Brooklyn Book Talk

The Media, Entitlement, & Narcissism

2009-07-05T11:33:00.007-04:00

I was planning to discuss in this next post how I felt that Sex and the City had continued to send Americans further into narcissism. However, this morning I read this article:

Say Hello to Underachieving

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/fashion/05summer.html?pagewanted=1&ref=style

Essentially it is how the Millennial Generation is being forced into underachieving because their parents, hit by the recession, cannot bankroll internships at the White House or summers abroad in Europe. In fact, these young adults are being asked by cash-strapped parents to find summer jobs to earn money. The author of the article expresses concerns that the recession will (based on statistics from previous recessions) force the Millennials to underearn for the next 15 years.

My initial reaction was that this was not necessarily negative. Members of the Greatest Generation, which grew up in the recession, served in WWII, and had the highest rate of savings, worked unglamorous summer jobs. My own father, for example, sold ice cream on the summer streets of NYC along with his father. He was able to go on to college and grad school and had a long, successful career as a teacher while still keeping a love of ice cream.Summers spent scooping were not held against him by universities and employers.

Then I remembered that the unemployment rate is still high. Heads of families don't have jobs. Many people are facing layoffs. There is an exceptionally high number of families in NYC shelters and many people are still facing foreclosures. Once again, the media is encouraging narcissism in the young. The article could have asked the Millennials to reflect on how lucky they are to have a job at all, parents to feed and house them, time before they must be self-supporting.

Is the media deliberately trying to promote narcissism in the young?
Is this a refusal on the part of reporters to accept that the economy has changed, and may have done so for good?

Narcissism is caused by the media

2009-07-01T11:45:00.011-04:00

Twenge suggests that brainwashing by the media has contributed to much of the narcissism in US culture. In the past, people just envied and competed with their neighbors. With television, they were able to see how people in different classes and different parts of the United States. As a result, people began to deserve the lifestyles and belongings of the extremely wealthy, which they might not have been aware of in pre-television and internet days. Keeping up with the Joneses was taken to an international level.

Twenge blames reality TV shows for the exceleration of this problem in the US. I agree with her but I personally think the problem began back in the late 1980's. Long before reality TV, long before Sex and the City, the baby boomers of America had their reality forever altered by thirtysomething. It not only changed their lives but those of their children, the current Generation Y (or as Twenge calls them, Generation Me.)

thirtysomething:

Back in the mid-80’s, many baby boomers were fans of the television series thirtysomething. Set in Philadelphia, it was about several yuppies who were adjusting to yuppiedom after spending their college years as flower-children. They lived in large, clean, nicely decorated houses that looked like shoots for an upscale home furnishings catalogs and were stay-at-home moms or artily employed single women depressed over their lack of suitable dating prospects. The men all seemed to make huge amounts of money as lawyers or advertising executives. All the characters spent much time obsessing over every action they took, whether raising their child, working, or the man they broke up with years earlier.

While I found the show depressing, I knew many baby boomers and Gen X'ers who took this show as the model for their life and those of their children. They wanted the lavish house, the life where the main focus was on children (one character quit a part-time job as a fact checker because she was unable to find time to rear her child), the refusal to take politics seriously, the culture where a single woman was pitied and miserable and people who tried to effect social change were ridiculed. I also knew people who took this show as a model in how NOT to live their life, but they were a minority.

The next show to have such a major impact on US life was Sex and the City, which will be considered in my next post.

The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement by Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell

2009-07-01T11:39:00.002-04:00

Introduction:

Jean Twenge’s previous book was Generation Me, which I read as an attempt to understand the values and psyches of my younger co-workers. I found the book depressing but insightful. As a result, I decided to read her next book, The Narcissism Epidemic, even though I felt the term was heavily overused. Rarely have I had such an extreme reaction to a book. I moved between recognizing societal behaviors that I had noticed but not fully registered to being convinced that I, too, was dangerously narcissistic. Should I take the narcissism test? Would taking the test be a sign of narcissism? Is wanting to affect change a sign of narcissism? I ultimately called a close friend who reminded me that I had a similar crisis after I read The Geography of Bliss and suggested that I read some non-taxing novels for a change.

However, the worsening of the U.S. economy has made it essential that we examine our society. How did the financial crisis begin? What made financial people feel that it was acceptable to let potentially unsound loans to go through? Why did ordinary people borrow widely out of their financial means? Why did no one think that these financial abuses would be destructive? The answers, according to Twenge’s book, lie within the narcissicist values of our culture.

Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents by Minal Hajratwala

2009-06-08T12:38:00.017-04:00

In Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents writer Minal Hajratwala tells the story of several generations of her far-flung family, and in doing so also traces the roots and reasons for diasporic movement. She uses the particulars of her clan's many uprootings and reroutings - from India to Fiji, to South Africa, to Australia, to New Zealand, to the U.K, and to the U.S.A. -- to explore the historical and societal forces that shape migrations. In her writing she manages to convey the results of her meticulous research as well as the more personal stories of her kin, and then, in the penultimate chapter, of her own life story and the metamorphoses she has undergone as an immigrant child of immigrants three times over.

When I first picked up this book, it was with a sense of curiosity, excitement and trepidation. Excitement and curiosity because I was looking forward to learning how a contemporary of mine -- also an immigrant, and, like me, one who has lived most of her years in this country -- would write about the Indian diaspora. Trepidation because when picking up a book that focuses on one's own cultural background, one never knows what to expect. Will it be like looking into a mirror? Like looking into a microscope? Or like looking into the wrong end of a telescope?

What I am most impressed by in Leaving India is the way that the author picks out the story of not only her immediate family but also of various strands of her clan in a way that provides historical context - rounding out the whys and wherefores of the personal with attention paid to the larger forces that were at work in shaping their lives. The reader is educated as well as entertained -- we learn about overarching immigration/emigration policies and regulations that affected not just one nuclear family but entire communities and generations. One thing that intrigued me when I began to read the book is that Hajratwala chooses to write this strictly as a factual account. In fact, in her introduction she says:

"... the reader should know that this is a work of nonfiction. I have been asked frequently whether I am fictionalizing and the answer is no... The journalist in me is scrupulous about such matters, and no "poetic license" has been taken..."

While I rejoice in the fascinating history lesson that Hajratwala provides about diasporic moves, what I really revel in is the personal detail, that which she is naturally better able to provide for some stories than for others, in her pursuit of pure nonfiction. While I admire and appreciate her decision to just "stick with the facts, m'am," I find myself most drawn to the chapters about her parents and about herself, as these are the most fleshed out with story, which is my true impetus, always, to read. Of course this is a personal preference on my part; I respond more keenly to stories than to facts.

Blog readers, what are your thoughts on the continuum that is the realm of "creative nonfiction"? Is it ever acceptable to fictionalize a memoir in order to tell a more complete story, or must one always obey the dictates of fact and truth? Is there a grey area? I welcome your thoughts on this topic and also on any other thoughts that you have as you read Leaving India.

The Evolving Self by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

2009-04-30T20:21:00.018-04:00

Every man has a mob self and an individual self, in varying proportions.

~D.H. Lawrence

The words "I am" are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you're claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.

~A.L. Kitselman

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, "This I am today; that I will be tomorrow."

~Louis L'Amour

Welcome to Brooklyn Public Library’s online discussion of Csikszentmihalyi’s The Evolving Self. The book is a sequel to the author’s bestselling Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, in which a radical theory of happiness is proposed. After years of systematic, in-depth and cross-cultural research for Flow, Csikszentmihalyi, who is arguably one of the greatest psychologists in the world today, concluded that what makes people truly happy has not much to do with sex, wealth and power, but to be actively involved in a difficult enterprise or an activity which “stretches physical and mental capacities.” In other words, the habit of taking up increasingly complex and new challenges on regular basis, is the key to genuine happiness. Being whole heartedly involved in such activities for some length of time, may then lead to a “rare state of consciousness” which he terms as flow, and suggests that this state can conquer anxieties of everyday life and make life worth living.

But perhaps an unexamined Self is not worth evolving. The variety of definitions and discourses about this thing called Self are as old as the beginnings of time. Human beings have attempted to solve this mystery with innumerable mythologies, vanities, fantasies, superstitions, delusions, religions, arts, philosophies and now sciences.

One wonders, what is so true and so new that Csikszentmihalyi has discovered about the nature of Self, which can stand the test of time and reason across cultures? We shall see.

Please join us for a month long exploration of the old and the new discourse about Self and its evolution, and whether or not such articulations are coherent, and correspond to reality, and lend themselves to sound and valid verification. After all, we have to define Self objectively and collaboratively before we can embark upon its evolution--an evolution which could be meaningful to individual and the collective. But, in an important sense, can human beings face some aspects of their real selves? "Every man has reminiscences," wrote Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground, "which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."

But for how long can one be in denial of such darkness inherent in human nature--not only at an individual level but the collective as well. The known record of human history is but a collective biography of humanity. Violent history of the 20th century--which has so much to do with tribal identities--alone should make our species shudder with horror and disbelief about forces (conscious and unconscious) at work in human mind and human cultures. But perhaps the processes of defining, exploring and evaluating the nature of Self might have some far reaching implications, not only for the growth of the individual but also for the future of our species, which currently spends more on weapons than education worldwide.

The stakes are high indeed as the struggle for scarce and strategic resources is going to become more ferocious with unprecedented increase in population and pandemonium on the planet. Can human beings fundamentally change the way they have been thinking, feeling and behaving, parenting, preaching and politicking for millennia? Is propensity for violence and vanity so hard wired in the human brain that common sense, good will, religion and education have repeatedly failed us in every generation? For war and preparation for war have been constants of human history and continue to be so in modernity. Every individual, regardless of what group or nation they belong to, needs to ask this question about the nature and evolution of Self and take full responsibility for evolving its highest potentials. For it is not impossibilities which cause us the deepest despair, but potentialities that we have failed to realize. As an Indian proverb has it: “There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your own previous self.”

Darker Domain

2009-04-01T09:24:00.003-04:00

What would you do to save the life of a child? How far into the past are you willing to explore to give your child a future? Michelle Gibson formally Michelle Prentice aka Misha, is about to take that journey and in doing so opens Pandora's box.

Have you ever looked into the past and wished that you did not? Or did your look lead to discoveries that were beneficial?

Doug Henwood on the crisis and The Shock Doctrine

2009-03-17T10:23:00.005-04:00

Last week, the New Utrecht branch of the Brooklyn Public Library hosted a talk on the economic crisis and possible ways out of it by the economist and writer Doug Henwood. Here's part one of his remarks:

And here's part two:

Henwood has also written a penetrating critique of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine which points out its flaws from a left-wing point of view. I highly recommend that you check it out and let us know what you think in the comments.

Henwood edits Left Business Observer and is a contributing editor of The Nation. His books Wall Street and After the New Economy are both available through the BPL catalog.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (updated with video!)

2009-03-02T15:11:00.005-05:00

For the better part of the last decade, Naomi Klein has been one of the most prominent spokespersons of a global movement dedicated to fighting against what it sees as the depredations of global capitalism. Her first book, No Logo, was fortuitously published just after the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle and became something of a bible among so-called "anti-globalization" activists. Since then, she has chronicled economic collapse and workers' movements in Argentina, the attempts of the United States to reorganize Iraq as a model of "free-market" economics, and the Bush administration's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. In late 2007, she published The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which she attempts to fit these and other events into a broader analysis of the development of global capitalism since the 1970s.

Since the 1970s the nature of global capitalism has changed dramatically. From the end of World War II until roughly 1973, the liberal/social democratic welfare state was the reigning economic and political arrangement of the advanced capitalist West, and government-led developmentalism predominated in formerly colonial lands in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. However, since the 1970s, conservative free-market approaches to economics and politics have largely prevailed around the world, as embodied by figures like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and the late economist Milton Friedman. How did this happen? In The Shock Doctrine, Klein argues that this transition did not take place democratically, but rather through the exploitation of "disaster-shocked people and countries." It's worth quoting at length from Klein's website in order to understand the main thrust of her argument:

"At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets. "

Klein also collaborated with noted Mexican film director Alfonso Cuaron to produce a rather stylish short film to promote the book and popularize its thesis. Take a look:

To get this discussion started, I'd like to pose a few questions:

- Is it accurate to argue that conservative, free-market economics was simply imposed on people and countries by corporate and political elites without democratic consent? Is Klein advancing a conspiracy theory rather than a rigorous historical and theoretical analysis?

- Does Klein stretch her concept of "shock therapy" too far to fit certain events and historical processes into her argument? Does the exploitation of "shock and awe" always work, as she seems to imply, or is it sometimes unsuccessful?

- How has the economic crisis affected the validity of Klein's argument (if at all)? Is the Reagan era really over with the election of Barack Obama, as many have claimed, and is there a possibility of "shock therapy" being used in the service of more liberal/social democratic approaches to political and economic policy?

Feel free to comment on any other aspect of the book you'd like to as well. I'm looking forward to a great discussion with all of you!

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

2009-02-02T10:30:00.009-05:00

Toni Morrison is an American author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She has written some of the acclaimed American novels including The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Song of Soloman. In her writing, she traverses the experience and roles of black women in a racist and sexist society. In A Mercy, her latest work, Morrison uses her storytelling to transports readers back to a time (1680s) in America when religion, class differences, prejudice and oppression were as familiar as American apple pie. That was a time in American history when the seeds of slavery and racism began to take root.

The novel centers around the decision of Jacob, an Anglo Dutch trader, who despite his revulsion to the business of slavery, accepts a young slave girl as payment on a debt. The decision to take Florens, the young slave girl "with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady" impacts the lives of other women living on Jacob's farm. There is Rebekka, Jacob's wife, who questions her God as she loses one baby after another to the harsh realities of the New World. A Native servant, Lina, a survivor of smallpox epidemic, who hungers for Florens's love to replace the family taken from her. And then there is Sorrow, a quiet black woman, who is a survivor of a terrible incident on a slave ship.

Use the following discussion questions to participate in our discussion:

Do you think Florens' mother showed her mercy by begging Jacob to take Florens?

How did the different viewpoints enhance the story?

Why do you think Rebekka started treating Lina and others badly after her illness passed?

What acts of mercy do the characters display?

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - wrapping up

2009-02-02T09:38:00.026-05:00

Happy Groundhog Day, folks!

Just wanted to wrap up the White Tiger discussion. Thank you all for your thoughtful comments. I also wanted to share a few last thoughts before we start the next book:-

To Anonymous from January 24, 2009 (1:57):

Yes, I agree, fanatics are fanatics, no matter the country or creed. Although I don't believe that fanaticism as such was really a theme in the book. While there is that incident where Balram blackmails the other driver by threatening to reveal to his employer that the driver is Muslim, this was done for sheer economic and personal gain and not out of a sense of fanatic religious belief. In fact, right after this incident is a poignant moment where Balram experiences a brief pang of regret, which he then steels himself against, brilliantly showing Adiga's delight in exposing the very human quality of ambivalence, even in the face of fighting for survival.

To Preston:

You say:

I am always suspicious of the notion that certain elements of the reality of India are not appropriate for Western audiences. The unpleasantness is thought either to be too embarrassing or to be simply pandering to stereotypes or outdated notions.

I completely agree with you on the above, except for the "pandering to stereotypes" part, where my agreement is qualified by the fact that I do believe that many members of Western audiences (though not all) are only too ready to consume books and films which portray the dirtiness and poverty of the "east" in an imbalanced way. Perhaps it reinforces an inherent sense of superiority, the modern day version of the White Man's Burden? This is not to say that I think that either The White Tiger or Slumdog Millionaire are pandering to this perspective. But I can see how Indians in India would be touchy about such topics... If one has been stereotyped in a certain way for what seems to be eons, then one would have a propensity for kneejerk rejecting of such perceived slights, no? (Not that this tendency is justified, but it's good to understand where such reactions are coming from.)

I do think that much (though certainly not all) of the negative reaction from the Indian press about both The White Tiger and Slumdog Millionaire comes from a sense of this kneejerk reaction mixed with a sense of (dare I say it?) sour grapes. Both works, though not perfect by any means, are powerful in their own right, but it is, I believe, their sheer success in the West that has drawn the ire of many an Indian blogger/movie star/critic etc... And, for interested readers, I should point out that Slumdog Millionaire the film was based on a book first published in 2005, which is available at Brooklyn Public Library for your reading pleasure.

But in the end I could not agree with you more when you said:

But India is too big, too old, and too complicated for any single work, even a lifetime of work, to chronicle the range of its vitality and degradation.

And with that, blog readers, our official discussion of The White Tiger is ended. However, should you like to write further comments that elucidate our understanding of the book, they will continue to be welcomed - and appreciated.

Further reflection on Aravind Adiga's Booker-winning The White Tiger

2009-01-22T16:58:00.006-05:00

Dear Blog Readers,

Thank you for an energetic and thoughtful discussion in the comments to the initial blog post for The White Tiger!

One of our anonymous commenters (from January 14, 2009, 2:41 PM) asked, “How do you interpret modern day India and its disparities? Just curious.” While I have no ultimate be-all and end-all answer to this question, I must say this: India is a complicated, multifarious, contradictory society. For everything which is true, there is another thing that proves it to be untrue. Caste and class prejudice exist for some, not for others. Some are able to climb out of poverty; others are forever crushed by it. Some cannot imagine an Indian who is uneducated. Others dream of being able to go to school. Some see India as the greatest, largest democracy alive (in terms of sheer population numbers) while others find that Indian society beats down those who are already beaten down. When asked for my own opinion on all of this, I tend to become inarticulate, as the tension of all of these contradictions play within me and ultimately silence me. What is there to say? There is everything to say and nothing to say, at the same time.

As an immigrant from India, albeit one who arrived in this country as a child, I have always struggled when asked to explain, define, or categorize my country of origin. Is India wealthy or poor? How wealthy? How poor? Or, now, newly middle? Do people still believe in and act on caste-ist philosophies, or did that all die with Independence and is the modern era now upon us? Do people in India know how to speak English? Doesn’t everyone in India know how to speak English? These are just some of the questions that make me rub the back of my neck unhappily as I ponder whether to give the 15 second wrong-but-easy pat answer or the 45-minute ponderous, questioning lecture that would leave both me and the questioner querulous and glazed, with no satisfaction that the question had been answered at all.

I do think that The White Tiger, despite being uneven in places, gives one a glimpse into the simultaneously wonderful and terrible place that India can be for her own people. Personally I am unsure whether this book was better in literary quality than, say, Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, which was a much more in-depth, rich exploration of a portion of Indian history which shaped the world. But I think that The White Tiger won the Booker because it is of the moment. It captures the essence of the current economic prosperity and struggle happening on a daily basis all over India, in homes of the rich, the poor, and the middle class.

While there are moments where Balram's character rings a false note, where his or his family's actions seem just amalgams of what the author thinks the poorer classes are thinking, there are many moments when his humanity shines through. And some would argue that it doesn't matter if Balram rings true as a real person or not, that he is a device used by Adiga to get across the sheer horror of class difference in India. And for that achievement, I agree, as do many of the commenters to the first post, that Adiga must be applauded.

I must confess though, that as a person of Indian heritage I have mixed feelings about how this book may be taken by a western audience. Of late the whole India Shining ideology coming full-force from the elite classes of India has been overpowering any other vision of India, making many middle class or privileged class Indians unwilling to admit any other reality coexisting with theirs. In my opinion this book strikes a welcome blow to that monolithic way of looking at India's present and future destiny, shaking the reader awake to the sordid reality of inequality that hasn't disappeared with the rise of the much vaunted "shining" middle class. And yet on the other hand, in purporting to reveal the underbelly of India is this book doing anything other than supporting the traditional western stereotypes of India as a dirty, poor, chaotic place?

Here is a link to a review written by Amitava Kumar, a diasporic writer of Indian origin, which corroborates this sentiment that the book plays to western stereotypes of India. In fact, in a recent conversation, another English professor friend of mine stated that even though the book intends to be controversial, it may actually be simply dovetailing with what folks already believe about India. And, perhaps, with what they feel comfortable believing in. I'd be interested in hearing from readers of this blog. What is your take on this perspective?

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

2009-01-07T14:56:00.029-05:00

When I first saw the shortlist for the Booker Prize, back in September of 2008, I was surprised to see a South Asian name there which I did not immediately recognize—Aravind Adiga—which made me curious. Just who is this guy with the Indian name, I thought to myself. As a librarian of South Asian heritage I should really know these things. So I did some research and found out that his background is in financial journalism and in working as a South Asia correspondent for TIME magazine. The White Tiger is his first novel.

At the time I thought, Oh, he's such a newbie to literary fiction. There is no way he is going to get the prize when he's up against such prolific and well-established writers as Sebastian Barry and Amitav Ghosh. But, hmm, a new South Asian writer was now on my radar, and, so, out of sheer curiosity, I put the book on my reserve list on the Brooklyn Public Library catalog.

When I received the book and started to eagerly read, I ran into a strange roadblock. The book has an unusual structure that was (for me) difficult to get attuned to. It is written as a kind of series of oral letters (a spoken-out-loud blog, perhaps?) made by Balram Halwai, the protagonist, to Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China. While I found this "frame tale" somewhat off-putting and artificial, there was enough of a spark in the insistent voice of the main character, charmingly vulgar and yet elusive, that kept me going. And I am glad that I did, as it quite soon grabbed me by the throat until I read it all the way through.

I should reveal that I recently traveled back to India, just this past summer, so I had fresh memories of visiting disparate places: friends' homes where servants were not treated poorly, but definitely were part of the "conveniences of modern living" as well as urban slums where whole families were living in rooms a fraction of the size of the guest room at my friends' place. If I had to put the memories into one word, that word would be "guilt." Therefore this book, written from the perspective of someone rising up from what he calls "the Darkness" to become a servant-chauffeur of an incredibly rich and thoughtless family, and to later become an entrepreneur in his own right—albeit through extremely shady means—well, you can see why this story would grip me.

So, fellow readers, I have given you my initial response to the book, but I am curious to hear about your response. Do share with us in the comments below, and our conversation will be under way. Feel free to respond to any aspect of the book that struck you, but, if you are looking for some inspiration, here are some questions I am curious about:

Much has been made of the fact that author Aravind Adiga, although coming from a privileged class himself, has written this book from the perspective of someone from the poorest class within India. Arguments have been made regarding how authentic is the voice of Balram Halwai. When you read this book, did knowing (or not knowing) Adiga's background make you perceive the writing from a different stance? How relevant is his background to your understanding of the book?

In one interview, Adiga went to some pains to state, "I hope it's clear that I am not the narrator." What are your thoughts on the reliability of the narrator? Is he someone you implicitly believe? If not, how do you sift his statements?

Class is a key issue in this book, as it exposes the dramatic difference in the lives of the rich and the "half-baked people," as Balram refers to himself and others from disadvantaged backgrounds. How are class differences presented in the book? How aware or unaware are the various characters of the economic and social forces that affect their lives? And is there an inherent contradiction in an uneducated narrator poinpointing the injustices and inequalities that affect his life?

I'm also curious to know, blog readers, what you thought of the book's "open letter to Wen Jiabao" frame tale structure or how this worked for you (or didn't).

That's it for this post then; looking forward to your responses and to an enjoyable discussion about this fascinating novel!

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World - Eric Weiner

2008-12-30T08:21:00.003-05:00

Final Book Discussion Post

I think the best way to sum up the book and the search for happiness is to use some quotes from Weiner's final chapter:

"Tolstoy turned on his head. All miserable countries are alike; happy ones are happy in their own way." (p.322)

"Yes, we want to be happy but for the right reasons, and, ultimately, most of us would choose a rich but meaningful life over an empty, happy one, if such a thing is even possible." (p.323)

The search for happiness is complicated and ongoing. We make our own happiness. For some, the search is the best part of happiness. While we are all now living in "interesting times" I hope Weiner's happy countries can, someday, once again be happy.

This ends the discussion of The Geography of Bliss.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World - Eric Weiner

2008-12-27T11:12:00.005-05:00

The Happiness Effect

Time Magazine (December 11, 2008) just published an article about a recently published 20-year study about happiness:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1865960,00.html

" showing that emotions can pass among a network of people up to three degrees of separation away, so your joy may, to a larger extent than you realize, be determined by how cheerful your friends' friends' friends are, even if some of the people in this chain are total strangers to you.
If that's so, it creates a whole new paradigm for the way people get sick and, more important, how to get them healthy. It may mean that an individual's well-being is the product not just of his behaviors and emotions but more of the way they feed into a larger social network. "

The results of the study are interesting because they show that an individual may not be happy on his or her own, but is happiest in an environment of other happy people. The Slough experiment in Britain could be the right way to spread happiness. Teach a group of people to change their way of thinking so that they become happier and they will spread it within three degrees. The furthest-away people can spread it another three degrees. Eventually entire counties, and perhaps entire countries,can become happy - but only if the happiness spreads more quickly than the unhappiness.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World - Eric Weiner

2008-12-21T23:48:00.006-05:00

Great Britain: Happiness is a Work in Progress

Weiner decided to visit a town in Britain called Slough because a few years ago Slough was featured in a British reality show (it is also the town where the British version of The Office is set). Six happiness experts were sent to Slough to make the populace happier. Weiner is intrigued because "here was a deliberate, ambitious attempt to take an unhappy place and make it happy-or at least happier. Could it be done?"

The happiness experts took fifty Slough residents, tested their happiness levels, which turned out to be average, and then spent twelve weeks giving them happiness training. At the end of the twelve weeks, these newly happy people were to go around spreading happiness through the rest of Slough. The happiness re-test showed that they had gone up the happiness scale by 33% and were happier than Switzerland (p.253-4).

Part of this happiness training consisted of what I view as New Age exercises - hugging trees, doing tai chi, doing yoga, submerging oneself in an isolation tanks. The whole series sounds like an episode of Absolutely Fabulous - the one where Edina is swimming around her bedroom pool with her dolphin, who later dies of fin flop. The fifty visit graveyards and reflect on how even a mundane task like vacuuming, if done well, can be pleasurable.

Weiner then tracks down three people were on the happiness show. Based on his account of them, they are innately happy people, even the one with the really serious heart condition. What they all seem to have in common, besides being happier, is that they are curious people. They use their brain. They learn new things and they think about them.They would be equally happy if they had been taught breadmaking and sheetrocking since learning, not stagnating, is what makes them happy.

Much of the chapter is spent comparing American happiness to British happiness. The Brits (to me) may actually be happier since they are not going to therapists or reading self-help books. They are doing things that make them happier (ie getting cast in reality shows) rather than just thinking about things that make them happy. One guy is even made happy by the cultural diversity in Slough, even though Weiner points out that the more homogenous cultures are happier.I wonder if Americans are happier than the Brits or whether that was just American PR?

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World - Eric Weiner

2008-12-21T19:17:00.005-05:00

Thailand: Happiness is Not Being in Control of Your Fate

"This, I realize, is what life is like for most Thais. They are not in control of their fates. A terrifying thought, yes, but also a liberating one. For if nothing you do matters, then life suddenly feels a lot less heavy. It's just one big game." (p. 241).

At the end of Weiner's Thailand chapter, Thailand has what he refers to as a "coup lite". "Coups don't really fit into my search for the world's happiest places, and this is just the sort of unhappiness I've been trying so hard to avoid." (p.241)

When I reread these quotes, I realized that this is where I diverge from Weiner. It is easy to view life as one big game when you are, indeed, in control of your fate and you are just meditively thinking about the universe before you go back to your active life. Many Americans can make choices about their education, careers, where to live, and how to invest their money. However, many Americans cannot. This also applies to Thais. Sitting back and viewing what you cannot change as a game, is, I suppose, one way to stay sane. On the other hand, it is also a way to perpetuate your society's problems. It belittles the people who do try to make changes to improve society - they are not fun, they are not playing the game. And who decided the rules of the game? Usually not the majority of the people in a society - usually the minority in power.

This is a very Western view. Many non-Americans, and even many Americans who study Eastern philosophies, have found happiness by accepting life as something they cannot change. They have embraced their fate.

Do countries need coups in order to become happy? Do people need periods of unhappiness so that they can re-evaluate their lives and improve them? Would we all be happier if we didn't view life as a game and that the one who dies with the most prizes wins that game? We may be able to answer that question after my next post, which will be about Great Britain where happiness is a work in progress.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World - Eric Weiner

2008-12-19T13:59:00.006-05:00

Thailand: Happiness is not Thinking

I mentioned to a few of my friends that Thailand is considered to be one of the happiest countries in the world. Their response was to ask whether Weiner had interviewed anyone in the Thai entertainment industry. They had a point - much of Thailand spends its time entertaining wealthy Westerners. Not thinking about their job is probably the only way for many Thai to survive.

Weiner also brings up the concept of the Gross National Happiness Index. The governments of both Thailand and Bhutan are commited to this index. However, in the case of Thailand at least, it doesn't seem to have made anyone happier.

Thailand has recently been overwhelmed by political chaos. One group of protestors took over the Prime Minister's office for several months:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97658864ttp://

Someone eventually lobbed a grenade at them, but it was amazing that they could actually stay in there for weeks before the government took violent action. Happiness Index at work?

What is impressive is the attempt to revitilize the Thai tourism business, which was hampered by the fact that the anti-government protestors took over the airports, trapping foreigners in country:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUKBKK39589620081216ttp://

Thailand may be a charming country but its population appears to now be thinking and they are not happy about their political structure. Let's see if the happiness index survives a tourism slowdown due to the sinking economies of the countries who once visited Thailand.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World

2008-12-11T23:54:00.003-05:00

Switzerland: Will Happiness Survive Lack of Boredom?

Switzerland's boredom may not survive a financial crisis. As the rest of the world is being sucked into what may be a global recession, Switzerland is also getting worried. One of the reasons, according to Weiner, that the Swiss can afford to be bored is because of low unemployment. People have jobs. However, there are signs that this may be changing:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7741561.stm

One of the major Swisss banks, UBS, became involved in the subprime morgage melt-down. The bank had a public meeting which generated a crowd of 6000 people who were expecting the total loss of their lifetime savings. One annoyed elderly shareholder had enough:

"Well, those responsible were plain to see - a phalanx of UBS chief executives in expensive suits, on a raised dais, bathed in spotlights. It was not the best public relations image.
The Swiss know that UBS bosses earned among the highest salaries in Europe. Added to that were huge bonuses which they continued to award themselves even as the financial crisis unfolded.
It was all too much for one indignant shareholder. Leaping to the podium he turned to UBS chairman Marcel Ospel and told him "give back your fat bonus, now. "Here, just in case you go hungry, I've brought you something to eat," he continued.
And reaching into his pocket he produced a string of traditional Swiss sausages and waved them under Mr Ospel's trembling nose. " (see above link)

This is the action of a calm, bored, happy Swiss citizen? Many Americans may share this man's anger as they listen to the news or read papers online or in print form. However, with the exception of those factory workers in Chicago, the average American is not publicly protesting the current financial crisis. I am impressed but not optimistic for much happiness in Switzerland in the near future.

Next post - Thailand: Happiness is Not Thinking.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World - Eric Weiner

2008-12-05T22:43:00.003-05:00

Resources For Those Who Have Not Read The Book:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17848293

Article and audiofile about the book on the NPL site with Weiner and an excerpt from the chapter on Iceland.

http://www.ericweinerbooks.com/content/index.asp

Weiner's own site where he talks about the book.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95650430&ft=1&f=100

Weiner's happiness advice from October of 2008, with audiofile.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World - Eric Weiner

2008-12-05T21:46:00.007-05:00

Switzerland: Happiness is Boredom

Weiner's chapter on Switzerland reveals an odd love/hate relationship with the country. On one hand, life in Switzerland functions smoothly. The country is clean, the economy is good, the chocolate is wonderful. However, he also describes Switzerland as a super-nanny country where "In many parts of Switzerland, you can't mow your lawn or shake your carpets on Sunday. You can't hang laundry from your balcony on any day. You can't flush your toilet after 10:00 PM" (p.33) An acquaintance of his even received a note asking her not to laugh after midnight. Why, I wondered, could that possibly be called a happy country?

I then started to do some research on Switzerland. The country is divided into French, Italian, and German cantons, which all have representation in the government. All three official languages are official. How could such a linguistically fragmented country be so conformist? The answer came from one of my sisters. As she pointed out, the Swiss had to create one society and expect everyone to conform to it, or the three different cultures would have divided the country and there would be no Switzerland. Therefore cultural conformity was needed for happiness.

However, as I researched further, some indications of current cultural unhappiness began to emerge. Last year, much tension about foreign immigration into Switzerland began to emerge during campaigns for a general Parliamentary election:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7054932.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7050498.stm

Twenty percent of Switzerland's population is from outside of the country. As the number of foreign-born inhabitants continues to rise, so does tension inside the country between the foreign-born and native-born inhabitants. This makes sense when you remember that Weider notes that "The Swiss are deeply rooted in place. Their passports list the name of their ancestral town. Not their hometown but the town of their roots. Maybe they've never even been there. But it is their home." (p.38) People who have been rooted to one geographic area in one country for so long would understandably have trouble relating to people who have just moved in from Africa or the Ukraine.

Also, Weiner never talks to any recent non-Western immigrants to Switzerland. How do they perceive Swiss society? Do they feel bored? Do they feel stifled by Swiss conformity? Do they want to change Switzerland? What is their happiness level? And then of course, there are the Swiss economic problems...

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner

2008-12-01T20:51:00.015-05:00

Iceland continued: Failure = Creativity

According to Weiner, the lack of stigma associated with failure in Iceland allows Icelanders to take creative chances. If their book flops or their band remains obscure, they can just move on with their lives. To quote Weiner, "if you are free to fail, you are free to try." (p.162) Weiner's Icelanders share music and instruments and ideas within the Icelandic community, without envy, because they view such sharing as a way of creating a better community. Everyone is also free to create because they have a safety net if they fail, paid for by the government.

This is the concept that has radically changed my life. Everyone fails. Accept that you fail, accept the consequences of that failure, and move on with your life. That there will be consequences is a given, but consequences, if viewed as creative learning experiences, can be opportunities for growth. Once I embraced the idea of taking chances and allowing myself to fail, I did become a happier person.

The hard part is accepting the consequences and turning them into something creative. At the beginning of October, the British government invoked anti-terrorism laws against two Icelandic banks. As a result, Iceland's money was frozen and ultimately taken over in the UK; its financials funds were also frozen in other countries. Iceland had to apply for loans from the IMF as well as from other countries. People in Iceland have lost their savings and their pensions. Icelandic businesses cannot get other countries to accept Icelandic currency to pay for supplies. The New York Times had a sobering article about a coffee house whose owner could not get her coffee out of a foreign warehouse, although she had enough money to pay for the coffee, since she could not get anyone to exchange the Icelandic money for her:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/world/europe/09iceland.html?emc=eta1

In response, Icelanders set up :

The Iceland Petition Site: http://www.indefence.is/Home

which provides a Q&A about their financial situation and links to many interesting articles from newspapers and sites around the world about the effects of this financial disaster on both Iceland and the UK. It also asks people to sign a petition protesting the labeling of Icelanders as terrorists, and encourages people to post photo postcards with the message "I am not a terrorist" to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. My personal favorite is the Attack Sheep one.

At the same time, Icelanders are protesting against their government. They are toilet-papering their Parliament and handing flowers to the police. Of course, everyone is posting photos of these protests online. They are demanding accountability from the government and from the banks, as well as from the UK government.

The Icelandic Tourist Board is creatively promoting Iceland as a wonderful cheap place to spend a weekend (even for people from the US)- beautiful scenery, great music and art, cool clothes, very favorable exchange rate - in order to get someone, anyone, in to spend some money. One Icelandic television show even seems to be expanding:

http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE4AJ0D920081120?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Weiner compares Reykjavik in the early years of this century with Florence in the time of the Renaissance - a golden age. The problem with golden age cities is that they usually meet tragic fates - most of the inhabitants dying of plague, being overrun by rulers seeking to expand empires, having their harbors silt up, or as the casualities of crusades. What remains is often an empty shell dependent on tourists who wish to recapture the beauty and excitement of a lost age. Venice, for example, is still beautiful but its empty streets lack the vitality that they had during the years of the Venetian maritime empire.

Ultimately, many Icelanders will have to leave their country to seek employment elsewhere. Will they be able to continue their creative lives in other countries? How much of their culture will they be able to export with them? How much will be left behind in Iceland's gorgeous countryside?

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner

2008-11-30T23:53:00.006-05:00

Iceland: Happiness is Failure

I first became interested in Iceland when I started to read the Icelandic sagas. I initially expected them to be long epic poems similar to Beowulf. I was pleasantly surprised to find them to be like intergenerational novels with more politics and fighting and less romance than the usual American ones. I ultimately ended taking a class on Icelandic feuds so that I can recall a fair amount about medieval Icelandic legal and political structure. The only thing I initially knew about present-day Iceland is that Bjork likes to wear fake swans.

The sagas still continue to influence present-day Iceland, which has (or had) a flourishing publishing industry. Weiner comments that Iceland is a very literate and creative society. Everyone in Iceland is writing a book or a poem, forming a rock band, or wearing some kind of fashion innovation (more innovative, I suspect, than the striped briefs that blew Weiner's mind) while drinking coffee in hip cafes and eating rotting shark. He attributes much of this creative energy to Iceland’s willingness to allow people to fail at one endeavor and try again at another. People can start out as web programmers and then become bankers or carpenters as they mature and find their interests changing. Artists actually get government checks and never starve because it is believed that they can create more and better material if they don't have to worry about having a roof over their heads and food on their plate. Life-long learning is embraced.

"Having multiple identities (though not multiple personalities) is, he believes, conductive to happiness. This runs counter to the prevailing belief in the United States and other western nations, where specialization is considered the highest good. Academics, doctors, and other professionals spend lifetimes learning more and more about less and less. In Iceland, people learn more and more about more and more." (p.161)

I found this interesting because American society did not, until recently, accept failure or people who failed. Failures were dropped from the news and fired from their jobs. They were told to pull themselves together, get some career counseling, and go on with their lives after deciding on a definite, possibly very different, preferably specialized, employment path. The higher a specialized degree you earned, the more money you could command in salary. Unless you changed careers, wrote a bestseller about doing so, and had your book chosen by Oprah, you were not applauded for career-hopping and especially not for admitting to failure. Will this change in post-bailout America? Will laid-off financial workers decide to become potters or sous-chefs?

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner

2008-11-30T23:42:00.005-05:00

Introduction:

Last April, I wandered into The Strand Bookstore to escape a depressing, drizzly day. While browsing the travel section, my eye was caught by the subtitle of a book – One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World. My initial reaction was to snarl that happiness wasn’t a place – it was a state of mind. But then I thought about it – is it easier to be happier in some cities or countries than in others? Do some cultures facilitate happiness more than others? Would I become a happier person if I read the book and applied Weiner’s words of wisdom to my own life? While considering this, I read part of the chapter on Iceland, which completely won me over. Iceland was obviously the perfect country. I shelled out $20.00 and took my book home, eager to get ideas from Icelandic society on how to transform my life.
The happy countries that Weiner visits (prior to 2007) include Iceland, Switzerland, Thailand, Bhutan, India, Great Britain, and the US. With the exception of Bhutan, which recently crowned a new king, all the other countries have suffered great financial and/or political unrest in the six months since I first read the book. In fact, being included in the book seems to have the same effect as being chosen "most likely to be successful" for a high school yearbook - it guarantees disaster. Now the question in my mind is whether the values that got these countries included in the book are enough to help them battle through the massive unemployment, financial meltdowns, and internal violence. I'll begin the discussion with Iceland.

"The Devil in the White City: Murder and Madness at the Fair That Changed America" by Erik Larson

2008-11-04T16:11:00.003-05:00

During November you have a chance to comment on and discuss this extremely popular book.

The setting is the 1893 Chicago Exposition. The book’s main characters are Daniel Hudson Burnham the architect who is credited with making it ready to open barely in time for the Opening Ceremonies and H. H. Holmes a con artist and serial killer.

The Chicago World’s Fair as it commonly became known truly was a dream and one that everyone knew would not last long. The wealthy and the poor strolled together amazed by the latest technology and beautiful objects from around the world. Outdoors they were awed by the architecture and landscaping.

At the time of the Fair’s construction there were major financial problems, the unions were demanding fair treatment and there was a very bad winter to work through. 19th century Chicago was a booming proud city that was determined to show itself off.

Many readers have found that Burnham and Holmes had traits and experiences in common.

How does Holmes match up to the serial killers of our times?

Which visitors surprised you?

There were exhibits that are offensive to us now. What about the Fair didn’t you like?

What technology at the Fair do you think had the greatest impact?

What about all the household name products that were introduced at the Fair.

Add a comment or reply to someone else’s. I wish we could all meet at the Ferris Wheel!

Additional Resources:

Google Images and Yahoo! Images have nice collections of photographs.

acts of kindness in a cruel world/office

2008-10-28T11:04:00.003-04:00

When Martin tries to take Lynn to the doctor after learning of her lump (P. 219) he does something so gallant, despite his ultimate romantic rejection of her. Tom performs a similarly heroic gesture for Janine. What is the meaning or significance of these kindnesses when “we” do so many cruel or callous things to each other? (for example: writing “FAG” in Sharpie on Joe’s wall, betting on Brizz in the Celebrity Death Watch pool, spying on Janine's mourning ritual at McDonald’s, etc.)