Category: ideas

The UK has had a number of recent incidents that challenge the idea of free speech. “The crux of the matter is that one person’s attempt to shock, outrage and offend is another’s legitimate form of creative expression. It’s a murky area of discussion, one that is entirely subjective. But what about art at the very margins of popular acceptance; art that appears to almost everyone to serve no other purpose than to be offensive?”

Two studies indicate how we pick up danger signals from others. “One, in Science, found seeing the whites of the eyes triggered a danger message in the brain. A second, in Neuron, showed that, even if an image of a scared face is shown too briefly to be consciously recognised, the brain registers it.”

A doctor says that playing video games improves the accuracy and success of surgeons. “Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster, he says, basing his observation on results of tests using the video game Super Monkey Ball.”

A Harvard psychologist argues that people’s prejudice can be measured even when they’re not conciously aware of it. “Implicit prejudice, she argues, can affect our decisions and behaviors without our even knowing it, undermining our conscious ideas and best intentions about equality and justice. Social psychologists are divided on just what the Implicit Association Test measures, arguing that different response times may just reflect an awareness of cultural stereotypes and social inequality.”

“Intellectuals have long expressed concern about the media’s potential for diminishing the quality of our culture. Ever since the invention of the printing press, there have been periodic outbursts of anxiety about the destructive impact of the popular media.” But “too often the blanket condemnation of the media pundit reflects the profound sense of insecurity that the professional academic experiences when confronted with having to engage with a wider audience.”

An executive of the Recording Industry Association of America is tired of copyright bashing. Strong copyright protection, he writes, is in the public interest. “Folks like Larry Lessig and EFF would have you believe, because it suits their analysis, that copyright protection and the public interest are diametrically opposed. This is merely a rhetorical device, and is a complete fallacy. The public’s interest is represented by the copyright law.”

In academia, the top complement these days is to be called smart. “But why this preponderance of smart? What exactly does it mean? Why not, instead, competent? Or knowledgeable? Or conscientious? We might value those qualities as well, but they seem pedestrian, lacking the particular distinction of being smart. Historically, smart has taken on its approbative sense relatively recently.”

Improvisation is America’s great contribution to art – not just in music, but art and acting too. Marlon Brando, Charlie Parker, Jackson Pollock – these were the American originals. “Improvisation is America’s art, its self-expression – and its disaster.”