Freud, Jung, Hidden Impulses, the Collective Unconscious, Hitler, Putin, Conspicuous Consumption and - Finally - Community

Freud's Couch Was Sort of a Bed

About a century ago two competing models for modern media emerged in the U.S. and Germany. Using what they were learning about psychology, the Nazis created state propaganda to sway the masses to serve the interests of the state and advertisers in the U.S. used those same insights to serve the interests of the corporation. (A fascinating documentary, the Century of the Self, makes this argument and can be found here.)

William James published what some argue was the first textbook on psychology - the Principles of Psychology - in 1890 and Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 and Civilization and its Discontents in 1930. If you visit the apartment in Vienna where Freud pioneered psychotherapy you don't just see that the Freudian couch was actually a bed. (Freud thought that a bed was a safe and  cozy place from which to free associate but perhaps the preponderance of sexual references would have given way to a preponderance of food references had he instead used a kitchen table.) What you get from the museum that once was his office is this very exciting sense of the mind as a new frontier. Rather than blame spirits or madness for weird thoughts and behavior, these early psychologists were taking a scientific approach to the mind, hoping to better understand the impulses that seemed to lay below the seemingly thin veneer of our civility. Jung's concept of the collective unconscious might be suspect but it gets to the reality that something binds us that is almost mystical and that these impulses could be tapped to sway large groups to do strange things - like drive to the mall on a sunny day or shout angry slogans at political rallies.

These insights were exploited with new and transformative technology of that time. The radio was the first technology to allow people across an entire nation to hear about the wonders of the Third Reich or nylons and electric razors and it was quickly followed by TV.

Obviously it made an enormous difference whether a community used these powerful new media technology to promote the interests of the state or the corporation. Someone once said that the book most likely to change minds in the Soviet Union would be the Sears Catalog. Magazines, newspapers, radio and TV shaped minds - and thus communities - as only churches and sacred texts had before. And it was no coincidence that the state and corporation undermined the dominance of the church last century.

This century's transformative media is the internet and the social media it has enabled. The shift in advertising revenue from newspapers to the internet has shattered old business models and forced a scramble to discover new audiences and sources of revenue for reporting and commentary.

And curiously, the choice about whether this model will be funded by the state or the corporation, by advertising for political interest and shared values or great values on products you'll love, is still in question. This week's senate hearings with the social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google gets to the question of how social media has been used to manipulate voters and thus American policy rather than merely focus on getting us to buy more goods.

It's worth noting that this is social media.

About the same time as the emergence of the radio and television, a third really powerful technology emerged: the telephone. This was intimate and personal and allowed two people to communicate and in the process strengthen relationships. I think it's telling that so much of the internet is experienced on a phone. Even though actual talking on the phone is not even in the top ten activities people do with their phones, what they're doing is closer to what was done on the phone last century than what was done with TV and radio. They're creating and feeling part of a community.

Community is a third goal, different from the goals of consumption and propaganda. I think one thing we're seeing in the success of Twitter and Facebook is the strong impulse to belong. You can dismiss this as tribalism but I think it speaks to communities of the mind and shared values, to what it means to be human and feel the part of something larger. It's worth noting that the strength and vulnerability of these brands is that they are platforms. Zuckerberg doesn't make editorial decisions about what posts your Aunt Leola or cousin Curt should make on Facebook. They do. Your friends are rarely selling goods or trying to win votes for the political party they are starting. (Although I admit I would be interested in seeing the posts of someone who was starting a new party; that sounds like an interesting person.) They are simply connecting, sharing what they are proud of, what impresses them, what they are worried about and what made them laugh. The third way beyond media as a tool for conspicuous consumption or political propaganda is media a tool for creating communities of the mind, of shared interests and simple friendships. It's not novel that people would do that; it is novel that people could do that across distances, with a tool more inclusive than the phone or the kitchen table.

Well This is Just Random

I might have the start of a new rap song: Al Gore got rhythm like an algorithm. The chorus would just have to have a line like, "The man's so hot that the planet's heating up," and "Put your hands in the air / there's carbon up there!" Obviously, the robot dance will be featured prominently. If you know a good Al Gore look alike (or Al Gore) and a person with a drum machine and a person who can play bass and a person who can rap and a person who can write lyrics and music ... well, I would appreciate you pointing them in my direction.

Channel surfing here in hotel, it becomes obvious that there is, at best, only a loose correlation between the a show's ability to get your attention and then do anything with it.

Curiously, entertaining TV can be educational and vice versa. CNN show with Anderson Cooper featured a debate with some guy who was arguing that a constitutional amendment was "unconstitutional." I'm sorry but that just seems to prove the point that you can be so dumb that you you've gone full cycle and are actually brilliant.

So today the market jumps. Last week it skipped. Before that it fell. My retirement is being entrusted to an entity that seems about serious as a 1st grader on the playground. I can imagine the conversation when I'm in my 60s.
Me: Where's my retirement money?
The market, fidgeting and playing with its gum: I don't know.
Me, incredulous: You don't know?
The market, looking over its shoulder, obviously distracted: No.
Me: Weren't you supposed to be watching it?
The market, now running off to play, hollering over its shoulder: I don't know.

in which your humble blogger feels compelled to opine on the day's sex scandal

Apparently, Bush and Clinton are every kind of thrilled to see David Letterman is in trouble, but the two have very different responses. George wants to do some stand up at Dave's expense but aids are trying to convince him that he'll need something more than the one line he's come up with so far. ("Ha! He's so stupid!")

Clinton, by contrast, is trying to use this as an opportunity for healing. He called Dave and told him, "I feel your compulsion."

As it turns out, Jerry Springer was the future of television, but without shame. And that is an important lesson for would-be blackmailers everywhere: only threaten those with a sense of guilt. If you can find them.

Dave makes a good living mocking the sex lives of others. All HR and publicity issues aside, it'll be interesting to see whether becoming the butt of sex jokes will throw him off his game. [Note that the phrase "becoming the butt of sex jokes" sounds dirtier than it actually is. I think.] It has to seem like a trip through the looking glass to have gone from delivering punch lines to being one. "Confucius say, People living in glass houses should turn out the lights before having sex with interns."

But it would seem optimistic to extort $2 million from an unmarried guy who has had sex. You might be able to extort $2 million from an unmarried guy who has not had sex, but only if he thought he had no other alternatives for it.

I just know that if I ever have an awkward confession to make, I'd like to do it before an audience all giggly with laughing gas and the novelty of being on TV.

Watch Dave here.

TV News Offers an Escape from Reality

The other day I'm on the treadmill and I'm watching the TV monitors hanging from the ceiling: CNN, MSNBC, and Fox were all on. As I watched the odd behavior and even odder reporting of the talking heads, I became convinced that the news has changed.

There seems to have been a time when the purpose of the news was to get us in touch with reality, report on what is happening.

After watching Fox report on how Obama is losing so many jobs (in a recession that began before Obama was even nominated by his party) and CNN speculate on whether Michael Jackson's ex-wife will sue for custody of kids we average Americans would not recognize even if they ended up on our porch selling cookies, I can only conclude that reality has become too much. Now even the news has to perform the task previously reserved for TV sitcoms, soap operas, and movies: it has to give us an escape from reality.

Color me strange, but for all my day dreaming, I've always kind of liked reality. Too bad the TV producers don't think I can handle it anymore.

Time for Automakers to Learn from Tech Industry

Last quarter, GM lost about $39 billion. It wouldn't take too many quarters like that before I was forced to borrow money from friends. Ford, too, is struggling, having narrowed their losses for the most recent quarter to just $380 million - beating analysts' expectations. While that might be only 1% of GM's loss, it still seems like a big number to me.

One reason that oil is difficult to replace is that if it were suddenly rendered obsolete, about $7 trillion in wealth - as yet untapped oil reserves - would suddenly be worthless. The folks who sit atop this vast wealth aren't particularly inclined to see that happen.

So, what vested interests have an interest in rendering oil obsolete? Why not auto makers?

One of the ways that Intel and Microsoft and Seagate (and others) have fed each other's success is by co-evolving. More storage or computing power allows for more sophisticated software (bloatware, to its critics). More sophisticated software requires more storage space and computing power. If you have a ten year old car, you can go pretty much wherever a brand new car can go. If you have a ten year old computer, you find large swaths of computer land are off limits for you. Whether it is planned or simply serendipitous, this rapid evolution of technology has helped computer sales. Today, even our phones rapidly become obsolete.

TV manufacturers have learned a lesson from this. In February of 2009, all analog broadcasting will stop and viewers will be forced to upgrade to High Definition - an act sure to stimulate hardware sales.

It seems to me that auto makers would want to take a similar approach with their cars. Imagine if they were to design cars that depended on something other than oil. Something that polluted less, or ran on cheaper fuel, or needed fueling less often - all of these options could help to stimulate sales. We so often talk and write about how positive might be the effects on our environment and our continued funding of extremism if we broke our oil addiction. But just imagine what this could mean for the auto industry.

The News Reality Show

The Project Censored topic - the 25 top "censored" stories of last year - has provoked an idea for a reality show. What if we had a news reality show that actually took us through the backroom discussions in the newsroom? It might be like an on-going All the President's Men.

Thomas questioned the credibility of the stories, suggesting that Project Censored's list of 25 might better be pared down to 10 really credible stories. One story in particular (the claim that Halliburton sold nuclear technology to Iran), seemed to rely on one reporter with anonymous sources. Given the propensity of many to believe the worst about Halliburton and the Bush administration, there would be demand for such a story and a clever reporter would obviously know that. So, the story may or may not be real but it certainly needs more substance before it ought to break out into the big time. This raises a larger question of what goes on in the background of such stories. The stories about why certain stories don't become news are stories that would, themselves, be worth hearing.

Think about how many investigative reporting stories either start or end with more uncertainty than substance. Rumors, leaks, unsubstantiated reports ... all need to be sifted through in order to find something credible that can be included in the news. Witnessing this process itself would be both fascinating and informative. Imagine a reality TV show that showed how our reality is reported. "The meta-reality of reality," they could call it. Or, "The stories they aren't telling you on the nightly news," or, "Why you don't know what you don't know."

American President - The Game Show

I have a fantasy about a game show for political nerds.

Matthew Mosk predicts that the 2008 presidential campaign will be our first $1 billion political campaign. Personally, I don't think that is such a great deal to spend to decide on the leader of a country with a $12 trillion economy. That is about a tenth of what we spend each year on Halloween candy. But it does raise an important question - if we're going to spend a billion on the media of politics, is this the best way to spend it? Might there be a better way to simultaneously educate voters, raise important issues, and help us to choose the best candidate?

I'd propose instead that we have a game show, something like a cross between Jeopardy and American Idol. Start with lots and lots of people and run them through a series of contests, challenges, and experiences.

The candidate hopefuls would be given tests. Some of the tests would reveal knowledge of the constitution and legal arguments, some an understanding of economics and foreign policy, both theory and current events. Some of the tests would involve simulations - measuring real time reactions to terrorist attacks or financial crisis or managing a deficit.

Other tests would fall into the category of charisma. Candidates would be put before a variety of groups, from small business people to idealistic teenagers, from tree-hugging feminists to flag-waving rednecks. They'd debate one another, handle questions from the audience, and deliver speeches that lasted 2 to 20 minutes.

Perhaps the most interesting segments would involve hidden camera meetings with lobbyists or congress people from the other party. Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and Big Oil and everyone else would meet with our candidates and make their case for support. Republican or Democratic Senators would have to be won over to support the candidate's legislation. We could measure, among other things, how well a candidate responded to the pleas of these constituents or the threats of opposing parties.

The entire process would be transparent. Each round, candidates would be ousted from the process, resulting in a smaller and smaller group. At its conclusion, this process might even result in our getting a candidate who hits on all cylinders - charismatic, attractive, energetic, smart, and gifted with both people and policy smarts.

Once this process had concluded, the candidate would be put onto the ballot of every state. When voters stepped into the booth in November of 2008, along with the choices from the Libertarian, Green, Democratic and Republican Parties would be this new candidate - the viewer's choice. The beauty of this is that it would only be taken as seriously as it is taken. That is, the winner of the game show would only end up on ballots - voters could then decide whether that candidate were a better choice than Ron Paul or Jeb Bush or whoever else the parties had chosen as their representatives.

It's easy to conclude that such a show would commercialize politics, but I doubt it. Political campaigns are already shows - just shows that are too scripted to reveal much.

I, for one, would love to see a candidate think on his or her feet - facing a simulated catastrophe or situation. It would even be fascinating to see who they used for their "life line," what adviser they turned to help craft a solution to the problem of a coup in Mexico or a collapse of the US dollar. I think that a contest that tested candidates on something other than their ability to deliver rehearsed phrases could only be healthy.

In this great country of 300 million people, I refuse to believe that we could not have found better candidates than George Bush and John Kerry. It is time to consider a new process. As Buckminster Fuller said, "Use forces, don't fight them." The American people are fascinated by contests, personalities, and TV. Why not harness this force?
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After getting this little idea, I decided that it was unlikely that such an idea hadn't been previously been expressed. It turns out that it has been - at least once. Alan Abbott expressed this idea back in May of 2006. Innovation is dead - google repeatedly proves that there is nothing new under the sun.