Writing is a better way of thinking

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
- Francis Bacon, 16th century English philosopher

Bacon's point here is to say that while reading prodigiously will "fill" you with ideas and information, it is only when you are called upon to discuss those ideas and facts that you really apply them. More than this even, writing forces you to master your thoughts, to organize them and refine them, so as to express them clearly and concisely. It is this process that makes writing enjoyable (at least for me), and gives me a sense of satisfaction, that I have managed to say at least one thing with precision. It is also that wrangling with words, that wrestling which culminates in a satisfying victory, that probably spurred one poet to say

I hate writing, but I love having written.
- Dorothy Parker

Consume Away

Cultural Studies is a popular mode of criticism that has been practiced more and more in university English departments since the 1980s. What the practitioner of cultural studies does is examine products of pop culture to see what they reveal about our society's values and beliefs (which are often unconsciously woven into the things we say, movies we shoot, stories we write). For example, a very simple cultural critique might examine assumptions about masculinity in "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" - why do we associate poor grooming with straight masculinity, and fashion sense with male homosexuality? I'm prefacing my comments with this brief intro to cultural studies in order to assure you that what I am about to write is not really about comic books. And don't worry, I'll move back to high culture stuff like poetry and politics soon enough. But wait a second: who said comics were low culture?

"[Comic books are] one of the clearest and most direct expressions of socio-economic conditions I know of - conditions which permit an immensely rich industry with fantastic profits to reduce children to a market."
- Frederic Wertham, American psychologist and critic of comic books

Frederic Wertham was responsible for villifying comic books in the 1950s, and for bringing about events such as the New York State Joint Legislative Committee to Study the Comics, the Cincinatti Committee on the Evaluation of Comic Books, and the Canadian ban on crime comics.

Wertham was not a student of cultural studies in the sense that we use that term today, but he did have some interesting conclusions on the connections between what was being written and drawn in comic books and what was happening in 1950s North America.

Wertham's most famous argument was that the wide selection of detailed, highly graphic crime comic books available on newsstands contributed to the rise in juvenile delinquency observed in the first half of the twentieth century.

He cited many examples of gruesome criminal acts that appeared in comics and which (he believed) served as blueprints for the kind of delinquent behaviour he observed in his young patients. One of his most famous examples is the panel to the left, from True Crime Comics #2.

This is old news to all you comic nerds out there, and I'm sure we all agree that the notion that comic books would lead directly to swarms of pint-sized Tony Montanas running around sounds like a load o' bunk (yes, I wrote "load o' bunk").

However, the lesser-known dimension to Wertham's thinking is that comic books were emblematic of a larger problem with society, one which he alludes to in the quote I included above. It wasn't only the fact that comics were gruesome and violent that bothered Wertham, but moreso that the comics industry was including depravity and violence in its publications because they could hook kids on depravity and violence more easily than on other, less-offensive fare. Ultimately, what disturbed the psychiatrist was that the information, ideas, and cultural messages industry chose to present to children could be shaped by market considerations rather than considerations regarding their successful development as young people.

Bradford Wright, in his book Comic Book Nation, explains that while Wertham's belief that comic books directly contributed to juvenile delinquency was misguided, his concern that young people were being drawn into "a culture defined more by market considerations than by traditional values" was entirely valid. The boom in the post-World War II economy in North America resulted in children having more money in their pockets. As Wright notes, "America's young people had the consumer power to help shape their own culture, and entertainment industries proved increasingly eager to accommodate them." The potential problem here is that the entertainment industry was creating and selling this youth culture with consideration given to what would sell, not necessarily what was best for kids and society at large. This is a crucial turning point in contemporary North American/Western history - the empowerment of youth culture. This is what allowed the rise of such things as rock and roll, the hippie movement, and a new power balance in the parent-child relationship, wherein children are given leverage by commercial messages that suggest parents accede to child demands (this is why the United Kingdom has moved to ban commercials aimed at children twelve and younger).

My point here is not to say that commerce should not be allowed to shape culture - it always will, quite often in positive ways. But when it overwhelmingly compromises the practices, beliefs, and values of people for no other reason than to raise profit margins, we experience problems. Foremost among these today is the problem of needless overconsumption, the symptoms of which are global warming, super-sized meals, livestock factories that damage local water supplies, overburdened landfills and trains filled with trash sent to Michigan, two-for-one chocolate bars... (ok, maybe the last one isn't that important!)

I'll admit that at this point, I'm launching into a much vaster topic - commercial interests versus public interest - that can't be dealt with adequately in a small space. My aim has been to show how small things, like comic books, are emblematic of this struggle between commercial interest and public interest. Your best interests and my best interests are always in threat of being compromised when commerce decides it would like to acquire some of our money.

Is There Such a Thing as Shopping Green?

“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions.”
- Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues.