Ranthropologist

Tag: behavior

  • The Gift

    The Gift

    I have a very ambivalent relationship with Christmas, for several reasons. Being an atheist is part of it, but not the most important part, since most of the celebrations I attend are not religious (and I think the season has lost most of its overt religious overtones in any case). My ambivalence stems more from the orgy of materialism that happens this time of year. This is not a new story; many people lament the focus on gifting. But lately I have been lamenting it from a broader perspective. As I have done my gift shopping this year I have been more aware than ever before of the economic aspects of the Christmas season. In particular, I have been doing a great deal of thinking about the cheap seasonal items that litter the aisles of department stores from Neiman Marcus to Walmart. Of course the point is to get people to buy buy buy, but at what cost? Literally, that cost can be very low; for example, I saw a display of holiday-themed watches at Macy’s, bedecked with garish holiday motifs, selling for $9.99 and an additional 20% off on top.

    So, these cheap watches are retailing for around $8, which means they may have cost Macy’s $6, which means they were manufactured for perhaps $3… and they will probably last for maybe two holiday seasons before breaking or simply being tossed away. That, to me, is an environmental cost. In addition, there is a social cost in considering the wages paid to the overseas laborers who made the watch. To make and sell a watch that only retails for $8 probably means that the wages being paid the workers are vanishingly low. Is it worth all the associated costs to make it possible for us to buy this essentially disposable, unnecessary item?

    On the flip side of the cheap seasonal gifts is the focus on big-ticket items like gaming consoles, computers, phones, and the like. When did it becoming standard operating procedure for people of average income to buy gifts costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars? The newest iPad, for example, costs a minimum of $499 for the bare-bones version. A new iPhone can cost even more. The latest XBox is priced at around $550 – and that’s the holiday sale price for the unit with the fewest accessories. This level of gifting goes not just for adults but for children. My little cousin, who is not yet 10, asked for an iPod Touch and a Bose speaker to go with it. I don’t blame her for it; it’s what all the kids want, just like I wanted (and got!) the Barbie Dream Camper when I was around the same age. It just seems that the de rigueur toys are becoming more and more expensive, and people are more willing to go into hock to get them.

    Gifting has ancient cultural origins that are rooted in the concept of reciprocity. Generalized reciprocity is what happens when people who are very close do things for each other without expecting anything in return – things like household tasks, food procurement, and the like. It’s what people do to manage all that needs to be done in a small, tight-knit group and it has its modern-day equivalent in things like doing laundry, taking out the garbage, etc. Everyone contributes (or should) and no one expects payment. However, move outside the family group and reciprocity becomes more complicated. Balanced reciprocity requires that individuals provide mutual assistance – basically, if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Relationships can go sour quickly if one person doesn’t hold up their end by doing something for the other person in return. This is where things start to move from reciprocity to obligation. A person who has done many things for someone but hasn’t been paid back can gain power over that person, because favors owed are a form of currency. This is essentially the beginning of resource stratification and ultimately income inequality; those who owe are obligated to the person who gives, and those who owe eventually can become slaves (or, to put it in Marxist terms, proletariat). In his book Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches, Marvin Harris quotes an Inuit proverb that speaks to this idea: “Gifts make slaves just as whips make dogs.” I would argue that in many ways we are now slaves to an unbalanced system of reciprocity wherein we not only feel obligated to each other, but to an economic system that overwhelms us with messages convincing us we need things that in reality, we simply want. We are less in thrall to each other than we are to the entire capitalist ideology and the myriad hegemonic messages of status-seeking and vertical mobility that keep it firmly in place. And it is this system that compels us to spend $9.99 on a cheap watch to give to someone out of a sense of obligation more than a real desire to give them a gift. We’ve all had that feeling: “What am I going to get for great-aunt Martha? I know, here’s a cheap watch!” Is that really what we should be doing?

    All this may sound too complex to explain the simple idea of showing people we care about them by giving them a gift. That idea is still there, but I think the demonstration of it is what has gone awry. I believe just as much appreciation can be conveyed by a small but well-chosen token as by an extravagant gadget or bauble. And I think the joy of the season should be returned to appreciating things that we might not otherwise have. How can a thing be special when it is expected or demanded? When my grandfather was a boy growing up in the far northern reaches of Canada, he said he looked forward every December to the special and exotic gift to his family of a box of oranges delivered by plane. Just imagine being excited by such a thing today. Perhaps the thing to do is to remember the difference between want and need, both when giving and being asked what we would like to receive. I’m not suggesting that we should only ever give people socks and underwear, but simply that we remember what is really important: relationships, experiences, and the occasional meaningful gift instead of the orgy of expectations and obligations that characterize this time of year. We should remember that things do not make us who we are, and giving to or receiving things from people we barely know or see creates a web of reciprocal obligations that can spiral out of control and lead to cheap and pointless gifting and all its associated economic exploitation and environmental waste.

    In my final analysis, I’d like to see the whole idea of Christmas giving turned on its head by being happy with what we already have. As hokey and cliche as it sounds, let’s give of ourselves for the holidays. Let’s spend time together. Let’s enjoy something traditional that is symbolic instead of extravagant – like my grandpa’s box of oranges. Let’s stop giving things and give thanks instead.

  • Logical Fallacies: The Gambler’s Fallacy

    Logical Fallacies: The Gambler’s Fallacy

    Unfortunately, I have a very personal reason for choosing the gambler’s fallacy as my next topic. I am experiencing the effects of this fallacy with someone close to me who is in the grips of a gambling addiction. For years, she has exhorted me that winning depends upon making large bets. She believes that betting more money improves the odds of coming up lucky on her vice of choice, the slot machine. No amount of patient explanation of statistics and odds can dissuade her from this belief. She also falls prey to the classic version of the gambler’s fallacy, which essentially states that the odds of one event are influenced by the outcome of the preceding event. This can sometimes be true. For example, in cases where numbers are drawn and not replaced, as in bingo, the odds of the remaining numbers being drawn increase with each subsequent draw (that is, in a bag of ten numbered balls, the odds of drawing any of the numbers is one in ten. Once the first ball is drawn, the odds of drawing any of the remaining numbers becomes one in nine, and so on). However, it is not true for simple odds such as coin tosses. Each and every toss of a coin is an independent event. So, even if you get nine tails in a row, the odds of getting heads on the tenth toss remains exactly the same as it was for the preceding nine tosses; that is, 50 percent. Yet, many people will believe that the tenth toss has much greater odds of being heads because the previous nine tosses were tails. This is the gambler’s fallacy.

    It is amazing how many people fall for the gambler’s fallacy. You see it operating not only in casinos but in lotteries. When a lottery jackpot gets really big, it is because several drawings have passed with no winner. And of course, the bigger the jackpot gets, the more people buy tickets. Many people do this simply because they hope to win the huge jackpot, not because they believe their odds are any better; but I have had conversations with many people who insist that they are more likely to win when the jackpot is bigger. Their argument is a perfect example of the gambler’s fallacy: because no winner has been drawn for so many weeks, the odds of a winner must be greater for the bigger jackpots! This is actually true in one specific sense, because the more people who buy tickets, the more potential combinations of numbers there are in the ticket pool. But the big jackpot and the long time elapsed since a winner does not change the fundamental odds of drawing, say, five numbers out of 56. No matter how big the jackpot, the odds remain exactly the same for each and every drawing. For the Mega Millions lottery, the odds of drawing five particular numbers and the Mega number are 1 in 175,711,536. Again, these odds remain the same no matter how big the jackpot and no matter how many tickets have been purchased. It seems that attaching money or some other consequence to the outcome of a random event scrambles people’s ability to rationally judge the odds.

  • The Power of Negative Thinking

    The Power of Negative Thinking

    In spite of the multiple posts I have made expressing reservations about social media, it should come as a surprise to no one that I do waste a fair amount of time noodling around on Facebook. Part of it is sheer laziness – I come home from work, eat, and just want to unplug my brain for a while, and the internet makes it easy – too easy. But part if it is also fascination with what other people decide to post. I am just as guilty as the next person of posting my exercise habits, what I eat, where I’ve been, etc. I’m also guilty of sharing articles, political opinions, stuff I think is funny, and things I find compelling or inspirational. So I will refrain from pointing the finger at others who do the same thing, but with whose views I may disagree.

    That disclaimer aside, I’m going to rant about a type of post that I sometimes find particularly galling: the “inspirational” post. These are the pictures/quotes that say sunny things about keeping a positive attitude, being thankful for each day, appreciating friends and family, not letting negative situations get you down, etc. This is all well and good, but I am finding that an excess of platitudes tends to drain them of any impact. I also find that these little bon mots seem to dumb down or gloss over the reality of complex emotions and situations. In particular, I often see posts about how you are in control of how you feel in any given situation. That is, if you feel bad about something, it’s because you are allowing yourself to feel bad. To a large degree, I think this is bullshit. Self-blame does not help in a negative situation. It’s bad enough that something is bringing you down; do you have to also point the finger at yourself and feel even worse because you are “allowing” yourself to feel negative emotions? This is part and parcel of the same bullshit idea behind books like The Secret, which trick you into buying them with New Age wishful thinking crapola about how if you just believe something, it will happen.

    I’m not saying that positive thinking isn’t a powerful tool in a person’s emotional arsenal. What I think is important is to acknowledge that we aren’t always in control. People do bad things to each other, and it hurts. We make bad decisions that lead to painful emotions or situations, and it hurts. We judge and ridicule and put others down, and yes, it hurts – them and us. But it’s too simple, too general, to say that when we criticize someone or something, we are secretly, unconsciously, criticizing something in ourselves. It’s too simple to say that we can choose not to feel pain when something external to us – something outside our control – makes us feel bad. In fact, I argue that it’s not just okay, it’s essential to allow ourselves to feel negative emotions. Stuffing them down, not genuinely feeling those negative feelings of pain, sadness, judgement, helplessness, loss, embarrassment, humiliation – that does not help, and I think it makes things worse when the platitudes tell us we shouldn’t feel those feelings.

    Negative emotions, feelings, experiences exist. We should acknowledge them. We should try to mitigate them and deal with them as best we can. I don’t think we should wallow or allow the negative thoughts to be an excuse for treating other people poorly. There is room for learning and introspection in every situation, and some people learn faster than others. Just don’t tell yourself that you shouldn’t feel those negative feelings. Heed the platitudes, but recognize them for what they are: feeble, if well-intentioned, attempts to apply general solutions to specific and often complex situations.

  • Technology and Its Discontents: A Preface

    Technology and Its Discontents: A Preface

    I suppose its ironic that I’m writing a rant about the drawbacks of modern technology using modern technology. Really, though, I want to write about something I’ve ruminated on at length already: communicative strategies. More specifically, I’m concerned about the ways in which modern technology is changing communicative strategies, and along with it, our approach to the world in general. Let me preface this with a new personal goal of mine: I want to unplug, at least once a week, from electronic distractions. On the opposite pole, I want to make sure I update my electronic rants more frequently; that is, at least once a week. Are these dichotomous goals? I don’t think so; but like all things, there is a limit to both. I find myself far too distracted by modern communicative technologies but simultaneously I sometimes feel that I don’t use those technologies as constructively as I could.

    So what’s the rant? This is a huge topic, but I want to start with unpacking the idea that the modern communicative technologies offered by computers, smart phones, tablets, etc., and in particular, the instant updates possible via social media, news sites, streaming video, et al., are enhancing our ability to communicate. I believe that these tools are actually decreasing our communicative abilities. How should we define communication? At the very least, it is the passing of a message from one individual to at least one other individual. That communication does not have to be face to face, or even ear to ear, but the point is that ultimately a message is transmitted. The human ability to transmit messages via what we call language is almost certainly unique to Homo sapiens; although other species do have complex forms of communication, there is tremendous debate over whether any non-human form of communication can be called language (a topic which may someday earn its own post). But if there is no one to receive the message, can the messages we send rightly be called communication? As just a small part of my overall questions about modern technology’s impact on communication, I often find myself wondering if we are mostly shouting into the dark. I would like to venture the hypothesis that modern technology is highlighting some of our species’ basest and most primitive inclinations.

    We are only ten or twelve thousand years removed from the time when all humans were living in small, close-knit tribal groups in which the survival of the individual depended on the survival of the group and vice versa. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that in small, egalitarian groups there was no social striving, no quest for power, no competition. All those things existed, but in general the needs of the group would check any one person from assuming too much power. Enter agriculture and more complex technology, and some of the checks on power and status-seeking began to be eroded. Agriculture made it possible for more people to survive with less effort, and to live in much larger groups where it became increasingly difficult to know every individual, much less communicate with them regularly. When you don’t know someone, that means you don’t need them; and if you don’t need them, there is no reason to care about that person’s survival. Fast far forward to today (and skipping over, for the time being, the cultural, social, and technological changes that ultimately led to the capitalist world-system in which we now live) and status-seeking is a prime motivator of human social, economic, and political behavior.

    What does any of this have to do with modern technology and modern communication? In a strange way, all these rapid-fire communication tools that are literally at our fingertips have made it possible for us to, once again, communicate with the entire group. This is not to say, of course, that every person’s status update or tweet or blog post is being transmitted to every person in the world. But, it is to say that we are able to pass messages to complete strangers, whether intentionally or not, and we are finding that those messages aren’t crafted carefully enough to avoid misunderstanding or insult or any number of misapprehensions. We are having to learn from scratch how to communicate deliberately and carefully, but all too often people are using what should be a fine-grained tool as a bludgeon. We can communicate with an enormous group, but we seem to take little, if any, responsibility, for the consequences of the messages we transmit.

    We are learning a new process the hard way. I am fascinated with how our adaptation to the modern communicative age will proceed. I will have much more to say about this in future posts; consider this a preface.

  • Center of the Universe

    Center of the Universe

    Lately I have been reading some things in the news about a disturbing increase in narcissism among young people, those of high school and college age in particular. This phenomenon is being linked to a variety of things, such as the proliferation of social networking websites, the drastic increase in instant communication technologies, and too much emphasis on self-esteem building by today’s parents. I tend to agree that an excess of narcissism is probably a bad thing. But it got me to thinking about the opposite phenomenon, as well; that is, the common feeling that one is simply a tiny, inconsequential speck in a vast and uncaring universe. My reaction to that is, simply: bullshit. Are we not all the centers of our very own universes? Is there something inherently bad about caring about our own lives and experiences? Is it wrong to be unhappy about the things we don’t like, just because someone, somewhere else, might have it worse? I am reminded of the classic parental guilt trap used to get children to clean their plates: “Don’t you know there are starving children in (insert generation-appropriate geographic region here)?” For me, it was Africa. My response? “Whether or not I eat my liver-frosted flakes, the starving kids in Africa aren’t going to get them.” (My dad used to tease Hilary and me with imaginary unsavory meal threats, liver-frosted flakes being a favorite. We were also terrorized with the horrifying possibility of liver-filled donuts). In any case, there is nothing wrong with keeping a little perspective; after all, unless you are extraordinarily unlucky, there is always someone, somewhere, who has it worse than you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be pissed about whatever bad experience you are having. If I have a broken toe, don’t tell me, “You know, it could be worse. You could have a gangrenous toe that has to be amputated, but the infection isn’t contained, and it spreads up your leg to your face and renders you hideously disfigured. That’ll learn you! Now quitcher complaining, ya big baby!”

    All that being said, there are definitely some people who are the center of the universe in a very unhealthy way. The thing about a universe is, it’s full of other stuff. You may be the big star, but you are surrounded by planets, moons, constellations of other stars, random space junk, even vast alien worlds (cue Ren & Stimpy “Space Madness” quotes)… and what you do may have an affect on those other parts of your particular universe. If you don’t take care of the whole universe, not just the center, there could be a huge destructive supernova, or a life-sucking black hole, and nobody wants that.

    So. I address this to the universal catastrophes out there: you are not that important. This is for the black hole in the BMW yesterday who zoomed up Poway Road in the break-down lane to get around a truck, just so you could make it to the light at the top a whole thirty seconds faster. This is for the supernova at Albertson’s, who left your dog in the car in 104 degree heat, just because it was too inconvenient to take him home before you stopped for groceries. This is for the asteroid collision who has to take that important call or send that life-altering text message while out to dinner with your children. This is even for the minor meteor-showers of people who leave their carts in the parking space because they don’t want to walk 40 extra feet to the cart rack, or the co-workers who don’t rinse their coffee cup until it grows a vast alien world that colonizes the break-room sink. You may be the center of your own little universe, but don’t forget that we all live in a multiverse, and what you do in yours is NOT more important than what I do in mine, especially if destruction in yours might cause collateral damage in mine. Ask yourself, honestly: is it worth it? Is it worth it, BMW black hole, to risk your life and the life of others to save a few seconds? Is it worth it, Albertson’s supernova, to injure or kill your dog for a few quick groceries? Is it worth it, cell phone asteroid collision, to alienate your friends and family for instant communication we can all live without? And for the minor asteroid showers, is it worth it to be a self-centered ass-wipe?

    Don’t get me wrong, folks. I know that I, too, have plenty of ass-wipe moments, and that sometimes my sense of my universe doesn’t allow for any acknowledgment of other worlds. We are all narcissists at heart. But I think we all need to start consciously asking ourselves to be aware of others and to have some much-needed perspective, to slow down, to take it easy, to turn off the TV and pick up a book, to stick to the speed limit, to write a letter or have a face-to-face conversation, to allow ourselves to find a happy medium between black hole self-centeredness and tiny speck meaninglessness.