer” begins at the end of a relationship, doubles back to the precarious, fluttery days at the beginning, and traverses some of the territory in between. But most of it deals with the tragicomedy of the post-breakup phase, the period during which the spurned lover is left trying to figure out what the hell just happened, and why.

One of the interesting things in watching a film for me, as an audience member, is trying to determine a clear take-away… something learned that I did not know at the beginning of the movie. In (500) days, one clear question that emerges at the end is whether we think Tom should have avoided being in this relationship were he to live life again, especially given that it did not end up working out. From a personal take-away standpoint, the question becomes whether we should we similarly avoid our respective “Summers”? If you answered yes, you can point to the fact that this relationship caused Tom a lot of angst and pain that he could have benefitted from avoiding.  If you answered no, it is easy to point to the fact that this relationship shaped Tom in ways which, arguably, were at least somewhat productive. Our answer to this question hinges on how we see risk and failure in life.

On this point, the question of take-away dovetails nicely with Matthew’s Crawford’s discussion of risk, personal experience and learning in his book “Shop Class as Soulcraft,” which I discussed briefly before here. In this book, Crawford makes the case for the importance of working with one’s hands, and does so specifically by detailing the ‘tacit knowledge’ one gains from these experiences. In addition, he argues that it is not only experience that leads to learning, but also the experience of failure that come along with this engagement. According to Michael Polanyi, the existence of tacit knowledge is shown in how ”we can know more than we can tell’ (1967: 4). For Crawford, the importance of tacit knowledge is demonstrated in the limitations of current motercycle user manuals. He argues that technical writers– who often lack personal experience with the bikes– fail to convey important details that flow from implicitly garnered tacit knowledge.

One specific type of indirect experience that can contribute to our ‘tacit knowledge’ base is film… the experiences (and experiences of failure) that we have vicariously by resonating with it’s characters. Over at his blog, philosopher Jamie KA Smith points to a book on the role of film in an audiences psychology: Carl Plantinga’s “Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator’s Experience.” It is on my to-read list. Writing of Plantinga’s book, Smith quotes and extends the author’s argument:

“Any abstract meaning that a film might have is ancillary to the experience in which that meaning is embodied.” What a film means cannot be reduced to the proposal “message” that might be gleaned from it. This is because “[e]xperience creates its own meaning, and in some cases the meaning to be taken from the experience of the film may contradict the abstract meaning an interpreter might glean from film dialogue, for example. Affective experience and meaning are neither parallel nor separable, but firmly intertwined.”

In both cases, Crawford and Plantinga make a case for knowledge that is non-reducable to propositions like “Motorcycle problem X is solved by Y” or “This movie is about… and thus we should therefore…”  This “tacit knowledge” comes by hands-on experience with murky environments, often with some degree of failure. In good film, this comes indirectly through experiencing the world of characters going through similarly ambiguous situations.

For Tom, while his relationship with Summer did not work out the way he expected, his understanding of love beyond a propositional level was deepened through the experience. He lived in pain, and this pain could not/ should not be subsumed under a simple ‘pleasure seeking/ pain avoidance’ framework. Rather, it holds the potential for building a deeper understanding of the world. As viewers, it is here that we cannot leave Tom, but rather must stand with him in solidarity. I also don’t think the best take-away is that Tom should have avoided a relationship with Summer in the first place, or that we should avoid these types of risky situations in our own lives… relational or otherwise. Rather, we should affirm that a specific type of learning can only come by living through the “Summers” of life… be they in relationships, activities or the jobs we pursue. Without them, we avoid a good deal of pain, but we also miss out on the wisdom that comes from the experience.