Snowden's Globe has Longer Movies, Good Bro Science, and a Better 9/11
We're all really feeling the crunch, so this week has some fun with looking back, and looking forward. There's hope, folks!
Howdy, folks, we have another crackerjack selection of fun and interesting stuff to read, whether you’re hunkering down this weekend to avoid inbound forest fire smoke or just looking for a chance to get off the timeline or social feed.
For those who are new: welcome! This little newsletter project is getting its sea legs, and I’m glad some people are enjoying the selection.
Why modern movies don’t just end anymore. If you are anything like me, you will find this piece to be both cathartic and saddening. Setting the year 2000 as the threshold (he explains why in the piece), Mike Ryan talks to screenwriters and film industry people about why modern films just can’t seem to wrap up quickly, or leave us hanging in an ambivalent space. It’s one of those trends that was very hard to put my finger on, but once I read this, I had dozens of examples flood my brain. There are some great quotes, including this one, which I feel has a broader applicability than just movies:
“Here’s how execs and producers think: If an audience leaves a theater unhappy with the ending, they’re going to tell people the movie was unsatisfying. And what they don’t understand is that an initial snap reaction to a movie is one thing. And that a happy ending looks and feels great in the moment. But it often means less over the long haul.”
I don’t want to steal Ryan’s thunder, so go read for more. I will add that you can see the Scrooge-ian hand of capitalism moving throughout all of this trend.
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I don’t know if there is another writer alive right now who can strike the dual notes of “unflinching look at the facts of the climate disaster” and “pragmatically optimistic” like Kim Stanley Robinson. His column from a few weeks ago is important and encouraging to read, especially if you are feeling down. Being a green-finance guy, I particularly loved this part:
“But finance, too, is a technology, being civilization’s software. It’s critically important software because it’s how we value our own work; and, being a human system, we are free to improve it by way of various alterations and improvements. And now we have to…
…What this suggests is that we are soon going to be testing out how many trillions of dollars our central banks can create per year without altering people’s trust in money. This will be an experiment, an improvisation.”
Over the next few years and decades, there will be a giant debate/fight about money supply, inflation, and many other questions surrounding how we finance our response to the disaster we are entering. One one side will be people who are looking for ways to scuttle climate-healing efforts (for any number of reasons), and the primary way they will attempt to attack the efforts is by undermining our trust— in our abilities to respond, in our institutions, and in our money. But as KSR puts it, we can control the economy for the common good, and we can govern ourselves.
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Somewhat relatedly, your occasional reminder that MMT is making its moves in silence. All jokes aside, I can’t think of a better book to buy or check out for your too-political uncle or dad than The Deficit Myth. It will wrinkle their brain in delightful ways, and do some actual good for their politics.
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As a way to reframe some of the discussion around migration and migrant workers, it’s good to remember that Britain itself is (or rather, was until very recently) a country with a roaming population in search of work. 80,000 migrant British workers in Germany in 1996!
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I always enjoy it when Bro Science and spiritual practices overlap*, and Brad Stulberg’s new book, The Practice of Groundedness, is a great example of the genre:
I know that These Times definitely call for learning how to find grounding in frantic or distracting times, but these go way beyond “getting through Hell World.” These principles work for a meditation practice, for a political organizing project, or for your own community-building and living.
*NOT the creepy ubermensch stuff that passes for “spiritual” but only manages to reinforce your own egoic sense of individuality.
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The Tale of the Two 9/11’s. I figured, on this 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that set the world off into Hell, it was good to remind folks that there is another September 11th that is, in my opinion, one of the coolest moments in human history.
11 September 1893, at what is now the Art Institute in Chicago, a genuinely novel moment of cross-cultural communication took place at the first Parliament of the World’s Religions. It was the first organized interfaith dialogue in history (as opposed to, y’know, interfaith wars/crusades/genocides etc). It wasn’t without its flaws— no Sikhs, no Latter-Day Saints (who were still a bit of an uncertain presence in modern society), and no Native religious presence, but it was a model of relating and communicating that was totally different than what our species’ history has suggested. At the risk of being too sentimental, I agree with the author, Eboo Patel: religious pluralism and genuine interfaith dialogue present an essential and hopeful vision that all of us can take part in.
For Americans, we all assuredly continue to live in the light of that moment and meeting, whether you are a believer of a creed or not. New Age spirituality, yoga, meditation, Zen, Hinduism, “mindset”, pop culture gurus, retreats, and the alternate health movement in America all have their roots in the 1893 Parliament.
It is a bit of a historical irony: nearing the peak of White American Christianity’s isolated dominance in-country, they invited religious voices from around the world to come and partake in the American Glory, and witness what God and country could do. What resulted from the parliament, however, was completely unexpected: Americans were set aflame by the world’s faiths, and we’ve never looked back. Almost enough to give one hope, that.
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Have a great week, everyone.
Snow