Since I last wrote about it, my girlfriend and I have been on two more instructional DVD shoots. It's gotten to be a nice pattern. They call us about three days in advance, send us a long, agrammatical script and a place to meet, and we arrive with books, ready to face the chaos. 500 yuan is eating money for a week and a half, after all, and without DVD acting, I wouldn't have a blog. (How much milage can I squeeze from gun-toting nerds?)
Two weeks ago, we spent the day in a rented coffee shop in Haidian district. Would've been a nice day, except the guy they pulled off the street to star opposite me was an enraged securities broker from Philadelphia.
According to him, "I don't need the money- what I do, I earned enough in the first four months, you know, to live here, check it out for a while."
This little bald guy was mad because he had thought he was here to do voice acting, and read off a script. Nobody told him ANYTHING about memorizing ANYTHING. And he wasn't going to wear no fucking makeup, either. I suggested, privately, that he leave. He didn't need the 500 yuan. He could just apologize and go.
In classic Western Creep style, he insisted on staying. But no makeup ("I shaved it- it's supposed to be shiny") and no memorizing.
As I explained before, the torturous problem with making this instructional DVD has been that you've got to speak your lines word for word. This is hard to do without rehearsing, and really hard to do when an a seedy waiguoren is fuming in your ear about the injustice of it all, or relating sexual adventures gleaned from the personals in That's Beijing.
On an hybristrophilic note, he got the makeup girl's number on the way out.
Interestingly, whoever wrote the script had a startlingly clear grasp of modern American political debate. I played the liberal, my girlfriend the conservative.
（F2）大英 Unit 11—1
一男一女在楼道、室外或咖啡厅谈论两个总统竞选者前一天的电视辩论。
Michelle: Did you see last night’s political debate between the two presidential candidates?
Jay: Yes, but I was disappointed in Congressman Santos. I wanted him to talk more about the issues and less about Senator Butler’s character. I don’t like it when the candidates get into a character debate.
Michelle: Well, I think the character of the candidates is important.
Jay: I’m not saying character isn’t important. I just think politics is mostly about issues, not about character.
Michelle: I disagree. I care about political issues, and I’m a conservative. I want a president who can keep me safe and I think knowing a person’s character can help me know who will keep me safe.
...
Michelle: Congressman Santos seemed to take his duty to defend the country seriously. Plus, I saw a picture of him kissing his wife. This makes me think he is a good husband. And I know he goes to church. I like leaders who believe in God. If he is a good soldier and a good husband who believes in God, I think he has the right character to be President of the United States.
Jay: But Senator Butler is known for his character. He is a liberal Senator and has always supported liberal issues.
Michelle: Sure, it’s easy to support the issues that your party supports, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he has good character. It just means he’s smart enough not to make his party mad.
Jay: Okay, maybe, but he has been a leader in his state for 20 years. Many people in his state support his ideas and respect his leadership. Doesn’t that make him a good leader? Isn’t that important to you?
Michelle: Well, I would like a respected leader, but I would rather elect a leader who can keep me safe. I think Congressman Santos is the best leader for the issues that matter most to me.
___________
It's eerie, isn't it?
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Nerd Gun Love
So, regarding the guff blown off some American nerds regarding guns addressed in the previous post. Nerds love guns for many of the same reasons other Americans do.
But nerds have a special relationship with guns, too. Libertarian nerdfather Heinlein wrote that "An armed society is a polite society". It's easy to see the emotional appeal of a gun to a social pariah- it solicits through the threat of violence the respect most people achieve through social acceptance. For those who've had trouble figuring out or conforming to the subtleties of human interaction, the "polite society" of Heinlein's imaginings seems like Utopia(1).
(To others, living under the constant threat of death from those around you is a nightmare.)
Besides the dream of enforced civility, there is also the siren song of revenge. A gun obliterates the differences between us. Strength and size, charm and wit are all the same to a gun. Depending on your particular fantasy, there doesn't even have to be a quick-draw contest, only well-justified murder.
All this, however, forms the subtext of the issue. The most striking and obvious aspect of nerd gun love is in its appeal to reason.
Intelligence is the source of a nerd's self-esteem, almost by definition. This can sometimes lead to an ironic mistake- assuming that those who are most intelligent are also the most reasonable. Conflating intelligence with other virtues has always been the original nerd sin, despite having separate INT, WIS and CHA scores clearly marked on D&D character sheets.
Guns belong the hands of the nerd, supposes the nerd, because they don't act irrationally. Aren't intelligent decisions usually the right ones? And who's better equipped to make those decisions?
To be a nerd is, on one level, to be rejected for making logical (geeky) decisions instead of illogical (socially acceptable) ones. By the time they've become adults, most nerds have learned to stifle their negative emotions in the face of rejection and even violence.
As if the mind were a zero-sum game, with the intellect crowding out the emotions. The impulse to abuse power is only available to the powerful- the revolutionary turned dictator, the citizen turned sadist, patriots turned torturers.
The notion that intelligence acts as a restraint to savagery has been thoroughly debunked by history. Humans are bad people, and nerds are human. Cho Seung-Hui was probably mentally ill, and that's a different ball of wax. But this dork isn't, and neither is this one.
Violence is seductive.
1) This might also explain the peculiar love nerds have for military organizations in science fiction. The dream is of escaping the vague but urgent social demands of day-to-day existence for a more rigid, but explicit and comprehensible social order.
But nerds have a special relationship with guns, too. Libertarian nerdfather Heinlein wrote that "An armed society is a polite society". It's easy to see the emotional appeal of a gun to a social pariah- it solicits through the threat of violence the respect most people achieve through social acceptance. For those who've had trouble figuring out or conforming to the subtleties of human interaction, the "polite society" of Heinlein's imaginings seems like Utopia(1).
(To others, living under the constant threat of death from those around you is a nightmare.)
Besides the dream of enforced civility, there is also the siren song of revenge. A gun obliterates the differences between us. Strength and size, charm and wit are all the same to a gun. Depending on your particular fantasy, there doesn't even have to be a quick-draw contest, only well-justified murder.
All this, however, forms the subtext of the issue. The most striking and obvious aspect of nerd gun love is in its appeal to reason.
Intelligence is the source of a nerd's self-esteem, almost by definition. This can sometimes lead to an ironic mistake- assuming that those who are most intelligent are also the most reasonable. Conflating intelligence with other virtues has always been the original nerd sin, despite having separate INT, WIS and CHA scores clearly marked on D&D character sheets.
Guns belong the hands of the nerd, supposes the nerd, because they don't act irrationally. Aren't intelligent decisions usually the right ones? And who's better equipped to make those decisions?
To be a nerd is, on one level, to be rejected for making logical (geeky) decisions instead of illogical (socially acceptable) ones. By the time they've become adults, most nerds have learned to stifle their negative emotions in the face of rejection and even violence.
As if the mind were a zero-sum game, with the intellect crowding out the emotions. The impulse to abuse power is only available to the powerful- the revolutionary turned dictator, the citizen turned sadist, patriots turned torturers.
The notion that intelligence acts as a restraint to savagery has been thoroughly debunked by history. Humans are bad people, and nerds are human. Cho Seung-Hui was probably mentally ill, and that's a different ball of wax. But this dork isn't, and neither is this one.
Violence is seductive.
1) This might also explain the peculiar love nerds have for military organizations in science fiction. The dream is of escaping the vague but urgent social demands of day-to-day existence for a more rigid, but explicit and comprehensible social order.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Apropos of the arguments about the Virginia Tech shooting and gun control-
There's been a lot of guff on the internet recently about how "if only those poor students had been armed" this tragedy would never have happened.
Yesterday, by pure coincidence, an 18 year old crashed his car into my friend's house, through the wall and into the living room. She was asleep upstairs and unharmed, although a passenger in the car was killed. Police say speed was a factor in the crash.
Regardless of your position on gun control in general, it seems obvious that a college would consider it in its best interests to keep guns out of the hands of their students, at least while on campus. Young people are impulsive and prone to make poor judgments about all sorts of things- drugs and alcohol, sex, cars and guns, especially in the presence of their peers.
College administrators are in a good position to witness the outcome of poor decision-making among large groups of young adults. They see the alcohol poisoning, the car crashes, the date-rapes and the other stupidity otherwise smart students get into. Why on earth would they permit these people to carry guns onto campus, and into classrooms?
This is not to say that young people are particularly vicious or violent, or that they can't be taught to safely handle firearms. They are young. They haven't lived very long, and haven't necessarily developed the skills or patience that only experience can teach. They certainly have the right to carry firearms outside campus according to the laws of the state. But school, and college especially, is intended to be an environment where youthful mistakes are tolerated, and used to instruct. Mistakes with firearms are far too permanent, and too horrific, to be tolerated in such circumstances.
As has been noted many times, it is extremely difficult to defend oneself against a suicidal terrorist attack, which is precisely what has just happened. In the event of a calculated ambush, none of us know how we would react, especially since we cannot live our lives in constant expectation of violence. We can only take action to protect ourselves from reasonable threats, not extraordinary ones. Cold-blooded, targeted execution is monstrous, and rare. Accidents and crimes of passion are equally deadly, and far more frequent.
Yesterday, by pure coincidence, an 18 year old crashed his car into my friend's house, through the wall and into the living room. She was asleep upstairs and unharmed, although a passenger in the car was killed. Police say speed was a factor in the crash.
Regardless of your position on gun control in general, it seems obvious that a college would consider it in its best interests to keep guns out of the hands of their students, at least while on campus. Young people are impulsive and prone to make poor judgments about all sorts of things- drugs and alcohol, sex, cars and guns, especially in the presence of their peers.
College administrators are in a good position to witness the outcome of poor decision-making among large groups of young adults. They see the alcohol poisoning, the car crashes, the date-rapes and the other stupidity otherwise smart students get into. Why on earth would they permit these people to carry guns onto campus, and into classrooms?
This is not to say that young people are particularly vicious or violent, or that they can't be taught to safely handle firearms. They are young. They haven't lived very long, and haven't necessarily developed the skills or patience that only experience can teach. They certainly have the right to carry firearms outside campus according to the laws of the state. But school, and college especially, is intended to be an environment where youthful mistakes are tolerated, and used to instruct. Mistakes with firearms are far too permanent, and too horrific, to be tolerated in such circumstances.
As has been noted many times, it is extremely difficult to defend oneself against a suicidal terrorist attack, which is precisely what has just happened. In the event of a calculated ambush, none of us know how we would react, especially since we cannot live our lives in constant expectation of violence. We can only take action to protect ourselves from reasonable threats, not extraordinary ones. Cold-blooded, targeted execution is monstrous, and rare. Accidents and crimes of passion are equally deadly, and far more frequent.
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