The Antithesis

In the United States, Karl Marx—not to mention Friederich Engels—has been largely erased from history. I was never taught much about Marx or Marxism. In my AP World History class, I vaguely remember my teacher describing historical materialism, which I thought I understood, but really I didn’t. Now I think I understand it, but I probably don’t. Later in my freshman honors seminar we read the Communist Manifesto, which—as I have come to learn—is only one chapter in Marx and Marxism.

It makes sense that I wasn’t taught about Marx in the United States. One can’t expect public schools nor private interests to teach a philosophy that espouses revolution of the political and economic system. This is especially true considering the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the ideological, economic, and military rival of the United States for much of the 20th century. On a cultural level, Marxism is antithetical to the liberal tradition that shaped the United States, which says that each person striving for their own self-interest will create the best society. And experiments at implementing Marxist ideas in self-proclaimed “Communist” countries like the USSR and North Korea have achieved bleak results.

But Marxism was a very big deal in world history. As I understand it, Marx adapted Hegelian dialectics for his theory of historical materialism. Marx was an important stepping stone in feminism. Marx (along with Emile Durkheim and Max Weber) formed the foundation of modern sociology. Much of the world’s political economy in the 20^th and 21^st centuries has been shaped by Dependency Theory and World Systems Theory, both of which used Marxist dialectics to understand the international system. And the evolution of the welfare state began with Bismarck's introduction of social insurance in Germany to assuage pressure from Socialist-inspired labor movements. Thus, Marxism massively affected countries all over the world. Its legacy inspired important institutions like social security, Medicare, and Medicaid in the United States. And today many of the world's most powerful countries have prominent socialist parties or regimes that claim to be socialist.

Finally, while the economic systems that Lenin and Mao Zedong built using Marx’s writings have fallen or transformed, Marx’s criticisms of Capitalism still ring true to me. The market system, which excels at increasing aggregate wealth, relies on exploitation of the masses by the elites and produces societal discontent. This is not to say that Capitalism will one day be overthrown by a superior system, as Marx suggested. But I think a better understanding of Capitalism's flaws (as explained by Marx and many others who followed) could alleviate some of the system's darker externalities.

I think anyone who entirely discounts Marxism without first looking into it greatly limits his or her understanding of the world. Every social science is heavily-laden with Marxist ideas, such that when I take classes in Turkey my knowledge of political science is disadvantaged because Marxism was censored in my education. This inhibits my ability to analyze my own social environment and envision ways to improve it.

Referring to Capitalist Neoliberalism, Margaret Thatcher famously used the slogan,“There is no alternative.” Regardless of whether or not this statement is correct, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy the moment we believe it’s true. By accepting ignorance of the alternatives at the behest of our leaders, we rent property in a world of false consciousness. But maybe I’m wasting my time explaining that idea—it’s Marx’s.

Confederate History Month

Recently the state of Virginia re-instituted its recognition of Confederate History Month. This makes it the seventh state to celebrate Confederate history (Virginia previously did so from 1994 to 2002). A source of outrage for many was the Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's failure to even mention slavery in his proclamation. When I told my American friends in Turkey about this, we shared a collective shock. Indeed, while writing about this I have struggled to use a big picture detachment instead of narrow thinking.

I actually don’t oppose a month for learning more about the Confederacy. History is important and under-studied. People should understand the past and current fissures in society. People should understand their heritage and be able to contextualize the Civil War as a conflict between an outdated, immoral economic system and modern industrialization. The Civil War is the bloodiest in our history, and it’s the last time that American civilians were subjected to war—we’ve been “lucky” to keep fighting on other people’s land. The failure of the Confederacy and its human cost is our best lesson in “war is Hell,” which we seem to have replaced with “war is necessary and sometimes optimal.”

However, I suspect that the common display of Confederate flags in the South and the celebration of Confederate History Month is not rooted in these interpretations of why the Confederacy should be studied. While admittedly generalizing, the South—still economically and socially backward—perceives the Civil War, or the War for Southern Independence, as a noble struggle of liberty against coercion. The obvious irony is that Confederate liberty meant the freedom to deprive blacks of theirs.

This is why Governor McDonnell’s initial omission of slavery from his proclamation to celebrate Confederate History is so disconcerting. It either intentionally or obliviously divorces the Confederacy from the ideology and economic system it defended. To be fair, Governor McDonnell’s announcement did not normatively praise the Confederacy. An optimist might say that Governor McDonnell’s proclamation was cool and intellectual, simply saying that this period should be studied in the context of its time and for its continuing significance today. The revised proclamation now available on his website seems to strike an acceptable tone of what the Civil War and the Confederacy represent.

But I’m always afraid that America is becoming a safe haven for backward ideas—xenophobia toward immigrants, hatred towards homosexuals, Biblical literalism, self-regulating markets, private hand-gun ownership, etc. A reading of the Civil War that emphasizes the Confederacy’s fight for freedom would probably do less harm than these other examples, but I’d like us to be subtracting from the list, not adding to it.

Super-Obama

I probably rely on The New York Times too much for my information. I’m already an enthusiastic supporter of President Obama so I should probably pick up an opposition publication. Even as an Obama fan, however, I have a sense that the Obama administration, with the complete compliance of the The New York Times, has successfully portrayed its foreign policy negotiations as much sexier than they really are.

For example, last October Turkey and Armenia signed an agreement to normalize relations, which have been tense ever since several hundred thousand Armenians died as a result of forced exile from Turkey (there’s a more concise word for these events, but it’s a little touchy). In The New York Times’ coverage of the negotiations, it was “a bracing taste of down-to-the-wire, limousine diplomacy” for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The article refers to Clinton’s role as “performing triage.” Consider this wording: “Sitting in a parked, black BMW sedan at a hilltop hotel here, with aides thrusting papers at her, Mrs. Clinton worked two cell-phones at once.” Were there explosions?

There was a similar excitement in reporting of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, which reads:

“Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton burst into a meeting of the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders, according to senior administration officials. Mr. Obama said he did not want them negotiating in secret. The intrusion led to new talks that cemented central terms of the deal, American officials said.”

The image of Obama “bursting” into a meeting seems very Hollywood to me. Imagine Shaft handling geopolitics. One has to be suspicious given that Obama administration officials were the source. To The New York Times’ credit, it also quoted a Brazilian leader who wouldn’t say that Obama was uninvited.

Most recently, The New York Times’ reporting of negotiations between President Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia over the “New Start” arms reduction agreement characterizes Obama as a tested and resolved world leader. The article describes a phone conversation that went poorly between the two, in which Obama effectively hung up on his counterpart. “Some of his advisors had never seen him so mad,” it reads. From there the Russian leadership is portrayed as devious, testing the young president’s nerve, “suspecting he was weak and certain it could roll over him.” Almost sounding like a movie trailer narration, the article continues, “they misjudged how far they could get him to bend.”

Later President Obama sounds increasingly like a casual commander, averting existential threats for dinner. In a conversation over monitoring each other’s weapons systems, the article reads:

“Let’s just do it on an annual basis,” Mr. Obama proposed spontaneously.

“I don’t see any problem with that,” Mr. Medvedev said.

Mr. Obama turned to his own advisers and asked, “You guys good with that?”

And fittingly the end of the piece presents President Obama both victorious and amiable:

“Ultimately, Russia backed down . . . By Friday, the two presidents set aside the discord underlying those statements. Speaking on the phone, according to an American official, they congratulated themselves on breaking through the mistrust. ‘If you want something done right,’ Mr. Medvedev began in English, and Mr. Obama finished his thought: ‘you do it yourself.”’

Cue music.

It’s obviously the administration’s prerogative to advertise an image of President Obama’s strength in foreign policy, but The New York Times is a very willing partner. I’ve personally singled out the publication, but I haven’t investigated whether other newspapers have been more skeptical toward the same events. It’s also important to note that all three articles have different authors, so there isn’t a New York Times reporter personally crafting Obama’s legacy.

As the complicity of the news media in 2002 with the run-up to the Iraq War has shown, journalists need to be critical. If there’s one leader I trust with too much power over the media, it’s Barack Obama, but I suspect that one day I’ll pick up a book about his presidency and find out how his foreign policy really happened.

Links to the three articles, in the order in which they are discussed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/world/europe/11armenia.html?scp=1&sq=clinton%20armenia%20turkey&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/19/science/earth/19climate.html?pagewanted=2&hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/europe/27start.html?pagewanted=all

Istanbul International Film Festival Full Review

April 3 began the Istanbul International Film Festival, marking the first time I’ve attended such an event. Naturally I feel inclined to document my experiences here.

The first day included my first film, a South Korean thriller called “Mother.” Its focus is a nearly destitute old woman whose mentally disabled son is accused of murdering a teenage girl. She spends the movie investigating the crime to prove her son’s innocence, whatever the costs.

The film excels at balancing a few different genres. As a thriller it’s effectively suspenseful. As a murder mystery it isn’t explosive, but the basic plot is arresting enough to keep the film moving. It’s most rewarding as a character study. Externally this mother has to overcome prejudices against her—she is old, female, and poor. Internally she has a struggle between her moral sanity and her love and loyalty toward her son. The film doesn’t lionize the mother’s efforts to protect her son. The character has deep demons, which vary from strange to dangerous and disturbing.

The film’s theme comes from an officer investigating the girl’s murder: “Anyone can kill.” The characters aren’t singularly good or evil.They are constrained by external circumstances, and within those circumstances they make unpredictable decisions, rooted in passion, loyalty, or stupidity. Once an evil is committed, a person goes on living in one of three ways: deciding to not care, not being able to remember, or choosing to forget. This film offers people doing all three.

UPDATE—April 6

April 5 I had two films at opposite ends of the day, giving me a perfect opportunity to prepare for my upcoming exams in the middle.Sadly, the time I spent studying was about as enjoyable as my cumulative time in movie theaters (although I do really like politics in developing countries).

The morning feature, “Medal of Honor,” is a Romanian film about an old man in Bucharest who is estranged from his son, and not often spoken to by his wife. After he receives a medal from the Romanian government for his military service, he forges a new identity as a patriot and example for his local community, hoping that this medal can revive his relationship with his family. Eventually, we see this identity fall apart in the face of a modern world.

The film has several layers of symbolism. Ion’s medal gives him some amount of meaning, which is largely illusory—he allows himself to believe his life has been something special. The director parallels medal with statues of Communist soldiers and the Palace of the Parliament that were once built to bring pride and a belief of self-worth to the Romanian people. In the modern world, however, these monuments—and Ion’s medal—are transparently political and false.

Ion himself is a metaphor for Romania’s experience with nationalism and pride; when Ion finally realizes the triviality of his medal, one can sense the sadness of a country suddenly faced with its own small size and insignificance. One such moment occurs when he tries speaking to his 4 year-old grandson who lives in Canada. Unable to understand the child, Ion confusedly asks his son, “What do you mean he doesn’t speak Romanian?”

“Medal of Honor” is a little dry and long for my taste, but I won’t take away from its humor and skillful characterization.

The night showing was a French film from 1969, “A Night with Maud.” It follows a young Catholic man with interests in two women, one a young blonde in his congregation, on whom he projects his images of innocence and virginity. The other, Maud, tries to seduce him on a night of philosophical back-and-forth.

The film is successful in two regards. One, like many French movies of the 1960s, it’s highly intelligent with interesting dialogue and complex characters. More like real life, these characters converse in ways that reveal how they want to be perceived, but not who they really are. Likewise, the contrast between the young blonde woman and Maud is blurred by the end of the film, revealing the naiveté of the main character—and the audience.

However, also like many European movies, the philosophical discussion in which the director wishes to engage his audience is overwhelming to the characters and the story. The characters periodically feel more like mouthpieces of the director than autonomous characters. This ultimately undermines their humanity. I prefer the more American or British aesthetic, in which an author presents his or her worldview or ideology embedded in the story and the characters. It’s a difference of style, toward which I carry a strong prejudice.

UPDATE—April 11

Thursday night brought Noah Baumbach’s “Greenberg,” which surprisingly came with a free glass of whiskey—good start. A friend I convinced to come along asked me what the film was about. I told him that Baumbach makes independent films with famous actors. His movies are thoughtful, but not intellectual. As it turns out, I had successfully reviewed “Greenberg” before seeing it.

In “Greenberg” Ben Stiller plays a self-involved man in his forties who is “trying to do nothing right now”—talk about an indie plot. He reunites with friends—with whom he has a rocky history—and starts a romance with his brother’s personal assistant, played by Greta Gerwig.

Gerwig’s extremely natural and communicative acting is the highlight of the film. Frankly, Gerwig’s success might work against the film, since her romance with Greenberg seems so unfair. I personally don’t like the prospect that these two characters might continue a relationship beyond the closing credits.

Baumbach’s characterization of Greenberg is most successful when the character is filmed in normal social situations that he can’t handle—a birthday party or a barbecue. Also interesting are his occasional tirades against those close to him. Least interesting—and most cliché—is his everyday life, in which he writes letters of complaint to various companies and politicians while reminiscing about when his band could have made it big, but didn’t—how many movies have older men in existential crises reaching out to their musical roots? E.g. “Stranger than Fiction” and “The Visitor.”

“Greenberg” is entertaining and at moments it’s surprisingly sweet, but the two main characters are too imbalanced, and Greenberg is the kind of character that previous indie movies have covered.

Saturday night I watched “Collapse,” a documentary in which former LAPD cop Michael Ruppert gives his various arguments for why the world is headed for disaster.

Ruppert’s primary argument is that the supply of oil—necessary for plastics, growing food, transportation, electricity, etc.—is running out.But humans today live in an economic model based on infinite production and infinite growth. This contradiction spells the end of human society living the way we do. From this he makes many side arguments about various governments and world events.

The interesting thing about Ruppert—who lacks educational degrees in the areas he discusses, but has given lectures all over the world—is that the audience can’t quite peg whether he’s a radical nut conspiracy theorist or not. He says his wife was a CIA plant and that the government tried to have him killed. Crazy conspiracy theorist? Check. But he also claims to have had sixty members of Congress subscribing to his now-defunct newsletter. More importantly, the foundation of his argument seems to be logical theoretically and scientifically. From this foundation he makes riffs that may be extremist or alarmist, but even if he’s only 60% right, the audience leaves the theater extremely worried.

As documentarians, the filmmakers never question Ruppert enough. Two or three times they offer counter-arguments and ask for a response, but they’re clearly not trying to push Ruppert or look at his arguments critically. I would have been more interested in seeing Ruppert have to defend his views against someone equally knowledgeable in the data and policy, rather than some filmmakers feigning skepticism.

UPDATE—April 18

The next two films I viewed each had the filmmakers on hand to briefly introduce their films and answer questions. The first of these was “The Last Station,” which stars Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, and James McAvoy in the last days of Russian writer Leo Tolsoty. The central plot of the film is actually the conflict between Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, and her husband’s most loyal disciple over the rights to Tolstoy’s writings—her inheritance or the common property of every Russian idealist? Paralleling the older love story between Tolstoy and Sophia is a more youthful one between two of Tolstoy’s followers.

Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren are predictably endearing as an old couple that loves fiercely and fights even more fiercely. Helen Mirren makes Sophia simultaneously calculating and maddeningly manipulative but surprisingly sympathetic.

The film borrows much of its tone, and especially its music, from 2005’s “Pride and Prejudice,” but it’s not as good. The film’s largest weak spot is the obligatory love story between McAvoy and another Tolstoyan. First they argue. Then she for some reason sleeps with him. Then he decides he loves her, but she’s not cool with that. In less than thirty seconds of dialogue he changes her mind, and from then on it’s clear they’ll be together forever. That’s thinner than the celluloid it was printed on.

Still, “The Last Station” is entertaining, involving, and executed without any major errors. And according to the director, the Tolstoy family liked it too.

The apex of the festival came with “Lebanon,” the film I had been most excited to see. The autobiographical story of a tank crew that gets lost behind enemy lines in the First Lebanon War won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and of course Israeli wars are currently topical (aren’t they always?)

The entire film takes place within a dark, dirty, and claustrophobic tank with four Israeli soldiers and a Syrian prisoner inside. I personally would have appreciated a better understanding of the tank interior, but the director leaves it in darkness, only filming the symbolic black-oiled gears and wheels that confine the characters. Everything in the outside world is only seen through the gunner’s scope—every character is literally a target. Most of the film also takes place in something like real-time, which adds realism and keeps the audience tense. This contrasts with other war films like “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Hurt Locker,” where violence is episodic and therefore allows the audience to take a breath.

The most relevant character arc is Samuel’s (supposedly the director thirty years ago). He enters the tank scared and impotent, and of course finds his courage over the course of the film. There’s one scene of character development that feels contrived and out of place. The director should have either distributed depth throughout the film or just kept the movie moving with two-dimensional characters.

The director’s anti-war message is also overt. Zoom-ins of suffering civilians, a lingering shot on a mother who can’t find her child, a donkey slowly dying on the side of the road. These shots seem like heartfelt apologies from the director to the victims he’s been seeing in his head for decades, but within the film they are condescending to the audience—we get it, war is Hell.. There’s also an occasional reliance on clichés, like the no-nonsense commander and the tank leader going crazy in a manner that too heavy handedly recalls Colonel Kurtz.

“Lebanon” is a powerful film and it’s economically told. Even so, in this case less would have been more.

Finally, in the last day of the festival I found my way to three last films. The first of these was a “A Brand New Life,” an autobiographical story of a South Korean girl, Jinhi, who is left at an orphanage and her various struggles to fit in and deal with her anger.

“A Brand New Life” is a perfectly adequate film, and at times it’s certainly touching. Anyone can understand Jinhi’s pain of rejection. But the film adds nothing beyond what one would expect of a story about a girl in an orphanage. Jinhi first doesn’t trust anyone until she makes a best friend, who eventually gets adopted. Then Jinhi goes through phases of demanding her father’s return, breaking the other children’s dolls, and unsuccessfully burying herself alive. Jinhi is basically just angry, and that eventually gets old.

“A Brand New Life” carried no offensive flaws, but the entire film I found myself wondering why the director thought her own story was unique or important. It wasn’t.

A much more problematic film for criticism and analysis was my penultimate feature, “Mr. Nobody.” “Mr. Nobody” follows Nemo, mostly played by Jared Leto, at various ages and living multiple different lives. The different paths revolve around a few key moments. Does he choose to live with Mom or Dad? Does he marry Anna, Jean, or Elise? Does he live until 2092, or die in a lake?

The film recalls “Donnie Darko” in its references to string theory and time reversal mixed with the drama of the central character. Personally, I don’t think it all connects, and I think the director is more pleased with his intelligence than the audience is, but maybe I’m just stupid—perhaps a cult following that is already setting up websites and a newsletter will set out to prove me wrong.

On a more cinematic level, the narrative structure of a main character who leads multiple lives makes him a difficult person with whom to sympathize or relate. This detachment from the character might be revocable with a superior actor, but Jared Leto only brings blue eyes, not talent.

The ending of the film seems to tie these loose ends together in a surprisingly effective fashion. But I’m not entirely convinced, and the ride wasn’t really worth the pay-off.

My final film was “Dog Tooth,” about three siblings raised by their mother and father in a brutal exercise of false consciousness. For whatever reason, these parents have taught their children that they cannot ever go outside of the family’s enclosed property. They only watch family videos. Their parents have conditioned them to use language incorrectly—calling salt “telephone” and a yellow flower “zombie.” The father even hires a woman to come and satisfy the children sexually.

The reason for the children’s conditioning is not given, nor are the details all that important. The point is they have been effectively deluded from living in what the rest of us have been conditioned to perceive as the real and true world. On the one hand I was fascinated by how plausible it would be for a family like this to exist. Isolated from the rest of the world, what would people do? What could you make them do? This is the director I would want to ask a lot of questions. Primary for me would be what whether his story is metaphorical, and if so for what? Greece’s military junta? The world system? His own feelings about how he was raised?

Admittedly, the film closely resembles Michael Haneke’s work, which seems unnecessary considering Haneke has remade one of his own films already.

“Dog Tooth” was an intelligent film that gave me more questions than answers, which I greatly appreciated.

With my first film festival behind me, I can say I was very satisfied. I didn’t get the rare pleasure of watching any singularly great films, but almost everything seemed to belong in a list of movies worth seeing. American films did stick out as being the most entertaining, but fortunately I wasn’t forced to sit through any “art” films that test one’s pulse more than their attention span. I’m glad that I have been able to take advantage of one aspect of living in a cosmopolitan city like Istanbul—it might be my last film festival for a long time.

Ranking the films of the Istanbul International Film Festival:

1. Dog Tooth
2. Mother
3. Medal of Honor
4. Lebanon
5. Greenberg
6. A Night with Maud
7. The Last Station
8. Collapse
9. A Brand New Life
10. Mr. Nobody