back to its exposed Root
The arc of the visible river is long
but it bends toward moments
in which a song reaches out
with its silent hands
to grasp the darkness to lead it
back to its exposed root
its first whisper
its fading blindness
Facebook: The Suburbs of the Internet
After about nine or ten months on Facebook, I’ve become truly disenchanted with the service. Perhaps it’s my own fault for accepting too many friend requests; requests from people I know only vaguely or not at all in fleshspace. It comes down to a problem of over-sharing. These 400+ people are spewing their random thoughts and intimate details, and these trivia are presented by Facebook as “News.” That probably sounds curmudgeonly, but I’m not alone. As Jane Jacobs wrote in her classic “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,”
“Togetherness” is a fittingly nauseating name for an old ideal in planning theory. This ideal is that if anything is shared among people, much should be shared. “Togetherness,” apparently a spiritual resource of the new suburbs, works destructively in cities. The requirement that much shall be shared drives city people apart.
This deluge of minutia is what is driving me away from the social space of Facebook. To the site’s credit, there are lots of ways to share selectively with different groups, and to hide people from your news feed. But the overwhelming tendency is towards the kind of sharing that would be delightful in an intimate, organic gathering of friends and acquaintances, only there are hundreds of people chattering this way at once. It’s an unworkable system, at least to my sensibilities.
In this light, it’s worth considering whether the social networking project has been too idealistic, too much in the heritage of the social planners Jacobs railed against, the planners whose greatest legacy is suburban sprawl. Facebook’s fine-grained settings do nothing to mask the fact that it is essentially an experiment in large-scale, top-down social planning (or more cynically, social engineering). Like the Garden City Movement, the Social Networking Movement lays out strict aesthetics, and shapes social interaction with complex, pre-conceived pathways for interaction. The network does not adapt to the needs or behaviors of its inhabitants, the way urban environments do, and the way that the internet as a whole does.
Luckily, it’s much easier to stop visiting a website than it is to uproot yourself from the suburbs. Just ask MySpace.
Hooked
For some reason, the New York Times style section published an article on marijuana addiction a few days ago. It starts by chronicling some stories of addiction, trying to break through the myth that marijuana is not actually addictive, which arose in response to the myth that marijuana is actually very addictive. I don’t think the article is factually wrong: marijuana is addictive, and marijuana abuse has adverse effects on peoples’ lives. As the article points out, this addiction is not nearly as severe as dependence on alcohol, tobacco, cocaine, methamphetamine, Xanax, Valium, Codeine, etc. Still, it is habit forming.
But at the same time, this article, and most of the discussion around drug abuse, glosses over a fundamental point. Addiction is not merely a function of ingesting substances for a thrill and then becoming hooked. We’ve all seen people become compulsive about eating, gambling, (video) gaming, shopping, or fucking, to name a few. There are underlying mental disorders that lead to compulsive behavior, and it’s counterproductive to try to separate that discussion from a discussion of drug addiction. This is especially true with marijuana, which, like some of these other compulsions, is not physically addictive. Marijuana withdrawal very often causes loss of appetite, insomnia, and/or anxiety, but not vomiting, diarrhea, uncontrollable shaking, or death as with some other drugs. I’ve seen numerous habitual smokers walk away from pot without treatment or counseling, having minimal withdrawal symptoms and no relapse.
For these reasons, I think it may be more helpful to think of habitual marijuana use as analogous to compulsive behavior more generally, as opposed to the physical addiction of other substances. There is some research to suggest that drug addiction is neurologically similar to any other compulsive behavior. The question is, if there is no physical addiction involved, would we be better served by treating marijuana abuse as a compulsive behavior than as a substance addiction?
Remember Those Israeli Settlements?
While we wait to see if Iranian demonstrations turn into full-on civil war or revolution, Marc Lynch investigates the Israeli response to Obama’s settlement ultimatum:
That Israel has quietly made significant changes to the checkpoints in the last few weeks — after ignoring six years worth of Road Map commitments, snubbing Tony Blair and the Quartet’s persistent demands, dismissing the recommendations of the World Bank and other international development agencies, and greatly expanding them even while negotiating during the Annapolis process — suggests that Obama’s tough love approach has actually been the only one able to achieve real results.
But we’re also reaching a crucial moment where the administration must really stand up to Netanyahu or risk seeing its Israel policy fall to pieces. The Israeli prime minister has authorized new settlement construction north of Ramallah. Back to Lynch:
Rightly or wrongly, Obama has made the settlement issue a test of his credibility, and if he backs down then all the progress he has made will wash away instantly. That makes this a pivotal moment, whether or not an Obama administration focused on Iran wants it to be one. Most Palestinians, with their well-earned skepticism of American policy, expect Obama to back down. Most Israelis probably do as well. And that would be tragic….
While Obama’s political opponents berate him over his response to Iran, the first real test of his foreign policy leadership is taking place on the West Bank and almost no one seems to be taking notice.
Lucky Jim, Mayfair Squatter
As I read an article about London’s Mayfair squatters, I came across a reference to a blogger among the group who calls himself “luckyjim.” Out of curiosity, I looked up his blog and started reading. To my surprise, I found that he’s a better writer than all the journalists covering his plight (myself included), and in a certain sense seems to have more integrity. As he inhabits abandoned, multi-million dollar homes in an upper class London neighborhood, he documents the class struggles and social codes among these temporarily high-profile vagrants. The internal struggles over who can truly claim “outsider” status (”he admitted he worked for a brand consultancy and had a mortgage, which he defended as ‘more anarchic than renting’”) are juxtaposed with moments of genuine compassion and humiliation. It’s a mesmerizing window into the world of a highly literate, self-aware squatter.
Talking to the Muslim World
As I mentioned yesterday, Kevin Drum thinks Obama should try to encourage more substantive discourse in the press by granting access to really smart, penetrating journalists — regardless of the size of their viewership / readership. Now we hear that the president has granted his first full interview since taking office to Al Arabiya. And it was an interesting, substantive interview. What we learned more than anything from this interview, is that Obama isn’t coming to the table with some interesting new solutions to the problem. He’s basically endorsing some sort of vague two-state solution. But his approach to the process is in line with the Democracy in America post I quoted yesterday.
One other thing struck me about this interview. Obama emphasizes cooperation, rather than just tolerance. He talks about a Palestinian state whose citizens have freedom of movement, sure, but he also talks about economic engagement. This was a key point in a smart analysis of the situation posted on TPM recently:
They should speak positively about President Sarkozy’s idea of a Mediterranean Union, with Israel and Turkey acting as anchors. Clinton should offer to help organize a start to a regional water carrier to bring Turkish water to Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Israel. There should be talk of an [sic] common market between Israel, Palestine and Jordan. Jones should speak about a bilateral defense pact with Israel and an American naval base in Haifa. The U.S. must get away from the idea that peace means “We give them land, and then maybe they’ll leave us alone.”
Obama has not yet endorsed the initial point of this post, the idea that the Clinton parameters are non-negotiable as far as America is concerned. But I think this goes back to the notion that his approach is more important than his solutions. Coming to the table, from the beginning, with non-negotiable parameters sets the wrong tone. In his interview with Al Arabiya the president drives home the point that as Americans, we aren’t going to fully understand the complexity of the situation. And so first we listen. But we also set our eyes not just on tolerance, peace defined as lack of aggression, but on a vital economic and cultural exchange in the region.
Obama in a nutshell
Democracy in America posted a really smart take on what characterizes Obama’s philosophy. I almost want to repost the whole thing, but I’ll satisfy myself with three paragraphs:
So Mr Obama isn’t original in his conception of government (do what works, not more). Nor is he particularly creative in his thinking of “what works”: he’s a relatively orthodox American liberal. So is there anything original to Mr Obama, or is he a lot of sizzle and not a lot of steak?
To my mind, Mr Obama brings not a big theory of government, but he does have one of governance. He sees that America often gets pathologically bad policy because of the way it makes decisions. Many policies, especially economic ones, are captured by self-interested lobbies. Other policies, notably social policy, come out skewed because in an increasingly polarised Congress, the majority railroads the minority, and the majority’s center is never where the country’s is. And many Americans, frustrated by these first two tendencies, switch off, and a switched-off electorate is no effective check that could help government get better again.
It’s a downward spiral Mr Obama seems to recognise, and to be trying hard to break. He moved to curb lobbies with one of his first orders. He has promised to listen to conflicting opinions, and he has no crusader’s zeal when he talks about divisive social issues. With creative uses of technology, not to mention his skilled oratory, he hopes to reconnect the average citizen to government, getting voters to think about what they want and what they don’t, so they can keep government honest.
Let’s hope it works. But this read on Obama’s vision for America also relates to something Kevin Drum posted a few days ago about Obama’s relationship with the media. Check out Drum’s post for the details (and how he thinks Obama should nudge the press to change their approach). It’ll be interesting to see if the new administration really can change the tone of the conversation. They seem, at least, to be genuinely interested in doing so.
Before the Buzzer
After Clinton’s numerous (and dubious) pardons, a lot of people were wondering who Bush might pardon before leaving office. As the Economist notes, the answer was a bit surprising. Why would Bush, who clashed with his own party due to his moderate (some might say liberal) stance on immigration reform, choose to commute the sentences of two border partol agents convicted of killing shooting an unarmed drug smugglers?
The surprise was that George Bush, who’d failed in two attempts to pass sweeping and forgiving immigration reforms, should listen to the likes of Mr Dobbs and Mr Tancredo. There was a strong case against Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, one made by some mainstream conservatives who considered them thugs being promoted by activists who didn’t know any better.
A perplexing end to a vexing presidency. But still, not as bad as it could have been.
UPDATE: As commenter eltb points out, the drug smuggler was not killed, but was shot and wounded. He also points out that at least one Democrat has taken up this cause (Diane Feinstein contacted Bush to request clemency in this case). I definitely got sloppy on that one, my apologies. While we’re at it, it’s worth emphasizing one point that I did get right in the original post: Bush didn’t pardon the two border agents; their convictions still stand. He just commuted what he saw as unreasonably long sentences.
Dropping hints
Josh Marshall tries to read the tea leaves on Obama’s Israel policy. I’m not totally sure what Marshall is seeing here, but I’m assuming it is that by naming Mubarak first, Gibbs is trying to imply that the Obama administration will be more neutral, and hopefully an “honest broker” in the region, as Egypt has tried to be. Of course “more neutral” could mean a lot of things.
The Financial Times notes that many Israelis are nervous about Obama:
A senior Israeli minister has urged his countrymen not to “fear” the new US president, in remarks that highlighted the gulf between Israeli and world perceptions of Barack Obama.
The article implies that the ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza were timed so as not to antagonize the new administration. But it seems just as likely that the envasion itself was timed to wrap up before Obama took office. One last show of force while US Middle East policy was a known entity. But perhaps Israel overestimated even the Bush administration’s support:
In a move that was interpreted by some Israeli officials as a sign of coming turbulence with its strongest ally, the US refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire after 13 days of war. The Israeli government had urged the US to block the diplomatic move, but eventually managed only to get the US to abstain.
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